ABSTRACT
For Marxist-Leninists, law in any given society represents the effective will of the dominant class or classes in that society. The Marxist-Leninist state therefore is charged with the negative responsibility of suppressing counterrevolutionaries and the positive obligation of inculcating ideological conformity. The most fundamental laws of the state serve to create an environment in which the Communist party can sustain, foster, and inculcate some collection of privileged ideological beliefs. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has passed through a most singular period. The PRC has emerged from a time of the “cult of personality” in which a single charismatic leader dominated the political and economic life of an entire nation. Those who suffered from the ravages of Stalinism and Maoism were quick to attempt restoring some semblance of order and regularity to a political system that had devolved into personalist rule. In both cases there was recourse to “socialist legality.”
