Research On The "Federal Union" Movement (1938-1940)

On the eve of the "Munich Conference", as the international situation became tenser, three young British Derek Rawnsley, Charles Kimber and Patrick Ransome first acted and initiated the "Federal Union" Movement. They attempted to influence the government's policy-making, to organize International Federation, to save the fate of the free world, and to eliminate the danger of war once and for all. With the further deterioration of the situation and the outbreak of the war, the "Federal Union" Movement grew quickly and became a real mass movement with broad social base. By the spring of 1940, the unique idea and rapid growth of the "Federal Union" Movement had attracted the British government policy-making departments' attention. On the base of the "Federal Union" Movement, Britain and France signed a Notice called "Solemn Declaration" in March 28, 1940 declared that the two countries would continue to maintain close cooperation in various fields to safeguard world peace after the war; Meanwhile, the British government also established a special committee responsible for the research of the joint between Britain and France chaired by Maurice Hankey, and the committee discussed the "Act of Perpetual Association between the United Kingdom and France" seriously; In the afternoon, June 16, 1940, Churchill supplied an "Indissoluble Union" plan drafted by Jean Monnet, the person who is responsible for the war quartermaster supply in the Britain and France bilateral cooperation organization to the French government a few hours before France finally accepted Nazi Germany's ultimatum. The plan proposed the two countries to merge. To this point, the "Federal Union" Movement was also on its peak. Since then, as the French surrendered and the war was in full swing, the "Federal Union" Movement waned. How time flies! Today, the "Federal Union" Movement has left majority people's memory. This paper is intended to study this international federalism Cyclones whipped up by the "Federal Union" Movement from autumn 1938 to summer 1940, and wished to ascertain the following questions:1. What is the "Federal Union" Movement on earth? To ascertain this problem, it is in essence necessary to review the historical process of the "Federal Union" Movement comprehensively. This would involve the specific conditions of the creation, development, ideas, activities, influence to Britain foreign policy and decline of the "Federal Union" Movement.2. What are the origins of the "Federal Union" Movement? This issue is one of the key issues of this paper. In order to probe the origins of the "Federal Union" Movement, the paper mainly inspects it from the following five aspects: real threat, ideological origins, historical experience, foreign influence and the role of the pioneers. Through the inspection of its origins we can see that the emergence of the "Federal Union" Movement is the together result of a variety of factors.3. Why did the "Federal Union" Movement decline immediately after its short-life? In order to solve this problem, this paper analyzes the reasons for the decline of the "Federal Union" Movement mainly from four broad aspects and ten small angles: direct causes, internal factors, external reasons and root causes. Through the above analysis, I come to a conclusion that the decline of the "Federal Union" Movement is caused by a variety of factors. It is inevitable.4. The influence, significance, evaluation and inspiration of the "Federal Union" Movement. This issue is another focus of this paper. First, this paper analyzes the influence of the "Federal Union" Movement from two aspects: (1) The influence of the "Federal Union" Movement to the development of World Federalism; (2) The influence of the "Federal Union" Movement to the post-war European Union. Secondly, I focus on two aspects in exploring the significance of the "Federal Union" Movement: (1) The era significance of the "Federal Union" Movement; (2) The significance of the "Federal Union" Movement to other parts of the world to learn. Thirdly, I come to two important conclusions when evaluating the "Federal Union" Movement: (1) The "Federal Union" Movement is the outcome of the crisis more than the product of the times; (2) Only respecting the leading role and status of countries in modern international relationship firstly and under the premise of respecting the national sovereignty, can we better deal with relations among nations. Finally, from the research, I get four point of inspirations of the "Federal Union" Movement to the contemporary world: (1) We must handle the relationship between the principle of national sovereignty and supra-national mechanism correctly;(2) Britain is able to accept federalism; (3) The relationship between Britain and Europe will not be a plain sailing; (4) The aim to establish a European Federation is not real at present.Through the analysis of the process, reasons of the rise and decline, influence, significance, evaluation and inspiration of the "Federal Union" Movement, we can see that despite the "Federal Union" movement has obvious limitations of the times and serious defects of their own, its positive significance is also obvious.