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Cleansing Soviet International Law of Anti-Marxist Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2017

John N. Hazard
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Extract

No more acrid struggle raged in Soviet legal circles during the year 1937 than that over the search for a suitable theory of international law. For eight years lawyers had turned to Eugene B. Pashukanis as the leading Soviet theoretician in this field, but today his position is gone, his books are banned, and he is called an enemy of the people.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , April 1938 , pp. 244 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1938

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References

1 Mezhdunarodnoe Pravo Perekhodnogo Vremeni (Moskva, 1924) [International Law of the Transition Period]; and Sovremennoe Mezhdunarodnoe Publichnoe Pravo (Moskva, 1926) [Contemporary International Public Law].

2 See letter of May 5, 1935>, Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo (1935), No. 4, p. 171. Also see Korovin, E. i Ratner, L., Programma po Mezhdunarodnomu Publichnomu Pravu [Program for International Public Law] (Moskva, 1936), p. 12 Google Scholar.

3 See Yakovlev, M. i Petrov, G., Protiv burzhuaznykh teorii mezhdunarodnogo prava [Against Bourgeois Theories of International Law], Pravda (1937), No. 116 (7082), April 27, 1937, p. 3 Google Scholar. Also see Rapoport, M., Protiv vrazhdebnykh teorii mezhdunarodnogo prava [Against Hostile Theories of International Law], Sovetskoe Gosudarstvo (1937), No. 1–2, p. 92 Google Scholar. This issue was not distributed until September, 1937.

4 See Eugene, A. Korovine, book review, 49 Harvard Law Review (1936), p. 1392.Google Scholar

5 For example‒“As the single source of international law in the first meaning of this term we recognize class (at a given stage in the historical process) consciousness of the ruling groups as the source of all existing law, including international law.” See E. A. Korovine, Sovremennoe Mezhdunarodnoe Publichnoe Pravo, pp. 8–9, cit. supra, note 1. Also‒“The new quality which international law has acquired as a tool and formulation of the policies of the proletarian state is to be found in the fact that for the first time in history a state has appearedin the international arena where power belongs to the proletariat, a state which reflects the interests of the toilers and sees in the international solidarity of the toilers one of its chief supports.” See Pashukanis, E. B., Ocherki po mezhdunarodnomu promt [Outlines for International Law] (Moskva, 1935), p. 18 Google Scholar.

6 See II Entsiklopediya Gosudarstva i Praea (Moskva, 1929–1930), p. 857.

7 Op. cit., supra, note 5.

8 See op. cit, p. 862, supra, note 6.

9 See op. cit., p. 9, supra, note 5.

10 “There is no more erroneous nor harmful idea than the separation of foreign and internal policy.” See leading article published in Pravda (1917), No. 81, June 27 (14), 1917. Also published in Leninskii Sbornik (Moskva, 1935), Vol. 21, p. 66. While the article was unsigned, the editors of the Sbomik have reached the conclusion that beyond a shadow of a doubt Lenin was the writer. See idem., pp. 60–61.

11 Taracouzio draws this general conclusion, although Soviet jurists would not now concurwith his formulations. See op. eit., p. 12, supra, note 5.

12 See op. cit., p. 862, supra, note 6.

13 See op. cit., p. 17, supra, note 5.

14 See Taracouzio, op. cit., p. 3, supra, note 5. The author does not, however, analyze the facts supporting the Marxian contention that before the proletarian revolution all states were slaveholding, feudal, or bourgeois dictatorships. Marxian authors will be required to make this analysis before they will now be accepted for Soviet students.

15 See Sovremennoe Mezhdunarodnoe Publichnoe Pravo, p. 8, cit. supra, note

16 See op. cit., p. 16, supra, note 6.

17 See idem, p. 17.

18 “Substance and form are in dialectical unity: one grows into the other, one manifests itself in the other, the development of one depends upon the development of the other. Hegel says that form is substance converted into form, and substance is form converted into substance. Therefore, form is not passive in the process of development: as an essential element of substance, form actively reacts upon the course of development of substance and upon its modification.” See Dialekticheskii i Istorieheskii Materializm (Chast 1), Kollekiiv Institute FUisofii Komakademii pod rukovodstvom M. Mitina [Dialectic and Historical Materialism (Part 1), by the Collective of the Institute of Philosophy of the Communist Academy, working under the direction of M. Mitin.] (Moskva, 1933), p. 179.

19 “The customs, beliefs, or needs of a primitive time establish a rule or a formula. In the course of centuries the custom, belief, or necessity disappears, but the rule remains. The reason which gave rise to the rule has been forgotten, and ingenious minds set themselves to inquire how it is to be accounted for. Some ground of policy is thought of, which seems to explain it and reconcile it with the present state of things; and then the rule adapts itself to the new reasons which have been found for it, and enters on a new career. The old form receives a new content, and in time even the form modifies itself to fit the meaning which it has received.” See Holmes, The Common Law (1881), p. 5.

20 See op. tit., p. 15, supra, note 5.

21 For criticism of this aspect, see P. Yudin, Protiv Putaniisy Poshlosti i Revizionizma [Against Confusion, Platitudes and Revisionism], Pravda (1937), No. 20 (6986), Jan. 20, p. 4. Also see P. Yudin, Sotsializm i Pravo [Socialism and Law], Bolshevik (1937), No. 17, Sept. 1, p. 31.

22 See op. cit., p. 864, supra, note 6.

23 See Materialy Genuezskoi Konferentsii [Material of the Genoa Conference] (Narkomindel,1922).

24 See op. tit., p. 865, supra, note 6.

25 See op. cit., p. 20, supra, note 5.