People, Armies, Peoples: Tolstoy and the Subject of War

Abstract

The article is devoted to the politics of war as described by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace. Tolstoy overturns Carl Clausewitz’ interpretation of war as a “continuation of politics,” paradoxically generalizing and radicalizing one of his theses: the provisions on the “superiority of a defensive strategy” over an offensive strategy. As Tolstoy understands it, defensive strategy is transformed into a negative one that questions the understanding of power and its origin (arche), both in terms of attitude toward the commanding authority and in terms of the impact of individual will on the course of history. Through reflection on the significance of partisan warfare as a privileged form of people’s warfare, this leads to a negative rethinking of the idea of how the “people” and “army” are conjoined. In the final analysis, the “people,” acting as a fundamental historical force that manifests itself in a war for liberation or a struggle for the common good loses its metaphysical characteristics as a subject. However, its communal essence and the truth about politics beyond politics, or at its extreme boundaries where institutional ties disappear, comes to the surface symbolically in the providential meeting between Pierre Bezukhov and Platon Karataev. But this fragile experience forms and symbolizes the vital element that establishes the community of the people apart from any private interests and institutions.