The Yalta Conference in Russia

How accurate is it to describe soviet social policy in the 1930s as a ‘Great Retreat’?

With the closing of the Second World War at hand, Harry S. Truman represented the United States in Potsdam Germany to decide the fate of a post war world. The key individuals in the conference consisted of the allied leaders, Soviet Premier Stalin, Prime Minister Churchill, and Truman. Dubbed the “big Three” in the second conference of the post war, they were charged with the daunting task of dealing with Japan and their continued effort in the ending war. The Potsdam Declaration was devised. It simply stated that Japan must immediately agree to an unconditional surrender or face total destruction. Japan would ignore this declaration (Scoenberger, 1969).

February 1945: Yalta Conference: The Yalta conference was meeting held by the leaders of the 3 most powerful allied countries: the US, USSR, and Great Britain. They were there to discuss reparations in Germany. They all agreed that Germany should have a military power. Stalin, however, wanted $20 billion from Germany to pay for reparations, but FDR and Churchill disagreed. At the end of the conference, they all agree to divide Germany into four zones. The US, USSR, Great Britain, and France will each get a zone. This also led to the division of Berlin. The Yalta conference left Berlin and Germany divided until the end of the Cold War.

Potsdam Conference: The Potsdam conference brought together a meeting between Soviet Union Joseph Stalin, Britain Winston Churchill, and United States Harry Truman to negotiate the end of World War II.

Tehran Conference - December, 1943 - A meeting between FDR, Churchill and Stalin in Iran to discuss coordination of military efforts against Germany, they repeated the pledge made in the earlier

In 1945, the famed meeting of the heads of government of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union was held to discuss the reestablishment of the nations of a war-torn Europe. The Yalta Conference, held near Yalta in the Crimea, was the second of three wartime conferences held among the Big Three. The Yalta conferees, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, confirmed the policy adopted at the Casablanca Conference of demanding Germany's unconditional surrender. There they made plans to divide Germany into four zones of occupation under a united control commission in Berlin for war crimes trials. The Polish eastern border would follow the Curzon Line, and Poland would receive territorial compensation in the West from Germany. Discussing Poland, Churchill wanted to ensure free

The United States president of the time, Franklin Roosevelt, proposed that a conference should be held to discuss what action should be taken. In 1938, representitives from 32 countries in the surrounding area of Germany

Had FDR shared nuclear information with the USSR, increased cooperation between the world powers post WWII would have diluted rising tensions between the polar ideologies. Once introduced to atomic weaponry, the Big Three would have necessary power to act as nuclear policemen, able to regulate international production of nuclear armaments. Maintain balance of power with diplomatic relations with USSR. With each world power checking each other, USSR must be regarded as a power because they are power hungry. During allied war meetings it quickly became apparent that Joseph Stalin, Premier of the USSR, could not be satisfied by FDR’s diplomacy, and would deliberate every small point to the bitter end as long as it supported his own interests. With the failure of the League of Nations post WWI, FDR knew realized that small compromises must be made to ensure that greater peace was reached. However, the advent of the atomic bomb presented FDR both a powerful military and diplomatic tool to be used in these post war negotiations with Stalin. As each of the Big Three entered these negotiations at Tehran with each their own goals, FDR, Stalin, and the prime minister of the UK Churchill were still able to agree with each other on major military decisions such as wartime strategy. Knowing that each world leader had this

The Yalta Conference, set in February 1945, saw to a lot of arguments. Stalin did not agree with Western democracy and the way it included the public’s opinion, this made it difficult for the three(USA, Britain, USSR) of them to come to an agreement. Stalin promised free elections in Poland but he did not follow, leading Franklin D.Roosevelt to point out that Stalin has broken most of the promises that he made at Yalta. Disagreements between the communist government in Lublin and the government in London increased Western powers’ suspicion towards Stalin’s intentions. The Declaration on Liberated Europe, was where Stalin’s imperialistic(like Napoleon) view clashed with the USA’s idea of self-determination, and this later became a perpetual

Roosevelt dodged coffins by attending the Yalta Conference, his primary aim was of course to end the war, however with this in sight, his focus turned to creating a new world organization to replace the failed League of Nations. Unlike Woodrow Wilson, Roosevelt did not want collective security just for the sheer sake of it, he was a skilled politician, and knew that creating a new world organization would mean that he could justify the war to the American people. A “lasting peace” was the aim, and this became the forefront of diplomatic policy. The intercolutor, Admiral Leahy, Roosevelt’s chief of staff, became frustrated at Roosevelt’s “globaloney” , Leahy believed Roosevelt had an obsession with a “One World” philosophy at the expense of hard geo-political realities”. However Roosevelt did not necessarily believe what he fought for, he needed the liberal internationalist ideas to capture the hearts and minds of the American electorate. This was one of the key point of differences between the diplomacy of the Western leaders and Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill constantly needed to juggle inexorable public opinion with realpolitik, - the United Nations was something tangible that ostensibly served two purposes; it could bring an end to world war, whilst also keeping the American public on board with Roosevelt. Roosevelt did achieve his goal in gaining Stalin’s support for the United Nations, which suggests the Yalta Conference did have some benefit to the US.

The year 1945 also encompassed the preliminary stages aimed towards rebuilding the war-torn nations. Two meetings – the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference – were enacted to organize this future

In 1948 three countries, USA, France and UK, held conference, where they discussed the issue of Germany and what to do next. They tackled issues such as the future of Germany, the control of the Ruhr area and the payment of reparations (Douglas R, 2013) A new conference of the three countries occurred in Frankfurt, where still dealt with the issue of Germany and came to an agreement on the division of it. In Washington was another meeting of ministers of the three countries, where they signed a document which confirmed the occupation policy of the three powers in Germany. (Douglas R, 2013)

The Moscow State Conference itself was very polarized. On one side was the conservative blaming the countries problems on the Soviets. Their solution was abolishing the Soviets and re-centralizing power. On the other side was the Left, who saw the conservatives as counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the state. Both sides wanted to have a united Russian nation, they just disagreed on what that nation would look like. At multiple points Alexander Kerensky, the head of the Provisional Government after the July Days, had to call upon the crowd to settle down so the conference could continue. On the second day of the conference General Lavr Kornilov, Russia's commander in chief, gave a speech saying “it was essential to halt continuing

During the Second World War, Japan and Germany were both Fascist that Niall Ferguson wrote, “Japan, it is true, had no Hitler, no single ideologue adumbrating a utopia which all other could ‘work towards’. But it had many little Hitlers.” The statement is indicated from a speech made by Konoe Fumimaro, Prince, in 1935 that Japan, who did not have enough colonized countries, should advance for territorial expansion by acquisition and destroy the status quo of the Manchurian Incident, like Germany and Italy.

     The Yalta Conference was one of the most important events in history, let alone, this century. It took place from February 4 to February 11, 1945, at Yalta, Crimea, a port/resort. The three main individuals at this meeting were Churchill of Great Britain, Roosevelt of the United States and Stalin of the