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Problems Confronting Russia
CHAPTER I
THE EVOLUTION OF THE STATE AND SOCIAL
ORGANISATIONS OF RUSSIA
The idea of Russia current amongst foreigners, especially
before the Revolution, was that of a backward country
with a torpid population condemned to stagnation. That
this is a mistaken conception may easily be proved.
One of the leading features of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries—the democratic ideal—has found full expression
in Russia, and in this respect Russia may be justly recognised
as congenial in essence to the national spirit that governs
Great Britain.
To a certain extent the Russia of the past was under the
influence of Byzantine principles, Tartar methods of
administration and German tutelage, but at the same time she
bore throughout features of the democratic ideals of human
brotherhood, charity, and love of personal freedom. This
can easily be ascertained if one consults Russia’s historic
past without bias and prejudice. Before the Tartar invasion,
which overthrew the whole fabric of Russian social and
State institutions, the existing centres of Russian life were
the great Republics of Pskoff and Novgorod in the north,
and the principality of Kieff in the south. Both were
founded and built up on truly constitutional lines.
When Moscow first succeeded in shaking off the Tartar
yoke the prince of that town assumed, so to say,
automatically the power of the Tartar Khans and modelled his reign
i a
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