It is certain that they do not propose the reconstitution of the old Tzarist régime, which, according to M. A. Mandelstam, is no less detested by the Russian people than by those of the border countries; their aim is rather to form a new Russia built on a quite different foundation and distinguished by a perfect justice towards all the peoples inhabiting her territory. “Russia, emerging from the Revolution,” says the Russian Political Conference, “and definitely divorced from the centralising tendencies of the old régime, is largely disposed to satisfy the legitimate wish of these nationalities to organise their national life. The new Russia does not conceive her reconstitution otherwise than in a free co-existence of the peoples forming part of her, on the principles of autonomy and federalism.” And M. A. Mandelstam, forgetting that it is very difficult for him, not being of Russian origin himself, to speak and make promises in the name of the Russian people, asserts: “The Russian people has never been in agreement with the old Russian policy in regard to the borderland peoples, and has always suffered with them from the same absence of political rights. It will only wish to be allowed to work side by side with its non-Russian brethren, mindful of their rights as it will be of its own.... The common life could be organised on the basis of autonomy or on that of the federative principle, or else on that of union. In any case, the borderland peoples would no longer need to fear any attacks on their personality on the part of New Russia.”
Point of View of the Russian Groups in regard to the Federation of Russia
No doubt, there are many good intentions and nice promises abroad; but nevertheless we will allow ourselves slightly to doubt their perfect sincerity, be it only in regard to some of the representatives of the Russian groups.
How, for instance, do they reconcile this crop of promises with the following facts? When, at the beginning of the year 1917, i.e., even before the Revolution, the Lettish deputies in the Imperial Douma raised the question of self-government for Latvia, M. Miliukoff, then the all-powerful genius of the Progressive Coalition (Bloc), expressed a hostile opinion on this question, and underlined it with the following words: “Then it will be necessary to grant autonomy even to the Samoyedes!” When, the same year, but already after the Revolution, under the régime of Kerensky, the law concerning self-government for the Baltic provinces was in elaboration, and the Lettish deputies pointed out the absolute necessity of fusion, compact and with well-defined boundaries, of all the territories inhabited by the Letts, in a unity of self-government without which the development of the Lettish civilisation would become difficult, the Russian Government replied with a refusal, based on the inconvenience of altering the existing departmental boundaries. More recently, in the Pall Mall Gazette of May 6th, 1919, M. C. Nabokoff, emphasising his status as a Russian diplomatic representative in London, puts the Letts and Esthonians in the same rank as the negroes of Texas. Their leaning towards autonomy is described by him as a “self-determination in a nursery,” and he regards the Letts and Esthonians as “victims of Teutonic propaganda,” to which he, M. C. Nabokoff, will never and in no circumstances submit. Consequently, as regards the promises of the Russian Political Conference and the assurances of M. Mandelstam, we have testimonies of the representatives of the different Russian political groups at different periods in their different situations, before the Revolution, after the Revolution, and after the second Revolution; testimonies, thoughtless perhaps, and ill-calculated, but so much the more sincere.
However, the “Russian diplomatic representative in London,” who, from the service of the Tzarist government, has gone over, without much effort, to that of the government represented by M. Mandelstam—after having acquired a fuller knowledge of Texas, and even without this, will be quite willing to change his views about the Letts and the Esthonians in accordance with the views and intentions of his new chiefs. No doubt M. Miliukoff, who has been able to master his antipathy to Germany, will, for reasons of necessity, vanquish also his aversion for the self-government of Latvia. But how can the Lettish people, or the Peace Conference as it decides the fate of nations, be assured that in the future and under new conditions, Messrs. Nabokoff and Miliukoff will not reconvert M. Mandelstam, Admiral Koltchak, etc., along with themselves and the Russian Political Conference? Can one expect the Lettish people or the Peace Conference to have faith in their word when the Russian groups themselves have not full confidence in one another?
Kerensky and his colleagues do not believe a bit in the promises of Admiral Koltchak in regard to the convening of the Constituent Assembly on a democratic basis. M. A. N. Briantchaninoff categorically rejects M. Kerensky. M. Miliukoff, as it appears, professes no confidence in the Constituent Assembly presided over by V. Tchernoff, and Admiral Koltchak even shoots its members, which crime M. Schreider will never forgive him. If there exists such a complete mistrust among the Russian groups in regard to one another, if people who know the valuable qualities of their fellow-countrymen release floods of accusations on one another, what faith is it possible to have, I will not say in the sincerity of their promises, but in the possibility of fulfilling them?
Impossibility of a Russian Federation
Besides personal confidence or mistrust, there are also much deeper reasons of an objective kind which clearly show that the promises of the Russian groups are, in spite of their good will, absolutely unrealisable. One would need to be imbued with an absolute Bolshevist disregard for the laws of historical continuity to admit that Russia, by the mere force of a decree and solely by the good will of honest people, will straightway pass from being a country subject to Tzarist despotism and unaccustomed to the respect of rights, of personality, and of nationalities, to a régime of equality of rights and justice for all. There are no big jumps in History; and if they are attempted, they are paid for grievously. The proof of this is afforded by the happenings in Russia, which, it was boasted, had passed without bloodshed from the autocratic régime of the Tzar to the “freest régime in the world”—the Lvov-Kerensky régime; but streams of blood and unheard-of cruelties have followed. Russia has fallen to ruins under the despotic régime of Lenin and Trotsky.
Historical Impossibility of an All-Russian Federation
The history of centuries, customs and habits, rooted usages and popular psychology are much more effectual than the best intentions and decrees, which in the most favourable circumstances can only bring about an external change. But under the mask of the latter the Past continues to exist. We have already shown that in the proposal itself of the Russian Political Conference, under a new phraseology, there is concealed at the bottom the psychology of the Tzarist bureaucracy, of which the Russian Political Conference has not succeeded in freeing itself. If the old psychology is so sturdy in the minds of the best sons of Russia, who are accustomed to direct themselves according to the best theoretical conceptions, and who have been brought up in the atmosphere of European ideas, what then can be expected from the over-excited instincts of ignorant masses reared in utter contempt of another’s personality and rights?