Marxism and the Development of Theoretical and Methodological Views of Law Historian Boris Ivanovich Syromiatnikov

Abstract

The article is devoted to the rethinking of theoretical and methodological foundations of the scholarly activities of B.I. Syromiatnikov, who was one of the leading Russian pre-revolutionary law historians. In historiography he has been described as a representative of critical positivism and a supporter of a factor approach to history. On the basis of information about his social activities and academic interests at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the article demonstrates that he took a considerable interest in social problems and illegal socialist literature as well as in modern sociological thought, including Marxism. His European study trip from 1903 to 1905 only strengthened the interest in the works of Karl Marx. The examination of the journalistic articles by Syromiatnikov, published in the years of the First Russian Revolution, shows that by 1906 he had used ideas and analytical categories (socio-economic formation, class struggle) of K.Marx and his followers (A.Bebebel, K.Kautsky). In addition, he sympathized with right-wing socialists such as E.Bernstein and E.Vandervelde. Following the approaches of such thinkers, Syromiatnikov defined the contemporary political events in Russia as a liberal revolution, and considered that the socialist agenda was premature for Russia. Based on Marxist ideas and on the comparative historical method, the historian created in 1905 an original concept of the changes in forms of political organization of society in Russia from veche democracy to an absolutist state. Due to the fact that this scheme was developed with the use of Marxist ideas, Syromiatnikov was able to reproduce it in the framework of Soviet historical science.