THE MENNONITE BROTHERHOOD IN RUSSIA (1789 - 1910), P. M. Friesen, 1911

titutional Democrats,” even apart from their land-project; not to mention the other parties even further to the left.) Since they were obliged as voters to identify more closely with a party, they generally voted (we speak of the general public, not of certain personalities) for the party of October 17, or the "Octobrists,” 2 because it promised not to interfere with the religion or nationality of minorities. One would have moved further to the right if there had not been a concern for freedom of religion and language in church and school. In view of such general social-political sentiments among our Mennonites, it is not surprising that a Mennonite in a South- Russian regional city was chairman of the department of the “Union of the Russian People” or of the “Truly Russian People” (even though they had often made fun of it). If the extreme confessionalism and nationalism of the “Truly Russian People” had not been manifested in such a crass manner, at least seventy-five percent of the Mennonites— “for the sake of the Tsar” and out of fear and antipathy to democracy, socialism, and §290 627 628 MATTERS OF FAITH everything that smelled of revolution— would have been “Truly Russian People” in the monarchical, patriotic, and social sense. A few Merino nites— free thinkers— accepted a political platform (with the reservation of an “unshakable monarchy,” the “indivisibility of the Empire,” and the predominance of the Russian language as a bond of unity in all public institutions even among those of alien tongues; but, naturally, with unrestricted freedom of religion and the provision of teaching the mother-tongue in the schools “alongside of Russian,” and also with a strong emphasis of “only peaceful and intellectual-moral means”) which, in its political and social objectives (but not in strategy ), 3 was like the program of the constitutional democrats— even before the appearance of the program of the party of “Peaceful Renewal” of Count Heyden. All of this was without consequences. A few immature young Mennonites, 4 tom from the native soil of their community, came under the influence of urban youth groups whose thoughts were still unclarified and in ferment, half-baked and illiterate educationally , 5 but swept along by political ideas. These Mennonites, with thousands of other unhappy young sons of our country , became the unfortunate victims of this contemporary movement. (Because of their ignorance, they had been blindly swept along by the wave.) The Mennonite Society of Russia experienced real progress in the area of schools, benevolent institutions, and journalism (cf. the special paragraphs, below). For a while champions of the German language in the schools made their appearance (a change in the relationship of the German and Russian languages, demanding a two- to -one ratio) as an opposition, provoked by the occasional authoritative and extreme imposition of the Russian element— with n