Law and Reform

Abstract

The choice of Mikhail Gorbachev as Secretary-General of the CPSU in March 1985 brought to the apex of the Soviet leadership for only the second time an individual trained in the law. V. I. Lenin was the first, having obtained his law degree externally from St Petersburg University after his early studies at Kazan were interrupted by expulsion for revolutionary activities. Whether Gorbachev shared Lenin’s conviction that the law was excellent training for one interested in pursuing a career of political activism is not a matter of public record, but none the less the former read law at Moscow State University and received the qualification yurist upon graduation. The personal attributes widely ascribed to legal training Gorbachev seems to possess in abundance: he has impressed Western observers with his astute grasp of issues, his restrained assertiveness in argument, his logical and rational approach to problems and his willingness as appropriate to listen to and absorb from the other side. And he emerges on the scene when, to an unprecedented extent, law in the Soviet Union is looked upon as central to all political and socioeconomic concerns and the ‘lawyers’ or ‘jurists’ appear in some situations to represent an ‘interest group’ capable of articulating and perhaps even promoting policies on the basis of juridical factors.