The author is confronting the opinions claiming that the changes in social structures of the recent years and decades lead to the end of social democracy. Quoting a number of documents and politicians, he illustrates how individual parties and their leaders answered the new challenges in Western Europe, and to what extent the various programmes insist upon the traditions and historic achievements of the century old movement.

Was the emergence of the state socialist system an historic accident? Can we see "those forty years" as a modernisation experiment, or it was only a path of maldevelopment forced upon us by great power agreements? One can often face these questions in public discussions, but now it is leading Hungarian historians who try to give an answer.

The living classic of American socialism looks back on the last half a century of the left-wing theory and political movement. He presents an analysis of the consequences of the cold war in East and West, claiming that the outcome of the arms race was not doubtful for a second. According to Sweezy, the world society returned to a stage similar to the 1930s with the fall of state socialist regimes, and therefore it is the most urgent task to look for alternatives, by undertaking and renewing the legacy of socialism.