ABSTRACT
The remarkable events that occurred in 1989-90 in what was then the Communist world threw into prominence an unprecedented widespread internal demand for breaking the Communist party's monopoly of power. In the territories of the former German Democratic Republic, in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, in the Baltic States, there is good understanding and strong appreciation of the role of the rule of law, of historic legal traditions, of honest legislation and of an independent legal profession. In virtually all Communist countries, the passage of time thus produced a shift from emphasis on the punitive and defensive functions of law to its organizational and administrative functions. Nevertheless, the proliferation of civil, criminal, administrative, labor, family, transport and other codes in every Communist country except (for a long time) China only served to hide the fundamental reality -- that all law was subordinate to political and administrative power and political and administrative policies and requirements.
