Category Archives: Periodical

Former issues

No. 84 | (Winter 2009)

Eszmélet turns 20. We celebrated its 20th anniversary by making a special issue in Russian published in Moscow. We remained faithful to the original idea of socialism: the community mode of production and social structure. The restored rule of capitalist relationships could not give a humanistic answer to the fall of "old socialism" rooted in Stalinism and conquered by the state. Our journal gave multifaceted analysis on the inhumanity of the "capitalism with a human face".  We have shown that international capital has not put East Europe on the track of catching up with the West but exactly the opposite: leading to the misery of semi-periphery by "capitalism 2.0". By now, it has been proven that "good capitalism" is only a utopia, and practically rather a black utopia.
Although, despite our goal, we could not induce an alternative broad anti-capitalism movement with mass support since it lacks the forces of social support but we see what we should avoid at least. The "resurrection" of the left under socialist parties in East Europe became a puppet of global capital as it did globally downgrading itself into just a different form of neoliberalism. This road came to its end. On the other hand, the way of thinking and acting that degrades the anti-capitalist left to a sect or political subculture – and voluntarily leaves the political scene thus making a service to the rulers – cannot be continued either. Such political movements that do not have viable alternatives at their hand in their actual environment are deemed to fail.
Saying that, this issue is focusing on the (further) analysis of the features of the present crisis of capitalism. István Mészáros, the author of Beyond Capital is analysing the nature of the crisis foreseen by him for many years. Others reveal that in its way out of the crisis the neoliberal state found the poor and helpless as its main enemies and is criminalising the social problem.  Interviews with recently passed away Giovanni Arrighi and Peter Gowan certainly make the readers think on social alternatives and finding the ways for community production and the practical movement.
Table of contents
  1. Mészáros István : The tasks ahead – March 2009 interview by Debate Socialista (Brazil)
  2. Artner Annamária : Crisis and employment
  3. James K. Galbraith : Financial and monetary issues as the crisis unfolds
  4. David Harvey, Giovanni Arrighi : The winding paths of capital – Interview by David Harvey
  5. Marko Bojcun, Mike Newman, Peter Gowan : The ways ofd the world – Interview by Marco Bojcun and Mike Newman
  6. Bózsó Péter : Fundamental comparative economics – dialectic perspective
  7. Farkas Péter : An important book on the global crisis
  8. Tütő László : Mass murdering help
  9. Szabó Tibor : A further Italian book on Lukács
  10. Ilja Szmirnov : Brown bib for the playboy
  11. Szarka Klára : Joyful or sad? Photos of Robert capa in an art museum
  12. Loic Wacquant : Crafting the neoliberal state – Workfare, prisonfare and social insecurity
Former issues

No. 83 | (Autumn 2009)

This issue of Eszmélet is investigating three topics. We are continuing the presentation of a reading of the systematic change according to which all the negative consequences of the capitalist restoration had been – in essence – foreseen already in 1988-89. This approach had also shown a community-socialist alternative to the catastrophic economic and social developments that have occurred.

In our world the fate of political Islam is an important topic, and its future development according to some (leftist) authors is still open, that is there is a possibility of a leftist scenario while the traditional Marxist approach cannot imagine such a scenario taking into account the reactionary tendency of this current and considers political Islam finally serving the logic of imperialism.

At last, this issue also addresses the question of the internal and external conditions of the practical problems related to the development of the "Bolivarian socialism" in Venezuela. What are the plausible social-political perspectives of this unquestionably spectacular and attractive attempt for emancipation?

Table of contents
  1. Tütő László : Social Philosphy Alternatives in Transforming the System in Hungary – Part 1.
  2. Mitrovits Miklós : The Fal of Self-Governance – The Neoliberal Systemic Change in Poland
  3. Mészáros István : Bolivar and Chavez – The Spirit of Radical Determination
  4. Kalocsai Kinga : Venezuela: from Bolivarism to Socialism
  5. Samir Amin : Political Islam in the Service of Imperialism
  6. Tariq Amin-Khan : Analysing Political Islam – A Critique of Traditional Historical Materialist Analytic
  7. Samir Amin : Comments on Tariq Amin-Khan’s Text
  8. Nicolas Dot-Pouillard : Nationalism, Islamism, Communism – Concordance of Political Ideologies and Movements in the Arab World
  9. Nathan Coombs : Ali Shariati: Between Marx and the Infinite – An Islamic Utopian
  10. Katona Magda : The establishment of the Party Structure in Afghanistan
  11. Kéri Elemér : On the selected essays of István Kristó Nagy
Former issues

The Fal of Self-Governance – The Neoliberal Systemic Change in Poland

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?
Former issues

Bolivar and Chavez – The Spirit of Radical Determination

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.

The original article was published in Monthly Review 59:3, July-August 2007.