Дискурс Пи (Mar 2021)
Decisionism in Russia: Carl Schmitt’s PreRevolutionary Precursors and Modern Interpreters. Part II
Abstract
Carl Schmitt is known as the founder of decisionism - the doctrine of the political Decision made by a sovereign in extreme circumstances and characterized by a constitutive meaning for the political and legal order of the state. Using the comparative historical method the author of the article tries to find in the Russian political and legal thought of the early 20th century concepts that could claim to be "proto-decisionist". The ideas of conservative legal thinkers as L. A. Tikhomirov, N. A. Zakharov and P. E. Kazansky are under discussion. Interpretations of C. Schmitt's decisionism in contemporary Russian political discourse are studied as well. It is shown that the Russian science of the early 20th century, which developed its own doctrine of sovereign power and its Decision as the constituting principle of the political and legal order, came to conclusions that were largely similar to those made by Schmitt and in some issues advanced even further. Based on the provided comparison it is deduced that an attempt to build "political theology" on purely rational, scientific grounds led С. Schmitt to deification of the state and thereby to irrationalization of the science. On the contrary, Russian conservative thinkers never forgot that the political ontos was by no means the limit of being, and the sovereign as its ultimate authority had still a higher principle over him. This albeit purely ideal accountability was the ultimate foundation of sovereignty. So, constant observance of the true hierarchical relationship between the transcendental and the immanent, the metaphysical and the ontological, the Divine and the human helped them to refrain from replacing the Absolute with the relative and to avoid deification of earthly power.
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