How was it possible for a political system which declared itself to be the representative of the workers' and peasants' power to define the mass movement of 1956, supported by a considerable part of working class, as a counter-revolution? Why and how far has the really existing working class accepted the consolidation of the sixties and seventies? How did later this pragmatic resignation cease to exist and why has the worker class too, become a supporter of changing the political system? The historian in his paper seeks to answer these and similar essential ques­tions.

The article by László Tutő describes a less known political trial of the Kadar era, the court trial against the "left wing" Csaba Kemeny. In his introduction, Tamás Krausz broadens the horizon of the affair and tries to determine the relationship of the Kadar regime to "left wing" opposition linked with the "Heller"-case.

The Austrian author of the article analyses the nature of the emergence of the debt system after the Second World War. She pinpoints how the debt dependence developed in accordance with the interests of the capi­talist centres and which was the point when it turned into a debt trap as soon as those interests required that. In an indirect way, the article ques­tions the well known, even fashionable allegation that the indebtedness which developed during the Kadar era is a "crime of the communist regime against the nation".

Arrighi juxtaposes the practice of the communist parties with the basically contrary principles laid down in the Communist Manifesto. He outlines the three periods of the history of the working class movement; the process when in the first stage, it was still adjusted to the Marxist ideas and then the increasing separation from them. He gives a detailed analysis of the standpoints of the trends that can be linked with Bernstein and Lenin and the failure of the Kautsky-standpoint in between the two. One of the key theses of Arrighi is that the strength and revolutions of the proletariat are in reverse correlation with one another. He offers new points of view for the analysis of the restructuring of the working class on a world scale. He registers the increase in the role of the periphery and the intellectual producers as the main trend. Arrighi states that for the time being, the left has failed to adjust appropriately to the new trends and its choice was bad from the very beginning when it undertook to represent those stricken by poverty.