 Preface of Russian Realities and Problems. Lectures delivered at Cambridge in August 1916. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Preface. These lectures were delivered at Cambridge in 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 Miljakov, 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 organized and now leads the Progressive Block 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. Peter Struve is one of the most imminent of Russian economists and has written valuable works on prices and labor. He is now editor of an important 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 Lapo Danilovsky, 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 founded in 1725 by Peter the Great. The transactions of the Academy contain many important historical monographs from his pen. Roman Dmowsky 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 realized 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 writers meaning clearer to the English reader. J. D. Duff, Trinity College, Cambridge, January 22, 1917. Contents The War and Balkan Politics by P. N. Miljakov The Representative System in Russia by P. N. Miljakov Past and Present of Russian Economics by Peter Struve Poland Old and New by Roman Dmalski The Nationalities of Russia by Harold Williams The Development of Science and Learning in Russia by A. S. Lapodalovsky End of Preface Lecture No. 1 The War and Balkan Politics by P. N. Miljakov From Russian Realities and Problems, lectures delivered at Cambridge in August, 1916. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. 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 southeast 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 have no concern with each other, is extremely profitable to our enemies. They might choose whatever view they like, 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 Armageddon 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 say, are nearer the truth when we regarded 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 tool? Why should you fight then for Serbia and for Russian predominance 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 encampment policy in order to encircle us and to cut us off from every foreign market, thus blocking the way to the realization 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 predominance 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 something is German aggression. I do not think that the first part of this assertion, i.e., that the German conflict with England is based on German aggression, needs any further proof on my part today, as the opposite view is defended in this country only by a small, misguided 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 different 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 Western 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 20th 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 Gray's declarations to the German ambassador, and by the 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 achievement, 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 emphatically 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 utterances of Mr. Lloyd George on behalf of Great Britain. Here we come to the Balkans, the Balkans as the only way to Mesopotamia. The German push to Mesopotamia has also got its geographical expression and even two expressions, one for Austria-Hungary from Vienna to Salonica, and another for Germany from Berlin to Baghdad. This is an old story, it is not at all recent, but at the beginning it looked inoffensive, and it was called Economic Penetration of Asia Minor. In order to show you just how old that penetration is, I will give you a quotation from a famous pamphlet by Dr. Springer, published in 1886 under the very telling title of Babylonia, the richest land in antiquity and the most paying place for colonization in the present. Among other things you can read there is the following. The East is the only region in the world which is not yet appropriated by any of the expanding nations. If Germany does not let slip her chance, but puts it into her pocket before the Cossacks can dip their hands into it, she will soon have the best chair in the partition of the world. As soon as some thousand armed German colonists begin to till the splendid soil, the fate of near Asia will be in the hands of the Emperor. This was written in 1886. I will not detain you by recalling how these ideas were realized. I suppose you know all about the friendship of William with the Red Sultan, about the Emperor's theatrical journeys in 1898 to the tomb of Saladin in Damascus and to the holy places in Jerusalem, with all that display of German splendor and with the profession by the Emperor that he is the only and the best friend of the Sultan, the only one who does not think of any partition of Turkey, and that because he wants her all for himself, the Emperor, the true and faithful protector of the Muslim all over the world. And then after the Emperor came the crops and Wandergoltz, instructors for the Turkish army and concessions for German capital, the railway line, very short at first, from Hyderpasha to Izmit, then just a little further to Angora, then by a shortcut down to the south to Kone, and finally in 1899 from Kone to its terminus on the Persian Gulf. This is, in a few words, the story of the Baghdad railway. I am not going to dwell on all these developments, which I suppose to be known, and I pass on to my chief point. How did all this expanding policy of Germany in the Near East affect Russia and her policy in the Balkans? Russia as a whole, I do not mean single politicians, paid simply no attention to it for a very long time, and even at the most important moment of that development and economical expansion, permitted the Germans to divert her attention from the Near East to the Far East, just as you permitted Germany to take Helikoland from you when she was on the eve of building her huge fleet. We were both taken unawares. In 1878, while prosecuting her traditional policy in the Balkans, Russia liberated Bulgaria in harmony with Gladstone and in opposition to Beaconsfield. But what did she gain for herself while doing this? We are now informed owing to revelations from the family archives of the Austrian statesman, Count Julius Andresi, that before going to war, Russia, in the first place, by the secret treaty of Reichstadt, of the 26th of June 1876, and by secret conventions of the 6th of March 1877, handed Bosnia and Herzegovina over to Austria-Hungary to be annexed whenever she liked without recourse to arms. In the second place, Russia formally renounced all claims to Constantinople and control over the Dardanelles and all claims to an exclusive protectorate over the Christian nationalities in the Balkans. Thirdly, and finally, after her victories over the Turks, victories which cost her hundreds of thousands of lives, Russia submitted to Austria her preliminary draft for the armistice in the beginning of January 1878. She conformed her claims to the observations formulated by the Emperor Francis Joseph, and she reduced her demands in Turkey to which Turkey had consented in the preliminary Treaty of San Stefano. I do not mean to say that all this was done without hesitation and protest, but such was the leading policy of the then Chancellor, Prince Gortikov, and this course was taken not only in order to comply with the wishes of the European Concert, but also because it represented the views of our leading statesmen during the reign of Alexander II. Certainly the feeling of offence at this humiliation was very strong, and also of bitter dissatisfaction with Austria and Germany, who had helped in diminishing our advantages secured by war, and these feelings were largely spread among the Russian masses. This compelled Russia to change her whole system of foreign policy. It was during the reign of Alexander III that we approached France, and that the basis of the Russo-French alliance was laid down. However, our traditional relations toward Austria-Hungary still remained unchanged. In February 1897 the Emperor Francis Joseph visited St. Petersburg, and an agreement on Balkan affairs was concluded between Russia and Austria-Hungary on the basis of a partition of the Balkan peninsula into two spheres of influence, the western, including control over Serbia, Macedonia, and Albania, and the eastern, where Russia was to control Bulgaria and European Turkey. At that time, as you may see, we did not at all resent the Austrian push to Salonika. The line of division between the two spheres of influence in the Balkans was considered to be traditional, and went back as far as the reign of Catherine II and the Emperor Joseph. I can add that this line of division between the two spheres has actually become the traditional view in the Balkans. Serbia was considered, accordingly, to belong to the Austrian sphere of influence. There even existed a secret treaty of 1881, renewed in 1889, between Austria and King Julian, according to which Serbia was made a tool of Austria in her push to Salonika, Austria formally promising her aid in the extension of Serbia in the direction of the Vardar Valley, on condition that they were not to extend either to the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, a passage between Serbia and Montenegro, which Austria kept to herself, according to the Treaty of Berlin of 1878, or to the Dalmatian shore on the Adriatic. Still later, as recently as 1913, I personally heard from Ferdinand, the King of Bulgaria, the expression of his view that Serbia was to remain under Austrian sway. He even told me that he impressed this opinion upon Alexander, the Serbian era parent. That was also the reason why Russia considered herself unconcerned in Macedonia. Macedonia was the sphere of the Austrian push, and as late as 1897, Russia agreed with Austria to preserve the status quo in Macedonia, and continued obstinately to defend it down to 1904, in spite of British demands for a serious reform in that wretched country. We can state exactly when the traditional policy of Russia gave place to a new and an opposite line. It was at the time when Russia had finally altered her international course and had drifted into the channel of the Entente with England. It was in the years 1907 to 1908. In August 1907, a treaty with England had been concluded on Asiatic questions, and in May 1908 there was an interview between the Tsar and King Edward VII. These two years, 1907 and 1908, represent the period of transition when the Russian foreign minister, Mr. Izvalsky, after having found new friends in England, was still unwilling to surrender old friends in Austria, and so he is found discussing with them, to our great disadvantage, new schemes conceived under new international conjunctures. The possibility of the final downfall of Turkey, the possibility of the advance of Austria-Hungary to Salonika, and of Russia on the Bosphorus, were the subjects of secret discussion on former lines. But at the same time new developments took place, and two facts in particular must be remembered as outward symptoms of the changing situation. First, in June 1903, a new dynasty appeared in Serbia, the dynasty of Peter Karagorzvik, which was friendly to Russia, and then there began a bitter struggle for the emancipation of Serbia from the economic bondage of Austria. A Russophile radical party, under the leadership of Mr. Pashik, took a line which entirely changed the whole situation. It was then that Austria began to talk about the Serbian danger. Then, secondly, Baron Arendthal, the Austrian foreign minister, on the 27th of January 1908, made his famous speech about the new railway line to be constructed through Sanjak, through the corridor I have mentioned, and he particularly emphasized the importance of that railway as a means of direct communication between Vienna, Egypt, and India. This speech was an open avowal, and from that moment the eastern question was reopened in all its historical magnitude and significance. Under this new light, the annexation by Austria-Hungary of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 received a meaning quite different from what it was supposed to have in 1876 at the time of the Reichstadt concession. It brought about an acute conflict with Russia, and this diplomatic defeat of Russia at the hand of German bluff in 1909 served as an antecedent to the German policy of 1914. Thus, people who insist upon the fact that there must be a direct connection, as cause and effect, between these events of 1907 to 1909 and the present war are right, I suppose. The war might have begun from various causes and on many pretexts on the part of Germany, but, as a matter of fact, it began by reason of the eastern question being reopened, and we cannot understand the present situation in the Balkans unless we discuss the eastern question in full. Coming to this part of my lecture, I find a very good definition of what the eastern question properly is, in its European shape, in the initial phrase of Mr. Miller's book on the Ottoman Empire. He says, the near eastern question may be defined as the problem of filling up the vacuum created by the gradual disappearance of the Turkish Empire from Europe. Tilling up the vacuum. I agree with this definition, but with one correction and a very serious one. There is no vacuum, no emptiness, not only in the world of physical things, but also in the world of morals. As long as there were no moral entities, by which I mean no nations conscious of themselves, as long as there were no moral entities in the world of the enslaved Raya in Turkey, there was also no vacuum. Accordingly, there was also no dislocation of Turkey, although symptoms of decrepitude and of coming decay were already present and numerous. The process of decomposition developed as the consequence of a new process of national integration, as its counterpart or inverse. Look at this little collection of maps showing different projects for a partition of Turkey. I took them from the book of Mr. Juvara, who counts a hundred of these projects beginning as early as the 13th and 14th centuries, and half of them are earlier than the 18th century, i.e. before the beginnings of a real dislocation of Turkey. Compare these maps with the ethnographic map of the Balkan peninsula. You will see how these early projects for the partition of Turkey make a clean slate of its ethnographic composition. Here, for instance, Father Kopin contrives to give something to everybody, to France and to England, to Spain, to Modena and Parma, to the Pope and to Venice, and all that on the very small spot of the Moraea, which he divides into six parts. Next, Mr. Kara, a gerundist executed by the Jacobins during the French Revolution, gives Prussia a place on the Danube and the Black Sea. Others cut to the quick in the living but torpid bodies of nations, drawing lines from north to south or from west to east of the Balkan peninsula. Looking at some of the later maps, you will see that the vacuum begins to fill up with living matter and will notice how political frontiers of projected local kingdoms begin to coincide with national or religious divisions. Well, this change in political cartography reflects in itself the whole story of the Eastern Question. The real dislocation of the Ottoman Empire begins with the real growth of the Balkan nationalities, and fantastic schemes and combinations are soon eliminated by substituting for them real solutions. The only trouble, which is a new one, is to find just where the ethnographic frontiers go. Populations are mixed, claims are uncertain, and a new and internal struggle begins between the Balkan nationalities themselves. Their original and lofty aim, that of national unification, gradually assumes the shape of new aspirations towards an equilibrium of power, while ethnographic frontiers begin to serve only as a pretext covering hidden tendencies toward hegemony and domination. Let us now, for a time, put aside the far-reaching designs of European conquerors and diplomatists in the Balkans. Let us even forget dynastic intrigues favoured or hampered by the reigning families of Europe. Let us review the double and elementary process of Turkish decay and of national awakening in the Balkans. What exactly was the principal cause of the destruction of Turkey? The answer may be partly found in what has been said already, but I want to impress it on you by the aid of an English book which, according to my view, is undeservedly forgotten, and which I wish particularly to recall to your minds at the present time. I mean Professor Edward Freeman's book on the Ottoman power in Europe, which was written on the eve of the Berlin Congress of 1878, and met at the time with a rather unfriendly reception. It might have been written to-day. This is what Freeman says. The presence of the Turk in Europe is incidental. They remain at the end of five hundred years as much strangers as they were at the beginning. European ideas and words like nation, government, law, sovereign, subject do not apply to them. How can they form a nation when the Muhammadan part of the population has always been a ruling race, and the Christian or other non-Muhammadan part has always been a subject race? The non-Muslim subjects of a Muslim ruler sink to the condition of a subject people. The utmost that the best Muhammadan ruler can do is to save his subjects of other religions from actual persecution. He cannot save them from degradation. He cannot, without forsaking the principles of his own religion, put them on the same level as Muslims. That is why in Turkey there can be no subject and no national government. When we call an Englishman a British subject, we mean that he is a member of the British state, but if we call a Bulgarian an Ottoman subject, it means that he is the member of a body which is held in bondage by the body of which the Ottoman Sultan is the head, and he is also subject to all the lesser Turks as his daily oppressors. As far as the Turks themselves are concerned, the Turkish government is a government, i.e. a system of the administration of the law, but their rule over the Christian is a rule of mere force and not a rule of law. The Christian is, in strictness, out of the pale of the law. The utmost that he can do is to purchase the security of his life and property and the exercise of his religion by the payment of tribute. That is why, among the nations of western Europe, no one wishes to get rid of the government of his country, though he may wish to modify and improve it in many ways. But the Christian subject of the Turkish government does not wish to reform the Turkish government. He simply wishes to get rid of it all together. He wishes to become a member of a political community of his own nation which shall have nothing to do with the Turk. That power could not redress their grievances because the existence of that power in itself is the greatest of their grievances, the root and cause of all lesser grievances. The only solution is the transfer of the power of the Turk to other hands. I have known Turkey for nearly twenty years and I can give you no better explanation of the real causes of her fatal downfall than that given by the famous English historian. You will ask me, perhaps, seeing that the book was written in 1878, how it is possible to apply Freeman's statements to regenerate a Turkey, the Turkey of today, the Turkey of the Young Turks after their revolution of 1808. Well, there was one moment when I myself had some doubts and after that a time when I did not wish to play the part of the Burdaville Omen. But when two years had elapsed after the revolution, after this two years' test it became clear, even to those who knew nothing about the internal state of Turkey, that the trial had failed. I was in Constantinople ten days after the revolution of July 23, 1908, had begun. I saw the general enthusiasm of the crowds in the streets. I sympathized with the initiators of the national movement. I made acquaintance with some of them one week later in Salonica. Day by day I was able to follow their first attempts to formulate their political program. It was intended at least as much to liberate Turkey from Europe as from the Old Sultan. As to their relations with Christian nationalities, I saw the chasm which existed between their idea of a united Ottoman Empire, whose members should enjoy equal rights, and the firm decision of Christian subjects to preserve their separate national existence, their native habits, their inherited traditions, based on concessions given some hundreds of years ago by the early conquerors of Byzantium. No, Freeman was right. Complete separation was the only possible solution of the problem. I left Turkey with the impression that her fate was sealed. But who was to profit by the coming destruction of Turkey? The most natural answer was given already by Gladstone. It will be in the first place the Balkan nations themselves. The Balkans were to be given to the Balkan nations. Well, that was not an anti-Russian solution. The only thing Russia claimed in the Balkans in case of the disappearance of Turkey was a narrow strip of land all along the straits with a comparatively mixed population. But it was beyond doubt an anti-Austrian solution because it blocked forever the way to Salanica and an anti-German solution because it completely destroyed the scheme of Berlin to Baghdad. Germany did not fail in the famous speech of the Chancellor Betman Hovig before the Reichstag in April 1913 to acknowledge that it was a disadvantage for her that the position in the balance of forces which was occupied hitherto by European Turkey began to be filled in part by Slav states. The Chancellor pointed out, at this date, that such a state of things might bring about a European conflagration which sets Slaventum against Germanentum, and thus make it necessary for Germany to help Austria-Hungary, not merely within the limits of diplomatic mediation, thus foreshadowing the arguments of the German White Paper of August 1914. The chief strength of the anti-German solution was this, that it satisfied local interests and stood in perfect harmony with the national aspirations of the awakening Christian populations of the Balkans. Looking backwards at the events, we may say that all diplomatic designs, however far-seeing they seemed at the time, have miserably failed in case they were inconsistent with local national needs, and that, on the contrary, small Balkan nations, steadily growing in consciousness and cohesion, have always found their way, mostly taking by surprise diplomatic wisdom. The two kinds of help they really wanted from the Entente were, first, to let them alone and to ward off Austro-Germany while they were fighting their common enemy, Turkey, and secondly, to suggest and if necessary to impose solutions in very delicate and disputed questions of establishing satisfactory and permanent ethnographic frontiers. The Entente succeeded in accomplishing the first task and utterly failed in the second. The only possible way to defeat Turkey by the forces of the Balkan nations alone was to arrange a compact amongst them, and to lay the foundations of a Balkan league, while the only chance of Austro-Germany to win the game, was to keep them disunited and to foster internal dissensions and national rivalries in the Balkans. Germs for both were not lacking, and the story of the relations between the Balkan states is, in substance, the story of a continuous struggle between these two tendencies of union and discord. The idea of a Balkan union is not new. It was dreamed of by Slav idealists and intellectuals over half a century ago. It was even tried by the Serbian patriot, Prince Michael, who, as early as 1866-68, i.e., about the time of the unification of Italy and Germany, concluded the same system of treaties which 45 years later brought about the victory of the Balkan peoples over the Turk. But for a time it did not succeed. In May 1868 Michael fell victim to a conspiracy in which Austria had some hand, because Austria knew how dangerous it was for her to see that union of the small Balkan nations accomplished. With Michael's death Serbia lost her chance of becoming what she sought to be, the Piedmont for all Balkan Slavs, because in the next years another Slav state in the Balkans was formed by Russia. This was Bulgaria, whose national consciousness was being awakened. Thence forward there began a growing rivalry between the two related nations. Bulgaria had won, 1870, her own national church, the exarchy, while Serbia remained under the Greek patriarch, and as the patriarch proclaimed the Bulgarians to be schismatics, here was the new difference of religion to increase the feeling of national disparity. It was then that the struggle for Macedonia began and grew ever fiercer. Before that time the Serbians did not claim the Macedonian population as their own. Macedonians called themselves Bugari, and spoke a Bulgarian dialect. But Serbian patriots from the end of 1860 claimed Macedonia as an historical inheritance of the Tsar Dushan, and tried to prove that there were Serbian sounds preserved in Macedonian dialects. The feeling of the Macedonian Slav population was not with them. Macedonian Bulgarians participated in general Bulgarian risings of the seventies, and suffered equally when the Bulgarians were massacred by the Turks, and they were included by Russia in the liberated Bulgaria by the Treaty of Armistice of San Stefano, March 1878. The undivided Bulgaria of San Stefano has always remained since then a national ideal. If Lord Beaconsfield had not likened at that time to the Austrian advice of Count Andresy, and if this ideal had then been realised, there would have been no ulterior struggle between Serbia and Bulgaria, and no attempts on the part of Austria to make use of this struggle in order to divert the attention of Serbia from the Adriatic shore and from Dalmatia, which is Serbian, to the valley of the Vardar and to Salonika. The Treaty of San Stefano, I am sorry to say, was torn to pieces at Berlin, July 1878, by the help of English statesmen who suspected Russia of designs for expansion. But this suspicion afterwards proved quite unfounded. The wrong horse policy showed here at its worst, and thus it finally happened that the Bulgarian national ideal, based on ethnography, is at this moment being realised by Germans, and by that royal degenerate, their King Ferdinand. Meanwhile, there was a moment when it seemed that a just and reasonable partition of Slavlands owned by the Turk was likely, in spite of Austro-German attempts to sow discord, to be attained by the Balkan states themselves, united in one Balkan League. The possibility of building such a union appeared again with the change of dynasty in Serbia in 1903. The younger generation of Serbian and Bulgarian intellectuals did very much to cool down international irritation, and in 1904 an attempt was made to conclude a commercial treaty with the further prospect of a customs union and even a treaty for mutual defence. Unhappily this treaty met with a formal veto on the part of Austria. Still, conversations were resumed as early as 1909, and proceeded further in Petrograd in 1910, without coming to any definite result in regard to Macedonia. And finally, a formula of partition of Macedonia was secretly arrived at, when the Turco-Italian War of 1911 made it clear to everybody that Turkey's life in Europe was soon to end. By the Serbo-Bulgarian Treaty of March 13, 1912, the limit was finally drawn in Macedonia, approximately, according to the view of Mr. Sviets, the best Serbian specialist in geography, on the lines of Serbian ethnographic research. This treaty was followed by the Greco-Bulgarian Treaty of May 1912, wherein, unhappily, no frontiers were established which could settle conflicting claims. Then, when the Albanian Revolt of 1912 proved finally the weakness of Turkey, military agreements were concluded on September 5, 1912, with Serbia, and on September 28, 1912, with Greece. On October 13, the Allied Balkan States formally demanded Turkey's consent to the autonomy of the European Vallets, redivided according to nationality, and on October 17, Turkey, replied by declaring more on Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece, Montenegro having been at war since October 9. Nobody expected at the time a decisive victory for the Allies, and thus it was easy for Russia, England, and France to persuade Austria-Hungary to let the Balkan States fight it out by themselves. Austria confidently expected that the Balkan States would be beaten by the Turks. It was a great disappointment, therefore, for both Austria and Germany when, in the short space of a few weeks, the Allies had become masters of the Turkish provinces in Europe. The war for liberation was properly finished at Lule Borges on October 31 for Bulgaria, at Salonika on October 27 for Greece, and at Monaster on October 28 for Serbia. If by that time, by the end of October or perhaps November, a treaty of peace could have been concluded, the question of a just ethnographic partition should have been solved. But now there began a war for conquest, which was to end with the capture of Constantinople by Bulgaria on March 13, 1913, of Yanina by the Greeks on February 24, and of Duroso and Skutari on April 9 by Serbia and Montenegro. Unhappily, this war for conquest was also the end of the Balkan League. Encroachments on foreign nationalities did not fail to revive ancient mutual animosities. Serbia and Greece, having become masters of Macedonia, began by very summary means to assimilate the local population. Bulgaria grew impatient to conclude peace with Turkey in order to turn against the Allies herself. Serbia and Greece answered by concluding a treaty of alliance on May 29, 1913 against Bulgaria in order to defend their booty. As the treaty of March 13, 1912 provided in case of conflict between the Allies for arbitration by the Tsar, Russia made an attempt to convoke the quarreling Allies before her Tribunal in Petrograd. But at the time Russian diplomacy made Bulgaria understand that she must yield and make some further concessions to Serbia. This suffice to make Bulgaria resort to the foolish proceeding of trying a solution by force. On June 29 a sudden attack was made by the Bulgarians on the Serbians and on the Greek army, and then a veritable avalanche of misfortune descended upon Bulgaria. Russia let go of Romania, whose soldiers advanced to Sofia. England did not stop the Turks, who recaptured Adrianople and passed on to Bulgarian territory. At the same time the Greeks reached the frontier of the Kingdom of Jumaia, while the Serbians were besieging Vidin. After two weeks of unequal struggle, Bulgaria appealed to Europe. Two weeks later she asked Romania to mediate. On July 30 negotiations were opened at Bucharest, and on August 10 a hasty peace was concluded which simply mutilated Bulgaria and distributed Balkan territory among the victors as if no ethnography existed. Thus the work of the Balkan Union was utterly spoiled, and it was the Austro-Germans who really won the victory at Bucharest. At the beginning of 1914 I wrote in the report of the Carnegie Commission sent to inquire into the causes and conduct of the Balkan Wars. The Treaty of Bucharest has sewn a new seat of discord in its violation of the sentiment of nationality. It divides the Balkan territories on the principles on which the Treaty of Vienna divided national regions in Europe in 1815. This historical example suggests that here too, national reaction will follow on the work of diplomatic and political reaction. Those who won claimed that a balance in the Balkans had been secured, an end made of pretentions to hegemony, and peace thus secured for the future. Unhappily a nearer examination leads rather to the conclusion that the Treaty of Bucharest has created a state of things that is far from being durable. While writing these lines I was far from foreseeing that this prophecy was to be accomplished during that very year and the next. You can see now the bearing of the events of 1913 and of the mistaken policy of a fictitious equilibrium in the Balkans on the events which brought about the present war. If the partition of Christian populations in the European provinces of Turkey had been made according to the Treaty of March 131912 and in accordance with the actual ethnographic frontiers the Balkan League would have been kept in existence and Austria-Hungary would not have dared would not have even thought of sending her ultimatum to Serbia. I do not mean to say that in that case there would have been no European war. What I mean is that probably there would have been no war in July 1914 on the pretext of a Serbian danger for Austria. Still when this war began not everything was lost in the Balkans. On September 171915 the diplomatic representatives of the Entente powers visited the Bulgarian Premier, Mr Radov Slavov, and handed to him identical verbal notes. They acknowledged in these notes that Bulgarian pretensions to Macedonia were just and they gave Bulgaria a solemn guarantee that Macedonia would be given back to her within the limits of the Treaty of March 131912 quite independently of what Serbia or Greece might think of it. They even proposed as a guarantee immediately to occupy the promised territories with the Italian army. If this proposal, instead of being made in September, had been made in March, half a year before, I am nearly sure that Bulgaria would have sided with us, but at that time there was no unity of opinion among the Diplomatists of the Entente as to the better solution to choose. Does not this mean that sometimes, let us be charitable, Diplomatists are liable to be out of touch with the existing reality and not quite well acquainted with things they ought to know? Well, ladies and gentlemen, things are just now so complicated in the Balkans that I do not venture to utter any opinion as to what is to be done immediately in that region. We are now in the very process of development of new military operations which, in a few weeks, perhaps, may change the whole situation. But what I know, and what looms over momentary events so as to be seen afar from a distance, is the conspicuous lesson given by the occurrences of the past which I have just recalled to your memory. Nothing short of extermination can change the state of national feeling, and the task of diplomatic wisdom is quite plain and simple if it does not permit itself to be guided by feelings of hatred or revenge. The settlement in the Balkans, to be durable, must be based on the just national aspirations of the Balkan peoples. The allies who are led by feelings of justice and freedom will know how to rearrange the conditions of national life in the Balkans in order to prevent the recurrence of mutual distrust and that false principle of balance of power which is profitable only to our enemies and to crown our victory which is sure to come with a new reconstruction based on international law and guaranteed by international sanctions. End of Lecture 1 Lecture No. 2 The Representative System in Russia by P. N. Milikov from Russian Realities and Problems, lectures delivered at Cambridge in August 1916. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Duma is dead! Long live the Duma! I wonder whether you know, ladies and gentlemen, just when this historic phrase was pronounced by the late Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman. Some members of the first Russian legislative assembly had just come to London in July 1906 as representatives attending the Inter-Parliamentary Union for arbitration when they learned that the assembly they represented was dissolved. The Duma, the first Russian Duma, was dead. It died while attempting to regenerate the political and social life of Russia on a completely new and largely democratic basis. Autocracy and landed nobility, the two chief agencies of historical Russia, though decaying, had proved too strong for the newly born national representation. The conflict between the new and the old did not even last long. The important work performed by the first Duma was done by it in an existence of only 73 days. Then the government, in order to have a more subservient chamber, used all their power in influencing the elections for the second Duma. The result was just the opposite of what they expected. Instead of a strongly constitutional Duma with a constitutional democratic majority, a socialistic and revolutionary Duma was returned with no majority at all for the government. If you will look at these figures which show the composition of the first and second Duma, you will see the difference exactly. In the first Duma the so-called Cadets, or constitutional democrats, numbered 187. And in the second Duma the representatives of socialism, in both its forms of agrarian and urban socialism, formed the majority of 180. This Duma knew its weakness very well and tried to keep clear of any direct conflict with the government. But it was useless. This chamber, too, was dissolved after 103 days of existence. It was a dramatic struggle, that struggle which was carried on by those two Dumas, and it was observed with keen sympathy and followed with the closest attention by the whole civilized world. The Duma was dead again. But long live the Duma! The memorable greeting of Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, while it acknowledged the crisis through which the young Russian representative institutions were passing, expressed at the same time the firm belief that the Russian constitution could not be destroyed either by the whim of single persons or even by the mistakes of its own political inexperience. The Duma has lived on, but the first, the heroic age of its life, was really at an end. Thenceforward the Duma was to live in obscurity. After a few months of meteoric splendor there followed long years of a very modest existence. I should call the second age of the Duma's life that of political mimicry. The Duma, with its changed composition, tried to adapt itself to its political environment. The new majority renounced bold schemes for the general reform of Russia and devoted themselves to the rather ungrateful task of self-preservation. The Duma was still interesting to observe at close quarters, but it was much more difficult to admire and indeed was thought negligible as an agent in Russian politics. I suppose that is why the Russian Duma since 1907 has been nearly lost sight of by the world. I am going to speak to you about this, the unknown Duma of the last ten years, which include the action of the third Duma from 1907 to 1912, and the fourth Duma, which was elected in 1912 and will expire in 1917. I shall try to explain to you just why the Russian Duma was unable to take a more prominent place in Russian political life, just what it lacks in order to become a real and strong representative of the people. At the same time you will see, I hope, that in spite of all drawbacks and deficiencies the Duma has contrived to make itself an indispensable engine in the national life, that it soon struck root in the country, and that it retains the vital essence inherent in the very principle of national representation. What is the chief difference between the two first and the two second Dumas, and what is the precise reason of this difference? First and foremost it was the change in the electoral law that opened a chasm between these two groups of Dumas. At the time of the dissolution of the second Duma on June 16, 1907, an edict was issued contrary to a fundamental law, that is to say, without the approval of the Duma itself, which entirely changed the composition of that body. The political parties which had built up the majority in the first two Dumas were proclaimed illegal on the alleged pretext that their program was to fortify the constitution by revolutionary means. The settled composition of the Duma was curtailed in parts which were considered to be unreliable, thus the number of Polish deputies was diminished, and the Asiatic provinces were deprived of all representation. Then, and this is the chief point, the political centre of gravity was transferred from the democratic groups of population to the higher social classes which were believed to be more reliable. Look at the figures which show the social composition of the Duma before and after 1907. These two sets of figures explain everything. You see that in the first two Dumas the relative majority of forty-three percent was composed of peasants, but that fifty-one percent, that is to say an absolute majority, consisted of the landed gentry in the second two Dumas. That, as I say, explains everything. Before 1907 it was the peasants who were favoured by the electoral reform. They were supposed to represent the conservative and traditional basis of the national life. The gentry were regarded at that time as exponents of modern liberal tendencies owing to their foreign education. But when the first and second Dumas proved that the peasants were strongly inclined to agrarian revolution, the government transferred their confidence to the small but influential group of reactionary landlords who succeeded in organising themselves under the name of the United Nobility. I have used an English word, gentry, but I must point out the difference which exists between the Russian gentry and the English. Our gentry are much more dependent upon the government having been liable in ancient times to military service and having received their lands as recompense. After the reforms of Peter the Great, the same class entered the civil service, and here too they depended on the government for promotion from grade to grade, from chin to chin as we say in Russia, and hence they are called chinovniks, men of the grades. Now, if you consider the social position of the different political parties in the third Dumas, you will see at once which of the parties was thought to be most dependent on the government and therefore most reliable. It was that party which contained the largest number of the landed gentry. I shall leave out the Polish deputies of whom in the third Dumas 82% were nobles. The Poles, whatever their views on social questions, belong to the opposition, because the government would not yield to them on the matter which chiefly interests them, i.e. the future organisation of Poland. But let me draw your attention to three groups, the Octoberists, named from the manifesto which granted the constitution in October 1905, the Nationalists, and the Rights. In these three groups the landed nobility formed 57, 48, and 44% respectively, and these are the groups most favoured by the government in the two later Dumas. We must take a brief survey of their characteristics. The Octoberists claim to be constitutionalists, but the Nationalists, and particularly the Right group, are unwilling to admit that autocracy has ever been limited by the constitution, and their extreme wing even strives for the restoration, if necessary by violent means, of the autocratic form of government which existed previous to the October manifesto. The Octoberists are chiefly the party of former bureaucrats and functionaries. By their previous applications they are much better prepared for legislative work, and at the same time they are much more subservient to the government, whilst both the Nationalists and the Right group include more democratic elements, peasants and priests together with the Gentry, and are less ready to be led and less prepared to lead in matters of politics. After the dissolution of the Second Duma, the Cabinet, with the late Premier Stolipin at their head, were inclined at first and by way of transition to lean on the Octoberists. But political agencies behind the Cabinet, together with the powerful ring of the so-called United Nobility, would have referred to joint forces immediately and openly with the avowed partisans of autocracy. The whole internal policy of Russia, as well as the internal history of the Duma during the last decade, reflected the struggle between these two tendencies. With the government's aid, the Octoberists prevailed at the elections to the Third Duma, at which the edict of June 16, 1907 was first applied. In this chamber the government used its influence, much increased by means of the edict, on the one hand to paralyse the opposition and on the other to keep up a steady control over the extreme right element, the uncompromising revolutionaries of reaction. The right and the nationalists did not exist at all as political parties in the country. It was only after the elections within the Duma itself that they took shape. The general result of the elections on the basis of the electoral edict of June 16, 1907 is shown in this table. As you see, the result did not quite correspond with the government designs. The illegal parties of the opposition were present to the rather significant numbers of 146 and 152. This opposition had to sustain various attacks on the part of the right groups, particularly during the first year of the chamber. Nevertheless, the opposition succeeded in keeping its head above water. Then it quickly mastered the situation and soon the Octoberists and central group, in order to secure a majority, found themselves bound to go with the opposition in many cases, in committee work, in budget questions, in international questions, in questions of popular education, in a number of religious issues, and sometimes even on constitutional points. The result was that in the second half of the life of the third Duma, the government turned their backs on the Octoberists. Mr. Stolipin now tried to approach the nationalists, the more conservative group. By that time, rumours were rife again that a coup d'etat was in preparation. The third Duma, however, was permitted to live up to the end, undestroyed. But at the election for the fourth Duma, fresh exertions were made by the government in order to defeat the Octoberists, and it now became their turn to fall into opposition. The negative aim of the government was to defeat the Octoberists, and this task was easy because the Octoberists had made themselves exceedingly unpopular in the country by their subservience to the government in the third Duma. It was far more difficult to attain the positive aim, that of electing a nationalist majority. The Octoberists were defeated, but there was nobody to take their place. There was no majority in the fourth Duma as the nationalists, even with government aid, did not succeed in getting a majority. The opposition reappeared in slightly increased numbers while the Octoberists, left to themselves and deprived of the element of discipline which they had owed to government protection, fell to pieces. There were now three different groups, the central, the left, and the right wing. With a composition like that the fourth Duma seemed unable to live, and it would have been dissolved if only its existence had been considered of any consequence at that time. But just owing to its entire lack of power the fourth Duma was suffered to live, and the government only tried to use the opportunity in order again to circumscribe and limit the rights of the chamber. Here, however, they met with opposition. A majority, which was not to be found for constructive work, was forthcoming in the fourth Duma when such matters as the right of interpolation, or the right to legislative initiative, or even the freedom of parliamentary speech, were questioned by the government. About two years ago, for the first time during the existence of the Duma, some votes of credit were refused to the government as a means of political resistance and the vote of disapproval was carried by a majority. Such was the state of the internal struggle when the present war began. With this war all internal strife was postponed by the same majority in order to devote themselves to the one task of carrying the external struggle to decisive victory. Only two months ago you saw here in England representatives of all parties in the fourth Duma and they appeared before you as they are now in their own country united by one aim to make national defence as efficient as possible. I have given here only a few hints as to the internal story of the last two Dumas, but they are sufficient to show you two things. First, how difficult it was for the government to secure a majority to their taste, and second, just how much the representatives of the nation were handicapped in their endeavors for the regeneration of their country. It will help you to a still clearer understanding of the situation if you make yourselves acquainted with the structure of legislative institutions in Russia. Let us begin with the electoral law. Bismarck is said to have called the Prussian electoral system the most wretched in the world. I should think that the Austrian system before 1905, before the granting of universal suffrage, was still worse than the Prussian, and I may say that the Russian system is much worse than the Austrian. The system of Russian representation is purely artificial and depends entirely on the government. For voting purposes, the population is distributed into separate groups called curias. The principle accepted in Russia is this. The more democratic and numerous the group is, the more their electoral power is limited. There are three curias in the towns and as many in the country. The least democratic, the moderate, and the most democratic. Thus for the towns these are, one, wealthy capitalists, two, the middle class of citizens, three, the working classes and, for the country districts, one, the large landed proprietors, two, small landed proprietors, three, the peasants of the Russian communities. The vote, except in six large cities like Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and so on, is not recorded by the constituencies themselves, but by special electors chosen by the constituencies. The number of electors given to the various constituencies varies in opposite proportion to the number of the population. Thus, for instance, one fifth of a million of landed gentry have the right to choose 2,594 electors. One half million of wealthy citizens choose 788 electors. Eight millions of the middle class choose only 590 electors. Twelve millions of working men choose 112 electors. Seventy million peasants choose 1,168. It works out at one elector for every 230 of the landed gentry, for every 1,000 wealthy citizens, for every 15,000 middle class citizens, for every 60,000 peasants, and for every 125,000 working men. The former Austrian system was more liberal as it gave one elector for every 64 noblemen, 23 wealthy citizens, 3,171 middle class citizens, and 11,555 peasants. Now let us come to the highest electoral unit, the Provincial Electoral Assembly, where the electors for the Duma are chosen. There are about 50 of them in Russia. You see from this plan that in order to become an elector in that assembly, one must pass through different stages of election, and the more democratic the voter is, the more stages have to be passed. The peasants choose their electors in the village. These electors are sent to the townships. In the township, they elect to the district the second degree electors, who in the district choose the third degree electors, who finally go to the Provincial Assembly and elect members for the Duma from the province. There are three stages of election for small landed proprietors, the preparatory, the district, and the provincial assemblies, but only two for the large landowners who choose their electors in the district to elect deputies in the province. It is the same for the wealthy class of the capitalists. They choose their electors who choose the deputies in their provincial assembly. It is the same for the middle class of citizens. But for the working men, there are again three stages. They choose their electors in the factories, and these come to the district assemblies where they choose their electors for the provincial assemblies. Thus, six groups of electors meet in the general assembly of the province, and they elect members of the Duma from their majority, which chiefly consists of landlords and capitalists, sometimes with the addition of small landowners and middle class citizens. The influential group of large landed proprietors and capitalists, before electing members of their own class, is obliged to elect one peasant and one working man member from each province. Thus, neither peasant electors nor working man within the assembly have the right to elect separately whom they like best. Their vote is drowned in that of the majority. You can imagine the result. The landed proprietors, of course, elect such peasants as are likely to comply with their interests, which gives to the Duma the worst representation of the peasant class. This explains how it could happen in the third and fourth Dumas that the peasants entirely changed their position. They had been in the ranks of opposition in the first and the second Duma. They now sit on the benches of the government parties. It is not quite so bad with working men, because every representative of the working men is invariably a socialist in Russia. Thus it is quite impossible for the capitalists to elect a non-socialist member. Russia is the only place in the world, I suppose, where the bourgeois and the junkers are obliged to elect socialist members. I must add, first, that every citizen who enjoys the right to vote may at any time, under this or that particular pretext, which are unhappily too many to be enumerated here, be struck off the electoral list. And secondly, that if a majority in a district or provincial assembly is not quite to the taste of the government, the local authorities have the right to redistribute the voters, and in such a way as to secure artificial majorities. If you consider all these things, you may wonder how it happens that in spite of all, there is still an opposition in the Duma, and that this opposition even formed one third of the third and the fourth Dumas. The answer is, first, that the six large cities which have the direct vote have always elected opposition members. And in the second place, owing to the peculiarly democratic composition of the population in the extreme north and in east Russia between the Volga and the Ural Mountains, the deputies who are elected there always belong to the opposition. Footnote, in that part of Russia the landed nobility is mainly non-resident and peasants form the great majority of the population. End footnote. Siberia, on the other side of the Urals, has always belonged to the Cadet Party, and the Caucasus has always been represented by socialists. On the other hand, Central Russia is represented in the Duma mainly by the parties of the landed gentry, chiefly by Octoberists. As to the Nationalists, the most conservative group, they regularly come to the Duma from the western frontier and partly from the south, where national antagonisms are more keenly felt. The deputies representing the Russian dominating nationality in these countries form a thin upper social stratum, and they always carry on a somewhat bitter struggle with the more ancient and sometimes more cultured members of the Polish gentry. That is why they bring with them to the Duma feelings of religious and racial hatred which unhappily sometimes find expression in the legislation of that body. The local peasant population is Russian, but as we already know, the power of their vote is exceedingly limited, such as come to the Duma invariably share the views of their landlords and sit on the same benches. Now we come to the rights which the Duma possesses. The Duma has got the power to legislate, the power to vote the budget, and the power to control the administration. Full power to legislate does not belong to the Russian Duma. Entire branches of legislation and sometimes very important branches are withdrawn from its competence. Thus the right to legislate in military matters has always been withheld, although the Duma did very much to improve the state of the Russian army and navy a few years before the war. The right to legislate in questions of church administration is also a subject of dispute, although the Duma claims nothing more than what the government has always possessed in matters of religious legislation since the time of Peter the Great. Further, the Duma is thwarted by the indiscriminate use of imperial acts and orders in council. There is one case in which the law expressly allows emergency legislation. This is when the Duma is not sitting. You can, however, hardly imagine how much this Article 87 is misused for matters not at all urgent, at times when the presence of the Duma is not desired. We even had a case of the prorogation of the Duma and of the Council of Empire for three days in order to carry through without the legislative assembly a very important law. The curtailment of the control of the Duma over the budget is, perhaps, even more serious. It is particularly here that the feeling of distrust toward the young representative body has guided the government in the making of our Constitution. In the first place, all the expenses which were customary before the granting of the Constitution in 1905 were considered sacrosanct and not to be touched. They are specially protected from the hasty influence of budget legislation. Footnote, this is the mock term borrowed from naval terminology armor plated by the opposition and now in general use and footnote. doubly protected are the expenses for the court and imperial family the yearly interest on the state loans and so on. In the budget of 1908 these protected items amounted to one billion one hundred and sixty four million rubles i.e. they made up forty seven percent of the whole of the budget expenses. If you consider that out of the remaining fifty three percent the non-protected expenses a large part cannot be exactly determined in advance as they belong to different branches of the state economy and can only be approximately estimated at the beginning of the year you will see how small the financial power of the Duma really is. But that is not all even if its members should try to use their rights in order to reject some non-protected item of expense such an item as had already figured in the previous year's budget in that case the only result would be that the figure of the previous year's budget would be substituted. It is only entirely new and unprecedented expenses which can be struck out of the budget with practical results. But the most important thing is that the permission of the Duma can be evaded all together for all expenses necessary for war and also for preparations for war and even in all cases of urgent necessity. You can easily guess what happens when circumstances like the present occur. In such cases the regular budget does not at all reflect the real state of things. Also in such important matters as signing commercial treaties giving concessions for the construction of railways determining the details of a foreign loan and the tariffs and so on the Duma is not asked to give its help and consent. We find the same thing when we come to the third chapter of the Duma's rights the control of the administration. It is a right which is especially important in Russia owing to the habit of lawless and arbitrary action in veteran in Russian administration. But the representative system is quite incompetent to tackle it. According to the law the Duma has the right to interpolate and ask questions and the government is bound to return answers within a month. But even supposing that an interpolation on current events preserves its interest after a month and still draws the attention of the public, which is not often the case, and supposing that the answer of the government has proved unsatisfactory, what is the result? It is no use carrying through the Duma sweeping orders of the day expressing strong disapproval perhaps of the whole administration. The cabinet is not responsible to the elected chamber. The question of ministerial responsibility is, I might say, the most delicate and the most burning question of the present day in Russia for while concerted action is a crying need, nothing except an occasional coincidence of opinion is possible under the present system. But however much these obstacles hinder the working of the representative system there remains one more obstacle to be mentioned and that is perhaps the most serious of all. I mean the composition and working of our upper house, the Council of Empire. I know the alternatives proposed in England under similar circumstances, although I can hardly call them similar. Mend it or end it? Well we cannot possibly end it. Mend it? That sounds all right, but the lower house cannot apply this practical remedy in Russia because the chief features of the Constitution, the upper house is included, are protected by fundamental laws and the initiative in every important change belongs to the monarch. What then does this upper house represent? I am afraid it is a chamber unique in the world. Half the members are nominated by the Tsar chiefly from former officials. I do not wish to be disrespectful. Many glories of the past are contained in our upper chamber. But as our historical life began late and develops quickly, one is startled to see under the peaceful roof of the Morinsky Palace men and names which remind one of political standards long since doomed to oblivion, and of political experiments proved inadequate by painful failures. Too much of the past surviving in the present makes one feel uneasy. Of course it would be unjust not to mention that there are many excellent legislators amongst the counselors, men of profound knowledge and very large experience, perfectly acquainted with the technicalities of legislation. But there is one circumstance which prevents them from being able to express their mind freely and independently and makes them bow to the average standard of the assembly. Every nominated member of the upper house can be removed from the house by the simple process of omitting his name from the list published at the beginning of every year. The elected half of the members of the Council of Empire represents by a large majority the class of large-landed proprietors, the most influential part of the Russian nobility. The nobility is represented directly by 18 members as well as indirectly through the representatives of the Zemsvos, who number 50. One may add to these 68 members representing the upper social stratum, six dignitaries of the Church, which makes a solid majority of 74 out of the whole number of 98 elected members on the side of conservatism. There remain 12 representatives of commerce, a rather inadequate representation of capital if compared with that of the landed interest, and six intellectuals representing the learned order of the Academy of Science and the Universities, and these generally form the extreme left wing in the Council of Empire. Six members for Poland, here as well as in the Duma, take an intermediate position between the two wings. The activities of such an upper house are directed, as might be imagined. Not only the Duma, but even the Cabinet, even the ministers, are often considered too liberal by the Council of Empire. Every law which bears as they say the stamp of the 30th of October, the date of the constitutional manifesto, is sure to fall through, or to be relegated to the archives of the upper chamber. One must not forget that no bills are able to reach the upper house unless they have previously been approved by a majority of the Duma. You will see for yourselves what are the prospects of constructive and of liberal legislation in Russia. As on the other hand, the existence of the Duma does not admit of any reactionary legislation, the practical upshot is that all legislation of a constructive character is entirely paralysed, a state of things which cannot but be transitional. Well, that is all now, but if you should think that with all these restraints, which are intended to hedge round and prevent the free play of our young representative institutions, we are driven to something like despair of their future development, you would be very much mistaken. On the contrary, we are very hopeful, particularly when we consider how much has been done in the line of constitutional practice and the political development of large masses in the very short space of ten years during which our representative institutions have existed. Not only have we kept them alive in spite of all attempts of autocratic conspirators to abolish them, but we have found a steadily growing support in the country for a system of liberal policy. We have seen our political parties, even the more conservative and those which had been artificially built up with the aid of the government, one by one yielding to the claims of the country. The present war did very much to reveal that hidden process and make the result clear to everybody. I have told you already that this war has united us in the general aim of victory. I must say now that the war has done more than that. It has really worked miracles. It taught the United Fourth Duma the best means to obtain their general aim. It taught us that in order to be strong the nation must be thoroughly organized. In the Fourth Duma, whose composition you know, there is now a strong majority, 315 members out of the whole number of 440, for a scheme of constructive policy on a liberal basis. That is what is known under the name of the progressive bloc. This majority, moreover, has not only talked and discussed, it has already begun to act. The session of the Duma that ended a month ago, on the 3rd of July, has already enacted by way of parliamentary initiative such measures as the prohibition of alcoholic drink for all time to come. This had been introduced by an imperial yuccazi for wartime, but it is now confirmed and extended beyond the war by the law of the Duma. They have passed another law for the equalization of the rights of the peasants. In their committees they have prepared important drafts of laws extending the franchise and the functions of both Semstvahs and cities, and these will come before the whole house at the beginning of the next session, i.e., in the autumn of 1916. Lord Robert Cecil told you in his inaugural address at this summer meeting that British political conceptions of freedom and justice appealed to Russian ideas. Well, I am here to witness that they do appeal to the Russian Representative Assembly. I had personally to report to the Duma in the last days of its closing session the experience brought back by our parliamentary delegation from Great Britain two months before, particularly as to some national questions. And I can tell you that the Chamber was very much impressed by what we had to tell, and that this impression will be reflected in future legislation. My time is up, ladies and gentlemen. Permit me again to quote the words of Lord Robert Cecil. It may be truly said that freedom is as much admired in Russia as in England. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it may be truly said that we worship freedom. We are worthy of freedom. We shall have freedom. Long live the Duma. End of lecture two.