“The Restless History of an Unstable World”: the 100th Anniversary of the Versailles Peace Treaty

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the Versailles system of international relations. The author emphasizes the fact that it was the product of the first total war in the history of mankind, and as such had a number of characteristics that strikingly distinguished it from the models that had existed in the past. The goal of its founders was to establish a lasting peace in a situation where the course and consequences of the world war preconditioned the use of particularly harsh sanctions against the vanquished party. In addition, the war linked the problems of the post­war settlement and the internal political agenda of the warring countries, marked by the “uprising of the masses”. All this created a special background for the work of the Paris Peace Conference. The leaders of France and Great Britain acted, in many respects, under the influence of these factors, which limited their field for maneuver. It turned out to be impossible to fully implement the project of a democratic world proposed by US President W. Wilson. These contradictions were most clearly manifested during the discussion on the Russian question. As a result, the emerging system of international relations was marked by a number of structural contradictions, which made its disintegration inevitable. According to the author, modern world politics is facing similar challenges.