伟大的领导人如何能够掌握环境并创造历史

 

早在20世纪30年代中期，当法国军方的其他部门还拘泥于静态防御的战略时，戴高乐就掌握了下一场战争将由机动的进攻部队决定。

1940年6月，当几乎整个法国政治阶层都认为抵抗德国人是徒劳的时候，戴高乐做出了相反的判断：

美国和苏联迟早会被卷入战争，它们的综合实力最终会压倒希特勒的德国，因此，未来就在盟国一边。

但是，他坚持认为，法国只有恢复其政治灵魂，才能在欧洲的未来中发挥作用。

 

As early as the mid-1930s, while the rest of the French military was wedded to a strategy of static defense, de Gaulle grasped that the next war would be decided by motorized offensive forces. In June 1940, when almost the entire French political class concluded that resistance to the Germans was futile, de Gaulle made the opposite judgment: that sooner or later the United States and the Soviet Union would be drawn into the war, that their combined strength would eventually overwhelm Hitler’s Germany, and that the future therefore lay on the side of the Allies. But, he insisted, France could play a role in the future of Europe only if it restored its political soul.

 

法国解放后，他再次与他的同胞决裂--认识到新兴的政治制度无法应对挑战。

因此，他拒绝继续担任临时政府的领导，突然辞去了他在战时服务期间精心打造的最高职位。

他回到了他在科隆贝-勒-德-埃格利斯的家中，期待着如果他所预言的政治瘫痪发生，他将被召唤回来。

 

After the liberation of France, he again broke with his countrymen – recognizing that the emerging political system was not equal to the challenge. He therefore refused to continue at the head of the provisional government, abruptly resigning from the paramount position that he had so carefully carved out during his wartime service. He withdrew to his home in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, in the expectation that he would be summoned back if the political paralysis he predicted came to be.

 

这个机会的时刻过了12年才到来。

在一场迫在眉睫的内战中，戴高乐策划了一场法国国家的变革，恢复了他一生中都没有的稳定。

同时，尽管他对法国的历史辉煌充满了怀念，但他还是无情地将阿尔及利亚从政治体中切除，因为他认为保留阿尔及利亚是致命的。

 

That moment of opportunity took twelve years to arrive. Amid a looming civil war, de Gaulle engineered a transformation of the French state which restored the stability that had been missing throughout his lifetime. Simultaneously, for all his nostalgia about France’s historic glories, he ruthlessly amputated Algeria from the body politic, having concluded that its retention would be fatal.

 

戴高乐的政治家精神是独一无二的。

他对法国国家利益的承诺是坚定不移的，其遗产也是超凡脱俗的，他的职业生涯在政策制定方面没有产生什么正式的经验，也没有在特定情况下可以遵循的详细指导。

但是，领导的遗产需要鼓舞人心，而不仅仅是理论上的。

戴高乐以身作则，而不是通过规定来领导和激励他的追随者。

在他去世半个多世纪后，法国的外交政策仍然可以被适当地描述为 "高卢雄鸡"。

他的一生是一个案例研究，说明伟大的领导人如何能够掌握环境并创造历史。

 

De Gaulle’s statesmanship is singular. Relentless in its commitment to the French national interest, transcendent in its legacy, his career produced few formal lessons in policy making, no detailed guidance to be followed in specific circumstances. But the legacy of leadership needs to be inspirational, not solely doctrinal. De Gaulle led and inspired his followers by example, not by prescription. More than a half-century after his death, French foreign policy can still adequately be described as ‘Gaullist’. And his life is a case study in how great leaders can master circumstance and forge history.