About Marxism, the October revolution of 1917 and jurisprudence (some reflections in connection with the article by V.L. Tolstykh)

The 100th anniversary of the October revolution of 1917 in Russia was widely celebrated by the scientific community. The article «Marxism, the October revolution and legal science» (Russian law journal. 2018. №1, pp. 9-20) written by V. L. Tolstykh, a famous Russian lawyer, head of the Department of International law of Novosibirsk State University was devoted to the consideration of the interlinked issues of the theory of Marxism, the practice of revolutionary struggle of the beginning of the 20th century and scientific (including legal) understanding of the implementation of the Marxist project. Some reflections in connection with this challenging work and the questions raised in it are set out in the offered material. The main purpose of this article is a discussion on the content of the Marxist doctrine and its practical implementation in the October revolution of 1917; features of a socialist social order and nature of the Soviet State; the influence of Marxism on the development of national Soviet and post-Soviet legal science. By means of a historical and logical method the main ideas of Marxism: the appropriation of surplus value, alienation of the person, proletarian revolution, construction of communism, the role of violence in revolutionary struggle, etc. are analyzed. The questions of ideology of the Russian revolutionaries of the beginning of the 20th century, revision of Marxism, realization and crash of the Marxist project in the USSR are investigated. The problem discussion resulted in the uncovering or confirmation of some facts. The Marxist project which crashed in Russia in the 20th century was not annihilated in the 21st century. Modern Marxists are required to give such a constant and creative interpretation of it that is primarily associated with the perception of the changed structure of a modern society (the lack of a cohesive, revolutionary class - the industrial proletariat). Points of the program of revolutionary transformation of society developed by K. Marx in the 19th century should be revised in the 20th century and his reflections concerning dying off of the state and law should be radically changed taking into account modern realities. Modern social science (and its integral part - jurisprudence) even for the cognitive purposes, is obliged to support researches of the Marxist direction. You need to know the Marxist theory for the formation of a comprehensive, most objective social science (anticommunists have to know kinds of totalitarianism, the communists - to correct their views, proceeding from modern realities). It is necessary to continue a theoretical discussion about Marxism and a revolutionary reorganization of the society. Today, there are more questions, than answers on the problems discussed in article. The USSR was the implementation of the Marxist project in its Russian interpretation of the 20th century, there are others - the modern People's Republic of China, Vietnam, DPRK, Cuba, etc., undoubtedly, there will be also others for which the brought-up questions are urgent not only theoretically but practically as well.

Keywords

Authors

References