Friday07 February 2025
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The world split in two: 80 years ago in Yalta, the leaders of the three victorious powers divided Europe and the globe into two halves.

Historian Spitsin: Stalin was convinced that a divided Germany did not serve the interests of the USSR.
Мир раскололся: 80 лет назад в Ялте три лидера победивших стран разделили Европу и мир на две половины.

By February 1945, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin understood that the days of Nazi Germany were numbered. As a result, the mood among all three in Yalta was positive.

Photo: GLOBAL LOOK PRESS.

In early February 1945, Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt flew to Crimea under the strictest secrecy to negotiate a new world order. The Soviet leader rejected the option of Scotland, so they arrived at the airport in Saki. They could have all stayed together in the Livadia Palace of the Russian tsars, but instead, they were scattered across three different palaces along the Black Sea coast. While they could have discussed the assault on Berlin in detail, they instead reached an agreement regarding the war with Japan.

How the three powerful leaders drew new borders was explained to "KP" by historian and writer Yevgeny Spitsin.

Historian Yevgeny Spitsin.

THE POLISH SPLINTER

- What was the purpose of the meeting between the three leaders?

- The key topics discussed, which had already been addressed in Tehran, included issues regarding Germany, Poland, the Balkans, and the new borders in Europe.

- Including the borders of Poland?

- The Poles and the British were anxious about the previous four partitions of the country. The USSR had no intention of returning Western Ukraine and Belarus to Poland. The Poles and the British sought compensation, which could be obtained by acquiring German territories. Through Pomerania and Silesia, Poland expanded its territories. Meanwhile, the USSR de jure solidified the territories that had come under our control as a result of the Red Army's campaign in 1939.

- Did they confirm what had been previously agreed upon in Yalta, or were they drawing borders directly on the tsarist tables in Livadia?

- During Churchill's visit to Moscow in October 1944, the famous "percent agreement" regarding the division of spheres of influence in Europe was signed. Initially, Churchill and Stalin held private negotiations on this division. Later, it was formalized in an agreement signed by the foreign ministers of the USSR and Britain, Molotov and Eden. All subsequent events in Europe were dictated by this agreement.

DIVISION OF GERMANY

- Was Germany divided?

- This question was raised in 1942 between Roosevelt and Churchill. By Tehran in 1943, the idea of dividing Germany was already being discussed at a higher level. Roosevelt brought up this issue.

- What did Stalin propose?

- He did not reveal our plans in Tehran. However, he had three plans for partitioning Germany into 3, 5, and even 7 states. They decided to create a working group led by Anthony Eden to address this question. Our representative was the ambassador to London, Fyodor Gusev. The group worked until mid-May 1945, assuming that Germany would need to be divided. However, with the signing of the capitulation on May 10, 1945, Stalin instructed Gusev to withdraw from Eden's commission. This was a shock for the Allies. Nevertheless, the Americans followed the USSR's example on May 11.

- Why?

- Stalin pondered the division of Germany for a long time and came to the conclusion that a dismembered Germany would not serve the interests of the USSR. The small states would become puppets in the hands of London and Washington. He proposed a new initiative: the creation of a unified and neutral Germany. Stalin wanted to prevent a repeat of June 22. He desired a buffer zone consisting of countries from Eastern Europe, from Poland to Bulgaria, on the borders of the USSR, and a second buffer of neutral states, from Finland to neutral Germany and Austria. Nothing remained of the initial plan to dismember Germany. The Americans, having deciphered Stalin's plan, began to act counter to it to prevent the establishment of a neutral German state and to place their military bases on its dismembered territory.

THE HOT BALKANS

- Were the Balkans divided in Yalta?

- The issue of Greece was addressed as early as October 1944 in that very "percent agreement" between London and Moscow. Stalin accommodated Churchill by agreeing to leave Greece in the Allies' sphere of influence. A civil war was raging there between ELAS*, Greek communists, and anarcho-fascists. After the Germans were expelled from Greece, the British sided with the anarcho-fascists, arming the opponents of ELAS. Stalin felt that the civil war in Greece would provoke a new conflict in which we would have to fight against former allies. The country was already strained.

- What about Yugoslavia?

- It was essentially "handed over to the Soviets." However, our conflict with Josip Broz Tito, meaning between the USSR and Yugoslavia, arose at that time due to differing approaches to resolving the Greek issue. Tito, urging Stalin to intervene in the civil war in Greece, was preparing an invasion there. Barges loaded with troops were on standby, and an assault operation by Yugoslav and Albanian forces was planned. But Stalin insisted to Tito that they should not provoke former allies into unleashing a new bloodbath in Europe.

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During the Yalta meeting, flags of the Allied countries—USSR, USA, and Great Britain—were displayed in Crimea. Photo: Alexey MEZHUEV / RIA Novosti

WITH A JAPANESE TWIST

- Did Stalin promise Roosevelt at Yalta that the USSR would enter the war against Japan?

- Yes. We informed Japan a couple of months later that we would not extend the Non-Aggression Pact signed between us in the spring of 1941. At that time, the head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Matsuoka, visited Moscow, and in a rare instance, Stalin personally saw him off at the train station. By February 1945, it became clear that we would have to fight Japan. We committed to the USA that we would enter this war three months after Germany's capitulation. The plan for the operation against Japan was being developed since late 1944, led by Marshal Vasilyevsky. Due to the death of the commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front, General Chernyakhovsky, Stalin assigned him to this front to test in practical warfare.

- At Yalta, did the Allies guarantee the USSR the return of both Southern Sakhalin and the Kurils?

- Yes, Port Arthur and the joint operation of the Chinese Eastern Railway were also mentioned. At Yalta, they agreed to revise the Portsmouth Treaty, signed in August 1905 following the Russo-Japanese War. Stalin noted that we, the older generation who witnessed the disgrace of the Russo-Japanese War, had waited 40 years for Sakhalin and the Kurils to return to Russia. This goal was set at Yalta.

COSSACKS ON THE WAY

- Did Stalin insist on the transfer of hundreds of thousands of Russians who found themselves in Europe, both forcibly and voluntarily?

- Roosevelt and Churchill readily agreed to this. For them, the relocation of former subjects of the Russian crown or those abducted by the Reich from the USSR was a minimal price for Stalin to make concessions on other issues.

- Were more former White Guards or Soviet prisoners of war returned?

- There were significantly more of our citizens who were abducted by the Third Reich for hard labor in France, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Germany. Fewer were the first-wave émigrés who fled Russia after the Civil War. There were Cossacks from the All-Russian Military Union. They were implicated in terrorist acts and sabotage in the USSR. A separate Cossack corps behaved atrociously in Yugoslavia, fighting against partisans. And they paid for it.

*ELAS (an acronym for Ellnnikos Laikos 'Apeleyterotikos Stratos - Greek People's Liberation Army) - the armed forces of the Resistance movement in Greece during World War II. It was created in December 1941 by the decision of the Central Committee of EAM based on the scattered partisan units operating in Greece.

FROM THE HISTORY OF THE ISSUE

The West cannot forget the many concessions made to Stalin

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Writer Yuri Emelyanov.

About the interesting details of the Yalta Conference, "KP"