It is based on this very filiation that one is to interpret Mao’s declarations regarding those ‘toothless tigers’.
In 1946, during an interview with American Anna Louise Strong, Mao declared: ‘The atomic bomb is a toothless tiger that American reactionaries resort to so as to frighten people. It does seem terrible, but, in actual fact, is nothing of the sort. It is of course clear that the atomic bomb is a weapon that could cause enormous massacres, but it is the people that decides the outcome of a war, not one or two newly-developed weapons’ (in Oeuvres choisies, vol.4).
These words brought smiles to some people’s faces; they interpreted them as a ‘bravado’ and spoke of Mao’s ‘lack of awareness’. However, Mao did return to the topic, highlighting the ‘seriousness’ of his statement. His words are indeed worth pondering again.
Toothless Tigers and Tomorrow’s War
According to Clausewitz, ‘if one considers the manner in which wars erupt from a philosophical angle, one finds that the notion of war does not, strictly speaking, go hand in hand with the fact of waging attacks’. Ultimately, the only thing that Mao Zedong does is draw the dialectical conclusions that stem from this affirmation (since, in his eyes, ‘war is the centre of gravity upon which the Party’s efforts converge’).
If it is indeed defence alone, meaning popular protracted war, that is decisive from a strategic point of view, then the atomic bomb does not represent a ‘peril in and of itself’: indeed, it determines neither the strategic decision nor the political one. One either witnesses utter extermination, in which case war and strategy cease to exist, or no extermination takes place and the ‘logic of protracted war’ must be implemented until one achieves the desired final result.
In his Discours de la guerre, Mr André Glucksman points out that ‘when understood from a strategic perspective, the notion of a toothless tiger consists in taking advantage of the factors that impede the use of the nuclear bomb and doing so within the framework of a global protracted war’.
What Mao’s China criticises the ‘new Soviet Tsars’ for is precisely the fact that they have lost sight of the inherent ‘contradiction’ which characterises nuclear deterrence and have forgotten that war, when perceived from a privileged angle, is but ‘a continuation’ of politics. Mao Zedong says: ‘In the eyes of Kremlin leaders, the aim is to survive this nuclear century of ours, and there is no end or purpose beyond that. Everyone has their own ideals, and one must refrain from judging others in accordance with oneself’ (as stated on 1st September, 1963). The very principle of ‘peaceful coexistence’ thus found itself condemned.
Mao Zedong thus abided by the teachings of Prussian national Clausewitz much more than Sun Tzu (whose Art of War was republished in 1972) ever did, which may yet hold several surprises for us, especially if what we are already experiencing is a pre-war phase.
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Discours de la guerre, an essay by André Glucksman, published by L’Herne (41 Verneuil Street, 75007, Paris, France), 377 pages.
Clausewitz, written by Jean Grosjean, Gallimard, 94 pages.
The Art of War, a treatise by Sun Tzu, published in France by Flammarion, 266 pages (See also Sun Tsé, les treize articles sur l’art de la guerre,195 published by L’impensé radical, 163 pages.
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It is henceforth Raymond Aron’s book entitled Penser la guerre — Clausewitz196 (published in 1976 by Gallimard as two-volume set: The European Age and The Planetary Age) that currently represents the work of reference with regard to Clausewitz and his teachings. In this book, which is the result of more than fifteen years of reflection, Mr Aron continues his inquiries until he has, on the one hand, defined the most sophisticated implications that stem from a nuclear strategy which renders unlikely one’s ‘resorting to extremes’ and, on the other, introduced a novel confrontational model in which ‘statal policies come across as the continuation of war through different means’. He simultaneously proceeds to criticise, with brilliance, I might add, all those who believe that Clausewitzian philosophy has now been ‘overcome’, demonstrating that it is this very philosophy that has managed to keep intact the distance that separates concept from action and thus allowed a fruitful interpretation of the most recent developments in the field of international strategy.
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Alexis de Tocqueville
‘Our planet is currently home to two great peoples who, having set off from different starting points, are now advancing towards the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Saxons. Each of them seems to be heeding a call towards holding half the world’s destinies in his hands one day’.
These words were penned by de Tocqueville in his work entitled De la démocratie en Amérique,197 which was published back in 1840.
The Old Regime and the Revolution, reedited on thirteen occasions by Basil Blackwell,198 is a textbook that targets the students of Oxford University. In the US, Tocqueville’s works are considered to be great classics. In France itself, the latter are still quite rarely read, despite the efforts exerted by writers such as Raymond Aron (in Dix-huit leçons sur la société Industrielle,199 Gallimard, 1962).
Thanks to the advent of ideologies that stem from the Revolution, three thought currents surfaced, each destined for greatness: economic and political liberalism, socialism, and the first forms of nationalism, represented respectively by Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Arthur de Gobineau200 (1816–1882).
Egalitarianism Versus Liberty
Mr Jacques Nantet, a graduate of the Private School of Political Science and a producer at the ORTF, has already published studies on Tocqueville in Critique (1964) and Revue des travaux de L’Académie201 (1967).
His book has been released as part of a collection entitled ‘Modern Masters’. Indeed, Tocqueville’s writings anticipate and explain the political developments occurring in our current world.
Born in Paris on 29th July, 1805, Tocqueville came from an ancient aristocratic family of Norman origin. Shortly after taking up office as an apprentice magistrate, however, he decided to join the Republic. Having been elected Member of Parliament in the constituency of Valogne in 1839, he sided with the liberal opposition. Thanks to the revolution that took place in 1848 (and which he himself had predicted), he became a member of the French Constituent Assembly.
Tocqueville opted to take sides with general Cavaignac against Louis-Napoleon, a fact that did not stop the president of the Council, Odilon Barrot, from allowing him to join the ranks of the government as France’s Foreign Affairs Minister shortly after the elections of 13th May, 1849. Once appointed, Tocqueville chose Gobineau to be his chief of staff.
He was driven by a passion for politics, but an appropriate one, nonetheless. ‘A hundred times over have I thought to myself that I must leave some traces of my presence in this world, an endeavour more readily achieved through my writings than my deeds’, he once wrote his friend, Gustave de Beaumont.
The first volume of his most famous work, De la démocratie en Amérique, was published in 1835, with the second seeing the light of day in 1840. Then, in 1856, it is L’Ancien Régime et la Révolution202 that is published, followed by his Recollections, various letters and numerous articles. One specific concern dominates the others: liberty.
Tocqueville comes across as the heir of the Norman conquerors, for whom the entire meaning of life was rooted in the notion of freedom. He was proud of having been born in the region of Normandy,203 where the lowliest peasant can turn to the highest nobility and ask for justice to be served, shouting: ‘My Lords! I have been wronged!’ He was also among the very first to detect the inherent and hidden contradiction found in the 1789 slogan that combined equality with freedom.
Indeed, imposing equality is synonymous with depriving people of liberty, just as the establishment of freedom can only bring natural inequalities to light. There is necessarily a link between the rise of socialism and egalitarianism and the violations of basic liberties. As written by Tocquevi
lle, ‘the real advantage of democracy does not lie, as has been claimed, in fostering liberty for all, but solely in contributing to the well-being of the largest possible number of people… The distance that separates the spirit of liberty from the spirit of extreme equality is no greater than that between the heavens and the earth’.
When, during his stay in the United States, he proceeded to emphasise the drawbacks of slavery, he did so in a desire to assign the latter far more to freedom deprivation than to circumstantial inequality. ‘One thus understands the reason why Alexis de Tocqueville grants justice an eminent role, placing it in a central position between the egalitarian surge and the demands of liberty and simultaneously defining it as the cornerstone that holds the entire system together’, Jacques Nantet wrote.
The establishment of the ‘Republic of judges’ does have its downsides, of course. As stated by Julien Freund, ‘the law is not an act of morality, and no juridical compendium could ever replace moral conscience’. For justice is an eminently political virtue, as already understood by the Ancients. Its situation is one of dependence on the political, and not the other way around. The judicial could never, therefore, be sovereign in essence; otherwise, it would weaken the principle of authority by depriving it of its specific aspect and reducing it to mere morals.
In the aftermath of the uprising in 1830, Tocqueville arranges to be granted a leave of absence and sets off to America in the company of Gustave de Beaumont.204 His purpose is to study the local penitentiary system. Very soon, his inquiries take an unexpected turn. Somewhere between New York and New Orleans, he discovers the existence of liberal institutions that mirror his own profound affinities. He even has the impression of having found ‘the answer to the issues that Europe faced at the time’.
And yet, he is under no illusions. ‘Both in America and elsewhere, the people proceeds through temporary efforts and sudden impulses. (…) Democratic institutions awaken and flatter the passion for equality without, however, being able to fully satisfy it’. He reproaches political parties for embodying ‘separate nations’ and perceives them to be ‘an evil that remains inherent in free government’. Having discovered an ‘infinite crowd comprising kindred beings’, he expresses concern regarding this ‘universal uniformity’. He adds: ‘The most fearsome ailment that threatens the future of the United States stems from the Black presence on its soil’.
This trip of his turns out to be one of many more to follow. He visits Europe, North Africa, and the ‘sugar islands’ of the Antilles. His stay in Ireland leads him to embrace a favourable position regarding the separation of church and state. While in Great Britain, he visits the major industrial centres: Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool (in 1835, he marries a young Briton by the name of Mary Mottley). Mr Jacques Nantet notes: ‘His principle reflections concerned British aristocracy, which he likened to the aristocratic caste of France, a comparison which, overall, advantaged the former, considered to be more open and endowed with a superior capacity to adapt to its time and age’.
Alexis de Tocqueville is an empirical man. Unlike Rousseau, he declares himself unable to find ‘absolute truth and goodness in human matters’. He abhors trendy ideologies, as well as all abstract ideas to which no verifiable reality corresponds. He is even wary of general notions, which ‘deprive human intelligence of accuracy in proportion to the range that they grant the latter’ (an observation that will later be adopted by modern logic).
‘Tocqueville denounces two mistakes: the one made by educated folk, who pen history without focusing on specific happenings, and that of politicians, who are only preoccupied with producing events without giving their description a single thought. He says: “It has come to my attention that the former only perceive general causes everywhere, while the latter, living in the disjointed environment of specific facts, willingly imagine that everything must be assigned to particular incidents”’.
A Prodigious Leap
Jacques Nantet makes a meaningful comparison between Marx’s predictions and Tocqueville’s observations. ‘Two great thinkers contemplate the birth of modern economics’. Their contemplations, however, inspire them to embrace diverging opinions.
Owing to the ‘contradictions between the exploiters and the exploited’, capitalism, according to Marx, is bound to lead to pauperism, as working conditions become unbearable. The communist revolution shall therefore take place in Anglo-Saxon countries, countries that are characterised by the highest level of industrialisation. The advent of socialism shall then follow, marking the beginning of the golden age, the end of history and the establishment of perpetual happiness.
Where the father of ‘scientific socialism’ detects the early warning signs of the Apocalypse, Tocqueville proceeds to ‘announce, on the contrary, the prodigious leap that the economy shall make under the impact of liberty and capitalism’. He denounces the disadvantages of centralisation (this ‘typical and incurable malady afflicting the powers that have undertaken to command, predict and carry out everything themselves’), mentions the role of syndicalism and announces the development of middle classes.
By the time he departed this world, Tocqueville had already been glorified by his contemporaries. Taine (Les origines de la France contemporaine)205 and Fustel de Coulanges (La cite antique)206 were among his heirs. His thoughts would fuel the Anglo-Saxon tradition all the way to Keynes207 and Laski.208
‘It is my firm conviction that the issues that we now face are precisely those predicted by Alexis de Tocqueville’, Jacques Nantet concludes.
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Tocqueville, an essay by Jacques Nantet, Seghers, 188 pages.
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Unlike what Mr Jacques Nantet claims, Tocqueville was neither born in the ‘chateau of Verneuil, in the Eure region’, nor in ‘Verneuil, in the Seine-et-Oise area’, as several authors would have us believe. He was, in fact, born in Paris, in a building located on Ville-L’Evêque Street, a building that can still be found there nowadays. His birth certificate, which was destroyed in the Hôtel-de-Ville fire in 1871, has been successfully reassembled by the French notarial archives. It had been recovered by Antoine Redier and pictured in his ‘Comme disait Mr de Tocqueville…’209 (Librairie académique Perrin, 1925).
De Tocqueville’s complete works, divided into twelve volumes and comprising his correspondence with Gobineau, Gustave de Beaumont and Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard, were published by Gallimard between 1951 and 1970.
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Arthur de Gobineau
Initially, one was only able to see him in sepia-coloured photographs, parading a moustache resembling that of Napoleon III and wearing a well-tailored Ascot tie, his elbow propped against a chimney in a display of utterly aristocratic nonchalance. However, these times are now long foregone, for Arthur de Gobineau (1816–1882) is making a powerful comeback into the world of literature and thought.
Gobineau had, for a long time, remained the victim of twofold prejudice: firstly, because he was only perceived as the author of the famous Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, and secondly, because people obstinately presented this book as a bible that preaches a racism that is both perverse and inappropriate.
Such an attitude was synonymous with diminishing his life’s literary work, a work that is as rich as it is varied and additionally includes The Religions and Philosophies of Central Asia (1865), The History of the Persians (1869), Typhaines Abbey (1867), Ternove (1868), Voyage Recollections (1872), The Pleiades (1874), The Renaissance (1877), The Story of Ottar Jarl (1879), Amadis (1887), and, last but not least, The Treatise of Cuneiforms (1864) and Asian Novellas (1876). His writings thus comprise several works of art that rival Voltaire’s Candide in terms of quality.
Since 1966, two academics have been attempting to free Gobineau from the shadowy depths into which he had been cast: A. B. Duff, an honorary professor at the University of Jerusalem, and Jean Gaulmier, who, in addition to being a literary critic, historian, and professor at the Sorbonne, also happens to be the for
mer director of France’s Free Informational Service in the Levant (1942–1945). The two have brought forth an annual publication entitled Gobinian Studies, whose 10th volume will soon be published.
‘There is no magazine dedicated to Lamartine,210 Michelet211 or Hugo’,212 says Mr Gaulmier. ‘There is one, however, devoted to Gobineau, who has thus been granted the opportunity to take revenge upon his age’.
In the space of a decade, Gobinian Studies has managed to map out a major part of the ‘Gobinian domain’, including previously unpublished texts, original articles, documents and photos. Thanks to the support offered by the National Literary Fund, a correspondence inventory has already enabled the localisation of more than 8000 letters. Gobineau’s Essay was reedited in 1867 at Belfond publishing, and two novella volumes have been released by Garnier.
It is once again to Mr Gaulmier that we owe the exhumation and publication of an astonishing text: Ce qui est arrive à la France en 1870213 (Klincksieck, 1970), a series of bitter reflections on the Franco-German war and the Commune in which Gobineau’s position essentially converges with the conclusions reached by Renan in his Intellectual and Moral Reform.
Last but not least, Gobineau will be included in next year’s Pleiades collection (Gallimard), in which his (almost) complete works will comprise three volumes.
‘One thus begins to measure the incredible wealth of ideas offered by this author, whose name is included in the Literary License Programme in Strasbourg, Aix-en-Provence and Montpellier. He was also one of the founding fathers of federalism and the theory of elites, the first great visionary of racial conflict, and a man whose influence can be felt in the writings of a large variety of authors such as Spengler, Barrès, Montherlant, Pareto, Gide, Cocteau, Radiguet, Romain Roland and Malraux.
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