ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part shows P. I. Stuchka’s ability to adapt his ideas to the practical needs of the new era of the building of socialism in one country. In the course of his argument, Stuchka makes a number of points that eventually become established principles of Soviet legal theory. Pashukanis’s theory, as characterized by Stuchka, is that law during the “transition period” to communism is “bourgeois law.” From the principle that the Civil Code embodies Soviet law, Stuchka makes an important deduction, which also became part of Soviet orthodoxy. In “Culture and Law,” Stuchka makes a number of points that have become accepted Soviet doctrine or practice. In “Revolutionary Legal Perspectives” Stuchka moves away from the idea that the state is withering away and talks instead of perfecting it.
