420 Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (1914– )the Institute of International Relations in Moscow. He had contact with
Western lawyers and diplomats in the course of his work as a Soviet delegate
to the Dumbarton Oaks conference (on the draft ing of the UN Charter) and
at the UN Conference in San Francisco. It has been observed that Krylov
gave a course at the Hague Academy in 1947— marking the fi rst systematic
pre sen ta tion of socialist conceptions of international law to a (largely) West-
ern audience. Previously, debate on that subject had taken place within
the Soviet Union itself, with Westerners left to glean what they could from
the outside.
Th e principal feature of socialist thought in international law in the post-
war period had nothing to do with socialism per se. It was a rigid adherence
to mainstream positivism. Th is could sometimes be in the direction of the
empiricist variant, since socialist writers tended to stress the importance of
giving due importance to historical and material factors in legal thinking.
Tunkin, for example, in giving a capsule defi nition of the “Marxist method”
of legal analysis, stated that it consisted of going “from reality to abstract
conclusions” instead of the other way around. Th e similarity to Schwar-
zenberger’s outlook is clear.
Socialist lawyers were equally at ease emphasizing the voluntarist aspect
of positivism, since they were strong partisans of state sovereignty, the prin-
ciple of non intervention, and an insistence on consent as the fundamental
basis of international law. Th ey were equally strong opponents of the idea
that the states of the world form a true community rather than a mere ag-
gregation. Th e idea of world government was dismissed with scorn. Krylov,
for example, derided it as “a reactionary utopia” that would amount to “the
world supremacy of capitalist groupings.” Th ese core features of the so-
cialist outlook were neatly encapsulated by the Bulgarian lawyer Alexander
Yankov in his assertion that
the international system has not changed and remains a system based
on sovereign States. Th us States are the main agents of the law- making
pro cess where the Grundnorm, the basic rule, is consent, agreement
between the States parties.... [I]f there is no consent, there is no law.
Th is is... a general truth about the foundation of international law,
which is a consequence of the international system being based on col-
laboration between sovereign States.