We do not recognise anything 'private': public interest and private law under the socialist legal tradition and beyond

In line with Lenin’s famous quote that Bolsheviks "do not recognise anything private" and that private law must be permeated with public interest, the private (civil) law of the USSR and other countries of the Soviet bloc, including Poland underwent reform aimed at furthering the public interest at the expense of the private one. Specific legal institutions were introduced for this purpose, in the form of legal innovations, loosely, if at all, based on pre-existing Western models. In the Polish case, such legal institutions were usually legal transfers, imported from the Soviet Union. When the socio-economic and political system changed at the turn of 1989 and 1990, the fundamental reforms profoundly impacted upon private law. As a matter of fact, a vast majority of legal innovations of the socialist period aimed at giving preference to the public interest over the private one were either completely repealed or at least underwent deep reform.