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The Brest-Litovsk Moment: Self-Determination Discourse in Eastern Europe before Wilsonianism

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 22; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09592296.2011.599635

1557-301X

Borislav Chernev,

French Historical and Cultural Studies

Abstract The article argues that the historical origins of the concept of self-determination had less to do with Woodrow Wilson than with the specific circumstances during the last phase of the Great War. It argues that self-determination became the "centre of the discourse of legitimacy in international relations" as a result of a dynamic process involving multiple actors. Lenin and the Bolsheviks first started to employ the concept. Self-determination discourse gained further momentum during the Brest-Litovsk peace conference, where the Austro–German and Russian delegations debated its application at some length. This prompted Allied statesmen to crystallise their ideas and make self-determination their principal war aim. The increasing appeal of self-determination first manifested itself in the entangled spaces of Eastern Europe, where the national aspirations of Poles and Ukrainians, bolstered by the new discourse, converged with the rhetoric emanating from Brest-Litovsk to create a "Wilsonian moment" before Wilson. Notes 1. Eric D. Weitz, "From the Vienna to the Paris System: International Politics and the Entangled Histories of Human Rights, Forced Deportations, and Civilizing Missions," American Historical Review, 113(2008), p. 1328. 2. Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford, 2007), p. 5. 3. See, amongst others, Manela, Wilsonian Moment, pp. 22–24; Lloyd E. Ambrosius, Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Relations (New York, 2002), pp. 2–4. Manela uses Wilson's own poetic albeit vague phrases to describe these principles as "equality of rights," "consent of the governed"—substituted with "self-determination" after February 1918—and "right over might." Ambrosius uses present-day terminology from the field of international relations, defining the main tenets of Wilsonianism more broadly as "national self-determination," "Open Door economic globalisation," "collective security," and "progressive history." 4. Allen Lynch, "Woodrow Wilson and the Principle of 'National Self-Determination': A Reconsideration," Review of International Studies, 28(2002), pp. 419–36; Arthur Walworth, Wilson and His Peacemakers: American Diplomacy at the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 (New York, 1986); Theodore P. Greene, Wilson at Versailles (Boston, 1957). The more general the study, the less focused its take on the concept of self-determination tends to be. Walworth, for instance, remarks rather casually that "the word [self-determination], long current in the vocabulary of German philosophers, was conjured up by Wilson in February 1918 as propaganda appealing to German leftists." (p. xi, emphasis added). 5. According to the "idealists," the statesman Wilson betrayed his own noble ideas in Paris by compromising with the corrupt Old World statesmen—especially Clemenceau and Orlando—and thus proved himself to be an idol with clay feet. In contrast, the "realists" argued that the concept of self-determination itself was flawed, impracticable, and could never be applied universally. Lastly, the "radicals" asserted that self-determination fit comfortably within a broader pattern of American foreign policy seeking to undermine the closed economic systems usually favoured by empires and extend the Open Door policy that favoured American economic penetration of underdeveloped regions. Michla Pomerance, "The United States and Self-Determination: Perspectives on the Wilsonian Conception," American Journal of International Law, 70(1976), pp. 1–27. 6.Trygve Throntveit, "The Fable of the Fourteen Points: Woodrow Wilson and National Self-Determination," Diplomatic History, 35(2011), pp. 445–81. 7. Manela, Wilsonian Moment, pp. 4–7. 8. Weitz, "From the Vienna to the Paris System," p. 1328. 9. V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 21 (Moscow, 1964), p. 408. Emphasis in the original. 10. Ibid., Volume 22, p. 146. Emphasis added. 11. Ibid., pp. 147–48. This dialectic reasoning is comparable to the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat preceding the disappearance of class antagonisms and classes in general. 12. Lenin, Collected Works, Volume 22, pp. 150–52; see also Arno J. Mayer, Political Origins of the New Diplomacy, 1917–1918 (New Haven, 1959), pp. 298–303. 13. Quoted in Mayer, Political Origins, 75. Emphasis added. Wilson had expressed a similar sentiment in his "peace without victory" speech from 22 January 1917 without, however, referring to self-determination. 14. For more on this issue, see David Stevenson, "The Failure of Peace by Negotiation in 1917," Historical Journal, 34(March 1991), pp. 65–86. 15. Jane T. Degras, ed., Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, Volume 1 (London, 1951), pp. 1–3. 16. Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister to the Chancellor, 10 November 1917, in Z.A.B. Zeman, ed., Germany and the Revolution in Russia, 1915–1918: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry (London, 1958), pp. 76–77. 17. United States Government Printing Office, Proceedings of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference: The Peace Negotiations between Russia and the Central Powers 21 November, 1917–3 March, 1918 (Washington, 1918), pp. 8–11. 18. For example, see John W. Wheeler-Bennett, The Forgotten Peace: Brest-Litovsk, March 1918 (New York, 1939); Sydney D. Bailey, "Brest-Litovsk: A Study in Soviet Diplomacy," History Today, 6(1956), pp. 511–21; Stephan M. Horak, The First Treaty of World War I: Ukraine's Treaty with the Central Powers of February 9, 1918 (Boulder, Co, 1988); Clifford F. Wargelin, "A High Price for Bread: The First Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the Break-up of Austria-Hungary, 1917–1918," International History Review, 19(1997), pp. 757–88; Werner Hahlweg, Der Diktatfrieden von Brest-Litowsk 1918 und die bolschewistische Weltrevolution (Münster, 1960); Wolfdieter Bihl, Österreich-Ungarn und die Friedensschlüsse von Brest-Litovsk (Vienna, 1970); Yu. Felshinskii, Krushenie mirovoi revoliucii. Brestskii mir. Oktiabr' 1917–noiabr' 1918 (Moscow, 1992); Irina V. Mikhutina, Ukrainskii Brestskii Mir: Put' vykhoda Rossii iz Pervoi mirovoi voiny i anatomiia konflikta mezhdu Sovnarkomom RSFSR i pravitel'stvom Ukrainskoi Central'noi Rady (Moscow, 2007); Pavel V. Makarenko, "Bolsheviki i Brestskii mir," Voprosy Istorii, 3 (2010), pp. 3–21. 19. David Stevenson, Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy (New York, 2004), pp. 311–24. 20. One notable exception is Winfried Baumgart, "Brest-Litowsk und Versailles. Ein Vergleich zweier Friedensschlüsse," Historische Zeitschrift, 210(1970), pp. 583–619. 21. Mayer, Political Origins, pp. 293–312; Alfred Cobban, National Self-Determination (New York, 1945). 22. At the insistence of the Bolsheviks, proceedings were open. The Soviet and the German delegations—the latter on behalf of the Quadruple Alliance—released transcripts of the minutes from each session. Consequently, the leading statesmen in London, Paris, and Washington paid close attention to the course of negotiations, as did the world press. 23. This amorphous entity had a prime minister, a regency council—pending the election of a king—and a German issued currency, but no defined borders and no independent administrative structure—most of the former Congress Poland was under the administration of the German Government General Warsaw in the north and the Austrian Military–Government Lublin in the south. The Central Powers refused to accept a Polish delegation of Brest-Litovsk on account of the Kingdom of Poland not being a fully sovereign state. See Jesse Curtis Kaufmann, "Sovereignty and the Search for Order in German-occupied Poland, 1915–1918" (PhD dissertation, Stanford University, 2008); Zdzisław Winnicki, Rada Regencyjna Królestwa Polskiego i jej organy, 1917–1918. (Wrocław, 1991). 24. See Clifford F. Wargelin, "The Austro–Polish Solution: Diplomacy, Politics, and State Building in Wartime Austria-Hungary 1914–1918," East European Quarterly, 42(2008), pp. 253–73. 25. The idea was first enunciated in Friedrich Naumann, Mitteleuropa (Berlin, 1915). 26. See Vejas G. Liulevicius, War Land on the Eastern Front: Culture, National Identity and German Occupation in World War I (Cambridge, 2000), esp. 54–151. 27. Proceedings of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference, pp. 36–39. Quotation on p. 39. 28. Ibid., pp. 39–43; Ottokar Czernin, In the World War (New York, 1920), pp. 225–225; Wheeler-Bennett, Forgotten Peace, pp. 118–122. 29. The publication of the three main treaties—the Treaty of London, the inter-Allied conference of 1915 that promised Russia Constantinople and the Straits, and the Sykes-Picot Agreement—was one of Trotsky's first actions as a People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs. This caused considerable embarrassment in Allied capitals. 30. Quoted in Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York, 1992), p. 143; David Lloyd George, Memoirs of the Peace Conference, Volume 2 (New York, 1972), p. 497. 31. Manela, Wilsonian Moment, pp. 38–42; Mayer, Political Origin, pp. 313–67. 32. Leon Trotsky, My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography (New York, 1970), pp. 352–57, 386–90; Richard K. Debo, Revolution and Survival: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1917–18 (Toronto, 1979), pp. 11–20. Trotsky's belief in the imminence of revolution in Central Europe seemed vindicated when strikes broke out in Vienna in January 1918, quickly spreading to the most important industrial regions of the Austrian half of the Habsburg Empire and from there to Germany. To make matters worse, the food and coal situation in Cisleithania was desperate, and conditions appeared worryingly similar to those in Russia exactly a year earlier. There was also an abortive mutiny in the Austro-Hungarian fleet stationed in the Gulf of Kotor at the beginning of February. 33. Cobban, National Self-Determination, p. 12. 34. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 2nd edition (New York, 1995), pp. 27–28. Emphasis added. 35. Liulevicius, War Land on the Eastern Front, pp. 199–208. 36. Proceedings of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference, p. 67. 37. Ibid. Emphasis added. 38. Ibid., pp. 68–82. 39. R.A. Wade, ed., Documents of Soviet Foreign Policy: The Triumph of Bolshevism, 1917–1919, Volume 1 (Gulf Breeze, FL, 1991), pp. 38–40. 40. Mikhutina argues that the "mistaken" foreign policy priorities of the Ukrainian Rada "practice proved wrong" [ikh oproverzhenie na praktike] a significantly weakened the bargaining position of both the Soviet and the Ukrainian delegations whilst playing into the hands of the Central Powers, who were able to divide et impera. The implicit argument is that Ukraine and Soviet Russia should have formed a united front instead. However, Mikhutina does not propose any practical way in which Kiev and Petrograd could have reconciled their significant socio-political differences. See Mikhutina, Ukrainskii Brestskii Mir, Introduction, and pp. 75–100 for her analysis of the reasons behind the outbreak of hostilities between the two sides. 41. Czernin, World War, p. 320; Richard von Kühlmann, Erinnerungen (Heidelberg, 1948), pp. 531–32. 42. Trotsky, My Life, p. 376. 43. Proceedings of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference, p. 59. 44. The appeal appears in full in Ukrainian in Volodymyr Vynnychenko, Vidrozhdennia natsii, Volume 2 (Kiev, 1920), pp. 292–93. The title of the appeal is also deeply symbolic. It is not an appeal to the German Kaiser, Chancellor, or even Reichstag, but from one sovereign nation to another. The phrasing emphasises the legal equality between the two nations and, hence, strengthens the case for Ukrainian self-determination. 45. Proceedings of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference, pp. 122–25. 46. Vynnychenko, Vidrozhdennia natsii, Volume 2, pp. 284–85. 47. For the full text of the treaty, see Texts of the Ukrainian "Peace": With Maps (Washington, 1918). 48. Proceedings of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Conference, pp. 171–72. 49. For the full text of the treaty, see Texts of the Russian "Peace": With Maps (Washington, 1918). 50. John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (New York, 1920). 51. For an excellent overview of the historiography of the peace conference and an analysis of the main themes, see Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman, and Elisabeth Gläser, eds., The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment After 75 Years (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 1–21. 52. This view was enunciated best in Arno J. Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking: Containment and Counterrevolution at Versailles, 1918–1919 (New York, 1969). 53. Cobban, National Self-Determination, p. 16. 54. To highlight the substantial difficulties that the peacemakers faced, it should be noted that debates over the exact meaning of "self-determination" continue to this day. See Anna Moltchanova, National Self-Determination and Justice in Multinational States (Dordrecht, 2009). 55. Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (New York, 2002), pp. 279–306. 56. According to Lloyd George, Clemenceau allegedly stated "that he did not believe in the principle of self-determination, which allowed a man to clutch at your throat the first time it was convenient to him, and he would not consent to any limitation of time being placed upon the enforced separation of the Rhenish Republic from the rest of Germany." Quoted in Cobban, National Self-Determination, p. 18. 57. Lloyd George, Memoirs of the Peace Conference, Volume 2, p. 595. 58. Robert Lansing, The Peace Negotiations: A Personal Narrative (Boston, 1921), pp. 97–98. 59. See Weitz, "From the Vienna to the Paris System." 60. Quoted in MacMillan, Paris 1919, p. 222. 61. Ibid., pp. 63–83; Mayer, Politics and Diplomacy of Peacemaking, pp. 286–87, 306–09. 62. Piotr S. Wandycz, "Poland's Place in Europe in the Concepts of Pilsudski and Dmowski." East European Politics & Societies, 4(1990): pp. 457–58; Piotr S. Wandycz, "The Polish Question," in Boemeke et al., Treaty of Versailles, pp. 322–29; see also Andrzej Walicki, "The Troubling Legacy of Roman Dmowski," East European Politics & Societies, 14(2000), pp. 12–46; Aviel Roshwald, Ethnic Nationalism and the Fall of Empires: Central Europe, Russia, and the Middle East, 1914–1923 (London, 2001), esp. 36–42, 157–71. 63. MacMillan, Paris 1919, p. 216. 64. Arthur S. Link, ed., The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 56 (Princeton, NJ, 1987), p. 92. 65. Wandycz, "Polish Question," pp. 330–31. "He [Wilson] acknowledged that the inclusion of two million Germans in Poland was a violation of one principle, but Germany had been notified that free and safe access to the sea for Poland would be insisted upon." Hankey's Notes of a Meeting of the Council of Ten. 19 March 1919, in Link, Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Volume 56, p. 93. 66. The original poem was written by the American poet William Hughes Mearns. 67. Quoted in MacMillan, Paris 1919, p. 226. 68. Link, Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Volume 56, pp. 96–97. Wilson's willingness to refer the matter to Lansing, whom he disliked and whose advice he seldom took on issues he deemed really important, is in itself indicative of his evaluation of Ukrainian self-determination. 69. Ibid., pp. 126–27.