Pan-Nordic Marxism and the Critique of Law: A Forgotten History from the “Long 1968”

This article revisits a forgotten chapter in the history of Marxist theory: a wave of pan-Nordic publications on Evgeny Pashukanis and the Marxist critique of law during the “long 1968”. Despite their prominence at the time, these publications have all but faded into obscurity. The article provides a contextual overview of radical jurisprudence in the Nordic countries during the 1970s, situating it within the broader historiography of the 1968 conjuncture. Moreover, it conduct a focused case study on five protagonists in the Nordic debates about the law and Marxism – Torben Wanscher (Denmark), Lars D. Eriksson (Finland, writing primarily in Swedish), Raimo Blom (Finland, writing primarily in Finnish), Hans I. Kleven (Norway), and Anders Fogelklou (Sweden) – examining their positive and negative engagements with Pashukanis, in contrast to their relation to other strands of Marxist theory, such as various positions within the Neue Marx-Lektüre and Althusserian theory. Lastly, the article concludes that the Marxist protagonists of this study deserve far more consideration than they have received in this setting, for three distinct reasons. First, neglecting the pan-Nordic debates on the Marxist critique of law renders the history of ideas of the 1968 conjuncture incomplete. Second, this rich history of Marxist theory can serve as an important resource for achieving greater politico-theoretical precision, scope, and effectiveness in the contemporary field of Marxism and law. Third, the Nordic Marxists discussed in this paper grappled with enduring questions – such as the limits of law and democracy under capitalism, and whether, why, how, and to what extent human rights should be defended when under threat.