ABSTRACT
The question of the ideological nature of law played an important part in a polemic between Piotr I. Stuchka and Mikhail Andreyevich Reisner. Professor Reisner tried to establish that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels themselves considered law as one of the 'ideological forms', and that many other Marxist theoreticians held the same view, supporting his argument with an impressive number of quotes. Train timetables regulate rail traffic in quite a different sense than the law concerning the liability of the railways regulates its relations with consigners of freight. Ludwik Gumplowicz first drew a sharp dividing line between private law and state norms, but in so doing he tried to admit of only the former sphere as the undisputed domain of jurisprudence. The doctrine of private law is no more than an endless chain of deliberations for and against hypothetical claims and potential suits. A basic prerequisite for legal regulation is the conflict of private interests.
