Before discussing this point there is a greater and more important resemblance to be noted, namely, that the Constitutional Democrats or the Cadets are not only playing the part, but are in their essence the same thing, as the Tiers-État in France. The Constitutional Democrats represent the whole of the educated middle class of Russia, and they are championing the rights and the wishes of the peasants. It is, therefore, a case, if ever, of saying like Sieyès: “Qu’est-ce que le Tiers-État?—La nation. Qu’est-il?—Rien. Que doit-il être?—Tout.” Up to now the Tiers-État in Russia has been politically nothing. In the future it will probably be everything. What do the Cadets want? I find the answer in my French history. “Établir l’unité politique et sociale de la nation par l’égalité devant la loi et la garantir par la liberté, c’était là, en deux mots, tout l’esprit de 1789.” That is also the whole spirit of 1906. People both in Russia as well as abroad minimise the pretensions of the Cadets because they are unaware of the existence, or rather of the nature, of the middle class in Russia. This is not surprising, because the middle class, besides having been denied all access to political life, has produced no startlingly great men in the branches of production which obtain popular fame. The great Russian writers and artists came nearly all from the aristocracy or from the peasantry. Men who have contributed much to modern science have abounded in the middle class, but the fame of such men is rarely popular. But now the work which the Cadets have so far accomplished politically is a work which needs not a few great men, but a compact mass of men who are agreed.