The leaders of the government that emerged from the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 professed principles differing sharply from those of the tsarist monarchy. More broadly, they condemned the “rule of law” of bourgeois countries as providing a false equality. Their rationale was that the rights that in theory applied to all could be used effectively only by those with wealth. “Paper laws are of no use to the working class unless the possibility of their realization exists,” wrote Nikolai Bukharin, a leading Bolshevik. “The workers wish to publish a newspaper, and they have the legal right to do so. But to exercise this right they need money, paper, offices, a printing press, etc. All these things are in the hands of the capitalists.”

Bukharin said that under the bourgeois “rule of law” concept, “the employer offers work; the worker is free to accept or refuse.” This reflects freedom of contract, founded on a theory of the equal status of all parties, Bukharin said, but “the master is rich and well fed; the worker is poor and hungry. He must work or starve. Is this equality?” The rule of law in bourgeois countries, said Evgenii Pashukanis, a leading Soviet legal theorist, was only a mask, maintained so long as the state held firm control. If that control began to slip away, then force was substituted for law.

On the basis of this critique, Soviet legislation made major changes in the law.