The collection of articles was prepared based on the materials of the international scientific conference of the same name, held July 27-28, 2013 in Tutzing (Germany). The focus of renominated and young historians and culturologists from Russia, Germany and the United States is the transnational dimension of transformation processes in the socialist camp in the last decade of its existence, the transfer of ideas and practices of transformation, the mutual influences and gaps of intercultural communication, temptation and the boundaries of global contextualization of so far poorly studied material.