way, the cleavage may be compared with that which took place in Germany during the year 1866, when the German progressives became subdivided, with the formation of the "loyal opposition" constituted by the national liberals, on the one hand, and the democratic wing, on the other. The war with Japan had an effect similar to that produced by the war of 1866; there was an increase in the sentiment of nationality, and fidelity to the state was strengthened. Not only did the Union of Genuine Russians spring to life, but the liberal octobrists and even the cadets displayed a more lively nationalist sentiment.
Miljukov himself, at the outset, manifested a benevolent neutrality towards neoslavism.
Struve's advocacy of nationalist views (1908) is of interest. As member of the Cadet Party, he insisted that the liberals must maintain the unity of the Russian state, and declared that the intelligentsia must not confuse the state with the bureaucracy, the fatherland with the absolutist autocracy. He admitted the equality of the various nationalities under Russian rule, but would not endorse the idea of federation. The Russian language and Russian civilisation were to serve as a link between all the peoples of the empire; the state must defend the Russian majority against the nationalist errors of the minorities. The intelligentsia must hold fast to the conception of "Great Russia." The strength of the state vis-à-vis the foreign world offers no hindrances to internal political development, that which aims at domestic welfare; the intelligentsia, therefore, must become permeated with the idea of statehood, and must abandon its futile radicalism. "The revolution has served to impress upon me a conviction as to what is the real significance of the state." The revolution he said, had been shipwrecked by its antistatism.
Besides Struve, other convinced liberals have endeavoured to formulate the national ideal and above all the slavic ideal (as contrasted with neoslavism, which was advocated by the reactionaries).[1]
Struve's nationalism is certainly much nearer to the program of the octobrists than to that of the cadets. I cannot
- ↑ I may refer here to the slavist A. Pogodin, whose formula may be briefly summarised as follows: "Union of the Slavs upon the basis of civilising work; union of the peoples of Russia upon the basis of equal rights, upon the basis of the free development of all."
