The Role of the Law and Socialist Legal Awareness in Practice of Law of Soviet Authorities and Administration in 1917–1928

Abstract

On the basis of published and unpublished documents, the authors explain changes in the social significance and the role of the Soviet law and socialist legal awareness in the Soviet state in the context of transition from revolutionary to socialist legality during the first decade of Soviet power. The negative impact of a low level of legal technique of the first Soviet laws on law enforcement resulted in the need to adopt additional departmental acts to implement them and the widespread use of socialist legal awareness in legal practice. The most multifaceted law enforcement role of the socialist legal consciousness was manifested in the activities of the people’s courts. The law enforcement role analysis made it possible to establish the mutual influence of Soviet laws and socialist legal consciousness. The Soviet law was an authoritative guide to the socialist legal consciousness, which, in turn, became the key to understanding the laws and their application by analogy in conditions of frequent changes in government policy.Using the example of the Soviet legal practice of 1917–1928, the authors conclude that the legal and technical inconsistency of laws leads to the emergence of new regulators and the erasure of the legal limits of discretionary powers of authorities. The authors substantiate that the Soviet government used the socialist legal consciousness to strengthen the mechanism of the Soviet state, to create in its structure a flexible tool for correcting rapidly outdating unsettled legislation.