Internal Weakness of Russia
But even after a long rest and complete external reconstruction, Russia, in the case of serious aggression, will always prove internally to be a considerably weaker factor than it would be possible to judge of from the outside. That was the case during the Japanese war in 1904-5. And so she was also during the war which has just ended. Russia’s external strength has always been imaginary, for she has always been weak internally. And this is not an accidental, momentary or passing weakness, but a weakness dependent on Russia’s composition and her home-policy. We have already shown that Russia is composed of a series of regions which by their population, history, culture and economic interests are not bound together, but tend in different directions, and are merely held together by perpetual compulsion. By reason of this there will always be a centralised home-policy in Russia, and, consequently, a lot of unsolved and insoluble problems therein; a policy the principal means of which will always be force and compulsion. And as soon as compulsion relaxes, the problems and anomalies artificially kept under come again to the surface and paralyse all the forces of Russia. The history of Russia shows that precisely on account of her internal weakness and under the threat of revolution, she has been unable to end with success any one of the last wars.