Evolution of Scientific Ideas on Responsibility for Aiding and Abetting a Crime

Introduction. The study of the history of complicity is often carried out outside the context of the general history of criminal law, in this connection, one can find a very arbitrary approach to solving the question of the periodization of the normative history of complicity, which clearly does not contribute to the formation of general and correct ideas about the development of the corresponding criminal legal structure. The history of criminal law provisions on liability for complicity in the commission of a crime makes it possible to better understand the current state of this criminal law institution. In modern science, a typical method of analysis is to study only legal monuments that to some extent reflect the normative ideas about complicity in various historical epochs. In this case, neither available sources from judicial practice nor the provisions of criminal law doctrine are taken into account. This approach to the organization of research is not only incomplete, but also significantly distorts the very principle of historical and legal analysis. Purpose. The purpose of the study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of scientific concepts of responsibility for aiding and abetting a crime, which will prevent an arbitrary approach to the issue of periodization of the normative history of aiding and abetting. Methodology. Various general scientific and special methods of cognition were used in this study. At the same time, the historical and legal method became the key one. Results. The study of the main models of criminal law assessment of complicity allows us to make important clarifications and additions to the existing scientific understanding of the genesis of this criminal law structure. First, it allows us to challenge the very categorical ideas formulated in science about the history of complicity, as a gradual transition from “less perfect” and “incorrect” legislative formulations to “more perfect” and “correct” ones. Second, the study calls into question the thesis about the linear development of criminal law science and practice in terms of assessing complicity in the “Soviet” and “pre-Soviet” period, that the development of complicity in the Soviet era followed the path developed by pre-revolutionary theory and practice. Third, the study proves that at all stages of the development of criminal law, the theoretical and normative understanding of complicity assumed the presence of at least two opposite models. Each alternative model assumed, due to the system properties of criminal law, a specific construction of other criminal legal institutions and norms (involvement, forms of complicity, crimes against public safety, stages of crime, rules for sentencing, etc.). Conclusion. The study of the main models of criminal-legal assessment of complicity presented in the history of domestic legislation and legal doctrine allows us to make important clarifications and additions to the existing scientific ideas about the genesis of this criminal-legal structure.