BERMAN, HAROLD J. Justice in Russia: An Interpretation of Soviet Law. Pp. xii, 322. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950. $4.75
| Published date | 01 March 1951 |
| Date | 01 March 1951 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0002716251274001101 |
| Author | Eugene M. Kulischer |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
264
Application
of
Communist
doctrine
has
been
conditioned
to
a
considerable
degree
by
the
experience
and
the
history
of
the
land
where
it
has
been
tried.
The
author
has
chosen,
however,
to
hold
mainly
to
the
objective
realistic
record
of
the
revolu-
tionary
stage
and
time,
and
this
gives
com-
p4ctness
and
coherence
to
the
account.
What
is
disclosed-
is
the
emergence
of
a
governing
group
ruthlessly
seeking
state
supremacy
and
becoming
an
end
in
itself
while
repeating
often
its
first
declared
aims.
Among
the
most
stimulating
and
reveal-
ing
passages
in
the
book
are
the
considera-
tion
of
concepts
concerning
the
functions
of
war,
the
importance
of
guerilla
fighting,
and
the
means
of
transforming
national
conflicts
into
class
conflicts,
and
the
dis-
cussion
of
the
manner
in
which
debates
in
the
local
and
regional
councils
are
used
to
divert
discontent
and
criticism
from
the
central
authorities
and
direct
them
against
the
community
bureaucrats.
Yet
in
this
story
of
a
protest
movement
which
grasped
the
chance
to
conduct
an
experiment
with
its
doctrines,
the
cheerless
conclusion
is
that
few
of
its
goals
have
been
achieved-
apart
from
handing
the
means
of
produc-
tion
over
to
the
social
state
as a
whole.
As
Dr.
Moore
emphasizes,
for
many
Marx-
ists
this
was
not
an
objective
to
be
reached
for
its
own
sake
but
rather
for
security
against
servitudes
supposed
to
be
required
by
private
ownership
and
management.
While
unemployment
in
recurring
cycles
has
been
abolished,
he
finds
that
most
other
purposes
remain
unrealized.
Whether
or
not,
as
he
suggests,
an
industrial
society
presupposes
organized
inequality,
his
work
is
an
unveiling
of
the
unavoidable
trend
towards
suppression
of
liberty
and
sub-
ordination
of
individuals
in
an
economic
order
of
society
operated
by
a
party
state.
MALCOLM
W.
DAVIS
New
York
City
BERMAN,
HAROLD
J.
Justice
in
Russia:
An
Interpretation
of
Soviet
Law.
Pp.
xii,
322.
Cambridge,
Mass.:
Harvard
Uni-
versity
Press,
1950.
$4.75.
The
dangerous
niisconception
that
the
rule
of
force
imposed.
on
Russia
by
her
Communist
masters
gets
along
without
any
legal
system
was
disproved
a
long
time
ago.
Numerous
studies
on
Soviet
law have
ap-
peared
outside
of
Russia, of
which
probably
the
best
is
Vladimir
Gsovski’s
two-volume
Civil
Law.
The
new
book
by
Mr.
Berman,
Assistant
Professor
of
Law
at
the
Harvard
Law
School,
appearing
as
one
of
the
studies
of
Harvard’s
Russian
Research
Center,
is
in
contents
and
purpose
different
from
other
writings
in
the
field.
It
is
not
a
dogmatic
presentation
of
the
Soviet
law.
It
is
an
attempt
to
penetrate
into
the
forces
and
tendencies
which
created
the
Soviet
legal
system.
According
to
the
au-
thor,
this
system
is
(1)
a
product
of
Marxian
socialism;
(2)
a
product
of
Rus-
sian
tradition
opposed
to
the
Western;
and
(3)
an
expression
of
parental
(educational)
functions.
From
these three
angles
is
the
Soviet
law
interpreted
in
the
lucidly
written
and
stimulating
book.
Unfortunately,
the
author
has
failed
in
this
ambitious
attempt.
Thus,
according
to
the
author,
the
socialist
response
to
the
problems
which
have
confronted
the
Soviet
regime
is
basically
planning.
However,
planning
by
itself
is
not
socialism.
And
what
he
calls
the
&dquo;parental&dquo;
character
of
the
Soviet
law
is
not
a
&dquo;law
of
a
new
type&dquo;
but
an
euphemism
for
the old
con-
cept
of
the
seventeenth
and
eighteenth
century
police
state.
However,
most
unsatisfactory
is
the
dis-
cussion
of
the
specifically
Russian
heritage
of
the
Soviet
law.
On
the
basis
of
a
glance
over
the
Russian
history
from
St.
Vladimir
to
Lenin-showing
inadequate
familiarity
with
the
literature
of
the
sub-
ject-Mr.
Berman
discovers
the
Eastern,
Russian-Muscovite
roots
of
such
features
of
the
Soviet
political
life
as
&dquo;the
adulation
of
Stalin,&dquo;
the
position
of
the
Communist
Party
&dquo;similar
to
that
which
the
Church
occupied ...
in
the
Muscovy
period,&dquo;
the
right
of
administrative
exile,
and
so
forth.
But
how
about
Germany,
where,
in
spite
of
her
Western
tradition,
we
recently
met
phenomena
of
the
same
character?
How
about
the
greeting
&dquo;Heil
Hitler&dquo;
which
in
the
Nazi
days
replaced
the
former
&dquo;gross
Gott&dquo;?
And
the
position
of
the
National
Socialist
party?
And
the
&dquo;administrative&dquo;
deportation
of
millions
of
Jews
and
non-
Jews
for
their
extermination?
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