One can learn from the British historian's writing how does the Hungarian change of the political system look like from outside placing the events into the system of relations concerning the fate of the other East European countries.

The authors analysed what is called "existing socialism" by stressing that it was doomed to failure from the beginning as it was unable to free itself from the effects of world capitalism. The analysis is supplemented with very detailed tables of the economic indexes of the individual socialist (and capitalist) countries.

In connection with the changing of the name of the Italian Communist Party, the author argues in favour of keeping the name "communist". Naturally with new contents, but she considers the communist ideals to be suitable – despite their compromise in Eastern Europe – for integrating the various left wing endeavours in the future (including the women's movements, students' movements, environmental protection movements, etc.)

As world capitalism is rapidly moving into the historical stage of a global information society, different countries relate in different ways to the transition. The author argues that instead of following the U.S. ideological lead, the Central-Eastern and Eastern European countries have the alternative of transitioning toward partially privatized systems, modelled on French and Japanese planning, which are much more appropriate to a global information economy. Moving toward such historically progressive systems is all the more essential because these systems may well signal the limits of capitalism.