THE GERMAN TAINT.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 March 1917, Page 7

THE GERMAN TAINT.

TYRANNY OP PRUSSIANISED BUREAUCRACY.

"To-day Russia is getting rid of Germany. Two hundred years of tyranny, of suppression, of paralysis, are being realised almost for the first time, and in that realisation are being swept away. Two long centuries of reaction, of intrigue, of exploitation, of perfidy, . . . Millions of men feel a new hope in a new heart, and lift lindazzled eyes to a dawn which they had grown at last to [believe would never break. The mighty work of Peter is purged of the long, 6low poison it trailed in its traces, and Russia conies to her own at last."

Thus Mr Henry Cust, in his preface to M. de Wesselitsky's "Russia and Democracy: The German Canker in Russia." Mr Cust's reference to Peter the Great i 9 justified by M. de Wesselitsky's facts. The author bliows Russia as originally a pure democracy. Then the power of the- Czars grew, and finally Peter the Great rivetted it on the neck of Russia. Peter was a genius and a mighty builder. But it was he who "for the first time in Russia rendered monarchy really absolute, and it was he who, by importing Germans to educate and rule the Rus sians, gave power to the Trussioniscd buleaucracy—the "slow poison" referred to by Mr Cust.

THE AIM OF PETER THE GREAT. M. de Wesselitsky acquits Peter of a mere tyrannous intent. He makes allowonce for the times, for the backwardness of the Russians, for the need of a western leaderhip. But Peter's reforms led to such a westernisation of Russia that the Russians were placed under the heel of the Germans. The worst consequence was "that fatal separation of the new bureaucratic noblesse from the mass of the people which permitted the domination of the Russian State by a foreign nationality. , . The great Peter, in revolutionising the whole structure of Russian life, needed above all clever and precise men to .carry out his will unhampered by any connection with the order of tilings he desired to destroy. He found them at first in foreigners; and, after the conquest of Esthonia and Livonia, availed himself particularly of the services of the German barons of those provinces who were accustomed from their birth to rule over a subject race. He never meant ■to bestow on them any privileges over the Russians, and was making hasty efforts so that the Russians might acquln. in great Western centres all the knowledge he wished to see applied in Eussia. Nothing could have been further from Peter's thoughts than granting to foreigners, and least of all to Germans, a predominant position in the Empire. Notwithstanding this, various factors inevitably led exactly to such a result." THE GERMAN CANKER. M. de Wcsselinsky points out that while Russian society became more and more subject to cosmopolitan influences, "the Court diplomacy, the army, and higher administration grew more and more to be a private domain of the Germans. Under Alexander I, to be a German "became more than ever the surest way to every honor and distinction. The famous general, Yermoloff, asked by the Emperor what reward he would like to receive for his great services, replied: 'To be promoted German; rewards would then follow of themselves.'" Also, "the Russian Academy of Sciences became a •German institution, so much so that, up to quite lately, it published its works in German. It never concealed its hostility towards Russian scientists, and boycotted the most eminent of them." Favor was shown to German schools against Russian schools. Numerous other instances the author draws from history to prove the substantiality and malevolence of the German domination. DENATIONALISED DIPLOMACY. The diplomatic service was dena tionalised and Germanised completely Count Ncsseli'ode was Foreign Mimslej during the latter part of the reign oS Alexander I, the whole reign of Nicholas 1, and the first years of the reign of Alexander 11. "Nesseirode, a German by birth, who remained a German at heart, never even learned to speak Russian, and knew nothing about Russia."

It was the business of the German strain and of the Prussianised bureaucracy to promote bad relations between the different sections of the populace, and between the Russians and the i'oles. German influence in Russia was necessarily anti-progressive. It lived by keeping the Czar and the people apart. And to break down the barrier thus raised between the people and power, to abolish the " slow poison" is one of the main objects' of the Russian revolutionary : !u«ves>,»ai of, to i*jr.