Freedom is a phenomenon continuously coupled with an actor - a human being and the right. The right exists where the human freedom (equal legal personality) is recognized and therefore mutual restrictions of freedom are recognized as well. However, along with a “human-centric” interpretation of freedom there are certain approaches that associate freedom not with a human being but rather with supra-individual phenomena such as state, nation, God, Homeland, sovereign etc. The synthesis of these interdependent, although opposite approaches is an urgent issue. We can trace certain models of such synthesis in the history of the Russian legal thought. Modern Russia is facing the problem of choosing between conservatism and liberalism, whereby this choice is driven by a move either towards imperial civilization or towards building a state based on the rule of law. The problem of such choice can be illustrated, in particular, on the example of creativity of P.I. Novgorodtsev who worked his way from liberalism to radical conservatism denying the basics of the Western European philosophy of law. The withdrawal of the principle of an independent (free) human personality results in different options of “statecraft” legal consciousness or fascist doctrine, which were translated, for example, into works of G.V.F. Hegel, K. Marх and F. Engels, K. Schmitt. The conservatives (nationalists), fascists and communists (radical socialists) have a common enemy - liberalism, while they are bound by common values and common (at a certain angle) worldview. In this worldview the objects of criticism are the human rights, democracy and free market economy (in other words, values which the present-day Russian constitution is based upon); the whole (state/nation/society/class) prevails over the part (human personality), and violence and non-freedom are the inherent state of a publicly organized social community. Meanwhile, the state is not a machine of violence and not a self-sufficient whole but a system of communicative relationships between free people. One of the principal objectives of legal science is to safeguard the concept of freedom. The proceedings of academician Nersesyants played an outstanding role in the mainstreaming and clearing the meaning of this concept. The legal freedom can be addressed in three aspects: (1) as a freedom of will, i.e. a freedom to choose one's behavioral option, (2) as existential freedom - a precondition for existence of a person at law and (3) as a condition and means of developing and improving of a human personality and society (external social freedom). The actualization of all these manifestations of freedom is possible in the context of synthetic liberal & conservative ideology, one of the representatives of which was I.A. Il'in. Today these concepts are maintained within the scope of communicative philosophy of law underpinning the self-ownership (autonomy) of a human being, its dignity, responsibility and self-respect, willingness to fulfill oneself outwardly, performance of legal commitments and struggle for one's rights as well as the commitment of the state to contribute to preservation and creative development of personal freedom.