Bernard Chavance provides a succinct introduction and analysis of the politics and economics of Eastern Europe from the creation of the Stalinist system in the Soviet Union through what he argues have been three major waves of reform since the 1950s to the dismantling of most socialist governments in the 1990s.

Introduction -- The Traditional System -- The Institutional Base -- Central Planning -- Other Parts of the System -- The Socialist Economy in Stalinist Doctrine -- Systemic Adjustments -- Poland: Pioneer and Then Laggard (1956-1979) -- Big Brother Modernizes: The Soviet Union (1957-1985) -- An Original Way: East Germany (1963-1989) -- Radical Reform -- Self-Management and the Retreat from Planning in Yugoslavia (1950-1964) -- Plan and Market in Czechoslovakia (1966-1969) -- Hungary's New Economic Mechanism (1968-1979) -- Modernization in China Under Deng Xiaoping (1979-1989) -- Toward the Dismantling of the System -- The Evolution of Reformist Ideas During the 1980s -- The New Yugoslav Experiments (1965-1991) -- Poland: From Solidarity to the "Big Bang" (1980-1991) -- The Hungarian Laboratory of Radicalization (1980-1991) -- From the GDR to the Five New States (1990-1991) -- Conclusion -- Epilogue