The essay focuses on presenting Peter Markus' 1988 lecture, which makes a critical analysis of the reform programs suggested that time. The lecture makes an account of almost all threats and possible mistakes that came true after the systemic change as actual experience.

The history of systemic changes in East-Europe began in Poland. The negotiated transformation that was often presented as an ideal case has been celebrated at its 20th anniversary both by the political elite and mainstream media. The article highlights the less known background events that in fact set the path for the Polish systemic change. The self-transformation of Solidarity, the fall of the idea of workers' self-governance and the parallel advance of the neoliberal model is at centre. How could the neoliberal scenario of the IMF and World Bank triumph in a country where a mass movement of predominantly workers with ten million members was also on the stage?

The possibility of a just and globally sustainable society and the vital necessity for totally eradicating capital from the social metabolic reproduction are uniquely combined in a dialectical unity in our present day. The power of capital in the midst of its deepening structural crisis now only able to increase social tension, further damage to the nature and risky new war projects. Recently, as the basis of the quasi-colonial control over Latin-America is melting permanently, peoples of this hemisphere can realise the Bolivarian vision of a solidarity-based social-political unity giving a pioneering model for mankind to be followed.

In a world of lost hope the political-intellectual search of Hugo Chavez and the development – or maybe the sheer existence – of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is a peculiar challenge for social analysis. The article reviews the political history of Venezuela in the past 20 years "from fact to fact" centred on the social, domestic and foreign policy achievements of the decade long presidency of Chavez full of vicissitudes.

According to the author, political Islam is an invaluable ally for imperialism while eliminates the real social confrontations between the popular classes and the globalized capitalist system that oppresses and exploits them, it is not the spontaneous result of the assertion of authentic religious convictions by the peoples concerned. It is fundamentally reactionary and therefore obviously cannot participate in the progress of peoples' liberation.