THE ORGANIZATION OF STATE POWER IN LIBERAL LEGAL THOUGHT IN RUSSIA IN THE EARLY XX CENTURY
The article presents the analysis of some features of liberal legal thought of the Russian Empire in the context of complex social-political situation at the beginning of the XX century. It revealed a different understanding of the nature of the state and of state power by the representatives of different branches of liberal thought of the study period. Shown as a clash of opposing viewpoints leads to mutually exclusive positions on the issue of the foundations of state power, its essence and evolution. The discrepancy in this matter in turn gave rise to the difference in the predictions and the theoretical conclusions about the fate of the Russian Empire in the XX century. The power of the state as they understood a category, as a central topic of discussion in liberal circles, is fundamentally different. Therefore, the positivism considered substantial as an indivisible sovereign entity in the sociological field as an evolving set of social institutions that has a beginning and an end in historical time, and representatives of natural rights as derivative of human consciousness. This division makes it impossible to unite on the issue of these thinkers and suggests a different perspective on the position they occupy at the beginning of the XX century.