Evgeny Pashukanis
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Evgeny Bronislavovich Pashukanis (February 23, 1891[1] – 1937) was a Soviet
legal scholar, best known for his work The General Theory of Law and Marxism.
Contents[hide]
* 1 Early life and October Revolution
* 2 The General Theory of Law and Marxism
* 3 Latter years
* 4 Notes
* 5 External links
[edit] Early life and October Revolution
Pashukanis was born in Staritsa, in the Tver Oblast in
the Russian Empire. Influenced by his family, particularly his uncle, he
joined the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSLDP) in Saint Petersburg
at the age of 17. In 1909, he started studying jurisprudence in Saint
Petersburg. As a result of his socialist activism, the Czarist police
threatened Pashukanis with banishment, so he left Russia for Germany in 1910.
He continued his studies in Munich.
During World War I, he returned to his native Russia. In 1914, he helped draft
the RSLDP resolution opposing the war. Following the 1917 October Revolution
and the establishment of the Soviet Union, Pashukanis joined the Russian
Communist Party, the Bolshevik wing of the RSLDP, after its founding in 1918.
In August 1918, he became a judge in Moscow. Meanwhile, he launched his career
as a legal scholar.
He also held a post in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was an adviser to
the Soviet embassy in Berlin, helping to draft the Rapallo Treaty of 1922. In
1924 he was
transferred to full-time academic duties as a member of the Communist
Academy.[2]
He was a cousin of publisher Vikentiy Pashukanis (1879-1920).
[edit] The General Theory of Law and Marxism
In 1924, Pashukanis published his seminal work, The General
Theory of Law and Marxism. This is best knows for Pushkanis' formulation of the
"Commodity Exchange Theory of Law." This theory was built on two pillars of
Marxist thought:
(1) in the organization of society the economic factor is paramount; legal and
moral principles and institutions therefore constitute a kind of superstructure
reflecting
the economic organization of society; and (2) in the finally achieved state of
communism, law and the state will wither away. If communism is achieved,
morality as it is typically understood will cease to perform any function.
[edit] Latter years
From 1925 to 1927, Pyotr Stuchka, another Soviet legal scholar,
and Pashukanis compiled an Encyclopedia of State and Law and started a journal
named Revolution of Law. In 1927, he was elected a full member of the Communist
Academy, eventually becoming its vice-president. He and Stuchka started a
section on the General Theory of State and Law at the Academy. However, in
1930, Nikolai Bukharin was attacked by Stalin, because he insisted that the
state must wither away to bring
forth communism, as Marx had advocated, and stripped of all his political
posts. Pashukanis soon came under pressure from the government as well. As a
result, Pashukanis started to revise his theory of state. He stopped working
with his friend Stuchka. It is unclear
whether Pashukanis's transformation was simply the result of fear for his
safety, or whether he actually changed his mind. He was rewarded by being made
director of the Institute of Soviet Construction and Law in 1931. In 1936, he
was nominated Deputy Commissar of Justice of the USSR and was proposed for
membership in the Soviet Academy of Sciences.[3]
However, Pashukanis, like Nikolai Krylenko and others, was
denounced as part of a "band of enemies" by Andrey Vyshinsky, the Prosecutor
General of the USSR and mastermind of Stalin's Great Purge. The philosopher
Pyotr Yudin was also active in attacking Pashukanis. In 1937, Pashukanis was
arrested and Vyshinsky replaced him at the Institute of Soviet Construction and
Law.
Alfred Krishianovich Stalgevich, a longtime critic of Pashukanis, took over
his courses at the Moscow Juridical Institute.[4]
Pashukanis, after publishing many 'self-criticisms', was eventually
denounced as a "trotskyite saboteur" in 1937, and executed.[5]
[edit] Notes
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