As John Bellamy Foster writes in his foreword to the present book, "Istva n Me sza ros is one of the greatest philosophers that the historical materialist tradition has yet produced. His work stands practically alone today in the depth of its analysis of Marx's theory of alienation, the structural crisis of capital, the demise of Soviet-style post-revolutionary societies, and the necessary conditions of the transition to socialism. His dialectical inquiry into social structure and forms of consciousness-a systematic critique of the prevailing forms of thought-is unequaled in our time." Me sza ro