Preface

Evgeny Pashukanis was the prodigious author of some two hundred pieces on questions of legal theory, legal history and public administration We employed three specific criteria in the determination of the eleven translations from the original Russian which are incorporated in this volume, nearly all of which appear for the first time in English. These criteria were: (a) the relationship between the Marxism inherent in Pashukanis' work (which changed substantially between 1924 and 1937) and the theoretical status of Marx's own fragmented discourse on state and law; (b) the relationship between Pashukanis' writings and the concrete circumstances of that Soviet history of which he was part; (c) the status of the internal structure of Pashukanis' thought, i.e. the adequacy and consistency of the various sets of propositions which in combination became known as the commodity exchange theory of law. No editorial policies can be entirely innocent, but we feel that these criteria are likely to be the ones best suited to elucidate the relevance of Pashukanis' writings to our own era.

We have decided to delete certain sections of the original versions of Chapters 5‑8 of this volume. These sections were omitted largely because we regarded them either as highly esoteric or as peculiar to a specific moment in Soviet history. The location of textual deletions is indicated by the customary convention. On the same grounds we have deleted a number of footnotes from the original Russian sources of most but not all of the chapters. We have supplemented many of Pashukanis' footnotes where deficient, and updated many of his textual sources and references. A key to abbreviations used in the notes may be found on p. 125. In addition, we have tried to exercise inter‑linguistic consistency by translating Pashukanis' own Russian

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versions of sources and texts that were available to him only in their original English, French and German editions.

Finally, the editors wish to express their appreciation to the institutions and individuals who, in different ways, facilitated the completion of this volume. In particular, these are the Union College Research Fund, the University of Connecticut Research Foundation and Maureen Cain.

Piers Beirne

Robert Sharlet

September 197