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Evgeny Pashukanis

State and Law under

Socialism

(1936)
Gosudarstvo i pravo pri sotsializme, Sovetskoe gosudarstvo (1936) no.3, pp.3-11; partially
translated into English in M. Jaworskyj (ed.), Soviet Political Thought: An Anthology (1967),
Johns Hopkins University Press, pp.315-323.
From Evgeny Pashukanis, Selected Writings on Marxism and Law (eds. P. Beirne & R. Sharlet),
London & New York 1980, pp.346-61.
Translated by Peter B. Maggs. home.law.uiuc.edu/~pmaggs/
Copyright © Peter B. Maggs. Published here by kind permission of the translator.
Downloaded from home.law.uiuc.edu/~pmaggs/pashukanis.htm
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.

Introductory Note

The Stalinist revolution from above had by 1936 accomplished most of its
economic and political tasks, and its incipient proclivities for greater legal
formality and stability were now becoming increasingly apparent. The Party
pendulum was beginning to swing away from legal nihilism and towards legal
stability and socialist legality, and Pashukanis must certainly have been aware of
the fact that the leftist tendencies which he seemed to represent were a major
obstacle to this impending shift.

As Professor Hazard describes in the Foreword to this volume, Pashukanis was

nevertheless still politically pre-eminent within the Soviet legal profession. His
colleague, Krylenko, had been appointed the first USSR Commissar of justice. In
addition to his other roles and titles, Pashukanis was appointed Deputy
Commissar, and was assigned special responsibilities in the drafting of the new
constitution which would supersede the now outdated Constitution of the USSR of
1924. The trend towards greater legal stabilization, and towards a greater reliance
on law as an instrument of regulation and control, was readily evident both in the
drafting process and also in the statutory changes occurring in the areas of
contract law, collective farm law and family law. The clear direction of these
changes, and of the forthcoming new constitution, was away from the nihilistic
and eliminationist orientation of economic law towards the rehabilitation of the
legal form as it was articulated during the New Economic Policy.

Pashukanis, as theorist and symbol of the earlier legal policy, stood in the path of
this swinging pendulum. It was, after all, he who had originally characterized all
law as “bourgeois” and through the success of his General Theory popularized
this view not merely among Marxist legal cadres but even more widely among
individuals in positions of authority who thought it convenient to think of
themselves as being above the law. Moreover, Pashukanis was clearly identified
with opposition to the idea of “socialist law” and he remained the leading advocate
for the active process of the withering away of law.

Sensing, at last, that he was officially and publicly out of step with the Party’s
changing policies on state and law, Pashukanis rushed into print with his third and
final self-criticism. This appears below. In this rather abject statement, Pashukanis
applauds Stalin’s dicta at the April 1929 Plenum of the Central Committee, at the
XVIth and XVIIth Party Congresses, and elsewhere, that socialism demands the
highest concentration of state power. Pashukanis admits that his General Theory
had therefore been seriously deficient in that socialism in practice consisted, not in
the imminent withering away of the legal form, but in the preparation for the
conditions of this process. Under socialism the legal form disappears only with
respect to the ownership of the means of production, but it necessarily remains in
operation in the sphere of distribution. Only a Soviet socialist system of law can
create the conditions for the transformation to the higher phase of communism.

This recantation was, however, insufficient to save Pashukanis from the purges.
The pendulum completed its swing with the ratification of the new Constitution of
the USSR in December 1936. A month later, in January 1937, Pashukanis
disappeared, a victim of Stalinism.

 
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The liquidation of the exploiting classes has been completed in our country. [1]
This now poses the problem of the Soviet state as the political superstructure of
the classless socialist society.

Colossal socio-economic advances have led to the creation of a uniform type of

socialist relations of production in the towns and countryside, and thus to a new
stage in the development of the dictatorship of the proletarian state and Soviet
democracy.
 The question of the role of state and law under socialism now assumes a
tremendous theoretical and practical significance. It is therefore necessary to
recall a number of Lenin’s and Stalin’s theoretical propositions – it is necessary
to begin with these in order to clarify the significance of state and law during the
period of socialism. We must distance ourselves from the mistakes and
confusion on these questions, including those errors made by jurists.

In his State and Revolution Lenin precisely and clearly solves the question of
the nature of the state under socialism. He makes a sharp distinction between
communists and the diverse types of anarchist theorists.

We are not utopians [asserted Lenin] and we do not “dream” of immediately

having no administration or subordination; these are anarchist dreams and
are based on a lack of understanding of the tasks of the dictatorship of the
proletariat. At root they are foreign to Marxism and in practice they only
delay the socialist revolution until the time when human nature is different.
No, we want a socialist revolution with people as they are now-with people
who cannot do without subordination, without supervision, without
“overseers and auditors”. [2]

Lenin’s State and Revolution was directed not only against opportunist,
reformist and Kautskyist distortions of Marxism (distortions which lead to
compromise with the bourgeois state and the refusal to destroy the bourgeois
state machine), it was also aimed at the petit bourgeois and anarchist dreamers
who counted on the immediate elimination of political authority, state
organization, and the organization of coercion and compulsion-”on the second
day” of the proletarian revolution.

Lenin’s work was evoked both by the necessity of distancing himelf from
Kautsky et al., and by the necessity of confronting the anarchic mistakes and
confusion of Bukharin. In those years Bukharin had published a series of articles
in which he developed and preached the anti-Marxist theory of the “explosion”
of the state and that the proletarian party had to emphasize the principled
hostility of the working class to the state.

Lenin’s position on law is equally clear. “Without lapsing into utopianism”, he

wrote, “it is inconceivable that people will immediately learn to work without
any legal norms after the overthrow of capitalism. The abolition of capitalism
does not immediately provide the economic premises for such a transformation.
[3]

These compressed positions must be developed in our theoretical work as an

all-round, detailed study of the role of the socialist state and socialist Soviet law.
Such studies are even more necessary because the lack of clarity on the question
of the state under socialism is not exhausted by Bukharin’s articles which relate
to the period of the imperialist war, about which I have written, but they are also
encountered much later.
 At the April Plenum of the Central Committee in 1929, Comrade Stalin showed
the deep divergence between the anarchist theory of “explosion” – defended by
Comrade Bukharin – and the Marxist Leninist theory of the destruction and
smashing of the bourgeois state machine. Comrade Stalin scoffed at the
pretentiousness of Bukharin and his followers. They claimed that in putting
forward their confused non-Marxist theory of “explosion”, Bukharin had fought
better and more correctly against Kautsky than had Lenin.

It was not accidental that the role of the proletarian state was placed at the
centre of the whole Party’s attention in those years when the country started to
approach the final victory of socialism with rapid strides.

Comrade Stalin explained, at the XVIth Party Congress, that the path to the
future communist, stateless society lies in the all-round consolidation of state
power. He repeated this thesis at the January Plenum of the Central Committee
and the Central Auditing Committee in 1933:

The elimination of classes is not achieved by suppressing class struggle, but

by intensifying it. The withering away of the state will not happen by
weakening state authority but through its maximum consolidation. This is
vital if we are to destroy the remnants of the dying classes and to organize a
defence against the capitalist encirclement which is still far from
eliminated, and will not soon be eliminated. [4]

Finally, at the XVIIth Party Congress, Comrade Stalin again spoke out most
sharply against the opportunists who, on the occasion of the approach to the
classless society, had tried to project their ridiculous ideas concerning the
suppresssion of the class struggle and the weakening of the dictatorship of the
proletariat.

It is understood [said Comrade Stalin] that the classless society will not
come of its own accord. It must be achieved and constructed by the efforts
of all working people – by consolidating the agencies of the dictatorship of
the proletariat, by the development of the class struggle, by the elimination
of classes, by the liquidation of the remnants of the capitalist classes – in
struggles with both internal and external enemies. [5]

Because of the efforts of the working people the classless society has now been
basically constructed. But only an opportunist could think that the further
development and consolidation of the socialist system can come by allowing
nature to take its course, or that the elimination of classes means that there is no
need for either the dictatorship of the proletariat or for the state. Lenin argues:

The essence of Marx’s theory of the state can only be mastered by

understanding that the dictatorship of one class is necessary not only for
every class society in general, not only for the proletariat after it has
overthrown the bourgeoisie, but also for the entire historical period that
separates capitalism from “a society without classes”, i.e. from communism.
The forms of the bourgeois state may be extremely varied, but their essence
is the same: in one way or another all these states are, in the final analysis,
 necessarily dictatorships of the bourgeoisie. Inevitably, of course, the
transition from capitalism to communism will contain an abundance and
variety of political forms, but their essence is the same: the dictatorship of
the proletariat. [6]

From this excerpt (extraordinarily rich in content), it follows that the proletarian
state will preserve its position during the whole period from the overthrow of
the bourgeoisie to communist society. Whatever the possible variations of
political form, the essence and content of this state will be the dictatorship of the
proletariat.

Soviet power is the state form of the proletarian dictatorship, and it has
assumed world historical significance. But the Soviet state will not remain an
inert entity; it will develop in accordance with victories in the struggle for the
abolition of classes.

The construction of a classless socialist society will open a new era in the
unfolding of Soviet democracy (a new constitution, a new franchise law). But this
change in political form will entail the same essence. This essence is the
dictatorship of the proletariat.

Basically, although we have constructed a classless socialist society we have

still not achieved the higher phase of communism. The basic difference between
socialism and communism, or between the lower and higher phases of
communism, consists in the fact that socialism is characterized by the
domination of public socialist property, and proceeds are distributed according
to labour. Communism is characterized by the consolidation and development of
public property, and distribution is according to need.

The development of socialist forces of production and culture – which enables

distribution according to need – signifies the elimination of the contradiction
between mental and manual labour, and the transformation of labour into
man’s primary need. It signifies a condition in which people are capable of
working without “overseers and auditors”, without legal norms, without
coercive force, and without the state.

The process of the withering away of the state can therefore begin no sooner
than the disappearance of the coercive nature of labour. This constitutes the
basic economic premise for the process of withering away, for the gradual
demise of state power.

Recall that in his Economics of the Transitional Period Bukharin put these
processes in the following order: first the abolition of the armed forces, then the
instruments of oppression, prisons etc. and finally the coercive nature of labour.

Lenin reverses this order. What Bukharin placed at the end, Lenin places at
the beginning, as the first fundamental premise without which it is impossible to
speak of the instigation of the process of withering away.

Even in our milieu the theory existed that the actual process of withering away
had begun with the October Revolution and that, therefore, it should be
proceeding at full speed during the period when classes were being abolished
and the classless socialist society was being constructed. But this was a false and
opportunist theory. It was false because it did not take into account the
fundamental economic premise without which there cannot even be any
discussion of the superfluousness of the state.

Confusion on the question of the withering away of the proletarian state began
with the fact that this question was itself conflated with the question of the
nature of the proletarian state as a semi-state – as a state which, in
contradistinction to exploitative states, does not strive to be eternal but which,
on the contrary, prepares the conditions and premises for the actual destruction
of the state. After the proletariat has overthrown the bourgeoisie it creates a
state of a special type. This does not represent the power of an exploiting
minority over the majority, but it is a weapon of the labouring majority used
against the exploiters.

The Party Programme – speaking of the gradual involvement of all the toiling
people in the work of state administration (which is made possible by the Soviet
system) – concludes that:

The full execution of all these measures represents a further step along the
road begun by the Paris Commune. The simplification of administrative
functions, and the raising of the cultural level of the workers, will lead to
the destruction of state authority. [7]

The question therefore concerns the preparation of the conditions for the
withering away of the state. This withering away will only become possible in
the second phase of communism. The creation of the conditions for the future
stateless organization does not represent a process of reducing state power, but
a process of consolidating it. This is especially done by bringing larger and larger
masses of working people into the administration of the state.

There is no barrier between the state apparatus and the mass of working
people in the proletarian state. This very state apparatus – in the broad sense of
the term – represents the sum of the masses’ organizations.

The special role of mass organizations, trade unions and all other
organizations of working people, are characteristic of our proletarian state and
correspond to its nature. This feature of our state exists, of course, from the very
moment when this state arose, i.e. from the October Revolution. But the
development and consolidation of these special features by no means represents
the weakening and withering away of state power because of its inutility.
 There is contradiction and antagonism between the bourgeois state and
society. We do not have this antagonism. Our state includes mass workers’
organizations, and the activity of the state apparatus is simultaneously social
activity. Our state ownership of the means of production is social ownership.
Accordingly, we can see that the mass organizations are constantly and
increasingly involved in the work of administration and supervision, and that
they are responsible for specific concrete tasks. Yet this does not mean that a
process of the weakening and withering away of state power is occurring. This is
one of the ways of strengthening state power. The maximum development of the
workers’ participation signifies the strengthening of the state apparatus which is
persuasive, ideologically influential and can use power, compulsion and force as
well.

The socialist state administers not just people, but also things and the process
of production. In his speech to the First Congress of Councils of the National
Economy, Lenin argued that:

there is no doubt that the more the conquests of the October Revolution, the
deeper will be the transformation that it initiated. The more implanted the
conquests of the socialist revolution and the strengthening of the socialist
system, the greater will be the role of the councils of the national economy.
These are the only state organizations to retain a firm position. Their
position will be consolidated the nearer we are to the establishment of a
socialist system, and the less room there will be for a purely administrative
apparatus, for an apparatus which only conducts administration. After the
resistance of the exploiters is finally destroyed this apparatus is condemned.
This apparatus of administration – in the real and narrow sense of the term,
this apparatus of the old state is doomed to wither away. The apparatus of
the Supreme Council of the National Economy will expand, develop and
become stronger: it will conduct all the most important activities of the
organized society. [8]

The victory of public socialist property in the town and country, and the
successes of state planning and administration of the entire national economy,
will further strengthen the role and significance of the apparatuses conducting
the state’s economic activity. These agencies will be retained in the stateless,
communist society because even there where “labour is the primary need of life”
– labour and economic life must still be organized. During the period of
socialism the agencies which direct the socialist economy are state agencies. The
administration of things and processes of production are inseparable from the
administration of people, and from the functions of power, state coercion and
state legislation.

The expanding role of state planning and the consolidation and broadening of
the economic agencies is the process whereby the socialist state is consolidated.
It by no means signifies that the state is beginning its final withering away.
 Despite the basic construction of a socialist classless society, it must be
understood that the class struggle continues. Further work is essential both for
the socialization and re-eduction of the working masses and for the suppression
of recalcitrant and hostile elements. These latter continue to oppose socialism,
continue to offer resistance and to act deceptively. The state apparatus – a
coercive apparatus – is crucial in combating the enemies of socialism. Finally, it
is also necessary to defend ourselves against capitalist encirclement. The defence
of the socialist motherland demands ceaseless attention to the strengthening of
the Red Army and of all the armed forces of the socialist state.

Socialism is a system based on the social character of the means of production.

Distribution is according to the quantity and quality of labour. This means that
we must have a national supervisory and accounting organization to oversee
labour and consumption patterns. For this legal norms – and an apparatus of
coercion, without which law is nothing – are necessary.

Socialist society is organized as a statist society. The socialist state and socialist
law will be fully preserved until the highest phase of communism. Only at this
phase will people begin to work without overseers and legal norms.

It is just as opportunistic to assert that law will wither away under socialism as
it is to affirm that state authority should wither away the day after the
bourgeoisie was overthrown.

In this context it is appropriate to offer once again deserved criticism of those

erroneous positions put forward by the author of The General Theory of Law
and Marxism. This is essential if the old mistakes and confusion are not to be
repeated in other forms and other ways.

Since distribution according to labour bears some similarity to the equivalent

exchange of commodities, thus Marx and Lenin argued that bourgeois law will
only be fully abolished under socialism with respect to the ownership of the
means of production. Private property is replaced by public property. But in the
area of distribution, law is effectively “bourgeois law” because it represents the
application of an equal scale to factually unequal individuals. It preserves actual
inequality among individuals because in equalizing quantities of labour it does
not consider qualitative differences in physical strength, abilities, family
influences etc.

This principle of reward according to labour is a socialist principle. It is

applied in a society in which each person can give nothing but his labour, where
there is no exploitation, crises or unemployment, in a society where the ruling
principle is “he who does not work shall not eat”, and where the state guarantees
the real right to work. This “bourgeois” law, therefore, does not and cannot have
anything in common with the class interests of the bourgeoisie. This law is
established by the proletarian dictatorship and is the law of the socialist state. It
serves the interests of the working people and the interests of the development
of socialist production. The condenscending attitude that this law is “bourgeois”
benefits only the anarchic theories of the “left wing” and the champions of
bourgeois equality.

While Marx referred to the necessity of distribution according to labour as a

“shortcoming” of socialism, it is nevertheless obvious that this expression is a
relative one. The discussion refers to shortcomings in comparison with the
higher phase of communism: and only this.

However, this question was totally misrepresented in The General Theory of

Law and Marxism. Law, state and morality were simply declared to be
bourgeois forms which cannot be filled with a socialist content and which must
wither away in proportion to the realization of such content. [9] This grossly
mistaken position, foreign to Marxism-Leninism, distorts the meaning of the
proletarian state, distorts the meaning of proletarian communist morality, and
distorts the meaning of Soviet law as the law of the proletarian state which
serves as an instrument in the construction of socialism.

The real and concrete history of Soviet law as a weapon of proletarian policy –
which the proletariat used at various stages to defend the conquests of the
revolution and the reconstruction towards socialism – was replaced by abstract
and mistaken conclusions about the withering away of law, about the
“disappearance” of the legal superstructure etc.

Confused conclusions on the withering away of the “form of law”, as a

phenomenon inherited from the bourgeois world, distracted from the concrete
task of combating bourgeois influence and bourgeois attempts to distort Soviet
legislation and Soviet law.

The theoretical position which initiated this anti-Marxist confusion was the
concept of law exclusively as a form of commodity exchange. The relationship
between commodity owners was asserted to be the real and specific content of
all law. It is clear that the basic class content of every system of law – which
consists in the ownership of the means of production – was consequently
relegated to the background. Law was deduced directly from commodity
exchange according to value; the role of the class state was therefore ignored,
protecting the system of ownership corresponding to the interests of the ruling
class. The essence should be: which class holds state power?

The great Socialist October Revolution attacked capitalist private property and
instituted a new socialist system of law. The main thing in the Soviet concept of
law is its socialist essence as the law of the proletarian state. After the victory of
socialism and the liquidation of the pluralist structure of the economy, law did
not begin to wither away. Rather, this was the period when the content of Soviet
socialist law – both in the town and country – mirrored uniform socialist
relationships of production.

The theory of the “bourgeois nature” of all law persistently conflated such
different things as the co-existence of the private entrepreneur and the
economic accountability of socialist enterprises, capitalist exchange and
exchange by co-operatives and agencies of the proletarian state, the equivalent
exchange of commodities according to value and the socialist principle of
distribution according to labour.

In this theory, socialism was essentially contrasted to exchange, and economic

accountability with control by the rouble. With respect to the withering away of
exchange and money, and the transition to direct commodity exchange, “leftist”
pseudo-theories are in the same logical category as theories which stress the
“withering away of law” and the “disappearance of the legal superstructure”.

These mistaken theories were harshly criticized at the First Congress of

Marxist Theorists of the State. Emphasis was placed upon the great importance
of Soviet law as law which proceeds from the dictatorship of the proletariat and
which finds its strength therein:

... For us it must be indisputable that although Soviet law deals with
different economic structures, its power and movement and nevertheless
has but one source – the October Revolution the dictatorship of the
proletariat ... Such facts as the transformation of the proletariat into the
ruling class, the creation of the Soviet state, the nationalization of the basic
instruments of production, the nationalization of land, transport, banks and
the monopoly of foreign trade all these are starting points which imprint
themselves on Soviet law and which give it its special quality. [10]

The theory that the specific quality of law is the facilitation of equivalent
exchange was criticized and defeated after the discussions of 1930-1931.
However, the positive aspect of this task-the broad and all-round development of
the system of Soviet socialist law – has not yet been accomplished. Our work in
this area still remains backward. Such decisive moments as: the adoption of the
Law of August 7, 1932, concerning the sanctity and inviolability of socialist
property; the decisions of the XVIIth Party Congress on the liquidation of classes;
Comrade Stalin’s speech at the January Plenum of the Central Committee and
Central Auditing Committee of 1933 on the new tasks of revolutionary legality –
were only used for relevant legislation in specialized areas (economic law,
criminal law etc.). The general theory of Soviet socialist law has still not yet
developed anything thorough and systematic. Decisive conclusions must be
drawn from this fact.

The attempt to provide Soviet socialist law with a complete system could not
have triumphed in 1930, because this was the time when all out collectivization
was taking place (and the liquidation of the kulaks as a class was in process).

Also recall that practical attempts to create new codes suffered failure at this
time. But this happened in such a way that a number of zealots, who
championed the system of Soviet law as proletarian or socialist law, tried to
initiate (under the banner of developing this system) various politically
dangerous and anti-Party orientations. These included the liquidation of NEP in
the towns concurrently with the liquidation of the kulaks, and the abolition of
civil law for the collective farms which would essentially have meant their
transformation into state enterprises.

The opposite trend also took place – the declaration that various relations of
production were socialist when in fact they were not. Recall the social
revolutionary “theories” of Professor Rosenblum, to the effect that the petty
commodity producer (and the peasant who works the land) also build socialism.

Also mistaken were Comrade Stuchka’s attempts to base the system of Soviet
law on the principle of equivalence equivalence in the sense of compensation
according to labour, and equivalence in the sense of the guarantee that no
property (including kulak property) would be expropriated without
compensation. Such a “system” would be an effective impediment and obstacle
for the development of socialist progress.

We struggled against these distortions and criticized attempts to construct the

system of Soviet law in isolation from the policy of the dictatorship of the
proletariat and from its tasks during the period of transition. We also insisted
that Soviet law must enjoy the maximum mobility and flexibility during the
period of full-scale socialist offensive. But in itself this criticism was not
sufficient because we failed to show clearly the conclusions that. could be
derived for Soviet law from the tremendous economic advances and those class
relationships which have characterized the full-scale socialist offensive. But this
obligation was all the more pressing for us because earlier we held the confused
view concerning the withering away of all law under socialism.

We have now come to the period when Soviet socialist law formalizes – within
the state of victorious socialism and on the basis of socialist property – the
domination of uniform socialist relations of production in the town and country.
We are in the period when socialist relations of production in industry and
agriculture are firmly stabilized. Public socialist property, and distribution
according to labour: these are the cornerstones on which we can and must
construct the system of Soviet socialist law.

This is an immense task, most gratifying, and it has practical value. In a whole
array of areas we still have not yet codified our legislation. The old codes, which
were planned for the co-existence of, and struggle between the capitalist and
socialist sectors, are only effective in isolated areas and often only through some
of their articles. Most provisions are ineffective. Whether you take the Civil Code,
the Land Code or the Labour Code, none of them can be applied as codes any
more.

The task before us is to express in Soviet law – in an appropriate, integral and

completed code these new and uniform relationships.

When the new Constitution is adopted this task will become urgent, but it will
be facilitated by the Constitution. This is because the bases of the socialist legal
system will be formulated in the new Constitution; its draft has already been
adopted by the Plenum of the Central Committee of our Party.

From the economic and legal perspectives, one of the most fundamental
questions concerns the co-existence of two different types of socialist property:
state property (i.e. property of all the people) and collective farm property (i.e.
property of the cooperatives).

From the legal perspective, one of the most important tasks is to elaborate this
distinction and to identify the features of these two types.

The development and consolidation of public socialist property (in its state
and collective farm/co-operative forms) assumes the consolidation of the
personal property of working people. Socialism signifies the fullest protection of
the rights of the individual, of the rights of each member of socialist society, of a
society of free working people in the town and country.

This question of the personal and property rights of the working people has
been insufficiently developed by us.

In our works on economic law – particularly in Vol.1 of A Course on Soviet

Economic Law, there was almost no room for the working person, for man,
because everything was absorbed by the problem of the relationship between
economic units. Questions of civil law were almost absent.

This was wrong of course. The problem of personal and property rights – and
of their protection – is an immense theoretical and practical task.

The socialist state protects not only public socialist property; it also protects
the supplementary agricultural plot of the collective farmer, protects his
personal property, the personal property of each working person.

Not long ago there was a scholarly conference of the fascist professors of law
in Berlin. They decided that the concept of man should be excluded from civil
law: this concept, they argued, was so broad that a foreigner, a non-Aryan, and
“even” a Jew might be encompassed by it.
 Against this racist gibberish, against this unbridled chauvinism, we propose
the defence of the personal and property rights of each member of socialist
society.

Soviet socialist law must protect the conquests of the revolution, the security
of our socialist state and socialist public system, public socialist property,
discipline, personal property rights and the consolidation of the socialist family.

Here there arises the great problem of the relation between Soviet socialist
law and socialist morality. We must particularly stress, in the context of the role
of the courts, the close bond between our criminal law and our socialist morality.

The decisions of our Soviet courts – made on the basis of our laws – are a
method for morally influencing those who are not directly involved in a given
judicial hearing – the entire society.

The task of socialization and re-education is now being pushed to the forefront
more and more. In practice the court is an agency which uses coercion and
repression; simultaneously, it acts by persuasion and re-education.

The practice of the application of Soviet socialist law is that of intensified

struggle and the infliction of heavy blows on the remnants of our class enemies.
Our court is an agency of the proletarian dictatorship and it will remain as such.
But the court therefore has another task – re-education. This must not be isolated
from the tasks of coercion and repression. The practice of applying Soviet law in
different areas is a massive cultural and educational task. The introduction of
socialist legality, socialist legal concepts, the achievement of the correct relation
between the citizen and the socialist state this is what is required in the area of
the practical application of Soviet law. This is what must be considered in its
theoretical development.

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Notes
1. This is a revised transcript of a report to the Moscow Legal Institute, conference on
theory, April 3, 1936.

2. V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917), LCW, vol.25, p.425.

3. ibid., p.467.
4. J. Stalin, Problems of Leninism (1933), Partizdat’, Moscow, p.509.

5. ibid., p.580.

6. V.I. Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917), op. cit., p.413.

7. Programme and Charter of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (1933),

Politizdat, Moscow, p. 21.

8. V.I. Lenin, Sochinenii, vol.23, p.36.

9. See E.B. Pashukanis, The General Theory of Law and Marxism (1926), Moscow, 2nd
edition, p.105.

10. E.B. Pashukanis, For a Marxist-Leninist Theory of State and Law, The Soviet State
and Revolution of the Law (1931), no.1, p.24.
 

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Last updated on 13.5.2004