Socialist transition and law: theoretical essays

Abstract

Jair Pinheiro, an associate professor at UNESP-Marília, has been one of the leading figures of the Althusserian school in Brazil for nearly two decades, thanks to his contributions to academic journals such as Lutas Sociais and Novos Rumos, as well as articles based on his research—both theoretical and empirical—such as those on new class-based social movements, the Bolivarian experience in Venezuela, as well as numerous texts in which he has addressed both the work of Althusser and that of Poulantzas. Two books he edited serve as key references on these issues: Marx: Crisis and Transition. Contributions to the Debate Today (2014) and Reading Althusser (2016). His most recent book, Socialist Transition and Law: Theoretical Essays, is yet another contribution to the issue of socialist transition and law (from a Marxist perspective). It is, in fact, a complex book best suited for those already familiar with these issues. Pinheiro draws not only on Althusser, Balibar, and Poulantzas to address this complex topic, but also incorporates, throughout the book, the contributions of Pachukanis and Lenin, drawing lines of demarcation by comparing Pachukanis’s theory of law with that of Hans Kelsen (the primary theoretical reference for positive law and the main reference for Brazilian legal dogmatics), Piotr Stutchka (another major figure in Soviet legal theory), and the legal dogmatists Pavel Yudin and Andrei Vyshinsky, in addition to the classics Marx and Engels.