Legal Philosophies of Russian Liberalism

Abstract

In pre-revolutionary Russia, law was widely criticized - in the name of Christ, or in the name of Marx. Professor Walicki opens his study with an analysis of this tradition of hostility to law. But his main aim is to present those Russian thinkers who boldly challenged the mainstream tradition by developing liberal legal philosophies which vindicated the value of the rule of law: Boris Chicherin, the theorist of a Hegelianized version of classical Vladimir Soloviev, whose religious philosophy laid the foundations for a new liberalism; Leon Petrazycki, with his original theory of legal consciousness; his rival, Pavel Novgorodtsev; Bogdan Kistiakovsky, who outlined the possibility of transforming neo-liberalism into 'rule-of-law socialism'; and, finally, Sergius Hessen, who attempted to synthesize different trends in the Russian liberal tradition.