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102 PROBLEMS CONFRONTING RUSSIA
broke, out again in the form of different small principalities
opposing each other, and unable to come to a proper
confederate understanding. In the result the country was too
disunited to withstand the Tartar onslaught.
The Tartar yoke ruined Russia and kept her back for
centuries, but at the same time it benefited the country
by giving it a painful practical lesson in the necessity of
submitting to the central ruling power. When Russia
finally emerged from this ordeal she had acquired discipline.
The Tsars who followed ruled with a rod of iron, having been
taught in the school of Tartar supremacy. When this line
of rulers died out, anarchy broke out again and lasted through
the terrible fifteen years of the so-called Smutnoye Vremya—
namely, the time of constant insurrections and upheavals.
The only authority which remained unchallenged was that of
religion. If religion can bring salvation not only to the soul
but also into the actual conduct in the life of man, that applies
particularly in the case of Russia. The Patriarch of Moscow
was called upon by a National Assembly to save the country
from ruin and to crown his son Emperor, thus founding the
Imperial House of the Romanoffs. That house, strange to
say, also had its origin from abroad, descending from an
immigrant from Eastern Prussia.
During the three centuries of its reign, this house
accomplished great things, thanks to the grit and statesmanship of
such rulers as Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, who, it
may be noted, was also of foreign origin, Alexander I,
Nicholas I, and Alexander II. Russia expanded considerably
during this period, becoming a great European Power sharing
in the political destinies of Europe, and being respected,
admired, and feared by her neighbours.
In the Russian Revolution, the political pendulum has
swung from the policy of conquest and aggrandisement to
the other extreme of granting complete independence to
provinces of the Empire once won by the valour and sacrifice
of past generations, now only to be abandoned with a
blindfold liberality born from international doctrinarianism.
If disintegration is for the benefit of humanity, this new
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