State and Law, Institute of

of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (AN SSSR), a scientific institution whose tasks include the study of state, political, and legal problems of contemporary society on the basis of the generalization of the practice of state and legal construction in the USSR and abroad, as well as the struggle against anticommunism in legal and political ideology.

The Institute of State and Law was created on the basis of the Section of Soviet Construction of the Communist Academy, which was formed in 1923. In 1925 the Institute of Soviet Construction was founded on the basis of the section, and in 1936 it became part of the system of the AN SSSR. In 1959 it was renamed the Institute of State and Law of the AN SSSR. The basic directions of the scientific research of the institute include the investigation of actual problems of state construction, the development of socialist democracy, the elaboration of questions of organization and activity of the soviets of workers’ deputies, and the scientific foundations of state administration. The institute’s work also involves the study of the legal regulation of economic life and social relations the solution of problems of strengthening legality and law and order, the study of contemporary imperialist states and laws, and working out international legal problems. The institute takes part in international scientific legal organizations, including the International Association of Legal Science, the International Association of Political Science, the Association of International Law, the International Institute of Administrative Science, the International Association of Criminal Law, and the International Union for the Defense of Nature and Natural Resources. Since 1927 the institute has published the monthly journal Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i pravo (Soviet State and Law).