Abstract

In the last decades the interest of philosophers and political scientists in Marx’s thinking is growing to recover those aspects of his theory that are believed to be still valid: above all, the aspiration to social justice. In this perspective, it is important to reflect on the relationship between the Marxian conception of the State and the law, and the totalitarian State that arose after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Marx’s thesis, rejecting the Rule of Law and human rights as functional to the domination of the capitalist class, legitimised an instrumental conception of law and the model of political centralisation, which was provided for in the Leninist programme and then implemented in the States of real socialism. The current debate on Marxism cannot neglect the limits of Marx’s political theory and the value of the Rule of Law of the liberal tradition.