A Sociological Critique of ‘Socialist Jurisprudence’: on Podgórecki’s Contribution to the Study of Totalitarian Law and Society
A Sociological Critique of ‘Socialist Jurisprudence’: on Podgórecki’s Contribution to the Study of Totalitarian Law and Society

Summary/Abstract: This article reflects on Adam Podgórecki's contribution to the study of totalitarian law and society and initially compares some of his concepts to the dissident critique of totalitarianism and its bureaucratic machinery. Starting from a sociological analysis of the basic norm and the difference between official and unofficial totalitarian law, the author subsequently focuses on the relationship between Marxist ideology and scientific truth and the difference between Marxist and socialist jurisprudence. According to the author, socialist jurisprudence was an intrinsic part of systems of totalitarian law and politics, while its theorists had the double role of ideologues legitimising the system's basic norm and experts engineering official norms of the same system.

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