ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the political role of the Hungarian critical intelligentsia in the recent past and after the change of system, employing the methodology applied by Gyorgy Konrad and Szelenyi in Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power. It assumes that the intelligentsia would acquire class power as "rational redistributors" and by hiding their teleological aspirations behind professional knowledge. Now the critical intelligentsia is returning to its pre-1989 role: it is becoming a "mediacracy", shaping educated public opinion, and a "meritocracy" in the universities and research institutes. The "culture of critical discourse" replaced party jargon and evolved the alliance of the new "politocracy" and the mediacracy. The liberal intelligentsia, considered by many to be the real heir of the change of 1989, was pushed into parliamentary opposition after the elections. The appearance of Czechoslovakia samizdat journals established an alternative point of reference for readers of the "official" press.
