"David Weber - Honor 07 - In Enemy Hands" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

thought moodily. Or of
how the destruction of a society's underlying social contract, even if the
contract in question had been a
bad one, smashed the stability of that society until a new contract,
acknowledged by its members as
legitimate, replaced it. Pierre himself had certainly underestimated the
consequences when he set out upon
the revolutionary's path. He'd known there had to be a period of unrest and
uncertainty, but somehow he'd
assumed that once he and his colleagues got past those initial rough spots,
the simple passage of time
would be sufficient to legitimize their authority in the eyes of those they
ruled. That was how it ought to
have worked, he told himself yet again. However they'd gotten to where they
were, they had at least as
strong a claim to their places as the Legislaturalists they'd destroyed to get
here had ever had. And unlike
the Legislaturalists, Pierre had become a revolutionary in the first place
because he genuinely believed in
reform. Yet by the very act of seizing power, he had created a situation in
which the ability to take that
power was all that truly mattered to those who might compete for authority,
for his own actions had
eliminated not only all previously existing avenues to it but also any
"legitimate" constraints upon the use
of force.
All of which meant that the seemingly all-powerful Committee of Public Safety
was, in fact, a far more fragile edifice than it appeared. Its members were
careful to display their confidence to the Dolists
and Proles they'd mobilized, but Pierre and his colleagues knew that any
number of unsuspected plotters
could be working to overthrow them at any moment. Why not? Hadn't they
overthrown the Republics
previous lords and masters? Hadn't the Legislaturalists' long monopolization
of the power of the state
produced crackpots and fanatics in profusion? And hadn't the Committee itself
crushed enough "enemies
of the People" to guarantee its members potential, and passionate, enemies
galore?
Of course they had, and some of them had demonstrated a dangerous willingness
to act on that
enmity. Fortunately, most of the outright lunatics, like the Zeroists, who had
supported Charles Froidan's
demands that all money be abolished, had been too incompetent to plan a bottle
party, much less stage a
coup. Others, like the Parnassians, whose platform had included the execution
of all bureaucrats on the
grounds that their choice of employment was prima facie evidence of treason
against the People, had been
reasonably competent conspirators but guilty of bad timing. By moving too