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102 PROBLEMS CONFRONTING RUSSIA
graphically is utter tyranny." In the same strain
Men-deleeff, the famous Russian scientist, declared : " Our
nationalisation must embrace the principle of tolerance—
namely, must renounce every overestimation which involves
an abyss of injustice."
It was a long-felt want of the Russian Empire that all
races inhabiting the Empire should be considered as equal;
and that the Empire should have the opportunity of drawing
on all races in order to obtain national service from them.
The principle of racial privileges and racial drawbacks
amongst the citizens of one State is contrary to democracy,
and is especially inappropriate in a country like Russia,
which has from time immemorial been a country inhabited
by mixed races. The soundest policy for the
administration of an Empire like Russia lies in impressing on the
minds of the different races which form component parts
of it that they can count upon a guarantee of free
development. It is civic patriotism which must bind them all
together. Racial patriotism cannot do this, as such
patriotism refers only to portions of the Empire, but not to the
whole.
It has already been mentioned that it was the Russian
Revolution which brought these principles to practical
recognition by the proclamation of equality and tolerance.
Henceforth religion and racial individuality will in Russia
be the concern of the private individual only, as civic
obligations have no bearing on religion or ethnographical
peculiarities, but consist in the conscientious and
wholehearted devotion to the interests of the community and
the State as a whole.
In this respect Great Britain can serve as a model to other
countries and also to Russia. In Great Britain the
appreciation of good and useful citizenship predominates so much
over considerations of racial origin that racial freedom has
become a feature of these happy isles. It is this supreme
valuation of citizenship as the main driving force in the life
of the State which in Great Britain has reached the high
significance of the civis Romanus of old, and is responsible
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