Izvorni znanstveni članak
Summary
Dragovan Šepić
Sažetak
The author examines the influence of the Soviet peace programme during the negotiations at Brest-Bitovsk on the development of the South Slav question in Austria-Hungary and more particularly on the policy of the Yugoslav Club in the Viena Parliament. He first describes the attitude of the Club and the development of the South Slav question from the May Declaration (May 30, 1917) up to the October Revolution. He points out that there was, in the Club, a clash of the conceptions on the solution of the South Slav question: on the one hand a solution within the framework of the Monarchy with a Croato-Slovene leadership and on the other the conception of the unification around Serbia. The first was based on the assumption that a compromise peace with Austria-Hungary was to be expected which was by no means impossible; the second was based on the faith in the victory of the Entente and the liquidation of the Habsburg Monarchy, which then did not seem likely. The Club based its policy on the first assumption, and asked for the unification of the Slovenes Croats and Serbs of the Monarchy within a state under the Habsburg Dinasty. However, the Club did not denounce the second tendency, which gained momentum after the news of the signature of the Corfu Pact arrived. At first, the Club was prepared to co-operate with the Government of von Seidler, but when it realised that the Government did not intend to interfere with the dualist set-up and proceed further than autonomies for various nationalities, it entered into opposition. It started an action for assembling all Yugoslav parties around its programme. However it did not succeed because in Croatia the Croato-Serb Coalition, with a majority in the Croat Diet and the Government of Croatia-Slavonia in its hands adopted a reserved attitude. Among Croatian political parties only Starčević’s party of right (Milinovci) declared to be in favour of the May Declaration because in the view of the Declaration’s allusion to Croat State Law it considered it to be the fulfilment of the Croat national programme. The oppositional campaign was waged by the Club under the slogan of the loyalty to the Dinasty; however under this cover — albeit against the will of the initiators — there were spread also anti-Austrian ideas about the necessity of a complete national independence. In spite of very intense opposition of the Czech, Ukrainian and Yugoslav parties, the Government did not give in. It felt strong because it had the support of the Polish parties to whom it promised a Polish state. After the resounding victory of Caporetto at the end of October, 1917, the Government hoped that the opposition of the Yugoslav Club would abate. And indeed some hesitation made itself felt in Slovenia and within the Club there appeared doubts as to the tactics used in the struggle with the Government.
It was at this moment that the October Revolution took place in Russia. The Yugoslav club had no sympathy for its social ideas; however with its insistence on the complete self-determination of peoples the Revolution placed into its hands means to give new impulse to the solution of the South Slav question and to exert a pressure, in common with the Czech and Ukrainian Clubs, on the Government with a view to the solution of all the national questions in Austria-Hungary. The Yugoslav Club asked that the Government should recognise to its peoples the right to self-determination it had accepted as a basis for its negotiations with the Soviets. Although the Club maintained that it did not go further than the May declaration, under the influence of the Soviet peace programme ideas about a more complete solution of the national question spread in the popular masses, and in the Club. In the Slovene populist party (clerical), which was the strongest party represented in the Club, there came to a clash between the »older« and the »younger« members. The President of the party, Šušteršič, resigned and even created a new party while the Party Congress condemned his view-point that the May Declaration was a
maximum programme. The movement in favour of the May Declaration grew ever more radical and was joined by the broad movement for peace which had a tremendous appeal upon the masses. This had an influence on the Slovenian workers’ movement, where the younger members started an opposition against the leadership, because it refused to co-operate with the bourgeois parties in the struggle for a national state. However the social-democrat parties in Croatia-Slavonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were in favour of co-operation with bourgeois parties with a view to achieving complete national independence. At that time there occured changes also within the bourgeois parties in Croatia. Although the Croato-Serb coalition did not, as a whole, change its attitude, two of its members (Budisavljević and V. Pribičević) resigned their membership and started propaganda in the spirit of Yugoslav national unity. The Yugoslav idea penetrated even into the ranks of Starčević’s Party of Right, which until then stood on the platform of the Croatian State Law. Against Yugoslav tendencies was the Croat »Pure Party of Right« (frankovci), helped by Radio’s peasant Party and by Stadler, the Archbishop of Sarajevo.
Before the beginning of the peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk at the end of 1917, the Yugoslav, Czech and Ukrainian Clubs asked that all the nationalities of the Monarchy should be represented at the negotiations in proportion to their numerical strength, which of course the Government refused. When the negotiations started the Soviet delegates brought forward a broad programme of peace, proposing among other things that nationalities which did not enjoy independence should decide about their fate by plebiscites. In their note to the Allies, dated December, 30, 1917, inviting them to join the peace negotiations, the Soviets postulated as basis for negotiations the right of self-determination to all nations specifically mentioning the Czechs and the South Slavs. That note has been published neither by the Entente nor by the Central Powers. Great publicity was given however to the Wilson’s 14 points, which among other things foreshadowed an autonomous development for the nationalities of Austria-Hungary. This brought some confusion into the ranks of the Yugoslav parties and gave new support to those who did not believe in the possibility of solving the South Slav question outside the Monarchy. But at that time there occured strikes in many industrial centers in Austria-Hungary causing an
internal crisis which gave impetus to anti-Austrian feelings and to the tendencies advocating the solution of the Yugoslav question outside the Monarchy. Radić parted ways with the Pure Party of Right and declared in favour of a Yugoslav programme. The Serb Radicals also declared in favour of Yugoslav unification. Other opposition parties, of course excluding the Pure Party of Right, were in favour of a common programme going beyond the May Declaration, but the Coalition could not be persuaded to abandon its policy of wait and see. Under the influence of this developments and considering that the Government proved unwilling to tackle the Yugoslav question, the Yugoslav Club decided to bring it forward before an international forum and on the January 31, 1918 sent to the Delegations in Brest-Litovsk a memorandum asking for self-determination of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs of the Monarchy and for an independent state. It also asked for the representatives of the Southern Slavs to take part in negotiations about complete self-determination with garanties.
The Yugoslav Club never went so far in its claims, it exerted a pressure on the Government which, having mastered the internal crisis, was inwilling to give in, especially after it had succeeded in liquidating the mutiny of the sailors at Boka Kotorska (February, 1—3, 1918) and of concluding a peace with Ukraine. Soon afterwards the Russian front desintegrated and civil war began in Russia. The Yugoslav bourgeois parties interpreted this as a sign of the impending bankruptcy of Bolshevism. They wellcomed all the more readily the conditions of peace put forward by Wilson on Fevruary 11, which seemed to justify the hope that America would favour the solution of the nationality question in Austria-Hungary in the spirit of popular desires. The Club asked that the Government should accept Wilson’s conditions.
At that time the Yugoslav parties looked upon the South Slav question as an international one. The majority of the Yugoslav parties, excluding the Coalition, negotiated in Zagreb with a view to a concentration and elaboration of a common programme. This work was achieved successfully on March 3, 1918, and the draft-programme included the unification of all Yugoslav teritories irrespective of existing frontiers, and the participation of Yugoslav representatives at the Peace Conference. The press-communiqué stresses the principle of the national unity of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and asks for an independent state on the basis of the principle of the self-determination.
The policy of the Yugoslav Club evolved quite considerably since the first programme. True enough, it continued to adhere formally to the May Declaration, but the latter’s significance was now rated differently and under its cover a policy was conducted which in fact went beyond its framework.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
327458
URI
Datum izdavanja:
1.7.1960.
Posjeta: 477 *