A marxist critics of Law: a look over Evgeni Pachukanis' position

Abstract

This article recollects the contribution of Evgeni Pachukanis for the construction of a General Theory of Law. He was an important Russian jurist, whose work was influential on leftist intellectuals due to its seriousness and to the theoretical depth with which he treated this subject from a Marxist perspective. After being forced to publicly renounce to this positions, he was assassinated by order of Stalin, and both he and his work were forgotten, but he has now gained new visibility due to the publication of several studies about him and other Russian authors. This article considers some of the main points of his thinking as well as contextualizes the universe in which he built up his work: the influences that the Russian jurists received from other intellectuals, and the revolutionary landscape in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century.