Abstract

Among the countries of the Warsaw Pact, Hungary may be the one in which radical critique has developed most strongly, particularly in regard to theory. This New Left originates from two different sources. One is critical social theory based on Marxism. During the sixties, this critical theory was allowed to develop, the leading ideas could be formulated and published—of course, within certain limits which, however, were rather broad if compared with the Soviet Union. The second area of critique is less well defined, a lot more vague: it is the spirit of Marxist values that rose from the ashes of reified official ideology which conceives of itself as "Marxism.”