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This mighty group, which ruled Russia during 1881-1916 in an utterly incoherent manner, strove towards russification of the non-Russian people in the empire. This policy was pursued with regard to all the non-Russian people, but especially focused on the Finns, the Protestant Baltic peoples, the Catholic Polacks and the Gregorian Armenians, in other words, non Orthodox Christians, who on the strength of their historical background and traditions, enjoyed close relations with Western Europe and its way of thinking. 8 In addition to the policy of russification, the Russian government also conducted harassment of the Jewish population of the empire.

The nub of the policy which the Russian government pursued the forced supplication of people within the empire through accepting the faith of the Orthodox Church 9 Thus, on the eve of the 20th century, the Russian administration's resolve mirrored that of Philip II or the Byzantine Empire, to unite all the people in one religion. 10

However, as Victor Berard observes, the position of the Russian tsarist government towards non-Russian people varied according to their ethnicity. Towards the people on the western frontier of the empire, the Finns, the Baltic peoples and the Poles who were European but did not belong to the Orthodox Church, the Tsarist policy practised harassment and violence, whilst towards the Oriental people who lived on the eastern frontier of the Empire, irregardless of ethnicity, the regime maintained a relatively moderate and tolerant policy. 11

Lynch observes this variation in governmental policy which, whilst undoubtedly weakening in one respect, was equally strengthening in another. Russia had shown the world that it was not capable of gaining the loyalty of the westernised people of the empire, though cooperation from these peoples could have created a modern Russia. Tsarist rule did, on the other hand, attract the more primitive and nomadic peoples of Asia and through knowledge and assets gleaned from the Western world, Russia brought these peoples under its banner and armed them. 12

In the peaceful policy pursued towards the people at the Asian borders, which stood in stark contrast to the violent policy towards the inhabitants at the European borders, Russia made only one exception and that was towards the Armenians, or as Leroy-Beaulieu called them: "the Asian Europeans". 13

Victor Berard writes the following in regard to this issue: "At the Eastern borders of the empire they plan to implement this [the aggressive policy] on one nation alone, a people with Christian belief and European culture, the Armenians of the Caucasus. These Armenians are the only people of those on this side who have been exempted from the tolerance of the Tsarist rule towards the Asian people and their religion, especially towards the Muslims and the Buddhists." 14

Indeed, no other people in Transcaucasia were subject to the same roughness and harassment which the Armenians endured. The Tatars at the Caspian Sea (the country Azerbaijan did not exist until 1920 and before that the area was called Albania) were saved because of their religion and their primitive level of development as a uniform nation, and in fact the Russians used this people effectively. The Georgians also escaped harassment on the strength of their affinity with the Russians through their Orthodox faith.