Isaev, I.A. Marquis de Sade and the revolutionary law

Abstract: The article is devoted to the study of Marquis de Sade as an eccentric political figure of the late Enlightenment period and first years of the French Revolution. His attitude towards revolutionary legislation and revolutionary ideas reflected political and legal positions of a specific social group — the Libertines, who had a considerable influence on the development of legal ideology and legislation of the Revolutionary epoch. Political and legal Ideology of skeptical aristocrats, are expressed by Marquis de Sade was almost identical with the ideas of the Jacobins. Terror of prevailing revolution was collective, while Marquis de Sade supported individual terrorism. Being a participant of revolutionary events, Marquis de Sade had a negative attitude towards organizational violence, which was used by the revolutionaries. While upholding the power of passion and enthusiasm, he had a negative attitude towards the soulless violence by the state. He considered laws and decrees of a new political regime to be legal fictions. Legal nihilism of Marquis de Sade was expressed in his attitude towards revolutionary law as an artificial measure, failing to meet true internal needs of human nature. He also considered nature to be alien. The idea of nature, which may be found at the very basis for natural law, is just as alien for a human being, as it Is machinery substituting for men in the new epoch.

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