relations between Stalin Roosevelt and Churchill

stalin

• the second world war had devastated the soviet union

• a conservative estimate suggested 25 million soviet dead,along with the mass destruction of towns and cities ,agriculture and industry

• lasting security became a supreme objective for stalin

• he and foreigh minister vyacheslav molotov, viewed the soviet unions grand alliance allies as fundamentally ant-ussr

• despite this , stalin was a pragmatist

• he wanted to keep open an avenue of cooperation with the west

• poland was curcial issue in terms of east-west relations

stalins priorities

• his priorities in Europe focused on ensuring that eastern Europe lay within soviet sphere of influence , and on the intention to turn the whole of Germany into a communist state at some point in the future

• the dismemberment of Germany would not, in stalins view, be in the interests of the soviet union , but Germany had to remain economically weak until it could be secured as a communist state

roosevelt

• his commitment to cooperation as the basis of a post-war settlement was clear

• however, this commitment was founded on the certainty that the post war world should strongly reflect the American concept of democracy

• for Roosevelt, this was not only in the interests of the USA, but the interest of all states ,and the security of the Ussr valued so highly could only be achieved through what emerged at Yalta

• this highlights a fundamental misconception and to some extent explains why Roosevelt was willing to cooperate with Stalin

• Roosevelt was convinced that Stalin shared the same understandings and values inherent in the configuration of the post-war world

roosevelts contrasting aims

• he was certain that he could secure a democratic and therefore anti-communist future for the states of eastern Europe and that international affairs could be managed through a peacekeeping organisation

• he had been criticised for a degree of naivety and for underestimating the security needs of the soviet union in terms of eastern Europe

churchill

• was convinced that it was stalins intention to expand soviet power in post-war europe

• as early as April 1944, he wrote to the foreign secretary ,Anthony Eden, ‘i have tried in every way to put myself in sympathy with these communist leaders, i cannot feel the slightest confidence or trust in them

• forces and facts are their only realities’

• Churchill believed that the soviet union could threaten britain’s imperial interests and therefore it was essential Britain kept a close alliance with the usa in order to counter this potential threat

• this strategy assumed even greater urgency given the economic impact of the war upon britain

percentages agreement

• in October 1944,churchill,determined to protect British interests in eastern Europe and the Balkans, met Stalin in Moscow to have the percentages agreement

• the basis of the agreement was to establish the percentage of predominance Britain and the Ussr would each have in eastern European states

• for example, in Romania the Ussr was to have 90% while in Greece Britain had 90 %

• in Hungary it was to be 50% each

• this underlined Churchills determination to control soviet expansion in eastern europe through spheres of influence as a means of protecting British interests beyond any commitment to democracy in that region

the lubin government

• during the war, a polish government in exile existed in London

• the ussr supported a pro-communist government which had been set up on polish’s liberation

• this was based in the polish city of lubin

• Stalin had ensured that non-communist leaders who had existed the Nazis were eliminated so they could not transplant the polish government in exile back into post war Poland

April 1945: Roosevelt wrote to Stalin about his concerns regarding Poland due to the declaration

• the part of our agreement which has aroused the greatest popular interest and is the most urgent relates to the polish question

• in the discussions that have taken place so far, your government appears to take the position that the new polish provisional government of national unity which we have agreed should be formed should be little more than a continuation of the present Warsaw government

• while it is true that the Lublin government is to be recognised and its members play a prominent role, it is to be done in a fashion as to bring into being a new government

• i must make it quite plain to you that any such a solution ,which would result in a thinly disguised continuance of the present Warsaw regime, would be unacceptable and would cause the people of the united states to regard the Yalta agreement as having failed