3 Selections from the Encyclopaedia

of State and Law

Introductory Note

The three‑volume Encyclopaedia of State and Law was published between 1925 and 1927 by the Communist Academy. Under the general editorship of Stuchka, the Encyclopaedia represented the first systematic attempt by the Marxist jurists to extend their critical perspective to all of the major concepts of law and politics. The list of authors of this impressive work included nearly all of the principal Marxist jurists then in the U.S.S.R. Stuchka, still the dominant figure in the Marxist school of juridic criticism, contributed most of the sections on the theory of law. Pashukanis himself served the Encyclopaedia as editor and main author for international law, and in addition he was occasionally assigned topics of a more abstract nature.

The editors of this volume have selected as representative of this phase of Pashukanis' work his lengthy essay on "International Law",* and his shorter contributions on "Leon Duguit"† and the concept "Object of Law".‡

* Mezhdunarodnoe pravo", Entsiklopediia gosudarstva i prava (1925‑1926), lzd.

† Kommunisticheskoi akademii, Moscow, vol. 2, pp. 858‑874. "Leon Diugi", Entsiklopediia gosudarstva i prava (1925‑1926), Moscow, vol. 1, pp. 1064‑1068.

‡ "Ob'ekt prava", Entsiklopediia gosudarstva i prava (1925‑1927), Moscow, vol. 3, pp. 102‑103.