Chapter 5 chapter Five

In 1912 and 1913 Kutuzov was publicly accused of making mistakes.The emperor was not satisfied with him.Not long ago, the histories, compiled at the behest of the highest authorities, described Kutuzov as an old and treacherous court liar, who feared even the name Napoleon, whose mistakes in Krasnoe and Berezina made him The Russian army lost the honor of a complete victory. Russian intellectuals do not recognize people who are not great - Hegrand-hom This is the fate of me②, and this fate is rare and often the fate of the lonely man who has realized the will of God and made his personal will subordinate to the will of God.The masses punished those with hatred and contempt for their sudden awakening to the Supreme Law.

-------- ① See Bogdanovich: "On Kutuzov and the Unsatisfactory Battle of Krasnoye" - Notes by Tolstoy. ②French: great man. In the eyes of Russian historians (how strange and terrible to say!), Napoleon - this insignificant puppet of history - who did not show human beings at any time, anywhere, even in exile What is dignified becomes an object of praise and delight, he is grand.And Kutuzov, during the war of 1812, from the beginning to the end of his activities, from Borodino to Werner, never violated his original intention in a word or deed, he is the most extraordinary man in history. A paragon of self-sacrifice and a foreknowledge of the meaning of events to come.Kutuzov, on the other hand, was an elusive wretch in the minds of some, and the mention of Kutuzov and 1812 always seemed to them a little ashamed.

However, it is difficult to imagine such a historical figure whose activities, in order to achieve the stated goals, are consistent.It is difficult to conceive of a more worthy goal than this, more in line with the will of the people as a whole.It is difficult to find other examples in history, like Kutuzov in 1812, in order to achieve the goal given by history, he did his best and finally achieved that goal. Kutuzov never said that he "stands on a pyramid and looks forward to the fortieth century", ① he didn't talk about the sacrifices he made for the motherland, he didn't talk about what he wanted to do and did, in short, he didn't talk about himself at all, Don't put on airs, always appear to be the most ordinary and ordinary person, and speak the most ordinary and ordinary words.He wrote letters to his daughter and Frau Stael, read novels, enjoyed the society of beautiful women, joked with generals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted anyone who tried to prove something to him.Count Rastoptchin, speaking to Kutuzov on the Javuz bridge about the mistake concerning the fall of Moscow, said: "Didn't you promise not to give up without a fight?" Kutuzov replied: " I will not give up Moscow without a fight," although Moscow had already given up by then.Arakcheyev came from the emperor and told Kutuzov that Ermolov should be appointed commander of artillery, to which Kutuzov replied: "Yes, I just said so." Although What he had said a minute earlier was something else entirely.Kutuzov was surrounded by fools, he was the only one who understood the full significance of the events, and it didn't matter to Count Rastoptchin that he was responsible for the calamity in the capital Woolen cloth?Still less did he care who was appointed commander of the artillery.

-------- ①This refers to what Napoleon said to the army standing on the Egyptian pyramid. The old man's life experience made him firmly believe that thoughts and the language of expressing thoughts are not the essence of human motivation, so not only did he say so on these occasions, but he always blurted out as soon as he thought of something, and said something completely meaningless if. But this very free-talking man never said a word in the whole of his activities which was inconsistent with the one and only purpose which he was aiming at during the whole war.Obviously, with a heavy heart that people don't understand, he can't help expressing his thoughts again and again on various occasions.Since the beginning of the Battle of Borodino, he had disagreements with those around him. He said alone that the battle of Borodino was victory. Verbally, in all reports, in all battle summaries.He alone said that losing Moscow was not losing Russia.In reply to Lauriston's proposal for peace talks, he said that peace talks cannot be made because it is the will of the people; It will be better than what we expected. It is necessary to give life to the enemy. The battles of Tarutino, Vyazma, and Krasnoye are not necessary. There should be a little strength when we reach the border He would not even trade ten Frenchmen for one Russian.

And he—the great man at court—was the one who was portrayed as lying to Arakcheev in order to please the emperor.Only he—the great court man who had lost the Emperor's favor in Vilna—only said that it would be harmful and not beneficial to carry the future wars beyond the borders. But words alone do not prove that he understood the significance of events at the time.His actions were all directed towards a given goal, which was never violated in the slightest. This goal was the following three aspects: first, to fight the French with all his strength, second, to defeat them, and third, to put them Get out of Russia and ease the suffering of people and troops as much as possible.

Kutuzov was a man of the past, his motto was "patience and time," and he was incompatible with those who advocated a desperate fight. It was he who, with unprecedented seriousness and after making all the preparations, launched the Battle of Borodino.It was this Kutuzov who asserted that the battle of Austerlitz must be lost before the battle started, and in Borodino, although the generals believed that the battle was lost, despite the fact that in history He has never heard of such a precedent in the world: the victorious army retreated, and he was the only one who resisted all opinions, and insisted until his death that the Battle of Borodino was a victory.He alone insisted throughout the retreat on the refusal of fighting which had become useless by that time, the refraining of new wars, and the refusal of Russian troops to cross the frontier.

It is easy to understand the significance of the event now, for the whole event and its consequences are before us, if the purpose in the minds of a dozen individuals is not to be said to be the purpose of mass action. But how was it that the old man, against all odds at the time, could have accurately perceived the importance of the people's opinion of events, without once changing it throughout the course of his activities? The reason why he could see so clearly the significance of the events that took place at that time was that he had very pure and strong feelings of the people. It was precisely because the people recognized him as having such feelings that in such a strange way, against the wishes of the tsar, the people chose him--the old man out of favour--as a representative of the people's war.It was this feeling that lifted him to the highest place in the world, he, the high-ranking commander-in-chief, who devoted all his energies not to killing and persecuting people, but to saving and pitying them.

This image of simplicity, of modesty, and therefore of true greatness, cannot be relegated to the mold of the fictional European hero who is supposed to rule over the people, invented by history. For the slave there can be no great man, because the slave has the slave's conception of greatness.