Berianidze
11-30-2005, 09:46 PM
I've recently been studying Socialist Law--particularly that of the former Soviet Union and I've observed competing interests as to the nature of legal systems within a socialist society. On one end are the legal nihilists, whom envision the demise of law after the revolution; a society without lawyers and the replacement of bourgeois legal institutions with popular justice. This point of view seems to be apparent in the utopian view of socialism in which legal scholars noted their vision of a society without jurists, particulary in the first few years after the revolution.
However, the antiprofessionalism of the legal nihilists signals definitive problems and implies that the institution of law and socialism operate on incompatable levels; this is not true though. Socialism may be seen as having a special claim to law. Socialism provides the ideal environment for law, and centralized legal institutions reverse the nihilistic theoretical contradictions between law (for which they see as an instrument of oppression) and socialism (a means of liberation).
Law and socialism are not dependent from one another; law and socialism work cooperatively because the interests of the maker and implementor of laws (the state) are identical with the subjects of law (the people).
Elements of legalism may be found in reading Soviet Law texts by contemporaries (particularly in the 1930's) which describe the existence of autonomous Bar, which operated outside the totality and scope of the Communist Party. The legalist elements coincided with the adoption of pre-existing legal doctrines, that of pre-Revolutionary Russian Law, Civil Law, etc.
It was the rejection of legal nihilism that surged throughout the Soviet legal system in the 1930's, when the Soviet government made explosive legal education campaigns to raise the qualifications and education of procurators and lawyers throughout the Soviet Union. It was also during the 30's that a reinvigorating appraoch to the nature of laws was given by Stalin. The restoration of the "stability of laws" was a key element in the structure of Soviet law as to efend the gains of socialism against encroachment and symbolically served to legitimize Soviet sovereignty.
However, the antiprofessionalism of the legal nihilists signals definitive problems and implies that the institution of law and socialism operate on incompatable levels; this is not true though. Socialism may be seen as having a special claim to law. Socialism provides the ideal environment for law, and centralized legal institutions reverse the nihilistic theoretical contradictions between law (for which they see as an instrument of oppression) and socialism (a means of liberation).
Law and socialism are not dependent from one another; law and socialism work cooperatively because the interests of the maker and implementor of laws (the state) are identical with the subjects of law (the people).
Elements of legalism may be found in reading Soviet Law texts by contemporaries (particularly in the 1930's) which describe the existence of autonomous Bar, which operated outside the totality and scope of the Communist Party. The legalist elements coincided with the adoption of pre-existing legal doctrines, that of pre-Revolutionary Russian Law, Civil Law, etc.
It was the rejection of legal nihilism that surged throughout the Soviet legal system in the 1930's, when the Soviet government made explosive legal education campaigns to raise the qualifications and education of procurators and lawyers throughout the Soviet Union. It was also during the 30's that a reinvigorating appraoch to the nature of laws was given by Stalin. The restoration of the "stability of laws" was a key element in the structure of Soviet law as to efend the gains of socialism against encroachment and symbolically served to legitimize Soviet sovereignty.