Trends in the development of law and the state: to progress or to regress?

This paper has two aims: to compare the current trends in the development of the law and the state in Russia with the criteria of progress put forward by P. A. Sorokin and S. S. Alekseev; determine the position of the theory of law and state and identify the main trends in its development. Based on the postclassical methodological approach underlying the communicative theory of law, the author comes to the conclusion that the current trends in the development of the law and the state in Russia are far from to be characterized as progressive, according to the chosen criteria. To develop it in the direction of progress, the state needs to build a dialogue symmetric communication with society, based on the principle of mutual recognition. The theory of law and state, frozen in a positivistic approach, is proposed to be developed towards a sociological-communicative direction - the study of law and the state as complex, multidimensional phenomena, the central subject and purpose of which is a person with dignity and mutual rights and obligations.