Legality and Justice

The present stage in the history of the Soviet state is characterized by the improvement of socialist democracy in all spheres. Legality is most closely connected with democracy. Legality ensures law and order. The policy of developing democracy does not mean that the individual will be left to himself, that observance of the laws is henceforth not obligatory, or that standards are being lowered and a nihilistic attitude toward state discipline is permissible. Certainly, the majority of Soviet people voluntarily observe the provisions of the law as a result of their great consciousness; they regard these provisions as the expression of the will of society as a whole. But at the same time, under present-day conditions, full force still attaches to Lenin's notion that "law is nothing without a machinery capable of compelling observance of its provisions."