 the concentration camps of Trotsky and Lenin, the Stalinist ones represented merely a gigantic form of implementation … . And, of course, the Nazis found in the former as well as the latter ready-made models, which they merely had to develop. The German counterparts promptly seized upon these models.”53
In a normative sense, all the most prominent Marxist jurists of the former Soviet Union considered the mere existence of law “a theoretically inconvenient fact”.54 In their analysis of legal practices of the 1920s, law was generally defined by them as “a disciplining principle that helps strengthen the Soviet state and develop the socialist economy.”55 This sort of definition appears to perfectly justify political repression against any person or group that in the judgement of the state authorities could harm the interests of the state or inhibit the development of the socialist economic order.
According to these Soviet jurists, once the period of transition had been completed, the socialist state and all its positive laws should just wither away, given the absence of further class conflict to activate the engine of dialectical conflict.56 Now the fact is that no society can actually exist without law. When a system of government turns out to be anti-legal, it ensures that instead of the rule of law there will be only the rule of terror and oppression. Hence all the terror and oppression in Marxist regimes are the integral part of the foundations of lawlessness laid by Marx himself. As the first Commissar of Justice Isaac Steinberg in the Soviet Union so candidly put it in 1920, even though the revolution was over, the terror would have to continue, because, in his opinion, this was an intrinsic feature of every Marxist regime.57
Marx believed that laws are the product of class oppression, and that laws would have to disappear with the advent of communism. Marxist ideas are closely associated with despotic communist regimes, since these regimes have claimed Marxism as their official ideology. Unfortunately, the Marxist dream of a lawless society has led only to gross inequality and class-oriented genocidal policies. In fact, Marxist regimes have been far more efficient in the art of killing millions of individuals than in the art of producing any concrete or perceived form of social justice.
But it appears that Marxism is still very much alive, and that it has deeply influenced a direct line of contemporary legal thinkers, who have adopted some of its ideas or picked up some aspects of this radical theory. Indeed, Marxist theory overlaps with much of the current work within critical theories of law, such as radical feminism and race legal theory.58 This may be regarded as a dangerous development, since history empirically demonstrates—rather conclusively—that whenever Marxist legal theory is applied, at least two of its most dreadful characteristics invariably appear, namely, judicial partiality and political arbitrariness.
- Cited in Johnson, P., The Intellectuals, Harper Perennial, New York, p. 55, 1988. Return to text.
- Koyzis, D.T., Political Visions & Illusions, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Ill, p. 174, 2003. Return to text.
- Koyzis, ref. 2, p. 172. Return to text.
- Morris, H.M. and Clark, M.E., The Bible has the Answer, Master Books, Green Forest, AR, p. 340–341, 2005 Return to text.
- Boff, L., Salvation and Liberation, Dove, Melbourne, p. 106, 1984. Return to text.
- Boff, ref. 5, p. 116. Return to text.
- See: Boff, L., O Socialismo Como Desafio Teológico, Vozes, Petrópolis, Brazil, p. 682, 1987. Return to text.
- Page, J.A., The Brazilians,: Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, p. 349, 1995. Return to text.
- Liberation Theology, The Angelus VIII(6), June 1985, Reprinted from The Economist 13, October 1984; <www.sspx.ca/Angelus/1985_June/Liberation_Theology.htm>. Return to text.
- Erickson, M.J., Christian Theology, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI, p. 592, 1983. Return to text.
- Ratzinger, J., (Pope Benedict XVI), Instruction on Certain Aspects of Theology of Liberation, Congregation for the Doctrine of th