Thousands of students demonstrated Dec. 12 in Budapest, Hungary, against the government’s incremental expansion of university tuition, a novelty in the country where capitalism was overturned some six decades ago.

For decades university education has been free of charge. As of the next academic year, government-paid tuition will be restricted to 10,500 undergraduate students, compared to 56,000 in 2010 and 34,000 this year. Those accepted now have to sign a contract pledging to work in Hungary for a number of years or pay back the tuition.

As a consequence of the Soviet victory over German imperialism in World War II, capitalist governments in Eastern Europe were replaced by governments under control of Communist parties beholden to Moscow, which sought “peaceful coexistence” with world imperialism as part of securing privileges for a bureaucratic ruling caste. In response to Washington’s refusal to reach an entente with Moscow, these repressive governments nationalized industry and land and other measures that broke the back of capitalist rule.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the ruling castes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe began, bit by bit and with great difficulty, to re-impose capitalist social relations, drawing working people back into politics as they resist the consequences.

—EMMA JOHNSON