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38 PROBLEMS CONFRONTING RUSSIA
and equal treatment with the ruling race. Too much has
been expected from the unifying influence of common racial
origin. The example of the Bulgarians, who owed a heavy
debt of gratitude to their liberators from Turkish rule, the
Russians, needs no comment. On the other hand, there
are man}^ examples where different races live in peace and
concord, forming together a common State. Not only racial
and religious homogeneity, but also the same public
obligations and rights, and common economic and political
interests, exercise a unifying influence, build up civic
patriotism, and tend to consolidate a nation. In such
gigantic State organisms as Russia, political unity is best
assured by the freedom and satisfaction derived from the
fullest development of the potentialities of its self-governing
integral parts.
As a result of the progressive tendency in modern times
to enlarge the territory of the State, there exists at present
hardly a State with a perfectly homogeneous population
from a racial point of view. This involves the necessity of
providing for a satisfactory co-ordination of several
ethnographical units under one State rule.
It must be conceded that, generally speaking, it is easier
to control a homogeneous nation than a population
consisting of different races. But the issue under consideration is
not this, but rather whether racial freedom cannot be
observed without imperilling in any way the power,
prosperity, and safety of a State. It can be proved by numerous
historical instances that the use of forcible means to
denationalise alien races entails dissatisfaction and revolt, and
has the very opposite effect to the one desired. On the
other hand, cases are no less numerous where the strict
observance of racial freedom has led to a consolidation of
the State, making it more prosperous, and more able to
resist any attack from without. Examples of the former
are the Finlanders, the Poles, the Armenians, the Little
Russians, the Jews in Russia, and the late Turkish subjects
of Slav origin who, as a result of the treatment meted out
to them, formed an element of danger and weakness to the
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