ABSTRACT
The relative inattention of Russia to the problems of the State led to the creation two centuries ago of an Intelligentsia, or small class educated in the ideas of the West, from which the members of the Government, and in due course the members of the Opposition, were alike drawn. It is commonly believed in the West that the Imperial Government also pursued a deliberate policy of religious persecution; but this is far from being the case. The Imperial Manifesto of 17th—30th October 1905 which established the Duma guaranteed among other civil rights freedom of conscience. But on two notable occasions Russia succumbed to the temptation to extend her frontiers beyond their natural and proper limits: once, in the eighteenth century, in partitioning Poland at the suggestion of Frederick the Great; and once, in the twentieth, in attempting to seize Manchuria in accordance with the prevailing Imperialism.
