The author compares the Polish and the Hungarian opposition movements which – despite the similarities of the economic conditions – differ in their sociological structure and political nature. While the Polish transformation was forced by a movement of social self-defence organised from below, here this process was initiated by groups of intellectuals from above and the prulalistic political interests did not rely on the self-organisin'g process that has taken place in society. The study directs attention to the sharp contradictions and dangers of the social vacuum that is behind the power struggle.

Jozsef Herman's interview with B. Denitch, a Yugoslav born New York professor about Eastern Europe, socialism.

Catherine Samary, a professor of the „Dauphine" university in Paris attempts to analyse and interpret the East European systems on the basis of formation theory and through comparing them with contemporary capitalism. The statement should be underlined that the East European economic reforms should be viewed as „a means in the hands of the national bureaucracy to save its own power – that is to prevent a genuine social democratisation". This strata wants to preserve its own privileged position by channelling the reforms to the level of the market and avoid the other alternative of the reform: „the involvement of the masses of people in the control of the economy and society".

The author enumerates a few of the causes as a result of which the October Revolution took place the way it did. He attributes a special role to the euphoria in Europe at the beginning of the century over industrialisation, the lack of the middle class, the utopian-egalitarian influence of mass consciousness and the differences between the goals of the masses of people and the political parties, etc.