Abstract: The article is devoted to the problem of theoretical and legal understanding of legal relations. The subject of the study is bifurcated – the general attitudes of the post-Soviet mainstream discourse in this area are compared with the marginalized ideas of the Marxist theory of legal relations, supplemented by the ideas of the modern Marxist theory of society, which are significant for its concretization in modern conditions.

The article's main goal is to problematize the methodological foundations of the understanding of legal relations that prevails in the post–Soviet theory of law, and to draw attention to the potential of Marxist methodology. The methodological basis of the work is the authentic and early Soviet Marxist theory of law and the modern concept of a global class society.

Representatives of the post–Soviet mainstream theory failed to make a breakthrough in understanding legal relations and comprehend one of the most pressing problems of post-Soviet law and order - the gap between positive legal models of legal relations and the practice of their implementation. Theoretical understanding of legal relations has a chance to break out of the vicious positivist-neo-Kantian circle, within which legal relations are understood as a derivative of the norm of positive law, and thinking gets bogged down in the dichotomy of due and being, if the tools of Marxist theory, cleared of ideological layers, are restored.

An important role in the dialectical understanding of legal relations is played by the distinction between material and volitional relations, the understanding of legal relations as a type of volitional relations that simultaneously act as a form of other social relations, while the legal relations that are actually developing are understood as the most concrete form of law.

In modern conditions, the scientific understanding of legal relations requires distinguishing between different types of material and volitional relations – orthocapitalist and paracapitalist – within the framework of a global class society. Their difference explains the "gap" that has arisen in the post-Soviet space between positive legal models of legal relations, constructed largely on the model of orthocapitalist relations, and real legal relations, which by their nature are paracapitalist.

Abstract: The subject of this research is the phenomenon of archaization of legal form, which is reflected multiple modern legal systems, including the legal system of modern Russia. The author believes that the state of current Russian legal order testifies to the downfall of one of the declared goals of Russia’s policy of the last three decades – establishment of the so-called rule of law; while the general academic theory of law has not yet formulated a precise understanding of the corresponding processes, as fearing to go beyond the scope of certain ideological boundaries, it first and foremost deals with the formally due than with actually essential. Archaization in the legal systems of modern countries is the revival of the forms of law, legal practice and legal consciousness that are inherent to the pre-capitalist societies. The thesis is substantiated that the process of archaization of law and legal form as a whole, should be considered as one of the objectively determined development patterns and functionality of the societies of dependent peripheral capitalism. The article reviews the objective prerequisites for this phenomenon: its conditionality by socioeconomic relations (preservation of the elements of other production methods in terms of peripheral capitalism), inequality in distribution of the key social resources, and specific social-class structure of the corresponding societies. The general definition of archaization of legal form acquires more precise contours when the author turns to the realities of modern Russian legal order.

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the analysis of ontological aspect of such characteristic features of the Russian justice of the early XX century, which received the name of “Shcheglovitovshina”. Referring to the assessments given by the contemporaries to the activity of I. G. Shcheglovitov, the author disputes the subjective-idealistic understanding of this phenomenon as form of a private “excess”, first and foremost substantiated by the personal qualities and will of I. G. Shcheglovitov and other personas who defined the vector of judicial policy. At the same time, the research does not include the detailed reconstruction of specific historical manifestations of “Shcheglovitovshina”. Methodological tools contains the dialectic-materialistic method of cognition; concept of the dependent peripheral capitalism, particularly the conceptual apparatus of Y. I. Semyonov’s theory; ideas of V. I. Lenin, G. V. Plekhanov, L. D. Trotsky; as well as the traditional general scientific methods of research. The author believes that the systematic manifestations of the various types of legal arbitrariness in the work of Russian justice of the indicated period should be considered as a consistent epiphenomenon of the dependent peripheral-capitalist economy. The important determinants of “Shcheglovitovshina” were the inherent to the societies of the dependent peripheral capitalism at a minimum dual – internal and external – system of exploitation of non-dominant classes, noneconomic coercion to labor in the economic sphere, as well as overall crisis in the system of the Russian peripheral capitalism. The ideas substantiated in the article allow clarifying the understanding of development patterns of the Russian justice of the late XIX – early XX centuries and prerevolutionary Russian law order in general.

Abstract: The object of this research is the mainstream discourse on Rechtsstaat – first and foremost, as it established in the post-Soviet academic legal awareness. The subject of this research is the concept of 'Rechtsstaat (rule of law) as an objectively substantiated ideologemes of modern society, characterized by some consistent patterns. The author analyzes the fundamentals of this concepts along with its functionality, criticizing the widespread within the modern academic jurisprudence ideology-driven perception of Rechtsstaat (rule of law) as a universal political-legal ideal of modernity. Methodological foundation is the authentic and early Soviet Marxist theory of law, concepts of the global class society and dependent peripheral capitalism, ideas of the representatives of the contemporary Western critical legal doctrine. The concept of Rechtsstaat is viewed as an objective intellectual form of capitalist society, which misinterprets the essence of the bourgeois state and legal order, as well as an element of the legal form of social relations. In the context of the global class society, such misinterpretation attains a specific ideological functionality. The author believes that the establishes within the post-Soviet academic legal doctrine mainstream field of perception of Rechtsstaat, considering its ideological nature, sidesteps the key problem of the modern Russian legal order: objective impossibility of formation in modern Russia of the Western type regimes of “rule of law”, substantiated by the specific character of post-Soviet capitalism.

Abstract: The object of this research is the mainstream discourse on Rechtsstaat – first and foremost, as it established in the post-Soviet academic legal awareness. The subject of this research is the concept of 'Rechtsstaat (rule of law) as an objectively substantiated ideologemes of modern society, characterized by some consistent patterns. The author analyzes the fundamentals of this concepts along with its functionality, criticizing the widespread within the modern academic jurisprudence ideology-driven perception of Rechtsstaat (rule of law) as a universal political-legal ideal of modernity. Methodological foundation is the authentic and early Soviet Marxist theory of law, concepts of the global class society and dependent peripheral capitalism, ideas of the representatives of the contemporary Western critical legal doctrine. The concept of Rechtsstaat is viewed as an objective intellectual form of capitalist society, which misinterprets the essence of the bourgeois state and legal order, as well as an element of the legal form of social relations. In the context of the global class society, such misinterpretation attains a specific ideological functionality. The author believes that the establishes within the post-Soviet academic legal doctrine mainstream field of perception of Rechtsstaat, considering its ideological nature, sidesteps the key problem of the modern Russian legal order: objective impossibility of formation in modern Russia of the Western type regimes of “rule of law”, substantiated by the specific character of post-Soviet capitalism.

Abstract:  This article is dedicated to the analysis of adherence of the Russian justice of the late XIX – early XX centuries to the requirements of lawfulness as an attribute of the legal state. By reference to number of basic principles/requirements of lawfulness, advanced by the contemporary mainstream theory of lawfulness (inner consistency of positive law and unity of lawfulness, supremacy of law, equality before law and court, fairness of courts, security of the rights of private entities from arbitrariness of administration, inadmissibility of contraposition of lawfulness and purposefulness), the article demonstrates contradictions of the post-reform positive legal regulation of justice and law enforcement practice in this field, which are incompatible with the dominant in the theory of law concepts of legal state. Attention is focused on such problems of prerevolutionary justice, as the contradiction between the general principles of the Court Statute of 1864 and private legal norms; gradual eroding of the progressive norms of Court Statutes; administrative corrosion of judicial power; legal particularism; lack of the institutions of administrative justice; double law enforcement standards. From the perspective of Marxist analysis, the author demonstrates the legitimate character of the aforementioned phenomena. Attention is turned to the ideological nature of the gaps in the interpretation of prerevolutionary justice that are common to the contemporary mainstream historical-legal consciousness. The contained in the work generalizations and conclusions doubt the methodological and theoretical value of comprehension of the prerevolutionary justice as a phenomenon of the establishing legal statehood, and actualize the relevance of the dialectic-materialistic, social-class analysis of the post-reform justice and prerevolutionary Russian legal order overall.

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the analysis of the key social determinants that defined the content and results of the local justice reform in Russia in the early XX century (Law of June 15, 1912 “On the Reform of Local Courts”). The author disputes the idealistic interpretation of social grounds of the reform, the supporters of which are willing to see as a primary cause of such event the desire of government to adhere the path of “right-wing development”, ensure the legal need of peasantry, and equalize them in rights with other social classes. The arguments towards using the materialistic approach in studying the reform are being provided. It is proven that reforming the local justice of the early XX century was substantiated primarily by the peculiarities of the Stolypin agrarian reform aimed at development of the “Prussian way” of capitalism with regards to agrarian relations, as well as overall specificity of the Russian pre-revolutionary capitalism, which significantly differed from the capitalism of Western type. Namely these social prerequisites justified the limited restoration of justice courts necessary for ensuring the interests of the growing rural bourgeoisie, retention of volost courts, non-democracy of the reform, neglect in the process of developing the draft law on reforming the local court of peasant’s deputies, as well as delay of implementation of the reform after 1912, its inconsistency and incompleteness. The author highlights correlation between the content of local justice reform and logics of class confrontation throughout the period of formulation and realization of the Law of June 15, 1912. The substantiated in the article ideas allow concretizing the understanding of prerequisites, content, and results of the local justice reform in Russia in the early XX century.