EXPERIENCE OF THE LAST DECADE OF EXISTENCE OF SOCIALISM 21 achievement in various spheres including the economy. It is interesting to recall Janos' Komai's depiction of socialist economy in his 'Anti-Equilibrium* which at the same time was an indictment against the General Equilibrium System and nothing but an intellectual experiment and then his recurrent criticism of his own system later. There was a strong feeling in Hungary from the late seventies that enterprises did not enjoy that much autonomy. According to one critic, 'In practice, enterprises are controlled by the central organs by the visible hand without use of the direct methods of the immediate control'.5 This was one of the first critical comments on the practice of regulatory mechanism related to incomes, investment and prices in Hungary. It was also pointed out that regulations made prices ineffectual in playing a market clearing role and enterprises, as a result, had to operate on 'soft budget constraints'. Kornai had tried to draw attention a number of times to the asymmetry in the price sensitivity due to the nature of regulation especially in a 'shortage economy' which was a very common characteristic of a socialist economy.6 Also, the typical BEOs in Hungary called 'establishments' were^ found to be 'clumsy' in the matter of efficient management. It was argued strongly by many that the formation of 'establishments' was an attempt to reintrpduce centralisation through the back door thereby increasing the scope of government intervention which 'having the nature of direct instructions does not help to achieve socio-economic aims—contrary to its assumed effects—but rather hinders it'.7 Interestingly, in GDR, this process of recentralization with the formation of VVBs was welcomed from all quarters. It is evident from examples of Poland and Hungary presented above, that in the early eighties the two lingering problems, namely, overcoming economic inefficiency and dissatisfaction within workers' collectives raised their heads again in search of a solution. In discussions of this time, emphasis was given to the need of a change in the relations of production (in fact, since early eighties, this was one of the most important common themes in the literature on economic issues in the Soviet Union and East European countries) and total autonomy of enterprises in actuality so that a more responsive market structure could emerge in the existing ownership relations in general. But the question was—could these be achieved by economic reforms alone? Also, was not reform in the superstructure an essential adjunct of economic reforms? Because, it was felt at this time that 'the consciousness of the collective for recognizing the necessity of acting according to the need crystalizes through a dialectical interaction of freedom and necessity. The recognition of necessity cannot be an imposed recognition from above without the freedom to identify the tasks in the interest of consolidation of socialist forces'.8 In this period in the Soviet Union, there was tranquillity on the surface. Only in samizdat literature the relevance of two-pronged