Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/128

102 demanded the suppression of the name Poland; Prussian and Austrian Poland were likewise to be annexed to Russia.

Pestel, on the other hand, was in agreement with Alexander upon the Polish question. He was willing to accord the rights of nationality to those peoples alone that were numerous enough to exist as independent states; lesser peoples must be content to sacrifice their national rights to the demands of political utility. Russia, therefore, was to recognise Poland as an independent state, but Russia and Poland were to enter into an "intimate league," and Poland was to have identical forms of government and administration with Russia, all aristocracy, whether feudal or plutocratic, being abolished.

Pestel does not discuss the position of the other Slavs, although the amalgamation of the Society of the United Slavs with the Southern Section might have offered him a text for such discussion. He gives the name of Slav to Muscovite territory and to the Russian people alone, distinguishing five dialects and five ,"shades" of nationality, namely, Russian, Little Russian, Ukrainian, Ruthenian, and White Russian. The program of the Society of United Slavs aspired to a federal union of the Slav peoples, recognising eight of these, Russians, Serbo-Croats, Bulgarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Lusatian Wends, Slovenes, and Poles. Orlov and Dmitriev-Mamonov designed to effect, not merely the complete reunion of Poland, but a union of the other Slavs with Russia, "the Union of Hungary, Serbia, and all the Slav nations."

Pestel gave the Jewish problem careful consideration. He considered that in Russia and in Poland the jews constituted a state within the state, and desired therefore to break down the peculiarly powerful cohesion of the Jews. To this end, the most learned rabbis and other Jews of exceptional ability were to elaborate a plan in conjunction with the government. Pestel was likewise a pioneer in the "gigantic" design of Zionism. To carry it through, he said, "positive genius for the enterprise" would be essential. The two millions of Russian and Polish Jews were to found an independent state in some part of Asia Minor. "So large a number of men desiring a fatherland ought not to find much difficulty in overcoming all hindrances which might be placed in their way by the Turks."

Other somewhat utopian suggestions are to be found in Pestel's writings, such as his notion that Nizhni Novgorod