Central and Eastern European socialism is now a closed chapter of history. Its nearly half century long existence initiated a library of literature. It was described as totalitarian, its post-Stalinist stage post-totalitarian regime a mere enlargement of the “evil Soviet empire,” which imposed her regime on the area, and built a bloc with special economic (Comecon) and military (Warsaw Pact) systems.

A series of studies has been published documenting the rebellions against “real” socialism maintaining that the regime never gained legitimization, that its performance reflected a consistently low efficiency, and that ultimately even its own elite lost confidence in its ability to adjust to a transforming world and to modernize. When the Soviet Union became unable to maintain its control, the regime's elite gave up without resistance and the system collapsed with unexpected speed.

A vast literature on the other hand, documented unprecedented economic growth and a successful struggle against traditional backwardness and rigid social hierarchy. Authors of the region repeated Monsieur Pangloss's words on a “best of possible worlds.”

Fears and/or hopes were expressed on a permanent enlargement of world socialism from one country with roughly 200,000 inhabitants (1917) to twenty-six countries on four continents with nearly 1.7 billion people (1986), which would gradually catch up with the Western world and bring about a convergence of competing capitalism and socialism in a bi-polar world system. A leading economist and giant intellect, the Austrian-American Joseph Schumpeter, predicted in 1928 that “a socialist form of society will inevitably emerge from an equally inevitable decomposition of capitalist society.” What will contribute toward the decline of capitalism, Schumpeter states, will not be economic failures, but “its very success undermines the social institutions which …