The process of development of Soviet legal thought has left a zigzag trace. Immediately after the October Revolution, the Soviet regime abrogated all the pre-revolution laws, but it fully recognized the merits of statute law and energetically enacted new legislations. Lenin, laying stress upon the principle of
revolyutsionnaya zakonnosti (revolutionary legality), demanded rigid observance of the law of all the civil servants and citizens. At the same time, however, he understood that it was unavoidable to take exceptional measures under the exceptional circumstances of rebellions and armed interventions of foreign countries.
In the period of New Economic Policy, the Russian Communist Party decided to strengthen the principle of
revolyutsionnaya zakonnosti in order to furnish citizens the protection of their rights. To realize the
zakonnosti, civil code, criminal code and other several codes were established. Lenin mentioned the prompt enactment of legislation as one of the characteristics of the Soviet law.
The legal thought in the Stalin days was not that of “monolith”. On the one hand, Stalin and Vyshinsky insisted upon “putting aside the law” under the pretense of “class struggle”. On the other hand, Soltz, Kalinin and Stuchka gave weight to the role of law in socialism, and insisted upon the necessity for protecting citizens' rights.
Therefore, the change in the Soviet legal thought after Stalin's death is never a “mutation”. It is a result and a development of the anti-Stalin thought in the Stalin age.
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