It is certain that the rebirth of Russia will coincide with an extraordinary upheaval of the nationalist wave, a quite natural upheaval after the humiliation of national dignity suffered by Russia, an upheaval of which all that is foreign and non-Russian will be the inevitable victim. This wave will clear the ground for Messrs. Mandelstam, Sazonoff, Kerensky, Schreider, etc. M. C. Nabokoff will incontestably allow himself to be carried away by that wave, and if Admiral Koltchak and General Denikin do not, at least those that will come after them, perhaps M. Briantchaninoff, will benefit by it.
A Common Civilisation, indispensable to a Federation, does not exist
What will be the effect of this Chauvinist wave on the All-Russian Federation planned by the Russian groups, and composed of a series of national States? In accordance with the laws of reaction, the Russian nationalist upheaval will call forth a similar movement in the other nationalities of the Russian Federation. Besides, these peoples are even now in different stages of civilisation. They are being besought from various directions, and the exasperation of the national feeling in each of them will set up another and a still more sensitive difference. There will not be that spiritual community without which a free co-existence is inconceivable. This spiritual community did not exist under the Tzarist régime, which however tried to create it by enforced russification, going even so far as to prohibit the use of the mother-alphabet and the public use of the mother-language, and ordering that teaching in the elementary schools should be given in Russian to children who did not understand a word of it. By such proceedings, a kind of spiritual community among the peoples of Russia has indeed been created; no one doubts it—there is unanimous opposition against such means of furthering Russian civilisation.
No harmony of civilisation could exist, even in the projected All-Russian Federation. Within its limits there would be nations which, owing to favourable geographical situation and greater activity, have long led the intensive life of western civilisation; and there would also be peoples which are as yet in the first stage of civilisation.
For instance, what harmony is it possible to imagine as existing between the Letts and the Samoyedes of M. Miliukoff, or between the Esthonians and the Fetishists of Siberia? Russia is populated by nations unable to understand one another, not only on account of the difference of language, but also because of the contrasting customs and habits, ideas, religious creeds, and popular psychology. No one of these nationalities possesses such a strong preponderance in the matter of numbers and civilisation, nor such powerful influence, that the other peoples should submit to it of their own free will.
M. Victoroff-Toporoff finds (Pages Modernes, No. 1, April, 1919, p. 24) that there is something which unites all the nationalities of Russia—“the great intellectual force of the people of Greater Russia,” which through the medium of masterpieces of the famous Russian teachers and writers, has spread broadcast among all the peoples of Russia. It is certain that no one will try to minimise the importance of Russian literature, nor dispute the place which is its due among the literatures of the world. But Russian literature by itself is not yet world-literature, and the literature of other nations as well has exercised an enormous influence on the peoples of Russia. For instance, the influence of the French masters on Lettish culture is far stronger than that of Russian art. But apart from this, each nationality detached from Russia has its national literature, which we all admit does not perhaps possess great masterpieces like Russian literature, but has nevertheless its individual character, and consequently stands nearer and dearer to its people and is capable of greater influence on it than all the masterpieces of foreign art.
The All-Russian Federation has no common basis for its diverse members in the field of civilisation. Consequently, there are two courses open to it:—either to give to each people the liberty of development, in which case the nationalities would very soon disperse intellectually in all directions; or to revive the russifying centralist tendencies, the likelihood of which is made evident by the expected rising of Russian chauvinism. In both cases there remains nothing of the Federation.
The Economic Problem of a Federated Russia
If between the peoples of Russia there are no interests in common as regards intellectual culture, there is still less in common in the economic relationships of the different parts of Russia.
It is well known that Russia, since the ministries of Vishnegradsky and Witte, leaned more and more consciously towards the protectionist system; and having created the autonomous Customs tariff of 1893, leaned towards the creation Of a self-supporting economic unit. This policy was based on balancing the agricultural interests on the one side and the industrial interests on the other. Industry was protected at the expense of agriculture, but without exceeding the limits which allowed the world’s markets to be preserved for Russian agricultural products, for otherwise this would have led to the destruction of Russia’s commercial equilibrium. This was a quite reasonable policy, and indispensable from the point of view of a one and indivisible Russia with an economic system completely centralised. And this policy, supposing its necessity, must be reverted to in a reunited Russia.