THE THAW AND THE JANUARY RISING 271the Baltic provinces, it was entirely proper that the Finns should be awarded a
wide measure of autonomy. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the Poles
were seen as the dominant elite of the old Polish—Lithuanian Republic. They
were the living descendants of a society which had been overturned by force but
whose values none the less continued to persist throughout western and south-
ern Russia. Despite their Slav origins, they were Europeans who looked to Paris
and Berlin for their passions and their fashions. Above all in the tradition of the
noble democracy, they were individualists who stubbornly looked to their own
consciences for their ideas of right and wrong. They were a living rebuke to all
the myths and legends on which the Russian Empire had been built. Together
with the Jews, in whose company they had been incorporated into Russia, they
were the advocates of a vibrant democratic culture, and as such were the natural
opponents of Autocracy. For all these reasons, Tsarist officialdom was never
able to treat the Poles in the same way as it treated the Finns. Poles who at var-
ious times have advocated 'Finlandization' in the belief that their relationship
with Russia might be modelled on that enjoyed by the Finns, have ignored the
most fundamental political realities. The Russians looked askance at the auton-
omy of the Congress Kingdom from the start. Fearing the consequences of inde-
cision, they repeatedly attacked minor troubles with hostile outbursts of
needless severity, thereby generating the vicious circle of repression, insurrec-
tion, and renewed repression. As masters of the political situation, the Russians
were free to act as they chose. The Poles could only react to the lead that they
were given. Thus, if the troubles of the Congress Kingdom stood in stark con-
trast to the relative serenity of Finland, the explanation must be sought no less
in Russian attitudes than in Polish ones.
Meanwhile, Polish resistance was crushed. For forty years, the Poles of the
Congress Kingdom were submerged into the general stream of life in the
Russian Empire. Thoughts of revenge were confined to the peripheries of
national opinion. Public politics did not resurface in any significant way until
- In the interval, 'Poland' descended once more 'into the abyss'.