Extend functools.partial to nested function calls?

I am reading the 1977 ACM Turing Award Lecture "Can Programming Be Liberated from the von Neumann Style? A Functional Style and Its Algebra of Programs" by John Backus.

In section 5.1 he is contrasting a von Neumann program for inner product, which he gives as:

c := 0
for i := 1 step 1 until n do
   c := c + c[i] x b[i]

The above converts quit nicely to the python equivalent:

>>> v1, v2 = [1,2,3], [6,5,4]
>>> def ip_von_neumann(a, b):
    c = 0
    for i in range(3):
       c = c  + a[i] * b[i]
    return c

>>> ip_von_neumann(v1, v2)
28

Backus then goes on to contrast the von Neumann style with his functional program:

Def Innerproduct ≡ (Insert +)o(ApplyToAll x)oTranspose

Which I converted to the following functional style Python:

>>> from operator import add, mul
>>> from functools import reduce as insert
>>>
>>> def ip_functional(*x):
    return insert(add, map(mul, *x))

>>> ip_functional(v1, v2)
28

Well, the Python works, but it still has this name x that I would like to eliminate.

I think I can go part of the way by using functools.partial. For example, for the single function call of map(mul, *x) I can do:

>>> from functools import partial
>>> p1 = partial(map, mul)
>>> assert p1(v1, v2) == map(mul, *(v1, v2))
>>> map(mul, *(v1, v2))
[6, 10, 12]
>>>

But I don't know how to go that extra step and remove x from the definition fully, ie end up with just some assignment like:

ip_purefunctional = {A pure function of functions without any argument placeholders}

All help would be appreciated, Thanks.