meaning of Authority?

Most figures of authority or leadership in this story are not well represented. Jozef and Zlee fight for an unseen, unknown emperor, with whom they don't even share ethnicity. The schoolmaster is a poor teacher and a poor disciplinarian. All of Jozef's and Zlee's commanders except for one are hard taskmasters that don't understand the job they're doing. Jozef remarks at one point that the men running the war and making decisions to send men to their death were probably trainmasters or bakers before the war. And when Jozef toys with the idea of deserting the army, he dreams of never being sent into battle by an "unfeeling master" again. Only Ondrej is a loving, kind father, very near infallible, particularly in Jozef's memory.