Communist legal theory

Author: [Austrian] Kelsen / Wang Mingyang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-11-01
Features: This is a strange thing: the historical materialism created by Marx, also known as the economic explanation of social reality, has had and continues to have a far greater influence on the social sciences of our time, including schools that oppose Marxism, than its representative figures were aware of. This fact is reflected in the following widespread trend: the refusal to provide normative interpretations of social phenomena, even those that undoubtedly fall within the realm of law or morality. Among social scientists, there is a tendency to reduce relationships between people, which are considered moral or legal obligations, responsibilities, and rights in ethics and jurisprudence, to factual relationships of political or economic power; to regard value judgments such as right and wrong, fair and unfair as propositions that can be observed through individual or social psychology, rather than as judgments of whether they conform to or violate a presupposed valid norm. This is an anti-normative trend, which arises from a reluctance or inability to recognize the special significance of a norm or a normative order. This trend justifies itself by accusing any normative interpretation of being "unscientific." In modern legal science, this approach of attempting to replace jurisprudence with legal sociology is particularly significant. The study attitude of using legal sociology to replace jurisprudence is a major factor in the general theory of Marxism, especially in Marxist legal theory. The question of whether law is a system of norms or a sum of social relationships plays a decisive role in Soviet legal theory, which has developed based on orthodox Marxism and is a distinctive part of the political system called communism. The authors of this book believe that a critical analysis of communist legal theory is not only beneficial to scientific jurisprudence but also, for the reasons mentioned above, beneficial to general social science. The Soviet legal theory discussed in the second half of this book is almost entirely dominated by political factors. According to Marx's theory of the superstructure of ideology, Soviet legal theory initially aimed to serve as a weapon of thought for the socialist struggle against capitalism. Soviet legal theory obediently adapted to every policy change of the Soviet government. From the examination of this theory, one can see the shameful decline of social science that cannot be liberated from politics. As state power is continuously strengthened everywhere, we must pay serious attention: the subjugation of science to power by the Soviet Union was achieved under the leadership of renowned scholars. Therefore, the study of Soviet legal theory in this book may be limited to commenting on the theories proposed by these renowned scholars. Since their important works have been translated into German, French, and English—only through these translations have they achieved international status—the author of this book, who is not proficient in Russian, can familiarize himself with them without worrying about overlooking any important points of their theories. Finally, the author wishes to make it as clear as possible: he is not discussing communist law but rather the general theory of law proposed by scholars who apply or claim to apply communist principles. He only discusses its policies when the policies of the Soviet Communist Party government influence communist legal theory.