THE DEVELOPMENT OF IDEAS ABOUT THE LEGAL SYSTEM IN SOVIET JURISPRUDENCE (first and second discussions on the legal system)

The article critically rethinks the ideas about the system of Soviet law and its genesis. Two main stages of the development of the idea of a new socialist law are analyzed: 1) 30–40s; 2) the second half of the 50s. The author comes to the conclusion that the Soviet legal system is fundamentally different from the prerevolutionary one, the previous values, ideals, traditions were rejected, it was created «from scratch», it was a different type of system, not based on the principles of historical continuity and evolution. The results of the first «wave» of discussion are noted. Firstly, lawyers achieved as a whole of a consensus on the need to «build» a system of Soviet law; the theories of «falling asleep» and «dying out» of law were rejected as inappropriate to the challenges of the time. Secondly, the understanding of the legal system as a division of legal norms by branches has been established. Thirdly, the subject of legal regulation is recognized as the main, and for many lawyers, the only criterion for the division of law. Fourth, the Roman division of law into private and public has been officially rejected. During the second «wave» of discussion, the key ideas formed during the first discussion were supported and further developed. Most of the participants opposed the fundamental breakdown of the existing legal system, proceeding from the need to improve it. From a methodological point of view the main defect of the formed view of the legal system was that the legal system was identified with the sectoral differentiation of legal norms. Instead of a flexible, multidimensional approach reflecting the functional, genetic, structural and other connections existing in law, Soviet jurists took as a basis a one-sided, pathological and anatomical approach aimed at dividing the «living» legal matter into its individual parts and operating them as valuable elements in themselves.