From Socialism to Neoliberalism: Lessons from Eastern Europe and Hungary

Abstract

The chapter outlines main research directions and paradigm shifts in the study of state socialism. It draws the attention to the frequently repeated fallacy to equate the legitimating ideology of “Marxism-Leninism” with Marxist thought and method. While the former had been effectively discredited with the demise of state socialism in Eastern Europe, the Marxist intellectual thought has had more lasting roots in the region and in Hungary, where the Budapest School received an international attention and recognition. The Hungarian focus of the book is also justified with Hungary’s experiment of a “third road”, which created “goulash Communism” – a regime, which offered the most liveable socialism in the region. The chapter then introduces the individual contributions of the book, which seek to draw a historical lesson of the state socialist experiment in Eastern Europe and Hungary, which can be instructive in the search for an alternative to the global neoliberal capitalism.