D1

MARXISM
1. Marxism might be regarded as a variant of the historical approach in so far as it
has sought to unfold a pattern of revolution
2. It also concerns the part which law has played and is playing in society and, as
such, partakes of the sociological approach.
3. Another point of interest in the original Marxist interpretation is that it
challenged the indispensability of law and foreshadowed its eventual
disappearance.
4. Marx believed that social phenomena were likewise governed by some universal
principle, namely, the economic principle.
5. The primitive tribal society contained anti-thesis within itself as long as there
was equal distribution of commodities.
6. It was a communist order before it was perverted through selfishness and greed.
7. When distribution became unequal the society was destroyed and split into
classes that were patterned by the division of capital and labour.
8. The value of the commodities then came to be governed by the cost of the labour
required to produce them.
9. The place of the tribal society was taken by the state which became the
instrument of the stronger class.
10. The modern capitalist state necessarily involves the domination of the laboring
majority by a minority, who control the economic resources of the country.
11. The tension between capital and labour will eventually break into conflict, a
revolt of the majority against the minority and the majority will gain control of
the economic resources and will seek to eliminate the minority.
12. The state that is thus established is the proletarian dictatorship.
13. The dictatorship of the proletariat is said to represent “the highest form of
democracy possible in a class society”, and is also “substantially the dictatorship
of the Party, as the force which effectively guides the proletariat.”
14. The democracy is here used in a sense different from that in West.
15. The proletarian dictatorship is indeed a dictatorship but in so far as it has been
formed by the masses and acts in their interests it is a democracy.
16. The distribution of commodities at the stage of development will follow the
maxim, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work”.
 D1

17. Marx supposed that the defects and inequalities in human society were due to
factors that lay outside the nature of man; they lie in production and economic
conditions.
18. According to Marxism four doctrines can be deduced

 Doctrine of the economic determination of law –

 According to Marx law is a superstructure on
an economic system.
 Economic facts are independent of and
antecedent to law.
 In so far as law is regarded as reflecting
economic conditions, such a notion is not an
ideology for it accords with reality.

 Doctrine of the class character of law –

 Law is an instrument used by the economic
rulers to keep the masses in subjection.
 Even after the establishment of the proletarian
dictatorship law will continue to be used as the
instrument by which the working majority can
crush and eliminate the capitalist minority.
 Law is thus an instrument of domination.

 Doctrine of the identity of law and state –

 The state came into existence as soon as there
was an unequal distribution of commodities.
 Those who had property sought to protect it
against those who had not.
 Law and the state in capitalist societies
together form an apparatus of compulsion
wielded by the capitalist minority to oppress
and exploit the working majority.
 Even in the proletarian dictatorship these will
remain as instruments of compulsion.
 There will still be the need to force people to
work, to punish wrongdoing and subversive
 D1

activities, and to maintain some inequality of

distribution, which is still unavoidable.
 Therefore the state reflects an essentially
unequal condition of affairs.
 The depiction of it as a just and fair institution
is thus a distorted ideology.

 Doctrine of the withering away of law and state –

 When the communist or classless society
arrives, there will no longer be any domination
or inequality.
 Therefore, the instruments of domination, i.e.,
law and the state, will “wither away” and be
replaced by “an administration of things”. If it
is asked how criminality and wrongdoing will
be dealt with, Lenin replied that, in the first
place, no special machinery will be needed.