Self-determination: the creation of new states

Just as significant as Wilson's insistence on an international collective security body was his commitment to the principle of 'national self-determination'. Wilson was an opponent of imperialism, and believed passionately in the right of distinct national groups to govern themselves by being accorded sovereignty over their own territory. To each nation a state: this was Wilson's ideal. How­ever, in practice, the nationalities of those parts of Europe where empires had recently crumbled— especially the Balkans, and Central and Eastern Europe—were not neatly parcelled into distinct territorial areas. The peacemakers therefore faced a difficult task of drawing the boundaries of the new states of Europe, some of which had never existed before. Often the boundaries reflected uneasy com­promises: for example, Czechoslovakia, a state for the first time in 1919, was composed of so many national groups that Mussolini scornfully referred to it as 'Czecho-Germano-Polono-Magyaio-Rutheno-Romano- Slovakia'.

Box 3.4. Wilson's 'Fourteen Points': a summary

1. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at; international diplomacy to be carried on publicly.

2. Absolute freedom of navigation on the seas.

3. The removal, as far as possible, of all economic barriers.

4. Disarmament undertaken, and guaranteed, by states to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety

5. A free, open-minded, and impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based on the principle that the interests of the population concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and settle­ment of questions affecting Russia.

7. Belgium must be evacuated and restored.

8. French territory to be evacuated and restored, and Alsace-Lorraine to be returned to French rule.

9. Italian frontiers to be adjusted along clearly rec­ognizable lines of nationality.

10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary to be given the opportunity for autonomous development.

11. Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro to be evacu­ated; Serbia to be given access to the sea; and international guarantees of the independence and territorial Integrity of the Balkan states to be made.

12. The Turkish portions of the Ottoman empire to be assured a secure sovereignty; other nationalities to be allowed to develop autonomously; the Dar­danelles to be permanently open to shipping.

13. An independent Polish state to be established, with free and secure access to the sea.

14. A general association of nations to be formed to afford mutual guarantees of political independ­ence and territorial integrity to all states.

Wilson's insistence on self-determination, given messy human realities, generated as many contradic­tions as it solved: sixty million people being awarded a state of their own while another twenty-five mil­lion were transformed into minorities within these imperfect nation-states. Not surprisingly, the new states in Southern, Eastern, and Central Europe-Hungary, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Czechoslo­vakia, Poland—suffered serious problems. They had to contend not only with ethnic cleavages but also with weak economies and fledgling political institu­tions. Why, given the problems of boundary-drawing, and the weakness of the resulting states (leaving Germany surrounded by relatively defence­less neighbours), did the peacemakers demur to Wilson's insistence on self-determination? The answer lies in the West European powers' preoccupa­tion with a new threat. At Versailles, the peace­makers certainly feared a possible future resurgence of Germany. Perhaps equally vividly, however, they were haunted by the spectre of Bolshevism spread­ing from Lenin's newly created Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) into Western Europe. Lenin, after all, explicitly stated that the Soviet revo­lution was but the start of a world revolution—an historical inevitability which the Moscow-led Communist International (Comintern) was dedi­cated to hastening. Moreover, the war seemed to have provided the ideal breeding ground for com­munist parties in Western Europe, which the Soviets could infiltrate and use as vehicles of world revolution.

Fear of Bolshevism thus explains British and French politicians' enthusiasm for self-deter­mination. After all, these new states were virtually bound to be anti-Soviet since they were largely cre­ated from land formerly belonging to Russia: Fin­land, the Baltic Republics, Poland, and Rumania. They were the ideal 'quarantine belt' for the USSR. But they did not address the threat which Germany posed to European security: thus the interwar era saw another period of alliance-building and treaty-signing, as France and Britain (and Italy, after 1925) extended guarantees to various Eastern and Central European states, promising action if their boundaries were violated by an aggressor.