Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Tolstoy's Theory of History

I've been really enjoying listening to the unabridged War and Peace (I'm listening to a reading by Neville Jason) as a commuting book. It's episodic enough to be good when listened to in half hour increments, and it's good enough to be a pleasure to hear while not so stylistic in its prose as to be make one feel as if one ought to be reading it rather than listening. However, this morning I hit one of Tolstoy's chapter long theory-of-history sections, and was startled at how little sense it made. This is a chunk of Book 9, Chapter 1:
From the close of the year 1811 intensified arming and concentrating of the forces of Western Europe began, and in 1812 these forces—millions of men, reckoning those transporting and feeding the army—moved from the west eastwards to the Russian frontier, toward which since 1811 Russian forces had been similarly drawn. On the twelfth of June, 1812, the forces of Western Europe crossed the Russian frontier and war began, that is, an event took place opposed to human reason and to human nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another such innumerable crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money, burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole centuries are not recorded in the annals of all the law courts of the world, but which those who committed them did not at the time regard as being crimes.

What produced this extraordinary occurrence? What were its causes? The historians tell us with naive assurance that its causes were the wrongs inflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, the nonobservance of the Continental System, the ambition of Napoleon, the firmness of Alexander, the mistakes of the diplomatists, and so on.

Consequently, it would only have been necessary for Metternich, Rumyantsev, or Talleyrand, between a levee and an evening party, to have taken proper pains and written a more adroit note, or for Napoleon to have written to Alexander: "My respected Brother, I consent to restore the duchy to the Duke of Oldenburg"—and there would have been no war.

We can understand that the matter seemed like that to contemporaries. It naturally seemed to Napoleon that the war was caused by England's intrigues (as in fact he said on the island of St. Helena). It naturally seemed to members of the English Parliament that the cause of the war was Napoleon's ambition; to the Duke of Oldenburg, that the cause of the war was the violence done to him; to businessmen that the cause of the war was the Continental System which was ruining Europe; to the generals and old soldiers that the chief reason for the war was the necessity of giving them employment; to the legitimists of that day that it was the need of re-establishing les bons principes, and to the diplomatists of that time that it all resulted from the fact that the alliance between Russia and Austria in 1809 had not been sufficiently well concealed from Napoleon, and from the awkward wording of Memorandum No. 178. It is natural that these and a countless and infinite quantity of other reasons, the number depending on the endless diversity of points of view, presented themselves to the men of that day; but to us, to posterity who view the thing that happened in all its magnitude and perceive its plain and terrible meaning, these causes seem insufficient. To us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances have with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.

To us, their descendants, who are not historians and are not carried away by the process of research and can therefore regard the event with unclouded common sense, an incalculable number of causes present themselves. The deeper we delve in search of these causes the more of them we find; and each separate cause or whole series of causes appears to us equally valid in itself and equally false by its insignificance compared to the magnitude of the events, and by its impotence—apart from the cooperation of all the other coincident causes—to occasion the event. To us, the wish or objection of this or that French corporal to serve a second term appears as much a cause as Napoleon's refusal to withdraw his troops beyond the Vistula and to restore the duchy of Oldenburg; for had he not wished to serve, and had a second, a third, and a thousandth corporal and private also refused, there would have been so many less men in Napoleon's army and the war could not have occurred.

Had Napoleon not taken offense at the demand that he should withdraw beyond the Vistula, and not ordered his troops to advance, there would have been no war; but had all his sergeants objected to serving a second term then also there could have been no war. Nor could there have been a war had there been no English intrigues and no Duke of Oldenburg, and had Alexander not felt insulted, and had there not been an autocratic government in Russia, or a Revolution in France and a subsequent dictatorship and Empire, or all the things that produced the French Revolution, and so on. Without each of these causes nothing could have happened. So all these causes—myriads of causes—coincided to bring it about. And so there was no one cause for that occurrence, but it had to occur because it had to. Millions of men, renouncing their human feelings and reason, had to go from west to east to slay their fellows, just as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east to the west, slaying their fellows.

The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words the event seemed to hang, were as little voluntary as the actions of any soldier who was drawn into the campaign by lot or by conscription. This could not be otherwise, for in order that the will of Napoleon and Alexander (on whom the event seemed to depend) should be carried out, the concurrence of innumerable circumstances was needed without any one of which the event could not have taken place. It was necessary that millions of men in whose hands lay the real power—the soldiers who fired, or transported provisions and guns—should consent to carry out the will of these weak individuals, and should have been induced to do so by an infinite number of diverse and complex causes.

We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not understand). The more we try to explain such events in history reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to us.
Now, yes, it's true that Napoleon could not have invaded Russia if all of his soldiers had suddenly decided that they didn't want to go. Such a thing has even happened a few times in history -- not all of Alexander the Great's charisma could convince his soldiers to go any further into India. But clearly, it was much more possible and likely for Napoleon to choose not to invade Russia than it was for his army, after his decision to invade, to spontaneously decide not to sign up for another year.

The are wider societal, economic and cultural forces that drive historical events, but that by no means suggests that people do not in fact have choices. And although history is the sum of innumerable actions by individual persons, many of which will never appear in history books, and yet which help to shape and give character to the tenor and events recorded therein, there are most certainly some actors who have more influence on history than others. If one person refuses to serve in an army, we usually don't hear about it. (Though sometimes we do.) And unless tens or hundreds of thousands do likewise, it does nothing to stop a war. Yet someone like Napoleon was in a position to choose to invade or not invade Russia. In that instance, massive historical events which cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives depended on the actions of just a few people.

I simply don't see how one can assert the contrary, as Tolstoy seems to do here, and make any sense at all.

8 comments:

Roma locuta est said...

There is a beautiful passage from Book 11, Chapter 1 on the nature of history, evaluating it as a continuous phenomenon rather than discrete events and individuals. Tolstoy relates history to Calculus, with a brilliant description of Xeno's paradox. Some of the vocabulary is priceless, and for this reason, I take a day every year in my AP Calculus class to pass it out, read it aloud, and discuss.

Jordan said...

I agree. I read this a few years ago in under grad and was also bothered by his interpretation of history and events as almost an unstoppable tidal force that happens without any major key players. Incidentally I wrote my paper on Calculus and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in regards to Tolstoy. Nonetheless, reading passages of War and Peace remind me how truly great of a book it is.

Anonymous said...

I lost all respect for Tolstoy after I watched The Last Station.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, I believe that Tolstoy's great novels were written before he became a petty god for his adoring and competitive fans, as seen in the film. Anna Karenina is my favorite Tolstoy novel, and I reread it regularly. As for War and Peace, I am tempted to say that those pages of historical nonsense are the best argument for abridgment! Of course we may always skim . . .

Peter B said...

The passage you quote from Tolstoy seems quite lucid, compared to Part II of the Epilogue – the last thirty six pages of the book – which seems incomprehensible, until in the last paragraph, he all but lays it at the feet of God.

I find part of myself attracted to the ideas Tolstoy expresses in the passage you quote. It is ludicrous to maintain that “because the Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them,” to cite one example. And Tolstoy is persuasive and adept at deflating the “great man” theory of history, and reminding us that leaders are not only nothing without people willing to follow, but are often thrust into and maintained in place by those very people.

Anonymous said...

Contemporary criticism was sharply unforgiving towards the historical sections of 'War and Peace', and I have to say I can see where they were coming from. For some commentary on Tolstoy's philosophy of history 'The Hedgehog and the Fox' by Isaiah Berlin might be worth a look if you have a moment. It's not long!

Anonymous said...

Hi, People:

This is an email I wrote tonight to some business co-workers, explaining the etymology of "adroit." Thought I'd share the mail, as I came across this site.

The first paragraph with a header, below, suggests the war principals were inept, that is, not fully искусный. In our group's business terms, unfit collaborators. The next paragraph alludes to the Count's long journey to collaborative fitness of a deviant type for his time. In our group's business terms, maturity. Most would agree that Tolstoy's maturity projected a vigorous negative. The last paragraph refers lightheartedly but seriously to our business group's focus, open-source (software), which apparently has antecedents.


Charles asked about “adroit.” Well, adroit comes from Latin directum (direct) > French à droit (where droit meant straight)

having or showing skill, cleverness, or resourcefulness in handling situations
— adroit•ly adverb
— adroit•ness noun
She is adroit at handling problems.

I suggest the meanings, agile and handy; also accomplished competent, as in negotiations. Includes a sense of worldliness. Opposite of inept, bumbler
French examples I looked at seem to use the word as in English.

An Early Discussion of Collaborative Fitness?
War and Peace uses an equivalent of adroit, taken from the Latin word for work, that has a whiff of “accurate, orderly, proficient”: Следовательно, стоило только Меттерниху, Румянцеву или Талейрану, между выходом и раутом, хорошенько постараться и написать поискуснее бумажку или Наполеону написать к Александру: Monsieur, mon frère, je consens à rendre le duché au duc d'Oldenbourg 1, — и войны бы не было. The idea is that the protagonists of the war, had they only shown a tad more adroitness, by crafting some minor lubricating correspondence, could easily have changed history so that there would not have been (a) war. So the Russian language looks at adroitness as a form of work competence. Maladroitness and adroitness may shape history but the original language tells us that work done badly fostered untold injustice.

Maturity
This passage has always long been seen as part of Tolstoy’s theory of history. Is it really? Does that traditional interpretation even make sense? IMO, it is a much more important passage in Tolstoy’s journey to maturity. It is maybe the earliest case of his highlighting injustice. This concern matured to the point that it ruined all of his writing after Anna Karenina. In short, his theory of art switched from art for art’s sake to art as a tool for social engineering. The Communists may have seen him as a precursor of socialist realism, I am not sure. They never had any problem with him, so far as I know; for example, they kept up his estate as a museum, in contrast to, say, Sanssouci, which they shockingly neglected.

Open Source in the Old Days
Tolstoy was hostile to property and offered freedom to his serfs, but they were too suspicious to accept. His wife put her foot down when he made noises about negating his copyrights. I believe she was successful, though you may hear otherwise. I doubt anyone alive really knows but the truth is likely to be found in the seventy-odd volumes of his collected papers. Univ. of Notre Dame has a copy.

Anonymous said...

"I lost all respect for Tolstoy after I watched The Last Station."

And you did good. After all, honey is not made for the mouth of an ass. So everyone is happy: you don't have to be reminded of your own petty mediocrity by Tolstoy's greatness, and the rest of us can enjoy and understand him in peace