Rule-of-Law State, Theory of the

Rule-of-Law State, Theory of the 

(Rechtsstaat), a bourgeois political and juridical theory, according to which governments are bound by the law and should not overstep legally established limits.

The term “rule-of-law state” was introduced by I. Kant. The theory was widely accepted in the mid-19th century, when capitalist relations became firmly established. To a considerable extent, it was a translation of the demands of economic liberalism into the language of legal ideology. The main representatives of the theory of the rule-of-law state were the German jurists G. Jellinek and L. von Stein. The theory was antifeudal, since the demand that the state be bound by the law was addressed to a state mechanism in which feudal practices were still strong, even after the establishment of capitalist relations. In its theoretical and epistemological sources, the theory of the rule-of-law state was closely associated with a legalistic world view—the classical world view of the rising bourgeoisie. The theory’s condemnation of the absolutist state was liberal democratic in tone. Often, the theory provided an ideological justification for a compromise between the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy (in Germany and Russia, for example).

With the transition of capitalism to the stage of imperialism, the theory of the rule-of-law state declined in importance in bourgeois legal ideology, as a result of a number of sociopolitical factors. However, a new form of the theory played an important role in bourgeois ideology after World War II (1939–45), when it was used especially in anticommunist propaganda that portrayed the capitalist states as rule-of-law states and claimed that the socialist states were not bound by law but stood above it. In reality, the practice of the bourgeois state shows that whenever the political and economic interests of capital are at stake, the political power of the bourgeoisie modifies the law. Furthermore, under particularly acute social conditions the bourgeois state acts as if it were not limited by the law.

Marxist theory stresses the close relationship between the law and the state and does not counterpose them. As a sovereign power, the state is endowed with broad legislative capacities. In accordance with the principle of legality, all state bodies, without exception, must act within the framework of operative laws. Socialist theory and practice take as their point of departure the necessity of continuously perfecting the principle of legality in the state and throughout society.