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26 PROBLEMS CONFRONTING RUSSIA
rights of the particular individual, but is not acknowledged
as such by public law. No race, therefore, in a State,
where perfect equality of all citizens exists, can claim to
have a position apart, and on that account to deserve special
consideration. In human affairs there is a constant
interchange of action and counteraction between repression and
self-defence. In every walk of life the minority is always
more alert, more self-conscious and active than the majority.
The tenacity of the Jews is to a great extent due to their
repression during centuries. Once the restrictions applying
to them are rescinded they will find it easier to combine
with the rest of the population and give up their tribal
tendencies. On the other hand, the Christians, if they do
not occupy a privileged position as compared with the Jews,
will apply more energy to the conduct of their affairs with
them and become more capable of holding their own against
them.
A very important part in the transformation of the
Government was taken by the Co-operative Societies in Russia.
The growth of these Societies during recent years bears
witness to the democratic spirit of the nation ; they number
at present 40,000 and comprise more than twelve million
members. Their aim is not confined to increasing the
economic prosperity of their members, but embraces also
the object of teaching the Russian peasants self-help and
independence from bureaucratic rules with a view to
implanting in them the consciousness of their citizenship and political
responsibility before the nation. They exercise an influence
similar to that of the co-operative societies of the Rochdale
type in Great Britain. The peasant co-operators in Russia
clad in khaki educated their fellow-soldiers as to the coming
Revolution, and in doing so were instrumental in making
the Army ready to overthrow the autocratic regime.
The peasants, who constitute an overwhelming majority
of the rank and file of the army, have borne a terrible
burden of physical and material losses in this war, and at
the same time have felt that their power was the real
foundation of the Empire. Imagine what it meant to the peasant,
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