Decisionism in Russia: Carl Schmitt’s pre-revolutionary precursors and modern interpreters. Part I

• Main Authors: Kostogryzov, P.I.
• Format: Article
• Language: Russian
• Published: Publishing House Discourse-P 2021-03-01
• Series: Дискурс Пи
• Subjects: decisionism; carl schmitt; lev tikhomirov; p. e. kazansky; n. a. zakharov; conservatism; state studies; supreme power; sovereignty; political theory; political discourse
• Online Access: http://madipi.ru/images/uploads/62-76_Костогрызов.pdf

Carl Schmitt is known as the founder of decisionism - the doctrine of political decision made by sovereign in extreme circumstances and having a constitutive character for the political and legal order in the state. The author of the article using comparative historical method tries to find in Russian political and legal thought of the early 20th cent. concepts that could claim the role of "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 Russian state science of the early twentieth 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 than C. Schmitt. The comparison provided leads to the conclusion 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 is by no means the limit of being, and being the ultimate authority in it, the sovereign still has a higher principle over him. And it is precisely this, albeit purely ideal accountability that is the ultimate foundation of its sovereignty. It was this constant observance of the true hierarchical relationship between the transcendental and the immanent, the metaphysical and the ontological, the Divine and the human that helped them to refrain from replacing the Absolute with the relative and avoiding deification of earthly power.