The Results and Significance of the Kaunas Conference

The conference of three neighbouring Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which ended on 22 May, is a very important fact in the series of those that, one after another, are leading Europe toward some more or less lasting reality.

Long postponed and "cleverly" forestalled by a conference of the same Baltic states in Warsaw, the Kaunas Conference lost nothing, either from its postponement or from the "creeping pace" of the Warsaw chess players. Quite the contrary: both circumstances only served the understanding among the three Baltic states, and the results of their conference proved even far more significant than could have been guessed beforehand.

The postponement of the conference benefited Lithuania, because it received its guests after its famous victory in the Klaipėda question. As for the Warsaw Conference, it only revealed fully the complete opposition between the political interests of Poland, on the one hand, and the rest of the Baltic states, on the other, and the economic "indifference" of Latvia and Estonia toward Poland.

No wonder, then, that the Kaunas Conference turned into a genuine festival of Lithuanian foreign policy, which Poland can only envy. As is their custom, the "ostriches" of the official Polish Telegraphic Agency announced to the whole world that the Kaunas Conference had produced no concrete results. But the resolutions of this conference, which have just been published, give quite clear data for judging what the conference in Kaunas truly and really achieved.

In the economic field, the understanding among the three Baltic states means, as the more intelligent part of the Polish press, "Kur. Polski", asserts, "the complete economic union of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, simply a 'customs union'", which is equivalent to the abolition of all restrictions on relations and exchange within the common borders of this united territory.

The importance of this economic unity can be seen from the fact that in our times politics rests almost exclusively on economics. One may recall from earlier times that the unification of Germany began with that same Zollverein.

But the Kaunas resolutions already quite clearly outline the boundaries of a political union of all three neighbouring and kindred lands as well.

The resolutions speak of joint action in the conduct of foreign policy, of adapting the mutual action of the Baltic states in the League of Nations and other international institutions, of mutual assistance in activity abroad generally, and so on. What this means for Lithuania's enemy, Poland, everyone will understand… Lithuania obtained from Latvia and Estonia precisely what Poland sought from them in vain.

The mood that prevailed at the conference, and the "concrete" content with which, under suitable conditions, the broad and capacious formulas of "joint activity abroad" generally may be filled, is clear from this alone: the Latvian and Estonian representatives, who had just arrived in Kaunas from Warsaw, listened at the conference even to an extensive Lithuanian Memorandum in which the Lithuanian-Polish dispute was set out quite plainly, and with it the matter of "the Lithuanian capital Vilnia"…

So as not to overstretch the string at once, the Lithuanian delegation did not seek any concrete resolution from the conference on this matter, but asked only for "neutral justice in the Polish-Lithuanian conflict"…

"Kur. Polski" says quite rightly that for Poland this Kaunas Conference is "something greater than an episode (a minor occurrence), for it is a genuine upheaval"…

One may add only that this reality, now revealed, is an upheaval only in comparison with what the "great" Polish politicians once dreamed of, though quite without grounds. We remember the truly majestic plans of Poland, which, like a great giant, was to stand "on guard over Europe", having as the extension of its northern wing an obedient "Baltic Entente", and as the extension of its southern wing the "Little Entente". But these wishes of theirs proved the work of romantic, maniacal fantasy: of the "southern wing" of the mighty giant only one "great Romania" has long remained, which itself stands none too firmly on its feet; and now the northern wing too has finally fallen off.

Of the truly "colossal" idea that the wisdom of Messrs. Sapieha, Skirmunt and Zamoyski should direct the policy of 8 adult, independent states, which in a vast belt, from the Baltic Sea to the Black and the Adriatic, occupy more than half of Central Europe, there remains, as we see, very little, perhaps even in Polish heads themselves…

Perhaps from all this one should draw some more general conclusion, speaking not only of the real worth and the inevitable fate in history of such "wisdom", which has suddenly taken possession of the Polish "successors" of Napoleon and Wilhelm. But it is no less worthwhile to point out the complete absence of any important content, truly needed by humanity, in the romantic conception of the great Polish bird, resting both wings on the northern and southern seas, "separating" the West of Europe from the East, standing "on guard of civilization", defending it as a "wall", and so on. We know how fond the Polish Godfreys and Rolands are of repeating these grand phrases… But it is time to understand their absolute emptiness and absurdity. It is time to understand that the very expression of defending civilization by some "wall" contains an inner contradiction: civilization can only be extended, spread… And if the "mission of Poland" truly lies in "defending the West from the East", one may say that precisely this "mission" is the most dangerous for Poland itself.

Poland sets itself the aim, and consciously or unconsciously strives, to divide everyone and everything, to create "walls" and "barriers" everywhere, to provoke quarrels and hatreds, even where there were none before the war. Meanwhile the general course, the whole progress of history, goes in a completely opposite direction, for it strives to break down all walls, all barriers, to create for civilization broad and smooth roads, open on all sides… So even in Poland it must now be understood that in world cooperation only those states will succeed which, working in this direction of historical progress, make themselves truly needed in this common economy…