East European Alternatives Book

Eastern Europe has become an arena for social change, providing the world with the opportunity to observe the success or failure of attempts to transform authoritarian socio-political systems into democratic ones. This book focuses on the analysis of the expansion of market forces in a non-market environment, the rise of a new ruling class, and the political rearticulation of disintegrated societies. Hankiss assesses the prospects for lasting change in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union and describes the main economic, social, and political processes which have led to the terminal crises of the state socialist system in Hungary. Hankiss concludes by developing his own scenario to show how the emergence of a new ruling class and the conversion of the bureaucratic power of the communist ruling elite into economic assets and constitutional rights may facilitate the transition from a totalitarian to a pluralist socioeconomic system.