he bourgeoisie and of putting an end to it. He who is afraid of this kind of violence is not a revolutionist.”31
Marx believed that a regular pattern of evolution controlled the human condition, which would then also lead to a more perfect society of classless individuals. Since the destiny of humankind was considered to lie in the emergency of lawless communism, law was interpreted as not encompassing any universal values or principles, but rather representing a transitional device that merely illustrates “the course of political struggles and the evolution of social formations”.32 In Marx’s opinion, the legal phenomenon is essentially superstructural and, therefore, invariably “dependent for their form and content upon determining forces emanating from the economic basis of society.”33 The legal system of each human society is regarded as a mere superstructure which is always linked with the superstructure of the state. In Marxist theory, explain David and Brieley,
“Law is only a superstructure; in reality it only translates the interests of those who hold the reins of command in any given society; it is an instrument in the service of those who exercise their ‘dictatorship’ in this society because they have the instruments of production within their control. Law is a means of expressing the exploited class; it is, of necessity, unjust—or, in other words, it is only just from the subject point of view of the ruling class. To speak of a ‘just’ law is to appeal to an ideology—that is to say, a false representation of reality; justice is no more than an historical idea conditioned by circumstances of class.”34
Since the idea of law was interpreted by Marx as invariably an instrument of class domination, he argued that the coming of a classless society implied that all laws would have to disappear. Hence in his seminal work, The Communist Theory of Law (1955), legal philosopher Hans Kelsen contends that the “anti-normative approach to social phenomena is an essential element of the Marxian theory in general and of the Marxian theory of law in particular.”35 Because Marx believed that law arises from class conflicts, he concluded that the need for law would cease to exist with the advent of classless communism. Such a promise of lawlessness that leads to “perfect justice” was correctly interpreted by Kelsen as being “a utopian prophecy”.36
Since lawlessness is elevated by Marxism to represent the final stage of communism—which according to Marx necessarily predates “a period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat”—it is not unreasonable to explain the undercurrent of extreme violence manifested in Marxist regimes as being little more than the projection of such political ideas. In other words, the mass killings which have constantly occurred in communist countries may actually represent a mere by-product of the foundations of lawlessness laid by Marx himself. Since the Marxist state assumes authoritarian forms and frees itself from any constitutional checks and balances, “this leaves out of account … very powerful impulses to state action generated from within the state by people in charge of decision-making power.”37 As a result, says Freeman,
“ … those holding powerful positions in the state may be interested in power, status, privilege … and money. They will not express themselves in terms of personal interest, but rather in terms of ‘national interest’ and those who seek state power usually find it to convince themselves and others that their achievement of power is synonymous with the ‘national interest’.”37
Marxism and human rights
The main objective of classical Marxist jurisprudence is not to promote human rights or to support the separation of governmental powers, nor even equality before the law, but to criticise these very ideals of the rule of law and to reveal its putative structures of socio-economic domination. Thus in his Principles of Communism, Engels described such values as individual rights and equality before the law as fraudulent masks worn by the bourg