Teoría del partisano. Acotación al concepto de lo político

Der Begriff des Politischen #2

by Carl Schmitt

La Teoría del partisano de Carl Schmitt constituye uno de los análisis más lúcidos de esta sugerente figura, la cual irrumpe en la historia con la guerrilla española que puso en jaque al ejército regular de Napoleón. «Gracias a este choque se abrieron nuevos espacios de guerra, se desarrollaron nuevas nociones de beligerancia y surgió una nueva teoría de la guerra y la política». Partiendo de esa chispa inicial, Schmitt reconstruye la evolución del partisano: de las teorías de Clausewitz al revolucionario de profesión, de Lenin a la «nación en armas» de Mao, hasta llegar al terrorismo en la Argelia francesa.

Uniendo el rigor del jurista con la penetración del filósofo, Schmitt precisa los caracteres distintivos del combatiente irregular, esto es, de aquel que se sitúa al margen de la «enemistad convencional», con sus guerras domesticadas y circunscritas, para entrar en el ámbito de la «enemistad verdadera». El partisano cobra así, a sus ojos, el rango de un protagonista clave de la historia universal en el contexto del nuevo «nomos de la tierra», para acabar convirtiéndose, con la absolutización del partido y la criminalización del adversario de guerra, en portador de una «enemistad absoluta».

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, War, Nonfiction, History, Law, Political Science

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Carl Schmitt's early career as an academic lawyer falls into the last years of the Wilhelmine Empire. (See for Schmitt's life and career: Bendersky 1983; Balakrishnan 2000; Mehring 2009.) But Schmitt wrote his most influential works, as a young professor of constitutional law in Bonn and later in Berlin, during the Weimar-period: Political Theology, presenting Schmitt's theory of sovereignty, appeared in 1922, to be followed in 1923 by The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, which attacked the legitimacy of parliamentary government. In 1927, Schmitt published the first version of his most famous work, The Concept of the Political, defending the view that all true politics is based on the distinction between friend and enemy. The culmination of Schmitt's work in the Weimar period, and arguably his greatest achievement, is the 1928 Constitutional Theory which systematically applied Schmitt's political theory to the interpretation of the Weimar constitution. During the political and constitutional crisis of the later Weimar Republic Schmitt published Legality and Legitimacy, a clear-sighted analysis of the breakdown of parliamentary government Germany, as well as The Guardian of the Constitution, which argued that the president as the head of the executive, and not a constitutional court, ought to be recognized as the guardian of the constitution. In these works from the later Weimar period, Schmitt's declared aim to defend the Weimar constitution is at times barely distinguishable from a call for constitutional revision towards a more authoritarian political framework (Dyzenhaus 1997, 70–85; Kennedy 2004, 154–78).

Though Schmitt had not been a supporter of National Socialism before Hitler came to power, he sided with the Nazis after 1933. Schmitt quickly obtained an influential position in the legal profession and came to be perceived as the ‘Crown Jurist’ of National Socialism. (Rüthers 1990; Mehring 2009, 304–436) He devoted himself, with undue enthusiasm, to such tasks as the defence of Hitler's extra-judicial killings of political opponents (PB 227–32) and the purging of German jurisprudence of Jewish influence (Gross 2007; Mehring 2009, 358–80). But Schmitt was ousted from his position of power within legal academia in 1936, after infighting with academic competitors who viewed Schmitt as a turncoat who had converted to Nazism only to advance his career. There is considerable debate about the causes of Schmitt's willingness to associate himself with the Nazis. Some authors point to Schmitt's strong ambition and his opportunistic character but deny ideological affinity (Bendersky 1983, 195–242; Schwab 1989). But a strong case has been made that Schmitt's anti-liberal jurisprudence, as well as his fervent anti-semitism, disposed him to support the Nazi regime (Dyzenhaus 1997, 85–101; Scheuerman 1999). Throughout the later Nazi period, Schmitt's work focused on questions of international law. The immediate motivation for this turn seems to have been the aim to justify Nazi-expansionism. But Schmitt was interested in the wider question of the foundations of international law, and he was convinced that the turn towards liberal cosmopolitanism in 20th century international law would undermine the conditions of stable and legitimate international legal order. Schmitt's theoretical work on the foundations of international law culminated in The Nomos of the Earth, written in the early 1940's, but not published before 1950. Due to his support for and involvement with the Nazi dictatorship, the obstinately unrepentant Schmitt was not allowed to return to an academic job after 1945 (Mehring 2009, 438–63). But he nevertheless remained an important figure in West Germany's conservative intellectual scene to his death in 1985 (van Laak 2002) and enjoyed a considerable degree of clandestine influence elsewhere (Scheuerman 1999, 183–251; Müller 2003).

Unsurprisingly, the significance and value of Schmitt's works

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review:

April 2010

Who is, was, and will be, the Partisan?

This book, the 'Theory of the Partisan', grew out of two lectures delivered March of 1962, fittingly, in Spain. I say 'fittingly' because it was in Spain, during the resistance to Napoleon, that we first encounter the full figure of the partisan fighter. Schmitt observes that 'regular' warfare (which is contrasted with the irregular warfare of the partisan throughout this text) only emerged with (that is, in opposition to) Napoleon and the armies of the French Revolution. It is as if, from the very beginning, modern 'enlightened' politico-military order called forth its demonic other. We are reminded that Napoleon had 250,000 troops who were held in check by 50,000 partisans. ...What? How? - This is Napoleon for God's sake! Well, yes, but in order to be a great General one needs at least two things: an army that will competently obey, and an enemy who will stand and fight. Even though the French Revolutionary troops provided the former, the Spanish partisans refused to provide Napoleon the latter...

From these beginnings Schmitt traces the History and Theory of the Partisan in a very terse manner. (Schmitt's book, really only an essay, is only 95 pages long.) After the defeat of Napoleon the victors, at the Congress of Vienna, "reestablished the concepts of European laws of war." However, as Schmitt points out, with "the introduction of compulsory military service, all wars become in principle wars of national liberation..." Thus Schmitt implies that to lose a war now means to lose the right to be a self-determining people. Since every war is now, at least potentially, a fight for national survival, there can be (in fact) no more limited wars... Naturally, along the way, we learn something of civil wars and colonial wars, both of which always had a partisan presence. Our author also reminds us that the Russian Empire, throughout the 19th century, fought various irregular wars against numerous mountain people it sought to subdue.

Russia is important to Schmitt's thesis because it is from Russia (i.e., from Lenin and Communism) that, according to our author, a most pernicious form of Partisan warfare (communist internationalism) would eventually arise. Schmitt reminds us that Napoleon also fought partisans in Russia, and that Napoleon also lost there. In frustration, Napoleon reportedly said, that "in fighting the partisan anywhere, one must fight like a partisan". But who is the Partisan? Anyone? No. Early on in this essay Schmitt concedes that one can say that 'to be a man is to be a fighter', and adds that "the consistent individualist does indeed fight on his own terms and, if he is courageous, at his own risk. He then becomes his own party-follower. (p. 19)" Though noting this possibility he dismisses this anarchy vaguely as merely a "sign of the time".

So then, who are the Partisans that we are to be interested in? Schmitt defines them thusly, they are:
1. Irregular Troops (no uniforms, weapons hidden, e.g.)
2. Mobil (flexibility, speed, the ability to quickly attack and retreat)
3. Intensely Political (unlike, say, pirates, - who are really only unpolitical 'businessmen'!)
4. Telluric (a local movement, rooted to a given 'land')

Or, at any rate, that is who Schmitt wishes they were. You see, the partisan "changes his essence once he identifies with the absolute aggressivity of a world-revolutionary or a technicistic [sic] ideology. (p. 20)" But of course the 'old-school' partisans described above will always be with us. "For at least as long as anti-colonial wars are possible on our planet, the partisan will represent a specifically terrestrial type of active fighter." So, you see, it is not only communist universalism that is changing the nature of the Partisan (for the worse), but progressive technocratic modernity itself. Modern weapons and communications allow telluric partisans to be easily used as pawns in the various chess matches of the Great Powers. But who really is using whom? ...Huh? Don't the Great Powers, especially the nuclear powers, seemingly by definition, always have the "upper hand"?

...So it would seem. But the following remark of Schmitt does make one wonder:
"...belligerent actions after 1945 had assumed a partisan character, because those who had nuclear bombs shunned using them for humanitarian reasons, and those who did not have them could count on these reservations - an unexpected effect of both the atomic bomb and humanitarian concerns. (p. 24)"

The Geneva Conventions (which "widened the circle of persons equated with regular fighters [...] and in this way [the partisans] were granted the rights and privileges of regular combatants") and nuclear weapons had the unexpected side effect of placing the Partisan at the center of World History. What no great power dared to do on its own could now be done by surrogates fighting for them. If this book were written only yesterday, instead of originating in talks delivered in the early sixties and first published then too, Schmitt would undoubtedly here say something smart about the Soviet Union destroying itself in Afghanistan fighting 'partisans' armed by America, only so the latter could then be slowly consumed in a war with its own creatures. - But that is exactly what is so astonishing about this book! At the height of the cold war Schmitt foresaw, however darkly, the utter futility of being a 'superpower'. And he sees this at a time when the 'best and the brightest' in both camps (i.e., that is, capitalists and communists) were certain that they were in a bi-polar world and that it was either "them or us"; but Schmitt, virtually before anyone, realizes that it could be neither ...and no one.

The second chapter presents a brief history of the development of the theory of the partisan. We are told that the Germans historically were allergic to Partisan warfare. But we also learn of the importance of the Prussian Landsturm Edict of April 1813 ("this document is a Magna Carta of Partisan Warfare") which was changed three months later ("cleansed of all partisan dangers") even though Napoleon had not been defeated (p. 43). But that is not the end of it. Schmitt points out that while the partisan efforts of the Spanish and the Russians were, let us say, 'pre-enlightened' (if not anti-Enlightenment!), the Landsturm Edict is a result of the Enlightenment itself! Here the Partisan became, "philosophically accredited and socially presentable." (p. 47)

"Berlin in the years 1808-13 was infused with a spirit that was thoroughly consistent with the philosophy of the French Enlightenment, so consistent that it was the equal of it, if not allowed to feel superior to it. [...] The nationalism of this Berlin intellectual stratum was not just a matter of some simple or even illiterate people, but rather of the educated elite. In such an atmosphere, which united an aroused national feeling with philosophical education, the partisan was discovered philosophically, and his theory became historically possible. (p.44)"

What is important to note here is that what had previously been merely and purely telluric pre-theoretical partisan resistance movements first became theorized by the political Right in the German Enlightenment. Churchill somewhere remarked that the Germans, "transported Lenin in a sealed train like a plague bacillus from Switzerland into Russia." One of the burdens of Schmitt's essay is to indicate that this 'plague' was in reality of an Internationalist Partisan character, and that it was, ultimately, a product of the German Enlightenment! But today we know even more than that; we know that, as plagues are wont to do, it survived the death of its host (i.e., the USSR) and became that free-floating phenomenon we call 'terrorism'.

But we have gotten ahead of ourselves. Clausewitz, a product of this Berlin Enlightenment, in "1810-11, had given lectures on guerilla warfare at the General War College in Berlin [...]." But Prussia chooses to not carry out an insurrectional war as many enlightened reformers had hoped. In the end, Clausewitz "remained a reform-minded professional officer of a regular army of his time, who could not let the seeds that we see here be developed to their ultimate consequences. (p. 46-47)"

Schmitt tells us that this development "required an active professional revolutionary." That would be Lenin. He was "the first to fully conceive of the partisan as significant figure of national and international civil war, and he sought to transform the partisan into an effective instrument... (p. 49)" of the USSR. Lenin, of course, realizes that all partisans are not equal. As Schmitt observes, for Lenin if "partisans are controlled by the Communist Central Committee, they are freedom fighters and glorious heroes; if they shun this control, they are anarchistic riffraff and enemies of humanity. (p. 50)" This, of course, is the (in)famous 'they may be bastards, but they are our bastards' rationale that was the common tactic of both sides throughout the cold war era. One could perhaps say that Schmitt's essay is a meditation on how 'the bastards' emerged as a power in their own right...

Lenin read Clausewitz quite seriously and annotated him in his notebooks. According to Schmitt, Lenin uncovers the primacy of the 'Friend-Enemy' distinction in this reading. Of this Schmitt says, that for "Lenin, only revolutionary war is genuine war, because it arises from absolute enmity. Everything else is conventional play (p. 52)" Unless war is based on 'absolute enmity' with the bourgeois it is merely play. This is why, for Lenin, any partisan resistance outside of the control of the communist party is such a contemptible thing. It is only a game! This "bracketed war and prescribed enmity [of International Law] were no longer any match for absolute enmity. (p. 54)"

And here we have reached what for me is the heart of the problem of the Partisan. The theory of the Partisan has pre-modern, modern and postmodern moments. In its pre-modern form it is not a theoretical problem; in fact, it just says 'No!' to Enlightenment Theory. In its modern form it is a problem; it has been thoroughly theorized and 'universalized'. This means that it overturns the structures of International Law, the old 'European System', in favor of another Order, a (communist) Utopia always yet to come. We have moved from 'prescribed enmity' to 'absolute enmity'. But, I would argue, this is not the worst of it. Partisanship, after the collapse of the USSR, retains a negative 'universalism' in that one can now foment partisan war against anyone! Absolute Enmity can now be aimed at anything...

Now, perhaps, I may be permitted at this point to end with a digression. Several people have asked me why I bother to read Schmitt, who is, after all and as I hope we all know, a former Nazi. The Rabbi Jacob Taubes was asked that question too. He provides an answer in Appendix A of his excellent book, "The Political Theology of Paul". First, he mentions that the hard and fast lines between Left and Right that we see today were not so clear before the Nazi's came to power. Indeed, both extremes shared an almost equal contempt for bourgeois democracy.

The great Marxist Critical Theorist Walter Benjamin, for instance, was quite enamored of Schmitt and, in December of 1930, sent an admiring letter, with a copy of his 'Trauerspielbuch' to Schmitt explaining that he made free use of several of his works. When Taubes (much later) asked Adorno about the letter he was told no such letter exists. Of course, Adorno later admits it was 'misplaced'. Taubes intends for us to understand that this misplacing was a matter of political convenience; when one builds a shrine one typically excludes unpleasant materials...

Next, Taubes mentions that Alexandre Kojève had the highest regard for Schmitt. (Kojève's 'Existential-Marxist' Hegel interpretation has influenced almost everyone in Continental Philosophy. Also, Kojève -not Fukuyama- is the true origin of the so-called 'End of History' debate.) In 1967, after giving lectures at the Free University of Berlin, Kojève announces "I'm going to Plettenberg", which is where Schmitt lived. More surprising than that (though, I believe, not mentioned by Taubes in this book), Kojève will say that Schmitt is the only one 'worth talking to' in Germany!

Now, that does seem rather extravagant!; - the admirer of Stalin and the ex-Nazi in embrace. But as Taubes indicated, the anti-bourgeois extremes are often in practical, if not theoretical, agreement. Indeed, Kojève and Schmitt had been carrying on a lively correspondence since the fifties. But the meeting of these two in 1967 intrigues me. This essay on the Partisan was already published. It is quite likely that Kojève and Schmitt discussed it. Now, what would they have said about it?

Well, what I believe both Kojève and Schmitt glimpsed in the figure of the Partisan was the vanishing of Reason from History. For the one this meant the impossibility of (Hegelian) Knowledge, while for the other this meant the impossibility of Political Order. Yes, Kojève is a Universalist while Schmitt is a Particularist. For Kojève, Knowledge (in the Hegelian sense) can only be achieved when Humanity becomes One. Ultimately, this is why, for him, History must End in the Universal Homogenous State; it is a technical requirement of Absolute Knowledge! But, as Taubes correctly points out, Schmitt is a Jurist, not a Philosopher. His problem is not Knowledge, - his problem is Order. For Schmitt, Political Order is, and can only be, a relation between separate and distinct parts. I believe that for for Schmitt, Universalism (the 'Oneness of Man' and the Universal State) is Chaos. (-That is because there are here no 'parts' to Order. Or, if you prefer, no enemies whose interactions are ordered through Law.)

Okay, but if Kojève and Schmitt are almost mirror opposites how is it that I imagine that they are both opposed to the Partisan? Well, the 'Partisan Wars' that began in the late twentieth century, and still continue, are perhaps the only real material force opposing the globalization that leads to Kojève's Universal State. But why would Schmitt oppose that? - He is an anti-Universalist! Because partisan warfare, once theorized (that is, universalized and modernized), becomes unending and all-consuming; in practice (and especially today, after the collapse of the USSR), the Partisan can (or will) oppose anything. Not only any Empire, but any State, is a potential target of a Partisan War. (In the late Twentieth Century the Partisan Oppositional stance has been Universalised!) Thus our contemporary (post)modern world, under the sign of the Partisan, slowly swirls towards Chaos. Both (Universal) Knowledge and (Political) Order are ever more swiftly becoming impossible...

A friend of mine once told me that this meeting between Kojève and Schmitt in '67 was a 'feast of thought'. ...No, I think it is far more likely that it was a wake. One imagines the Philosopher Kojève and the Jurist Schmitt staring into the gathering gloom, sharing a mournful brandy, toasting the impending deaths of their respective dreams... And (or so I imagine) all subsequent history has been a verification of the long, drawn out deaths (of Universalism and Order) that they first glimpsed two generations ago in the figure of the Partisan.

[Charles Haywood · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book born of a particular time and place. The time was 1962; the place was postwar Europe. The West was frozen in the glare of spreading Communism, paralyzed by the catastrophic end of the old European system and wholly uncertain of the path forward. Since that time, the ice has broken and the West has lurched back onto the track—the wrong track, as it happens, but that’s not what we’re talking about today. Instead, we’re talking about what "Theory of the Partisan" says to us in this time and in this place.

As befits its origin as a set of lectures, "Theory of the Partisan" is not a major work. Instead, it is an application and explication of one of Carl Schmitt’s core lines of thought, the friend/enemy distinction, fully developed in his classic earlier masterwork, "The Concept of the Political" (which I have not yet read). That book is about enemies, enmity, and how it is that only through a politics of realism that enmity can be adequately limited, in order to avoid catastrophic conflict. The relatively narrow scope of this book does not diminish its interest, however, and it has much to say about the modern situation of irregular warfare.

Schmitt begins by examining what he regards as the first modern partisan conflict—that is, a conflict in which partisans confronted a modern army fielded by a modern state. This was the guerrilla warfare during the Peninsular War after Napoleon’s invasion of Spain, from 1808 to 1813. While “partisan” in general terms is any fighter who represents a party, Schmitt says that if a partisan is defined as someone who engages in irregular warfare, for him to be truly manifest there must be regular warfare, and that only arose during the wars of the French Revolution. Prior to that, there was intermittent regularity of war, and intermittent attempts to create rules of war, but those only became regularized and universal in the nineteenth century (in Europe; Schmitt expresses no interest in the rest of the world, though obviously such rules have never existed anywhere but the West). Thus, the partisan in the core sense that matters for this book could not exist before 1800.

In Spain, the legitimate authority did not create the partisans; in many ways the Spanish elite cooperated with Napoleon. The partisans were a spontaneous, decentralized movement with many small-scale groups and leaders. More specifics of the Spanish partisans don’t really matter, and are anyway hard to determine at this remove. What matters is that they existed, the first to dare to resist a nation in arms. It was in part due to them that the Congress of Vienna created the modern rules of war, which rejected granting any legitimacy to partisans as a class. They were either a somewhat irregular type of soldier, but entitled to the protections of soldiers nonetheless, or simply bandits and outlaws, literally outside the law. The partisan is thereby “bracketed,” an embodied manifestation of enmity between two incompatible visions of the world, and such enmity necessarily tends to spiral upwards in intensity. And that is what we have seen, to the present day (1962), from Napoleon’s harassment by partisans in Russia to French war with partisans in Indochina, exacerbated by other changes in society, particularly technological changes.

In order to fully grasp and discuss the partisan, we must fully define the partisan. First, he is an irregular fighter, not in uniform and not necessarily openly carrying a weapon. This is the starting point of departure from regular forces. Second, he is politically engaged, not a “thief or criminal,” although what that means can range greatly, depending on the politics of the moment, up to and including partisans who are better organized, due to party organization, than regular troops. That is, an irregular fighter is not a disorganized fighter. Third, he is mobile; his fighting demonstrates “flexibility, speed, and the ability to switch from attack to retreat.” With modern technology, including motorization, this characteristic becomes especially important. Fourth, he is “telluric,” meaning basically defensive and tied to the earth, not an ideological revolutionist whose fighting is wholly abstracted from location. Thus, he is neither pirate nor corsair; sea is distinct from land (an abiding fascination of Schmitt’s later work). He agrees with Joan of Arc, “I do not know whether God loves or hates the English; I only know that they must be driven out of France.” His is a “fundamentally defensive position.” These third and fourth characteristics are in tension; too much mobility, and especially mobility dependent on a greater power, and the partisan is merely a tool of that power, not a partisan. This definition also implies that mere resistance, or non-conformity in opposition to the ruling power, is not being a partisan. Thus Ernst Jünger’s forest rebel, or his anarch, is not a partisan.

Schmitt notes that international (i.e., European) law has always lagged behind events when creating and updating formal structures to deal with partisans. The latest iteration of formal rules of warfare, the 1949 Geneva Conventions, addressed in practice the resistance movements of World War II, not the qualitatively different partisans of Mao Tse-Tung or Fidel Castro, and did not materially address that most partisans of the time wholly lacked any of the indicia of regular troops. In effect, therefore, the Conventions treated partisans as outside the protection of the rules of war. True, “organized resistance movements” theoretically were granted the “rights and privileges of regular combatants,” but what did that mean if the old rules requiring “organization,” such as openly carrying weapons and showing identifying badges of rank, were still in place, especially given modern changes in technology? Schmitt often cites, as indicative of modern differences in partisan warfare, the 1957 Swiss "Everyman’s Guide to Guerrilla Warfare," by Hans von Dach (published today as "Total Resistance," and popular with certain subsets of Americans, on the Left and on the Right). The net impact of updating rules is probably that the partisan is more likely in the future to be regarded, abstractly and technically, as “legal,” but that does not change that occupying powers in an international conflict will still be justified in repression of the partisan in a manner little different than before—namely, as a criminal.

Finally, Schmitt places this discussion in the context of his critical distinction, found in "The Concept of the Political," that between friend and enemy. In the type of conflict that Schmitt sees as both natural and inherently limited, open, recognized enmity based on political differences leads to conflict, which must be resolved, if necessary through war. But that war is not an ideological war (where ideology means, in James Burnham’s words, “a more or less systematic and self-contained set of ideas supposedly dealing with the nature of reality . . . and calling for a commitment independent of specific experience or events”). Instead, it is limited by being directed to political ends, which, if satisfied, lead to termination of the war. Not so with ideological war, a modern phenomenon, where the enemy is criminal, and the goal therefore his permanent and total destruction. In non-ideological conflicts, the partisan is viewed by both sides as a criminal, outside the protection of the law, even if he is useful to one side. In ideological conflicts, in contrast, the partisan is viewed as a hero by one side, since he executes righteous judgment on the real criminals, the enemy. There is a “just cause,” but no longer a “just enemy,” and the partisan becomes a central figure of war. In this environment, law and rules such as the Geneva Conventions, with their “many discretely stylized compromise norms,” “appear only as the narrow bridge over an abyss.” This is a variation on Schmitt’s complaint that rejecting that enmity is natural and inevitable paradoxically makes war more terrible, since no legitimacy can be ascribed to an ideological enemy at whose feet the unnecessary existence of enmity is laid.

Schmitt then turns to how the theory of the partisan has developed over time. He regards as crucial the change of partisans from self-generated, politically flexible groups to deliberately birthed political organizations. The ideology he identifies that made this possible, though, is not, as one might think, one of the modern Furies. Rather, Schmitt identifies the French Enlightenment, as embodied in the Prussian elite, as the ideology, and the time very precisely: April through July, 1813. In April of that year, a royal Prussian edict was formally promulgated and distributed, demanding the most extreme partisan activity against the invading French. Public order was to be destroyed; mobs were encouraged; reprisals and terror were to be order of the day. The Spanish guerillas, who were fantastically brutal (as were the French in their counter-partisan warfare) were held up as exemplars of behavior. “In short, this document is a Magna Carta for partisan warfare.” Schmitt regards this edict as the first “official document of a legitimation of partisans for national defense.” He is, of course, in the entire corpus of his life’s work, very focused on legitimacy, of rulers and of decisions, so this analysis is not surprising. In the French Enlightenment atmosphere of Prussia’s rulers, “which united an aroused national feeling with philosophical education, the partisan was discovered philosophically, and his theory became historically possible.” It does not matter that none of the asked-for partisan activity actually happened and that the decree was rescinded three months later. By this decree, the partisan became a political actor, and the theory of the partisan as political was then developed further by Carl von Clausewitz. “One could say that [the partisan] had become philosophically accredited and socially presentable.”

The logical and historical result of this line of thought was Lenin, who, unlike other Communist revolutionaries, “recognized the inevitability of force and bloody, revolutionary civil war and state war, and thus also approved of partisan warfare as a necessary ingredient of the total revolutionary process.” Lenin studied Clausewitz, “and what he learned painstakingly, was not only the famous formula of war as the continuation of politics. It was the further recognition that the distinction of friend and enemy in the age of revolution is primary, and that it determines war as well as politics. For Lenin, only revolutionary war is genuine war, because it arises from absolute enmity.” This implies that there is an absolute enemy; the partisan was, in Lenin’s view, “the strongest negation of the existing capitalist order; he was called to be the true executor of enmity.” The irregularity of the partisan expands from lacking uniform and badge to rejection of the entire existing political and social order, and along with that expansion limitations on enmity are removed.

The destruction wrought by this reformulation was inconceivable to those who built the modern European order at the Congress of Vienna, or their successors who wrote documents like the Hague Convention or the Geneva Conventions. Schmitt ascribes only to Joseph de Maistre foresight of what Lenin would do, create “an alliance of philosophy with the elemental forces of an insurrection.” Here Schmitt appears to implicitly contrast philosophy with the telluric content necessary for true partisans, implying a divorce between the two. But Lenin was the beginning, not the end; he made the partisan “a key figure of world history.” Stalin succeeded in reuniting the telluric character of partisans with the political aspect of the Communist world revolution. Mao Tse-Tung did the same, even more so, and furthered it by reuniting partisans with the Prussian principles of Clausewitz, both with respect to partisans and of embodying the nation in arms. For Mao, enmity could no longer be limited; “peace today is only a manifestation of real enmity.” Mao is the inevitable conclusion of combining the theory of the partisan, ideological enmity, and modern technology.

This poses immense problems for Westerners, who are wedded to rules designed to hem war about with limits. This conflict was embodied in a French general, Raoul Salan. Who, you say? Salan was the leader of the OAS—not the Organization of American States, but the Organisation Armée Secrète, the Secret Armed Organization, the politico-terrorist arm of the Algerian French who perceived (correctly) they were being abandoned by Charles de Gaulle, immediately before the time Schmitt was writing. Salan was a “left Republican,” entirely devoted to the secular French nation, the most decorated soldier in the entire French army, including five times receiving the Légion d’honneur. When, in 1958, after serving against partisans in Indochina, he was named commander of French forces in Algeria, he came up against the partisan warfare of the FLN, the nationalist/Islamic/socialist/pan-Arabist umbrella group for anti-French insurrection. In Salan’s view, he was merely meeting terror with terror, even if that terror was executed in part in France itself. Salan commanded 400,000 soldiers, yet lost to 20,000 partisans, and lost Algeria, where a million Frenchmen lived in their native land. The OAS was his last throw; he did not apologize, and remained mostly silent during his trial, after which he was condemned to death (though his sentence was commuted, and he was pardoned in 1968). Schmitt’s point is not to comment on the justice of either side of the Algerian war, but that the iron and inevitable logic of modern partisan warfare was a “strange paradox” with an “insane logic, which could embitter a brave and intelligent man and drive him to attempt a counteroffensive.” Salan followed the logic of the situation in which he found himself, and thus he himself was transformed into a partisan, since “with a partisan, one fights like a partisan.” “He appealed to the nation against the state, to a higher type of legitimacy against legality.” In other words, the modern West finds it unable to deal effectively with partisans; we do not understand them and we can no longer fit them into a relatively neat pigeonhole in a book of rules. The result is either defeat or bizarre mutation.

This is Schmitt’s lead-in to a more detailed analysis of the modern situation, or what was modern in 1962. First, the “spatial aspect” is new. The partisan, his abilities enhanced by modern technology, has a greatly expanded range of action in space, which allows (as in Algeria) a multiplication of force and effect. Second, there is destruction of social structures; the expanded power of the partisan allows a non-public sphere to develop within the res publica, which erodes the commonwealth and makes it unable to respond effectively. Because “a few terrorists are able to threaten great masses . . . [w]ider spaces of insecurity, fear, and general mistrust are added to the narrower space of open terror, creating a ‘landscape of treason.’ . . .��

Third, Schmitt recurs to the erosion of the telluric character of the partisan, and his frequent absorption, to a greater or lesser degree, into a global struggle, no longer defensive or tied to a specific locality. This is especially true if there is an “interested third party,” as Stalin was to the Yugoslav partisans. Such third-party support is attractive to partisans, because it helps them to become recognized as regular enough to not be criminals, but it clouds who is a partisan at all. Fourth, and very important, Schmitt rejects that modern advances in the “technical-industrial aspect” make partisan warfare obsolete. On the contrary, technology advances the range of the partisan, as well as his capabilities—even up to “means of mass destruction,” a prescient foresight of modern fears. Technical progress, in fact, will “only intensify the old questions.” And thus, Schmitt’s conclusion is that these changes mean “The theory of the partisan flows into the question of the concept of the political, into the question of the real enemy and of a new nomos of the earth.”

There has been a lot of water under the bridge, sixty years’ worth, since 1962. In Schmitt’s time, as a consequence primarily of global Communism, partisan warfare had taken on, as he acknowledges, the characteristics of proxy war, blurring what it meant to be a partisan. But Communism is dead and gone; there are no relevant partisan wars based on Communism. Even splinter groups like the Shining Path in Peru have been crushed or have abandoned the struggle. Those who claim to be Communist, like the government of Cuba, are merely thugs and looters, who no longer support ideological struggle outside their country. That does not mean partisans are gone. The most important manifestation of partisan warfare since 1991, at least with respect to the conflict of partisans with regular forces and organized states, is the warfare conducted against the United States forces occupying Afghanistan and Iraq during the past twenty years. What does Schmitt’s framework say to us of this?

We should distinguish between “terrorism” and “insurrection” in this context. This is difficult, because those in favor of endless war are also in favor of propagandistically casting all resistance to whatever exactly it is we are trying to do in the Middle East as “terrorism,” since if that characterization is accepted, all opposition, foreign or domestic, is viscerally and necessarily illegitimate. But most violence directed at the United States in the Middle East, or at its finger puppets (the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan), or at its junior partners (Britain, etc.), is in fact partisan warfare, not terrorism. The distinction between terrorism and partisan warfare lies primarily in targets; any military target is by definition a partisan target. I am not expert enough in the details to say how blurry that dividing line is, but I suspect in practice it is pretty clear, and that most of those cast as terrorists are actually partisans. One man’s terrorist may not be another man’s freedom fighter, but one man’s partisan usually is another man’s freedom fighter.

[Review completes as first comment.]

[Schedex]

"Jeder Zwei-Frontenkrieg wirft die Frage auf, wer denn nun der wirkliche Feind ist. Ist es nicht ein Zeichen innerer Gespaltenheit, mehr als einen einzigen wirklichen Feind zu haben? Der Feind ist unsere eigene Frage als Gestalt. Wenn die eigene Gestalt eindeutig bestimmt ist, woher kommt dann die Doppelheit der Feinde? Feind ist nicht etwas, was aus irgendeinem Grunde beseitigt und wegen
seines Unwertes vernichtet werden muß. Der Feind steht auf meiner eigenen Ebene. Aus diesem Grunde muß ich mich mit ihm kämpfend auseinandersetzen, um das eigene Maß, die eigene Grenze, die eigene Gestalt zu gewinnen."

[Salem Zarir · Rating 4 out of 5]

في كتابه هذا، يستكمل -أو يستطرد كما ورد بدقة في ترجمة العنوان الفرعي للكتاب- كارل شميت ما بدأه في مؤلفه مفهوم السياسي، منطلقاً من معالجة دقيقة لماهية البارتيزان أو المقاتل اللانظامي، ومفسرا من خلاله العداوة والصداقة بما هما النموذج الحاكم للنطاق السياسي. ولقد استمتعت بشكل خاص في هذا الكتاب، بالمصطلحات القانونية المتناثرة هنا وهناك، إذ أعادتني بعض فقرات الكتاب الي ايام الدراسة، وتحديدا المساقات والدورات المتعلقة بالقانون الدولي. كما أن مقارنة شميت المشروعية بالشرعية، وعلو كعب الأولى على العدالة ذاتها، يسلط الضوء بشكل واضح على الدور اللاهوتي الذي يلعبه القانون في الدولة المعاصرة.

كما لفت انتباهي الحاشية رقم ستة عشر، والتي يحيل فيها الكاتب الى تفسير شروزر للبارتزيان على أنه آخر معاقل المقاومة ضد عدمية العالم المستعمَر من قبل التقنية، والمدافع الآخير عن النوع الإنساني والأرض؛ يحق لنا كفلسطينيين، أن نرى درجة التطابق منقطعة النظير بين هذا المفهوم وبين ما تمثله المقاومة الفلسطينية في غزة حاليا، وأن نفخر بحق بما تحمله هذه المقاومة من أمثلة وما تزخر به من قيم.

علاوة على ما سبق، كانت اضاءات شميت فيما يخص تحليل فلاديمير لينين لمفهوم البارتيزان نافعة حقا، من الجميل أن نرى تحليلا لأي نشاط ماركسي/أما اشتراكي لا ينطلق من المواقع التقليدية؛ سواء الموالية أو المعادية. في الفصل الختامي للكتاب، نرى العديد من توقعات شميت وقد أصبحت واقعا سياسيا نعايشه، فهل تصدق باقي نبوءاته، أقصد تلك التي تشابه أفلام حرب النجوم ونرى صراعا بشريا عسكريا في الفضاء. بالمحصلة، كتاب مميز ويستحق القراءة.

[Mohamed · Rating 4 out of 5]

يمتلك نص كارل شميت "نظرية البارتيزان" قيمة مضاعفة حين يقرأ عربيا، اذ يضع بين ايدينا مفهوما غالبا ما تعالجه لغتنا المعاصرة بعبارات امنية او اخلاقية جاهزة. في عالمنا ومنطقتنا التي تعج بتنويعات الفاعل غير النظامي والمجموعات شبه العسكرية، يصبح الوصف الوقتي بانه "ارهاب" كافيا لاقفال النقاش قبل ان يبدأ. شميت هنا يقترح العكس تماما, ارجاع الظاهرة الى شروطها السياسية والقانونية والتاريخية، وفهمها بوصفها علامة تحول في بنية الحرب وفي تصور الدولة والسيادة والاعتراف. ينطلق المؤلف من التجربة الاوروبية الحديثة حيث تبلور البارتيزان في مقاومة الاحتلال النابوليوتي في اسبانيا، ثم في البلقان قبل واثناء الحرب العالمية الثانية، وصولا الى صيغته الاكثر تسييسا في الحركات البلشفية والماوية. غير ان مقصده ليس التأريخ لتكتيكات الكر والفر، بل استخلاص ماهية جديدة للفاعل السياسي لا تنطبق على الجيوش المنتظمة. فالبارتيزان عنده ليس مجرد مقاتل متنكر، بل فاعل غير نظامي مشدود الى ارضه وبيئته، يتحرك برشاقة وسائل قليلة الكلفة، ويصوغ عداوة سياسية تتجاوز قواعد الحرب "المتحضرة" بين دول متكافئة الجيوش. هنا يبرز الاثر النظري, ما ان يغدو هذا الفاعل مركزيا حتى تهتز منظومة القانون الاوروبي العام التي قامت على اعتراف متبادل بين دول ذات سيادة وجيوش نظامية، وتظهر مناطق رمادية يتنازعها السؤال، هل هو مقاتل شرعي يخضع لقوانين الحرب ام مخرب يقع خارجها؟ يكشف شميت ان سؤال المشروعية لا يحسم بالصفات الاخلاقية، بل بالمكان الذي يحتله هذا الفاعل في خريطة العداء والاعتراف. حين كانت الحرب بين دول، كانت الضوابط القانونية ممكنة بفعل تماثل الخصمين. ومع صعود البارتيزان، تتحول العداوة تدريجا الى ما يسميه "العداء المطلق"، فتتوسع حالات الاستثناء داخل الدول، وتعيد الحكومات تعريف حدود السيادة بذريعة مطاردة خصم يتخفى وسط السكان.

بهذا المعنى، فالبارتيزان ليس ظاهرة عسكرية فحسب، بل محرك بنيوي يعيد تشكيل علاقة الدولة بمواطنيها وبقانونها وبالنظام الدولي من حولها. عربيا، تظهر اهمية هذا التحديد المضبوط من زوايا عدة. تاريخنا الحديث مثقل بحركات تحرر ضد استعمار مباشر او ترتيبات وصاية غير مباشرة، وبحروب اهلية تمددت فيها مؤسسات موازية، وبشبكات عابرة للحدود تزاوج بين ايديولوجيا وتجارة سلاح ومصالح اقليمية. الا ان معظم الكتابة العربية بقيت اما سجالية تمجّد او تدين، واما تقنية ضيقة تختزل الظاهرة في مسألة امنية. القراءة الشميتية تتيح الانتقال من هذه الثنائيات الى اسئلة البناء، اين يبدأ الاعتراف وينتهي؟ كيف تتغير قواعد التمييز بين المدني والعسكري حين يصبح الحيز السكاني ذاته ساحة قتال؟ ما الذي يعنيه ان تتحول السيادة الى سلسلة من قرارات الاستثناء الدائمة؟ ولان شميت يربط البارتيزان بارضه وبيئته، فان المقارنة مع حالاتنا تكشف وجها اخر، في كثير من صراعات المنطقة، تماهت شبكات الدعم والتمويل والاعلام مع فضاءات عابرة للحدود، فضعف "الطابع التلوري" لصالح تموضع شبكي واقليمي. هنا تبرز حدود اطروحة شميت ومجال تحديثها: يمكن توسيع مفهوم التوطن ليشمل البنى الاتصالية والجمهور الرقمي المحلي، كما يمكن قراءة "اللانظامية" في ضوء ادوات منخفضة الكلفة ذات اثر استراتيجي كبير مثل الطائرات المسيرة، وهجمات المعلومات، وتعطيل سلاسل التوريد. كذلك تتسارع ديناميات "العداء المطلق" بفعل خوارزميات الاستقطاب والمشهد الاعلامي المجزأ، ما يجعل الادارة القانونية والسياسية للنزاع اكثر تعقيدا. مع ذلك، تبقى قوة شميت في وضع معيار يحرر النقاش من الاستسهال، شرعية الفاعل غير النظامي ليست قرارا خطابيا، بل وظيفة معقدة تتقاطع فيها شروط التمثيل المحلي، وحدود التدخل الخارجي، وقواعد القانون الدولي الانساني، وميزان المصالح الذي يحدد من يملك حق تعريف العدو ومن يسحب الاعتراف عنه.

حين ننقل هذا المعيار الى سياقنا، نفهم لماذا تنتهي جولات كثيرة الى ترتيبات هدنة طويلة وادماج سياسي محدود ومناطق استثناء قانوني بدل حسم عسكري نهائي. من زاوية منهجية، يفيد القارئ العربي ان يتعامل مع "نظرية البارتيزان" كتشخيص بنيوي لا كدليل عملي. النص يقترح مستويات متداخلة للفهم، مستوى تكتيكي يتعلق بالحركة والكمائن، ومستوى عملياتي يتصل بسلاسل الامداد والحاضنة الاجتماعية، ومستوى استراتيجي- قانوني يحكمه الاعتراف والمشروعية، ثم مستوى رمزي يصوغ سردية العداء ودرجاته. هذه المستويات لا تتطابق دوما، لكنها تشرح كيف يمكن لصراع محلي محدود الوسائل ان يكتسب اثرا اقليميا حين تتبدل شروط الاعتراف وتتحرك عتبات الاستثناء. في ضوء ذلك، تبدو الترجمة العربية عملا لازما لسد فجوة بحثية. اهم ما تحتاجه مثل هذه الترجمات هو ضبط المصطلح عند مفارق التباسه بين السياسي والقانوني، وتوفير حواش شارحة للسياقات الاوروبية التي يستدعيها شميت كي لا تبقى بعيدة عن ذهن القارئ، وتمهيد نقدي قصير يربط النص بادبيات الحرب غير المتناظرة والاقتصاد السياسي للميليشيات والقانون الدولي في النزاعات غير الدولية. حين تتوافر هذه الشروط، يغدو الكتاب صالحا للتدريس في اقسام العلوم السياسية والقانون والعلاقات الدولية، لا بوصفه وثيقة تاريخية، بل اداة لتحليل حاضرنا الملتهب. في المحصلة، يقدم شميت اطارا تفسيريا لفهم لماذا يزدهر الفاعل غير النظامي حين تتشقق شرعية الدولة او تتداخل خرائط النفوذ الاقليمي، وكيف تعاد صياغة قواعد الحرب والاعتراف في عالم لم يعد يحتمل تماثلا بسيطا بين خصومه. حدود الاطار معروفة، فهو ابن زمن سابق للتكنولوجيا الرخيصة والحرب السيبرانية، لكنه قابل للتحديث من دون التفريط بنواته الصلبة: ربط السياسة بحدود العداء وبقرار الاستثناء. لذلك تبدو قراءة "نظرية البارتيزان" عربيا خطوة منطقية للخروج من فخ الشعارات، والاقتراب من تحليل يضع القانون والسيادة والاعتراف في مواضعها الصحيحة، ويفتح افقا بحثيا يليق بمركزية هذه الظاهرة في تاريخ منطقتنا القريب والآتي.

[Santi Ruiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

incredibly relevant and prescient

[Aidan W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading German books translated into English is penance for my sins

[Gianmariabr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Le categorie critiche e la lucidità veggente di Schmitt in un saggio che, scritto nel 1962, risulta di grande attualità.

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theory of the Partisan: Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of the Political is a book written by Carl Schmitt, a German legal scholar and political theorist. The book was published in 1963 and is a commentary on Schmitt's earlier work, The Concept of the Political. In Theory of the Partisan, Schmitt discusses the concept of the partisan, which he defines as a political actor who is willing to use force in pursuit of a political cause. He argues that the partisan is a key figure in political life, and that the concept of the partisan is central to understanding the nature of political conflict and the use of force in politics. Schmitt also explores the relationship between the partisan and the state, and suggests that the partisan can serve as a check on the power of the state and as a means of defending against foreign aggression. Theory of the Partisan is considered a classic work of political thought and is widely regarded as an important resource for understanding Schmitt's ideas about the role of force in politics.

GPT

[Rui Coelho · Rating 2 out of 5]

Somewhat relevant on the 60s and 70s, not so much today. This text will live in the shadow of The Concept of the Political, a true classic.

[Will O'Hara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terrorism hasn’t changed since the 1800s. Schmitt’s analysis of guerrilla/partisan warfare is remarkably contemporary, despite the centuries-old historical examples on which it draws

[Jaxen]

An interesting exposition of the Political that Schmitt had laid out in 'The Concept of the Political'. The partisan has four general characteristics: they fight irregularly, they are mobile in zones of combat, they are distinctly political, and they have a 'tellurian' character. Combined, we have a fighting collective which acts contra regular modes of European warfare (clear insignia, bourne arms, etc.). But it would be a mistake to label partisans as mere gangs or terrorists; they are distinctly political as Schmitt has defined it earlier, and the real enemy of the partisan is coherent due to their local and terrestrial grounding (what is meant by 'tellurian' character). A gang is merely risky, they fight (in general) for economic gain and so their actions are plain illegal (the pirate functions this way too) -- the partisan is more difficult in that their political character holds the potential for legitimization (as many partisan forces become 'accepted' if, for example, its an irregular fighting front against a foreign conqueror of ones national homeland).

My first impression is that a partisan is only a partisan if they are not motorized, that is not losing their tellurian character. A global partisan has two options; they exist as a replaceable cog in some world-political machine (or as beneficiary of an interested third party), or they elevate the enemy to the level of absolute enmity, literally a threat to humanity as such. This latter consequence is what Schmitt see's occurring with partisan theory following Lenin and Mao. "Partisans directed by the central communist authority become freedom fighters and venerable heroes. Partisans whose activity deviates from this authority become lumpen rabble and enemies of mankind". This follows from previous comments Schmitt has made regarding Marx, Sorel, Jacobins, etc... concerning their construction of an absolute enemy for justification of terror. Schmitt on communism is always interesting not because his critiques are necessarily justified (parts in this text don't seem right to me) but because he has a serious sense of the radical danger a leftist political project truly poses to an established world order. As he says here of the communist partisan: "The irregularity of class struggle calls not just the military line but the whole edifice of political and social order into question". I could see a communist reading such a statement and saying "Yes and that is a good thing!" -- for Schmitt this is not a good thing, his political particularism prevents any form of universal class or enemy (I would even say any form of "Schmittian leftism" is impossible, lest you mutilate Schmitt's central thought).

To conclude, I found this small book interesting and a useful refresher and application of Schmitt's older theory of the political and legitimacy. He proves himself as possibly the greatest right-wing political theorist to have ever lived and a serious 'enemy' to anyone invested in a leftist project.

[Carlos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Este texto reúne un par de conferencias que dio Schmitt en Navarra y otro sitio que no me acuerod y paso de consultar, invitado por Fraga en los años 60. El título reza que es una acotación al concepto de lo político, pero lo veo más relacionado con El nomos de la tierra y la Teología política. Atendiendo al contenido de la obra es cuanto menos decepcionante: el rigor histórico presente en la mayoría de las obras de Schmitt aquí es tergiversado, concretamente en el caso de Mao y Lenin y su lectura nacionalista del partisano.
Este es concebido como aquel guerrillero irregular vinculado siempre a la tierra, y este carácter nómico-telúrico en el que Schmitt fuerza la interpretación. Al operar de forma irregular se opone a la legalidad del derecho de guerra post Westfalia, pero en tanto apela a lo telúrico su actuación es legítima (siguiendo la argumentación clásica de Schmitt). El problema de la teoría del partisano de Schmitt no se reduce solo a su obra, y su argumentación sólida acaba desvelando la flaqueza fundamental: que el carácter telúrico, originario, al que apela, se funda en la nada. Y este problema recorre también la noción de soberano que se desvela en el estado de excepción, en ese camino entre la norma y la fundación de la norma (y por tanto esa zona incierta que señala Agamben).
La única oposición que ve Schmitt ante el imperio de la ley es el imperio de la tierra. Y eso es lo que le desvela como reaccionario, como alguien que critica la argumentación liberal no desde ella sino atendiendo a un estado (y un Estado) premoderno. En último término, si leo tanto a Schmitt es justo por eso mismo: porque acaba mostrando que el poder soberano se funda en la nada, en una máscara de máscaras que apela a algo tan vacío como lo originario (sea la tierra, sea el contrato social o el orden natural). Schmitt, al igual que Hobbes, se muestran como defensores de la soberanía que acaba desvelando la ficción en la que esta se apoya.

PD: Tremendamente divertida esta cita (página 68): "Hay una coincidencia significativa en el hecho de que Mao Ze hubiera escritos sus trabajos más importantes en los añs 1936-38, es decir, al mismo tiempo que España luchaba en una guerra de liberación natural contra la captura comunista internacional."

[Rawdah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schmitt is right to point out how (European) international law has a tendency to lag behind contemporary political events, resulting in contradictions - if not outright hypocrisy - thereby stymying any of Europe’s credibility in law-making for a rapidly globalising, industrialising, and polarising world.

It’s a compelling thought exercise to consider how things like the Geneva Convention once protected partisan fighting against Axis occupation and aggression and yet when partisans in the ‘Third World’ (arguably even in the Second) do what to them is the same, it is instead a violation of morality and considered to be outside of the rule of law.

The definitions around an ‘ideological war’ where the enemy is beyond the pale, criminal, and therefore necessary to defeat permanently is a really clear reasoning for why wars have ostensibly become so much more terrible through the 20th century. He describes how there now exist ‘just causes’ but no longer ‘just enemies,’ and it’s easy to see the slippery slope into outright dehumanisation. It also helps to understand why treaties are obsolete (though I guess the creation of Boards of Peace by a certain someone should’ve made that obvious by now). It’s really interesting that Schmitt see enmity as natural and inevitable in military history and it’s precisely this that makes the existence of the enemy ‘acceptable.’ If you don’t see enmity as natural, it becomes something that needs to be stamped out, hence the exterminationist nature of modern conflict.

It’s interesting that he presents Mao as the result of the combination of the theory of the partisan, of ideological enmity, and of modern technology. The limitless of enmity is certainly revolutionary from Mao’s perspective but it does pose some troubling questions for a world order predicated on the fact that there are even such things as peacetime and wartime. Schmitt is disturbingly prescient about how at almost every level in society, enmity has evolved from limited, within the rule of law, natural, and legitimate, to something that instead poses an imagined existential threat. Sure this can be a stunningly powerful mobilising ideology, as has historically been the case. But the vantage point of 2026 casts an ugly light on the theory of the partisan and its consequences for modern political order and our ability to see each other as fellow humans.

[Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the Theory of the Partisan, Carl Schmitt gives characteristics of the partisan fighter, Cold War politics, the Prussian state, and his concept of political enmity. The partisan is irregular, increasingly mobile, politically engaged, and telluric. The origins of the partisan are tied to the Spanish guerrilla war of 1808. Here, the irregular fighters defeated a modern, regular army. The theory of the partisan is developed by Clausewitz and the Bolsheviks alike. The Bolsheviks, however, were able to tie the partisan to a global international revolution—the concept of the friend/enemy distinction is used in Schmitt's analysis of Cold War politics and revolution. He defines a cold war as "a situation of enmity with other than open violent means". Overall, the book is insightful in a study of international law and political partisanship in times of war. It pairs nicely with the Concept of the Political, which I would recommend as a more philosophically oriented text. Schmitt's understanding of the friend and enemy distinction is very relevant as the U.S. involves herself near Russia's border and as domestic politics are shifting away from establishment Democrats. I highly recommend this text as a sobering and realistic insight into political philosophy.

[Eduardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theory of the Partisan de Carl Schmitt es una obra fundamental que profundiza en la figura del partisano como un actor político que desafía el orden establecido y lucha por la supervivencia de su comunidad frente a un enemigo exterior. Schmitt analiza cómo el partisano, a través de su resistencia, representa una forma auténtica de política basada en la lealtad, la identidad y el sacrificio, en contraposición a las estructuras abstractas y despersonalizadas del Estado moderno. En un mundo donde el conflicto político se ha desvinculado de las identidades profundas y se ha convertido en una lucha entre intereses vacíos, el partisano se erige como el defensor de los valores tradicionales y la unidad de su pueblo. La obra subraya la importancia de una política que no se basa solo en principios racionales, sino en una conexión visceral con la comunidad y la defensa de sus valores esenciales. Es una reflexión poderosa sobre el papel del individuo dentro del contexto político, y una crítica a las estructuras modernas que, según Schmitt, tienden a despojar a los pueblos de su identidad y autonomía.

[Alessandro Rossi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Solo chi domina la terra, apparentemente diventata così minuscola, occuperà e sfrutterà i nuovi spazi. Di conseguenza anche questi nuovi sconfinati spazi non sono che potenziali campi di battaglia, e lo sono in una lotta per il predominio su questa terra. I celebri astronauti e cosmonauti [...] avranno allora l'occasione di tramutarsi in cosmopirati, e forse perfino in cosmopartigiani."

Carl Schmitt ha concluso la scrittura di questo libro nel 1963, leggere la sua analisi sulla teoria del partigiano oggi è fondamentale per capire un fenomeno sociale fondante della Comunità Europa e nel caso Italiano della rinascita nazionale.

La valutazione di 4 stelle è merito di quest'analisi minuziosa, ma che non prende in considerazione la storia partigiana italiana, che trasforma la "teoria partigiana" in Costituzione.

[Dorian Maillot · Rating 5 out of 5]

The historicism of the birth, legality and legitimacy of the Partisan is essential to understanding modern unconventional warfare.
It appears that Schmitt's prophecy that states with weapons of mass destruction will manipulate partisans on controlled theaters has been realized.
On the establishment of the real enemy, from its origins in bracketed war, to create the telluric Partisan, and then followed by the absolute enemy of Lenin's offensive world historical revolution, one can see the 21st century insurgents in a continuity of this history.
Of particular note is also the decriminalization of the irregular by international law, simultaneously accompanied in the Cold War context, and to an extent in many theaters today, by the necessity of moral destruction of the enemy to warrant entering Schmitt's abyss.

[Kaiserberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clausewitz and Schmitt: What to "On War" were the sections on people's war, the "Theory of the Partisan" is to the "Concept of the Political".

Following a chronology of the figure of the partisan from the Spanish resistance to Napoleon until the 1960s, Schmitt stresses the importance of such type of fighter in the multiple theatres of the Second World War and most importantly during the time of this work's publishing; where the partisan increasingly became the focal point of warfare, becoming the main vector of victory in the multiple anticolonial wars of national liberation.

The translator's introduction highlights Schmitt's distinction between partisan and terrorist, which he considered relevant in the first decade of the 21st century, given that he considered that the partisan had retired from the stage in global warfare, yet a current reader would find Schmitt's analysis rather fresh, anticipating a comeback of the rooted, ideological fighter in deciding the outcome of war and politics.

The text is a formidable supplement to Schmitt's main body of writing and does a thorough analysis on the figure of the partisan. Schmitt's extensive knowledge on law and its unsevered ties to history is appreciated by the reader throughout.

Interesting is too the (tragic) story of Raoul Salan which the author recalls throughout the written lecture, that of a failed partisan, which had learned theoretically from Mao and practically from Ho Chi Minh during his time in Indochina - and politically motivated (initially against the Algerian FLN and subsequently against his own government) was delegitimised and attacked by the French State, leading to the failure of his project, by virtue of him wanting to be a partisan.

[Minäpäminä · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting rumination on the "absolutization of emnity" from Von Clausewitz to Lenin. Total war has made combatants of us all and the "realistic" view of politics (as "continuation of war by other means") makes all citizens partisans, lawless killers. The soldier becomes as archaic a figure as the warrior. From now on it's terrorists all the way down.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hm... I didn't really know what was going on for most of it, and knew very little about what he was referring to. It's mostly references to his other books, and then Spanish guerrillas in 1808-1814, so if you don't know a lot about both of those then I don't recommend starting here.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tracks the development of the partisan across two centuries and his impact on international law, the concept of the political, and the very possibility of peace. The partisan gives the landscape of war a terrifying depth, brings novel and brutal forms of terror into being, and produces an enmity arms-race that can only end in absolute annihilation of the absolute enemy.

Brilliant elaboration of The Concept of the Political’s themes. Read that first, then this.

[Huzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

A chapter by chapter summary of the book can be found here https://prismatically.blog/2021/07/08...

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nog steeds relevant

[Jackson Redden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again, horrible man but this is another good read that isn’t overtly polluted by Nazi dogma, just be wary.

[Auburn Brenner · Rating 1 out of 5]

❌ Schmitt ❌

[Wissam Raji · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book discusses the theory of a partisan and its origin that started in the Spain back in 1801. He gives a description of what a partisan is in terms of internal motives and external adaptation. The book in some way might seem trivial and not supported by logical arguments but once one refers to commentary on the ideas from outside sources, things connect.

[Ian Fleischmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I appreciate the intellectual exercise in defining the nebulous space between soldier and terrorist, I'm not sure Schmitt makes his point. Perhaps it is the translation but the complicated language is difficult to overcome. I did learn the definitions for autochthonous, acherontic, and telluric though… Also, he has structured his historical inquiry by topic-point, not time, meaning he frequently jumps back and forth between 1813, 1870, 1914, and 1941 among others. He also loves tangents. The story of Salan and de Gaulle is interesting but the level of detail seemed excessive - perhaps that was a function of the trial being a relatively recent occurrence to the date of publication.
It seems that Schmitt's essential point is that Clausewitz's concept of war as an extension of politics opened a theoretical door for the expansion of partisan warfare into the vexing acherontic condition that appears today. If true, then I think it could be said in simpler language. Also, I'm not sure that one can even blame Clausewitz, Lenin, Mao, and the Geneva Conventions for problematizing this concept of the partisan as Schmitt points out that the origination of the guerilla warrior, the original partisan, predated Clausewitz's theory of war. I'm sure that a detailed historical analysis of other world cultures would also show politically-motivated autochthonous/telluric, mobile forces defending their lands through irregular means going back millennia. The problem is exacerbated by a globalizing force which seeks to place greater and greater institutional defining structures on the world. If so, there doesn’t seem to be much hope of reversing the process or finding a less than messy way out of this logical pit we've dug. Again, maybe this is was Schmitt was saying; I'm not entirely clear I got the point…
Ulmen's translation notes at the beginning are interesting and thought provoking. To me, it was the most interesting and useful part of the entire book.

[Colm Gillis · Rating 3 out of 5]

"This interested third party is not some banal figure like the proverbially laughing third party. It belongs rather, and essentially, to the situation of the partisan, and thus also to his theory. The powerful third party delivers not only weapons and munitions, money, material assistance, and medicines of every description, he offers also the sort of political recognition of which the irregularly fighting partisan is in need, in order to avoid falling like the thief and the pirate into the unpolitical, which means here the criminal sphere. In the longer view of things the irregular must legitimize itself through the regular, and for this only two possibilities stand open: recognition by an existing regular, or establishment of a new regularity by its own force. This is a tough alternative."
This is the style of this fascinating commentary by Carl Schmitt into the nature of the irregular soldier, the partisan, the freedom fighter or terrorist, depending on your choice of words. Primarily Schmitt juxtaposes the order and technique of highly organized states with the disorder nd flexibility of patriotic insurgents. Certain signs help illuminate this dichotomy, e.g. the clothing of both and the contrast. The book is meant to complement his earlier book The Concept of the Political. This work lacks the energy and sheer beauty of the earlier treatise. It doesnt have the memorable flourishes or sense of command that distinguiahed TCOTP. It comes across as a little jaded. The ideas in the book are useful and indeed he shows his typical razor-sharp insight. But as with most of his post-WWII work, Schmitt slightly flounders.

[Facufigueroa_ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quienes hayan leído este libro después de tierra y mar sabrán en profundidad a qué acude Schmitt cuando habla de la contraposición jurídica y política del estatus del corsario inglés frente al pirata como el partisano español frente al soldado de un ejército regular y uniformado. La teoría del partisano termina por mostrar la agudeza intelectual de Carl Schmitt al ver “la política como la continuación de la guerra por otros medios”. Schmitt parte este seminario en España por un motivo en especial: dejar constancia de la innovación táctica y tecnológica de la guerra. Algo que se destaca muy bien es la aguda lectura de Schmitt de la historia de España—y no hablo solo por la admiración del discurso de Donoso Cortes— en tanto que supo capturar como ejemplo de partisano al guerrillero español que fue al frente sin pena ni gloria para defender su patria frente a la amenaza francesa. Este guerrillero que toma partido por una causa nacional no se atiene a causas jurídicas ni a ninguna “Ius in bellum” en tanto que desobedece toda norma jurídica y actúa en base a la causa ideológica que lleva a cabo que es el hecho de tomar partido en defensa de la nación. Lo llamativo a todo esto es que Schmitt aclara que solo el estatuto legal y jurídico de un partisano cambia cuando estalla una guerra civil en tanto que es una guerra interna y nacional en la que queda abolida todo estado de derecho y son dos frentes internos los que combaten entre sí. Debo destacar y hacer una mención especial a la buena interpretación que hace de Mao y El che guevara como innovadores de la lucha partisana. Tremendo texto.