Vol 21, No 3 (2017)

The year of 2017 has special significance in Russia. The events taken place one hundred years ago fundamentally changed the direction of Russian society’ development and the system of existed so-cial relations as well as form of government, political regime and legal system. The revolution happens when the government is unable to move the society forward by improving social relations existing in-side it. The revolution always denies existing social order, it has deep social roots and is not one-moment but long-term process that changes radically the whole system of relations. It could be defined as a new sociocultural programme implemented according to the interests of social powers that have just taken over the government. In revolutionary conditions, when one social order is being changed by another one, the law plays special role. Authors analyze tendencies of development of Soviet law and legal science. They show how sociologism of early Soviet socialistic law by the end of 1930-s was changed by etatistic positiv-ism. Marxist theory used by the Bolsheviks was a form of sociological theories because social interests considered as its determining part. From 1917 Bolsheviks’ social practice had pronounced sociological destination based on artistic (including lawmaking) activity of working people. But by the end of 1930ths Soviet law came under strong influence of etatistic positivism that mediated domination of par-ty-governmental system. Marx-Lenin conceptions about socialistic society as a system of relations based of social equality and justice were not brought to life and did not determine Soviet state and law’ type. Identification of interests as real reasons of social actions enables to find out genuine social structure of the Soviet socie-ty in which specificity of legal administration was predestined by the struggle between party-state bu-reaucracy and broad strata of working people. There were principal divergences between legally regu-lated social structure and relations that really existed in the same society. Deformation of social rela-tions predoomed the fall of the soviet system on the cusp of the 1980ths and 1990ths.

The reason for writing this article were two circumstances. The first is the constant desire of mod-ern authors to treat law as a system. In according to this view elementary cell (or, so to say, kernel) of this system is the set of rules, and all the structures of this system, regardless of their content, are com-posed of norms according to the logical and syntactical prescriptions and with the intentions of the leg-islator. The second is the discussion between supporters of a «narrow» and «broad» understanding of the law. In our humble opinion, this phenomena has not only cognitive, but also value arguments. In this connection, a hypothesis was born about the paradigmatic nature of the normative legal concept, as it developed in the USSR.This work was written to verify this hypothesis. The two questions are posed: 1. to what extent it is permissible to reconstruct soviet normativism in a paradigmatic manner; 2. by what rules this reconstruction should be carried out. The conducted research allowed to reach the following conclusions. Legal normativism (in its so-viet version) as a single and continuous tradition of setting and solving scientific problems fully corre-sponds to the criteria of paradigm, designated in the postpositivist philosophy of science. It is character-ized by technical universalism, since the normative definition of law proved to be suitable for the im-plementation of different goals. It is also characterized by ontological reduction - the reduction of nondiscrete legal phenomena (for example, the principles of law) to deontological judgments and the manipulation with them. The article affirms that the positive significance of the narrow-normative view of law consisted not only in the adaptation of the legal discourse to the discourses of power, but also in the indirect, albeit intensive, mental efforts of lawyers, which was affiliated to alternative legal schools.

The article considers the problem of implementing cultural policy in the new constituent entities of the Russian Federation - Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol. Russia historically formed as a state, uniting on its territory of the representatives of different peoples, cultures and faiths, held in some mod-ern countries, the policy of multiculturalism, actualizes the issue of combating xenophobia, national and religious intolerance in society, the preservation and development of cultural identity of different peo-ples. The construction of culture in the rank of national priority aims to give new impetus to the devel-opment of the cultural foundations of Russian constitutional system, to guarantee the unity of the cul-tural and legal space, the state and territorial integrity. Having considered the constitutional-legal bases of the state cultural policy at the Federal level and at the level of the new subjects of the Federation, the author reveals the problems of legal regula-tion, defines the main directions of improvement of legislation in this area. The author comes to the conclusion that some modernization need of the constituent acts of the Repub-lic of Crimea and Sevastopol in respect of fixation in a separate article of the right of peoples living on the ter-ritory of the Republic to preserve their national identity through the development of national-cultural autono-mies, national-cultural centers and associations, as well as provisions on the promotion of the regional author-ities the activities of those public associations that are inconsistent with Russian law. Further development require conceptual foundations of national policy in the new subjects of the Federation aimed at creating conditions for satisfaction of ethnopolitical, ethnosocial and ethnocultural needs residing in the Republic Nations and ethnic communities. Continuing controversies in the field of linguistic relations, is due, in particular, the failure of the Federation to recognize the right of the subjects to change the graphic basis of the alphabet may be im-paired by constitutional, legal, and financial guarantees regime of equality of status to all the languages of peoples and ethnic groups living on the territory of the Russian Federation. At the end of the article formulates proposals aimed at improving the existing Federal legislation and normative legal acts of the Republic of Crimea, Sevastopol and the Russian Federation in the field of cultural policy.

Defined as generalized practices with a legal force, usages play a significant role in arbitration. This role is due in particular to the limited legal provisions applicable for this alternative mode of resolution of disputes. One may observe this impact on the substance of the litigation. Usages are indeed rules of law as they produce legal effects. Even though statutes particularly recognize this role with respect to international arbitration, we suggest not to limit the impact of usages to this international context; this point of view may be explained in particular by criticisms to the dualism between domestic and international arbitration.

One may also note the role of usages on the proceedings. This role produces various consequences on the arbitral procedure in particular with respect to the definition of the powers of the Chairman of the arbitral tribunal as well as in connection with the professional and social activities surrounding arbitration.