Under Construction

Allied leaders came to Yalta because they knew that an Allies` victory in Europe was almost inevitable, but they were less convinced that the Pacific War was coming to an end. Recognizing that a victory over Japan might require a long-term struggle, the United States and Britain saw a great strategic advantage for Soviet participation in peaceful theatre. At Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill discussed with Stalin the conditions under which the Soviet Union would go to war with Japan, and all three agreed that the Soviets should have a sphere of influence in Manchuria in exchange for a potentially decisive Soviet participation in the Pacific theatre after Japan`s surrender. These include the southern part of Sachalin, a lease in Port Arthur (now Thehukou), part of the manchury and Kuril Islands. This agreement was the main concrete achievement of the Yalta conference. The three heads of state and government tried to establish an agenda for the leadership of post-war Europe and to maintain peace between post-war countries. On the Eastern Front, the front line remained in the Soviet Union at the end of December 1943, but in August 1944, Soviet troops were in Poland and Romania as part of their journey west. At the time of the conference, Field Marshal Georgui Zhukov`s troops were 40 miles from Berlin. Stalin lowered himself so much at the conference that he could dictate conditions. According to James F. Byrne, a member of the U.S. delegation and future secretary of state, “it was not a question of what we would leave to the Russians, but what we could do to the Russians.” In addition, Roosevelt hoped that Stalin would commit to participating in the United Nations. With regard to Poland, the yalta report adds that the provisional government should “be obliged to hold free and unimpeded elections as soon as possible, on the basis of universal suffrage and secret ballot”.

[18] The agreement could not mask the importance of adhering to the short-term pro-Soviet control of the Lublin government and eliminating the language that requires supervised elections. [19] The first reaction to the Yalta Accords was solemn. Roosevelt and many other Americans saw this as proof that the spirit of US-Soviet war cooperation would be transmitted until the post-war period. But this feeling was only short-lived. With the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, Harry S. Truman became the 33rd President of the United States. At the end of April, the new government clashed with the Soviets over its influence in Eastern Europe and the United Nations. Concerned about the lack of cooperation felt by the Soviets, many Americans began to criticize the way Roosevelt negotiated the Yalta negotiations. To this day, many of Roosevelt`s critics accuse him of “ceding” Eastern Europe and Northeast Asia to the Soviet Union at Yalta, although the Soviets made many substantial concessions. At that time, the Soviet army occupied Poland entirely and held much of Eastern Europe with a military power three times greater than the Allied forces of the West.

[Citation required] The declaration of the liberated Europe has little to do to dispel the sphere of influence of the agreements that had been incorporated into ceasefire agreements. Each of the three heads of state and government had their own agenda for post-war Germany and liberated Europe. Roosevelt wanted Soviet support in the American Pacific War against Japan, particularly for the planned invasion of Japan (Operation August Storm) and Soviet participation in the United Nations; Churchill insisted on free elections and democratic governments in Central and Eastern Europe (particularly Poland); Stalin called for a Soviet sphere of political influence in Central and Eastern Europe as an essential aspect of the USSR`s national security strategy.