The Codification Process Of Russian Civil Law

The primary objective of this article is to make clear the long history of 1100 years of the civil law legislation of Russia.Customarily, the history of Russian civil law can be divided into two stages marked by the validation of an official and specific civil code. The first stage is so-called the time of "no-formal-civil-code". During this period, none of formal civil code were issued or taken into effect (drafts produced at most), although the first effort of codification was undertaken and lots of legal compilation and decree collections were validated. Another stage is from the October Revolution to now, in this stage, three official civil codes were published with its process of codification, that is "Soviet Russian Civil Code" of 1922, "Soviet Russian Civil Code" of 1964 as well the "Russian Federation Civil Code" which went into effect one sector by another from 1994.According to the above organizing principle, this article has its discussion. First of all, there is the brief introduction regarding the early situation Russia's civil law legislation, then the focus of discussion will be put on the Russia's codification of three times. Legislated background, basic features and historic values of the three civil codes that are the achievements of this codification will be particularly analyzed here. The purpose of this work is to help the readers have a general frame about the Russian civil legislation development and seek for its referenced significance to the Chinese civil law legislation.Chapter One includes two parts. Part one presents the tracks of Russia's civil law legislation development before 19^th century and introduces two legal compilations which have important influences on Russia's legal history. Part two highlights the initial efforts of codification between the middle of 19^th century and the beginning of 20^th century. In this period, many special committees for codification had been established and some drafts of civil code followed as a result of these efforts, and in this paper, two renowned of these drafts, "Draft of Code" and "Draft of 1905 for Civil Code" will be introduced.Chapter two mainly describes the situation of Russia's codification for its first time of civil law. The background and characteristics of "Soviet Russian Civil Code (1922)", which is the first civil code in Russian history as well as the first Socialistic one in the world, also will be discussed in this Chapter, and at last, emphasis will be put on the historic values of this code in the transitional stage and influences on the contemporary Chinese civil law legislation.Chapter Three will describe the situation of Russia's codification for the second time. The necessity and values of "Soviet Russian Civil Code (1964)" will be discussed here, which is second official civil code in Russian history and most significant one in the planning-oriented economy.Chapter Four mainly introduce the Third Time of Russia's codification of civil law which started from the Disintegration of Soviet Union 1991. The spirit of codification under new time is explored here and referenced significance of new Russia's civil code on present China will be focused at the end of this chapter.The fifth chapter mainly describes all the civil laws issued during Soviet Union and Russia, which is used for reference to the codification of Chinese civil law nowadays.In the last chapter, a conclusion will be drawn by summarizing the features of the development of Russian civil law in its long history.