What does come to your mind when you think about a partisan? A member of an armed group formed to fight secretly against an occupying force? Or a strong supporter of a cause? Carl Schmitt outlined his theory, but he focused on combatants, not on political activists. That’s what we’re going to see here.
Today, I want to speak to you about what Carl Schmitt said about partisans. Indeed, he wrote a book devoted to this topic. In some way, his reflections connect with his point of view about the “political.” So, we can find a thread that links both topics. If you read his book Theory of the Partisan, probably you may consider it as a rethinking of his previous work The Concept of the Political.
On this occasion, I’m going to analyze what Schmitt said about this matter, and how it connects with his notion of enmity that defines the way he understood politics.
The theory of the partisan has its origin in two lectures delivered during 1962. Schmitt addressed the transformation of war in the post-European age and analyzed a specific and significant phenomenon that originated a new theory of war and enmity.
In his book, Schmitt deals with different aspects of this figure. In this regard, he set four elements that define the partisan.
The first one is the irregularity. That means the partisan may bear arms or not. Besides, partisans haven’t developed a career in this field. They are voluntary combatants, not professionals. They haven’t received the same training a professional soldier receives when he joins the military. In addition to this, the partisan doesn’t have a uniform. That is another feature that makes him different from soldiers. He doesn’t have a defined function because he doesn’t belong to a large and well-established military organization. In all standing army, every soldier has a clear and specific purpose. That’s related to the lack of any uniform because there are not those hierarchies you can find in traditional armies.
The second one is mobility. That means the partisan finds it easy to move on the battlefield because of his flexibility. It has to do with the absence of any garrison as it happens with regular troops. In this way, the partisan is less predictable in his movements and much quicker. All in all, the partisan can change his outfit according to his needs, and in Schmitt’s view, this gives him a high level of mobility. For this reason, no one can identify him. The partisan can mix with the environment and keep hidden for his enemies. Any civilian can be partisan. It represents a strategic superiority compared to regular soldiers with their uniforms, badges, hierarchies, and so on.
The third one is his political commitment. I’m talking about an intense and profound political commitment that helps him distinguish between friends and enemies. This commitment has to do with those who have deep roots in their country. In this regard, Schmitt addressed different cases, such as Spanish partisans, in their war against Napoleon. That led him to make some remarks about popular war. Besides, he connected this dimension of the partisan with the political commitment of revolutionaries. He spoke about the theorizations of Lenin and Mao Zedong in this respect. Their theories, and especially their practices, represent the modernization of the partisan figure of the nineteenth century by updating it to the political, historical, social, and ideological conditions of the twentieth century.
Partisan is, as Schmitt himself claimed, and advocate of something. Then, we refer to someone who has a party and takes sides in a conflictive situation. It made him connect this figure with his distinction between friend and enemy, something I spoke about on another occasion.
The fourth feature of the partisan is his telluric character. By this, Carl Schmitt referred to the relationship between this kind of combatant and a specific place. That makes unnecessary the existence of a large logistic organization regular armies require to wage war. In this respect, the partisan resorts to different means when he involves in battle. The partisan has a remarkable capacity to organize the space he uses to extract the resources he needs to fight. That’s possible thanks to his connections with people in the area where he develops his activities. They support him in many different ways, and that facilitates his fight against a more powerful enemy. The partisan knows the geographical environment that surrounds him and adapts it to his needs. In that way, he takes advantage of the space, which means a strategic superiority before any enemy.
He argued that the political criterion or concept has its foundations in that distinction. Insofar as the friendship between people is not always possible, conflicts are frequent, and they involve the existence of parties: different factions that fight each other. Besides, the partisan shows a strong commitment to his cause.
For all of this, Schmitt didn’t hesitate to claim that “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.” Aside from his reflections on different historical figures, such as Napoleon, Lenin, or Mao Zedong, as well as remarkable authors such as Clausewitz, Schmitt addressed the existent theories and dealt with the relationship of the partisan with legality and legitimacy. In general, he developed a notable contribution to this topic that is still a yardstick for anyone who wants to study it. That explains why his work has spurred comparisons with the post-9/11 “terrorist” in recent scholarship.
Question of the day! Do you know any active guerrilla movement? If so, post it in the comments section below, and I’ll check it out.
Bibliography used:
Schmitt, Carl, The Concept of the Political
Schmitt, Carl, Theory of the Partisan
Fairhead, Edward, “Carl Schmitt’s politics in the age of drone strikes: examining the Schmittian texture of Obama’s enemy” in Journal for Cultural Research 22(1), 2018, pp. 39-54
Disclosure: Some of these links are affiliate links where I’ll earn a small commission if you make a purchase at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
En esta ocasión analizamos los orígenes del Estado moderno.
Analizamos diferentes conceptualizaciones del modo en el que funciona la política: como organismo, máquina, mercado,…
On this occasion, we analyze the civil-military relations and the paradox between democracy and militarism.
En este episodio desvelamos las claves del funcionamiento de la política.
Abordamos el Estado moderno y sus principales características que lo diferencian de formas estatales previas.
This website uses cookies.