Contracts in General
CHAPTER 12 Contracts in General The soviet law of contracts evolved from the efforts of the soviet legislators and jurists to use within the framework of socialist economy the concept of contract as developed in the civil law countries. Therefore, a person schooled in Anglo-American legal theory must be prepared to sustain a double handicap in studying the soviet law of contracts. On the one hand, the Con tinental European law of contracts, which is the start ing point of the development of the soviet theory of contract, deviates from basic concepts of Anglo-Ameri can law. On the other hand, the notion of a contract as outlined in the Civil Code no longer covers, in reality, all ramifications of contract in soviet law, in particular contracts between government agencies engaged in in dustry and commerce. But the concepts implied in the provisions of the Civil Code have not been totally aban doned, and it seems appropriate, therefore, to begin with a consideration of those concepts. 1. Legal Transactions and Contracts ln outlining the law of contracts, the framers of the soviet Civil Code followed certain theoretical construc tions of European law, of German law in particular, as developed by Professors Shershenevich, Gambarov, and Korkunov, the Russian prerevolutionary legal writers of renown. 1 Since these constructions have been taken 1 Shershenevich, 1 Textbook of the Russian Civil Law (in Russian 11th ed. 1915) 86, 190; Gambarov, 1 Course in Civil Law (in Russian 1911) 632; Korkunov, General Theory of Law (in Russian 7th ed. 1907) 161 et seq., English translation by Hastings ( 1922) 167 et seq.
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