The article tries to analyse the essence of the past decades of societies that claim to be socialist and to what extent they have managed to go beyond capitalism? Elements of the new social set up, like new method of production or new mentality have not been created. In the second part of the article the authors discuss social trends which in the current highly advanced western societies point in the direction of a post capitalist alternative.

The article wishes to contribute to the rehabilitation of Marxism from the charges that it is the ideology of state domination through the presentation of the history of Lassalle's state socialism ideas (and some of his followers') and through the sharp criticism of that notion by Marxism.

The study provides a historical reconstruction of statements and views of Martov, Dan and the official social democratic menshevik party between 1917 and 1922 on the basis of documents found in the archives of the Hoover Institute (Stanford). As it turns out – in theoretical questions – the differences between the bolsheviks and mensheviks are significantly smaller than what has been presented until now by history writing.