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The delimitation of ethnographic frontiers will be governed by the parliamentary and democratic principle. For example, in restored Poland and Bohemia there will be German minorities; in Bohemia these minorities will be considerable; but the number of the German population in free Poland and free Bohemia will be far smaller than the number of Poles and Czechs in Polish and Czech territories at present under German and Austrian rule. Poles and Czechs are equal to the Germans in rights and worth, the Germans are not superior to them, and it is therefore more equitable than the present condition that there should be in Poland and Bohemia German minorities that will be smaller than the present Slav bodies oppressed by the Germans.
It should also be remarked that we lack at present reliable statistics of nationality. Ruling nations have used pressure of all kind to diminish the number of the oppressed, using arbitrary, inexact language and national criteria (as, for instance, the “Umgangs-Sprache,” language of intercourse, &c.). To gather careful demographic statistics is a trying need, not merely of history and science in general, but especially of politics.
The settlement of ethnographic boundaries after the storm of war will possibly be provisional in some cases; as soon as the nations quiet down and accept the principle of self-determination, a rectification of ethnographic boundaries and minorities will be carried out without excitement and with due considerations of all questions involved.
12. Every National Question a Special Problem.
22. Every national question is an independent, peculiar problem, requiring the knowledge of existing conditions. One cannot emphasise sufficiently this rule of procedure. Justice to other nations requires knowledge of their problems; and just in this respect there is too little real knowledge of the language and nationality questions among the politicians and statesmen of Europe.
The contents of national controversies are very intricate. In some cases the language question plays the principal part; elsewhere the political problem is the main one, but both may be combined; the Czechs, for instance, carry on a language fight, but also a political fight to reclaim their historical right to an independent state. The Poles also appeal not merely to the ethnographic principle but also to their historical right; as against that, the Irish have practically no language question, their fight is more religious, social and political. Elsewhere economic questions are in the forefront, &c.
Nationality is expressed not merely through language, but through the entire culture—science and philosophy, jurisprudence and politics, morality and religion, art and technical science; custom and manners vary according to nationalities. For that reason national characteristics are felt and determined unequally. Not all nations are equally enlightened and determined to defend their nationality and its cultural contents against another nationality; therefore, for instance, the Bolsheviks propose the principle that the degree of development and civilisation, or backwardness, as the case may be, does not diminish the right to self-determination. Viewing all the intricacy of the problem it may be said that there are as many national questions as there are nationalities—there is no single rule of dealing with all national questions.
13. Marxism and Nationality.
23. The Social Democracy, based upon Marxism, was unable to understand and judge correctly this war: the Marxist historical (economical) materialism does not possess true psychology, is unable to see and appreciate properly individual and social forces which cannot be reduced to the so-called economic conditions. Marxists, therefore, do not realise that nationality, the national idea and principle, constitutes an independent political force alongside of economic interests; neither are they able to
