Toward a New Central Europe

REGIONAL FEDERALISM OR A NEW CATACLYSM

MIROSLAV LAZAROVICH

The Great Central European Dilemma

Comparison of the historical-chronological tables I and II reveals that: 1.) The most outstanding statesmen, political thinkers, poets, representative men of those nations, when free to speak and write, favored development of self-government and close cooperation (confederation or federation) between the Central European nations. 2.) Yet throughout the last hundred and fifty years authoritarian governments, assisted by military intervention of one or more great powers, have blocked the fulfillment of these hopes as expressed by the representative men.

These nations, however, with their limited freedom were not entirely blameless victims of historical tragedies. Some of their leaders were misled into antagonistic camps by powerful nationalistic forces, autocratic rulers and imperialistic powers (Germany, France, Russia, etc.). Such actions distorted their own lives and evoked hypernationalistic, violent or micro-etatistic dreams among their people which were in turn exploited by outside powers.

Historical Periods: Uniting and Dividing Forces

The first great historic fact of Central European existence was the conversion to Christianity of all the Danubian and Baltic nations between 800 and 1000 AD This common heritage cannot be overlooked even today by any "ideology". Christian kings formed the larger historical units out of many warring tribes. Feudalism, which might be called the age of "feudal confederations" followed between 1000 and 1800 AD Defense of the area made the evolution of a warrior class necessary which consisted of the nobility and dynasties.

There were some centuries in which the difference between Western and Eastern Byzantine Christian nations, later the split between Catholics and Protestants, weakened the unity of the Central European area was not developed into a "large Switzerland". Most of the statesthe Polish King Jan Sobieski came to the help of the other nations

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in the Habsburg empire, the Turkish invaders were finally driven out. With the liberation of Vienna in 1683, the whole areaówith the exception of the Balkansówas liberated from the Turks. During the Habsburg rule in the 17th and 18th centuries, the multinational empire including the somewhat more constitutional Hungary developed to a higher cultural and economic level than the areas South and East of it.

Historical Evolution and Modern Turning Points

From the end of the 18th century, the Baroque-feudal empire of the Habsburgs committed several fatal mistakes that caused later the dissolution of the empire:

a. ) They refused to grant liberal, constitutional self-government to the people and clung too long to the authoritarian police state methods of the ancien regime. The continental European dynasties closed their eyes to the new demands of the age.

The important turning point of modern history was 1776, the year of the American Declaration of Independence and that of the publication of Adam Smith's work The Wealth of Nations, the Bible of liberalism. Invention of the steam engine a few years previously (1769) signaled the beginning of the "industrial age". 1789 brought both, the French Revolution, and the American federal Constitution, a mode' of federalism and self-government. During the following century, especially those countries with a Protestant majority: England, Holland, the Scandinavian countries, Switzerland, developed a democratic self-government and a modern political life without revolutions. Today they enjoy the highest standard of living in Europe.

The dynasties of the Bourbons, Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns and Romanovs opposed modern evolution. They clung desperately and sometimes tyrannically to their baroque authoritarianism, aristocratic and semifeudal political structure which could only be liquidated by wars and revolutions. This process was long and painful, interrupted at times by a return to reactionary totalitarian regimes: Napoleonism, Fascism, Communism that brought the armies of foreign powers to Central Europe. (Table II)

b.) The Habsburgs made the great mistake of forming a military alliance with Germany against Russia in 1879. By this act they bound the peoples of the entire area to Germany in wars with Russia, bringing them into opposition also to the powerful nations of the West, the allies of Russia: France, England and later, America. Subsequently, the Danubian nations were drawn into the foreign great power struggles, into two world wars in which their lands were ravaged, victimized and finally Balkanized against their own will.

c.) Another error of the Habsburg era was that the multi-national area was not developed into a "large Switzerland". Most of the states

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men and political thinkers ( Table I ) favored peaceful cooperation of many nations in the form of (con)-federation. Some even prepared elaborate and detailed plans(l) and principles for such a federal organization, e.g., the Hungarian Kossuth,(2) Eotvos and Jaszi, the Rumanian Popovici,(3) the Austrian Renner.(4) the Slovak Hodza and many others (Table I). Even Professor Tomas Masaryk developed a plan to transform the Habsburg empire into a "rnonarchic Switzerland" up to 1915. The Czech E. Benes published his doctoral thesis in Paris (1908) in which his central theme was a "federalized Austria. (5) But Vienna and especially the Emperor Francis Joseph I withstood all attempts to change the Dual Monarchy into a multinational federal system. His rigid stand was supported by shortsighted political programs that denied equal rights to all nationalities.

Super-nationalist Politicians in Power Are Slow to Accept Federalism.

The otherwise liberal Hungarian statesman Lajos Kossuth, as governor, made the mistake of proclaiming, in 1848./49, a centralized and independent Hungarian national state in a multi-national Carpathian area. Later, however, he recognized the error and while in exile, following Russian intervention, he worked out a detailed plan for a confederation of the Danubian nations.

In 1867, one hundred years ago, Hungarian and Austrian statesmen established an interesting system of federation between Austria and Hungary which became a reality and existed for fifty years up to 1918. This was a peaceful half century for Central Europe. It formed a "Common Market" without internal customs, enjoyed an excellent gold-silver currency, freedom of communication over a large area where the railway system and navigation were well developed. The area became culturally and economically superior to the neighboring Balkans and Russia. Its weakness consisted, however, in the predominance of German-Austrians and Hungarians, the refusal to modernize the semifeudal political structure and denial of extending it to the Slavs and other nationalities (Trialism, etc.).

The excellent Nationality Law of 1868 written by Ferenc Deak and Jozsef Eotvos in Hungary which was a masterpiece that might have transformed the counties into Swiss-type cantons was sabotaged by succeeding statesman such as Minister presidents Kalman and Istvan Tisza. In the Austrian part of the Monarchy, the Pan-Germans who relied on the support of nearby Germany, opposed the just demands of the Czechs, Slovenes, Poles and others. Thereby internally weakened, the Dual Monarchy with its fateful alliance with Germany, could not survive World War I. Czarist Russia also fell in 1917. The victorious Western powers, however, yielded to French Minister President Clemenceau's "peace plans" in 1919. Neither Lloyd Georges (6) nor

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Wilson(7) originally favored the destruction and dismemberment of Austria-Hungary. Charles Seymour of Yale University, chief of the Austro-Hungarian Division of the American delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, stated: ìThe United States and Great Britain would have been glad to create a federation of the Danubian nationalities which, without the vices that had led to the fall of the Habsburgs, might have accomplished the economic integration and presented the political order, so essential to the tranquillity and prosperity of Southeastern Europe(8)

The Little Entente Period: 1918-1938

During the last phase of World Was I, after 1917, the Western statesmen accepted solutions presented to them by some Central European politicians who had emigrated to the West. Embittered, these had replaced their former federalist programs with their own national micro-etatism. E. Benes now urged the great powers: "Detruisez l'Autriche-Hongrie" (Destroy Austria-Hungary). This slogan was adopted by the French Premier Clemenceau and became one of the dominant principles of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Benes promised that "Czechoslovakia's government would be like that Of Switzerland" ("semblable a celui de la Suisse" in his Memoir III). But the promise was not fulfilled when he became leader of the new multi-national state. In a total population of 13 million, Czechs comprised only 6.3 million or 48.4%; with 25% Germans; 16% Slovaks; 9% Hungarians; and the rest divided between the Ruthenians, Poles and others. In Yugoslavia, there were 43% Serbs; in Rumania 67% Rumanians; but in Transylvania there were only 54% Rumanians. Between 1919 and 1938 most politicians in Prague, Belgrade and Bucharest were inclined to overlook the presence of numerous nationalities that, in many parts of the state, formed compact majorities and could not be regarded as second and third class citizens or "minorities" as they were called. The central governments refused to grant them autonomy, not to say federalism "like that of Switzerland" in the newly created states. The danger of allotting millions of other nationalities to the newly created microstates was foreseen at the Peace Conference for which reason signing of a "Treaty for the Protection of Minorities" was required when accepting the peace treaties. Some representatives of the newly created states refused to sign it. This "revolt" was led by the Rumanian Bratianu. It was at this point that President Wilson gave his remarkable pronouncement, almost a prophecy on May 31, 1919:

"How can a power like the United States, for example, after the signing of this Treaty, if it contains elements which they do not believe will be permanent, go three thousand miles away across the sea and report to its people that it has made a settlement of the peace of the world? It cannot do so, and yet there underlies all of these transactions

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the expectation on the part for example of Rumania and of Czechoslovakia and of Serbia that if any covenants of this settlement are not observed the United States will send her armies to see that they are observed . . . In those circumstances is it unreasonable that the United States should insist upon being satisfied that the settlements are correct? Mr. Bratianu suggested that we could not so to say invade the sovereignty of Rumania an ancient sovereignty and make certain prescriptions with regard to the rights of minorities. But I beg him to observe that he is overlooking the fact that he is asking the sanction of the Allied and Associated .Powers for great additions of territory which came to Rumania by the common victory of arms, and that therefore we are entitled to say: ìIf we agree to these additions of territory we have tile right to insist upon certain guarantees of peaceî (See op. c. footnote 8)

Bratianu was not convinced by Wilson and resigned. Bucharest, not wanting to forfeit new territorial gains, sent another delegate who reluctantly signed both treaties together with the representatives of the other new states. These were organized soon into an alliance known as the Little Entente sponsored by France (1920-.38). Yet Bratianu became Minister-President several more times. Although they had accepted the territorial gains, both he and the other statesmen of the Little Entente relegated the treaty on the Protection of Minorities to the archives. In consequence, a flood of petitions were sent to the League of Nations by the various nationalities in Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia.(9) They testified to injustices committed against the millions of national "minorities".

The League of Nations dominated by France proved to be impotent in the field of protecting nationalities.(10) These suffered heavy losses of schools, economic status and language rights, ecclesiastical and other institutions beside the neglect of their vital administrative interests.(11) Failing to be heard in the League of Nations, they turned to their co-nationals beyond their frontiers, e.g., the Hungarians and Germans. After 1927 Hungary (and the Croatians) turned to Italy, while the German minorities turned to the mighty "protector" of the rising Nazi Germany. Hitler used their cause for a pretext to intervene in Central and East European affairs. Following his invasion Of Austria, the Danubian nations suddenly became aware of the acute danger facing them. At this point, Professor James Shotwell of Columbia University, initiated a "Peaceful Change Conferenceî, sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace. The conference met in June 1937 in Paris. Many excellent working papers and proposals were submitted favoring a Swiss-type solution for Central Europe (some were presented by the Hungarian Minister President Pal Teleki). But the representatives of the Little Entente continued to resist any peaceful change.

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After 1938

The following year, Hitler increased his political pressure on Czechoslovakia in support of the Sudeten Germans. It was too late when President Benes finally offered a "Fourth Plan" on September 5, 1938, to "cantonize the Sudetenland with a system similar to Swiss cantons,'. It is to be regretted that his plan was not accepted at that time. Hitler and Mussolini were pressing for a Munich conference of the four Great Powers. Here the partition of Czechoslovakia was effected. Subsequently, Hitler's army invaded Central Europe. Then he made a pact with Stalin and Molotov to partition the whole area between Germany and Russia. Within a few years Hitler invaded not only others parts of East Europe but Russia as well. After the Battle of Stalingrad, however, the Red Army with assistance from the West, reversed the course of the war and half of Europe fell to the Soviets, the other half becoming an "Atlantic" sphere of influence.

In the early forties many exiled politicians, i.e. the Czech Benes, the Slovak Hodza, the Hungarian M. Karolyi, the Polish Sikorski and others, worked out again federal regional plans for the post-war years. Before his suicide in April, 1941, the Hungarian Minister President, Pal Teleki, sent messages to his American friends and to his Minister in Washington, that regional federalism in Central and East Europe was absolutely essential.(12) Benes hurried to Moscow in 1943, knowing the consequences of a takeover of Central Europe by Stalin, to make a pact with him. At the insistence of Stalin he discarded all plans for federation and upon his return handed Subcarpathia (Ruthenia) over to Russia as the price demanded for expulsion of the Sudeten Germans and keeping a possible pre-war status quo.

Subsequent events, however, exposed Stalin's hunger for much more, namely, a complete takeover of Central Europe. Benes' life ended in tragedy; Pal Teleki, Jan Masaryk committed suicide; Maniu and many others died in prison or were executed; the Rumanian Minister President, Jorga, was killed. The more fortunate politicians escaped to the West. Several million, caught up in the big power struggle, lost their homes, were expelled(13) from their ancestral landsóand the bitter years of the "cold war" began

Compromise Solutions for Real Peace and Prosperity
Demand Some Sacrifice From All Parries

Many knew that perhaps a decade would elapse after the end of World War II before vengeance and hatred would subside sufficiently to seek rational solutions. Now more than two decades have elapsed since the end of hostilities and it is time to bring about a lasting peace to this area without relying on the intervention of foreign military powers. Some sacrifice on the part of all concerned is necessary to

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move away from untenable positions which military victory had brought about on a transitional basis.

An unjust military position cannot be guaranteed forever. Napoleon came to the conclusion: "It is easier to conquer a territory than to keep it." From the 16th to the 19th centuries a small army with superior weapons was able to conquer large tracts of foreign lands. But England, Spain, Holland, France, the great colonial powers have wisely yielded to the demands of modern times to give up their farflung conquered territories. The late 19th century efforts toward colonial expansion earned Germany the enmity of England and other powers. Without colonies she now enjoys a greater degree of prosperity than before.

How is revenge to be excluded from Central Europe? The domination of any outside great power in the Central European multinational area causes reaction from other great powers (revenge). On the other hand, when Switzerland was declared neutral in 1815 after Napoleon's unsuccessful attempt to conquer the country, three great powers were effectively divided by a buffer zone consisting of a federated area. Even at the time Of Nazism and Fascism, Switzerland retained firmly its status as a neutral, prosperous buffer country. In Central Europe, the Soviet Union had difficulty first with Yugoslavia (1948-53), then with Hungary (19'6) and currently with Rumania, and Czechoslovakia. Because of the unsolved problem of Germany, and remnants of Stalinism, uncertainty and discontent is widespread .

If the area were neutralized, the Soviet Union would have no more difficulties with these nations than it now has with Finland Sweden and Austria. On the other hand, if the West were asked to sanction the presently dangerous unstable situation in Central Europe and permanently fix the status quo at a European Conference on Security, the American Government could well reply with the words of President Wilson quoted above:

"How can a power like the United States after .the signing of this treaty if it contains elements which they do not believe will be permanent go three thousand miles away across the sea and report to its people that it has made a settlement of peace in the world? Under such circumstances is it-unreasonable that the United States should insist upon being satisfied that the settlements are correct?î

One hundred years ago, in 1867, a compromise solution was found in Central Europe, in which both parties of a federalized union brought some sacrifice to gain peace and prosperity. That compromise solution brought fifty years of peace and relative prosperity to Central Europe. Today, a new solution could be worked out that would exclude revenge yet would coincide with the interests of all Central European nations beside that of the interested great powers: neutralization

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and "Helvetization,' of the are between Germany and Russia.

How long will true self-government and federalism (Helvetization) be hindered by great powers in Central Europe?