A century after Pashukanis’ General Theory

Abstract

More than a century after the publication of the book General Theory of Law and Marxism by Soviet jurist and activist Evgeny Pashukanis, we realize the enormous relevance of his social and political thought, indispensable for understanding law today. Therefore, we intend to elaborate some commentaries on his fundamental ideas, such as the general theory of law, the method of critique of political economy, historical materialism, law and morality, and the legal form. Some points of view on the aforementioned conceptual horizon are presented with the purpose of approximating his framework of ideas, undoubtedly indispensable and timely in the moment of epistemological and political crisis in which contemporary law finds itself inserted. It is a concise synthesis of his categorical field, which in one way or another has been and will be addressed in the daily corpus of legal practices and, fundamentally, in the practices and struggles of working-class movements in the current situation. The work is, therefore, an approach from the perspective of historical materialism and the method of critique of political economy to some themes and conceptual axes from the perspective of a study of law from a minimally critical perspective.