How did Andrey Vyshinsky help reshape Stalin’s view of Soviet law?

Andrey Vyshinsky played a pivotal role in shifting Joseph Stalin’s approach to Soviet law by helping him abandon the traditional Marxist ideology that suggested the state and its legal institutions would eventually wither away.1

As Stalin’s chief legal adviser, Vyshinsky helped facilitate a transition toward a model where the legal system served as a primary instrument for implementing party policy and national economic planning. Under this guidance, Stalin moved away from the earlier revolutionary hostility toward law, instead promoting the idea that a strong state and a formal legal system were essential tools for governance.1

This shift culminated in the 1936 constitution, which Vyshinsky helped shape. Through this framework, the regime portrayed Soviet law as a "just" system intended to bring about an orderly transformation of society toward a communist utopia, even as the state simultaneously utilized the legal system to conduct high-profile purge trials and maintain extensive political repression.1