Drawing on philosophical inquiry, jurisprudential analysis and intellectual history, this book traces the impact of communist ideology and practice on legal thought: from its critical roots in the midst of the nineteenth century to its reactionary stand in the later years of the twentieth.

Introduction

Chapter 1 Law Before Communism: Modernity and the Authoritarian Drive

Chapter 2 A Criticism of the Heaven: Class Struggle and the Law in Theory and Practice

Chapter 3 Revolution Under Siege: Law, Violence and Marxist Legal Theory

Chapter 4 Revolution Betrayed: The Great Retreat and the Enduring Legal Canon

Chapter 5 The Discourse of the Master: War, Law and the Communist Takeover

Chapter 6 Law as State-Truth: the Law-Preserving Violence and the Limits of Communism

Chapter 7 Exit Communism: Legal Amnesia and the Return of the Repressed

Conclusion

Cosmin Cercel is Assistant Professor in Law at the University of Nottingham