Power and Knowledge Under Communism - Gyorgy Peteri

This book examines the transformation of economic and sociological knowledge under Hungarian state socialism from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s. It argues that the fate of the social sciences was determined less by episodic repression than by successive academic regimes asserting political authority through epistemological criteria and professional ethos. We follow the trajectory of economics from the Stalinist imposition of radical class-relativism, through the erosion of this epistemology during the New Course and the restoration of empirical research and professional communities as sources of policy-relevant knowledge. The post-Stalinist academic order was based on patronage, managed pluralism, and selective purges, culminating in the disciplining of both reform economics and critical sociology. The book demonstrates how limited professional autonomy could coexist with political control—and why such autonomy remained structurally fragile. It offers a historically grounded account of how modern states can govern social knowledge without fully suppressing it.