And let this be said:  if Russia should ever cease to be Russia, if she ever loses those grand national characteristics which make her so different from the West, and therefore so difficult for us Westerns to understand, the world as a whole will be infinitely the poorer for that loss.  We need Russia even more than Russia needs us; for, while we have grasped the trappings, she possesses the real spirit of democracy.  Of the three democratic ideals, proclaimed by France in 1789, the mystical trinity:  Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, how much has yet been realised by the peoples of the West?  And Russia is in the way of realising them all!  Fraternity and equality are, as we have seen, the distinctive features of her national spirit and social structure, and, if her liberty is as yet imperfect on the political side, it is far more complete than ours on the side of moral tolerance and respect for the sanctity of human personality.  After all, the reason why Russia has not got complete political freedom is because, as a nation, she has hitherto taken no interest in politics; for the first time in 1905 she discovered the use of political action, and she got out of it a solution of the agrarian distress and a representative assembly; when she wants more liberty in this direction, she will have no difficulty in securing it.

Sec.4. The Subject Nationalities.—­It may fairly be objected at this point that while Russia may possess these excellent qualities, she has consistently refused to allow liberty to other peoples, to the Jews, for example, the Poles, and the Finns.  It is necessary therefore to say something on the matter of Russia’s subject nationalities before bringing these remarks to a conclusion.

Out of the six or seven million Jews in the world, over five million live within the boundaries of the Russian Empire.  Russia is therefore the motherland of the Children of Israel; though, perhaps, the phrase step-motherland would express more truly the actual relationship, both in its origin and its character.  Russia has inherited her tremendous responsibilities towards the Hebrew race from Poland, and her vexed “Jewish question” is in part a just punishment for her complicity in the wicked partitions of that country in the eighteenth century.  The matter, however, goes back much farther than the eighteenth century.  In the Middle Ages Poland was a more powerful state than Russia, and comprised territory stretching from the Gulf of Riga to the Black Sea and from the Oder to the Dnieper.  She was also the one country in Europe which offered to the Jews security from persecution and an opportunity of developing the commercial instincts of the race without interference.  The result was that Jews settled in large numbers all over the King of Poland’s possessions, and the presence of Jews in any part of modern Russia is almost a sure sign that that particular town or province has been Polish territory in former times.