To understand the influence of legal culture in present Chinese society, the book takes a two-part approach. The first part of the book provides a historical and ideological overview of the Chinese imperial legal tradition--primarily the law of Confucian morality that not only provided a basis for the selective integration of Soviet socialist law and the Chinese legal tradition but also dictated the selective process of the syncretism--and the rule of punishment formed under the imperial legal tradition. Discussion centers on the substantive quality of Chinese traditional law, the role of state authority and the organic basis of Chinese law in family infrastructure. The second part of the book discusses political power and judicial independence (Marxist ideology, the Communist Party and the role of law); the class division and equal rights before the law; counterrevolutionary crime in Chinese law; and the principle of voluntariness in Chinese law and morality. The volume concludes with an examination of Chinese law under a Socialist mantle. Abbreviations, notes, tables, appendix, bibliography, index