Imre Nagy, Prime Minister during the Hungarian revolution of 1956, was above all a politician. In his frame of mind, his mentality and his actions, he largely conformed to the archetype of a ‘functionary’ that typified leading figures in the Communist movement at the time. The two main features of this mentality were belief in the infallibility of the Communist Party, and belief in the role, mission and vocation of the Party and its functionaries to redeem the world, according to András Hegedüs (member of the Hungarian Politburo 1951–6, and Prime Minister 1955–6 and a dissident sociologist in the 1960s). Another important trait of functionaries in East-central Europe was to see themselves as local representatives of a worldwide Soviet empire, not just of the Party. Although the life and personality of Nagy resembled this pattern, it departed from it in a number of ways that became dramatically manifest, most of all in his final years. One explanation for this departure lies in the ‘intellectual attributes’ or leanings of Nagy as a leading Party functionary. This side of his character prompted him to undertake an intellectual appraisal of political problems on several occasions in his life. In the period leading up to the Hungarian revolution, it made him the leading figure in an expressly intellectual movement: the opposition among the Party intelligentsia. This study is an attempt to trace the specific intellectual path taken by Nagy as a politician.

Of those Hungarian intellectuals who fled abroad after the 1956 revolution, the maverick philosopher Imre Lakatos achieved the greatest prominence. In 1959, nearly three years after he reached England's shores and two years before he completed his doctorate at Cambridge, he began a brilliant teaching career at the London School of Economics and Political Science. ‘A lecture by Lakatos was always an occasion’, his colleague John Watkins has recalled, ‘the room crowded, the atmosphere electric, and from time to time a gale of laughter.’1

We definitely have to stop speculating about theories believed to be perfect and, instead of making deductions, we have to contribute to the construction of a positive general theory of socialism through studying economic reality.

Khrushchev's secret speech of February 1956 threw the moral and political world of East Central Europe's intellectuals into turmoil. One of the most secure belief systems ever devised was suddenly revealed to be the ideological justification for crimes of a massive scale. Several generations of Communists groped for orientation, and radical change seemed inevitable. East Germany's intellectuals were no exception in their expectations and desires for change. Students of the GDR have always understood 1956 as one of formidable intellectual challenge to the Ulbricht regime, and the opening of SED and Stasi archives has strengthened this view, revealing an unrest that pervaded the ranks of students, writers, teachers, and much of the Party cadre.

Poland in 1956 saw a profound crisis in the political and social system created during the Stalinist period. The decay of the system after Stalin's death resulted in, and was at the same time accelerated by, a great mobilisation of and participation involving various political and social groups. Social activity on such a scale recurred only once in the history of Communist Poland-the ‘Solidarity’ period (1980–1).

Since the Czech 'revivalist' movement of the last century, Czech art – along with the roles assigned to its artists – has been undergoing a continual process of definition and redefinition. The question of what constituted and what should constitute Czech artistic identity has often proved politically charged, with artists and art historians on opposing sides attacking each other for their political views. More often than not, debates on the issue have been part and parcel of wider social contexts in which artists and art historians have competed for influential positions and artistic prestige within the art world itself.