United NationsĪt Yalta, Stalin agreed to Soviet participation in the United Nations, the international peacekeeping organization that Roosevelt and Churchill had agreed to form in 1941 as part of the Atlantic Charter.
In return, the United States and Britain agreed that future governments in Eastern European nations bordering Soviet Union should be “friendly” to the Soviet regime, satisfying Stalin’s desire for a zone of influence to provide a buffer against future conflicts in Europe.
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In addition, the Soviets promised to allow free elections in all territories in Eastern Europe liberated from Nazi occupation, including Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Stalin did agree to allow representatives from other Polish political parties into the communist-dominated provisional government installed in Poland, and to sanction free elections there-one of Churchill’s key objectives. He declared that the Soviet Union would not return the territory in Poland that it had annexed in 1939, and would not meet the demands of the Polish government-in-exile based in London. Stalin took a hard line on the question of Poland, pointing out that within three decades, Germany had twice used the nation as a corridor through which to invade Russia. The Allied leaders also determined that Germany should be completely demilitarized and “denazified,” and that it would assume some responsibility for post-war reparations, but not sole responsibility. The city of Berlin would also be divided into similar occupation zones.įrance’s leader, Charles de Gaulle, was not invited to the Yalta Conference, and Stalin agreed to include France in the post-war governing of Germany only if France’s zone of occupation was taken from the US and British zones. WATCH VIDEO: FDR: The War Years Division of GermanyĪt Yalta, the Big Three agreed that after Germany’s unconditional surrender, it would be divided into four post-war occupation zones, controlled by U.S., British, French and Soviet military forces. Stalin also demanded that the United States grant diplomatic recognition of Mongolia’s independence from China: the Mongolian People’s Republic, founded in 1924, was a Soviet satellite. In return for its support in the Pacific War, the other Allies agreed, the Soviet Union would gain control of Japanese territory it had lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, including southern Sakhalin (Karafuto) and the Kuril Islands. At Yalta, Stalin agreed that Soviet forces would join the Allies in the war against Japan within "two or three months" after Germany’s surrender. While the war in Europe was winding down, Roosevelt knew the United States still faced a protracted struggle against Japan in the Pacific War, and wanted to confirm Soviet support in an effort to limit the length of and casualties sustained in that conflict. This put Stalin at a distinct advantage during the meeting at the Black Sea resort, a location he himself had proposed after insisting his doctors had barred him from traveling long distances. Having liberated France and Belgium from Nazi occupation, the Allies now threatened the German border to the east, Soviet Union troops had driven back the Germans in Poland, Bulgaria and Romania and gotten within 40 miles of Berlin. Stalin, meanwhile, had agreed in principle to join the war against Japan in the Pacific after Germany was defeated.īy February 1945, as Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin gathered again at Yalta, an Allied victory in Europe was on the horizon.
Prior to the Yalta Conference, the three leaders met in November 1943 in Tehran, Iran, where they coordinated the next phase of war against the Axis Powers in Europe and the Pacific.Īt the Tehran Conference, the United States and Britain had committed to launching an invasion of northern France in mid-1944, opening another front of the war against Nazi Germany.
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