The Law Of The Soviet State

Outline of constitutional structure of Soviet government and an authoritative text used by Russian administrators, lawyers, and students.

English translation of a compilation of Russian language essays on public administration and the administration of justice in the USSR - covers the socialist structure and political organisation, national level states autonomy, the election system, marxist concepts, etc.

Soviet practice has variously questioned, rejected, debased and affirmed law and its institutions. This new anthology of over 400 documents--including legislation, judicial decisions, legal commentary, political statements, and observations on history and social theory--examines and assesses the significance of once-dominant patterns in Soviet thought, guiding students toward an understanding of the present by exploring the past. Recent Soviet views toward nature and the role of law, ways of governance, the intensity of conflict between individual and common interest, and the extent of social disorganization may reflect change, but Zile argues that it is the conditions and experience of the past that are most likely to affect change. Presenting both the voices of the erstwhile victors and the vanquished from within the Soviet experience, this book challenges students and scholars of law and Soviet history to rethink their notions of Soviet legal culture.

This book is an unconventional reappraisal of Soviet law: a field that is ripe for re-evaluation, now that it is clear of Cold War cobwebs; and, as this book shows, one that is surprisingly topical and newly compelling. Scott Newton argues here that the Soviet order was a work of law. Drawing on a wide range of sources – including Russian-language Soviet statues and regulations, jurisprudence, legal theory, and English-language ‘legal Kremlinology’ – this book analyses the central significance of law in the design and operation of Soviet economic, political, and social institutions. In arguing that it was an exemplary, rather than aberrant, case of the uses to which law was put in twentieth-century industrialised societies, Law and the Making of the Soviet World: The Red Demiurge provides an insightful account of both the significance of modern law in the Soviet case and the significance of the Soviet case for modern law.