IT was not altogether fortuitous that the Yalta Conference coincided with the Red Army’s spectacular victory in Poland, for the timing was determined by Stalin. The original initiative had come from Roosevelt, who had been eager to arrange a meeting of the Big Three at the first opportunity after his re-election as President. On his behalf, therefore, Hopkins had broached the subject with the Soviet Ambassador in Washington, Andrei Gromyko, early in November. When Gromyko had replied that Stalin could not leave the Soviet Union, since he was personally directing the military campaign, Hopkins had suggested that the conference might be held in the Crimea. Gromyko had passed this suggestion on, but no positive response had been forthcoming from Moscow.
The need for such a conference was unquestionable, not least because, as Hopkins later wrote, “there were no firm agreements as to what was to be done with Germany once she was defeated...[and] it was quite possible to visualise the collapse of Germany without any plans or agreements having been made.”{594} There were other issues almost as pressing. Roosevelt was most anxious to secure a detailed understanding about the precise date and the extent of Soviet participation in the war against Japan, and to settle direct with Churchill and Stalin those problems concerning the proposed world peace organisation which had been left unsettled by the Four-Power Conference at Dumbarton Oaks in the autumn. The most important of these was the contentious question whether the Great Powers should have, as Russia claimed, an absolute right to exercise a veto in the Security Council. Furthermore, it was essential that the Allied leaders should come to an early agreement about the future of Poland.
By December this had become a matter of the greatest urgency, especially for Great Britain, since she had gone to war with Hitler in fulfilment of her guarantee to Poland. Churchill had publicly pledged himself to ensure “the re-creation of a strong, free, independent, sovereign Poland,” and with this in view had been striving for more than a year to bring about a reconciliation between the Soviet Union and the exiled Polish Government in London.{595} In the House of Commons on December 15th, 1944, however, the Prime Minister had announced that these negotiations had broken down, primarily because the Poles could not bring themselves to accept Stalin’s demand that the future Russo-Polish frontier should follow the ‘Curzon Line,’ which had been adopted by the Supreme Allied Council in 1919 as a fair ethnographical boundary.
In Churchill’s opinion this demand did not go “beyond the limits of what is reasonable and just,” for Russia had “the right of reassurance against future attacks from the West.” If Poland would agree to yield her eastern territories, he said, she would gain “the whole of East Prussia west and south of the fortress of Königsberg,” together with Danzig, and, he added, “the Poles are free, so far as Russia and Great Britain are concerned, to extend their territory, at the expense of Germany, to the West.” Thus they would “find in Europe an abiding home and resting-place...not inferior in character and quality...to what they previously possessed.”
The refusal of the London Poles to accept this territorial arrangement had already provided the Russians with a pretext for declining to re-establish relations with the exiled Government and for setting up in Lublin a ‘National Committee of Liberation’ dominated by their own creatures. There was thus a grave danger that the future of Poland would be determined by the unilateral action of the Soviet Union for, once the Red Army was in possession of the whole country, the bargaining power of the legitimate Polish Government and the mediating influence of Britain and America would be seriously weakened. Realising this, Churchill now urged the Poles to “reach agreement with the Soviet Government about their disputed frontiers in the East before the march, of the Russian armies through the main part of Poland takes place.”
This appeal was in vain, for the last chance of securing a Russo-Polish agreement by direct negotiation had disappeared at the end of November with the resignation of the Polish Prime Minister, Stanislaw Mikolajczyk. After a stormy conference with Stalin and Churchill in Moscow in October, Mikolajczyk had been prepared to agree to the Curzon Line provided that it was modified in the south to leave within Poland the Carpathian oilfields and the ancient Polish city of Lwow. Unable to gain the support of his colleagues, however, Mikolajczyk had withdrawn from the government, leaving in power an intransigent group who would not compromise. Nevertheless, Churchill and Roosevelt, especially the latter, continued to hope that the impasse might yet be resolved by them in direct consultation with Stalin at their next meeting.
The Prime Minister told the Commons that he and the Foreign Secretary were ready to “proceed to any place, at any time, under any conditions, where we can meet the heads of our two chief Allies.” They had hoped that a conference might be held before Christmas, but so far, he said, “it has been impossible to arrange any meeting of the three Great Powers.”
That statement was made on the day before the Germans attacked in the Ardennes. A week later, as Hitler’s armies were driving hard for the Meuse, apparently unbrooked, a signal arrived in Washington stating that Marshal Stalin would be ready to meet the President and the Prime Minister at Yalta in the Crimea at the end of January.
There is no reason to believe that Stalin had anticipated Hitler’s offensive in the West and had therefore delayed his reply to Roosevelt until the moment of greatest Allied embarrassment. On the other hand, the history of wartime and post-war diplomacy has made it clear that the Russians regard international conferences as opportunities for the recognition of situations which have already been created by the exercise of power, not as occasions for the negotiation of reasonable settlements mutually acceptable. Since he was more concerned with Power than Justice, Stalin was not interested in having another conference with the Western leaders until he had secured for himself the strongest military position his armies seemed capable of gaining.
In the autumn of 1944, when Roosevelt asked for a meeting, the Russians on the Vistula were farther from Berlin than were the Anglo-American armies in the Rhineland, and the Soviet High Command was extremely doubtful of its ability to continue the offensive through Poland. It was so concerned on this account that, when Churchill was in Moscow in October, Stalin had strongly advocated that the Allied Armies in Italy should cross the Adriatic and drive north through Yugoslavia in the direction of Vienna. Since Stalin had previously opposed every plan for Allied ground operations in the Balkans, this proposal can only have been dictated by the belief that the intervention of Anglo-American forces in Yugoslavia would tie down the German divisions which were being withdrawn from the Southern Balkans to Hungary, and might even attract reserves from Poland. Stalin would hardly have suggested this move unless he had believed that it would expedite his own advance to Vienna and Berlin.
In its summer offensive the Red Army had suffered such losses that by October Zhukov, at any rate, feared he had reached the limit of his westward advance. After the war Zhukov admitted; “When we reached Warsaw, we could not see how we could get beyond the Vistula unless the German forces on our front were considerably weakened.”{596} There seemed little likelihood of this happening. On the contrary, the Soviet High Command (according to Zhukov) believed that Hitler, being so fanatical in his hatred of Communism, would concentrate everything he could against the Red Army, whatever the cost on other fronts. They assumed that, when Hitler came to the point of having to choose, he would ‘let in the West.’ This was a logical assumption, not only because of the historic German fear of the Slav, but also because Eastern Germany was the stronghold of the Prussian military caste and had become, on account of Allied bombing, the centre of the German war economy. Having made this appreciation, the Russians were amazed and relieved when they learned of the German attack in the Ardennes.
This development transformed Russia’s military and political prospects. The commitment of Hitler’s entire strategic reserve in the West ensured the success of the Red Army’s January offensive in Poland. Accordingly, when he cabled Roosevelt just before Christmas, Stalin had good reason to believe that by the start of the Yalta Conference he would be in possession of Warsaw and at least the greater part of Western Poland. Nevertheless, he proceeded to strengthen his position by a political manoeuvre designed to present his Allies with a fait accompli. On December 30th Roosevelt and Churchill confirmed their willingness to come to Yalta early in February. On the following day, at the instigation of the Kremlin, the Lublin Committee proclaimed itself the ‘Provisional Government of Liberated Democratic Poland’ and in the first week of the new year the Soviet Union extended to this puppet administration the diplomatic recognition it had refused to accord the legitimate Polish Government in London.
Even Stalin, however, can hardly have expected that the turn of events would swing the balance of power so quickly or so far in his favour. In the last fortnight of January, while the Russians were sweeping through Poland and into the Reich, driving before them a rabble of armies, the Americans in the Ardennes were meeting resistance as stubborn and as skilful as any they had encountered since D-Day. On January 16th the converging attacks of the First and Third U.S. Armies had met at Houffalize, but no substantial body of German troops had been cut off in the Western Ardennes, and the Wehrmacht had continued to fight a steady rear-guard action back to the Siegfried defences. It was February before the Americans regained the line they had been holding six weeks earlier.
On February 4th the Americans captured the first of the Roer dams towards which they had been attacking when the Germans began their counter-offensive. The forces of the Western Powers were now ready to launch their long-delayed assault on the Rhineland, but they were no nearer Berlin than they had been in September 1944, or for that matter in September 1939. Except in the Roer River sector, the Siegfried Line was still intact; the Rhine had yet to be forced; and, since Eisenhower’s engineers then believed that no large-scale crossing of the Lower Rhine could be carried out before May, there seemed little chance of Berlin being taken by attack from the West.
On the Eastern Front by this time Malinovsky, having thwarted the German attempts to relieve Budapest, was 80 miles from Vienna; Konev, having surrounded Breslau and secured several bridgeheads west of the Oder, was 120 miles from Prague; and Zhukov, having reached the Oder at Küstrin north of Frankfurt, was 45 miles from Berlin. Thus the Soviet armies stood, with all the capitals of Eastern Europe already in their hands{597} and the three great capitals of Central Europe within their grasp.
At Yalta Stalin was to be in a doubly advantageous position, for the conference took place not only on the morrow of a severe Allied reverse and at the moment of the Red Army’s greatest victory, but also at a time of Anglo-American suspicion and discord.
En route to the Crimea, Roosevelt and Churchill held a brief preliminary conference at Malta, where they discussed the Yalta agenda and those issues which had introduced a certain acrimony into their relationship since their last meeting at Quebec in September. From these discussions Churchill hoped that there would emerge a common policy which he and the President could then present to Stalin and by their unity offset the advantage of his strength. It was apparent, however, that Roosevelt was as anxious as ever to avoid making commitments or giving the Russians any reason to think that they were dealing with an Anglo-American alliance. He saw himself as ‘the Good Neighbour of the World,’ the independent arbiter whose task it was to preserve harmony between Churchill and Stalin and to prevent Anglo-Soviet rivalry from causing a breach in ‘Big Three Unity.’ In the course of the Malta meeting the British delegation were dismayed to find that their American colleagues were less suspicious of Russia’s post-war intentions than they were of Britain’s. The appreciation of this fact—astonishing though it may seem at this distance—is essential to the understanding of what happened at Yalta.
The roots of this suspicion lay deep in history. Ever since 1776 Americans have nurtured a profound prejudice against ‘colonialism,’ and have tended to presume that the independence which brought them such benefits must likewise transform the lives of peoples less fortunate than themselves. With little regard for the-merits, or the difficulties, of particular cases, they have consistently favoured the early grant of self-government to all dependent peoples, and particularly to those still under the dominion of the British Crown, for to Americans—by virtue of their past—Britain has remained the symbol of all Imperialism. Although ready to concede that British colonial policies were more progressive and more humane than those of any other country, they persisted in the belief that Imperial rule contained such inherent evils that even good empires must be bad.
This American belief did not imply any weakening of the traditional bonds of common heritage and mutual interest which preserved the essential unity of the English-speaking world, nor any lessening of the ties of almost filial affection which bound the United States to England. It was a case of the enlightened son seeking to reform the wayward father. In 1940, when Britain stood in danger of annihilation by a more sinister imperialism, the American people, under Roosevelt’s leadership, gladly and generously came to her rescue, bringing material aid and moral encouragement not out of mere self-interest but from the realisation that, for all her shortcomings, Britain was the essential bulwark of freedom, the last unconquered trustee of Western civilisation in Europe. Yet there was always a reservation in the American readiness to help. Roosevelt was determined to prevent the destruction of England, but he was equally determined that American aid should not be used to bolster up the British Empire. With him the inborn American prejudice against Imperialism assumed the force of a principle, and he saw, in the fluidity of the world situation brought about by war, the opportunity for extending throughout the colonial world the revolution that had started in 1776.
Roosevelt’s ‘assault’ upon the colonial concept began with the Atlantic Charter. The first draft of this declaration was drawn up by Churchill, who endeavoured to set forth the principles which should guide the democratic nations in their struggle against German aggression and in the re-establishment of European peace. Reporting to the House of Commons on September 9th, 1941, the Prime Minister said: “At the Atlantic meeting we had in mind the restoration of the sovereignty...of the states...now under the Nazi yoke.” This, he insisted, was “quite a separate problem from the progressive evolution of self-governing institutions in the regions and peoples that owe allegiance to the British Crown.”
The President, on the other hand, had no such limited view. During the ‘Atlantic Charter Conference’ he told Churchill: “I can’t believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy....The peace cannot include any continued despotism. The structure of peace demands and will get equality of peoples. Equality of peoples involves the utmost freedom of competitive trade.”{598} Thus, when he added to Churchill’s draft the statement that he and the Prime Minister wished to “see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them,” Roosevelt was thinking not only of the occupied countries of Europe but also of colonial peoples throughout the world. Furthermore, when he inserted an article declaring that they would endeavour “without discrimination to further the enjoyment by all states, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw materials of the world,” the President was avowedly aiming at the Ottawa Agreements, the foundation of Imperial Preference. Appreciating this, Churchill demanded that the words “without discrimination” should be replaced by the phrase “with due respect to their existing obligations,” but this gained him only a brief respite from American pressure.
Five months later, when the master Lend-Lease Agreement was signed, Roosevelt insisted that, in return for American aid, Britain must agree to “the elimination of all forms of discriminatory treatment in international commerce and the reduction of tariffs and trade barriers” after the war. Cordell Hull, the prime advocate of this clause, reports that “a few Tory members of the British Cabinet...regarded the Lend-Lease Agreement...as an attempt to infringe on British Imperial sovereignty.”{599}—which, of course, it was.
In his Memoirs Hull is quite frank about the President’s purpose.
“We had,” he writes, “definite ideas with respect to the future of the British Colonial Empire, on which we differed with the British. It might be said that the future of that Empire was no business of ours; but we felt that unless dependent peoples were assisted toward ultimate self-government and were given it...they would provide kernels of conflict.”{600} Neither Hull nor Roosevelt were content with the official British explanation that “self-government should be achieved within the British Commonwealth.” On one occasion the President told his son, Elliott,
“I’ve tried to make it clear to Winston—and the others—that, while we’re their allies and in it to victory by their side, they must never get the idea that we’re in it just to help them hang on to the archaic, medieval Empire ideas...Great Britain signed the Atlantic Charter. I hope they realize the United States government means to make them live up to it.”{601} Roosevelt’s determination to make the Charter apply to colonial territories was reinforced by Japan’s conquest of virtually all the British, Dutch and French colonies in the Far East. The failure of those powers to defend their possessions and the realisation that these would be liberated directly or indirectly by the military might of the United States greatly strengthened the President’s hand. He saw the chance of i insisting that these colonies would not be returned to their original owners, except in return for a guarantee that self-government, and eventually complete independence, would be granted to them.
There is no doubt that this was Roosevelt’s policy. When Eden was in Washington in March 1943, “President” (according to a memorandum written at the time by Hopkins) “made it clear that he did not want a commitment made in advance that all those colonies in the Far East should go back to the countries which owned or controlled them prior to the war.” Hopkins also noted, “The President has once or twice urged the British to give up Hong Kong as a gesture of ‘good will’...Eden dryly remarked that he had not heard the President suggest any similar gestures on our own part.”{602}
When Queen Wilhelmina saw Roosevelt later that year, he talked to her about the future of the Netherlands East Indies and, after reminding her that “it was American arms that would be liberating those colonies from the Japanese,” he obtained a promise that the Indies would be granted “dominion status with the right of self-rule and equality.”{603} From Churchill, however, the President could extract no such assurance about British possessions, though he raised the question at nearly all their major meetings. In private Churchill replied, “Mr. President, I believe you are trying to do away with the British Empire,” and in public he declared, “We mean to hold our own. I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.” When Churchill made this statement—at the Mansion House on November 10th, 1942—few of his hearers realised that it was directed primarily at the man whom he was proud to acknowledge as “the greatest American friend we have ever known, and the greatest champion of freedom who has ever brought help and comfort from the new world to the old.”
Undeterred by Churchill’s defiant stand, Roosevelt continued to strive for the acceptance of his policy. Having set his heart on the establishment of an international organisation for the maintenance of peace, Roosevelt was the more determined to rid the world of ‘colonialism.’ He saw the issue in terms that were simple, almost naïve; and not always true. “The colonial system means war,” he told Elliott. “Exploit the resources of an India, a Burma, a Java; take all the wealth out of those countries, but never put anything back into them, things like education, decent standards of living, minimum health requirements— all you’re doing is storing up the kind of trouble that leads to war. All you’re doing is negating the value of any kind of organisational structure for peace before it begins.”{604}
Roosevelt’s vision of the peace included not only the ending of the colonial system, but the abandonment of what he regarded as its essential concomitants, spheres of influence and regional balances of power. He expected, as Hull told Congress, that when the United Nations organisation was established there would “no longer be any need for spheres of influence, for alliances, for balance of power, or any other of the special arrangements through which, in the unhappy past, nations strove to safeguard their security or promote their interests.”
This idealistic vision was not shared by Churchill who knew from long experience of European history that nations are less likely to succumb to the temptation of aggrandisement if their ambitions are restrained by a reasonable balance of power, and that such a balance could be preserved only by alliances and other ‘special arrangements.’ Churchill was by no means anti-Russian, but as early as October 1942 he had set down the view that “it would be a measureless disaster if Russian barbarism were to overlay the culture and independence of the ancient states of Europe.”{605} After Teheran, while continuing to work for Hitler’s defeat and Stalin’s friendship, he had become alive to the danger that the war would leave the Soviet Union in a position of overwhelming power which could be counter-balanced only by a strong British Empire, a firm Anglo-American alliance and a United States of Europe.
The prospect of a Russian advance deep into Central and South-Eastern Europe dismayed Churchill, and was one of the main reasons for his unflagging advocacy of those Balkan operations which Roosevelt \and the American Chiefs of Staff so persistently vetoed. Thwarted in his desire to forestall Russia militarily, Churchill endeavoured to restrain her by striking a political bargain direct with the Kremlin. In the early summer of 1944, before the Red Army had made any serious inroad on the Balkans, the Prime Minister proposed to Stalin (without the President’s knowledge) that the ‘controlling interest’ in Rumania and Bulgaria should be exercised by the Soviet Union, and in Greece and Yugoslavia by Britain. When news of this proposal reached Washington, the secretive British approach to Moscow was resented, and the plan was condemned by Hull on the ground that it amounted to “the division of the Balkans into spheres of influence.” In reply Churchill argued that he was not proposing to carve up the Balkans, but that in the re-establishment of civil government “someone must play the hand” and that this should be done by the power responsible for military operations in each country. Roosevelt was not altogether satisfied, but he agreed to give the arrangement a three months’ trial on the understanding that it would apply only to immediate problems and would not prejudice the post-war settlement. Nevertheless, the plan remained suspect in Washington, particularly as the President gave his consent to it without consulting, or even advising, his Secretary of State!
American suspicions were sharpened when Churchill, during his visit to Moscow in October 1944, “extended the arrangement still further, even reducing to percentages the relative degree of influence which Britain and Russia individually should have in specified Balkan countries.”{606}
Each of the major powers placed its own interpretation on this agreement. The Russians regarded it as a formal acknowledgment of their predominant role and interest in the Danube Basin. The British saw it as the recognition of the fait accompli in that region and were thankful to have preserved even a small voice in the affairs of the Danubian states and to have kept Russia out of Greece. In Churchill’s opinion it was not a matter of dividing the Balkans between Britain and Russia, but of preventing the Soviet Union extending its sphere of influence over the whole peninsula. The Americans, on the other hand, considered the agreement a betrayal of the Atlantic Charter, a sinister scheme to further Britain’s Imperial ambitions. In the State Department it was denounced as ‘Churchiavellian.’
Before the close of the year a more severe strain was imposed on Anglo-American relations by developments in the Mediterranean, where, by Allied agreement, the chief political responsibility rested on Britain. In Italy, when the Bonomi Cabinet resigned at the end of November, the British Government let it be known that it could not endorse any new administration which included Count Sforza either as Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary. Although regarded by Churchill—with some justification—as an untrustworthy intriguer, Sforza had a long record of opposition to Fascism and was greatly respected in the United States where he had lived in exile throughout Mussolini’s reign. When Churchill’s disapproval of Sforza became known in Washington, there was a storm of protest in the press, and Edward Stettinius, who had just succeeded Hull as Secretary of State, felt obliged to dissociate himself publicly from the British policy. On December 5th he issued a statement in which he declared that “the composition of the Italian Government” was “purely an Italian affair” and should be settled “along democratic lines without influence from outside.”
Churchill was incensed by this public admonition and he gave vent to his anger in an outspoken cable to Roosevelt. He was particularly irate at the criticism implied in Stettinius’s statement that the principle of non-interference “would apply in an even more pronounced degree with regard to governments of the United Nations in their liberated territories.” In London this was rightly taken as a thinly-veiled reference to Greece, where a most ugly situation had arisen following the employment of British troops to prevent the recognised government being overthrown by Communist partisans who had ‘invaded’ Athens. Since the British in Greece were there, as Churchill reminded Parliament, “with American and Russian consent [and] at the invitation of the Government of all parties,” they could not “leave Athens to anarchy and misery, followed by tyranny established on murder.”
Nevertheless, the use of British forces against Greek Communists, who so recently had been fighting the Germans, caused grave heartburning on both sides of the Atlantic, and Churchill came under the fiercest criticism, at home and abroad, that was directed at him during the entire war. It was assumed, even by men of goodwill, that his strictures on the Communists were unjustifiably severe, and he was accused of exploiting the crisis so that he could maintain in power a reactionary régime bent upon restoring an unpopular monarchy.
In Washington feeling ran so high that Admiral King—never a man to miss an opportunity of embarrassing his country’s principal ally— gave orders to the commander of the U.S. naval forces in the Mediterranean that he was “not to permit any American LSTs to be used to transfer supplies to Greece.” Fortunately Hopkins intervened to have the order countermanded, but not before it had come to Churchill’s knowledge and roused him to a fresh pitch of righteous indignation. Further sharp exchanges passed across the Atlantic with the result, as Sherwood says, that “relations between the White House and Downing Street were more strained than they had ever been before.”{607} It was considered in Washington that “Churchill’s well-known predilection for constitutional monarchy was dictating policies which were against the people’s will,” and that, in defiance of the Atlantic Charter, he was determined to restore the “unsavory status quo ante in Europe.”{608}
The tension was eased when Churchill, with Eden, flew to Athens on Christmas Day, brought about an armistice, arranged for Archbishop Damaskinos to act as regent, and gave an assurance that the King would not come back “unless a plebiscite of his people calls for his return.” Churchill had good reason to be satisfied with this settlement, but he could not publicly reveal the true reason for his satisfaction, namely that he had saved Greece from becoming a Soviet satellite. When he saw Stettinius at Malta, however, the Prime Minister told him bluntly that “if the British had not had troops in Greece, the Greek Communists would have taken over the government” and that Britain had “a definite responsibility not to allow this to happen.”{609} Stettinius does not appear to have been impressed by this argument, and the conviction remained among the American delegation that Churchill had interfered in the internal affairs of Greece in order to gain some selfish post-war advantage for the British Empire.
It was most tragic that such suspicion and discord should have developed on the eve of Yalta, for it seems to have led Roosevelt and some of his intimates to presume that the future threat to world peace and the independence of small nations would come not from Russia or international Communism, but from the old colonial powers, and particularly Britain. This peculiar aberration can be explained only if it is remembered that at this time Roosevelt did not believe that Stalin cherished any imperialistic aspirations.
Three days before he set out for Malta and the Crimea, Roosevelt took the oath for the fourth time as President of the United States, and, in the course of his inaugural address, declared, “We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community. We have learned the simple truth, as Emerson said, ‘the only way to have a friend is to be one.’”
This was the creed that Roosevelt carried to Yalta. There was, in his view, no fundamental conflict of national interest between the Soviet Union and the United States; the Russian and American peoples had so much in common that they would readily co-operate in the cause of peace and freedom if only there could be a real meeting of minds between their leaders. His trust in Stalin and his faith in his own ability to win the Soviet Union’s lasting co-operation were still high, although the unhappy course of Russo-Polish relations during the past year might well have given him reason to doubt both his own personal influence and Russia’s post-war intentions.
Three times since Teheran, Roosevelt had made a direct approach to Stalin in the hope of inducing him to reach a reasonable agreement with the Polish Government in London; each time he had been rebuffed and Stalin had shown no inclination whatever to allow the principles of the Atlantic Charter to apply to Poland. Nevertheless, Mikolajczyk reports—and there is no reason to disbelieve him—that, when he was in Washington in June 1944, Roosevelt told him, “Stalin is a realist, and we mustn’t forget, when we judge Russian actions, that the Soviet régime has had only two years of experience in international relations. But of one thing I am certain, Stalin is not an Imperialist.”{610} Roosevelt explained to Mikolajczyk that he had not been able to take a public stand on the Polish question because it was election year, but “eventually,” he said, “I will act as moderator in this problem and effect a settlement.” Believing, as he had said after Teheran, that Stalin was ‘getatable,’ Roosevelt felt sure that when they met again across the conference table there would be no problem they could not solve on a ‘man-to-man’ basis.
Roosevelt was not alone in thinking that Diplomacy by Friendship would bring a sympathetic response from Stalin. The most influential of his advisers—military and political alike—were agreed, as Hull says, that they “must and could get along with the Soviet Government,”{611} and that this would be possible if they were “patient and forbearing.” The idea that they could ‘get along with’ the Russians came more easily to the American leaders than to the British, for the United States is the great melting pot and the American people have shown an unparalleled capacity for absorbing into their own society a multitude of nationalities.
Perhaps the best exposition of Roosevelt’s idea is to be found in a memorandum which Hopkins wrote six months after Yalta. “We know or believe,” he said, “that Russia’s interests, so far as we can anticipate them, do not afford an opportunity for a major difference with us in foreign affairs. We believe we are mutually dependent upon each other for economic reasons. We find the Russians as individuals easy to deal with. The Russians undoubtedly like the American people. They like the United States. They trust the United States more than they trust any other power in the world...above all, they want to maintain friendly relations with us....They are a tenacious, determined people who think and act just like you and I do.”{612}
Eisenhower endorsed this view of the Russian people when he wrote, “In his generous instincts, in his love of laughter, in his devotion to a comrade, and in his healthy, direct outlook on the affairs of workaday life, the ordinary Russian seems to me to bear a marked similarity to what we call an ‘average American.’”{613} Eisenhower believed too that there was a special bond between the United States and the Soviet Union, a bond that was inevitably lacking in the Anglo-American association. He felt, he says, that “in the past relations of America and Russia there was no cause to regard the future with pessimism.”{614} On the one hand, the two peoples had maintained an unbroken friendship that dated back to the birth of the United States as an independent republic”{615}; on the other, “both were free from the stigma of colonial empire building by force.”
This remarkable statement stems straight from the Founding Fathers. It was the American way of saying that politically both peoples were free from original sin. That this was not true of either was irrelevant; it was believed, not merely by Eisenhower but also by many Americans who should have been better acquainted with their own history. This belief was implicit in Roosevelt’s approach to the problems which were to be discussed at Yalta. In his eyes, Britain was an Imperial Power, bearing the ‘colonial stigma’; Russia was not. That assessment of his allies was a decisive factor in Roosevelt’s readiness to make concessions to the Soviet Union both in Europe and Asia in order to ensure Stalin’s entry into the Pacific War.
Roosevelt’s intimates give two reasons for his determination to enlist the aid of Russia against Japan. His personal Chief of Staff, Admiral Leahy, says that the President was actuated by the belief that “Soviet participation in the Far East operation would insure Russia’s sincere co-operation in his dream of a united, peaceful world.”{616} On the other hand, his Secretary of State, Stettinius, reports that “immense pressure [was] put on the President by our military leaders to bring Russia into the Far Eastern War. At this time the atomic bomb was still an unknown quantity and our setback in the Battle of the Bulge was fresh in the minds of all. We had not as yet crossed the Rhine. No one knew how long the European War would last nor how great the casualties would be.”{617} Stettinius adds that the American Chiefs of Staff had warned Roosevelt that “without Russia it might cost the United States a million casualties to conquer Japan”{618} and that the Pacific War might not end until 1947.
The chief advocate of this view was Marshall, but Roosevelt’s military advisers were by no means unanimous in the belief that it would be necessary to invade the Japanese home islands. Leahy says that at Pearl Harbour, in July 1944, both MacArthur and Nimitz (the two commanders directly concerned) had told the President that “Japan could be forced to accept our terms of surrender by the use of sea and air powers without the invasion of the Japanese homeland.”{619} Since then, at the Battle for Leyte Gulf in October, the Japanese Navy had suffered such a crushing defeat that well before Yalta Leahy considered that the war against Japan “had progressed to the point where her defeat was only a matter of time and attrition.” This was also the opinion of Arnold, the Chief of the Air Staff, whose Super-Fortresses were already bombing Japan from island airfields. There was no longer any great need for air bases in the Maritime Provinces of the Soviet Union, and, after the unhappy experiment of ‘shuttle-bombing’ in Europe, Arnold did not set much store by any facilities he might be granted in Asia.{620} Nevertheless, the advice of Marshall and King prevailed.
The supporters of Russian intervention were considerably influenced by their estimate of the amount of help the United States would receive, or should accept, from Britain in the war against Japan. Here the colonial issue again entered American calculations. Virtually all the British and Imperial forces in the Far East were deployed in Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten’s South-East Asia Command (SEAC) for operations in Burma, and in due course Malaya and Sumatra. This deployment was dictated as much by geographical as political factors, but it was presumed in Washington that Churchill was more interested in regaining Britain’s lost colonies than in bringing about the early defeat of Japan. Consequently, it came as a great surprise—to the British as much as to the American Chiefs of Staff—when at Quebec in September 1944 the Prime Minister suddenly offered to send a large part of R.A.F. Bomber Command and the main British Battle Fleet into the Central Pacific. This offer was promptly accepted by Roosevelt, but, when it was raised at the next meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, “all hell broke loose”—Arnold’s phrase—and King “hotly refused to have anything to do with it.” Cunningham, the First Sea Lord, reports that King was sharply called to order by Leahy and “eventually gave way; but with a very bad grace.”{621}
Although there was no trace of King’s Anglophobia in Marshall or Arnold, the American Chiefs of Staff had never allowed their British colleagues any voice in the conduct of the Pacific War, nor were they eager to have British forces play a major part in it lest this should give Britain the right to claim possession or trusteeship of some of the Japanese Empire. Further, they believed—and they so advised the President—that “in the interests of national defence, the Japanese mandated islands in the Pacific captured by our forces should be retained under the sovereignty of the United States and not delivered to the trusteeship of the United Nations.”{622} True to his principles, Roosevelt rejected this proposal, but those same principles made him distrustful of the activities and intentions of the British and French in South-East Asia.
Roosevelt was determined that Indo-China should not go back to France and he had refused to agree to any French military mission being accredited to SEAC. He was prepared to allow the Dutch to return to the Netherlands East Indies, because Queen Wilhelmina had promised to give them self-government, but he intended that these islands should be liberated by American forces so that he would be in a position to enforce fulfilment of this promise.{623} Accordingly, the sole Dutch possession placed within the sphere of prospective British operations was Sumatra and this island only because of its geographical relation to Malaya. Moreover, the American Chiefs of Staff, on MacArthur’s recommendation, decided that the British should not be allowed to take over the military control of the East Indies after their recapture. “The exact British intentions were not known,” says Leahy, “but past experience indicated that if they did get control of some Dutch territory, it might be difficult to pry them loose.”{624} This view appears to have been shared by Roosevelt, for he told Stettinius that “the British would take land anywhere in the world even if it were only rock or a sandbar.”{625}
Roosevelt’s eagerness to buy Stalin’s aid in the war against Japan was principally due to his desire to save lives, but in the light of all the evidence it seems fair to say that he was also actuated by the hope that Russia’s intervention would enable the United States to strike the decisive blow at Japan, and compel her surrender, before the British, French or Dutch could regain possession of their colonies. The United States would thus be able to demand that the colonies which had been liberated from the Japanese should now be liberated from the dominion of their original owners.
In due course, as it turned out, the Americans were able to achieve this purpose without the intervention of Russia. When the Japanese announced their readiness to capitulate, MacArthur, who was acting as co-ordinator of all the surrender arrangements, forbade Mountbatten to accept any local surrender in South-East Asia or to send any relief or reoccupation forces into Japanese-held areas until the overall surrender had been signed in Tokyo. Since this ceremony was not to take place for another twelve days, Mountbatten ignored his orders so far as missions of mercy were concerned, because, as he says in his dispatch, “if relief stores and personnel had not been sent in at once, the delay of twelve days imposed on me would have resulted in many more deaths each day among the prisoners [of war].”{626}
The instructions regarding the movement of naval and military forces were observed, though these were already at sea, and the British were thus placed in the humiliating position of not being permitted to re-occupy their own colonies, until the Japanese High Command had formally acknowledged defeat to an American general on an American battleship in Tokyo Bay.
Although this particular manifestation of American anti-colonialism was not revealed until six months after Yalta, the attitude which inspired it was implicit in the policy Roosevelt pursued throughout the war.
The plenary sessions of the Yalta Conference{627} were held at Livadia Palace overlooking the Black Sea. The ownership of this palace had changed since it was built by the Romanoffs, but the aims and ambitions of the new owners differed little from those of its former masters. The only significant difference was that the men who now sought to fulfil Russia’s imperial destiny were more ruthless and more powerful.
At the opening session on Sunday, February 4th, Stalin made a gesture which was both tactful and tactical. He proposed, as he had at Teheran, that Roosevelt should take the chair, and thus once again he brought the President half-way to his side. Yet Stalin showed no early inclination to follow the chairman’s lead, least of all with regard to the President’s cherished plan for creating a world peace organisation based on the recognition of the sovereign rights of all nations. The first time the subject was raised, “Stalin made it quite plain,” says Stettinius, “that the three Great Powers which had borne the brunt of the war should be the ones to preserve the peace.” He declared, moreover, that he would “never agree to having any action of any of the Great Powers submitted to the judgment of the small powers.” In reply to this argument Churchill spoke for all the Western World in saying, “The eagle should permit the small birds to sing and care not wherefor they sang.” That evening, when Stettinius and Eden discussed the outlook, they agreed that “the trend...seemed to be more towards a three-power alliance than anything else.”
Evidently sensing that the time was not opportune to pursue the question of the world peace organisation, Roosevelt, at the start of the second plenary meeting, turned the discussion to the future of Germany. At the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers in November 1943 it had been decided that Germany should be completely disarmed and should pay reparations for the physical damage she had inflicted on the Soviet Union and other Allied countries. Then, and at Teheran, the question of partitioning Germany had been debated without any conclusions being reached, but it had been assumed that in any case the three powers would occupy the country, and by November 1944 they had agreed upon the actual zones of occupation and upon their joint responsibility for Berlin. At Yalta the ‘Big Three’ confirmed their determination to demand the ‘Unconditional Surrender’ of Germany and, for the first time, there was detailed consideration by the Russian and Anglo-American Chiefs of Staff on the military measures necessary to bring about Hitler’s final defeat. On the question of post-war Germany, however, there was no such unanimity and it was soon evident that there was a considerable divergence between the British and Russian attitudes, especially with regard to the principle of partition, the extent of reparations and the right of France to share in the occupation.
The Russian view was that there should be only three occupying powers; that they should decide at Yalta to partition the Reich into a number of separate states and to include a declaration to this effect in the surrender terms; and that Germany should be deprived of eighty per cent of her heavy industry and should pay reparations in kind to the value of twenty billion dollars, half of which should go to the Soviet Union.
Churchill was not slow to realise that, if these proposals were adopted, Germany would be rendered politically impotent and economically impoverished. Although determined to ensure that Germany should not again disturb the peace of Europe, he did not wish to see her entirely neutralised as a factor in the balance of power. Accordingly, he doubted the wisdom of partitioning the Reich unless the Soviet Union would agree to the creation of a strong Danubian Confederation—and this had already been rejected by both Stalin and Roosevelt. Moreover, he did not wish to make Germany pay such severe reparations that her economy would collapse unless it were sustained by the Western Powers as it had been after the First World War. Finally, the Prime Minister wanted the French to have an equal share in both the occupation and administration of Germany so that there would be a second European voice to support Britain’s in the Allied Control Commission. He was the more emphatic on this point, for the President said that the American troops would be withdrawn from Europe in “two years at the outside.” Whereupon Churchill commented, without indicating what threat he feared, “Great Britain alone will not be strong enough to guard the Western approaches to the Channel.”
As the discussion developed—both in the plenary sessions and at meetings of the Foreign Ministers—Roosevelt and Stettinius endeavoured to take an intermediate stand on these issues. The result was that three distinct viewpoints emerged. With regard to partition, Stalin wanted a definite commitment both now and in the surrender terms; Churchill wished to make no commitments either way and Roosevelt suggested that they should mention dismemberment in the terms without binding themselves to this policy. On the matter of reparations, Stalin demanded explicit acceptance in the Protocol of the overall figure of twenty billion dollars; Churchill opposed any mention of any figure even in a secret document; and Roosevelt inclined to the view that the Russian figure might be taken as “a basis for discussion.” As for the occupation of Germany, Churchill insisted that France should have a seat on the Control Commission as well as a zone; Stalin argued against both suggestions; and Roosevelt proposed that France should have a zone but no seat.
On each of these questions the President was in fundamental agreement with the Prime Minister’s stand (though not with all his reasons), but in public discussion Roosevelt played the mediator. He was not interested in upholding the balance of power concept, nor was he deeply concerned with the intrinsic merits of the German problem. To him Germany was not an issue in itself, but a bargaining point in the wider issue that was uppermost in his mind—the winning of Stalin’s co-operation in the international peace organisation, and in the war against Japan.
To some extent the role of arbiter was thrust upon Roosevelt when he became chairman, but there is no doubt that he preferred it since he was thus able to preserve greater freedom of action and to avoid committing himself until he had heard the rival views. The results of the President’s determination to act as mediator were twofold. On the one hand, the assertion of what were in reality Anglo-American views and principles was frequently left to the British alone—much to Churchill’s annoyance; and on the other, as one of Roosevelt’s closest advisers says, “the Soviet leaders did over-estimate the ultimate extent of the President’s generosity and his willingness to compromise on principles.”{628}
The problem of Germany’s future was still undecided when—at the third plenary session on February 6th—Roosevelt returned to the question of post-war peace and asked Stettinius to review the questions which had been in dispute at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference. There the Americans, British, Chinese and Russians had agreed on the principles and purposes of what was to become the United Nations, and had decided there should be a General Assembly, a Security Council and various other instrumentalities. The area of agreement had ended, however, when the Soviet Delegate, Gromyko, had proposed that all sixteen republics of the Soviet Union should have seats in the Assembly (a proposal which “left Stettinius and Cadogan breathless”{629}), and had demanded that in the Security Council the Great Powers should have the right to veto any proposals, except those which related to points of procedure.
It has been alleged by some of Roosevelt’s critics that the establishment of the veto power in the Security Council was a concession made by him at Yalta to induce Stalin to join the United Nations. This is not so. The basic principle of the veto was never in dispute. None of the Great Powers was prepared to submit itself and its interests unreservedly to the jurisdiction of an international security organisation. All were agreed that there must be “unqualified unanimity of the permanent members of the Council on all major decisions relating to the preservation of peace, including all economic and military enforcement measures.” This was inevitable. The President, haunted by the ghost of Wilson, insisted on the veto power because he knew that the United States Senate would not surrender to an international body the right to commit American forces to military action. Churchill was equally insistent on this point because, as he said at Yalta, he would “never consent to the fumbling fingers of forty or fifty nations prying into the life’s existence of the British Empire.”
Although both Britain and America felt obliged to retain the right to veto any international ‘police action,’ they had no desire to curtail discussion or to prevent any small power bringing a cause of grievance to the notice of the Security Council. At Dumbarton Oaks, however, Gromyko had refused to accept this view and had told Stettinius, “The Russian position on voting in the Council will never be departed from!” Nevertheless, on December 5th, 1944, Roosevelt had sent to Stalin and Churchill a compromise formula which, while recognising the need for unanimity on matters involving the application of sanctions, provided that on questions relating to the peaceful settlement of any dispute no member of the Council would cast its vote, or exercise its veto, if it were a party to that dispute.
Now, at Yalta, after Stettinius had re-stated this formula, Churchill declared Britain’s acceptance of it, and added, “We see great advantage in the three Great Powers not assuming the position of rulers of all the rest of the world without even allowing them to state their case.” When Stalin spoke, however, he again emphasised the importance of unanimity, declaring that the real problem was to preserve the unity of the Great Powers and to work out a covenant that would achieve this purpose. “The danger in the future,” he said, “is the possibility of conflicts among ourselves.” Apologising to the President, Stalin said that he was not yet ready to pass judgment on the voting formula, because he had had “no chance to study this question in detail.” Yet he proceeded to give such a concise analysis of its implications that it was obvious he must have studied it rather carefully at some time during the two months since he had received Roosevelt’s draft!
After this exchange Stettinius was more confident, believing that for the first time Stalin really understood the American point of view. Byrnes, on the other hand, felt that the Russians “could not be greatly interested in the United Nations organisation,” and Leahy thought it “difficult to foresee on what grounds an agreement could be reached.” This impression seemed to be confirmed when, at the next meeting of the Foreign Ministers, Molotov refused even to discuss the Security Council voting procedure.
Leaving this matter for the moment, Roosevelt brought up the Polish question. He announced his readiness to accept the Curzon Line, but proposed that Stalin might agree to leave within Poland the city of Lwow and the nearby oilfields. “He pointed out,” says Stettinius, “that he was merely suggesting this for consideration rather than insisting on it.” In fact, the main argument he advanced in its support was that “it would have a salutary effect on American public opinion,” a consideration which was hardly likely to carry much weight with the Soviet dictator. Thus, although the President’s expert advisers had warned him that these oilfields were essential to the Polish economy, he did not make an issue of it, so anxious was he to preserve the role of mediator, not only on the frontier question but also in the establishment of a new Polish government.
Churchill was already committed to the Curzon Line, but he declared that if Stalin were to accept the President’s Lwow plan, it would be “a magnanimous gesture” which Britain would “admire and acclaim.” The Prime Minister said, however, that he was more interested in the sovereignty and independence of Poland than in the matter of frontiers, and that he, like the President, wished to see established in Warsaw a “fully representative Polish government,” pledged to the holding of free elections. For Britain, having risked so much in Poland’s cause, this was a question of honour.
In reply, Stalin delivered an impassioned speech. “For the Russian people,” he said, “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...It is in Russia’s interests that Poland should be strong and powerful, in a position to shut the door of this corridor by her own force.” Turning to the problem of frontiers, he said that the Soviet Union must have Lwow and could not accept anything but “the line of Curzon and Clemenceau.” Stalin declared: “You would drive us into shame! What will be said by the White Russians and the Ukrainians? They will say that Stalin and Molotov are far less reliable defenders of Russia than are Curzon and Clemenceau...I prefer the war should continue a little longer...to give Poland compensation in the West at the expense of the Germans....I am in favour of extending the Polish Western frontier to the Neisse River.”{630}
Stalin was equally unresponsive to Roosevelt’s suggestion that a new Polish Government should be formed from members of the five main political parties, including representatives of the Government in London. He stated that he did not trust the London Poles and would not recognise any administration except that already established in Lublin. “We demand order,” he said, “and we do not want to be shot in the back.”
Churchill joined issue vigorously with Stalin, declaring that Britain could not accept the Lublin Committee, since it did not represent more than a third of the nation; nor could he agree to extend Poland’s western frontier to the River Neisse, thus giving her virtually all Silesia. “It would be a pity,” he said, “to stuff the Polish goose so full of German food that he will die of indigestion.” On that discordant note the meeting adjourned.
That evening Roosevelt sent Stalin a conciliatory letter, in which he reaffirmed the American opposition to the Lublin Committee, but added the assurance, “The United States will never lend its support in any way to any provisional government in Poland which would be inimical to your interests.” Although he regarded this letter as an act of mediation, Roosevelt compromised his own independence by telling Stalin, “I am determined there shall be no breach between ourselves and the Soviet Union.” With that statement he admitted that, if Stalin made an issue of Poland, the United States would give way.
When the Big Three met again next afternoon (February 7th) Stalin acknowledged receipt of the President’s letter, but stated that his own reply was not yet ready as it was being typed; in the meantime he would like to discuss the international peace organisation. Roosevelt agreed, and Molotov proceeded to say that the Soviet Union was “happy to accept the entire American proposal” about voting in the Security Council, and would not press for all sixteen Soviet Republics to be members of the United Nations. It would be satisfactory if seats were granted to the Ukraine and White Russia. As it had already been agreed that Britain, the four Dominions and India should have individual representation in the General Assembly, Churchill could not oppose this request, and, although Roosevelt did not give his consent immediately, he told Stettinius that he “did not believe there was anything preposterous about the Russian proposal.” Indeed, he regarded it as a small price to pay for Soviet co-operation.
The President and the Prime Minister were delighted at this manifestation of Stalin’s willingness to join the United Nations and they felt he had made substantial concessions on two vital issues about which he had previously been intractable. They had feared that Stalin was interested only in securing a Three-Power Alliance, but now Roosevelt, at any rate, believed he had persuaded Stalin not only to recognise the sovereign rights of small nations, but also to act in friendly concert with the other great Powers in maintaining peace and extending the frontiers of freedom.
This belief was confirmed when Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would take part in the United Nations Conference to be held in San Francisco in April, and would support there the right of the United States to have three votes in the General Assembly, if the President desired to make such a claim.{631} It seemed to Roosevelt that these concessions were an earnest of Stalin’s good faith, for it could not be foreseen then that the Soviet Union would abuse the veto power, as it was to do in the years after the war, employing it to prevent discussion as well as decision and endeavouring to exercise it even on questions of procedure. That afternoon at Yalta it appeared that Anglo-American diplomacy had gained a considerable victory, and the President felt that the long and arduous journey had not been in vain.
During the brief adjournment which followed this discussion about the United Nations the prevailing opinion among the Western delegates was that the concessions Stalin had made represented a decided change of heart. Considered in relation to what followed, however, these concessions appear as a tactical manoeuvre designed to make the Western delegations more receptive to the Soviet plan for Poland which Molotov put forward while the meeting still glowed with goodwill. This plan did little more than set out in formal terms the attitude Stalin had so forcibly proclaimed the day before. The only hint of any readiness to meet the Western view was contained in the statement that the present Provisional Government (i.e. the Lublin Committee) might be enlarged to include “some democratic leaders from Polish émigré circles.” Since the Russians refused to regard even Mikolajczyk, the leader of the Peasant Party, as a ‘democrat,’ that concession meant nothing. The moral of this day’s proceedings was that, while Russia was willing to join the United Nations, she was not prepared to rely on it entirely. She intended to safeguard her own security in any event by ensuring that she had subservient neighbours in Europe and a commanding position in Asia.
Stalin’s Asiatic ambitions were revealed on the following afternoon during a private discussion with Roosevelt about the Soviet Union’s entry into the Japanese War. This discussion was conducted on a strictly Russo-American basis and in conditions of great secrecy. The only other persons present, apart from the two interpreters, were Molotov and Averell Harriman, the American Ambassador to the Soviet Union.
At the President’s request, Churchill was not there and, when the negotiations were continued on the technical level by the Chiefs of Staff, the British did not take part. Even within his own entourage Roosevelt was most uncommunicative. Stettinius, though Secretary of State, was merely notified that talks were in progress. When he asked if the State Department should not be represented, Roosevelt replied that the problem was “primarily a military matter...and had best remain on a purely military level.” This was a specious answer, for Stalin had long since committed himself on the basic military issue; the main point to be decided at Yalta was the political price of his participation.
It was in October 1943 that Stalin had first promised to join in the war against Japan after the defeat of Germany. He had made this offer to Cordell Hull, who says that it was “entirely unsolicited...and had no strings attached to it.”{632} At Teheran a month later, Stalin had repeated this promise virtually as a quid pro quo for the Second Front and for Lend-Lease. Nevertheless, Roosevelt had then volunteered to restore Russia’s rights in the Manchurian port of Dairen and to ensure her free access to warm waters. Finding that the President was a ‘soft touch,’ Stalin proceeded to make this gesture his price with the paradoxical result that Soviet demands grew as the American need for Russian assistance in the Eastern War declined. During Churchill’s visit to Moscow in October 1944, the Marshal said that “the Soviet Union would take the offensive against Japan three months after Germany’s defeat, provided the United States would assist in building up the necessary reserve supplies and provided the political aspects of Russia’s participation had been clarified.”{633} During this Moscow meeting, as on five other separate occasions in 1944, Stalin gave an assurance that Russian air and naval bases in the Maritime Provinces would be made available to American forces. In December, however, this assurance was withdrawn, presumably with a view to strengthening the bargaining position of the Soviet Union at Yalta.
The course of the fateful discussions which took place behind closed doors in Livadia Palace on the afternoon of February 8th is not known in detail, for none of those who took part have publicly revealed what was said and the accounts given by Leahy, Sherwood and Stettinius, though authoritative, are second-hand. What was decided, however, is revealed only too clearly in the terms of the agreement which was subsequently signed by Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill. This provided that “in two or three months after Germany has surrendered...the Soviet Union shall enter the war against Japan “on certain conditions: that “the status quo in Outer Mongolia” was to be preserved; that the Kurile Islands, north of Japan, were to be “handed over to the Soviet Union and that the rights Russia had lost after her defeat by Japan in 1904 were to be restored. Russia was thus to regain possession of Southern Sakhalin, the ‘international port’ of Dairen and the naval base of Port Arthur. In addition, although China was to “retain full sovereignty in Manchuria,” the principal Manchurian railways were to be “jointly operated by...a Soviet-Chinese Company” which was to safeguard “the pre-eminent interests of the Soviet Union.” Apart from agreeing to enter the Pacific War, Stalin conceded nothing in writing. He promised Roosevelt that the United States could have bases in the Maritime Provinces, but this was not mentioned in the agreement, nor was there any reference to the one million tons of additional supplies that were to be provided by the Americans. These supplies were duly delivered, but the Russians made sure that the establishment of the bases never proceeded beyond discussions in Moscow.
The President’s Chief of Staff (Admiral Leahy) says that, when the Russian terms were mentioned at a subsequent plenary session, there was “little discussion and no argument.” It appears that Stalin blandly explained, “I only want to have returned to Russia what the Japanese have taken from my country”; and that Roosevelt replied, “That seems like a very reasonable suggestion from our ally. They only want to get back that which has been taken from them.” Churchill must have listened a little incredulously to this exchange for he cannot have forgotten that Roosevelt had once said to him: “Winston...you have four hundred years of acquisitive instinct in your blood and you just don’t understand how a country might not want to acquire land somewhere if they can get it. A new period has opened in the world’s history and you will have to adjust yourself to it.”{634}
The British should have known, if the Americans did not, that Stalin’s justification could not by any means cover all the Soviet claims. The Kuriles had never formally belonged to Russia. The reclaimed ‘rights’ in Manchuria were those which in the nineteenth century had enabled Russia to exercise in this province a degree of dominion which seriously impinged upon Chinese sovereignty. These ‘rights’ rested on no more substantial foundations than those extra-territorial privileges which the United States, Britain and other countries had given up in 1943 at Roosevelt’s own instigation and in fulfilment of his pledge to restore and respect the independence of China. To accept the ‘status quo’ in Outer Mongolia, which Moscow had been sedulously luring away from its allegiance to Chungking, was to acknowledge that the Soviet Union, not China, should enjoy political supremacy in that country. In short, by this agreement Russia was to become, with Anglo-American consent, the political heir of Japan in Manchuria, and thereby in North China.
No arrangement was made at Yalta with regard to the occupation of Korea and the post-war fate of that unhappy country appears to have been mentioned only incidentally. Stalin inquired whether it was to be occupied by any foreign troops. When Roosevelt replied that this was not intended, Stalin, no doubt thinking far into the future, “expressed his approval.”{635}
Upon learning the full extent of the Soviet terms, some of Churchill’s advisers were deeply concerned, for they discovered that, although Stalin had made no further commitments whatever and although the most important of his claims had to be met by their ally, China, not by Japan, the President and the Prime Minister were required to declare that “these claims of the Soviet Union shall be unquestionably fulfilled after Japan has been defeated.” Moreover, Stalin was insisting that for security reasons the Chinese Government should not even be informed until the Soviet Union was ready to attack. Roosevelt had undertaken to secure Chiang Kai-Shek’s compliance in due course but, as Sherwood says, “if China had refused to agree to any of the Soviet claims, presumably the U.S. and Britain would have been compelled to join in enforcing them.” To some of the British delegation it seemed rather incongruous that, while urging Churchill to hand Hong Kong over to China as “a gesture of goodwill,” Roosevelt was prepared to promise Stalin substantial concessions in Manchuria, and to do this without so much as consulting the Chinese. This point was appreciated by at least one of his staff, for Leahy reports that he warned Roosevelt, “Mr. President, you are: going to lose out on Hong Kong if you agree to give the Russians half of Dairen”; and that Roosevelt replied, “Well, Bill, I can’t help it.”
Eden did all he could to dissuade the Prime Minister from setting his signature to the terms agreed upon by Roosevelt and Stalin. Churchill replied that he must sign, because he felt that “the whole position of the British Empire in the Far East might be at stake.” The Prime Minister had good reason to fear that, since he had been excluded from the negotiations about the Japanese War, Britain might well be excluded from future discussions about the Far East if she did not stand by the United States now. Like Leahy, he may also have foreseen that, if these territorial concessions were made to Russia, Roosevelt would not be in a strong moral position to enforce his oft-repeated ‘threat’ to reform the British Empire.
Of all the agreements reached at Yalta, this is the most controversial and would seem to be the least defensible. Yet it does not appear that the concessions, which Stalin obtained, were wrung from a reluctant Roosevelt. Sherwood records that the President had been “prepared even before the Teheran Conference...to agree to the legitimacy of most if not all of the Soviet claims in the Far East,” although he expresses the opinion that “Roosevelt would not have agreed to the final firm commitment,” if he had not been “tired and anxious to avoid further argument.” Stettinius disagrees with this opinion and explains that “the Far Eastern agreement was carefully worked out and was not a snap decision made at Yalta.” He endeavours to defend the concessions by asking: “What, with the possible exception of the Kuriles, did the Soviet Union receive at Yalta which she might not have taken without any agreement?”
Thar question does not pose the real issue which surely was: What did the Soviet Union receive at Yalta which she could not have taken without flagrantly violating the fundamental principles of the Atlantic Charter and the United Nations to which she had subscribed? The real issue for the world and for the future was not what Stalin would or could have taken but what he was given the right to take. This agreement provided Stalin with a moral cloak for his aggressive designs in Asia, and, more important, with almost a legal title enforceable at the Peace Conference to the territories and privileges which he demanded.
The President’s surrender on this question is the more remarkable because it involved the sacrifice of those very principles which he had striven to uphold throughout his dealings with Churchill and Stalin. He had always insisted that he would not make any post-war commitments which would prejudice the peace treaties; he would recognise no spheres of influence, no territorial changes except those arrived at by mutual agreement, and no transfers of colonial territory except under conditions of international trusteeship. By making this agreement about the Japanese War, however, Roosevelt weakened both his mediating influence and his bargaining position in relation to problems arising out of the German War. He was not well placed to defend the sovereignty of Poland, once he had agreed to the infringement of China’s sovereignty without her consent and in breach of the promise he had given to Chiang Kai-Shek at Cairo in 1943. He could not make any effective protest against the Russians’ creating a sphere of influence in the Balkans, when he had acknowledged their sphere of influence in Mongolia and Manchuria. Having departed from his principles in Asia, he could not expect to be allowed to apply them in Europe; not against a realist like Stalin. Consequently, the President was now in a less favourable position than he had been at the start of the conference. Stalin’s appetite had been whetted, not satisfied.
The records kept by those who were present at Yalta give the impression that the negotiations about Russia’s part in the Pacific War on the Thursday afternoon marked the turning point in the week’s discussions. If this was not realised by the Western delegations at the time, it seems to have been fully appreciated by Stalin. Thereafter, having gained the concessions which were to enable him to dominate China, he proceeded to consolidate politically the strategic advantages his armies had already secured in Europe. Stalin was better able to press his demands now, for he could play upon the sense of gratitude and co-operation he had built up in the Americans, and to a lesser extent in the British, by his agreement to help in the defeat of Japan and the creation of the international security organisation. The remaining negotiations were to prove the truth of the warning which had been sent to Washington two months earlier by the Head of the American Military Mission in Moscow (General Deane), an astute and not unsympathetic observer of the Soviet scene. In a letter to Marshall in December Deane had written, “We never make a request or proposal to the Soviets that is not viewed with suspicion. They simply cannot understand giving without taking, and as a result even our giving is viewed with suspicion. Gratitude cannot be banked in the Soviet Union. Each transaction is complete in itself without regard to past favours.”{636}
When the discussions about Poland were continued, as they were at each session on the last four days, the Russians gained their way on almost every point. Nothing more was heard of the President’s suggestion that Poland should keep the Lwow region. The Curzon Line was accepted and this fact was duly recorded in the Protocol. With regard to Poland’s western frontier, however, Stalin did not press for the formal recognition of a specific line, since he realised that neither Roosevelt nor Churchill were prepared to go beyond the Oder. He readily consented to the suggestion that “the final delimitation of the western frontier should await the Peace Conference,” for in the meantime that left him free to make his own arrangements about the German territory between the Oder and the Neisse.
The negotiations about the future government of Poland were very much more protracted and involved. The essence of the argument was that the Western Powers advocated the formation of an entirely new administration representing “all democratic and anti-Fascist forces,” whereas the Russians proposed merely to enlarge the Lublin Committee, and to do this in such a way that the Polish Communists could retain control. Churchill and Eden fought for four days against this proposal, insisting that Great Britain could not withdraw her recognition of the London Government unless there was “a completely new start...on both sides on equal terms.” The British also demanded that the new government should be provisional and should be pledged to hold “free and unfettered elections as soon as possible on the basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot,” and that these elections should be conducted under the supervision of the American, British and Soviet Ambassadors.
The Russians consented to the holding of free elections and Molotov told Roosevelt that these could be held “within a month.” On the other hand, he bluntly rejected the supervision proposal, arguing that this would be “an affront to the pride and sovereignty of the independent people“! Eden endeavoured to insist on this safeguard, for he feared that any unsupervised elections would be a mockery, but at the final meeting of the Foreign Ministers Stettinius announced that “the President was anxious to reach agreement and that to expedite matters he was willing to make this concession.”{637} With regard to the setting up of a new administration, the three Ministers eventually decided upon a compromise formula which read: “The Provisional Government which is now functioning in Poland should be reorganised on a broader democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland itself and from Poles abroad.” To this end various Polish leaders from all non-Fascist parties were to be brought together in Moscow for consultations with Molotov and the British and American Ambassadors.
When this formula was adopted at the plenary session on February 10th the Western delegates, with few exceptions, believed that they had reached, as Sherwood says, “an honourable and equitable solution.” They were acting in good faith and they presumed that Stalin was equally sincere, for he also set his hand to a “Declaration on Liberated Europe” which reaffirmed the principles of the Atlantic Charter. By this Declaration the three Powers bound themselves “to build...a world order under law, dedicated to peace, security and freedom and the general well-being of all mankind,” and agreed to act in concert “in assisting the peoples liberated from the dominion of Nazi Germany and the peoples of the former Axis satellite states of Europe...to create democratic institutions of their own choice.”
These fine phrases were to prove less important than the terms of the Polish formula, which was so loosely worded that it left the Russians ample room to manoeuvre. Roosevelt certainly entertained some doubts on this score, for he concurred when Leahy said to him, “Mr. President, this is so elastic that the Russians can stretch it all the way from Yalta to Washington without ever technically breaking it.” The essential fact was that, while the British and Americans started by refusing to accord any recognition whatever to the Lublin Committee, they ended by allowing it to be described in the communiqué as “the present Provisional Government of Poland.” Moreover, although they had originally insisted that an entirely fresh administration should be formed, they finally agreed to the words “the Provisional Government now functioning in Poland should be reorganised.” The only real difference between that formula and what Stalin had initially demanded was a change in verb; “enlarged” had become “reorganised.”
Having secured virtually all he wanted in Poland, Stalin made a conciliatory gesture with regard to the occupation of Germany. When the President announced that he now believed France should have a seat on the Control Commission as well as a zone of occupation, Stalin replied simply, “I agree.” So far as he was concerned, this was a minor concession, for it did not require any material sacrifice on the part of the Soviet Union. Where her interests and assets were directly concerned, however, as in the matter of reparations, he was both stubborn and persistent. On the one hand, he refused altogether to discuss the Soviet Union’s right to use German manpower; on the other, he demanded that a firm agreement should be reached at Yalta on the amount of ‘reparations in kind’ that Germany should be required to pay. Again and again, one or other of the Soviet delegates returned to their original figure of ‘20 billion dollars’ arguing that, if this amount were accepted as “a basis for discussion,” it “would not commit the Allies to that exact sum.”
The Americans were inclined to accept that assurance, especially when it was repeated by Stalin, and to allow the figure to be mentioned in the Protocol. On this question, however, the British were absolutely adamant. Eden pointed out that they could not tell what Germany could afford to pay until they had discovered how much of the German economy survived the bombing and the general destruction of war. The settlement of the actual amount should be left to the Reparations Commission, which they had agreed to create. The Yalta Protocol should merely lay down principles to guide the Commission and should state that, “In establishing the amount of reparations account should be taken of arrangements made for the partitioning of Germany, the requirements of the occupying forces and Germany’s need from time to time to acquire sufficient foreign currency from her export trade to pay for current imports.” The British wanted it expressly stated that “Germany’s industrial capacity would not be reduced to a point which would endanger the economic existence of the country.” Eden argued that the Russians could not expect Germany to make large annual payments out of current production over a period of ten years, if German manufacturing capacity were reduced to the extent the Soviet Union demanded. These two objectives, he declared, were irreconcilable, as indeed they were to prove to be. “the British objective,” said Eden, with marked prescience, “is to avoid a situation in which as a result of reparations we will have to finance and feed Germany.” The logic of Eden’s arguments was overwhelming and both Roosevelt and Stettinius agreed with it, but they did not think that the Soviet figure was unreasonable and they were strongly moved by sympathy for the terrible sufferings of the Russian people.
At the penultimate plenary session Stalin spoke with great emotion of the vast and wanton destruction which the Germans had caused in Russia and pleaded for due compensation. Churchill read a telegram from the British War Cabinet protesting that reparations to the value of 20 billion dollars was far more than Germany could afford. It seemed that a deadlock had been reached. The Russians would not accept the British principles, and the British would not accept the Russian figure, not even as “a basis for discussion.” Thereupon, Roosevelt suggested that the whole problem should be left to the Reparations Commission in Moscow. Churchill and Stalin agreed, but that was not the end of the matter.
During this session Hopkins scribbled a note to Roosevelt saying, “Mr. President, the Russians have given in so much at this Conference that I do not think we should let them down. Let the British disagree if they want to—and continue their disagreement at Moscow.” That night at a dinner given by the Prime Minister, Stalin tackled Churchill again, saying that he did not like to have to go back to Moscow and tell the Soviet people that owing to British opposition they would not receive adequate reparations. The combined effect of Stalin’s persistence and Hopkins’s intervention was that when the Protocol was signed next morning it contained the statement that “the Soviet and American delegations agreed“ that the Reparations Commission “should take in its initial studies as a basis for discussion the suggestion of the Soviet Government that the total sum should be 20 billion dollars and that 50 per cent of it should go to the U.S.S.R.” The British view that “no figure should be mentioned” was also recorded, but this was of little account. The figure was there—however hedged around with qualifying phrases—and it was linked to the names of the Soviet Union and the United States.
Although the very persistence of the Russians on this point might well have served as a warning, it is doubtful whether any member of the Western delegations foresaw then that, in spite of Stalin’s repeated assurances, the Russians would soon be claiming that to “take as a basis for discussion” meant to “accept in principle.” From this it was a short step to the claim subsequently made by Molotov that “President Roosevelt had agreed at Yalta that Soviet reparations should total at least ten billion dollars.”
On that final Sunday morning at Livadia Palace neither the Americans nor the British suspected that the public communiqué and the secret protocol, so solemnly signed and endorsed with such expressions of mutual trust and good-will, would soon be distorted and violated by their Soviet Allies, and that this process of distortion and violation would begin before the Prime Minister and the President had been able to report to their respective legislatures on the conference at which, they both asserted, the Great Powers were “more closely united than ever before.”
In the House of Commons on February 27th, the Prime Minister declared: “The impression I brought back from the Crimea...is that Marshal Stalin and the Soviet leaders wish to live in honourable friendship and equality with the Western democracies. I feel also that their word is their bond. I decline absolutely to embark here on a discussion about Russian good faith.” That evening in Bucharest—despite the Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe—Molotov’s deputy (Andrei Vishinsky) issued to King Michael a two-hour ultimatum, demanding the dismissal of the Rumanian Prime Minister, General Radescu, the leader of an all-party Government.
Four days later, addressing a joint session of Congress, the President said: “The Crimea Conference...spells—and it ought to spell—the end of the system of unilateral action, exclusive alliances, and spheres of influence, and balances of power and all the other expedients which have been tried for centuries and have always failed....I am sure that—under the agreement reached at Yalta—there will be a more stable political Europe than ever before.” That evening in Bucharest, without any reference whatever to the Allied Control Commission, Vishinsky issued to King Michael a second ultimatum, demanding that he should appoint as Prime Minister Petru Groza, the leader of the Rumanian Communists.