Book Review

This richly detailed, comprehensive monograph examines the establishment and refinement of a distinctive legal system: one that demanded legal specialists (investigators, prosecutors, and judges) to adhere to generally applicable substantive and procedural norms while operating in a hierarchical bureaucratic order that was subordinate to pervasive political control. The author, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto whose study of Soviet law has spanned more than two decades, concludes that the key decisions of the Soviet leadership in the mid-1930s to create this system of formal legalism were grounded in dissatisfaction with earlier administrative practices that, reflecting the regime's ambivalence about the role of law, featured reliance on non-specialist cadres in legal agencies (many had no more than an elementary school education), simplified adjudicative procedures, and an absence of centralized direction and control. The system introduced in the mid-1930s reflected an instrumental approach to formal law: substantively, it was marked both by expansion of the scope of criminal law (for example, to include enforcement of labor discipline) and increased severity in punishments; procedurally, it featured a pronounced accusatory bias that gave prosecutors a dominant role in the criminal process.	1
As a study in the political dynamics of public administration, the book offers much for students of Soviet political and social history. It should also be of great value for specialists in legal history. Its primary focus is not legal doctrine, although discussions of policy considerations regarding substantive criminal law and procedure appear throughout the narrative. The author has marshaled a rich collection of primary source material from archives and published reports and demonstrates a thorough grasp of the research and interpretations of Soviet, post-Soviet, and foreign scholars. While he provides interpretations that often differ from those of other scholars (for example, his view that other writers have exaggerated the significance of the anti-law or nihilist view in the post-1930s administration of Soviet justice), he does so in a balanced fashion that actually enhances their work, rather than detracting from it. Central to his methodology is examination not only of the pronouncements of the Soviet leadership, particularly Joseph Stalin and USSR Procurator-General Andrei Vyshinskii, but also of the operation of the system at all levels—central, regional, and local—of the institutional structure.	2
The book makes its greatest contribution to study of the Soviet and post-Soviet legal systems in its analysis of the management of legal officialdom. Beginning in the mid-1930s, the response of the Soviet leadership to the problems associated with widespread turnover and inconsistency in law application among legal cadres was twofold: the establishment of effective lines of centralized direction and control by those agencies responsible for the various components of the justice system; and development of a careerist ethos among legal officials by requiring them to obtain specialized legal training and linking their opportunities for career advancement to the use of statistical performance indicators (for judges, for example, the efficiency with which they handled their case loads and the ability of their judgments to withstand appellate scrutiny). The resulting institutional structure proved to have an enduring legacy, shaping much of the environment within which the post-Soviet legal systems continue to operate and in which legal reformers have sought to fashion modifications while relieving the judiciary of extralegal political control.	3
Along with their relevance for the study of post-Soviet systems, the author's findings furnish rich data for comparative studies and suggest many questions for further study. In this regard, they provide a vehicle with which to examine theoretical models of legal structures such as those of "bureaucratic law" and the "hierarchical ideal" constructed by Roberto Unger in Law in Society (1976) and Mirjan Damaska in The Faces of Justice and State Authority (1986). For example, Solomon seeks to explain why, despite the Soviet system's increasing reliance on legal specialists, indicia commonly associated with professional development—expressions of a legal ethos embracing elements of the "rule of law" approach, strivings for professional autonomy from direct political control of both norm creation and application—were not evident during this period. In addition to the obvious fact of the Soviet regime's vast resources for stifling such development, he suggests that the nature of legal training (most specialists in this period received their instruction via correspondence, rather than through university-based education) and the particular mechanisms of bureaucratic control (the emphasis on statistical indicators) were of particular importance. Whatever the reasons, it is noteworthy that, as the author points out, legal officials were demonstrating greater compliance with centralized bureaucratic directives by the early 1950s, when the structures of a careerist ethos were solidly in place, than in previous years. These and the author's many related findings pose a challenge to quick assumptions that the creation of legal systems based on formal legality will eventually give rise to aspects of legal order associated with the "rule of law." In this regard, however, the author might perhaps have examined more closely the broader context of social development in the Soviet Union during these years: the reasons that other scholars have cited for the Soviet leadership's increased reliance on specialists during this period in a broad range of fields, not only in law.	4
Also, while the author's own comparative analysis (found particularly in his insightful conclusion) is largely devoted to the administration of law in authoritarian political environments, another approach might examine more closely the Soviet developments within the continental civil law tradition. Were the Stalinist reforms unique to the Soviet setting, or did they to some extent reflect borrowing from other legal systems? Also, to what extent has the legacy of the Stalinist reforms endured in the legal systems of other former Communist countries, and what elements have reformers in those systems targeted for change?	5
Finally, it should be noted that the book, despite its density, is presented in an extremely readable style. In all, it is essential for those who seek an understanding of the history of Soviet law and the structure and operation of post-Soviet legal systems, and it is highly recommended for all readers with an interest in foreign and comparative law.	6
Peter Krug University of Oklahoma

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