We have undertaken a big task in this issue to depict the main currents in the global Marxist revival. Of course this is the programme of Eszmélet but now the time has arrived for making an account. What happened to Marxism after the system change and the collapse of the Soviet Union? Hungarian Marxists first lamented that Marxism was declining, because it became a state supporting ideology. After it has lost its legitimising ideology role, the very same intellectuals have withdrawn their support for it saying that there was noting to expect from Marxists views. In fact it has been proven that Marxism as a critical theory and practice of the existing world order still today an indispensable critical tool for revolutionary thinking. Nevertheless, also the crisis and revival of Marxism hinges on the fate of movements rejecting the capitalist system, searching community values and an economic alternative to capitalism. It is questionable and should be debated whether the collapse of state socialism was also the collapse of Marxist dialectics or the fall of state socialism was caused by Marxist dialectics degenerating to a theoretical ‘skeleton'?

Among the causes and consequences of Marxism in history the factual examination of the Russian revolution and Lenin's heritage cannot be avoided. Our readers can find contributions also to this filed in the current issue. First of all the critical exploration and valuation of Lenin's historical performance is a hot topic these days. Authors of this issue search answers between old stile communist and new style capitalist apologies.

Table of contents

1. Göran Therborn : After dialetics – Radical social theory in a post-communist world
2. Krausz Tamás : The Marxism of Lenin – a summary
3. Marcello Musto : A critique for our times: For the rediscovery of Karl Marx
4. Pankovits József : Gramsci again – notes to the newest Gramsci research
5. Balázs Gábor : A French passion: Trotskyism (Part 1)
6. Michael Kelly : Marxism in France
7. Bartha Eszter : Immature youth? – Walks of life in post-industrial society
8. Eszmélet : In memoriam Sándor Kovacsek (1926-2007)
9. Szarka Klára : Lajos Tabák (1904- 2007)
10. Tütő László : Who milks profit? or can a milk bag fail? – Microeconomics for grown up children
11. Nyina A. Dmitrijeva : Lenin and the Russian intelligentsia – Overview on the history of the “philisopher’s ship”
12. orosz értelmiségiek : The relevance of October to us Russians and to the world
13. BAL : 56 defeated in 1957 and in 1990

The great capability of the Cuban revolution to survive is unquestionable, it resisted the boycott, the blockade, threatening attacks and also the collapse of state socialism in the Soviet Union and East Europe. Survival is not only simple existence, but – hopefully – also means the development of a sustainable new socio-economic model.

This issue covers the long awaited topic of the new developments and challenges in information society, because this filed has not been comprehensively addressed since the No. 27 of Eszmélet. Authors of this issue explore such vital questions like how education becomes part of the ‘information society' or the problem of growing asymmetric access to digital public goods (information knowledge products), the hardware of information society (PCs, internet) in the Hungarian society.

Three articles contribute to the growing debate started in the previous issue about the "sickness" of the political left in Hungary and East Europe – and we will continue the discussion also in future issues due to the outstanding interest. G. M. Tamás and Tamás Krausz who challenges him approach current problems, and also the problems of our future, through giving meaning to past developments – providing the fundamentals. On the other hand, János Hajdú investigates opportunities for present ‘salvation' by Hungarian party politics. We publish the speech of a former ‘Hungary specialist' Soviet diplomat and the article of the leading ideologist of Cuba as documents of the thinking of late state socialism -matched by a thorough study of István Mészáros the great figure of Lukács' heritage on the ‘structural crisis of politics'.

Table of contents

1. Vietorisz Tamás, Z. Karvalics László : “Millions of littele knowledge sources” Transforming education and transition to a sustainable world
2. Ferge Sándor : Digital public goods
3. Molnár Szilárd : Information society development in Hungary regarding social capital
4. László Gábor : Open source software and the potential for democratisation
5. Mészáros István : The structural crisis in politics
6. Tamás Gáspár Miklós : A capitalism pure and simple
7. Krausz Tamás : What is the “pure capitalism” theory about? Debate with G.M. Tamás’ theorem.
8. Hajdu János : Denial is not a program
9. Szigeti Péter, Mészáros Ádám, Böcskei Balázs, Artner Annamária : Globalisation from below – supressed groups and rebel movements. Discussion on the book of Annamária Artner
10. Bartha Eszter : National canon and lefwing literature – On Péter Agárdi: Having the past such as this to confess
11. Tütő László : Jane and janes – or who has forced Jane?
12. Valerij Muszatov : Speech at the Budapest Conference – June 15, 2007
13. Armando Hart : Towards the 21st century socialism
14. James Petras, Robin Eastman-Abaya : Cuba: continuing revolution and contemporary contradictions

An answer is sought to the question, why there is so little resistance to capitalism in contemporary Eastern Europe – which leads to the more general question, what are the specific features of capitalism in the former Soviet bloc. Since the tasks (according to the traditional theory) incumbent upon bourgeois revolutions have been fulfilled here by the Bolshevik revolution, the demiurge of East European modernity, secularization etc, both the remnants of the aristocratic-chivalric-ecclesiastic past and the elements of a proletarian socialism were annihilated. Result: East European capitalism is the purest version anywhere.

In recent times, not only the US but also other western democracies can be described as "two-rightwing-party-systems" or in practice as one-party-systems – monopolising political decision making by an institutional structure based on self-legitimising consensus. What are the social grounds and structural reasons that develop the negative tendencies in politics and justice – putting away political liberties, because they cause only trouble? The spoor leads to the structural crisis of the capitalist way of social reproduction.