The civil society and the rule-of-law state is the essence of the whole theory of social development

Nature and essence of the civil society and the rule-of-law state as the basic institutions of the modern societies are analysed in the article. Special attention is paid to the peculiarities of understanding of these institutions in the former socialist states. The author gives grounds to the necessity of joining to the understanding of civil society and the rule-of-law state which is widespread in the Anglo-Saxon model of the statehood. The author enforces his conclusions with the quotations of the works by the modern era philosophers J. Locke and I. Kant.