indebted to this Teutonic upper stratum for her political State as well as for what little exists of her cultural value. A great Russia would neither have arisen nor would she have been able to preserve herself without this really German upper and intellectual stratum. As long as Russia had been a State with an autocratic form of government, this upper stratum, which in truth was not at all Russian, also decisively influenced the political life of the gigantic empire. Even Bismarck knew this Russia at least in part. It was with this Russia that the master of German political statesmanship had political dealings. But, even in his lifetime, the reliability and stability of Russian policy, both domestic and foreign, fluctuated precariously and became in part incalculable.
This lay in the gradual suppression of the German upper stratum. This process of the transformation of the Russian intelligentsia was caused in part by a bleeding of the Russian nation in consequence of many wars, which, as has been already mentioned in this book, primarily decimate the racially more valuable forces.
Actually the officer corps especially was for the most part non Slav by descent, but in every case not of Russian blood. On top of this came the slight increase in the upper stratum of the intelligentsia as such, and finally the artificial training by the schools of a real Russiandom with regard to blood. The slight Statepreserving value of the new Russian intelligentsia as such was grounded on blood, and revealed itself most sharply perhaps in the nihilism of the Russian universities. Most fundamentally, however, this nihilism was nothing but the opposition, determined by blood, of real Russiandom to the racially alien upper stratum.
The Pan Slavic idea was counterposed to the Russian idea of the State in proportion as Russia’s Teutonic, Stateforming upper stratum was replaced by a racially pure Russian bourgeois class. From the first hour of its birth it was Folkish, Slavish [Russian], and anti German. The anti German disposition of the newly emerging Russiandom, especially in the strata of the so called intelligentsia, however, was not only a pure reflex action against the former autocratic alien upper class in Russia, for instance, on the grounds of politically liberal modes of thought. Rather, in the most intrinsic sense, it was the protest of the Slavic nature against the German.
They are two Folk Souls which have only very little in common, whereby indeed it must first be established whether this littleness they have in common has its cause in the confusedly broken racial individual elements of which the Russian as well as the German Folk seems to be constituted. Thus what is common to us and to the Russians is as little consonant with the German as with the Russian character but, instead, is to be ascribed only to our mixture of bloods which has brought just as many eastern Slavic elements to Germany as Nordic German ones to Russia.
But if as a test of the two spiritual endowments we were to take a purely Nordic German, from Westphalia let us say, and place a purely Slavic Russian opposite to him, an infinite chasm would yawn between these two representatives of the two Folks. Actually the Slavic Russian Folk has always felt this, and has therefore always had an instinctive antipathy toward the German. Solid thoroughness as well as the cold logic of sober thought, are something which the real Russian inwardly finds unsympathetic and in part even incomprehensible. Our sense of order will not only find no reciprocal love, but will always elicit aversion. What with us is felt as something self evident is for the Russian, however, an affliction, since it represents a restriction of his natural, differently structured spiritual and instinctual life. Hence Slavic Russia will feel itself drawn more and more to France. And indeed to an increasing degree, since the Frankish Nordic element is also being suppressed in France. The facile, superficial, more or less effeminate French life was more able to fascinate the Slav because inwardly it is closer to him than the severities of our German struggle for existence. Hence it is no accident if Pan Slavic Russia waxes politically enthusiastic over France, exactly as the Russian intelligentsia of Slavic blood found in Paris the Mecca of its own needs for civilisation.
The process of the rise of a Russian national bourgeoisie at the same time caused [signified] an inner alienation of this new Russia vis-a-vis Germany, which now could no longer build on a racially related Russian upper stratum.
As a matter of fact, already at the turn of the century, the anti German orientation of the representatives of the Folkish Pan Slav idea was so strong and its influence on Russian policy had grown to such an extent that even Germany’s more than decent attitude vis-a-vis Russia, on the occasion of the Russian Japanese war, could no longer check the further estrangement of the two States. Then came the World War which to no little extent had also been kindled by the Pan Slavist agitation. The real governmental Russia, insofar as it had been represented by the erstwhile upper stratum, therefore could hardly put in a word anymore.
The World War itself then brought about a further [the last] bleeding of Russia’s Nordic German elements, and the last remains were finally extirpated by the Revolution and Bolshevism. It was not as if the Slav race instinct had deliberately carried out the struggle for the extermination of the former non Russian upper stratum by itself.
No, it had acquired new leaders meantime in Jewry. Jewry, pressing toward the upper strata and therefore toward supreme leadership, has exterminated the former alien upper class with the help of the Slav race instinct.
Thus it is a quite understandable process if Jewry has taken over the leadership of all areas of Russian life with the Bolshevik revolution, since by itself and out of itself Slavdom is altogether lacking in any organising ability and thereby also in any Stateforming and Statepreserving power. Take away all the elements which are not purely Slavic from Slavdom, and it will immediately succumb to disintegration as a State. To be sure, fundamentally, any formation of States may at first have its innermost inducement in the encounter between Folks of a higher and lower order, whereby the bearers of the higher blood value — for reasons of self preservation — develop a definite community spirit which first allows them the possibility of an organisation and a rule over inferior Folks. Only the overcoming of common tasks compels the adoption of organisational forms. But the difference between the Stateforming and the non Stateforming elements lies precisely in the fact that the formation of an organisation for the preservation of their stock vis-a-vis other types becomes possible for the former, whereas the non Stateforming incompetents are not capable by themselves of finding those organisational forms which would guarantee their existence vis-a-vis others.
Thus presentday Russia or, better said, presentday Slavdom of Russian nationality, has received as master the Jew, who first eliminated the former upper stratum, and now must prove his own Stateforming power. In view of the endowment of Jewry, which after all is only destructive, it will operate even here only as the historical ferment of decomposition. It has summoned to its help spirits of which it can no longer rid itself, and the struggle of the inwardly anti State Pan Slav idea against the Bolshevist Jewish State idea will end with the destruction of Jewry. What will then remain will be a Russia as insignificant in governmental power as she will be deeply rooted in an anti German attitude. Since this State will no longer possess a Statepreserving upper stratum anchored anywhere, it will become a source of eternal unrest and eternal insecurity. A gigantic land area will thus be surrendered to the most variegated fate, and instead of stabilisation of relations between States on Earth, a period of the most restless changes will begin.
Thus the first phase of these developments will be that the most different nations of the world will try to enter into relations with this enormous complex of States in order thereby to bring about a strengthening of their own position and intentions. But such an attempt will always be linked to the effort also to exert their own intellectual and organisational influence on Russia at the same time.
Germany may not hope to come up for consideration in any way during this development. The whole mentality of presentday and future Russia is opposed to this. For the future, an alliance of Germany with Russia has no sense for Germany, neither from the standpoint of sober expediency, nor from that of human community. On the contrary, it is good fortune for the future that this development has taken place in just this way because, thereby, a spell has been broken which would have prevented us from seeking the goal of German foreign policy there where it solely and exclusively can lie: territory in the east.
Chapter 12
GERMAN FOREIGN POLICY
In view of Germany’s hopeless military situation, the following must be borne in mind in the formulation of future German foreign policy.
Germany cannot bring about a change in her present situation by herself, so far as this must ensue by means of military power. Germany cannot hope that a change of her situation will emerge through measures taken
