War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy, 1869): Part 2- Key Themes

condiscoacademy
May 9
38 min read

The previous post summarized the plot of War and Peace.This essay, the second of the three-part series, examines its central theme.

The novel’s core message is that the grand events of history—depicted in the war strand—are shaped by the collective actions of countless individuals, some of whose personal dramas are chronicled in the peace strand. This makes the question of what constitutes a purposeful life important as the impact of each individual’s moral choice—though infinitesimal on its own—contributes to the larger historical forces that shape the lives of millions. Hence, war—symbolizing history, geopolitics, and statecraft, and peace—signifying the loves and longings of the individual—are inextricably linked by ethical principles that guide individual action. At its core, War and Peace is Tolstoy’s extended meditation on the North Star of a meaningful life.

Tolstoy connects large-scale historical events—observable collective action—to individual behavior through six arguments:

First, he rejects the claim that history is shaped by the decisions and actions of exceptional individuals. He argues that the so called "great men" are often not so "great" to begin with and even if they were, their influence on outcomes is tenuous at best.

Second, he refutes the contention that individuals simply follow what leaders say. Instead, individuals pursue their own goals within the constraints of events outside their control.

Together, these first two arguments dismantle the "great man theory"—one from the perspective of the leaders, the second from the perspective of the followers.

Third, he argues that history is propelled not by great men but by imperceptible forces governing human behavior—akin to the laws of physics. Each person acts in response to environmental factors such as climate, geography, and the economy, and the aggregation of these actions determines the course of history.

Fourth—seemingly in tension with the third, which appears to cast doubt on free will—he asserts that individuals must act with ethical intent.Their actions not only influence their immediate circles but also shape historical events and, by extension, the fate of humanity.

Fifth, If individuals are to act ethically, Tolstoy—through his alter ego Pierre—examines what constitutes a meaningful life and what one must strive toward.

Sixth, he suggests that virtue is our natural state, so a meaningful life involves awakening what already exists within us rather than seeking something new.

The rest of this essay is structured around each of these six themes that appear through the narrative in War and Peace.

Theme 1: negation of the "great man"

The “great man” theory holds that figures like Napoleon and the Tsar shaped events by directing the actions of those who follow them. Tolstoy forcefully rejects this idea with the argument that this explanation attributes causality to a force that is not commensurate with the magnitude of historical events. Citing the example of the Crusades, he says that at first, people moved east without clear leaders—just vagrants and preachers like Peter the Hermit. Later, when popes and kings gave a clear reason for the Crusades (freeing Jerusalem), the movement stopped. This is exactly the opposite of what you would expect from the "great man" theory.

Tolstoy argues that just as the Crusades show leaders did not control the masses, linking Napoleon to his army’s actions is correlation, not causation. It is implausible, he argues, that one man could orchestrate the violent actions of over 600,000 soldiers. By endorsing the "great man" theory, historians, in Tolstoy’s view, have replaced divine intervention with an equally mythical force: the powerful individual.

He reasons that even historians who claim to offer more nuanced explanations—crediting historical events to groups of individuals (instead of one man) or prevailing intellectual trends—ultimately fall back on the "great man" to explain the actions of millions. They cannot convincingly show how, for example, the behavior of the Russian aristocracy or the influence of Rousseau’s books led to millions killing people and burning homes, without invoking the authority of a powerful leader.

Though Tolstoy concedes that figures like Napoleon and the Tsar influenced more people by virtue of their positions, he insists they were merely instrumental to the unfolding of events. I interpret his view to mean that the leader is like a conductor in an orchestra, tasked not with creating the music, but with executing a score already written. He provocatively argues that leaders such as Napoleon and Tsar Alexander possessed no more-or less-agency than the most ordinary soldier.

Tolstoy also rejects a reverse version of the "great man theory"—one that claims leaders like Napoleon or the Tsar do not shape history through command, but instead embody the collective will of the people. He notes that this interpretation resonates with political scientists, who study how power is transferred from the many to the few through implicit or explicit consent. This view was obviously flawed during Tolstoy's time but even in this modern era of liberal democracies, it is difficult to defend events like the Vietnam War or the invasion of Iraq as genuine expressions of the American public’s will.

Tolstoy thus rejects both the top-down view of history embedded in the "great man" theory and the bottom-up explanation offered by political scientists, which attributes events to the collective transference of will in the antipodal direction. His skepticism rests on two main critiques: first, the supposed sagacity of many such leaders is often the product of hagiographic mythmaking; and second, even if they were capable, they lacked real control over events.

Critique 1: the myth of capability

Tolstoy turns repeatedly to Napoleon to undermine the central conceit of this theory: that history is shaped by the personal genius, charisma, wisdom, or will of exceptional individuals. He sketches six revelatory episodes that expose the limits of Napoleon's character and leadership:

When Prince Andrey is injured in Austerlitz, his interaction with the emperor, whom he had once idolized, leaves him disillusioned. Napoleon, while outwardly gracious towards prisoners of war, is coming from a sense of noblesse oblige to feed his self-image of greatness.
His diatribe against Balashev, the Tsar’s emissary, is petty and performative, serving no diplomatic purpose beyond self-aggrandizement.

As he reviews his war plans on the Russian side of the Niemen, members of a Polish regiment leap to their deaths into the river to impress him. Napoleon walks away, oblivious. Whether or not this scene is historically accurate, Tolstoy uses it to draw a sharp contrast with Kutozov, who avoids unnecessary battles to preserve life.
After the victory at Smolensk and before the Battle of Borodino, Lavrushka, a serf under Rostov, is brought before Napoleon as a prisoner. When asked whether the Russians believed the French could win, the cunning Lavrushka, pretending not to recognize Napoleon, tells him that he must engage in battle within three days to succeed. Pleased to have his own views confirmed, Napoleon reveals his identity, expecting Lavrushka to be awestruck. Lavrushka feigns shock to flatter him, and Napoleon, gratified, sets him free. Though possibly apocryphal, the incident allows Tolstoy to highlight Napoleon’s vanity and gullibility.
On the eve of the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon is given a portrait of his young son. Instead of focusing on the imminent conflict, he indulges in courtly theatrics: pulling a courtier's ear—a mark of recognition in the French court, feigning paternal tenderness before the portrait, then melodramatically asking for it to be taken away because the child is “too young to see battle” and basking in the obsequiousness of his court. In contrast, Kutozov, on the eve of Borodino publicly kneels before the Black Virgin of Smolensk to inspire his troops. Both acts are theatrical, but their intent diverge—Napoleon projects individual power; Kutozov channels collective resolve.
At the cusp of entering Moscow, Napoleon fantasizes about being greeted as a magnanimous conqueror. Instead, he finds an abandoned city. For a man of supposed genius, this is a profound misreading of the Russian mood.

Critique 2: the myth of influence

Tolstoy argues that even if such men were as extraordinary as their hagiographic biographies suggest, their actual influence on the outcomes of battles—let alone on the course of history—was minimal.

At Austerlitz, Prince Andrey discovers that meticulously drawn battle plans unravel in the chaos of real combat. He first senses this truth earlier at Schöngraben, where most of Prince Bagration’s commands are not strategic masterstrokes but simply the only logical responses to fast-changing events. During the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon—both physically and symbolically distant from the battlefield—issues orders that are never followed.

A similar episode unfolds at Tarutino. A young officer from the Horse Guards is tasked with delivering General Toll’s battle dispositions to General Ermolov. He spends hours searching the camp, only to discover that Ermolov and other senior officers are at a lively ball held at a country house. Rumors suggest that Ermolov’s absence was intentional, part of a power struggle with a rival general. In the end, the dispositions go unexecuted: only one regiment reaches the designated position, while others get lost, and even that lone attack falters when the Cossacks are distracted by looting. The festive atmosphere, personal rivalries among generals, and the breakdown of command illustrate how far removed this reality is from the idea of an army guided by a “great man.”

Soldiers, Tolstoy argues, must respond to rapidly evolving conditions that no commander, however brilliant, can foresee or control.

Tolstoy's arguments sound unconvincing because it runs counter to how history is taught in schools and depicted in popular culture. It is difficult to imagine the Holocaust without Hitler, or the bombing of Hiroshima being approved by any president other than Truman. In Tolstoy's view, we are confusing correlation for causation. We assume that because Napoleon ordered the invasion of Russia and the invasion occurred, one caused the other. But he points out that Napoleon issued thousands of commands during his lifetime, most of which never materialized. For instance, he repeatedly planned and announced his intention to invade England and to ally with Russia but the opposite happened.

Theme 2: the myth of the "follower"

While Theme 1 challenges the "great man" theory from the great man's perspective, Theme 2 does so from the vantage point of the soldiers, mostly Russian, who, are presumed to be guided by nationalistic pronouncements of the great man. Tolstoy contends that these men are driven by personal motives—some loftier than others—but personal nonetheless. He argues that even during the period of the Napoleonic wars, the narratives that emphasized self-sacrifice, patriotism, and heroism were peddled by people far away from the action, like those in distant provinces or the socialites in the salons of St. Petersburg. Soldiers closer to the conflict were more concerned with immediate, mundane matters like pay and supplies.

Further, soldiers seek moments of levity with whatever resources they have. In a charming vignette, a group of officers—including Rostov—take shelter from the rain in a small tavern. There, they find the regimental doctor’s young and attractive wife, Marya Genrikhovna, sitting inside while her husband sleeps nearby. They playfully flirt with her, asking her to stir their tea with her finger and initiating a card game where the winner earns a kiss on the hand. The officers laugh and tease each other until the doctor wakes up, grumpy and jealous, adding to their amusement.

When we think of people in war-torn countries, we often assume their lived reality revolves around the conflict. Yet, the grand events of history—even wars—do not fundamentally alter the rhythms of human life, for soldiers and civilians alike. The same forces that drive the actions of ordinary people in peacetime also operate during war. Tolstoy expresses this idea beautifully:

Meanwhile life itself, the ordinary life of real people with their personal involvement in health and sickness, hard work and relaxation, their involvement in thought, science, poetry, music, love, friendship, enmity and passion, went on as usual, far removed from political considerations.

In Life Is in the Transitions, Bruce Feiler draws insights from interviews with 225 people who navigated experiences ranging from common setbacks (like being passed over for a promotion) to the unfathomable (like the death of a child). One of his findings is that people derive meaning from a blend of three dimensions:

A for Agency: exerting control over life through action (e.g., working hard for a promotion)
B for Belonging: forging meaningful relationships (e.g., being a good parent or colleague)
C for Cause: serving something larger than oneself (e.g., volunteering)

Like anyone else, from artists to factory workers , the Russian soldiers in War and Peace pursue Feiler’s ABCs—and like everyone, the relative influence of these dimensions in their actions shifts over time.

Prince Andrey joins the military seeking Agency through personal glory while escaping an unhappy marriage. But his hopes erode over time when he witnesses his colleagues competing dishonorably for promotions and honors—each chasing their own version of agency. The brutality he witnesses at Austerlitz marks the tipping point of his disillusionment with war and the military.

When he re-enlists, his motive is again Agency, now in the form of revenge against Anatole. Yet over time, he finds solace in Belonging—as the beloved leader of a regiment. This shift from A to B is mirrored in his transition from a staff position at Austerlitz to a frontline role at Borodino. At Borodino, Cause plays a bigger role in life. While at Austerlitz, he had concluded wars are pointless, he now believes that Russia is fighting a just war after witnessing the carnage at Smolensk.

Nikolay Rostov, by contrast, begins with Cause as his dominant motivation, dropping out of university to fight for the Fatherland. But his path is the antipodal one to Andrey’s: over time, Agency rises while Cause fades. Before Austerlitz, he gazes at the Tsar with something close to romantic devotion. In battle, he exults in the danger of carrying Bagration’s message to Kutuzov. Yet by Borodino, he is content with a procurement assignment, far from the front.

While Andrey’s disillusionment with war begins at Austerlitz, Rostov’s arrives later—when he sees the Tsar make peace with Napoleon. The bonhomie between the French and Russian establishments on display becomes a breaking point for him, especially after what he has just seen: a military hospital where common soldiers lie in subhuman conditions, and the cold bureaucratic indifference shown to his friend Denisov. Tolstoy observes that barring his initial idealism, Nikolay participated in Russia's defense almost incidentally, without deep patriotic fervor, focusing on his career prospects, while trusting leaders like Kutozov with broader strategy.

Andrey and Nikolay—like all human beings—are shaped by a complex interplay of ABC. It is tempting to arrange them into a moral hierarchy: Agency at the bottom, Belonging in the middle, and Cause at the top. But this is a mistake for two reasons.

First, these categories are descriptive, not prescriptive—they are ethically neutral. There is no moral equivalence between Andrey’s yearning for glory through martyrdom and Bori’s self-serving careerism, even though both stem from Agency. Andrey's heroism in charging at the attacking French with the Russian flag to inspire fellow soldiers who were fleeing is no way diminished by his pursuit of a successful military career. Likewise, a Nazi general may have been just as committed to his Cause as Gandhi or Mandela. This is why Bruce Feiler’s ABC framework is not linear like Maslow’s hierarchy.

Second, the three are not mutually exclusive. A single action may be driven by all three motivations, with one taking precedence.

Through stories of both major and minor characters, Tolstoy shows that even in war, these soldiers pursue personal goals—not abstract ideals of national pride later attributed to them by historians. If their values happened to align with the leader's rhetoric, it is correlation, not causation.Take young Petya: eager to prove his manhood (Agency) and to bond with admired older men (Belonging), he is stirred by the Tsar’s words and joins the army. But to claim he enlisted solely in response to the Tsar’s call for nation-building (Cause), as the "great man" theory does, would be misleading.

Petya’s case reflects a broader pattern of organic alignment between personal and national goals. When Napoleon invaded and plundered their lands, each Russian soldier burned with righteous anger. According to Tolstoy, it was this collective intrinsic motivation that enabled them to defeat the French, despite being outnumbered. By contrast, the same soldiers were easily defeated at Austerlitz, where they saw no purpose in the battle. At both Austerlitz and Borodino, the same two "great men"—the Tsar and Kutuzov—were in command. Yet what historians describe as coordinated action under their leadership was, in truth, each soldier acting on his own passion.

Tolstoy argues that military strength isn't just about the size of an army—it's also about the army's morale, or "spirit." Historians, he notes often try to explain victories through tactics, weapons, numerical strength or leadership but the real key is the soldiers' willingness to fight, regardless of formations or orders. For example, a demoralized army (like the French in 1812) may stick together out of fear, while a highly motivated one (like the Russians) fought effectively even in small guerrilla groups. Tolstoy even proposes a simple equation to represent this idea: if 4 soldiers defeat 15, the fighting spirit of the smaller group must have been stronger.

Tolstoy writes "The movement of nations is caused not by power, nor by intellectual activity, nor even by a combination of the two as historians have supposed, but by the activity of all the people who participate in the events". By this, he means that Napoleon and his 600,000 soldiers possessed equal agency in the campaign against Russia. Historians ascribe moral responsibility to Napoleon and physical responsibility to the soldiers, but for Tolstoy, this distinction is meaningless. The soldiers were not "following" Napoleon. Both were merely participants in a sequence of events governed by unseen forces that shape collective human action.

Theme 3: the forces that drive history

This brings us to the question of what drives human beings, leaders and followers alike, to engage in one course of collective action over another, causing historical events of great impact. Tolstoy’s answer can be deconstructed in two parts: his theory of historical determinism and the apparent incongruence between determinism and our intuition of free will.

Historical Determinism

Tolstoy argues that history is propelled by imperceptible laws or forces that shape human action the same way laws of the natural world, like physics and evolution, impact the material world. Tolstoy does not offer a concrete example of the invisible forces he claims shape historical events. But in the final chapter, he gestures toward the kind of fundamental principles that he believes could explain collective human behavior:

"From the time the first person said and proved that the number of births or of crimes is subject to mathematical laws, and that this or that mode of government is determined by certain geographical and economic conditions, and that certain relations of population to soil produce migrations of peoples, the foundations on which history had been built were destroyed in their essence."

In the above passage, Tolstoy is referring to the work of emerging historians who were destroying the "great man theory" foundation of old guard historians, comparing the change in paradigm to the transition between the Ptolemaic and Copernican models.

Tolstoy would likely have approved of Yuval Harari’s focus on the broad systemic forces that drive historical change. For example, Harari explains how agriculture created food surpluses, enabling humanity’s transition from a nomadic existence to the first cities. As food production no longer required everyone’s labor, social stratification emerged, giving rise to specialized roles such as craftspeople, priests, and administrators. A superficial historian might credit a city’s establishment to its founder, but a fundamental historian like Harari would see the founder as an enabler of deeper forces, not their cause.

Tolstoy uses a visual metaphor to express his theory of historical determinism:

Military movement is like the movement of a clock: an impetus, once given, leads inexorably to a particular result while the untouched working parts wait in silent stillness for the action to reach them.

The original "impetus" may have been set in motion centuries earlier, and the "untouched working parts"—ordinary people and leaders alike—merely play their role in the "movement of a clock" through those centuries. Extending the metaphor, Tolstoy suggests that just as each gear in a clock leads inevitably to the hands moving, so too do the countless human actions across time culminate in a historical event. In the context of the Battle of Austerlitz, he writes:

"In a clock the complex action of countless different wheels works its way out in the even, leisurely movement of hands measuring time; in a similar way the complex action of humanity in those 160,000 Russians and Frenchmen – all their passions, longings, regrets, humiliation and suffering, their rushes of pride, fear and enthusiasm – only worked its way out in defeat at the battle of Austerlitz, known as the battle of the three Emperors, the slow tick-tock of the age-old hands on the clock face of human history."

The thoughts, emotions, and actions of thousands of people —like the soldiers at Austerlitz—are channelized by fundamental forces operating through the centuries to produce one outcome: Russia's defeat in battle. All their individual experiences—pride, fear, suffering, excitement—don’t lead to personal control, but instead move history forward like the ticking of a clock, toward a result no one can stop.

Tolstoy applies the lens of historical determinism on two levels: individual events and the broader sweep of history.

At the tactical level, he argues that Kutuzov’s decisions—to fight at Borodino and later retreat from Moscow—were shaped by countless preceding events and choices. By the time he acted, his degrees of freedom were severely constrained, if not eliminated altogether.

On a larger scale, we can view the Napoleonic Wars as the ripple effects of the French Revolution, which itself was the consequence of earlier upheavals—part of a causal chain stretching back through centuries.

Tolstoy suggests that discovering laws of history begins with studying the smallest unit: the actions of individuals and the forces that shape them. By observing how the actions of millions of individuals combine to influence historical outcomes, historians can uncover broader patterns. As Tolstoy writes,"Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation (the differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history."

The above framing is abstract, so I will illustrate what I think he means with an example. Imagine a farmer facing persistent drought. As hunger deepens, he grows resentful of paying taxes to the king. Desperation erodes his fear of the state, and he becomes willing to rebel. Thousands of similarly distressed farmers act the same way, eventually sparking a revolution. From this, one might deduce a historical law: when climate change threatens livelihoods, a predatory state is likely to be overthrown. This offers an alternative explanation of the French Revolution—one that moves away from attributing it to the ideas of "great men" like Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu.

The integration Tolstoy describes—the "sum of the infinitesimals"—is not limited to a single point in time but extends across periods, allowing historians to uncover cause-and-effect relationships between events over time. For example, the overthrow of a state, driven by, as described above, the collective responses of individuals to material conditions, often leads to instability. Combined with another fundamental law—that in times of instability, people tend to yearn for a "strong leader" who promises swift solutions and a return to order—this could explain the rise of Napoleon. Similarly, the economic devastation and political instability of the Weimar Republic following World War I help explain the rise of Hitler.

Free Will

Unlike physical particles, which cannot choose to defy the laws of physics, it is difficult to accept that human behavior might be governed by similarly immutable laws—we believe we have free will. Science fiction like scenes of blind obedience from North Korea and the premise of the Truman Show, which question the existence of free will is extremely disturbing to us. It make us question the purpose of our existence. It is for this reason that Pierre is deeply disturbed at the sight of French executioners behaving brutally despite clearly being revolted by their own actions.

Tolstoy posits that every human action can be theorized to be a combination of free will and necessity. He identifies three dimensions that influence how much we attribute an action to one or the other:

The person’s situation – For example, a drowning person who pulls someone else under seems less free and more driven by circumstance. The more connected someone is to the world around them—family, society, work—the less free they seem.
Time – The farther we are from an event in time, the more inevitable it seems. An action we take now feels like a choice. But looking back, we often feel like we had to act that way because of everything that happened afterward or our better comprehension of why we acted that way. While imprisoned, Pierre reflects that when he married his wife—what had felt like a free choice at the time—he had been no more free than he was now, locked up at night in a stable.
Understanding of causes – When we know the reasons behind someone’s actions (like their upbringing or mental state), we see their choices as less free and more determined. That’s why laws account for circumstances when judging responsibility.

From these observations, Tolstoy concludes that the roles of free will and necessity are inversely related. The more we understand about an event, the less we need to invoke free will to explain the actions of those involved. For instance, if one drowning person pulls another under while a second does not, we might initially attribute both necessity (the panic of drowning) and free will (the choice to act differently) to explain the difference. But if we later discover that the second person was unconscious, our interpretation shifts—we reduce the role of free will and attribute more to necessity. In this way, free will functions as a placeholder for what we do not yet understand.

Even those who intellectually accept that free will may be an illusion struggle to feel it viscerally. From the outside, when we study people—through science, history, ethics, or religion—we see patterns. Science tells us we are subject to forces like gravity and impermeability. People in different eras tend to act in line with the dominant ethical beliefs of their time. Yet from the inside, our lived experience feels free—we believe we are choosing our actions. According to Tolstoy, this contradiction is confounding only because we are looking at our actions inside out and belief in free will is essential for survival. But from nature’s perspective, our behavior is governed by laws, just like other rule-based phenomenon, like gravity or evolution.

Tolstoy notes that the conflict between freedom and inevitability does not concern history in the same way it does philosophy or religion, because historians study events in retrospect—events in which the forces of free will and necessity, in whichever proportion, are already intertwined. However, he argues that historians should consciously acknowledge this duality. Their failure to do so, he claims, blinds them to the true causes of historical events, instead viewing them as results of free will.

Tolstoy argues that historians should treat free will the way physical scientists treat unknown variables. In disciplines like astronomy or zoology, forces not yet understood are grouped under provisional concepts—like “vital force”—without assigning them causality. Likewise, historians should stop treating free will of human beings as a causal explanation for historical events. Instead, their goal should be to uncover the laws of human behavior that account for the inevitability behind those events, recognizing that what appears as free will may simply reflect the limits of current understanding.

Tolstoy applies his framework of free will versus necessity not just to the big events (like Napoleon's accession to the throne or the Treaty of Tilsit) but also to the tactical decisions made by leaders. He argues that when a general is considering a plan of action, urgent demands inevitably arise: officers require immediate orders, supplies must be managed, wounded soldiers need direction, political pressures mount, and conflicting reports pour in from scouts and spies. Amid this chaos, decisions are shaped more by circumstance than by free choice.

According to Tolstoy, the true drivers of historical events are environmental factors—geographic, sociological, economic, and others—which, he argues, were poorly understood by historians of his time. In his view, they mistakenly credited historical change to the free will of leaders and their followers.

Theme 4: the importance of ethical intent

Tolstoy's framing of free will as merely a placeholder for undiscovered determinants of behavior presents a conundrum—if individuals do not have free will, they are not morally accountable for their actions. As Jane Austen famously wrote, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley did not choose their conjugal paths freely, and neither do we!

Tolstoy resolves this quandary by declaring that free will and necessity are not rival explanations but rather two different perspectives on the same action. Free will is how a person experiences their action; necessity is how nature views it.

A human being, in his actions, experiences the feeling of free will. In fact, Tolstoy argues, much of human behavior is driven by the pursuit of greater free will. A man earns money to expand his range of choices. Nature, however, sees this differently. From its viewpoint, Darwinian laws dictate that only the fittest survive. Thus, the man chasing wealth is simply obeying evolutionary impulses, no more in control than an electron responding to electromagnetic forces.

What appears to human consciousness as free will is, to nature, no different from gravity. In Tolstoy’s view, free will is the perspective of consciousness; necessity, the perspective of reason. Thus, he suggests that moral judgment still applies. Even if free will is illusory from nature’s standpoint, humans experience it viscerally and must be held accountable.

My interpretation of what Tolstoy is saying is that while the broad course of history may be predetermined, its details are not. The end of British rule in India was inevitable because of Britain's economic decline but Gandhi's advocacy of non-violent resistance prevented bloodshed. When the collective will of Indians—shaped by each person's individual circumstances—aligned with Gandhi’s principles of non-violent resistance, independence was achieved peacefully. But during Partition, when the collective will no longer aligned with the leader, widespread bloodshed followed. From the perspective of historical determinism, India’s freedom and Partition were inevitable; yet how these events unfolded was influenced by the independent actions and moral choices of both leaders and followers.

Tolstoy’s disavowal of the “great man” theory in favor of historical determinism does not mean he sees military and political leadership as irrelevant. The devil is in the details, and leaders—by virtue of their position—shape more details than the average person. Still, Tolstoy suggests that great leadership is not like a chess grandmaster orchestrating brilliant moves; its essence lies elsewhere. He underscores two attributes of a great military leader that are "softer" in nature.

First is humility. He draws a stark contrast between a narcissistic Napoleon and a reflective Kutuzov to highlight the qualities of true leadership. Kutuzov’s greatness, in Tolstoy’s view, lies in his humble recognition that he is merely a cog in the wheel of the inexorable march of history. Concerned above all with the well-being of his men, he seeks to conserve their lives and strength until events converge in a way that justifies taking action.

Kutuzov believed the Grande Armée could not sustain itself thousands of miles from home in the brutal Russian winter, especially without a compelling sense of purpose that the Russians had. His retreat was not a grand strategic trap but a flexible response to unfolding conditions—allowing Napoleon to sink deeper into a quagmire of his own making. At Borodino, sensing that the intangible "spirit of the army" was at its peak on the Russian side, he gave the battle Napoleon was craving. Yet uninterested in ego-driven victories or symbolic trophies like prisoners of war, he was content to let the French retreat when the time came.

In a telling anecdote, Kutuzov is horrified when General Ermolov suggests that defending Moscow is no longer possible. But after hearing everyone’s views and reflecting on the situation, he makes the devastating decision to abandon the city. Kutuzov was not feigning stupefaction in front of Ermolov—he was genuinely shocked to realize that circumstances had made retreat the only wise option. He was humble enough to yield to necessity rather than delude himself into believing he still had meaningful agency at that point in the war.

Kutozov understood his role in history not as a commander shaping events but as a steward facilitating Russia’s defense with minimal loss of life—ready to step aside once the mission was accomplished. Tolstoy suggests that the humility to know when to act and when to hold back can also be applied to tactical decisions on the battlefield. While Kutuzov, owing to his position, weighs restraint versus aggression on matters of grand strategy, capable military leaders make similar last-minute choices at a smaller scale.

At Schöngraben, for instance, while Bagration is not in command of the situation, he is in command of his men, who find him a reassuring presence. But, at a critical moment, he switches from passivity to action and orders an attack that must be executed without delay. Years later, on the eve of Borodino, Rostov leads a similar charge. Both decisions are driven by intuition—pattern recognition forged through experience.

Second is empathy. Beyond Kutuzov’s humble wisdom in managing the grand affairs of state, Tolstoy portrays him as a relationship centered leader. When Kutuzov inspects the troops at Braunau, he recognizes Captain Timokhin, a junior officer he had served with in Turkey, and gently teases him about his past fondness for drink. He also makes a point of speaking to Dolokhov, recently demoted for indiscipline. This early characterization helps explain why, seven years later, the Tsar, despite his personal misgivings, is compelled to appoint him to lead Russia’s defense against Napoleon, yielding to the will of the rank-and-file soldiers.

When Andrey informs him of his father's death, Kutozov embraces him tearfully. In another instance, when a General submits a report that includes stories of Russian soldiers looting, he gets that section of the report expunged, declaring "one cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs". Through sketching these small interactions through the novel, Tolstoy establishes him as a leader attuned to people.

Tolstoy's theory of historical determinism in collective action and moral choice in individual action is a nuanced dichotomy that reflects his belief that while the masses are swept along by impersonal historical forces, individuals still bear responsibility for their ethical decisions.

Theme 5: the meaningful life

In themes one and two, Tolstoy rejects the "great man theory" by questioning the influence of exceptional individuals and arguing that people pursue their own goals, not just leaders' commands. In theme three, he proposes that history unfolds through the accumulation of individual responses to environmental factors, yet insists, in theme four on the importance of ethical intent in these actions, which ultimately shape history. This bring us to the fifth and arguably most important theme in War and Peace: the exposition of a life lived ethically.

What is life's purpose and how should we live it? We can use the three aims of the Freemasons, as articulated in Pierre's initiation ceremony and later reinforced by Osip Bazdeyev in a private conversation, as the framework to deconstruct the answers to this question in the novel.

The first aim is preserving the "mystery" of existence, a truth that has been revealed to the order. The mystery is the "why"—the higher purpose humans should strive for.

The second aim is self-purification, the cultivation of piety and virtue that enables individual freemasons to comprehend the "mystery" and hence live for that higher purpose. The goal is not to acquire an intellectual understanding of life's purpose but comprehend it viscerally through lived experience.

The third aim is service of others—working for the benefit of humanity. In the tradition of all great religious figures, from Christ to Buddha, freemasons must use their enlightenment acquired through self-purification to serve others.

Aim 1: the higher purpose

The principal character through which Tolstoy meditates on the answer to question of what constitutes a meaningful life is Pierre, who, at a low point in his life, reflects "If I can only escape one way or the other. Not see it, the terrible it."

While Tolstoy does not explicitly articulate what "it" is, Pierre is confronting a realization all humans eventually face—the world is chaotic, and misfortune can strike at any moment. Hence, much of human action stems from the need to confront this unsettling truth, though few people possess Pierre's self-awareness about their own motivations. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi put it pithily "the foremost reason that happiness is so hard to achieve is that the universe was not designed with the comfort of human beings in mind".

Our minds are preoccupied with a proliferating set of thoughts of potential disappointments and disasters, pushing us to engage in activities that distract us or provide us with a false sense of control over our destiny. Paradoxically, this only deepens what Csikszentmihalyi calls "psychic entropy" — a chaotic mental state resulting from a lack of concentration, marked by disordered thoughts and negative emotions.

The search for life's higher purpose beyond trying to find stability on a ground that is constantly shifting is the central plot point of War and Peace. By its very nature, the answer to the "why" of life is beyond the gravitational field of linguistic understanding. Yet, we catch glimpses of it in fleeting moments of joy when we feel aligned with that numinous purpose.

The closest Pierre comes to articulating his conception of the "why" is on his visit to Prince Andrey at Bogucharovo, where his friend is living an isolated existence after the Battle of Austerlitz. There Pierre envisions all life, from the simplest creatures to human beings, as a ladder towards an enlightened entity called God. At that point, each creature merges with God and the separateness between individuals dissolves. The purpose of human action, then, is to ascend this ladder. The imagery of man merging with the divine is evoked again in a dream where Pierre remembers an old teacher showing him a globe made of shifting, merging droplets, each of which represents a person.

A variant of Pierre's idea was echoed decades later by Martin Seligman in the conclusion to his book Authentic Happiness, in which he incorporates the idea of God into the distinction between the good life and the meaningful life. Seligman conceives of God not as an existing being but as an aspirational end-state—a vision of omniscience, omnipotence, and righteousness that humanity is collectively striving toward. A good life involves applying one’s strengths to life’s struggles wisely. A meaningful life, adds the dimension of forwarding the collective human voyage to Godliness by acting in ways that are considered universal virtues.

Pierre's articulation of merging with God feels somewhat vague and disconnected from practical reality as compared with Seligman's. But the core idea is the same. People who strive for goodness develop empathy with other living beings and in a thought experiment, taking this idea to the extreme, such people would eventually stop distinguishing between themselves and others altogether. However, this kind of moral evolution runs counter to the instincts coded into us by another kind of evolution—the Darwinian one, which prioritizes survival and self-preservation. This tension raises the question of the "how"—how do we live aligned with this higher purpose. The answer, according to freemasons, is self-purification.

Aim 2: self purification

Self-purification is the process of developing a deep, intuitive sense of connectedness with others. Tolstoy illustrates the role of suffering in self-purification through the personal dramas of his lead characters. Physical suffering, Tolstoy suggests, connects us to the universe in two ways.

First, it erodes personal exceptionalism — the belief that one's experiences are more important than those of others. Pierre's experience of brutality as a prisoner of war during the French occupation of Moscow is a transformative event for him. Wealth, status, and social capital create identities we embrace—philanthropist, change agent, model spouse—separating us from others. But at our core, we are all living beings driven by the same primal needs: food, sleep, energy, and sex. Extreme deprivation when experienced by someone not used to it, like Pierre, strips away this illusion of specialness, revealing that we are merely creatures on the continuum of life—fleeting specks on Carl Sagan's pale blue dot in a vast cosmic arena.

Awareness that other living creatures experience the same range of pleasant and unpleasant emotions as we do, helps us avoid the second arrow of suffering: the “Why is this happening to me?” that compounds the original pain. It is as though the entire universe is our support group. A man who sees the self as part of the universe rather than the center of it is more likely to be happy. For the first time, Pierre endures extreme physical deprivation—hunger, cold, and exhaustion. Yet, he finds the tranquility he had long sought through hedonism, reasoning, Freemasonry, and romantic love in the simple act of satisfying life’s basic needs. As Tolstoy puts it " all unhappiness arises not from privation but from superfluity".

The imperative to fulfill basic needs brings us in touch with our true mortal nature and sensitizes us to the joy of acquiring the bare essentials. People with resources rarely notice the joy of fulfilling basic needs because they preempt discomfort. At the slightest hint of hunger, they eat; when tired, they sleep. The Buddhist saying, "movement masks dukkha", alludes to the fact that physical movement often serves to alleviate and, in doing so, conceal discomfort.

Second, physical suffering makes us self-aware of our resilience, which makes us less fearful and more open to others since we are no longer constantly scanning for threats. Until Borodino and his subsequent imprisonment, Pierre had always avoided unpleasant experiences, seeking solace in worldly pleasures. But the extreme suffering and brush with death he endures instills in him a new confidence in his capacity to endure hardship.

Pierre realizes that happiness and suffering are relative—no situation is completely perfect or completely unbearable. He realizes that even in luxury (like fancy shoes), people can feel discomfort (like tight shoes), just as they do in hardship (walking barefoot with sores). Suffering and freedom have limits, and those limits are closer than we think—meaning people adapt, and pain is often a matter of perspective. He finally understands the Freemason’s advice to cultivate a “love of death.” The aversion to discomfort that is inbuilt in us, Tolstoy suggests, ultimately stems from our fear of death—because death is imagined as the most unpleasant experience of all. It is this fear that makes us suspicious of our fellow man.

As our aversion of the unpleasant subsides, we learn to temper striving with surrender and let go of the attachment to our preconceived notions of what is necessary for a happy life. Tolstoy describes this sense of freedom as the "feeling that induces a volunteer recruit to spend his last penny on drink, and a drunken man to smash mirrors or glasses for no apparent reason and knowing that it will cost him all the money he possesses: the feeling which causes a man to perform actions which from an ordinary point of view are insane, to test, as it were, his personal power and strength, affirming the existence of a higher, nonhuman criterion of life."

After witnessing the horrors of Borodino, Pierre dreams of a voice telling him that war is among the hardest trials because it forces people to relinquish their freedom and submit to a higher, divine will. One need not believe in a supernatural God to grasp Tolstoy’s point: that gentle acceptance of our lack of control can free us from fear and help us find joy in the journey, rather than being fixated on outcomes.

Like Pierre, Prince Andrey also undergoes personal transformation through physical vulnerability. Over the course of the novel, he experiences three awakenings, the first and third shaped by physical frailty. The first occurs when he lies wounded on the battlefield at Austerlitz, gazing up at the vast sky. In that moment, he is struck by its serene immensity, which contrasts sharply with the violence of fellow human beings he has just witnessed. Yet the horrors of war, his wife's death, and his lingering guilt over her death, drive him to shut himself off from emotion once more.

His second awakening comes through romantic attraction for Natasha, leading him to identify with an oak tree that transforms from barren to verdant, mirroring his own emotional renewal. However, this change is fleeting, fueled by desire rather than deep transformation.

The third—and most profound—awakening happens in his final days after being fatally wounded at Borodino. In his suffering, he feels an unexpected kinship with two people he once felt wronged by: Anatole and Natasha. In the description of Andrey's dying moments, Tolstoy evokes the Buddhist concept of bardo —a transitional phase of consciousness between death and rebirth where the soul undergoes karmic purification before reincarnation. He writes about Andrey "only with an effort did he understand anything living; but it was obvious that he failed to understand, not because he lacked the power to do so but because he understood something else—something the living did not and could not understand—and which wholly occupied his mind." It is this state that Natasha refers to as "two days ago this suddenly happened".

Andrey, in the hours leading to his death is clearly tapping into a plane of knowledge not accessible to the living when he says "Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.” Pierre's abstract idea of merging with God becomes intuitive to him. Here, Tolstoy reinforces the Freemasonic idea of cultivating the "love of death"—the idea that one who sees the self as part of a greater whole embraces death not as an end but as a transition, from one to state to another, within the universe. While Princess Marya and Natasha grieve his passing, they viscerally comprehend the Biblical idea of man's return to dust, cognizing death as a necessary and even good thing by which nature renews itself.

For Natasha, awakening comes from emotional, instead of physical suffering. Natasha, overwhelmed by despair after the incident with Anatole, finds solace through holy communion. By strictly adhering to the prescribed rituals in the days leading up to it and surrendering to a higher power—in her case, the Christian God—her sense of separateness fades.

The natural way of relating to the world for most people is self-referential. Our mind evaluates every event in the world, big or small, in terms of how it might impact us. But by shifting her focus from what she wants to what the church requires of her, Natasha experiences a dissolution of self, her heart overflowing with love for others. So profound is this transformation that a sermon on defending Russia against the invading French unsettles her, as even the enemy now falls within the embrace of her boundless compassion. For Pierre, surrender was borne from necessity during his imprisonment, while for Natasha, it is a conscious choice she makes.

Tolstoy distinguishes between the superficial form and true meaning of religion through the contrasting ways Helene Bezukhov and Natasha Rostov engage with religion. Helene, eager to remarry, converts to Catholicism and bribes the Church to obtain a divorce. Tolstoy wryly remarks that “the real purpose of religion is to preserve decencies and still satisfy every human desire.” For Natasha, by contrast, taking communion is a moment of sincere personal transformation. Helene cares about what "God" can do for her while Natasha focuses on what she must do for "God".

The title War and Peace can be seen as symbolizing the twin states of suffering (war) and joy (peace), with the former serving as a means of self-purification that leads to the latter.

Aim 3: service of others

The second and the third aims, self-purification and service of others, are causally linked. A man who sees himself as part of a greater whole is naturally inclined to serve others. His actions are driven by a motivation very different from that of someone who approaches benevolence through the frame of intellectual reasoning.

Pierre undergoes a transformation between these two states through the tribulations he endures as a prisoner of war. Before this, though generous in everyday interactions, his philanthropic efforts are rooted in a need to fill the void of purposelessness. In that sense, his charity resembles his debauchery—both serve to gratify a narcissistic hunger for fulfillment.

But after his captivity, Pierre’s kindness flows more from instinct than reasoning. It arises from a felt sense of fraternity, something he had seen manifested tangibly in the communal life of the soldiers at Borodino, rather than a striving towards an ideal of benevolence. The relationship between benefactor and beneficiary, in such an exchange, becomes one of equals. This is illustrated in a charming vignette when some common soldiers help Pierre find his way back home after Borodino. For a moment, he considers tipping them, but realizes it would be inappropriate—it would reduce their act of human kindness to one of deference.

The change in Pierre's outlook becomes evident during his convalescence in Orël, reflecting in both how he engages with the world and how others respond to him. He no longer judges people for their intelligence or morality, treats them with indifference, or tries to sway their convictions. Instead, he shows a sincere interest in both the outer and inner lives of each person he meets. The earlier Pierre grew frustrated when fellow Freemasons rejected the precepts he had learned abroad, or when he failed to influence the nobles’ assembly convened by the Tsar. But now, having accepted his own insignificance in the vastness of the universe, he no longer expects others to take him so seriously.

The people around him—his cousin, servants, an Italian prisoner of war, and his old Masonic associate Count Willarski—find him far more pleasant to be with. His philanthropy now springs from loving kindness rather than a sense of obligation tied to his wealth. He no longer agonizes over when to give; guided by instinct, he acts on what feels moral and experiences no discomfiture when he chooses to refuse an entreaty.

What Pierre is experiencing is metta. In Buddhism, metta refers to unconditional loving-kindness—a boundless, altruistic compassion for all beings without discrimination. Unlike love, which is often possessive and limited, metta is free from attachment. While we can love only a finite number of people, metta can extend to all living beings because it arises from recognizing our kinship with all living beings. Though Pierre does not use the Buddhist term, he senses that his fellow prisoner of war Platon Karatev’s affection during their imprisonment is metta—not conditioned on who he is. Platon would part from him without sorrow.

Spontaneous acts of kindness, rooted in metta instead of a sense of patronizing charity, create a self-perpetuating chain of compassion. During the Schöngraben engagement, Prince Andrey helps Tushin drag two cannons downhill under heavy French fire. Shortly after, Tushin returns the spirit of that kindness by offering the wounded Nikolay Rostov a ride—hoisting him onto one of the same cannons after removing the body of a fallen soldier.

Pierre tells Andrey that human beings are both children of the earth and children of the universe in eternity. Through his physical suffering, Pierre gains a visceral understanding of men as children of the earth, which imbues in him a visceral sense of connection with others, affirming the identity of men as children of the universe in eternity . A meaningful life is one in which the two identities are not in conflict but mutually reinforcing. The first aim of the freemasons can be viewed as the definition of a meaningful life, the second is the pathway to achieve it and the third aim is its physical manifestation.

Platon Karataev, who profoundly influences Pierre, is presented as an exemplar of someone pursuing a meaningful life. He embodies Pierre's duality.

As a child of earth, Platon lives simply, doing what is necessary to survive. He spends his days in the prison camp baking, cooking, sewing, and mending boots, keeping busy and socializing only at night. A telling vignette captures his nature: after stitching clothes for one of his French jailers, he hesitates to part with the leftover fabric, hoping to use it for leg bands. Despite his imprisonment, Platon does not dwell on war or the prospect of release—his task is to sew, and he does it with the same attentiveness he would in any other context.

As a child of the universe in eternity, Platon sees himself as part of a greater whole—one that includes both humans and animals. His sense of self is always relational. When he first meets Pierre, he asks whether Pierre has a home, an estate, a wife, parents, and children—questions meant to define Pierre’s identity within society as an aristocrat and within family as a husband, father, and son.

Platon finds meaning, even in misfortune, through this relational perspective. Though conscripted as punishment for taking wood from another’s land, he views it as a blessing—it spared his brothers from the draft. This outlook extends beyond social and familial ties. As a man of faith, he views all living beings as children of God, united by shared divine parentage. He recounts the story of a merchant wrongly imprisoned in Siberia for murder, who bore his suffering without resentment, believing it to be punishment for the collective sins of humanity, including his own.

Theme 6: the virtue within us

The difficulty in reconciling Pierre's lofty conclusions on man's true purpose with the brutality of war is a recurring theme in War and Peace. Tolstoy suggests that kindness and empathy is intrinsic to being human and war "dehumanizes" us by engineering circumstances where those instincts must be suspended. He shares six vignettes to demonstrate this.

The first is Nikolay's confrontation with a French officer whom he strikes with his sword. The young, frightened officer surrenders, his face looking more like a scared boy than an enemy. Even though his commanders praise him and recommend him for a bravery medal, Rostov cannot shake the memory of the Frenchman's terrified blue eyes and dimpled chin. He wonders how a bravery medal can be conferred for the act of attacking a man who is as frightened as the attacker.

The second is Petya's encounter with a French drummer boy, Vincent Bosse, whom has been captured prisoner. He feels a surge of compassion for the young man but conceals it to avoid appearing weak in front of his commanders, Dolokhov and Denisov, whom he admires.

The third is a disturbing incident related to Count Rostopchin, the Governor of Moscow at the time of the French occupation. Consumed by rage at his own powerlessness, he vents his anger by inviting a crowd to attack the political prisoner Vereshchagin, whom he accuses, without evidence, of distributing Napoleonic proclamations in the city. Rostopchin's words initiate a violent frenzy where the mob brutally kills the young man. Afterwards, some members of the crowd, shocked by their own violence, express horror and remorse at what they have done. Rostopchin, on the way out of the city, sickened by his conscience, is approached by a lunatic who thinks himself to be Jesus Christ.

The fourth, an equally disturbing incident, involves public execution of Russian prisoners, the lineup of whom include Pierre, who is spared. The prisoners were blindfolded, bound to the post, and shot, their deaths marked by smoke and blood. Terror not only marks the faces of the prisoners but also their French executioners who are trembling with revulsion, with one visibly shaken soldier struggling to join his unit and others muttering hollow justifications of their actions. Pierre observes that the French soldiers seem gripped by an invisible force that compels them to act against their instincts. Unlike Rostopchin’s mob, who are swept up in a temporary moral blindness, these men remain ethically aware—even as they act with cruelty.

In the fifth incident, Pierre discerns the same invisible force at work when the French soldiers herd the Russian prisoners as they evacuate Moscow. His pleas for a gravely ill prisoner, unable to travel, are met with cold indifference.

The sixth event is the shooting of Platon Karatev. Pierre sees Karatev sitting under a tree, emotional and tearful, but avoids engaging with him. Later, he hears a gunshot and Platon's dog howling, realizing Karatev has likely been killed—yet he and the other prisoners refuse to look back, focusing only on survival. Two French soldiers run past him, one carrying a smoking gun with which presumably Karatev was shot, their faces pale and troubled, reminding Pierre of the fear he had seen in a young French soldier at the execution.

In each of the above incidents, because empathy is intrinsic to us, it requires the aggressor to forcibly suppress it. The mob who attacked Vereshchagin or the French soldiers carrying out public executions experience great cognitive dissonance because of the disconnect between their malevolent act and their inner humanity. It is this intrinsic goodness in us because of which small exchanges of kindness between the warring people continue to play out against the brutal background of war.

It is our shared humanity that enables Osip Bazdeyev’s servant, Gerasim, to laugh with two French soldiers despite the language barrier. Interestingly, one of these men, Morel, and his master, the French officer Ramballe—who befriends Pierre during the occupation of Moscow—are given food by Russian soldiers. In another moment of quiet grace, a French soldier allows Platon Karataev to keep leftover fabric from a tailoring commission.

The title War and Peace can be interpreted as the two sides of a man's nature, echoing the the concept of the two wolves within us that suggests we each harbor a good and an evil side, and the one that thrives is the one we choose to feed. Our natural state is good but war triggers the bad side to come out with great force.

Summing up

In the previous post, I used war in War and Peace to signify battlefield conflict, geopolitics, and the characters’ professional lives, while peace referred to their family ties, romantic relationships, and inner worlds. This duality can be reframed in three deeper interpretations.

First, war represents the realm of collective action and the laws that govern it, while peace embodies individual action and the felt experience of free will that shapes it. Like Tolstoy’s characters, we are all simultaneously individuals pursuing personal goals (peace) and participants in collective actions (war) that often hinder those goals through destruction and disruption. Though we act with a sense of free will, we are subject to impersonal forces—like physical laws—indifferent to our comfort. Yet each person, through ethical choices in their private pursuits, can help mitigate the mass suffering tied to historical events.

Second, war symbolizes the evil within us, while peace stands for the good. Human nature is intrinsically altruistic, though circumstances may obscure this truth. Still, peace—our better nature—always lies beneath war, waiting to be reclaimed.

Third, war signifies suffering and peace joy. Suffering can act as a vehicle for self-purification, deepening our empathy and connection to others. This echoes the Buddhist practice of tonglen, in which one breathes in the suffering of others and exhales relief and healing.

Underlying all these interpretations lies another duality beyond "war and peace": it is Pierre's framing of men as “children of the earth and children of the universe in eternity.” The purpose of life, then, is to dissolve the illusion of separateness between these two identities—by consciously nurturing our connection to all living beings and recognizing our true nature as infinitesimal parts of an interconnected whole. Death is not an end, but a transition on the path toward merging with the divine.

This essay, the second in a three-part series, explores the key themes of War and Peace. Part 3 will conclude the series with some additional musings on this richly textured classic.