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1 Rev. Socialist L. 73 (1975)
The Contemporary Crisis of Legality in the Soviet Union Substantive Criminal Law

handle is hein.journals/rsl1 and id is 75 raw text is: The Contemporary Crisis of Legality in the Soviet Union Substantive Criminal Law Ivo Lapenna Introductory remark Lenin's Views © Sijthoff, Leyden I Rev. Soc. Law, 1975, pp. 73-95 Legality in the field of substantive criminal law or in any other branch of law reflects the general concept of legal- ity in a given society. In Soviet society the concept of re- volutionary or socialist legality has been decisive since the October Revolution up to date. After the revival of the question at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 several outstanding Soviet authors have tried to deter- mine more precisely this concept, its meaning in the USSR and its application in everyday practice. In the discussion on legality which is still going on, Lenin's views are often quoted in support of one or another approaches to legality. Therefore, it seems useful to say at the very beginning a few words about Lenin's attitude towards legality in connection with his concept of the dictatorship of the proletariate. In the theory of Marx and Engels every state -even those possessing the most democratic political institu- tions- is a state under the dictatorship of the ruling class, because this class owns the means of production and in this position utilises the state and law to serve its class interests whatever the political form of govern- ment. Therefore, dictatorship of the proletariat is not the reverse of democracy, but the reverse of dic- tatorship of the bourgeoisie. The Marxist concept of law implies the enforcement of the law and certainly does not exclude legality, but of course, legality in the sense of the implementation and strict observance of the law in conformity with the prin- ciples of the legal system in question. As distinct from this Marxist concept, for Lenin dic- tatorship in fact meant direct violence. In his book State and Revolution (1917) Lenin explained that the doctrine of class struggle leads inevitably to the recog- nition of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e. of a power shared with none and relying directly upon the armed forces of the masses Since the proletariat as a class in the Marxist sense of the word represented at that time an insignificant minority of the population in Rus- sia, Lenin had to put forward the well known thesis that ARICE

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