Russian Realities & Problems CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS C. F. CLAY, MANAGER EontJOtt: FETTER LANE, E.C. fEUmbutflfj: IO° PRINCES STREET $eto Ifoifc: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Calcutta an» iflflaurag: MACMILLAN AND Co., LTD, GTotonto: J. M. DENT AND SONS, LTD. THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA All nghts reserved Russian Realities & Problems By Paul Milyoukov, Peter Struve, A. Lappo-Danilevsky, Roman Dmowski, and Harold Williams Edited by J. D. Duff Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge: at the University Press 1917 PREFACE THES E lectures were delivered at Cambridge in A August 1916, during the Summer Meeting arranged by the Local Examinations and Lectures Syndicate. The main subject of study at this meeting was "Russia and Poland," and, out of the many lectures that were then delivered, these have been chosen for publication, because each of the speakers is, in his own department, an unsurpassed authority. Paul Milyoukov, a scholar and a statesman, was formerly a Professor at Sofia University, and has been one of the most prominent figures in the Duma ever since it was called into existence in October 1905. He was leader of the Constitutional Democrat party; he organised and now leads the Progressive Bloc, with equal courage and sagacity. No man living knows more of recent political history in Russia; and few men have had better opportunities of following the tortuous course of Balkan politics. Peterv Struve is one of the most eminent of Russian economists and has written valuable works on Prices and Labour; he is now editor of an im­ portant periodical (Russian Thought) and occupies the Chair of Political Economy-in the Polytechnic Institute of Petrograd. He also has had practical experience of politics: he sat formerly in the Duma as Member for Petrograd. Alexander Lappo-Danilevsky, who here gives a general survey of the progress of learning in Russia, is a distinguished historian and a Fellow of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, the famous institution vi Preface founded in 1725 by Peter the Great. The Trans­ actions of the Academy contain many important historical monographs from his pen. Roman Dmowski is a Pole and was for some years leader of the Polish party in the Duma. No one represents with more authority and greater ability the view that Poland's hopes for the future are most likely to be realised by coming to terms with the great Slav Empire. Harold Williams, an Englishman who has resided for fifteen years in Russia, is considered by Russian scholars to have no rival, even among natives, in his special department of knowledge, the ethnography of the Russian Empire. Here he has given in a few pages a summary of his comprehensive knowledge of this vast subject. These eminent men made the journey, at great inconvenience to themselves, from Russia to England, on purpose to deliver these lectures. The lectures were given in English, and the speakers entrusted their manuscripts to me for publication; and some of them, modestly distrusting their own skill in writing a foreign language, gave me authority to make such changes in the form of expression as I thought necessary. I trust that none of these distinguished scholars and courteous gentlemen will feel that I have abused this authority. Where I have made changes in the wording, it has been with the sole object of making the writer's meaning clearer to the English reader. J. D. DUFF. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE January 22, 1917 CONTENTS PAGE T H E W A R A N D B A L K A N P O L I T I C S . i P. N. MlLYOUKOV THE REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM IN RUSSIA . 25 P. N. MlLYOUKOV PAST AND PRESENT OF RUSSIAN ECONOMICS . 47 PETER STRUVE POLAND, OLD AND NEW 83 ROMAN DMOWSKI THE NATIONALITIES OF RUSSIA . 123 HAROLD WILLIAMS THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENCE AND LEARNING IN RUSSIA 153 A. S. LAPPO-DANILEVSKY THE WAR AND BALKAN POLITICS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, The great struggle we are now carrying on as allies can be looked at and its meaning explained from two points of view which are sometimes considered to be entirely different and even opposite to one another. On the one hand, it is a world-struggle, originating in a clash, foreseen but unavoidable, between the growing imperialism of a newcomer and the existing state of things. On the other hand, it is a local struggle in the south-east of Europe, originating in Balkan relations. From the first point of view, this is chiefly a war between Germany and England. From the second point of view, it is a war between Austria-Hungary and Russia. To keep these two views disconnected, as if they had no concern with each other, is extremely profitable to our enemies. They might choose whatever view they liked while addressing themselves to different members of the entente, in order to dissociate them and to sow the seed of suspicion and discontent. They would come to you, for instance, and they would tell you that "you are taking a parochial view of Arma­ geddon if you allow yourselves to imagine that this is primarily a struggle for the independence of Belgium or the future of France. We Germans," they would D. I 2 The War and Balkan Politics say, "are nearer the truth when we regard it as a Russo-German war. Was not, indeed, the original issue, 'in plain words, whether Serbia should become an Austrian vassal or remain a Russian tool1'? Why- should you fight, then, for Serbia and for Russian pre­ dominance in the Balkans?" And then the Germans would come and say to us, "Well, this is, in the first place, our quarrel with England, for 'a place in the sun.' Did not they invent that wretched encompass­ ment policy in order to encircle us and to cut us off from every foreign market, thus blocking the way to the realisation of our world-policy? Why should you Russians, whose dynasty has always been friendly with ours, join them and play their game? Why should you, chiefly a Continental and Asiatic power, whose principal interest lies, according to us Germans, in the Far East, why should you fight for British predomi­ nance on the seas?" Well, ladies and gentlemen, what is the best means to parry and to refute such arguments, based chiefly on the idea of the incongruity of interest between the allies? Is it not to show that the two views on the war which I have just set out are one, or rather, that they are two different sides of the same view? There is something in common between the German world- policy directed against Great Britain, and the Austrian Balkan policy directed against Russia; and that some­ thing is German aggression. I do not think that the first part of this assertion, i.e. that the German conflict 1 The quotation is taken from Mr H. N. Brailsford's article in the Contemporary Review, reprinted as a leaflet, No. 4 ("The Origins of the Great War"), by the Union of Democratic Control. P. N. MILYOUKOV 3 with England is based on German aggression, needs any further proof on my part to-day, as the opposite view is defended in this country only by a small mis­ guided minority. But I shall proceed to develop the second part of my assertion, namely, that Russian policy in the Balkans was to a great extent provoked by the same cause, by German aggression, because here dif­ ferent views may be taken; and in particular I must show you that these two aspects of German aggression, the western and the eastern tendency, practically start from the same source and have the same origin. Let me remind you, first, that both aspects of German aggression, which I have just called the west­ ern and the^eastern, can be designated by geographical names. The name for German aggression in the west is Morocco, and the name for the other, the eastern arm of the German push, is Mesopotamia. You know that the Germans came rather late in their endeavour to secure good colonies. What were left unoccupied at that time were second-rate or quite worthless. But here, on the very outskirts of Europe, lay two of the best granaries in the world which seemed to be falling from the grasp of their owners, with no heir to the succession. Morocco and Mesopotamia—in these two words centres the whole story of German diplomacy in the twentieth century. I cannot tell you the story of German intrigues at Morocco and their failure. I can only remind you of the fact that the German "bluff," for such it was then considered to be, in regard to Morocco was countered in this country in July, 1911, by Sir Edward Grey's declarations to the German ambassador, and by the 4 ТЛе War and Balkan Politics famous speech of Mr Lloyd George at the Mansion House, where the Chancellor of the Exchequer made this plain declaration: " If a situation were to be forced on us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position which Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achieve­ ment, by allowing Britain to be treated,' where her interests were vitally affected, as if she were of no account in the cabinet of nations, then I say emphatic­ ally that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure." Morocco gone, Mesopotamia remained; and, while recalling to your mind the story of German attempts to bluff us here, I shall be more than once tempted to repeat, on behalf of vital interests of Russia, the utter­ ances of Mr Lloyd George on behalf of Great Britain.