Briggs: The transfer of popular will to heroic leaders is a fallacy.
Translation:
IV.
Renouncing from the former view in the divine subordination of the commitment of the people in one chosen one and in the subordination of this commitment the Deity, history may not make one step without contradiction, not choosing of one of two: to return to still believing in the direct participation of God in the deeds of humanity, or definitely explain the matters of the forces, producing historical events, which is called power.
To return to the first is impossible: the belief is destroyed, and because of it, it is necessary to explain the matters of authorities.
Napoleon ordered to gather troops and go to war. This is presented to us to such an extent habitually, to such an extent we have gotten used to this look, that the question about why 600 thousand persons went to war, when Napoleon said such words, seems to us meaningless. He had power, and because of it was executed that what he told.
This answer is completely satisfactory, if we believe that the power was given to him from God. Yet as soon as we do not know this, it is necessary to determine what such was this power of one human above another.
This power may not be that direct power of physical predominance of strong creatures above the weak, the predominance established in the annex of threats or the annexes of physical forces, — as the power of Hercules; it may also not be founded in the predominance of moral forces, as in the simplicity of soul, think some historians, saying that historical figures are the crux of heroes, i.e. people, gifted especially in the force of soul and mind and called genius. This power may not be founded in the predominance of moral forces, for, not talking about the heroes of people, as Napoleons, about the moral merits of which opinions are quite contradictory, history shows us that Louis ХІ, or Meternich, managing millions of people, had no special properties of forces of soul, but the opposite, were for the most parts morally weaker than each of the millions of people which they managed.
If the spring of authorities lie not in physical and not in the moral properties of a face, by its possession, then obviously this spring of authorities should be found out beyond the face, — in those relations to the mass, in which is a face, possessing power.
So exactly understands the power of science about the right that itself exchanges the cashier of history, which promises to exchange the historical understanding of authorities to pure gold.
Power is the aggregate will of the masses, carried over in the expression or silent agreement in the chosen by the masses rulers.
In the area of the science of right, formed from reasoning about how it would be needed to arrange state and power, if all this could be arranged, all this is very clear; but in annex to history this definition of authorities requires clarifications.
The science of right examines state and power, as the ancients examined fire, as something absolutely essential. For history the same state and power is cruxed only in the phenomena exactly so the same as for physicists of our time fire is not an element, but a phenomenon.
From this fundamental difference the view of history and the science of right is going on in that the science of right may say in detail about how, by its opinion, it would be needed to arrange power and what such is power, still existing beyond time; but to historical questions about the meaning of changing in time authorities, it may not answer anything.
If power is carried over in the ruler of the aggregate will, then is Pugachev an agent of the will of the masses? If not, then why is Napoleon I an agent? Why was Napoleon III, when he was caught in Boulogne, a criminal, but then were criminals those which he caught?
In palace revolutions, in which participate sometimes two to three humans, is also transported the will of the masses to the new face? In international relations is transported the will of the masses of the people to their conqueror? In the year of 1808 was the will of the Rhenish union carried over to Napoleon? Was the will of the masses of the Russian people carried over to Napoleon in the time of the 1809th year, when our troops went in union with the French to fight against Austria?
To these questions it can be responded threefold:
1) to acknowledge that the will of the masses always certainly spreads to that or those rulers, which they elected, and that therefore all the occurrences of the new authorities, in any fight against the time delivered to the authorities should be considered only as the violation of present authorities.
2) to acknowledge that the will of masses is transported to rulers under certain and famous conditions, and show that all constraint, collision and even destruction of authorities happen from the noncompliance of the rulers of those conditions under which they were delivered power.
3) to acknowledge that the will of the masses is transported to rulers conditionally, but under the condition of unknown, uncertain, and that the occurrence of many rulers, fighting them and falling happens only from more or less the execution of the rulers of those unknown conditions, in which is transported the commitment of the masses from one person to another.
So threefold explain historians the relationship of the masses to rulers.
Only historians, not understanding, in the simplicity of soul, the issue about the meaning of authorities, those very private and biographical historians, about which was said above, as if recognize that the aggregate will of the masses is transported to a historical face certainly, and because, describing some kind of one power, these historians suggest that this power is only absolute and real, but that any other power, opposing these present authorities, is not power, but the violation of authorities is — force.
Their theory, fit for primitive and peaceful periods of history, in annex to the complicated and stormy periods of the life of peoples, in the time which arises at the same time the fight between various authorities, has that inconvenience that the historian of the legitimist will prove that the Convention, Directory and Bonaparte were only a violation of authorities, but the republican and Bonapartist will prove: one, that the Convention, but another that the empire was present power, but that all rest was a violation of authorities. It is obvious that such a way, mutually refuting each other, of explaining authorities by these historians may be fit only for children in the most tender age.
Recognizing the falsehood of this sight in the story, another kind of historians speaks that power is founded in the conditional delivery of rulers in the summation of the will of the masses, and that a historical face has power only under the condition of the execution of that program, which in silent agreement is written by the will of the people. Yet in what takes place these conditions, these historians do not speak to us, or if it is spoken, then constantly contradict one another.
Each history, looking by its look at that what forms the objective movements of the people, presents these conditions in greatness, wealth, freedom, the enlightenment of the citizens of France or other states. Yet it is not said now about the contradicting historians regarding these conditions; allowing even that exists one common to all program of these conditions, we find out that historical facts almost always contradict this theory. If the conditions under which spreads power takes place in wealth, freedom, enlightenment of the people, then why did Louis ХІV and Ivan ІV calmly survive their reign, but Louis ХVІ and Karl І were executed by the peoples? To this question historians answer by that the activity of Louis ХІV, contradicting the program, reflected on Louis ХVІ. But why again was it not reflected on Louis XIV and XV, why should it reflect on Louis XVI? And what is the term of this reflection? — To these questions there are no and may not be answers. So the same little is explained by these views the cause that the aggregate will for a few centuries stays in the hands of rulers and their heirs, but then suddenly, in the continuation of 50 years, it was transported to the Convention, to the Directory, to Napoleon, to Aleksandr, to Louis XVIII, again to Napoleon, to Karl X, to Louis Philip, to a republican government, to Napoleon III. In the explanation of these quickly committed carried over wills from one face to another and in particular in international relations, conquerors and unions, these historians unwittingly must acknowledge that parts of these phenomena now are not the crux of regular transfers of will, but randomness, dependent from tricks, then from mistakes, or deceit, or the weakness of a diplomat, monarch, or chief parties. So what. A big part of the phenomena of history — civil strife, revolution, and conquests present to these historians now not as works of transfers of free will, but work falsely directed to the commitment of one or several people, i.e. again violations of authorities. And because of it, historical events and this family of historians present digressions from theory.
These historians are similar to that botanist, which, noticing that some plants exit from their seed with two shares of leaves, would insist that all that grows up, grows up only bifurcating in two leaflets; and that the palm, mushroom, and even the oak, branching out in its full growth and not having more similarities to two leaves, retreat from theory.
The third historians recognize that the will of the masses is transported to a historical face conditionally, but that these conditions are unknown to us. They speak that historical faces have power only because of how what they perform is carried over to the will of the masses.
But in such a case, if power, moving peoples, lies not in historical faces, but in people themselves, then in what again consists the matters of these historical persons?
The historical face, speak these historians, expresses itself in the will of the masses; the activity of historical persons serves as a representative of the activities of the masses.
Yet in such a case is a question, whether all the activity of historical persons serve as the expression of the commitment of masses, or only the famous side of it? If all the activity of historical persons serves as an expression of the commitment of masses, as think some, then the biographies of Napoleons, Catherines, with all the details of courtier gossip, serve as the expression of the life of peoples, that is obviously nonsense; if again only one side of the activities of a historical face serves as the expression of the life of peoples, as then think other imaginary philosopher-historians, then so that to determine, how the side of the activities of the historical face expresses the life of the people, it is needed to know before in what consists the life of the people.
Met with this difficulty, historians of this family think up the most obscure, intangible and common distraction under which possibly lets down the greatest number of events, and speak that in this distraction consists the objective movements of humanity. The most ordinary, adopted almost by all historians are the general distractions cruxed in: freedom, equality, education, progress, civilization, and culture. Putting behind the objective movements of humanity some distraction, historians study people, remaining by themselves the greatest number of monuments, — tsars, ministers, generals, writers, reformers, popes, journalists — at least as all these faces, by their opinion, contributed to or opposed the famous distraction. Yet so as nothing is proved, so that the objective of humanity consisted in freedom, equality, enlightenment or civilizations, and so as recognized masses with rulers and educators of humanity are founded only in arbitrary assumption, that aggregate will of the masses is always transported to those faces that we notice, and then the activity of a million people, relocating, burning homes, throwing farming, exterminating each other, are never expressed in writings of the activities of ten persons, not burning houses, not engaged in farming, not killing the similar to themselves.
History at each step proves this. Is the ferment of the peoples of the west, at the end of the past century, and their striving to the east explained in the activity of Louis XIV, XV and XVI, their lovers, ministers, the life of Napoleon, Rousseau, Diderot, Beaumarchais and others?
Is the move of the Russian people to the east, to Kazan and Siberia, expressed in the details of the sick character of Ivan ІV and his correspondence with Kurbsky?
Is the move of the peoples in the time of the cross moves explained in the learning life of Gottfried and Louis and their given? For us is left incomprehensible the move of peoples from west to east, without every goal, without leadership, with a crowd of tramps, with Petya the Hermit. And still more is left unclear the termination of these movements then, when it was clearly delivered to historical actors reasonable, saintly objective moves— the exemption of Jerusalem. Popes, kings and knights prompted people to release sacred earth; but people were not walking, because of how that unknown cause, which prompted them before to movement, no longer existed. The story of Gottfried and ministers obviously may not be accommodated in the lives of peoples themselves. And the story of Gottfried and ministers is left the history of Gottfried and ministers, but the story of the lives of peoples and their motive is left unknown.
Still less is explained to us in the lives of peoples the story of writers and reformers.
The story of culture explains to us the motive and conditions of life and thoughts of a writer or reformer. We find out that Luther had a hot-tempered character and spoke such a speech: we find out that Rousseau was incredulous and wrote such books; but we do not find out, from what after the reformation cut peoples and from what, in the time of the French revolution, people executed each other.
If we unite both of these histories together, as do the newest historians, then this will be the story of monarchs and writers, but not the story of the life of peoples.
Mentioned: 1808, 1809, fifty years, end of the century
Locations:
Mentioned: Boulogne, Rhenish Confederation (Conference of the Rhine in Briggs, Maude, and Pevear and Volokhonsky), Russian, France (and French), Austria, West, East, Kazan, Siberia, Jerusalem, the Holy Land
Pevear and Volokhonsky Notes: Returning to the ancient conception of history, that a divinity drives history, is impossible, so modern historians must explain the meaning of power. So, where did Napoleon get his power and how did he get people to follow him into war?
"Power is the sum total of the wills of the masses, transferred by express or tacit agreement to rulers chosen by the masses."
Tolstoy goes on to discuss the different problems historians have in understanding the relation between the wills of peoples and their rulers and thus are unable to answer the basic questions of history (i.e. the why).
Characters (characters who do not appear, but are mentioned are placed in italics. First appearances are in Bold. First mentions are underlined. Final appearance denoted by *):
Napoleon Bonaparte (also "Napoleon I")
Metternich
Pugachof
Napoleon III
Louis XIV
Ivan IV (the Dole footnote calls him "Ioann or Ivan the Terrible." Briggs, Edmonds, and Dunnigan use the latter. Garnett, Bell, and Wiener call him "John IV" for some reason.)
Louis XVI
Charles I
Louis XV
Louis XVIII
Charles X
Louis Philippe
Catherine
Diderot
Beaumarchais (as in Dole, Maude, and Bell. "Beaumarche" in Wiener.)
Kurbsky (Wiener's "Kurbski" is an alternative reading. Bell puts "Courbsky")
Godfrey
Peter the Hermit
(the ancients and historians are mentioned, as is Hercules. Dole puts Louis XIths, Wiener, Mandelker, and Maude put Louis XI. Rousseau is also mentioned. Also popes, kings, and knights, as well as the Minnesingers. Luther is also mentioned.)
Abridged Versions: Start of Chapter 2 in Bell. No break at the end.
Gibian: Line break instead of chapter break.
Additional Notes:
Garnett: "Napoleon I's nephew, made two unsuccessful attempts to seize the throne of France before finally succeeding. His first attempt in 1836 at Strasbourg, led to his being deported to America. His second try, in 1840 at Boulogne, culminated in his arrest and sentencing to imprisonment for life. Six years later, he escaped to England, and thence to France, where he subsequently realized his ambition. He became president of the Second Republic in 1850 and was declared emperor in 1852. He ruled as Napoleon III until 1870."
Briggs: "Prince Andrey Kurbsky (1528-83), one of Ivan the Great's principal boyars, left the country in order to criticize Ivan for his cruelty; Ivan responded by arguing the need for a strong autocracy." God of Boullon was a "soldier and leader of the First Crusade (1095-9)". Peter the Hermit was a "French preacher who led a band of Crusaders during the First Crusade, which was defeated by the Ottoman Turks in 1096. He later fought with Godfrey of Bouillon in the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099."
No comments:
Post a Comment