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.

The article argues against several points of G.M. Tamás' essay theoretically representing antileninist anticapitalism. Interpreting the past by G.M. Tamás is not linked to the newest findings of the field, thus showing historical stages in state socialism has not been solved in his theoretical frame – he cannot make a difference between Lenin and Stalin as historical phenomena. Presenting state socialism as a type of "non-market capitalism" is problematic not only theoretically but also leads to political simplifications, because dictatorship and democracy are rigidly confronted. In fact, he mixes radical social theory with liberal political philosophy leading to an eclectic standpoint.

Regardless to the permanent crisis of capitalism, it has proven to be more crisis-resistant than the existed model of socialism. The political left still has not found the tone and content to address people – in a state of art when the relative "civilised" operation of capitalism is also in question.

Péter Agárdi: "Having a past such as this to confess"* National culture – leftist tradition, Argumentum Kiadó, Budapest, 2006.

(*Attila József: By the Danube, 1936 translated by John Székely)