The Totalitarian Thinking in Russia and Carl Schmitt

Abstract

The article is about the evolution of the totalitarian thought in Russia of the last tens years. A crash of the official Soviet ideology has made the totalitarian outlook search for another models and forms of expression. The main, sometimes clearly realized, aim was to oppose to ideas of the European Christian personalism. In this situation the struggle was combated “on the territory of enemy” and it was found very suitable to address to European philosophical experience. For some reasons – they are discussed here – the figure of German state expert, “crowned lawyer of Third Reich”, Carl Schmitt became the most principal for Russian intellectual totalitarism. The article gives evidence of a connection of Schmitt’s doctrine with ideas of modern Russian thinkers-neoconservatives and shows how they develop ideas of their predecessor.