Class Nature in Contemporary Chinese Socialist Law – Its Derivation, Evolution, and Status Quo

Abstract

To study and understand Chinese socialist law, class nature is destined as a key point which cannot be avoided. Inherited from classical Marxism-Leninism and practiced in the CCP’s own revolutionary movements, the class theory of state and law exerts great influence on the Chinese legal system. Generally corresponding to the history of the PRC, with the year 1978 as its watershed, the class understanding of law varies also in the two phases of Chinese socialist law. This article aims to trace the theoretical trajectory of the class theory of state and law in China and to analyze its functions in both the construction of Chinese socialist legality and the drafting of concrete legislation. Further, it endeavors to investigate, in light of the political “rectification to restore order” and the economic market-oriented reforms adopted since 1978, whether and in what form class nature still exists in current Chinese socialist law under the Chinese “socialist rule of law state”.