Adam Fabry holds a PhD from Brunel University in the United Kingdom. He sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe and on the corresponding editorial board of Historical Materialism.
The events of 1989 are usually remembered as an unprecedented extension of the “free market” to formerly socialist countries. But as the history of 1970s Hungary shows, neoliberal restructuring had never been limited to the West — and spread East long before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Hungary’s far-right leader Viktor Orbán is trying to force more overtime on workers. The country’s trade unions are finally planning to fight back.
This month’s referendum on immigration showed that Viktor Orbán’s xenophobic agenda is challenged more by an apathetic electorate than any real opposition.
Newly elected Argentine president Mauricio Macri has inaugurated harsh austerity measures and quashed dissent.