Overview
- Provides a comprehensive overview of the concept of state socialism through Hungarian and East German case studies
- Includes studies on gender and labor history under state socialism
- Critically analyzes system change, privatization and the legacy of the failed anti-capitalist alternatives
Part of the book series: Marx, Engels, and Marxisms (MAENMA)
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Front Matter
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A Third Road in Eastern Europe?
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Front Matter
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System Change and the Alternatives
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This volume brings together a diverse set of scholars to address the long theoretical, conceptual and political debate on the interpretation of “actually existing” socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. While the major paradigms – totalitarianism, neo-totalitarianism, revisionism, post-revisionism, modernization, and the world-system analysis – are well known in the Western (English-language) literature, the concept of state socialism, which has strong theoretical roots in Hungary (going back to the works of György Lukács and István Mészáros) received less international attention. This book contributes to a productive discussion about viable alternatives to capitalism by introducing and theoretically elaborating on the concept and practice of state socialism, highlighting the historical significance of Hungary’s experiment with the “new economic mechanism” of 1968. It generates a common point of reference for various generations of anti-systemic thinkers, scholars, and activists to move beyond Cold War simplifications and ideological divides, and contributes to the discussion about anti-capitalist alternatives, which are relevant today for the global left.
The chapter “Dance Around a ‘Sacred Cow’: Women’s Night Work and the Gender Politics of the Mass Worker in State-Socialist Hungary and Internationally” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Eszter Bartha is Associate Professor at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. She has published extensively on the state socialist era and the working class.
Tamás Krausz is Professor Emeritus at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. He is an internationally renowned scholar of the Soviet and Russian history in the 20th century, with a special focus on the history of left-wing ideas.
Bálint Mezei is Associate Professor at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. The main subjects of his publications are the interparty relations of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, Eurocommunism and studies based on oral history.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: State Socialism in Eastern Europe
Book Subtitle: History, Theory, Anti-capitalist Alternatives
Editors: Eszter Bartha, Tamás Krausz, Bálint Mezei
Series Title: Marx, Engels, and Marxisms
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22504-8
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Political Science and International Studies, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-22503-1Published: 11 July 2023
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-22506-2Due: 11 August 2023
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-22504-8Published: 10 July 2023
Series ISSN: 2524-7123
Series E-ISSN: 2524-7131
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXII, 334
Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations, 5 illustrations in colour
Topics: Political Theory, Political Philosophy, Political History, Political Sociology, European Politics