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102 PROBLEMS CONFRONTING RUSSIA
civilised world on the basis of self-government and
devolution. The danger of further bureaucratic centralisation of
the previous Russian Empire, the suppression of local
administration and of autonomy, has passed away. If
Russia regains the territory she held before the war and the
Revolution, it can only be achieved as an overlordship over
countries ruled by their own laws, their own authorities, and
following out their own destinies. Under these conditions
there is every reason to believe that a further prolongation
of Russian sovereignty over the Baltic Provinces would lead
to their peaceful development and prosperity.
Ill
The same conditions must lead to a satisfactory
co-ordination or fusion of the Teutonic with the Lettish and Esthnish
elements. The Baltic nobility and bourgeoisie will
consolidate and amalgamate themselves with the Letts and Esths
now that the fetters of the Russian bureaucracy have
broken, and any attempt at sowing discord amongst them
must fail. The Russian bureaucracy used the Letts and
Esths as tools against the nobility and bourgeoisie. All
efforts made by the latter towards local reforms in a liberal
and democratic sense were systematically thwarted. During
the last fifty years the Diets of the three provinces submitted
to the Imperial Government a series of projects of progressive
reforms in order to bring the Letts and Esths into line in
equality of rights with the Baltic stock of Teutonic descent.
But all these projects found an early grave in the archives
of the Government, since it was deemed expedient to keep
open the grievances of the Letts and Esths as a constant
irritant. Not content with this insidious policy of playing
one part of the population against the other, the Russian
bureaucracy endeavoured to instigate the Lettish and
Esthnish peasants against their landlords, to infect the
schools with extreme socialistic propaganda, and to
disorganise the whole economic and social fabric of the country.
The bureaucracy sowed the storm and reaped the whirl-
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