Magyar szociológiatörténeti füzetek, 2. (Budapest, 1986)

Summary

types of actions forcefully influencing society. "Pluralist democracy, national independence, industrial culture and international socialist order - these are such perspectives of humanistic socialism that suggest immense tasks but stem from the same source," he wrote in a letter.

(Polanyi and the Hungarian Politics) Throughout the years of exile, Polanyi kept an attentive eye on the changing of politics in Hungary. In England he joined the émigré political circles. He represented the third alternative in the battle of emigrant trends too: "... Hungarians are bound to follow Russian orientation, but at the same time they have to be keen on holding the window to the West open both economically and culturally." Until January 1945 he was in close collaboration with Mihály Károlyi. He held a high opinion about the Hungary of the coalition era of 1945-48, predicting the chances of socialism optimistically. In so-called "regional socialism" he saw the alternative to both the socialism of a world revolution and to liberal capitalism. In the years of the cold war and the personality cult, his political theories and expectations again collapsed and Polanyi turned his back to Hungarian politics. The events of October 1956 raised his interest again and he expected a democratic development.

In the late 1950s he began to deal with Hungarian literature. With his wife Ilona Duczynska he co-edited the literary anthology 'The Plough and the Pen', offering a

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