Communism and civil law in the Soviet Union

This research paper considers the connections between Communist ideology and civil law in the former Soviet Union, particularly with respect to how Marxist-Leninist concepts informed their approach to law—especially their civil code. After the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic created a legal system underpinned by Marxist-Leninist theory, adamantly rejecting any "bourgeois" legal ideology connected to capitalist states. It studies how civil law was constructed, not as a body of law accommodating individual and property rights, but as a set of laws evoked to accomplish the interests of a socialist state without propriety—including affirming collective interests versus the interests of a single entity. The paper discusses the 1922 Civil Code and the 1964 revision of the Civil Code, as important legal texts that characterize the Soviet iteration of property, contracts, family law, and individual civil rights of citizens. While examining civil law, the paper also considers the USSR family law and court systems to support the implementation of civil law procedures. The author focuses specifically on the obligations of the court system and the interplay between state-defined outcomes from the civil code with procedural and judicial institutions of the Communist Party. The analysis of “socialist legality” illustrates that legal norms for enforcement of civil law and the operation of civil society may be delayed or denied at times, exposing opportunities for political goals to dominate the legal norm of civil responsibility and law. This study includes a comparative examination of Soviet civil law and Western legal systems to uncover fundamental ideological differences, especially when examining property rights, contract law, and individual liberties. The Soviet legal system had the unique characteristic of prioritizing the state's interests over the legal rights of the citizen. In contrast, Western legal systems have civil law that intended for an individual to be free to act within the law. Finally, this study examines the heritage of Soviet civil law at the post-Soviet moment of transition, where there were challenges of transforming a centrally planned socialist legal system that served the person in an equality-oriented fashion to a legal system that could support a market economy, democratic governance. This study's examination of the evolution, foundation, and evolution of Soviet civil law provides a nuanced understanding of law as a means of promoting and constraining political and ideological aims in totalitarianism.