The Peacemaker Woodrow Wilson and the Hungarian Soviet Republic

Abstract

Abstract The rise of the Hungarian Soviet Republic shocked the peacemakers at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, as it signaled the spread of Bolshevism from Soviet Russia to the West. They feared that the dreaded ideology could inspire a revolution in Germany. For this reason, some of the peace conferees favored military intervention and the overthrow of the Hungarian government. President Wilson, the most influential leader in Paris, was against intervention and called for caution. He was concerned that the US forces would get into a never-ending quagmire in Hungary. Drawing lessons from the Thermidorian turn of revolutions, he counted on the eventual collapse of the radical Bolshevik experiment in Hungary. For this reason, he also objected to the aggressive acts of the so-called small allies, Romania and Czecho-Slovakia, on Hungarian soil. He blamed them for the rise and survival of the Soviet regime, as their aggression generated nationalist resistance in Hungary. Wilson’s eventual solution to the Hungarian problem was the speedy completion of the peace treaty. For its sake he abandoned his much-touted principle of self-determination and was willing to disregard any part of his Fourteen Points.