Legal education at Moscow State University in the early years of the existence of the Soviet State (1918–1925)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the most difficult period in the history of the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University, which occurred during the first seven years of the existence of the Soviet state. It describes and explains the fundamental reforms that university law education in Soviet Russia underwent during this time. The most important of these were the abolition of the Faculty of Law and the transfer of legal education to the framework of legal and political education (from March 4, 1921 — law) department of the Faculty of Social Sciences, and then (on April 28, 1925) the creation of the Faculty of Soviet Law of the 1st Moscow State University. Clarifying the nature of these reforms allows us to conclude that they were only partially dictated by the ideological doctrines of the Bolsheviks and the desire of the Soviet government to subordinate legal education to the goals and objectives of its policy. To a much greater extent, their implementation was influenced by objective circumstances, including the underdevelopment of Soviet law and the embryonic state of the Soviet version of jurisprudence. The article consists of four parts: 1. Introduction. 2. Teaching staff of the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University on January 1, 1918. 3. The reform of higher education institutions in the second half of 1918. The abolition of the Faculty of Law. 4. Law and Political (Legal) Department of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the 1st Moscow State University.

References

1. Bogolepov, D.P. (1928–1929). In the struggle for higher education. Red Student society, 3–4. pp. 31–33 (in Russ). 
2. Pokrovsky M. N. (1918). On the closure of law faculties. National Education. Weekly of the People’s Commissariat for Education, 23–25, pp. 2–3 (in Russ).