Toward a New Central Europe

PROBLEMS OF FEDERALISM IN THE DANUBIAN AREA

BELA TALBOT KARDOS

Motto: "In the name of God, I invite my Hungarian, Rumanian ad Slav brothers to drop a veil on the past and to hold out their hand towards each other, and to rise as one man in a common struggle for freedom, and to fight all for one and one for all." - Louis Kossuth in the Preface to his "Plan of a Danubian Confederation," 1860.

"A federalized Central Europe is one of the absolute necessities of a new post-war order. .. The mistake of Versailles may lie in the fact that these small nations of Central Europe were not authoritatively advised to set up a cooperation which would provide them with the advantages of a great commonwealth able to normalize and stabilize its relations with its neighbors . . . This Commonwealth of Central Europe is the suggestion which I am putting forward in this book. . . It is the final goal which I have aimed at during my whole political career".. . Milan Hodza, Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia between 1935-1938 in his book "Federation in Central Europe." (London, 1942).

A. Fundamental Considerations.

1.) The Declaration of Independence of small nations should be followed by a positive decision for free federalization or both independence and liberty will be lost again.

Many nations have tried to copy the American Declaration of Independence. Lafayette kept a gold framed copy of it in his (French) home. October 1918, Czechoslovakia together with other East European nations promulgated her independence in the historic hall of Philadelphia. Most of the statesmen, however, did not follow the next step which was federalization by acceptance of a well-balanced federal constitution. Without the latter, the freedom and independence of our states would have been lost just as the independence of Czechoslovakia and the other East European states were lost several times. In France the Jacobine revolution proclaimed penalty of death for the advocacy of federalism. As late as 1929 a French citizen appeared before a criminal court at Besancon to defend himself for advocating the federal

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organization of France ( Le Temps, June 24, 1929) . Yet French democracy was not fully successful with the theory of a centralized national State, "une et indivisible". In the multinational area of Eastern Europe the application of this idea had catastrophical consequences.

Some may even question whether those small states created after the First World War possessed independence at all. Even Czechoslovakia, relatively the most independent among them, was first a French satellite, then broke in two, one an unwilling, the other a more willing satellite of Germany; after 1945 a gradual lapse into Russian dependence followed. With some variation a similar fate befell the other East European nations. It is time to quote the words of Proudhon: îQui dit liberte, dit federation, ou ne dit rien." (Who says liberty, says federation or does not say anything.!

Switzerland maintained her independence and freedom among the most threatening imperialisms of our day. European politicians realized, under Russian threat, the importance of federal democracy for larger areas. yet they are still unwilling to study either the Swiss or American model more closely. They think the era of federalism can be entered without substantial change in the old pattern of sovereign overcentralized governments.

Bakounine was right when he said: ". . . aucun Etat centralise, bureaucratique et par-la meme militaire, s"appelant rneme republique, ne pourra entrer serieusement et sincerement dans une confederation internationale.", (Oevres: Federalism, socialisme. Paris, 1895) (no centralized bureaucratic and militaristic state, even when called a republic, can enter honestly and sincerely an international confederation. )

Some European countries are working for a customs union. but at the same time are loath to give up their own currency systems. The presupposition of federalism is a fresh mentality and some sacrifice of old habits. As it is necessary to give up some of the irresponsible habits of free bachelorhood when entering an honest marriage and family life. so is it with federalism. Father Lincoln, the federalist. was a higher type of man than the free bachelor Edgar Poe. We prefer the settled habits of Tomas Masaryk, senior, to those of his free bachelor son, Jan. Likewise federal democracy is a more settled and higher type of democracy than revolutionary and finally centralized democracy, not to speak about Communist democracy.

2.) National autonomy granted as a privilege is no final solution
because it is unjust and impracticable.

To counterbalance the ominous effects of national centralization, several attempts were made to grant autonomy to certain special areas like Transylvania, Carphato-Ruthenia, or to some nations, e.g. the

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Slovaks, Croats and others. The international minority treaty signed by Rumania September, 1919 in St. Germain-en-Laye provided for autonomy to the Transylvanian Szekel and Saxon community. All these attempts were impracticable and therefore dropped or reversed even if their execution was more or less attempted. Moldavia has as much right to autonomy as Transylvania. Why should the Slovaks have more autonomy than the Czech lands? The Hungarian government would be unjust to grant autonomy to Transdanubia and refuse it to the other parts of the state. Autonomy granted within a nationally centralized state to a specified nation has the consequence of creating, beside a dominant nation, a less privileged second-class nation which enjoys some autonomy when all the rest are without it.

All parts of the state have an equal right to the same autonomy. All cultural and educational institutions, all churches and nations must possess it equally which is possible only within a federal system.

3.) National states in Eastern Europe have been, are and will be unable to guarantee the rights of national and religious
minorities without federalization.

Attempts have been made since the First World War to guarantee the rights of minorities by special international treaties such as those signed in the St. Germain-en-Laye on Sept. 10, 1919. All the former and present peace treaties contain imperative clauses on the rights of minorities. The League of Nations was entrusted to supervise them or other methods of international procedure like arbitration were stipulated as means of safeguarding the rights of freedom.

Wrapped in the cloak of independent national sovereignty, national states refused and continue to refuse to carry out their international obligations. Any legal interest shown by international organizations is regarded and refused as "interference in their domestic affairs".

Some national states have gone so far as to incorporate the rights of national and religious minorities in their constitution. But this was a mere platonic step undertaken with the intention of window-dress ing. Their practice has not changed and the suffering minorities cannot bring their grievances to an impartial court. Even if a national state should provide legal procedure and penal clauses against violators of minority rights, there is no guarantee of unbiased justice as the national courts in a national state are dominated by one nation.

Promises of emigrant politicians that this will be different in the reestablished national states cannot be trusted. The system in itself is guilty and individual politicians, even if benevolent and liberal, are under the pressure of a nationalist public opinion within a national state. They are almost driven to injustice whereas peace is a byproduct of justice which can be guaranteed only by federalization of the multi national area. Within the federation each nation and group will be a

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guarantee to the rights of the others under a supreme federal court consisting of representatives of all member nations.

If we consider how many millions, sometimes one-fifth of the population, have been driven out of their homes, exterminated in gas chambers, properties and institutions confiscated, we may realize the importance of making an end to this national and class-war "bellum omnium contra omnes".

4.) Bad-neighbor policy is a characteristic of national states;
good-neighbor policy is a rule of federalized states.

A federal state like Switzerland, the USA and Canada are typical examples of good-neighbor policy. On the other hand, the French type of national state wherever applied has brought bad-neighbor policy, perhaps nowhere more tragically than in Eastern Europe (also in the Middle and Far East ) . Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Poland, etc. were on constant bad relations with all their neighbors and were forced into plotting with the enemies of their enemies, i.e. with the enemies of their neighbors and great powers outside of the Danubian area. Against bad-neighbor policy there is no more effectual cure than federalization .

The existing national councils of emigrant politicians should discontinue the fostering of those ideologies which bring them in opposition. At present the antagonism and the germs of a future badneighbor policy are present to disrupt the seeming harmony. The ardently awaited "Day of Liberation" may turn into another "Day of Self-Deception" and all the sacrifices made by Americans be frustrated if irrealistic illusions are not replaced by the best political form which is known to political science and experience: federal self-government.

5.) Recurrent revolutions, counter-revolutions and dictatorships
are the unavoided consequences of the establishment of
centralized national states. Federalism excludes dictatorship.

The peculiar type of the French centralized national state has been and is a hot-bed of revolutions and counter-revolutions. The government being concentrated in a few hands, in a cabinet, in a large capital, under the pressure of a large city population and industrial proletariat, is easily captured by a violent group headed by a dictator. In the non-Protestant and multinational area of the European mainland, the polarizations between the extreme conservative right and the violently radical left is so intensive that a moderate two party system is almost impossible in the long run.

The advantage of federalism is that power cannot be seized all at once because it is distributed between the federal and state governments

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and all local autonomies. President Wilson said about American federalism: "With life everywhere throughout the continent, it is impossible to seize illicit power over the whole people by seizing any central offices. To hold Washington would be as useless to a usurper as to hold Duluth. Self-government cannot be usurped." Likewise if Berne should be captured by a usurper, the Swiss cantons and other local autonomies would continue their normal life. On the other hand we know how many times the Budapest, the Prague or Bucharest central government has been captured by a small violent minority and the whole country was immediately in their hands.

6.) Incomplete distribution of powers is a source
of recurring political crisis in national states.

In the American and Swiss federal systems, the legislative, executive and judicial branches are well separated. The executive is on a firm footing, elected for four years with option of reelection during which terms he cannot be removed except by impeachment. The executive is not at the whim of nervous parliaments as in France before de Gaulle; neither can he become a dictator of the legislative body as a Napoleon or Mussolini or any of the East European governments have been able to. The executive does not have a vote in the legislative. The members of the legislative bodies are busy with their legislative work and not with plotting how to overthrow the head of the cabinet or its members.

In a politically highly sensitive, polarized and multi-national area, like Eastern Europe, a balanced government or peaceful life of the population is not possible without a complete separation of powers and a firm footing of the executive branch of the government. The Swiss pattern of seven executive federal councilors as a cabinet will serve the purpose better than a single chief executive, as in the USA. It is important that they should be elected and serve for a definite fixed period and as executive, not as "the government." According to federal democracy, the government consists of the legislative, executive and judiciary branches together. In this system the possible transgressions of one are corrected by the other two. This system of checks and balances is the safety valve of democracy. The revolutionary democracies in Eastern Europe did not have such safety valves and manometers - consequently the boilers exploded when overheated. Either the legislative body became unruly, continuously ousting the cabinet from office or the cabinet became a "strong government" usually in the person of one man who, as a dictator, made the legislative subservient to him. In consequence of not separating the legislative from the executive, East European revolutionary democracies derailed several times into dictatorships.

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Most continental democracies commit the error of calling the executive branch " the government". The Bonn Constitution of the present Federal Republic of Germany declares in paragraph 62: "The Federal Government shall consist of the Federal Chancellor and the Federal Ministers." This contains the seed of dictatorship, especially when this government precedes the legislature which is regulated in later paragraphs. The Swiss and USA Constitution establish first the legislature and the cabinet is called simply the executive though in its own sphere or function it is firmly established without the possibility of becoming a dictator.

7.) Choice between a revolutionary or federal democracy.

Revolutionary democracy is the first - so to say - negative stage of democracy. Swiss and American history also had its revolutionary phase but elsewhere in Europe this phase lasted more than one hundred and fifty years owing to the strong resistance of the "ancien regime" with its feudalism and landlordism, national, social and intellectual oppression. Switzerland and America were happy because they succeeded in overthrowing the old regime at an early date and almost at one stroke. Europe, as a whole and especially Eastern Europe was not so successful. Several revolutions were necessary and therefore it had no time to build a more positive and peaceful democracy. As to the positive aims of revolutions, European politicians and thinkers manifested an irrealistic vagueness, from the Communist Marxist "pie in the sky" with a "dwindling of the State", which remained an Utopia, to the Phalansters of Fourier, the dreams of Zola, and the violent syndicalism of Sorel or the Fascism of Mussolini.

Revolutionary democracies end in some form of military dictatorships if the transition to federal democracy is omitted after the overthrow of the old regime. This was omitted in Eastern Europe. European democrats did not grasp the necessity of studying the more mature and positive form of federal democracy in Switzerland or in the USA although Benes, Clemenceau and Trotsky lived for a period in the USA Lenin, Mussolini and many emigrants lived in Switzerland but failed to see the positive features of federal democracy. Home they went and built overheated political boilers which had no safety valves and manometers, which eventually blew up. East European politicians were trained mostly in the ideas of revolutionary democracy in Paris and later in Moscow. No wonder that the more mature forms of democracy had very few followers as even the peace conferences promoted the erroneous type of revolutionary democracy (democratorships) in Eastern Europe.

Revolutionary democracy of both the Jacobin and Marxist type is antireligious. Consequently it is at war not only with the churches

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but with the religious majority of Eastern Europe, the peasantry and family life. Federal democracy, on the other hand, has a free religious basis (Washington, Franklin, Lincoln, Jefferson, Wilson). "The Nation" is not the highest concept because both nation and individuals are seen to be "under God" and under Divine Law.

The significance of this is that above the Nation a higher instance is recognized, be it federal law or universal international law with its roots in the ethical laws of mankind and the golden rule, Revolutionary class-war democracy does not accept such a universal platform but the "nation" or even class interest is regarded as the highest. Consequently, force is regarded as the ultima ratio of revolutionary democracies. On the other hand, federal democracy settles disputes and injustices within the frame of a federal constitution.

In revolutionary democracies legislature often surpasses its competence, wiping out the most elementary rights of the individual, even destroying their existence as happened with millions of racial and religious minorities in Eastern Europe. Jefferson said, as quoted by Madison in The Federalist, No. 48: "It will be no alleviation, that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. One hundred and seventy despots would surely be as oppressive as one... An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others."

This is not the place to enter into further explanations of the principles of federal democracy. It is our purpose only to draw attention to it in order that .more careful study should be given especially to the Swiss and American type of federalism.

8. Economic and technical backwardness of Eastern Europe
is a cause of unbalanced political systems. Federalism
opens higher standards of living.

Like the house divided against itself, Eastern Europe could not reach the standard of living which according to the present state of techniques and applied science is possible because the shackles of an antiquated regime hindered progress and caused revolutionary tension. When the old regime was removed the economic area was broken up into small national centralized states, divided into opposing camps. Strict visas, severe police methods made economic cooperation, normal communication and even visits between family members impossible or very difficult. Economic life was plagued by nine or more soft currencies with not firm relation between them. Although the natural

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wealth of the area, its fertile plains, rich minerals, extended forests and other natural resources surpassed those of Switzerland or Scandinavia, the per capita national income has been and is less than one fourth of the Swiss or Scandinavian.

The Balkanization of the Danubian area after the First World War froze the possibilities of using interstate natural resources. The present border line between Austria and Hungary crosses the Lake Ferto (Neusiedler See), which is utterly neglected and unutilized, hardly accessible because of marshes. Plans for the regulation of the area cannot be carried out by one state alone. Wide tracts of fertile land could be added to agriculture beside fish ponds and resort places.

The river systems of Eastern Europe are insufficiently developed both as a means of communication and a source of energy. National states in possession of mountainous regions (Carpathians, etc.) did not concern themselves with flood prevention of the lowlands belonging to other states. Interstate cooperation against animal and plant diseases was and is unsystematic, casual.

Long distances communication in Eastern Europe was and is very neglected. Deep freezing and other technical improvements would enable the Vienna or Prague markets to be furnished by fresh fruits and abundant vegetables from as far as Bulgaria. Instead of such far ranging traffic possibilities, international roads and railways are neglected.

9.) Cultural relations between East European nations is blocked
by the chauvinism of national states, and distorted by either
nationalistic or Marxist prejudices.

The genius of East Europeans was expressed in remarkable works of poets and artists, some of which equal the best in Western culture. Yet they are unknown outside of their own small nation. The national states dominated the official intercourse between nations and, almost like the czarist regime in Russia which kept Tolstoy hidden from the world, they distorted the international exchange of cultural goods. Hungarians have had great writers like Jokai, Ady, Juhasz, Zs. Moricz, D. Szabo, Laszlo Mecs, but very few Rumanians, Croats or Czechs have had the opportunity of knowing them. Likewise, very few Hungarians or Ruthenians know anything about the Croat Michelangelo, Mestrovic. The peasant population of this region possesses a very rich folklore heritage which has been recently explored and partly published, but the interrelations of neighboring areas were neglected. History and other social sciences also suffered because of national and Marxist state interference with the scientific projects of universities and individual scholars.

All the disadvantages of this biased era can be eliminated only by a fresh start in the spirit of federalism of East European nations.

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Instead of knowing each other indirectly through the great Western cosmopolitan centers, East European nations should find their free direct cultural intercourse in a spirit of free federalism and free cooperation

10.) The case of Austria. Anschluss repeated or federalization
with Central-Eastern Europe?

In absence of better alternative, Austria may join Germany again within some years, thereby committing political suicide anew and at the same time putting in motion political crisis in central Europe, high pressure politics of German nationalism toward the East, restlessness in Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, etc. All the great sacrifices of America in occupation cost and ERP Marshall Aid would be thereby lost and the pacification of Central Europe frustrated for the next few generations.

Austria, especially Vienna, got a larger part of her food requirements from Hungary and the lower Danubian countries. Between the two world wars when custom lines and custom duties hindered interstate commerce, the food import came in the following large proportion from Eastern Europe which shrank after the Second World War to insignificant amounts:

Austria's food import before the Second World War (1937)

	wagons		wagons
Total food import	111,924	Total cereal import	85,642
out of which from:		out of which from:
Hungary	28,306	Hungary	22,927
Yugoslavia	29,103	Yugoslavia	27,058
Rumania	23,308	Rumania	22,620
Czechoslovakia	6,606	Czechoslovakia	5,959

As may be seen, 87 thousand out of 111 thousand wagons food import of Austria came from the four Danubian countries, and 79 thousand wagons Of cereal out of the total import of 86 thousand. The 1937 import is however much lower than the imports in the 1920s or before the First World War when there was no custom line between Austria and Hungary or Bohemia.

On the other hand, Austria"s industrial export found a ready market in the Danubian agricultural countries. Its wood, pulp and paper products could be shipped by waterways. All this natural interrelation between mutually interdependent areas is broken up into uncooperating national states. The late Austrian president Karl Renner, one of the earliest champions of a transformation of Austria

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Hungary into a federal Switzerland on a large scale, complained bitterly in the July 1948 issue of the American quarterly Foreign Affairs in an article entitled "Austria, Key to War and Peace", about the wrong decisions of international peace conferences.

The danger of underestimating Austria"s self-interest is imminent. As early as the elections in 1950 it showed signs of an increasing tendency toward a second Anschluss. As Mr. Strauss-Hupe said: "Austrian youth of the League (new Independent Party) looked to Berlin... Austria will be in the future even less capable of maintaining her independence than she had been under relatively more benign conditions... There are the two alternatives to Anschluss: Danubian Union, and debated ground: the faint promise of a new solution: European Union."

Present-day nationalists of Austria should consider that within a true federalism which would include all the Danubian areas, Austria could be as prosperous as Switzerland. Within Germany it would be a discontented province and provoke similar consequences to those of an annexation of German Switzerland by Germany. A forgotten statement by Bismarck which should have warned Hitler and should warn all Austrian nationalists against such a step is a propos. The well-known Hungarian author, Maurus Jokai, obtained an interview by Prince Bismarck in 1874. John Ruskin"s "Fors Clavigera" reprinted the interview (Letter XLIII) as it was published in the Pall Mall Gazette, March 7, 1874: "Small independent States in the East," said Bismarck to J6kai, "would be a misfortune to Europe. Austria and Hungary must realize their mutual interdependence... The notion that Germany has an inclination to annex more land is a myth. God preserve the Germans from such a wish!... Should the Germans of Austria want to be annexed by Germany, I would feel inclined to declare war against them for that wish alone. A German Minister who should conceive the desire to annex part of Austria, would deserve to be hanged" - a punishment the Prince indicated by gesture. "I do not wish to annex even a square foot of fresh territory - not as much as these two pencils would cover."

11.) The European union in its relation to Eastern Europe.

Many Austrian and some of the East European statesmen are convinced that the realization of an European Union would automatically solve the problems of the East European nations. If, under the high pressure of Russian imperialism the European Union could not achieve more unity than periodical parliamentary sessions at Strasbourg without true federal legislative and executive powers, what will happen, when the Russian pressure will diminish, recede, or collapse - which is a presupposition of East European new arrangements?

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To a true federal customs union, a currency union is the precondition. It is impossible to imagine a federal custom territory with several independent currency systems. Any change in the value of one or the other currency would upset the custom tariff, the price levels and production costs in the different areas of the federal union.

Basic agricultural population and production in Western countries like Germany, Switzerland, England need protection against the competition of cheaper producing areas. Industrial costs and conditions are so widely differentiated that a sudden transition into a single federal union would cause the collapse of many areas and the economic standard of many millions. Of course, a complete breakdown of the European continent in a Russian Blitzkrieg leaving Europe in a devastated condition like Korea would make a European federal Union absolutely imperative. But God forbid such a disaster!

Under present conditions however, it seems more likely that regional economic federations can be worked out successfully. In Eastern Europe before the First World War the larger part of the Danubian area formed an economic union in which the living standard and civilization was higher than outside of this area, in Southeast Europe (the Balkans).

The Rumanians, Serbs and Croats within the federation reached a higher cultural and economic welfare than their brothers living outside of the federation in small independent national states.

Since the First World War, the formerly exclusively agricultural countries have traveled the road of industrialization and therefore their economic level is nearer to each other than before. These nations are still aware of the advantages of a greater economic unit, of one currency, one custom line without internal barriers, without Chinese walls between national states. Consequently, economic federal union in Eastern Europe is not a dream but a realistic possibility based on firm psychological foundation in the life of the millions.

The next step in Europe seems to be the formation of regional unions such as the West-European, the East-European, the Scandinavian, Mediterranean, etc. Above the regional federal unions, the European Union cannot be much more than an organization like the interAmerican OAS (Pan-American) cooperation with yearly convened parliaments, coordinated foreign policy, with cultural and economic agreements, compulsory arbitration.

If, however, despite the above reasoning, European Union could be realized as a close federal union with a single currency and custom line, the formation of a federal union in Eastern Europe could still serve a useful purpose. It is the opinion of many East European politicians that it would be more advantageous to enter the European Union not as single small national states and be used by the great

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Western Powers as chess men played against each other, but rather as a federation. We came to the conclusion that, positive plans and agreements for the formation of federal union in Eastern Europe should be prepared, ready for some sort of execution as soon as the Russian withdrawal or lessening of pressure would leave a vacuum juris in Eastern Europe.

12.) Growing tendency in favor of East European
federalization among statesmen.

Politicians in exile from Communist countries arrive increasingly at the conclusion that liberty and independence of small nations cannot be maintained without the correlative principle of federalism that was first applied successfully by the Swiss and American fathers of the federal constitution.

The Philadelphia declaration of Feb. 11, 1951 was an outstanding act where many prominent politicians pledged themselves not only to the cause of liberation but the cause of federalization. New study groups are forming to elaborate the principles and application of a close cooperation of the European nations. Scientists and scholars should help prepare a scientific, realistic work with all possible alternatives for a future settlement.

The multi-national pattern of Eastern Europe is not in itself a plague or hindrance to progress. On the contrary, it may be a source of more vitality, beauty, health and cultural competition of the races concerned. The idea of dominion and superiority of one race above the other, or combination of some against the rest is untenable. Neither the state or federal power should be combined with the policy of one special nation. It is difficult for national politicians to leave behind the antiquated pattern of national domination within the boundaries of a state over the rest of the population. Prominent politicians however, even if they once entertained the wrong concept have had their lesson in its ominous results.

In 1948 the Hungarian Louis Kossuth was still spellbound by the French revolutionary idea of a nation-state. A Serbian deputation from southern Hungary presented to the Hungarian Diet in Pozsony a petition for the recognition of their nation. Kossuth reacted with hauteur: "What do you understand by a nation?" he asked the Serbs.

"A group of people which possesses its own language, customs, and enough consciousness of itself to want to preserve them," was the answer.

"A Nations must also have its government," objected Kossuth.

"We do not go so far," returned the Serbian, "One nation can live under several different governments, and again several nations can for a single State."

But Kossuth at this time was unable to conceive a nation which

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was not definable as a state. "In that case, the sword will decide," he ended abruptly.

Later he had bitterly to condone his attitude. Impatience and misunderstanding drove the Danubian nations against each other, becoming an easy prey to renewed absolutism. In exile after his visit in England and America, Kossuth became a federalist democrat, accepted in 1852 a plan for a Danubian confederation which he worked out in the next 10 years together with Serbian, Rumanian and other friends. The motto heading this article is quoted from his paper.( 1)

Nevertheless, after the collapse of the Dual Monarchy, the false concept of small Nation-States was implemented by the peace conferences. That Masaryk, Wilson, Lloyd George, Take Ionescu and many others had in mind originally a federal collaboration of the interested nations can be easily proved. But Clemenceau and Benes thought it more "realistic" to establish independent small states. It became a source of infinite trouble and suffering - irredentism on one side, oppression and bitter complaints on the other - which opened the way for violent interference from outside.

Like Kossuth, the other East European statesmen became interested in federalism when in exile. The Czechoslovak minister president, Hodza, published his book "Federation in Central Europe" almost as a testament of his life. Even Benes and many other leading statesmen spoke about federalism but on return to power the principles of federalism were abandoned, new nationalistic injustices were committed by them and thereby collapse was hastened.

We don"t question the sincerity of the pronouncements in favor of federalization in Eastern Europe made by statesmen in exile but they seldom realize the change involved which is like changing from bachelorhood to family life. The latter, like federal democracy, calls for more planning than revolutionary democracy or bachelorhood. I)p to the present however, there has not been a detailed, scientific investigation and evaluation of the alternative possible solutions for federalism in Eastern Europe, summarizing the geographical, economic, statistical, cultural, ethnographical, legal and historical aspects. The absence of such synthetic, positively realistic, scientific investigation including the constitutional formulation of the federal structure was the main reason for politicians abandoning the idea of federalism on coming into power. This should not be repeated. Scientific investigation should therefore prepare the application of correct federal principles in Eastern Europe.

Toward a New Central Europe