Talking about the main things: how the Yalta Conference was held
On February 11, 1945, the Yalta Conference of the "Big Three" - the leaders of the USSR, the United States and Great Britain, the countries that entered the final days of the battle with Nazi Germany and its satellites - came to an end. How it was, recalled "Izvestia".
Where to meet?
The first meeting of the heads of the anti-Hitler coalition countries took place in Tehran in November 1943. But by the winter of 1945, new issues had arisen, which the allies could solve only at a personal meeting of the leaders.
Back in late 1944 in correspondence Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Churchill discussed the location of the future conference. At first, the Allies proposed to meet in Scotland. Stalin allegorically replied that he "did not like the fog". Other options were also considered: Malta, Athens, even Jerusalem. But Stalin understood: holding such a meeting in the USSR could become for the whole world evidence that the war is coming to an end.
Livadia Palace - the venue of the Yalta Conference. February 3, 1945
And by the beginning of February 1945, diplomats, military, politicians began to fly and come to the recently liberated Crimea. Some conference participants arrived in Yalta by train - via the Kerch railroad bridge. The complex construction did not fail. The most surprising thing is that after the conference the bridge lasted only a week, having suffered fatal damage in an ice storm on February 18.
The Saki airport received 28 airplanes, on which the participants of the last major diplomatic summit of the pre-nuclear age arrived. Incidentally, German aviation failed to mar the meeting for the Allies.
Three palaces
The American delegation was accommodated in the Livadia Palace - where the main meetings were held - for the convenience of the sick Roosevelt, who moved in a wheelchair. The British - in the Vorontsov Palace in Alupka, representatives of the USSR - in Yusupovsky, in the village of Koreiz. In the Crimea, everything still reminded of the battles. Ruins and craters, scorched earth and destroyed settlements - all this made a strong impression on the allied guests, who had no doubt who bore the brunt of the war.
An American staff ship arriving at Sevastopol during the Yalta Conference. February 4, 1945
But the hospitable hosts did their best to make the diplomats comfortable. It took less than two months to prepare - dishes, furniture, carpets and, of course, elite gastronomic supplies were delivered from Moscow to Yalta. A participant of the conference, Major General of the U.S. Air Force Lawrence Cooter recalled later: "As the first course at the morning breakfast was served a medium-sized glass of Crimean cognac. The cognac and opening toasts were followed by repeated treats of caviar and vodka. After them cold appetizers with white wine were served, at the end Crimean apples were served with numerous glasses of rather sweet Crimean champagne, the last course was a glass of hot tea, to which cognac was served. And that was only breakfast!" Winston Churchill especially liked the Russian shchi and strong Georgian chacha.
At the monument at the English cemetery of participants of the Sevastopol defense of 1884-1885. February 11, 1945
A strong impression on the British prime minister made and marble lions "in the style of the Tudors", which he saw on the terrace of the palace of Count Mikhail Vorontsov in Alupka. Churchill offered Stalin a large sum of gold for the lion, in which he saw a resemblance to himself. Of course, the answer was a polite refusal. By the way, after the conference Churchill stayed in the Crimea for a few days, visited the burial grounds of British soldiers who died here during the siege of Sevastopol in 1854-1855 years. He was struck by the fact that the Russians treat the graves of their opponents with reverence. But these are emotions, and the main content of the conference was, of course, big politics.
The Polish question
According to Churchill's calculations, 18 thousand words at the conference were devoted to the Polish question. This is not surprising - almost a quarter of the time of the participants of the meetings devoted to the fate of this country. Roosevelt repeated that he might not be understood by 5 million Polish voters. Compensation to Poland for the loss of Ukrainian and Belarusian lands in the east, in his opinion, should have been adequate increments in the west - in fact, German lands. But the Soviet side firmly insisted on Poland's eastern border along the "Curzon Line" defined as early as 1920.
Prince Yusupov's Palace - Joseph Stalin's residence during the Yalta Conference
Stalin resorted to all possible arguments - up to the fact that the "Curzon Line", which defined the eastern border of Poland, was not invented by the Bolsheviks, but by Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary in the early 1920s.
The final agreement of the powers stated: "The eastern boundary of Poland shall run along the Curzon Line with departures from it in some areas of five to eight kilometers in favor of Poland." The latter was a small concession by the Soviets in response to Roosevelt's direct request for a gesture of goodwill toward the Poles. When Churchill tried to question the inclusion of Lvov within Soviet borders and claimed that the city had never been Russian, Stalin parried, "But Warsaw was."
Members of delegations of the conference participants - military sailors from the U.S. and Great Britain examine a self-propelled gun of Hitler's army shot down in the streets of Sevastopol. February 9, 1945
But Churchill was worried about Poland's political outlook: the country had been liberated by the Red Army. Polish patriots fought alongside the Soviet liberators. Sympathy for Moscow had clearly increased in the country, as well as the position of the Communist Party. The émigré London government in exile now had little sympathy for Moscow.
in exile was now of little interest to anyone. And for the Soviet Union it was important to create a strong and friendly Poland on its western borders.
A blueprint for the future
The Yalta Conference decided the fate of a new international organization, the United Nations. This went against Britain's plans. The British realized that the principles of the UN would lead to the collapse of the colonial system. But Churchill could not keep the allies from this decision. Britain's military failure also had an impact. It showed itself to be a weak link in the "Big Three". The authority of London held mainly on the historical tradition and Churchill's energy. This was not enough to influence key decisions.
In the secret background of the conference showed a lot of contradictions. Hitler hoped that they would become insurmountable, saw salvation for the Third Reich in the gnawing between the Allies, which ideologically little united ideologically. Everyone remembered that Churchill, until 1941, was considered almost the most consistent opponent of the Soviet Union. But both he, Roosevelt, and Stalin tried to put aside what divided them.
U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the Yalta Conference. February 9, 1945.
In the midst of the conference, at one of the dinners, Churchill delivered a flowery eulogy to the Soviet leader: "I resort to neither exaggeration nor flowery compliments when I say that we consider the life of Marshal Stalin the most precious treasure for our hopes and our hearts. There have been many conquerors in history. But few of them were statesmen, and most of them, faced with the difficulties that followed their wars, dissipated the fruits of their victories. It is my sincere hope that the Marshal's life will be preserved for the people of the Soviet Union and will help us all move closer to less sad times than those we have recently endured. I stride through this world with greater courage and hope when I realize that I am on friendly and intimate terms with this great man whose fame has traveled not only throughout Russia, but throughout the world."
Stalin responded with a more subdued but also courteous toast to Churchill's health. The collapse of the coalition and serious discord within it was out of the question. All three sides realized that the defeat of Germany was more important than any contradictions. And this was the most unpleasant news that Berlin could get from Yalta.
The main decisions
Over the nine days of the conference, its participants held nine hours-long sessions. One of the key issues was the question of new state borders for the countries liberated from Nazi rule. The parties also determined the demarcation lines between the spheres of their military commanderies and the first administrations of the territories, which were to have a new - as it was believed, happy - life. In the subtext of each meeting was an incontrovertible truth: after the war, when the Soviet Union and the leading countries of the West would have no common enemy, it would be necessary to create a system of peaceful life on new terms. This is why the UN was created, with its Security Council and the veto power of the victorious countries.
Joseph Stalin is on his way to the regular meeting of the Yalta Conference of the Heads of Government of the three Allied Powers. February 9, 1945.
Soviet diplomacy in Yalta achieved a lot. The USSR's rights to the territories of Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, the Baltic States and Bessarabia annexed in 1939-1940 were recognized. The Allies also agreed that the Soviet Union had serious interests in the countries of Eastern Europe, which had been liberated by the Red Army.
It is no coincidence that the West traditionally perceives the Yalta Conference as a defeat for the "free world", which was forced to compromise with Stalin as much as possible. At the same time, they forget that the Soviet Union undertook to support the Americans in the war against Japan, although we had a valid peace treaty with that country.
At one of the sessions of the Yalta Conference of the Allied Powers. February 5, 1945
The conference took place during a war that was moving toward its epilogue. Perhaps the major decision of the Allies was the reaffirmation of a strategy aimed at the total destruction of German Nazism, without compromise. "Germany will never again be in a position to disturb the peace," the powers recognized at Yalta.
The fortress of the Yalta system
The third meeting of the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition took place after Roosevelt's death, after the Victory, almost simultaneously with the first U.S. test of the atomic bomb - in Potsdam, near Berlin, in July-August 1945. The new U.S. president - Harry Truman - tried to undo many of the agreements of the Yalta Conference, which he, as U.S. vice president, had not attended. But he largely failed to break the Yalta agreements.
Russian, English and American sailors at the Grafskaya Wharf in Sevastopol during the Yalta Conference. February 6, 1945
The Yalta system remained the basis of European equilibrium for at least 40 years. During these years, mankind managed to avoid a major war. At the same time, it was not possible to avoid the split of Europe (and the world), as we know. But for many years the UN became a tribune for all countries - there the enemies had to listen to each other and often to reach an agreement. Time has shown that there could be no better way out of the bloody crisis of the Second World War than the Yalta system.
The author is deputy editor-in-chief of the journal "Historian"
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