Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin)(1870-1924) - politician, revolutionary, leader of the October Revolution in Russia, founder of the Soviet state, organizer of the international communist movement (III Communist International), founder Leninism - directions of political and legal thought, the purpose of which was the restoration of the revolutionary traditions of Marxism.

V. I. Ulyanov was born on April 22, 1870 in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk) in the family of an inspector of public schools, who had served hereditary nobility.

His grandfather - Nikolai Vladimirovich Ulyanov - was a serf in the Nizhny Novgorod province, later - a tailor-craftsman in Astrakhan.

Father - Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov - graduated from Kazan University, then taught at secondary schools in Penza and Nizhny Novgorod; later he was appointed inspector and director of public schools in the Simbirsk province.

Mother - Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (nee Blank) - was the daughter of a doctor, received a home education and passed the exams for the title of teacher externally; I read a lot, knew several foreign languages, played the piano.

Vladimir was the third of six children (there were three boys and the same number of girls in the family). In 1887, the family experienced a tragedy - the eldest son Alexander was executed for participating in the preparation of the assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander III. The death of his brother shocked Vladimir, and since then he has become an enemy of the royal power. Moreover, all the children of the Ulyanov family connected their lives with the revolutionary movement.

In 1879–1887 Vladimir Ulyanov studied at the Simbirsk gymnasium, from which he graduated with a gold medal. Then he entered the law faculty of Kazan University, but in December 1887 he was arrested for active participation in a revolutionary gathering of students, expelled from the university as a relative of the executed Narodnaya Volya brother and sent under police supervision to his mother's estate - in the village of Kokushkino, Kazan province.

In the autumn of 1888, he got the opportunity to return to Kazan, got acquainted with the works of K. Marx and joined one of the Marxist circles. In later years, he lived under police surveillance in Samara, earning his living by private tutoring.

In 1891, at St. Petersburg University, Vladimir Ulyanov externally passed all the exams in the program of the Faculty of Law and on January 14, 1892 received a diploma of the 1st degree (by today's standards, this is a diploma with honors).

In August 1893, V. Ulyanov moved from Samara to St. Petersburg, where he joined a Marxist circle.

In April 1895 he went abroad; lived in Switzerland, Germany, France; there he met Karl Marx's nephew and son-in-law, Paul Lafargue.

After returning to Russia, V. Ulyanov in 1895 united the St. Petersburg Marxist circles into a single "Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class". For this, in December 1895 he was arrested, and in February 1897 he was exiled for three years to Siberia under the open supervision of the police - to the village of Shushenskoye, Minusinsk district, Yenisei province.

Together with him, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, also sentenced to exile for active revolutionary work, was also sent there.

In July 1898, while in Shushenskoye, N. K. Krupskaya, whom V. I. Ulyanov met back in 1894 and knew her from the St. Petersburg revolutionary underground, became his wife - they got married in a local rural church.

In exile, V. Ulyanov got acquainted with the works of the leading theoretician of German social democracy - K. Kautsky, who made a great impression on him. V. Ulyanov himself wrote over 30 works during his exile, among them "The development of capitalism in Russia in which he argued that a bourgeois revolution was brewing in Russia.

V. Ulyanov borrowed from Kautsky the idea of ​​organizing the Russian Marxist movement in the form of a centralized party of a new type, which brings "consciousness" into the "dark" and "immature" working masses.

In 1898 Minsk hosted the 1st Congress of the RSDLP, which proclaimed the formation of the Social Democratic Party in Russia and issued the Manifesto of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. V. Ulyanov was not present at the congress because he was in exile. After the end of his exile in January 1900, he went abroad and for the next five years lived in Munich, London and Geneva, where, together with his associates, he began to publish the Social Democratic newspaper Iskra.

In early October 1917, Lenin illegally returned to Petrograd. On October 23, at his suggestion, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party adopted a resolution on an armed uprising. On November 6, 1917, in a letter to the Central Committee, Lenin demanded to immediately go on the offensive, arrest the Provisional Government and take power. On November 7, 1917, at the opening of the 111th All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Lenin's decrees were adopted - on peace and land, and a revolutionary government was formed - the Council of People's Commissars - headed by Lenin.

In 1919, at the initiative of Lenin, the Third Communist International was created.

In May 1922, V. I. Lenin fell seriously ill, but in early October he returned to work. Then his health deteriorated again. In May 1923, due to illness, he moved to the Gorki estate near Moscow.

Subsequently, Winston Churchill wrote about Lenin: "Not a single Asian conqueror, neither Tamerlane nor Genghis Khan, enjoyed such fame as he did. An irreconcilable avenger, growing out of the peace of cold compassion, sanity, understanding of reality. His weapon is logic, his disposition of the soul - opportunism. His sympathies are cold and wide, like the Arctic Ocean; his hatred is tight, like an executioner's noose. His mission is to save the world; his method is to blow up this world. Absolute adherence to principles, at the same time willingness to change principles... He subverted everything He overthrew God, Tsar, country, morality, court, debts, rent, interests, laws and customs of centuries, he overthrew the whole historical structure, such as human society. the moment when his destructive power was exhausted and the independent, self-healing functions of his searches began to appear.He alone could lead Russia out of the quagmire... Russian people were floundered in the swamp. Their greatest misfortune was his birth, but their next misfortune was his death."

The founder of the ideology of Bolshevism, V. I. Lenin, developed the theoretical issues of state and law, primarily in such works as "Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism" (1916); "On the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution", "State and Revolution" (1917); "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky" (1918); "About the State" (1919); "The Childhood Disease of 'Leftism' in Communism" (1920).

In his works, V. Lenin relied on Marxist propositions about the class nature of society, the state and law, about democracy, the proletarian revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, the withering away of the state and law.

According to the Bolshevik program, power should belong to the people, and its leading force (hegemon) is the working class. The working class must seize power as a result of a violent revolution. The leadership of the working class should be carried out by a party built on the principle of centralism (binding decisions of higher bodies for grass-roots organizations). The transition to a new social order requires a transitional period in which power will be exercised through the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Based on the works of K. Marx and F. Engels, V. I. Lenin revealed the class essence of the state, the prerequisites for its emergence and its role in a class-antagonistic society as an instrument of the dictatorship of the exploiting classes. “The state is a product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions,” wrote V. I. Lenin. “The state arises there, then and to the extent where, when and insofar as class contradictions objectively cannot be reconciled.” The state arises as an organ of class domination and oppression of one class by another, creates an order that legitimizes this oppression. The state is a special organization of power, a machine for maintaining the rule of one class over another. This domination cannot be without violence. "The liberation of the oppressed class is impossible not only without a violent revolution, but also without the destruction of that apparatus of state power which was created by the ruling class..."

Lenin resolutely opposed those who, on the basis of the teachings of Marxism, assumed that within the framework of capitalism the proletariat could achieve an improvement in its position; against those who sought to obscure the irreconcilability of the class contradictions between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, to smooth out these contradictions instead of exacerbating them, to reconcile the worldview of the revolutionary proletariat. “It turns out among petty-bourgeois and philistine professors and publicists—all the time with benevolent references to Marx!—that the state is just reconciling classes,” Lenin retorted. “According to Marx, the state is an organ of class domination, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; which legitimizes and consolidates this oppression by moderating the clash of classes.According to petty-bourgeois politicians, order is precisely the reconciliation of classes, and not the oppression of one class by another; to moderate the clash means to reconcile, and not to deprive the oppressed classes of certain means and methods of struggle for the overthrow of the oppressors ". Such followers of Marxism Lenin called opportunists, and their interpretation of the doctrine - a perversion of Marxism. “A Marxist is only one,” wrote Lenin, “who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat ... Opportunism does not bring the recognition of the class struggle to the most important thing, to the period of transition from capitalism to communism, to the period of the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and its complete destruction ".

Thus, the essence of the state, according to Lenin, is the dictatorship of the ruling class, and "dictatorship is power based directly on violence, not bound by any laws." From this point of view, the state, regardless of its form, is initially an anti-democratic and anti-legal organization. Democracy, human rights and freedoms are just attractive attributes that cover up the class, oppressive nature of the state and mislead the working people. “A democratic republic is the best possible political shell of capitalism, and therefore capital, having mastered this best shell, justifies its power so reliably, so truly, that no change of persons, institutions, or parties in a bourgeois-democratic republic can shake this power.. The petty-bourgeois democrats ... themselves share and inspire the people with the false idea that universal suffrage "in the present state" is capable of really revealing the will of the majority of the working people and securing its implementation."

As Lenin wrote, "The essence of Marx's doctrine of the state was assimilated only by those who understood that the dictatorship of one class is necessary not only for any class society in general, not only for the proletariat that overthrew the bourgeoisie, but also for the whole historical period separating capitalism from" society without classes”, from communism".

The proletarian state as an organ of the dictatorship of the proletariat is necessary for the period of solving the primary task - the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and its complete destruction. "In reality, this period is inevitably a period of unprecedentedly fierce class struggle, unprecedentedly acute forms of it, and, consequently, the state of this period must inevitably be a state in a new democratic way (for the proletarians and the have-nots in general) and in a new dictatorial way (against the bourgeoisie)"

In the future, as the bourgeoisie as a class disappears, the functions of the proletarian state will begin to die off until complete disappearance, "because in a society without class contradictions, the state is not necessary and impossible" / * Ibid. S. 29.)). The same fate, V. I. Lenin believed, awaits the right.

The founder of Leninism did not recognize the old bourgeois concept of civil law and advocated the elimination of private law relations. "We do not recognize anything "private", for us everything in the field of economy is public law, not private ... Hence - to expand the use of state intervention in "private" relations, to expand the right of the state to cancel "private" contracts: to apply not corpus juris romani to “civil relations”, and our revolutionary legal consciousness..." The preservation of the "narrow horizon of bourgeois law" under socialism, Lenin allowed only for the establishment of accounting and control, the distribution of consumer products.

In his opinion, when the need to observe "the simple, basic rules of any human community wither away, the door will open to the transition from the first phase of communist society to its highest phase, and at the same time to the complete withering away of the state and law."

Lenin's views on the state and law were embodied in the practice of state building as a result of the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia. The idea of ​​the Bolsheviks about the new system was the policy of "war communism" (1918–1921), which included the elimination of private property, the nationalization of all industry, the elimination of money circulation and the introduction of a card system, the prohibition of market trade, the introduction of universal labor service, and the establishment of surplus appropriation.

The attempt of the Soviet state to carry out economic activity by means of nationalized enterprises and with the use of administrative methods of distributing material wealth among workers ended in a complete disaster. "The state was not able to cope with the huge mass of nationalized enterprises through centralized management from the center. Enterprises were a heavy burden on the state budget, because they worked at a loss due to the lack of cost accounting in their activities and required additional funding from the resources of the state treasury At the same time, the state, having banned market relations, could not provide the city workers with even basic necessities in any satisfactory way.

After "war communism" collapsed, on the initiative of Lenin, the "new economic policy" (NEP) (1921 - 1929) was introduced, which involved the replacement of surplus appropriation with a fixed food tax, the permission of market trade, the denationalization of small and part of medium industry, the surrender of small and parts of medium-sized industrial enterprises for rent to their former owners for the establishment of production, the implementation of a monetary reform and the introduction of a new Soviet currency - a gold-backed chervonets, the leasing of large industrial enterprises for concession to foreign capital. Peasants, as representatives of small-scale production, able to satisfy their property interests and needs, were allowed to sell surplus products in the markets. The basis of labor relations for hire was based on the principle of freedom of labor. The employee could terminate the employment contract at any time at will. Labor service was allowed only in exceptional cases to deal with natural disasters or to perform the most important state tasks by special government decree. The conditions for hiring workers and employees at specific enterprises were to be established by a collective agreement concluded between the trade union and the employer.

The Soviet government, having abolished the ban on private property, at the same time significantly limited the freedom of economic individuals and did not observe the principle of formal equality, establishing the most favorable regime for state enterprises and cooperative organizations. Land, railways, telegraph property, etc. were withdrawn from private circulation. The monopoly right of the state to buy and sell foreign currency, gold and silver coins was preserved. An individual could not own more than one residential building. It was possible to sell a residential building no more than once every three years. No private enterprise could employ more than 20 workers.

The restrictions on legal capacity established in Soviet legislation were intensified in practice by the arbitrariness of state and judicial bodies. State bodies and officials, arbitrarily interpreting the norms of civil law, introduced additional norms restricting the freedom of economic activity of private organizations, unreasonably extended administrative methods of management and control to them. Having little chance of prosperity, private business activity, while undergoing numerous legal and illegal restrictions, nevertheless helped the Soviet state to avoid an economic catastrophe and ensure the preservation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. At the NEP stage, the state not only allowed the existence of private sector enterprises, but was also forced to build relations between state economic entities according to the principles of private law. State enterprises were transferred to economic accounting, which provided the enterprise with the opportunity to have separate property and act independently "on the basis of commercial calculation in order to make a profit."

Communism as a centuries-old dream of a significant part of humanity during the existence of the Soviet state was not built, because it was not possible to form the necessary prerequisites in accordance with the teachings of its founders - to create the necessary material and technical base, to ensure the erasure of the differences between physical and mental labor, between industrial labor and agricultural and, in general, between town and countryside, as well as to introduce into the consciousness of the population the norms of communist morality based on the principles of collectivism, camaraderie and mutual assistance. At the same time, many of the socialist and communist ideas have found their embodiment in the modern practice of developing the state and the rights of the leading countries of the world, have been translated into legislative norms that ensure the protection and protection of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen, the formation of civil society, social guarantees, etc.

• The point of view was established that since 1901, after the police shot down the rebellious workers of the gold mines on the Lena River, V. Ulyanov began to use the pseudonym "Lenin", and has since been known in the RSDLP (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party) under this name. However, there is another version. It is known that already at the end of 1899, in exile in Shushenskoye, he wrote a "Draft Program of Our Party" with a cover letter to the editors of the "Working Newspaper". Both the text of the "Project" and the letter are signed: "N. Lenin". A. Golenkov notes in this regard that "Vladimir Ulyanov is exiled to the village of Shushenskoye in 1897. His fiancee, soon his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, follows with him. So, there is all evidence that Vladimir, in addition to economic, political and philosophical books, took with him several fiction books, including L. Tolstoy's story “The Cossacks.” She recalls that Vladimir read “The Cossacks” on the road, and she remembered one line he read aloud: “The ruder the people were, they had fewer signs of civilization, the freer they felt". He is the hero of the story, a young man ... Olenin, also an exile (albeit voluntarily), not to Siberia, but to the Caucasus. But the latter is not so important. It is important that Vladimir Ulyanov, according to Krupskaya, re-read Cossacks during his exile (1897-1900). It is appropriate to recall Lenin's lines from his article "Leo Tolstoy as a Mirror of the Russian Revolution" (1908), where Lenin, in connection with the contradictory views of L. Tolstoy, speaks of the desire of Russian peasants “Sweep to the ground both the official church, and the landlords, and the landlord government, destroy all the old forms and regulations of land ownership, clear the land, create a hostel of free and equal small peasants in place of the police-class state ..” All this is indirectly stated in the "Cossacks" by the mouth of Olenin. Could the young Ulyanov in 1899 not pay attention to this? I don't think so." See: Golenkov A. About the pseudonym "Lenin" //Duel. 2006. No. 15 (464). April 11. URL a-golenkov.narod.ni/art/olenin.htm (accessed 03/30/2013).

The history of the legal thought of the Soviet period is the history of the struggle against statehood and law in their non-communist sense and meaning, against the "legal worldview" as a bourgeois worldview, the history of the replacement of legal ideology with the ideology of the proletarian, communist, Marxist-Leninist, the history of interpretation institutions and establishments of a totalitarian dictatorship as a "fundamentally new" state and law, necessary for the movement towards communism and at the same time "withering away" as such progress towards a communist future. After the revolution, in the process of numerous discussions about the fate of law in the new socio-historical and political conditions, various directions and concepts of understanding and interpretation of law and the state gradually began to take shape in the general mainstream of the Marxist approach to law. Law as an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The concept of a new, revolutionary, proletarian law as a means of implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat was actively developed and introduced into the practice of Soviet justice by Dmitry Ivanovich Kursky (1874-1932), People's Commissar of Justice in 1918-1928. Law under the dictatorship of the proletariat is, according to Kursky, the expression of the interests of the proletariat. Here, according to him, there is no place for "norms like Habeas Corpus", for the recognition and protection of the rights and freedoms of the individual. Kursky praised the activities of the "revolutionary people's courts" as a new source, highlighting the fact that "in its main activity - criminal repression - the people's court is absolutely free and is guided primarily by its sense of justice." The new, revolutionary law, according to Kursky, is "proletarian communist law." Soviet power, he explained, destroyed “all three foundations of the institution of bourgeois law: the old state, the serf family and private property ... The old state was replaced by the Soviets; the serf and bonded family is being replaced by the free family and the public upbringing of children is being implanted; private property has been replaced by the property of the proletarian state in all instruments of production. The implementation of these provisions actually appeared in the form of "war communism", which, even according to Kursky, was "primarily a system of coercive norms." Partial and temporary retreat to NEP (bourgeois) law was interpreted by Kursky (with reference to new legislation and codification in the early 1920s) as the assertion of a new, proletarian law and order. “The state system of the RSFSR,” he wrote in 1922. , - in a more distinct form than in a number of Western European countries, despite the still unfinished struggle of the Soviet power with its enemies, it essentially becomes legal. Such an attempt to pass off the dictatorship of the proletariat, even though framed by law, as a "legal system" was completely untenable. In this regard, it is quite characteristic that Kursky himself spoke of "the introduction of a legal order that is completely unique in a workers' and peasants' state." He, like other Soviet ideologists, understood this “originality” as the restriction and subordination of the allowed rights to the interests of the dictatorship of the proletariat. NEP law did not even guarantee the property rights of citizens (to say nothing of their personal and political rights, etc.) when they clashed with the interests of the authorities. Kursky also recognized this: “Our law of obligations, its main feature, will, in the opinion of the People’s Commissariat of Justice, be that here the interests of the state should prevail over the interests of protecting the personal rights of individual citizens.” And in general, the admitted civil law relations were carried out within the strict framework of criminal norms. In this regard, Kursky noted that in the struggle against the freedom of civil circulation "it is necessary to regulate relations by criminal norms where they are regulated in civil order in bourgeois-developed law." These and other similar propositions about law as an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat were typical not only for Kursky, but also for representatives of other areas of Soviet theory of law and the state. Law is the order of social relations. Pyotr Ivanovich Stuchka (1865-1932) played a significant role in the process of the birth and formation of the Soviet theory of law. According to his own assessment, the article by F. Engels and K. Kautsky "Judicial Socialism" was "decisive" for his entire approach to law. The interpretation of the legal worldview contained in this article as the classical worldview of the bourgeoisie, Stuchka noted, has become one of the main arguments "for the need for our new legal understanding." Stuchka considered the main principles of such a new, revolutionary Marxist legal understanding: 1) the class character of all law; 2) revolutionary-dialectical method (instead of formal legal logic); 3) material social relations as a basis for explaining and understanding the legal superstructure (instead of explaining legal relations from law or legal ideas). While recognizing "the necessity and fact of a special Soviet law," Stuchka saw this peculiarity in the fact that "Soviet law" is "proletarian law." Ideas about the class nature of law were reflected in the general definition of law given in the official act of the People's Commissariat of Justice of the RSFSR (December 1919) "Guiding Principles on the Criminal Law of the RSFSR". Later, Stuchka wrote about this: “When we, in the collegium of the People’s Commissariat of Justice ... faced the need to formulate our own, so to speak, “Soviet understanding of law”, we settled on the following formula: “Law is a system (or order) social relations, corresponding to the interests of the ruling class and protected by its (i.e., this class) organized force. Criticizing the Soviet Civil Code of the NEP period for its bourgeois nature, Stuchka wrote: "Our code, on the contrary, must clearly and openly show that the civil code as a whole is subordinate to the socialist planning of the working class." This idea of ​​the displacement of law (as a bourgeois phenomenon) by a plan (as a socialist means) was widespread and, in fact, reflected the internal, fundamental incompatibility of law and socialism. In Stuchka's class-sociological approach, the concepts of "system", "order", and "form" are devoid of any legal specifics and proper legal implications. Hence the inherent positions of convergence and even identification of law with the social, industrial, economic relations themselves. Exchange concept of law. For the majority of post-revolutionary Soviet Marxist authors, as for Stuchka, the class approach to law meant the recognition of the existence of so-called proletarian law. A different class approach to law was realized in the works of Yevgeny Bronislavovich Pashukanis (1891-1937), and above all in his book “The General Theory of Law and Marxism. An Experience in the Criticism of Basic Legal Concepts” (1924). In this and other works, he focused primarily on the ideas of law found in Marx's Capital and Critique of the Gotha Programme, Engels' Anti-Duhring, and Lenin's State and Revolution. For Pashukanis, as well as for Marx, Engels and Lenin, bourgeois law is historically the most developed, the last type of law, after which any new type of law, some new, post-bourgeois law, is impossible. From these positions, he rejected the possibility of "proletarian law." Since Pashukanis was free from illusions about the possibility of “proletarian law” and the real law for him was only bourgeois law, which must be overcome, his criticism of law, his anti-legal position, his attitudes towards the communist denial of law as a residual bourgeois phenomenon were ( in the general mainstream of post-revolutionary Marxism-Leninism) is theoretically more meaningful and consistent than many other Marxist authors, and above all supporters of the concept of the so-called proletarian law. His legal nihilism was a theoretical consequence of the ideas he shared and the provisions of the Marxist doctrine of the transition from capitalism to communism. In relation to the new, post-revolutionary conditions, Pashukanis, in essence, only repeated, substantiated and developed what had already been said by Marx, Engels and Lenin before the revolution. Due to the negative attitude to law, the theory of law for Pashukanis is a Marxist critique of basic legal concepts as hoaxes of bourgeois ideology. Thus, in the theory of law, Pashukanis sought to repeat the critical approach applied by Marx in economic theory. The relation of commodity owners, he wrote, is that "social relation sui generis, of which the form of law is an inevitable reflection." Bringing together the form of law and the form of goods, Pashukanis genetically derived law from the exchange relations of commodity owners. In this regard, his theory of law in the literature was called the exchange theory. Pashukanis distinguished between law as an objective social phenomenon (legal relationship) and law as a set of norms. “The legal relation,” he emphasized, “is the primary cell of the legal fabric, and only in it does the law make its real movement. Law as a set of norms along with this is nothing more than a lifeless abstraction. The law is not exhausted by the norm or rule. “The norm as such, i.e., the logical content, is either directly deduced from already existing relations, or, if it is issued as a state law, is only a symptom by which one can “judge with a certain degree of probability about the emergence in the near future the future of the respective relationship”. According to Pashukanis, any legal relationship is a relationship between subjects. "The subject is an atom of legal theory, the simplest element, indecomposable further." If the genesis of the legal form, according to Pashukanis, begins in exchange relations, then its most complete realization is represented in the court and the trial. The development of commodity-money relations in society creates the necessary conditions for the approval of the legal form in both private and public relations. But all this, according to Pashukanis, took place and is taking place before and outside of socialism. In this regard, supporters of the concept of new (proletarian, Soviet, etc.) law, criticizing the position of Pashukanis, noted that the abstract characteristics of law applied by him in general refer only to bourgeois law, but not to “proletarian law”, for which others are needed. general concepts. Pashukanis considered such demands on the part of Marxist authors to be a misunderstanding. “Demanding for proletarian law its new generalizing concepts,” he replied to his critics, “this trend is, as it were, revolutionary. However, it actually proclaims the immortality of the form of law, because it seeks to wrest this form from those specific historical conditions that ensured its full flowering, and declare it capable of constant renewal.

The withering away of the categories (precisely categories, and not particular prescriptions) of bourgeois law by no means signifies their replacement by new categories of proletarian law, just as the withering away of the categories of value, capital, profit, etc., in the transition to full-fledged socialism does not mean will mean the emergence of new proletarian categories of value, capital, rent, etc.” But gradually Pashukanis took steps towards recognizing the new post-revolutionary and post-bourgeois "Soviet law" with a "special, specific nature." At the same time, he did not call this “Soviet law” “proletarian law” in order to preserve at least the external, verbal appearance of his conceptual consistency. The absence of genuine law and the state under the dictatorship of the proletariat Pashukanis (like other Marxist authors), in essence, tried to portray as the presence of a new, “inauthentic”, Soviet law and the state, doomed to “wither away”. All this ideological fog with the imaginary "withering away" of absent phenomena constantly hovered over the entire Marxist approach to the fate of law and the state after the proletarian revolution and determined that invariable horizon of Soviet jurisprudence and state science, under the vaults of which everything depended on the changing political situation.? In this coordinate system, a logically consistent theory is simply impossible, and the example of Pashukanis is very indicative in this respect. The psychological concept of class law. Mikhail Andreyevich Reisner (1868-1928) developed ideas about class law, including class proletarian law, from the standpoint of the psychological theory of law. Even before the revolution, he began, and then continued the class interpretation and processing of a number of ideas of such representatives of the psychological school of law as L. Knapp and L. I. Petrazhitsky. Reisner saw his merit in the field of Marxist jurisprudence in the fact that he placed Petrazhitsky’s doctrine of intuitive law “on a Marxist foundation”, as a result of which “it turned out not intuitive law in general, which could here and there give individual forms adapted to known social conditions, but the real class law, which in the form of intuitive law was developed outside of any official framework in the ranks of the oppressed and exploited masses. Reisner interpreted Marxist ideas about the class nature of law in the sense that each social class - not only the ruling class, but also the oppressed classes - in accordance with the position of this class in society and its psyche, creates its own really existing and acting intuitive class law. Already under capitalism, according to Reisner, there is not only bourgeois law, but also proletarian law and peasant law. So not "all right" is tainted by "exploitative purpose". In general, according to Reisner, “law, as an ideological form built with the help of the struggle for equality and justice associated with it, contains two main points - namely, firstly, the volitional side or one-sided “subjective right and, secondly, finding a common legal ground and creating, by means of an agreement, a bilateral “objective law”. Only there is a legal struggle possible, where there is the possibility of finding such ground. Developing this approach to law in the work “Law. Our right. Someone else's right. Common law (1925), Reisner characterized the so-called common law (general legal order) - both under capitalism and after the victory of the proletarian revolution - as a compromise and unification of the subjective class rights available in a given society. “For,” he explains, “the bourgeois state is the same, and our Soviet state in the same way includes proletarian, peasant, and bourgeois law in its general legal order. There is, perhaps, only one "right" we do not have - this is the right of landownership in the sense of private land ownership, although on the other hand we have a grandiose landowner in the person of the Soviets themselves, who own a decent number of estates in the form of Soviet farms. The difference, however, is that under capitalism the dominant position in the general legal order is occupied by the right of the bourgeoisie, while in the Soviet legal order it is proletarian law. It is under the conditions of war communism that the so-called socialist right of the working class, according to Reisner, "makes an attempt at its most striking embodiment." Under NEP, however, Reisner noted with regret, "the admixture of bourgeois law and bourgeois statehood, which were already naturally part of the socialist legal order, had to be strengthened." The whole history of law is, according to Reisner, "the history of its extinction." Under communism, it will die out forever. For all the originality of Reisner's class-psychological concept of law, in its basic and main features and approaches, it remains within the general framework of the Marxist attitude to law. His class reinterpretation of intuitive law actually rejects the basis and essence of psychological legal understanding in general - an individual with his legal psyche, legal claims, emotions, etc. And the example of Reisner's concept of the class character of law clearly shows how class character kills law. Law as a form of social consciousness. This approach to law in the 20s. developed by Isaak Petrovich Razumovsky (1893--?). At the same time, he noted that “the questions of law and its connection with the economic structure of society, which, as you know, served as the starting point for all further theoretical constructions of Marx, these are the main questions of Marxist sociology, this is the best touchstone to test and confirm the basic premises of the Marxist dialectical methodology.”? As an ideological mediation (ideological form) of class material (economic) relations, law, according to Razumovsky, is a form of social consciousness. He gives the following general definition of law as an ideological method and procedure for mediating material relations in a class society: “The order of social relations, ultimately relations between classes, insofar as it is displayed in the public consciousness, is historically inevitably abstracted, differentiated for this consciousness from its material conditions and, being objectified for it, receives further complex ideological development in the systems of "norms". What is striking is the absence in this definition of law of any sign that is specific to law. The withering away of "bourgeois law", according to Razumovsky, means "the death of law as an ideology" and the transition in communist society "to a system of social behavior consciously regulated and conscious of the nature of its connection with the material conditions of production." In general, Razumovsky's interpretation of law as an ideological phenomenon was oriented towards the NEP version of the proletarian use of bourgeois law. At the same time, the inconsistency of his interpretation of NEP law in the spirit of the provisions of Marx and Lenin on bourgeois “equal rights” under socialism is obvious. These different things turned out to be identified in him due to their identical “ideologization” as forms of social consciousness. Fight on the "legal front". Late 20s and first half of 30s. (up to the 1938 meeting on the science of the Soviet state and law) were marked by an intensification of the struggle between various areas of legal understanding in Soviet legal science. Under the influence of party political decisions and attitudes of the late 20s - early 30s. about the New Economic Policy, collectivization, the pace of industrialization, the struggle against various "deviations", etc. representatives of different directions made significant changes and adjustments to their approaches to the problems of law and the state. A direct orientation towards the further politicization of legal science (in the spirit of the then political practice and the “party course” for the struggle against the right and the left, against the Trotskyists and Bukharinites, against “opportunism” and bourgeois ideology) was already contained in the orientation report of L. M. Kaganovich at the Institute of Soviet Construction and Law of the Communist Academy (November 4, 1929). According to Kaganovich, not only bourgeois jurists, but also a part of the communist statesmen found themselves "captive to the old bourgeois legal methodology." As an example of the application of the “bourgeois legal method”, he named the work of A. Malitsky “Soviet Constitution” (1924), where the following provisions attracted his attention: the subordination of all state authorities to the dictates of the law, i.e., law, is called “ legal regime”, and the state itself, conducting the legal regime, is called the “legal state”; "the Soviet republic is a state of law, carrying out its activities under the conditions of the legal regime." These statements of Malitsky, of course, clearly diverged from the realities of the dictatorship of the proletariat, even under the conditions of the temporary and limited admission of a number of norms of bourgeois law under the New Economic Policy. But Kaganovich, of course, was not interested in the correspondence of certain concepts to realities, but in the unequivocal orientation of everyone towards an apology for the dictatorship of the proletariat, which was not limited by any (including, of course, its own, Soviet) laws. At the same time, Kaganovich quite frankly stated the true place and significance of “laws” under the conditions of the proletarian dictatorship: “Of course, all this does not exclude the law. We have laws. Our laws define the functions and range of activities of individual state authorities. But our laws are determined by revolutionary expediency at every given moment. Kaganovich's speech served as a signal for the launching of a broad campaign of Bolshevik "criticism and self-criticism" on the "legal front". Under these conditions, the struggle between the two main positions in Soviet jurisprudence of that time, the positions of Pashukanis and Stuchka, intensified. In search of an answer to the intensified by the end of the 20s. accusations against his theory Pashukanis, in the spirit of the then “self-criticism”, not only admitted a number of shortcomings of his position, but also, due to ...

Supporters of Pashukanis dominated among the congress participants. On the whole, the common position proposed by the said congress was of an eclectic nature and tried to combine ideas that were incompatible with each other. This was especially evident in the fact that the authors of the resolution, while recognizing the proletarian class essence of Soviet law, at the same time denied the concept of “proletarian law” in order to somehow save doctrinal ideas (and at the same time some remnants of Pashukanis’s former views) about bourgeois "equal right" after the proletarian revolution. However, even after the First Congress of Marxist-statesmen and legalists there was no single approach, let alone a “general line” in legal thinking. Disputes between various concepts (and above all Stuchka and Pashukanis) continued. The concept of "socialist law". The victory of socialism required a new understanding of the problems of the state and law, taking into account the postulates of the doctrine and the realities of practice. Under these conditions, Pashukanis in 1936 put forward the concept of "socialist law". from his former position, from the concept of the "bourgeoisness" of all law, etc. as "anti-Marxist confusion", he began to interpret Soviet law as socialist law from the very beginning of its emergence. “The great socialist October Revolution,” he explained, “dealt a blow to capitalist private property and laid the foundation for a new socialist system of law. This is the main and most important thing for understanding Soviet law, its socialist essence as the right of the proletarian state.” Similar ideas about "socialist law" were developed in M. Dotsenko's article. The concept of "socialist law" was in the conditions of the victory of socialism (on the path of forcible collectivization, the elimination of the kulaks and the "capitalist elements" in general in the city and countryside, and ultimately the complete socialization of the means of production in the country) as a natural continuation of ideas about the existence of some -something of non-bourgeois (proletarian, Soviet) law. Official "legal understanding" (Meeting of 1938). In the history of Soviet legal science, a special place is occupied by the "First Conference on the Science of the Soviet State and Law" (July 16-19, 1938). Its organizer was Stalin's henchman on the "legal front" A. Ya. Vyshinsky (1883-1954), then the prosecutor of the USSR. The conference was given an all-Union character, and about 600 scientific workers, teachers, and practitioners from various regions of the country took part in its work. The aims and objectives of the meeting were to approve, in the spirit of the needs of the repressive practice of totalitarianism, a single universally binding “only true” Marxist-Leninist, Stalinist-Bolshevik line (“general line”) in legal science on the basis of a new general definition of law. In the written text of Vyshinsky's report and in the theses of his report approved by the meeting, the wording of the general definition of law is given in the following "final edition in accordance with the decision of the meeting": "Law is a set of rules of conduct expressing the will of the ruling class, established by law, as well as the customs and rules of community life, sanctioned by the state power, the application of which is ensured by the coercive power of the state in order to protect, consolidate and develop social relations and orders that are beneficial and pleasing to the ruling class. Along with such a general definition of law, the following definition of Soviet law was approved at the meeting: “Soviet law is a set of rules of conduct established by law by the power of the working people, expressing their will and the application of which is ensured by all the coercive power of the socialist state, in for the purposes of protecting, consolidating and developing relationships and practices that are beneficial and pleasing to the working people, the complete and final destruction of capitalism and its remnants in the economy, the life and minds of people, and the building of a communist society.” By its type, the “legal understanding” proposed by Vyshinsky and adopted by the conference is legalistic, since it is based on the identification of “law” and “legislation” (“acting”, “positive” law, in general, “law”). This identification was directly and frankly recognized and affirmed by Vyshinsky. “Law,” he emphasized, “is a set or system of rules (laws) whose purpose is to take care of the subordination of society to the “general conditions of production and exchange,” i.e., of subordination to the class interests prevailing in a given society.” In fact, non-legal authoritative-mandatory rules (“norms”) are given here as “law”. The legal-positivist construction is used to create the appearance of the existence of law where it does not exist and cannot exist. The ordered Soviet-legist "legal understanding", approved "at the suggestion" of Vyshinsky by the meeting of the city, became for many years an official obligatory setting for everyone. Both in general theoretical works and in the field of branch legal disciplines, Vyshinsky's definition was repeated almost verbatim (in one or another edition), all the main provisions of the corresponding approaches to law and the state were reproduced. This type of understanding, definition and interpretation of "law", in essence, has been preserved even after the beginning of the 60s. by analogy with the "Soviet socialist nationwide state" they began to talk about "Soviet socialist public law". The non-legal realities of socialism, combined with a strong attitude (including in all Soviet social science, including jurisprudence) to further advance towards a non-legal future (communism), completely deprived society of any truly legal perspective. New approaches to law. Already from the mid-1950s, in the context of a certain softening of the political regime and the ideological situation in the country, some lawyers of the older generation took advantage of the opportunity to dissociate themselves from the definition of law in 1938, began to criticize Vyshinsky's positions and offered their understanding and definition socialist law. The monopoly of the official "legal understanding" was broken. In contrast to the “narrow normative” definition of law, an understanding of law as a unity of a legal norm and a legal relationship (Kechekyan, Piontkovsky) or as a unity of a legal norm, legal relationship and legal consciousness (Mikolenko) was proposed. At the same time, the legal relationship (and the subjective right associated with it - in the interpretations of Kechekyan and Piontkovsky) and, accordingly, the legal relationship and legal consciousness (Mikolenko) appear as the implementation and result of the “legal norm”, its derivative forms and manifestations of law. The original and defining nature of the “legal norm”, i.e. the normativity of law in the sense of the definition of 1938 and the subsequent “official” tradition, therefore, continued to be recognized, but it was proposed to supplement this normativity with moments of its implementation in of the so-called broad understanding of law against the supporters of the so-called narrow normative approach was of an unprincipled nature, since in a de facto non-legal situation both directions were equally based on the a priori premise of the existence of “Soviet socialist law”, which meant non-legal Soviet legislation. "Expansion" here "bottlenecks" did not change the essence of the matter. The identification of law with totalitarian legislation, the uncritical positivism inherent in both approaches, excluded the very possibility of a proper legal assessment of the law, distinguishing and comparing law and law, and opposing law to offending legislation. In the 60s and especially in the 70s and 80s. "Narrow normative" (and in essence - imperious-mandatory) legal understanding gradually (including under the influence of new interpretations of law) lost its former meaning and position. The departure from the official position has noticeably intensified. This was especially clearly manifested at the 1979 “Round Table” meeting held by the journal “Soviet State and Law” on the topic “On the Understanding of Soviet Law”, where, in the course of heated discussions, a large group of scientists criticized official legal understanding and spoke with the justification of other interpretations of law. It was possible to get out of the vicious circle of anti-legal Soviet legalism only on the basis of a consistent legal (anti-legist) understanding of the law. Therefore, in order to clarify and criticize the non-legal nature of the so-called socialist law and legislation, to determine the ways of moving from non-legal socialism to the legal system, to the legal state and legal law, it was the distinction and correlation (coincidence or divergence) of law and law that was of fundamental importance ( i.e., an objective universally significant essence and an officially binding phenomenon in the field of law) and an analysis from these positions of the current situation. In this context, the libertarian legal concept of legal law and understanding of the essence of law as a necessary universal form and equal measure of freedom and justice was put forward. The non-legal realities of socialism, combined with the aim of advancing to non-legal communism, completely deprived Soviet theory and practice of any legal perspective of development, movement towards some version of post-socialist law, legal law and legal statehood. The libertarian theory of legal thinking, on the contrary, expressed precisely the legal perspective of development from the present (non-legal) socialism to the future legal system and thereby contributed to the theoretical understanding and justification of the need to go beyond the socio-historical framework of socialism as a right-denying transitional system, to understanding the logic of the post-socialist path to the right. Interest in the theory of distinguishing between law and law, in the idea of ​​legal freedom, etc., increased markedly (and not only in legal science, but also in the mass press) under the conditions of perestroika, and especially in the 1990s, when the first real steps towards law and legal statehood are possible. At the same time, it became more and more clear that the forthcoming transformations are in many respects essentially a movement from a non-legal system to freedom and law, and that, consequently, such transformations do not fit in with arbitrary power-mandatory ideas about law. and they can be comprehended and implemented only from the standpoint of a new legal understanding, proceeding from the rights and freedoms of individuals and oriented towards the approval and further development of general human achievements in the sphere of public and state-legal

History of Political and Legal Doctrines: Textbook for Universities Team of Authors

1. Political and legal ideology of Bolshevism

1. Political and legal ideology of Bolshevism

From the 70s. the century before last, the ideas of K. Marx began to spread in Russia. Their rooting on Russian soil is connected primarily with the activities of G. V. Plekhanov (1856-1918) and the Emancipation of Labor group (founded in 1883) led by him. The picture of socio-economic relations taking shape at that time quite clearly showed that Russia was irrevocably embarking on the path of capitalist development, with all the ensuing consequences. The adherents of Marxism in Russia concentrated their main efforts mainly on comprehending this fact, which was a turning point for the future destinies of the country.

Their goal was to reveal the state of the post-reform Russian society, the prospects for its evolution from a historical-materialistic standpoint. They wanted to equip the Russian proletariat, which was emerging in those days, with an understanding of what it really is, what its place and role in socio-political life is, what it should strive for, what its social ideal is, what tactics and strategy it should use in the struggle against the ruling classes, against the existing state system.

At first, right up to the turn of the 20th century, in the still small camp of Russian Marxists there were practically no significant differences in the views they professed on the fundamental problems of power, the state, law and law, the political regime, etc. stage they acted as a united front. What united them all was not only a categorical rejection of the socio-economic orders of the then Russia, an uncompromising opposition to a common enemy - the tsarist autocracy. They also had common ideological opponents: such were the Narodniks, "revisionist" Marxists, representatives of bourgeois political and legal science, and so on. Russian Marxists were also united by common tasks, which they in the 80-90s. 19th century tried to decide: the adaptation of the ideas of Marxism to the specific conditions of Russia, the propaganda and dissemination of these ideas.

It united the work of gathering the proletarians and other radical people under the banner of Marxist socialism, the work of developing the revolutionary movement and giving it an organized character.

In 1898, the First Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) officially proclaimed the creation of an all-Russian Marxist party. And just five years later, in 1903, at the Second Congress of the RSDLP, a split occurred in the Russian Social Democracy, which on the whole continued to stand on the platform of Marxism. Two distinct and subsequently divergent currents formed. One is Bolshevik. It was headed by V. I. Lenin. The other is Menshevik. “Bolshevism,” according to V. I. Lenin, “has existed as a current of political thought and as a political party since 1903.”

The most significant and typical exponents of the ideology of Bolshevism were V. I. Lenin, N. I. Bukharin, I. V. Stalin. Features of the ideology of Menshevism are vividly depicted in the works of G. V. Plekhanov, L. Martov and a number of other Menshevik figures. History was pleased to dispose in such a way that both in pre-revolutionary times and in the post-revolutionary period, the theoreticians of Bolshevism in the sphere of political and legal ideas were more active than the Mensheviks. Russian Marxism, as far as power, the state was concerned, spoke to a very noticeable degree with Bolshevik intonations.

At one time, Bolshevism and Leninism were defined as "Marxism of the 20th century." Such a definition is quite fair, at least in relation to the interpretation by V. I. Lenin - the founder of Bolshevism - and his supporters of the fundamental Marxo-Engels provisions on power and the state. The provisions are known: the class nature of the state, the state as the official political and organizational form of the dictatorship of the ruling class, the inferiority of bourgeois democracy, the demolition of the bourgeois state in the course of the proletarian (socialist) revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the withering away of the state, etc.

Bolshevik ideologists (Lenin and others) were inspired by these provisions and remained in their semantic space. Even when they expanded and updated their traditional (for classical Marxism) series. A typical example of this is Lenin's conception of the place and role of the communist (Bolshevik) party in the general system of the dictatorship of the proletariat. We must give credit to the Bolshevik thought. She was uninhibited, quickly reacted to the emerging political situation, changed, evolved. But, in essence, she never abandoned her ideological and theoretical positions, outlined primarily by Lenin.

The political doctrine of V. I. Lenin. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin(Ulyanov, 1870-1924) published many works of various genres on issues of politics, power, and the state. It is not practical to list them all. But it is impossible not to name such ones as “What to do?” (1902), Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), State and Revolution. The Teaching of Marxism on the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution" (1917), "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky" (1918), "The Childhood Disease of "Leftism" in Communism" (1920).

An examination of Lenin's complex of views on the state and power must begin with the question of the class nature of the state. It is precisely this question that is devoted to the very first paragraph of the first chapter of The State and Revolution - admittedly the main work that contains a theoretically systematic exposition of the relevant Leninist ideas.

Pure classism is innate, inalienable and all-determining, according to Lenin a feature of such a social institution as the state is. It is intrinsic to him for several reasons. The first of these is the embodiment in the state of class antagonism, which has split society since the establishment in it of private property and social groups with conflicting economic interests. Lenin calls the thesis according to which "the state is the product and manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions" the most important and fundamental point. The second half of this thesis (“a manifestation of the irreconcilability of class contradictions”) is highly characteristic of Lenin's understanding of the state as another being (in special institutional forms) of an antagonistic class society.

The second reason, under the influence of which the state is by its nature a class institution, is the staffing of the state apparatus (and, above all, the upper echelons of state power) by persons from among the ruling class. At the same time, Lenin notes that by no means the entire state apparatus is filled entirely by people from this class alone. The composition of the administration of the Russian autocracy serves as an example to him that the bureaucracy (especially the bureaucracy engaged in the administration of executive functions) can also be recruited from other social strata.

The third reason that makes the state, according to Lenin, an organization through and through a class organization (or rather, an organization of the ruling class) is the implementation by the state machine of a policy that is pleasing and beneficial mainly to the ruling class, which meets its fundamental economic, political and ideological interests. Lenin very rarely notes that the activities of the state satisfy many of the needs of society as a whole, are also aimed at solving national problems, etc. Such restraint is not due to the absence of such activity itself. It's just that Lenin actually recognizes it as insignificant, third-rate, not typical for the state.

In addition to classes and interclass relations, for Lenin, as it were, there are no other factors that determine the nature of the state. He is sharply disliked by arguments about the dependence of the essential properties of the state on the processes of social division of labor, the complication of the mechanisms of social interaction, on the development of proper administrative structures and procedures, etc. It is clear why all these arguments are alien to Lenin. In them there is no moment of absolutization of the class principle; it is not given universal significance in them.

In one way or another, they blur the image of the state as a political organization of the class of owners of the main means of production, used to ensure and protect their common class interests. And without such an image, the Marxist idea of ​​the state is impossible as representing the interests of the aforementioned class of owners of the political organization of “violence to suppress any class,” that is, as an instrument of the dictatorship of the economically dominant class.

Lenin's contribution to the interpretation of this Marxist idea is indisputable, although extremely specific. He insisted: "The essence of Marx's doctrine of the state is assimilated only by those who understand that the dictatorship of one class is necessary ... for any class society in general ..," The essence of all states, without the slightest exception, how would varied(including democratic) no matter how their forms, ultimately one - the dictatorship of the class. This (if you like) is “iron law" existence of the state, which under no circumstances can be abolished, softened or outmaneuvered.

Lenin sees the concrete content of the phenomenon of "class dictatorship" as follows. First, the dictatorship of a certain class is its power, i.e. carried out to them domination over all other social groups, indisputable subordination to his will and interests of behavior, actions of all members of society. Secondly, such a dictatorship includes in themselves relying on the power of the ruling class directly on violence, applied in the most diverse forms. Moment of Violence Lenin oso Bently singles out as one of the necessary components of the dictatorship. Thirdly, an indispensable sign of the dictatorship of a class is its complete "emancipation", complete unbound by any kind of laws. Here are his words: "Dictatorship is power based directly on violence, not bound by any laws." “The scientific concept of dictatorship means nothing more than power unrestricted by any laws, absolutely not constrained by any rules, based directly on violence.” Thus Lenin, in the name of Marxism, gives the past, present and future states an indulgence to be anti-legal and even illegal social institutions.

The reverse side of the Marxist-Leninist interpretation of the essence of the state as a class dictatorship is the perception and evaluation of democracy, freedom, law, the principles of humanism, in particular those established in the pre-socialist era, as insignificant components of socio-political life. From Lenin's point of view, almost all they are capable of is to be conductors of the dictatorship of the class, to cover it up with outwardly attractive attributes and thereby mislead the working people, the masses, hiding from them the oppressive nature of the state. Various democratic-legal institutions and norms are worthy of exposure and denial. At best, some of them (say, parliamentarism) should be used in the struggle against the dictatorship of the ruling class.

In Lenin's time, they were, first of all, the institutions and norms of democracy that had developed in the developed capitalist countries. “Bourgeois democracy,” he wrote, “being a great historical progress compared to the Middle Ages, always remains – and under capitalism cannot but remain – narrow, curtailed, false, hypocritical, a paradise for the rich, a trap and deceit for the exploited, for the poor” . Lenin considers: in a capitalist society, democracy is a democracy for the rich because it does not ensure the actual equality of the exploiter with the exploited, because in a given society the representative of the oppressed mass is deprived of such material opportunities in practice to enjoy freedom of speech and assembly, the right to participate in the affairs of the state, etc., what wealthy people have.

It is significant that the question of freedom, taken in all its aspects and realized only through the institutions of democracy and law, Lenin remained generally indifferent throughout his revolutionary activity. He was generally anti-liberal. He despised liberalism, rejected it. In all this, the weakness of Russian democratic traditions was probably reflected; the instrumentalist, service-class approach to democracy made itself felt; Probably, the understanding of democracy also influenced the Russoist-Jacobian mode - as the rule, the sovereignty of the people, and not as a political and legal space necessary for the exercise of the rights and freedoms of the individual, each individual.

Analyzing the problem of "the state and the revolution", Lenin wrote: "The transfer of state power from the hands of one class to the hands of another is the first, main, fundamental sign of revolution, both in the strictly scientific and in the practical-political meaning of this concept." With regard to the socialist revolution, the first question that arises is how the proletariat should treat the bourgeois state, the personification of the power of the old ruling classes. There are, abstractly speaking, two possibilities. Lenin sees them. One is that the proletariat takes possession of the ready-made state machine and then sets it in motion to solve its own problems. And the second - the proletariat overthrows, destroys the bourgeois statehood and in its place creates its own, fundamentally new type of state. Following K. Marx, Lenin, without the slightest hesitation, chooses the second possibility: “... all previous revolutions improved the state machine, but it must be smashed, broken. This conclusion is the main thing, the main thing in the teaching of Marxism about the state.

Lenin thinks of the action of destroying bourgeois statehood very concretely. First of all, as the demolition of the bureaucratic and military institutions of state power, the liquidation of the repressive apparatus, as the replacement of former officials in key positions in the government of the state with representatives of the working class loyal to the idea of ​​revolution. But the matter is not limited to this. According to Lenin, the destruction of the old, pre-existing state should also consist in the rejection of the territorial principle of the formation of representative institutions, the principle of the separation of powers, the equality of all citizens without exception (regardless of class affiliation) before the law, and many other principles of a democratic structure. states.

The proletariat does not establish its own state to establish freedom in society. He needs it for the violent suppression of his opponents. Lenin is delighted with Engels' idea of ​​the incompatibility of any, any statehood with freedom: "When it becomes possible to talk about freedom, then the state, as such, ceases to exist." The circle of opponents of the proletariat, primarily subject to violent suppression, removal from freedom,

Lenin's outlines are deliberately vague. Not only manufacturers and merchants, landowners and kulaks, tsarist officials, the bourgeois intelligentsia, but also those who served them in one way or another, are listed as opponents of the proletariat. Moreover, hooligans, swindlers, speculators, red tape, bureaucrats, loafers, all people falling under bourgeois influence (even if they were hereditary proletarians by origin) are also listed as opponents of the proletariat.

With this approach, almost every Russian could turn out to be (and often turned out to be) an enemy of the proletariat, a “harmful insect” (as Lenin defined it in January 1918 in the article “How to Organize Competition?”), From which the working class must cleanse the Russian land. The situation of cleansing Russia from "all sorts of harmful insects" is a regime of arbitrariness. Under him, no freedom (of course, for the proletariat too) is impossible. The regime of arbitrariness is maintained mainly with the help of repressions and terror. Lenin is the most resolute supporter of terrorist methods for the implementation of the proletarian dictatorship. And not only in conditions of direct armed confrontation between irreconcilable socio-political forces. He even insists on the expansion of terror in the years of peace that came after the military victory won by the Bolsheviks, after their conquest of Russia. Lenin's followers share his view that terror is organic to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Of course, Lenin understands that the dictatorship of the proletariat needs its own state, a centralized organization of violence, but only for the sake of pursuing a policy of terror against all persons and groups objectionable to the new government. This power needs its own state to solve one more task: "leading the vast mass of the population, the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie, the semi-proletarians in the matter of "establishing" a socialist economy." To carry out such a task is more from the hands of a statehood that portrays itself as democratic. That is why Lenin tries to convince that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the political sphere, breaking with bourgeois democracy, ensures "the maximum of democracy for the workers and peasants." This maximum is achieved by vigorously excluding the exploiters, all opponents of the proletariat, from participation in political life.

According to Lenin, the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the involvement of the working people in political life, should be the Republic of Soviets. The construction of an example of such a republic was considered one of Lenin's discoveries in political theory. In Lenin's image, the Soviet Republic combines the features of a state and social organization; it combines elements of representative and direct democracy. Councils are institutions that simultaneously legislate and execute laws, and themselves control the implementation of their laws. A republic of this type is built and functions on the basis of democratic centralism, which means (at least it should mean) the election of all government bodies from top to bottom, their accountability and accountability, the turnover of deputies, etc.

Political-legal, constitutional-legal aspects of the structure of the system of Soviets are of relatively little interest to Lenin. The main thing for him is to what extent the Soviets are actually able to be instruments of the dictatorship of the proletariat or, which is the same thing, to be under the unquestioning leadership of the Bolshevik Party. Without this, the Soviets, in the eyes of Lenin, have no value. The slogan "Soviets - without communists!" seems to him counter-revolutionary, mortally dangerous for the dictatorship of the proletariat. Only this Leninist attitude is enough to seriously doubt the Soviets as a power capable and determined to give "a development and expansion of democracy unprecedented in the world precisely for the gigantic majority of the population, for the exploited and working people."

Lenin defines the role of the Communist Party in the general mechanism of proletarian state power as follows: "The dictatorship is carried out by the proletariat organized into Soviets, which is led by the Communist Party of Bolsheviks." In turn, the party itself is led by the Central Committee. Inside it, even narrower boards are formed (the Politburo, the Orgburo). It is they, these "oligarchs", who are in charge of the Central Committee. And here is the main thing: "Not a single important political or organizational issue is resolved by any state institution in our republic without the guiding instructions of the Party Central." To the reproaches that he and his party comrades established the dictatorship of one (Bolshevik) party, Lenin replies: “Yes, the dictatorship of one party. We stand on it and we cannot leave this soil.”

In Lenin's concept of the place and function of the Bolshevik Party in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat (as well as in Lenin's practice of implementing this concept), the party and state institutions outwardly retain their specific features. But at the personnel level, with their personal composition (primarily leading, command), these structures are intertwined, merged. The Bolsheviks, as party functionaries, make administrative decisions, and as leading officials of the state apparatus, they also carry them out. In essence, the Bolsheviks (“the directly ruling vanguard of the proletariat”), having established dominance over the country in an illegitimate way, are concentrating in their hands the prerogatives of the legislative, executive and judicial powers. Even a “one-party state” does not work out, because - by and large - there is no statehood itself as a sovereign organization of public power. There are decorative, state-like formations that easily become scapegoats for all kinds of failures and at the same time support the myth of the infallibility, the all-conquering power of the Bolshevik Party. Usurping the powers of the state, it does not tolerate any control of society over itself, does not bear any real responsibility to it. What are the phrases about the greatness and dignity of "proletarian", "Soviet", "new" democracy, "socialist legality" and so on worth in the light of this!

The provisions on the dictatorship of the working class, proletarian democracy, on the relationship between the communist party and the Soviet state, on the economic functions of such a state, its territorial unity, and foreign policy form the backbone of Lenin's doctrine of socialist statehood. However, too long life Lenin did not read this statehood. As a true Marxist, he stands for the withering away of the state: "...according to Marx, the proletariat only needs a dying state, that is, one arranged in such a way that it immediately begins to wither away and cannot but wither away." Lenin repeatedly repeats this idea: "... the proletarian state will immediately begin to wither away after its victory, for in a society without class contradictions the state is neither necessary nor possible." Of course, Lenin links the final withering away of the state with the fulfillment of a number of high socio-economic and general cultural conditions. But the very idea of ​​the withering away of the state remains unshakable and especially important in Marxism-Leninism.

The attempts that seemed to be made to move along a path that would ultimately lead to the withering away of statehood, however, did not at all lead to the de-etatization of society and the formation of a system of communist, public self-government. This turned into a complete anemia of state institutions proper, the formation in society of such non-state structures (the Communist Party), which created the organization of totalitarian power and themselves became its true centers. Such power is always uncontrolled and unpunished. It is not restrained by generally accepted orders and standards of civilized state life with its democratic legal institutions.

Lenin's views on power and politics, the state and law, in particular on the "technology" for the implementation of political domination, etc., his activities as the head of the Communist Party and the Soviet government had a major, decisive influence on the development of the theory and practice of Bolshevism. In addition, they had a wide international resonance. In the XX century. one way or another, they inspired many ultra-radical political movements of various kinds.

Political views of IV Stalin. Since the mid 20s. for almost three subsequent decades, the role of the main guardian and interpreter of Lenin's ideas, the leading theoretician of Bolshevism, was appropriated by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Dzhugashvili, 1879-1953) - General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Now there may be different opinions about how successfully Stalin as a whole coped with this role. It seems, however, obvious: in the field of political theory and practice proper, he succeeded (with minor, secondary reservations). "Succeeded" in what specific sense? In the fact that Stalin acted here, in the aforementioned area, in accordance with the true pathos of Leninism. The formula that we cultivated for a long time did not suffer from strong exaggeration: "Stalin is Lenin today."

Before considering the content of a number of Stalin's key statements concerning politics and the state, it is necessary to at least briefly get acquainted with some typical features of his style (method) of "theorizing". Without this, it is very difficult to correctly understand the nature of the "Stalinist doctrine of the state."

Perhaps the most striking feature of Stalin's intellect is a simplified perception and depiction of the social world, a wide variety of social phenomena. He was not inclined to see reality as multidimensional, complex, and self-contradictory. Scientific and theoretical analysis as such (with all the attributes inherent in such an analysis) turned out to be a matter alien to Stalin's thought. Its organics are a schematic description of objects and events, artless naming of things, enumeration of their aspects, properties and levels, formulation of definitions, and so on.

Being an outstanding political figure, Stalin is well aware that the support of the masses can be obtained only when your ideological principles are easily and quickly assimilated by an ordinary Bolshevik party member, an ordinary citizen, a "man from the street." Hence the constant adaptation of such attitudes in essence and form to the mentality and degree of education of these people. Stalin knew what ideas (values, orientations) they were actually receptive to, what was in fact accessible to their comprehension. Probably, like no one else, he understood the importance of political propaganda (popularization) and attached great importance to it. Stalin himself was a good popularizer, although he often turned popularization into vulgarization, descending to outright elementaryism.

As a result of Stalin's simplified perception and depiction of the social world, the texts that came out from under his pen bear the stamp of dogmatism. Separate provisions of K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin are used in them as indisputable truths; there are no figures of doubt, hypotheses and their discussion are extremely rare; there are almost no attempts to identify and appreciate the strong, constructive positions of opponents. These texts are thoroughly permeated by the faith of their author in their rightness and infallibility. They are distinguished by a rigid categorical style, which gives them the form of almost official directive documents that are mandatory for adoption and implementation.

Of primary interest are Stalin's works "On the Foundations of Leninism" (1924), "On the Questions of Leninism" (1927), "On the Draft Constitution of the USSR" (1936), "Report Report at the 18th Party Congress on the Work of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks" ( 1939).

Stalin's credo is contained in the thesis according to which "Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular." Stalin, in order to avoid any discrepancies here, then specifies: "... the main question of Leninism, its starting point, its foundation is the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat." It is far from accidental that Stalin sticks out the idea of ​​the dictatorship of the proletariat. With calculation, he essentially builds the whole complex of Lenin's views around it alone, and more broadly, he relies on Marxism as a whole. This idea provided Stalin with the most favorable opportunities for strengthening the cult of power in post-October Russia and at the same time for achieving the personal goal mentioned above.

Stalin identifies several aspects of the dictatorship of the proletariat. First and foremost, he sees in it a power that functions as violence, suppression, coercion. Violence in any situation remains immanent and the most important feature of the proletarian dictatorship.

It is true that Stalin makes statements to the effect that the dictatorship of the proletariat is not always and everywhere the essence of violence. However, they are empty phrases used as a distraction, a cover for the repressive Bolshevik regime. For the faithful disciple of Lenin, "the dictatorship of the proletariat is the rule of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, unlimited by law and based on violence, enjoying the sympathy and support of the working and exploited masses." Domination, based on violence and not limited by law, inevitably degenerates into naked arbitrariness and totalitarian power, the iron heel of which crushes everything and everyone.

Another aspect of the dictatorship of the proletariat, according to Stalin, is organizational. The proletarian revolution, he argues, will not achieve its intended goals if it does not create "a special body in the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat as its main support." What is the dictatorship of the proletariat now as a "special organ" of the proletarian revolution in its tangible and objective embodiment? It represents "a new state, with new organs of power in the center and in the localities, the state of the proletariat, which arose on the ruins of the old state, the state of the bourgeoisie." Designates Stalin and other aspects of the dictatorship of the proletariat. For example, social (the union of the working class with the peasantry), chronological (“a whole historical era” of the transition from capitalism to communism), etc.

Stalin formulates his view of the nature of the state in general as follows: "The state is a machine in the hands of the ruling class for suppressing the resistance of its class opponents." A very simple idea. But it is extremely intelligible, accessible to the understanding of the "simple person". To him, in fact, it is addressed.

To match the general qualification of the nature of the state, mechanically repeated by Stalin after the previous generations of Marxists, he proposed an assessment of the basic functions of any pre-proletarian state. “Two main functions characterize the activities of the state: internal (main) - to keep the exploited majority in check and external (non-main) - to expand the territory of its own, the ruling class at the expense of the territory of other states, or to protect the territory of its state from attacks by other states. In the above statements, the state, firstly, is wrongfully reduced to a state machine, that is, to only one of its organizational structures; secondly, the palette of functions performed by him is clearly impoverished: the integration of society, the conduct of general social affairs, etc. are ignored.

On the "ruins of the old state," Stalin teaches, Soviet power arises, that is, proletarian statehood, the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Soviet power is being constituted in accordance with other principles than the old bourgeois state. The dictatorship of the proletariat, in particular, sends the dictatorship of the proletariat to the garbage dump of history, in particular, the territorial principle of state organization, the principle of separation of powers, "bourgeois parliamentarism", etc. The Soviet government unites the legislative and executive powers in a single state organization, replaces the territorial elective districts with production units (factories, factories) , connects the working masses with the apparatus of state administration, teaches them how to run the country.

The "new type of state" is at the same time a new historical type of democracy - proletarian, Soviet democracy, which radically differs from bourgeois democracy and surpasses the latter. What is expressed, according to Stalin, this superiority? Like Lenin, he sees this in the fact that the Soviet government is drawing the masses into a permanent and decisive participation in the government of the state, which the working people were deprived of under the conditions of the bourgeois-democratic system.

Stalin's sharply negative attitude towards "bourgeois democracy" and positive towards "proletarian democracy" is a normal thing. Normal for the Bolshevik-Leninists. After all, they imagine democracy, which is beneficial to them, first of all, as such a socio-political state in which certain institutions seem to attract, attract workers to govern the state. These institutions activate the masses in a certain way; but with such a single calculation that their "activity" and "consciousness" fully work for the unconditional approval and support of decisions taken by the country's leadership.

Stalin tries to justify his own rejection of democratic norms and procedures of political life in Soviet times by the alleged immaturity of those who want to have a democratic order. Democracy “requires a certain minimum of culture among the members of the cell and the organization as a whole, and the presence of a certain minimum of activity of workers who can be chosen and placed in posts. And if such a minimum of activity is not available in the organization, if the cultural level of the organization itself is low - what to do? Naturally, here we have to retreat from democracy...”. However, Stalin himself retreats from democracy by no means for the reasons just indicated. The root cause is different. Criticizing the oppositionists within the Bolshevik Party, who are conducting "unbridled agitation for democracy," he accuses them of "unleashing the petty-bourgeois element." It is clear that for the orthodox Leninist the "petty-bourgeois element" (and, consequently, democracy) is a mortal enemy.

For Stalin, democracy is not connected with the realization by the individual of the totality of his civil and political, socio-economic and cultural rights and freedoms. He always considered the individual, the separate personality, to be small and worthless; a person was at best a "cog" for him. Back in 1906, in the series of articles Anarchism or Socialism? Stalin argued that the masses are the cornerstone of Marxism and the liberation of the masses is the key condition for the liberation of the individual; hence the slogan of Marxism: "Everything for the masses." Thirty years later, in 1936, Stalin, in a conversation with a group of workers of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks who were responsible for preparing textbooks, emphasized: “Our democracy must always put common interests in the first place. The personal over the public is next to nothing.” The Stalinist version of democracy ideologically sanctioned the humiliation of the individual, turning his rights and freedoms into empty, useless categories.

Stalin's "socialist democracy" is the reverse side of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which from the "front side" is established as an extensive system of various organizations: state and non-state. State organization - Councils from top to bottom, in the center and in the field. Non-state - trade unions, cooperation, the Komsomol Union, the Bolshevik Party. In the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the Bolshevik Party initially (from the moment of the October Revolution) assumed the title role. She, according to Lenin and Stalin, is the "avant-garde", "inspiring", "guiding" and "guiding force". All other parts of this system are obedient "drives, levers" that unquestioningly carry out any directives of the Party.

Like no other Bolshevik, Stalin succeeded in enriching (exacerbating) Lenin's views on the status and functions of the Communist Party in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat. First, he "improved" the model of the CPSU(b). The Bolshevik Party was conceived by Stalin as a kind of mighty "order of swordsmen", whose members are soldered by iron discipline and obey the same will. The party is monolithic: there are no factions in it, there is no pluralism of opinions and discussions, there are no real elections, etc. According to Stalin, it should most of all resemble a military unit, a bureaucratic institution, a community of fellow believers. Moreover, to be like all three at the same time. Secondly, Stalin reinforces the idea of ​​the total dictatorship of the Bolshevik Party over the proletariat itself, over the Soviet state, over society, literally over every citizen. In his image, the Bolshevik Party is “an instrument of the dictatorship of the proletariat”, “the fighting headquarters of the working class”, “the core of power”, etc.

By means of what methods "the party governs the country" (or, to put it more directly and more precisely, it exercises its dictatorship)? "Not a single important political or organizational issue is resolved" by state organizations, public associations "without the Party's guidelines." She (and only she) puts on all more or less significant posts in the state and society of people devoted to her ("nomenklatura"). The party subjugates the state apparatus to itself also by "moving its tentacles into all branches of state administration." Those who disobey her will face the "punishing hand of the party."

Stalin especially defended Lenin's thesis that the Bolshevik Party was destined to have a monopoly on all the fullness of the power it had seized. "The leader in the system of the dictatorship of the proletariat is one party, the Communist Party, which does not and cannot share leadership with other parties." On this issue, Stalin went even further than Lenin. The "Stalinist Constitution" (1936) for the first time at the official level recognizes and consolidates the privileged monopoly position of the "combat headquarters of the working class" in Soviet society. Article 126 of that Constitution stated: the Communist Party is "the leading core of all organizations of working people, both public and state."

With the inclusion of such an entry in the Basic Law of the country, it can be considered that Stalin, in general, completed the creation of the ideology of a totalitarian political system within the framework of Leninism. His judgments about the phases of development and functions of the Soviet state, about the national-state structure of the Soviet Union, about the withering away of the socialist state (through the strengthening of the latter's punitive organs) and some others do not fundamentally change anything in this ideology. It was a natural result of the evolution of Bolshevik political thought.

55 POLITICAL AND LEGAL IDEOLOGY OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM In the early 1920s. in Germany, the National Socialist movement arose, it launched a struggle for the reorganization of Germany on the principles of National Socialism. From 1933 to 1945 German National Socialists were in power,