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Marxism, as taught and practiced in the USSR, claims that human society consists of
and the base determines the nature of the superstructure.
Accordingly, the superstructure reflects the class structure of the society. Every law corresponds to the views and protects the interests of the ruling class.
The bourgeois society is run by an oppressive retrograde class of exploiters who make arbitrary legislation without regard for objective laws.
The socialist society is managed by the Communist Party representing workers, the most progressive class, and is armed with the progressive Marxist Theory, which provides an objective scientific basis for legislation.
Here is how a Soviet/Marxist sociologist would explain some existing laws and customs:
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution of the US constitution reflects the interests of the exploiters, who want to own weapons to protect themselves from the people they oppress, while the many US gun control laws reflect the interests of the exploiters, who want guns out of hands of the people they oppress.
The Soviet culture "Тащи с завода каждый гвоздь - ты здесь хозяин, а не гость" (grab every nail from the plant [you work at] - you are the owner, not a guest here) reflects the base fact of workers' ownership of the means of production, while the anti-theft laws (such as the infamous Law of Three Spikelets) reflect the workers as the owners of the means of production protecting their property from Lumpens.
This is only slightly tongue-in-cheek.
If this sounds like religious drivel, well, it is.
See also my answer to Why did Stalin deem Quantum Mechanics 'counter-revolutionary'?:
Remember that a quote from Marx/Engels/Lenin was enough to win any argument in the Soviet Union.
"the USSR accepted certain aspects of international law, and at various times even used general international law to defend its own specific interests, the conceptual framework for such usage being the duality of systems and the class basis of law."
This is just plain opportunism: whenever the international law favored USSR, it said
See, even the corrupt bourgeois law recognizes that we are right!
and when the law disagreed with USSR, it said
we are not bound by the corrupt bourgeois law
The main two points to understand when studying what the communists say or do:
IOW, whatever they say boils down to:
This, of course, creates a problem when the opponent claims to be "The Communist" too (the primary examples are Bolsheviks vs. Mensheviks and USSR vs. PRC). Not to worry - just call the opponent a revisionist and win the argument.
E.g., the Marxist-Leninist idea of a "just war" is that
The above was, in fact, the official USSR position throughout its existence, I shit you not.
PS. When I was in college, our informal term for Marxism was "Mraksism", from "Mrak" - darkness.
PPS. One my favorite jokes: a guy comes out of the oral exam on Scientific communism with a huge smile on his face.
Upvote:5
Marxists claimed that all aspects of the social life were determined by the class struggle. This included law. In other words, they claimed that all laws and all legal procedures were established to the benefit of one class that dominated the society. In particular, all legal system in the capitalist countries was made to protect and benefit the dominating class, which was "bourgeoisie" in their terminology, which is usually translated as "middle class", but this translation is not adequate. And of course the legal system in a socialist country (like Soviet Union) had the goal to protect the interests of "proletariat".
They denied the possibility of existence of a class-neutral legal system.
EDIT. All references that I can find are in Russian. Here is a relatively recent one: http://politazbuka.info/biblioteka/sociologiya/903-kovalyov-burzhuaznaya-zakonnost.html
Let me translate the title and a part of the resume:
Bourgeois justice: theoretical illusions and judicial-constabulary reality. The authors uncovers the class essence of bourgeois justice, its crisis in the activity of judicial and police institutions, shows how the law is used to infringe the rights and freedoms of people in the capitalist countries, uncovers the bourgeois doctrines justifying the judicial and police repression.
(It is so difficult to translate this newspeak into a normal language:-)
Upvote:8
I remember a British TV episode where someone sarcastically remarked on the majestic equality of English law, where the millionaire and homeless man are equally forbidden to sleep under bridges.
That is similar to the Marxist view expressed in "class basis of law" that the laws in Capitalistic society are more for the benefit of the upper classes than the workers.