| Abstract | The chapter will argue that the Bolshevik revolution introduced an epistemic break in theories of liberalism such that socialist ideas of democracy, state and constitutions cannot be understood using liberal theoretical lenses; in other words, liberal concepts and methods cannot be projected on to Marxist theories of socialism and constitutions. The chapter begins by locating the question of socialist transitions and constitutional change within the emerging field of Marxism and Law, a subfield of Legal Studies in the academia (section 2). Using the Bolshevik and Chinese revolutions, the two most important socialist revolutions, as bookends, this chapter outlines the differences between bourgeois and socialist ideas of democracy (section 3), state, the single most important institution, (section 4) and constitutions (section 5). The chapter argues that the epistemic breaks introduced by the Bolshevik revolution provide benchmarks to assess what is socialist and liberal in democracies, states and constitutions. These benchmarks provide the tools for evaluating socialist transitions in the present conjuncture and forms the basis for a future research agenda on socialism and law. The chapter concludes with reflections on the meaning of socialist transition in the long term and approaches to the question in the epoch of imperialism. |
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