Wilson, Trotsky, Assange: lessons from the history of diploma
Published on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net)
Wilson, Trotsky, Assange: lessons from the history of
diplomatic transparency
Daniele Archibugi, 28th February 2011
Subjects:
Internet [1]
International politics [2]
Ideas [3]
Daniele Archibugi [4]
Marina Chiarugi [5]
[6]Bentham and Kant were clear that diplomatic secrecy was bad. So were Wilson
and Trotsky. And while Wikileaks may not be the ideal organisation to take diplomatic publicity to a
new level, we should embrace its challenge.
About the authors
Daniele Archibugi is a director at the Italian National Research Council (CNR [7]), and professor of
innovation, governance and public policy at Birkbeck College [8].
Marina Chiarugi is a research assistant at the Italian National Research Council in Rome. An
international lawyer, she is currently working on the on the transformation of international criminal
justice in the global age.
On the 7th of November 1917, just after the revolution, Lev Trotsky took office at the Russian
Foreign Ministry and started reading the correspondence between his predecessors and the
ministers of the other countries. The new People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs discovered many
secret treaties with old Europe's powers aimed at exchanging rights over colonies and re-drawing
national boundaries. Official documents revealed what the Bolsheviks had claimed since the
beginning of the war: it was not fought for patriotic reasons. From the Russian archives came strong
evidence that there was an agreement among the hegemonic classes against thousands of Russian
peasants enlisted in the army. Those sent to die for the glory of Holy Mother Russia were actually
sold by their Tsar to the highest bidder. In a word, it confirmed the validity of one of Lenin’s
simplest demands: a peace treaty had to be signed as soon as possible and without annexations or
reparations.
Trotsky, a polyglot intellectual who was already widely traveled did not hesitate in deciding what to
do: the Foreign Ministry's archives had to be made public in order to make the whole world aware
that the war in Europe was fought by the hegemonic classes against their own peoples. Secret
diplomacy was just the make-up needed to hide this fact: “Secret diplomacy is a necessary tool for a
propertied minority which is compelled to deceive the majority in order to subject it to its
interests”, declared [9] Trotsky, only two weeks after the conquest of the Winter Palace.
Thanks also to the megaphone of political forces sympathizing with the new Bolshevik government
the secret documents had a remarkable distribution thoughout Europe. Nevertheless, the major
impact occurred in the United States. American President Woodrow Wilson became somehow an
early Trotskyist by repeating in the first of his Fourteen points [10], released just two months after
the Russian revolution, the principle of diplomatic activities' publicity: “Open covenants of peace [11]
Page 1 of 4
Wilson, Trotsky, Assange: lessons from the history of diploma
Published on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net)
, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but
diplomacy [12]shall proceed always frankly and in the public view”. The communist and atheist
Trotsky together with the liberal and Presbyterian Wilson managed to dramatically change
dramatically practice: from that day, the majority of international treaties have not been secret.
It is true that liberal thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham and Immanuel Kant, had already at the end
of the XVIII century, called for much more than publicity of the treaties. Bentham, for example,
stated [13] that the all practice of secret diplomacy should be abolished: “The Foreign Department
is the Department of all others in which the strongest checks are needful. At the same time, thanks
to the rules of secrecy of all the Departments, this is the only one in which there are no checks at
all. I will say, then, the conclusion is demonstrated. The principle which throws a veil of secrecy of
the proceeding of the Foreign Department of the Cabinet is pernicious in the highest degree,
pregnant with mischiefs superior to everything to which the most perfect absence of all
concealment could possibly give rise”.# Trotsky himself just repeated the point made much earlier
by Bentham when he argued that “the abolition of secret diplomacy is the primary condition for an
honest, popular, truly democratic foreign policy”.
Today history is repeating itself. Julian Assange is neither Trotsky nor Wilson, and WikiLeaks is
neither the Russian Bolshevik party nor the American Democratic party. Nevertheless WikiLeaks is
readdressing the issue which was left open at the end of the First World War: is diplomatic secret in
the people's interest? Both Trotsky and Wilson moved their agenda forward to some limited extent:
the Soviet Union soon became a harsh dictatorship and transparency was so despised under Stalin
that even the map of the Moscow underground was a classified document. The practice of publicity
had better luck in the United States and in other Western countries. Transparency and
accountability started to be common sense in consolidated democratic regimes although state
secret still exists and diplomacy is still covered by the seven veils of classified documents. Even in
the most democratic countries, secrecy in international affairs continues to be justified by the need
to protect the state's integrity and to guarantee citizens’ security and these aims prevails over the
need to guarantee transparency and freedom of expression.
Through WikiLeaks world public opinion was informed of numerous violations of humanitarian law in
Afghanistan, of false reports on the legitimacy of the military intervention in Iraq, of the
exaggeration of the weapons of mass destruction held by Saddam Hussein. This core information
has been peppered with hundreds and hundreds of more exciting but less relevant gossip about
political celebrities. Not surprisingly, those holding the secrets have reacted furiously against the
leaks, have made what efforts they can to prevent further leaks and threatened retaliation against
those who provided the information, those who published it and even those who dared to read it
[14]. The prize for the most furious reaction goes to Congressman Peter King, who wanted [15]
WikiLeaks to be declared a foreign terrorist organization. These reactions are certainly
comprehensible but not justified. If there is the need to fight a war, the citizens, the taxpayers and
even more the conscripted should clearly know the reasons for spilling blood on the battleground.
Otherwise, as Noam Chomsky correctly pointed out [16], “government secrecy is to protect the
government from its own population”.
Until now WikLleaks' revelations have not provoked major damage to intelligence mechanisms,
either in Afghanistan or anywhere else. It may always be that such revelations can harm and
identify specific persons, making their actions and their information services known to malicious
people. Excessive transparency can in principle be dangerous for a few individuals, and it should be
balanced with the need to protect the privacy of individuals. At the expense of violating the privacy
of many individuals, WikiLeaks has allowed public opinion to know that public offices have been
used for private purposes, that false information has been released with the explicit aim of diverting
public attention, that crimes have been committed without liability. Looking at the outcomes so far
produced, it can be argued that the violation of privacy has been minimal compared to the
relevance of the information provided to public opinion.
An instrument like WikiLeaks has proven to be helpful not only in making governments and their
officials more accountable. It has also proved very useful to check and control the business sector.
We have already seen that WikiLeaks has started eating into banking secrecy, with the publication
of the greatest tax dodgers' lists by a banker that worked in Cayman Islands on behalf of the Swiss
Page 2 of 4
Wilson, Trotsky, Assange: lessons from the history of diploma
Published on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net)
bank Julius Baer. In this case, it would be difficult to claim that confidentiality on tax evasion and
money laundering should be protected in deference of privacy. It is somehow surprising that some
Courts, rather than using the occasion to prosecute financial crimes, have preferred [17] to be on
the side of the banks and requested that leaked document should be removed from the public
domain.
WikiLeaks raises a more general point that needs to be addressed: is there any effective filter
between the load of information leaked out and what is actually published? WikilLeaks today has
been a pioneer and it is carrying out an important public function, but it is probably inappropriate
that an unaccountable private organization holds so much power. The opportunity to publish
classified document has traditionally been a prerogative of all media, but there is no media, to date,
that it is solely devoted to releasing classified documents. This puts WikiLeakes in a league by its
own.
The responsibility to monitor the transparency of geopolitical relations, of financial flows and of
other sensitive information should be put in the hands of organizations that are themselves fully
transparent and accountable. The empirical research carried out by One World Trust on the
accountability of inter-governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and of business
corporations has often provided counter-intuitive results [18], indicating that institutions such as the
World Bank are more transparent than institutions such as the WWF International.# Paradoxically,
WikiLeaks risks being an organization more secretive than those whose documents it publishes.
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” said Juvenal and today we can wonder: “Who will assure the
transparency of those who generate transparency?”
WikiLeaks is denouncing a major transparency deficit in world politics. But we need to ask if it is
acceptable that a group of private citizens and a website, even if it is well built and it has the best
intention, is the most appropriate way of protecting the public interest. Shouldn’t the international
community, governments and the groups that constitute global civil society start to look into the
possibility of developing similar institutional mechanisms?
The governments that are using any possible means to stop Assange should reflect on one thing:
the revolution triggered by WikiLeaks and the algorithms that determinate its functioning are not
reversible. The state secret as we knew it is definitively dead. The main task for the present and
future is to find the appropriate mechanisms to manage confidential information. President Wilson
was brave enough to accept Trotsky's challenge and to establish an innovative principle: the
publicity of international treaties. Is there anybody today brave enough to accept Assange's
challenge?
SideboxesRelated stories: "What has Wikileaks ever taught us?" ... Read on ... [19]
Cupid's freedom: how the web sharpens the democratic revolution [20]
Topics: Ideas
International politics
Internet
This article is published by Daniele Archibugi and Marina Chiarugi, and openDemocracy.net
under a Creative Commons licence [21]. You may republish it with attribution for non-commercial
purposes following the CC guidelines. For other queries about reuse, click here [22]. Some articles on
this site are published under different terms. No images on the site or in articles may be re-used
without permission unless specifically licensed under Creative Commons.
Source URL:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/daniele-archibugi-marina-chiarugi/wilson-trotsky-assange-lessons-fr
om-history-of-diplomatic-transpar
Created 02/28/2011 - 08:22
Page 3 of 4
Wilson, Trotsky, Assange: lessons from the history of diploma
Published on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net)
Links:
[1] http://www.opendemocracy.net/topics/internet
[2] http://www.opendemocracy.net/topics/international-politics
[3] http://www.opendemocracy.net/topics/ideas
[4] http://www.opendemocracy.net/author/daniele-archibugi
[5] http://www.opendemocracy.net/authors/marina-chiarugi
[6] http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenchameleon/552399178/
[7] http://www.cnr.it/sitocnr/Englishversion/Englishversion.html
[8] http://www.bbk.ac.uk/main
[9] http://www.globallabour.info/en/2010/12/trotsky_on_publishing_secret_t.html%20
[10] http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1324.html
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_treaty
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy
[13] http://www.danielearchibugi.org/downloads/papers/models.pdf
[14] http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/12/03/wikileaks.access.warning/index.html
[15]
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/11/28/2010-11-28_media_unveils_classified_documen
ts_via_wikileaks_website_in_explosive_release_of.html
[16] http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20101130.htm
[17] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7250916.stm
[18]
http://www.oneworldtrust.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73&I
temid=60
[19] http://www.opendemocracy.net/ryan-gallagher/what-has-wikileaks-ever-taught-us-read-on
[20]
http://www.opendemocracy.net/openeconomy/tony-curzon-price/cupids-freedom-how-web-sharpensdemocratic-revolution
[21] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
[22] http://www.opendemocracy.net/about/syndication
Page 4 of 4