The exercise of What If is not simply diversionary amusement for historians, a parlour game to be belittled. Looking at past events with the ability to realize how events might have turned out differently had one significant event not taken place can provide a greater understanding and appreciation for what actually did occur. As Sir Lewis Namier has written, "The enduring achievement of historical study is an historical sense - an intuitive understanding - of how things do not happen."
We would do well to engage here for a bit of counterfactual speculation, which is the highbrow term used by serious historians playing What If. Consider this week's marking of the 85th anniversary of the Tartu Peace Treaty, along with the present confusion and pressure surrounding the signing of a long overdue binding border treaty between Russia and Estonia.
Historian Andrew Roberts enjoys putting his considerable skills to playful yet serious use. Roberts has a wonderful sense of humour balancing his prize-winning historical writing skills. As editor and contributor to the provocative 2004 book "What Might Have Been: Imaginary History From Twelve Leading Historians" Roberts presents a number of thought provoking and scholarly essays which posit a fascinating and often horrifying parallel universe.
An individual is quick to grasp the fact that there truly is no Destiny, Fate, or any kind or preordained direction to human existence. All of us can point back at some life-altering decision that at the time seemed perhaps due to pure chance. Catching the eye of a fetching beauty across a crowded room of strangers, not knowing that the encounter would lead to a life-long union of love and support is a poetic possibility. However, grimmer scenarios are much more likely. Consider Estonians, who like to debate what should have been done in the 1930's when faced with Soviet pressure to allow Red Army bases on our sovereign soil. Fodder for much more than What If Päts Had Said No.
Marxists and Whigs, of course, are the ones most likely to argue that there is no room for accident or serendipity in history. E.H. Carr, whom time has revealed as an unabashed apologist for Leninism denounces in his very influential “What is History?” counterfactual history as “idle parlour-games". No wonder, for Marxism is built on pre-determined dialectical materialism, which dictate human action. No games, there. As Roberts points out in his splendid introduction to the work, Marxism was a strongly purposeful ideology which condemned the appraisal of alternatives - and in fact peddled the most ludicrous of all imaginary futures, one in which the state "was going to wither away globally leaving a dictatorship of the very class of people least qualified to exercise power."
The essays in this compilation range from What If Great Britain won the American War of Independence to David Frum's scenario that is the more thought provoking the day after the State of the Union address, What If 102 Chads Fell off in Florida?
However, the two most interesting counterfactual historical excursions are Roberts' own journey into the aftemath of Lenin being assassinated at Finland Station ( Kerensky would then have succeeded Lvov and led Russia to become a liberal-democratic state that allied with the West against Hitler in 1938), and Simon Sebag Montefiore pondering what if Stalin fled Moscow in 1941 - a very real consideration at the time, as Guderian's Panzers were not far from the Kremlin’s gates. Montefiore, the author of a fascinating serious biography of Stalin sees Molotov take over from Stalin, the Georgian executed, but no real change in the direction of the Soviet regime.
One wonders what counterfactual scenario Estonian historians would imagine, had the Tartu Peace Treaty not been signed on February 2nd, 1920. Without that Treaty an independent Estonia might not exist today - and we are to be thankful for the far-seeing Estonian diplomats of the time. Jaan Poska, the head of the Estonian delegation at Tartu explained at the time, that it was "the most important day for Estonia during its 700 year-history" - the first time that “Estonia determine[s] its own fate."
Arnold Rüütel spoke at the ceremonies on Wednesday that marked the 85th anniversary of the Tartu Peace Treaty, noting that by contracting for peace Estonia was given a possibility to be recognized by the international community of states. Peace also enabled Estonia to proceed apace with nation building that further substantiated an independent Republic. Thankfully the west was at the time trying, at any cost, to maintain a common antibolshevik front. Yet for Estonia the Tartu negotiations were fraught with tension and difficulties - as seems always to be the case with Russia. Estonia's greatest diplomatic achievement to date, the birth certificate of independent statehood, must be seen not only as the young Estonian state's accomplishment during a complicated international situation but as a willingness to find solutions and standing for the interests of one's country.
PM Juhan Parts said the same on Wednesday, emphasizing the importance of a new border treaty with Russia as an open confirmation of Estonia's right to rule, seeing any treaty as formal acknowledgment of legal state power within a geographically mapped area, where the people exercise their sovereign power.
Rüütel also delivered a key address on Thursday at a representative international history conference "Border Changes in 20th Century Europe" that discussed, among other issues, historical memory changes. Rüütel stressed that the Tartu Peace Treaty had been violated with the MRP conspiracy of August 23 1939 - and that any new treaty between Estonia and Russia should be seen not only in the context of the relations between the two countries, but, more importantly, not underestimated in its "significance for the entire world."
Historian Niall Ferguson has already warned the world about Putin's authoritarian bent and the dangers of a new Weimar Russia. Roberts' What Ifs, while arguably merely fascinating intellectual exercises, do much the same. History’s lessons keep guiding delicate diplomatic decisions, the achievements and results of today will influence what might happen tomorrow.
Leader: The Tartu Peace Treaty, and What If?
Archived Articles | 04 Feb 2005 | EWR
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