ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on two broad categories of problems in Eastern Europe. There are the structural, especially economic, problems following from the unprecedented historical move from a state socialist to a market-based or capitalist economic system undreamed of in the philosophy of Marx and his followers. The second category of problems may be called the morning after reactions. The communist dictatorship collapsed; the Soviet troops left; national independence has been regained; freedom of speech and association has been restored; and political parties and other organizations have emerged in abundance. According to Imre Pozsgay, perhaps the best known "reform communist" in Hungary, what transpired was "a change of power of limited substance that involved merely an exchange of elites". Hungary had decades of "reform communism" or soft communism —also called "goulash communism". It used to be called the most cheerful barrack in the socialist camp.
