The author discusses the psychological causes of the current extreme right-wing tendencies in contemporary Germany. He underlines the role played by increased social tensions (and the consequential increase in disappointment) in the gaining ground of right-wing trends. He stresses the need for making fine distinctions when analysing the causes of racism and chauvinism. (See e.g. the difference between great power, conquering chauvinism and the chauvinism of crisis stricken groups aimed at excluding competition.) He sees the means countering extreme right-wing attitudes in the extension of direct democracy. He calls attention to the fact that the ideas of "people" or "people's power" can be interpreted both democratically and nationalistically: and the future will greatly depend on which of these two will win.

The study tries to determine the ideas and functions of belief and ethics. The authors seek an answer to the question why did the new moral paradigm which was attempted to be created by the socialist movements fail? Finally, the article attempts to find out under what conditions does a truly new moral paradigm have a chance to be realised?

The outstanding Hungarian born American social psychologist discusses the psychological conditions of genocide in this study which was so successful at the 2nd European Congress of Psychologists. He primarily relies on the experiences of the massacre of the Armenians early this century, the Cambodian reign of terror, the Argentine military dictatorship and the persecution of Jews in fascist Germany. He shows the process by which groups under social frustration get to the relief of murder inhibitions – arriving there step by step from the stage of the devaluation of scapegoat groups -, and on the other hand, he analyses the psychological changes of the "bystanders", as the passivity of these people is an important precondition of carrying out the aggression. At the end, he calls attention to the fact that the same mechanisms can be mobilised against the minority selected to be the scapegoat, be they ethnic, religious or political groups.

In this article Amin analyses the causes of the failure of "the Soviet method of production". He quotes as the most direct cause the (Stalinist) alienation from the masses of people, the cause of which in his opinion, was the Leninist economism which necessarily lead to the strategy of "catching up" with capitalism instead of "delinking" that Amin considers as would have been needed. He criticises the fact that market was not sufficiently eliminated, democracy was not enough wide spread and no power was given to the workers to control technocracy. (In this respect the author regards the Chinese model to be more successful.) He stresses that despite this, the Soviet model shows better achievements in certain fields than capitalism. He revises some thesis of the criticisms of the Soviet Union, including the wide spread ideas of "the shortage economy", "the administrative model", the "militarist society" and "totalitarianism", none of which is suitable to describe the specific features of that model.

The author studies the origins of the (19th century) idea of "world freedom" and discusses the changes of the idea of the world systems at certain stages of the history of the left wing movements. He raises questions on whether there can be freedom valid for the whole world? He takes a stand in favour of the idea that a world system organized on the basis of the principle of an "intellectual mode of production" covering the whole of the world economy and society – described in Eszmélet earlier – can present an alternative to the capitalist world system.