in Germany than in Russia, and this is due to the immense size of Russia, which contains vast numbers of poor and ignorant human beings whom the Russian Government oppresses with the utmost brutality. But it is entirely unjust always to allude to the Russians as barbarians; and the Germans who invariably make use of this word when they speak of Russia have less right than any one to do so. No one who knows the intellectual world of Germany and Russia will venture to say that the former is much superior to the latter—they are simply different. And I would add that the one fact which makes us feel more drawn to the intellectual world of Russia than to that of the Germany of to-day, is that it would never be capable of justifying and approving the brutal conduct of its Government, as the German intellectuals are doing now. It has often been constrained to keep silence, but it has never raised its voice in defence of a guilty Government.
Let not my testimony in favour of the Russians lead any one to believe that I am idealising them, or that my people, the Letts, have enjoyed any special privileges under their government. On the contrary! I have suffered more at their hands than at the hands of the Germans, and my nation knows only too well how heavy is the hand of
