War and Peace
directed. Amid a long series of unexecuted orders of Napoleon’s one series, for the campaign of 1812, was carried out—not because those orders differed in any way from the other, unexecuted orders but because they coincided with the course of events that led the French army into Russia; just as in stencil work this or that
figure comes out not because the color was laid on from this side or in that way, but because it was laid on from all sides over the
figure cut in the stencil.
So that examining the
relation in time of the commands to the events, we find that a command can never be the cause of the event, but that a certain definite dependence exists between the two.
To understand in what this dependence consists it is
necessary to reinstate another omitted condition of every command proceeding not from the Deity but from a man, which is, that the man who gives the command himself takes part in the event.
This
relation of the commander to those he commands is just what is called
power. This
relation consists in the following:
For common action people always unite in certain combinations, in which regardless of the
difference of the aims set for the common action, the
relation between those taking part in it is always the same.
Men uniting in these combinations always assume such relations toward one another that the larger
number take a
more direct share, and the smaller
number a less direct share, in the collective action for which they have combined.
Of all the combinations in which men unite for collective action one of the most striking and definite examples is an army.
Every army is composed of lower grades of the service—the rank and file—of whom there are always the greatest
number; of the next higher military rank—corporals and noncommissioned officers of whom there are fewer, and of still-higher officers of whom there are still fewer, and so on to the highest military command which is concentrated in one person.
A military organization may be quite correctly compared to a cone, of which the base with the largest diameter consists of the rank and file; the next higher and smaller section of the cone consists of the next higher grades of the army, and so on to the apex, the point of which
will represent the commander-in-chief.
The soldiers, of whom there are the most, form the lower section of the cone and its base. The soldier himself does the stabbing, hacking, burning, and pillaging, and always receives orders for these actions from men above him; he himself never gives an order. The noncommissioned officers (of whom there are fewer) perform the action itself less frequently than the soldiers, but they already give commands. An officer still less often acts directly himself, but commands still
more frequently. A general does nothing but command the troops, indicates the objective, and hardly ever uses a weapon himself. The commander-in-chief never takes direct part in the action itself, but only gives general orders concerning the movement of the mass of the troops. A similar
relation of people to one another is seen in every combination of men for common activity—in agriculture, trade, and every administration.
And so without particularly analyzing all the contiguous sections of a cone and of the ranks of an army, or the ranks and positions in any administrative or public business whatever from the lowest to the highest, we see a law by which men, to take associated action, combine in such relations that the
more directly they participate in performing the action the less they can command and the
more numerous they are, while the less their direct
participation in the action itself, the
more they command and the fewer of them there are; rising in this way from the lowest ranks to the man at the top, who takes the least direct share in the action and directs his activity chiefly to commanding.
This
relation of the men who command to those they command is what constitutes the
essence of the conception called
power.
Having restored the condition of time under which all events occur, we find that a command is executed only when it is related to a corresponding series of events. Restoring the essential condition of
relation between those who command and those who execute, we find that by the very nature of the case those who command take the smallest part in the action itself and that their activity is exclusively directed to commanding.
WHEN AN EVENT is taking place people express their opinions and wishes about it, and as the event results from the collective activity of many people, some one of the opinions or wishes expressed is sure to be fulfilled if but approximately. When one of the opinions expressed is fulfilled, that opinion gets
connected with the event as a command preceding it.
Men are hauling a log. Each of them expresses his opinion as to how and where to haul it. They haul the log away, and it happens that this is done as one of them said. He ordered it. There we have command and
power in their primary form. The man who worked most with his hands could not think so much about what he was doing, or reflect on or command what would result from the common activity; while the man who commanded
more would evidently work less with his hands on account of his greater verbal activity.
When some larger concourse of men direct their activity to a common aim there is a yet sharper division of those who, because their activity is
given to directing and commanding, take less part in the direct work.
When a man works alone he always has a certain set of reflections which as it seems to him directed his past activity, justify his present activity, and guide him in planning his future actions. Just the same is done by a concourse of people, allowing those who do not take a direct part in the activity to devise considerations, justifications, and surmises concerning their collective activity.
For reasons known or unknown to us the French began to drown and kill one another. And corresponding to the event its
justification appears in people’s belief that this was
necessary for the welfare of France, for
liberty, and for equality. People ceased to kill one another, and this event was accompanied by its
justification in the
necessity for a centralization of
power, resistance to Europe, and so on. Men went from the west to the east killing their fellow men, and the event was accompanied by phrases about the glory of France, the baseness of England, and so on. History shows us that these justifications of the events have no common
sense and are all contradictory, as in the case of killing a man as the result of recognizing his
rights, and the killing of millions in Russia for the humiliation of England. But these justifications have a very
necessary significance in their own day.
These justifications release those who produce the events from moral responsibility. These temporary aims are like the broom fixed in front of a locomotive to clear the snow from the rails in front: they clear men’s moral responsibilities from their path.
Without such
justification there would be no reply to the simplest question that presents itself when examining each historical event. How is it that millions of men commit collective crimes—make war, commit murder, and so on?
With the present complex forms of political and social life in Europe can any event that is not prescribed, decreed, or ordered by monarchs, ministers, parliaments, or newspapers be imagined? Is there any collective action which cannot find its
justification in political unity, in patriotism, in the balance of
power, or in civilization? So that every event that occurs inevitably coincides with some expressed wish and, receiving a
justification, presents itself as the result of the
will of one man or of several men.
In whatever direction a ship moves, the flow of the waves it cuts
will always be noticeable ahead of it. To those on board the ship the movement of those waves
will be the only perceptible
motion.
Only by watching closely moment by moment the movement of that flow and comparing it with the movement of the ship do we convince ourselves that every bit of it is occasioned by the forward movement of the ship, and that we were led into error by the
fact that we ourselves were imperceptibly moving.
We see the same if we watch moment by moment the movement of historical characters (that is, re-establish the inevitable condition of all that occurs—the continuity of movement in time) and do not lose sight of the essential connection of historical persons with the masses.
When the ship moves in one direction there is one and the same wave ahead of it, when it turns frequently the wave ahead of it also turns frequently. But wherever it may turn there always
will be the wave anticipating its movement.
Whatever happens it always appears that just that event was foreseen and decreed. Wherever the ship may go, the rush of water which neither directs nor increases its movement foams ahead of it, and at a distance seems to us not merely to move of itself but to govern the ship’s movement also.
Examining only those expressions of the
will of historical persons which, as commands, were related to events, historians have assumed that the events depended on those commands. But examining the events themselves and the connection in which the historical persons stood to the people, we have found that they