106 SOCIAL SCIENTIST in politically democratic countries. In an analysis of the Hungarian political scene 'Szarszo '93/,29 written in 1994 he ascribes the same features to recent traits of Hungarian nationalism. His last article "Biopolidcs on the Ruins of Communism"30 suggests that identity politics in the university campuses in America and the Russian theory of 'efhnogenesis', both want to replace social history with ethnic history giving utmost importance to the genetic energies stored by a certain group. Biopolitics in Hungary and in Poland is mainly concerned with the demographic growth of genetically pure Hungarians or Poles and given the chance they would take away the right to abortion. The way to deal with declining birth rates is not a form of 'demographic dictatorship' but investment in the human factor, in medical services and education. The debates about demographic growth are on the agenda mostly as part of both an anti-socialist and anti-capitalist discourse. Ferher's road from Lukacs to postmodernism, from Marxism to liberalism is paradigmatic of a large section of the Hungarian intelligentsia. From being a critical Marxist tobeing a part of the democratic opposition, providing a leftist critique of the Kadar-system and finally since the 1980s this intelligentsia could only see the choice between dictatorship and liberal capitalism and they considered the latter as a relative improvement in the area of pluralism and democratic rights. After 1968 the Communist Party in Hungary was always more open towards the right than the left, as the political takeover in 1989 also proved. It is known that Feher inspite of his intellectual input was not able to get a tenured professorship in America as his positions were not considered 'p.c', that is politically correct. He had the inner compulsion to resist the 'terror' of identity politics as he abstained from official pressures to change his political stand in the 1970s. But in America he could not see the crucial implications of identity politics. For instance he could not theoretically relate to the economic and social tensions underlying problems articulated in colour and race. To transfer his assessment of the Fascist identity politics of Eastern-Europe onto the American situation was a mistake. This blindness was probably due to the privileging of liberal ideology in this phase of his life. Lukacs' 'road to Marx' led from the examination of the meeting points of ethics and aesthetics to a marxist ontology. Feher's 'road from Lukacs' led from the Ontology to a theoretical critique of social practice based on leftist ethics. This could be seen as an irony of history. But the development of intellectuals in Eastern Europe with fragile institutions behind them could also have necessitated such a transformation. NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. Gyorgy Markus, "Terenc Feher" (Obituary in the Hungarian daily newspaper Nepszabadsdg) 20 June 1994. 2. S^ndor Radnoti, 'Egy fajdalmas nagy elet jussan" (On the right of a painful, great life) in the monthly journal Kritika, August 1994 p. 15. 3. Mihaly Bihari, 'Kadar-rendszer - kadarizmus' (Kadar-system, in the monthly-journal Kritika February 1991, pp.3-5.