Eastern Europe in the InterWar Period: The Failure of Democracy

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Eastern Europe in the Inter-War Period The
Failure of Democracy
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Aims to understand the development of inter-war
Eastern Europe

• Aims of the Peace Settlement Democratic Nation
  State
• Terms of the Peace Settlement
• How did Liberal Democracy Fail?
• Why did Liberal Democracy Fail?
• The Czechoslovak Exception

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Aims of the Peace Settlement

• Independent democratic states based on national
  self-determination
• not achievable
• too many mixed areas
• too many small groups
• So combined peoples in
• Czechoslovakia
• Yugoslavia
• Left many on wrong side of borders
• To be safeguarded by minority protection treaties

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But national self-determination was not the only
aim

• Over-riding security aims
• Cordon sanitaire between dangerous Russia
  (revolutionary) and Germany (defeated)
• Economic considerations
• Trade and transport links
• Geographical factors mountains, rivers etc.

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The Paris Peace Treaties 1919-20

• Versailles (Germany)
• St. Germain (Austria)
• Trianon (Hungary)
• Neuilly (Bulgaria)
• Sevres (Ottomans)

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The Terms

• Losers lost most
• Hungary most of all
• 1/3 of territory
• 2/5 of pre-war population
• 2/3 of Magyar population

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Hungarys Losses
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The Terms

• Losers lost most
• Hungary most of all
• 1/3 of territory
• 2/5 of pre-war population
• 2/3 of Magyar population
• Bulgaria territory to Greece and Romania
• Germany territory to Poland separation of East
  Prussia

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Results

• Restored states
• Poland
• Hungary
• New States
• Czechoslovakia
• Yugoslavia
• Austria
• Latvia
• Estonia
• Lithuania
• Enlarged states
• Romania ( Greece)

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Problems/Tensions

• Austria/Germany
• Czechoslovakia Claims by Germany, Hungary,
  Poland Slovak demands for independence
• Yugoslavia Conflict between Serbs/Croats
• Poland German Soviet claims (after 1921)
• Romania Soviet claims
• ...

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Romania was biggest winner

• Changed sides in war
• Kept territory gained from Russia
• Got most from Hungary

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Romania Old and New
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Poland gains and losses

• Independent in 1918, eastern border not fixed at
  Paris
• Gained corridor for access to sea
• Gained many minorities
• plebiscite in Upper Silesia (Germany) ?
  uprisings, partition, minority protection
• UK suggested Curzon Line in 1920 (old
  Prussian-Russian border)
• eastern boundary resolved in Polish-Soviet War
  (1919-21)

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Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth 1569-1795
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Partitions in the 18th century
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Poland in 1919
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Polish Expansion in 1920
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Poland after 1921
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Poland Ethnic Groups in 1931
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Poland gains and losses

• gained corridor for access to sea
• gained many minorities
• plebiscite in Upper Silesia
• eastern boundary resolved in Polish-Soviet War
  (1919-21)
• 1/3 of population was non-Polish
• Germans changed imperial dominance for minority
  subordination
• Lithuanians unhappy with loss of Vilnius
• Many Ukrainians wanted independence

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Yugoslavia most complex

• Previously independent states of Serbia
  Montenegro
• Bosnia-Hercegovina from Austria
• Slovenia from Austria/Italy
• Croatia Vojvodina from Hungary
• Macedonia fought over by Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece
• Kosovo from Ottomans via Serbia
• Seized 1912-13
• Clashes between Ethnicities/Nations
• During World War II
• From the 1980s on

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Short-term Chaos in Hungary

• Communist revolution
• 133 days from March 1919
• Reoccupied much of Slovakia
• French helped defeat revolution
• Bloody aftermath of counter-revolution
• Former Vice Admiral Horthy Regent from 1920-44
• But Right could not resist Trianon
• Every neighbour had Hungarian minorities

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Liberal Democracy

• new democratic Constitutions
• universal franchise (except Hungary)
• reasonably free elections (for a time)
• Most were parliamentary systems

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Preconditions for Liberal Democracy

• Politics Who gets what, when, where, and how?
• (Liberal) Democracy Take turns, cant get what
  you want most of the time
• Problems if ...
• Conflicts not cross-cutting
• Conflicts non-negotiable (Identity, Religion)
• Huge and durable differences in resources
• Liberal democracy works best if everyone is
  middle class

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Problems faced Economic

• Economically devastated by war
• Poor, agrarian, backward societies
• Trade and transport links disrupted
• devastating impact of Great Depression

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Political Problems

• No experience of democracy
• Small educated stratum
• No fit institutions widespread corruption
• Proportional electoral systems led to fragmented
  parliaments
• Acute minority problems

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International

• Revisionism mutual territorial claims against
  neighbours
• did not share single common enemy
• Western Europe reluctant to help
• but Germany willing (Bulgaria, Hungary)

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The Emergence of Authoritarian Regimes

• by military coup
• Bulgaria (1923) (1934) Poland (1926), Lithuania
  (1926)
• by royal or executive coup
• kings in Yugoslavia (1929), Bulgaria (1935),
  Romania (1938)
• presidents in Latvia Estonia (1934)
• Hungary never democratic
• White reaction to red revolution in Hungary
• Regency under Horthy strong fascist element from
  1932

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Character

• Strong central power
• limitations on civil liberties
• banning of many parties trades unions
• Rigged elections
• collaboration with fascist (German, Italian)
  movements (Romania Hungary)

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Why did liberal democracy fail?

• Objective difficulties of state-building
• Could not deliver the goods
• Great Depression devastating
• Ethnic tensions
• Problems of government formation
• Violence and terrorism
• Weak liberalism competing ideologies (including
  fascism)
• Lack of external support

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the Czechoslovak exception Strengths

• The richest
• strong bourgeoisie
• no aristocracy since 1620
• education and literacy
• greater political experience
• competent bureaucracy from Habsburgs
• developed workable coalitions

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Weakness

• Multi-ethnic composition

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Ethnic Tensions

• Germans from dominance to minority
• but did well to end of 1920s
• signs of political accommodation
• Great Depression hit Germans worst of all
• gains for Nazis and Communists
• Slovak demands for federalism

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Strains but not collapse

• Multi-ethnic composition
• but democracy survived
• defeated from outside by Germany
• but help from German Nazis within

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Conclusion

• Peace Settlement had unrealistic aims
• It laid foundations for revisionism
• Most conditions for democracy were absent