Mandel discusses the collapse of Soviet socialism on the one hand. He states that the collapse would be foreseen after the development of the world centres diverted from the earlier heavy industry-centred model. He expounds his standpoint that – perhaps with the exception of Hungary – Eastern Europe does not have many chances for the successful integration into the capitalist world system (but rather for sinking back to a semi-colonial state). On the other hand, he also analyses the crisis of the capitalist economy. One form of its expressions is the debt trap.