4_Yalta Conference

Agreements at Yalta:

I. Japan

  • Stalin agreed to enter the war against Japan once Germany was defeated.

II. Germany

  • Germany to be divided into four occupation zones: American, French, British, and Soviet.

III. Elections

  • Liberated countries would hold free elections to choose their own governments.

IV. United Nations

  • The Big Three agreed to join the United Nations, aimed at maintaining post-war peace.

V. War criminals

  • Allies agreed to hunt down and punish Nazi war criminals responsible for genocide, revealed by concentration camps.

VI. Eastern Europe

  • USSR had suffered ~20 million deaths during WWII.

  • Stalin wanted security for the USSR, fearing another invasion.

  • Eastern Europe recognised as a Soviet sphere of influence.

Paragraph Summary:
At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Big Three—Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill—made key post-war agreements. They planned Germany’s division into four zones, promised free elections for liberated countries, committed to joining the United Nations, and agreed to prosecute Nazi war criminals. Recognising the immense losses of the USSR, they also acknowledged Eastern Europe as a Soviet sphere of influence and secured Stalin’s promise to join the war against Japan.

SOURCES

What was going on behind the scenes?

SOURCE 1:

In the hallway [at Yalta] we stopped before a map of the world on which the Soviet Union was coloured in red. Stalin waved his hand over the Soviet Union and exclaimed, ‘They [Roosevelt and Churchill] will never accept the idea that so great a space should be red, never, never!’

Milovan Djilas writing about Yalta in 1948.

 

 

 

SOURCE 2:

I have always worked for friendship with Russia but, like you, I feel deep anxiety because of their misinterpretation of the Yalta decisions, their attitude towards Poland, their overwhelming influence in the Balkans excepting Greece, the difficulties they make about Vienna, the combination of Russian power and the territories under their control or occupied, coupled with the Communist technique in so many other countries, and above all their power to maintain very large Armies in the field for a long time. What will be the position in a year or two?

                                    Extract from a telegram sent by Prime Minister Churchill

 to President Truman in May 1945.

 

 

SOURCE 3:

Perhaps you think that just because we are the allies of the English, we have forgotten who they are and who Churchill is. There’s nothing they like better than to trick their allies. During the First World War they constantly tricked the Russians and the French. And Churchill? Churchill is the kind of man who will pick your pocket of a kopeck! [A kopeck is a low value Soviet coin.] And Roosevelt? Roosevelt is not like that. He dips in his hand only for bigger coins. But Churchill? He will do it for a kopeck.

                                                                   Stalin speaking to a fellow communist,                Milovan Djilas, in 1945. Djilas was a supporter of Stalin.

 

 

SOURCE 4:

The Soviet Union has become a danger to the free world. A new front must be created against her onward sweep. This front should be as far east as possible. A settlement must be reached on all major issues between West and East in Europe before the armies of democracy melt.

                                                        Churchill writing to Roosevelt shortly after the  

                                                        Yalta Conference. Churchill ordered his army

                                                       leader Montgomery to keep German arms intact

                                                       in case they had to be used against the Russians.

SOURCE 5:

Once, Churchill asked Stalin to send him the music of the new Soviet Russian anthem so that it could be broadcast before the summary of the news from the Soviet German front. Stalin sent the words [as well] and expressed the hope that Churchill would set about learning the new tune and whistling it to members of the Conservative Party. While Stalin behaved with relative discretion with Roosevelt, he continually teased Churchill throughout the war.

Written by Soviet historian Sergei Kudryashov after the war.