There is, indeed, a fundamental difference between the case of Russia and that of Austria-Hungary. In the latter the ruling Germans and Magyars are the minority; in the former the Russians are the majority. In Austria-Hungary the Germans and Magyars are opposed by civilised nations such as the Czechs, Slavs, Italians; whereas in Russia, with a few exceptions, the many small nations and fragments of nations are uncivilised. Moreover, the latter have no co-nationals in the neighbouring countries, while the Poles, Ruthenians, Italians, Roumanians, and Southern Slavs really belong, nationally, to neighbouring States.
Russia has, in fact, only one acute national problem—the Polish. The Finns are not concerned with the language problem; it is only the Lithuanians, partly as a result of German agitation during the war, who claim their independence. The other small nations and fragments of nations, most of them without any literary or historical tradition behind them and devoid of national consciousness, are no danger to Russia.
7. The Germans and Magyars hold over Europe the bogey of Panslavism. As a matter of fact, Russia has annexed only one Slav nation, the Poles, while historians know that the plan of dividing Poland was conceived and fostered by Prussia. It is Prussian Germany and Austria-Hungary that threaten the Slavs.
The German theory that Russia initiated this war, under the impulse of her Panslav policy, is without foundation. It is true, there is a Panslav movement in Russia and among the smaller Slav peoples; but in Russia this movement has always been much weaker and less general than the vital struggle between theocratic autocracy and the democracy. So decisive has been this struggle that it has broken out in spite of the war. Administrative regeneration is a vital necessity for Russia; it is the cardinal problem raised by her whole history, and, in comparison, questions of nationality and of foreign policy are of secondary importance. Official Russia has conceived nationality as identical with orthodoxy, and has been interested only in the orthodox Southern Slavs; the spokesmen of this view have not desired to add the non-orthodox Slavs to Russia. Leontyev, for instance, hailed Austria and her policy as the “quarantine against the Czechs and the rest of the too Europeanized Slavs.” It was German and
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