Yalta

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The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, was the wartime meeting from February 4, 1945 to February 11, 1945 between the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union—President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Premier Joseph Stalin, respectively.

Contents

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1 The conference

2 Major points

3 Legacy

4 See also

5 Bibliography and references

6 External links

The conference

On 4 February 1945 the Big Three (Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin) convened at Yalta, on the Crimean Peninsula. It was the second of three wartime conferences among the major Allied Power leaders. It had been preceded by the Tehran Conference in 1943, and it was followed by the Potsdam Conference, which Harry S. Truman attended in place of the late Roosevelt, in 1945. Premier Stalin refused to travel farther West than the Black Sea resort of Yalta, in the Crimea because he could not fly. Each leader had an agenda for the Yalta Conference: Roosevelt asked for Soviet support in the U.S. Pacific War against Japan, specifically invading Japan proper; Churchill pressed for free elections and democratic governments in Eastern Europe (specifically Poland); and Stalin demanded a Russian sphere of political influence in Eastern Europe, as essential to the USSR's national security. Moreover, all three leaders were trying to establish an agenda for governing post-war Germany. In 1943, William Bullitt's thesis prophesied the "flow of the Red amoeba into Europe"—Stalin's only weakness—given that the Red Army physically controlled most of Eastern Europe and had penetrated the Third Reich's eastern borders, while the Allies were occupied with invading France. At the time of the Conference, Marshall Georgy Zhukov was forty miles from Berlin. Moreover, Roosevelt hoped for Stalin's commitment to participate in the United Nations. Concerning the first item of the Soviet agenda—Eastern Europe—Poland immediately arose; Stalin stated the Russian case so:

" For the Russian people, the question of Poland is not only a question of honour, but also a question of security. Throughout history, Poland has been the corridor through which the enemy has passed into Russia. Poland is a question of life and death for Russia. "

Accordingly, Stalin stipulated some of his Polish demands were not negotiable: the Russians would keep the territory from eastern Poland, and Poland was to compensate for that by extending its Western borders, thereby forcing out millions of Germans. Stalin promised free elections in Poland despite the recently-installed Communist puppet government. However the Western Powers soon saw that Stalin would not honour his free elections promise. The elections, held in January 1947 resulted in Poland's official transformation to a socialist state by 1949; they were considered rigged to favour pro-Soviet political parties. Roosevelt was concerned about the USSR entering the Pacific War with the Allies. One Communist precondition for said declaration of war against Japan was a USA–USSR recognition of Mongolian independence from China. The agreement was effected without diplomatic negotiations with China. Some six months after the Yalta Conference, the USSR formally declared war against Japan and the Red Army seized northern parts of the Japanese archipelago. Later this was disputed between Russia and Japan; Russia did not sign the San Francisco Peace Treaty with Japan and no separate peace treaty had been signed between Russia and Japan as of 2007.

A Big Three meeting room.

A Big Three meeting room.

Roosevelt met Stalin's price hoping the USSR could be dealt via the United Nations Later, right-wing Americans considered the agreements effected in the Yalta Conference as a 'sellout' for encouraging Soviet expansion of influence to Japan and Asia and because Stalin eventually violated the agreements in forming the Soviet bloc. Furthermore the Soviets had agreed to join the United Nations, given the secret understanding of a voting formula with a veto power for permanent members of the Security Council, thus ensuring that each country could block unwanted decisions. It is possible that Roosevelt's failing health (Yalta was his last major conference before dying of cerebral hemorrhage)