Historiography of the Yalta Conference

Raymond Solga

June 24, 2009

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The Yalta Conference lasted a week, from February 4

until February 11, 1945, and was the second and final face

to face meeting of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston

Churchill, and Josef Stalin, The principal subjects

discussed were Poland’s boarders and future elections,

German boundaries and war reparations, the occupation of

Germany, the conditions of Soviet participation in the war

against Japan, procedure, and voting rights in the future

United Nations organization. Since the conference has taken

place it has been one of the most talked about meetings in

history. There has been both criticism and praise for the

outcomes of this summit, and it is likely that historians

will be debating this topic for the foreseeable future.

David Reynolds addresses the topic of the Yalta

Conference in Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century.

He begins by criticizing the view of “Gaullist France [that]

it was… the moment when the superpowers divided Europe

between them into two blocs.” (Reynolds, 103) and the view

of Republicans in America that this was “another example of

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craven appeasement, in which millions in Poland and Eastern

Europe were consigned to communist oppression.” (Reynolds,

103) Reynolds argues that because the Soviet Union was in

control of Eastern Europe at the time of the Yalta

Conference “it was politically impossible for Britain or

America to turn on their ally in this way. The French and

American myths about Yalta gloss over these realities. If

the Western Allies can be said to have forfeited Eastern

Europe, it was by their strategy in 1942-3 rather than their

diplomacy in 1944-5.” (Reynolds, 108) The strategy he is

referring to is the decision, which he credits to the

British as the then “senior partner”, of delaying a direct

invasion of France in favor of sending troops to North

Africa. (Reynolds, 106)

The “interesting issue” in Reynolds’s view is that

Roosevelt and Churchill “belie[ved] that it was possible to

build a cooperative and durable relationship with the Soviet

leader. As with Munich, this fundamental misjudgment takes

us into the realms of perceptions, politics and also

hubris.” (Reynolds, 108) He describes both Roosevelt’s and

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Churchill’s as view of Stalin before Yalta as someone that

they could deal with, and “prone to blame Soviet displays of

truculence on unfriendly factions in the Politburo or on the

Foreign Ministry or Soviet intelligence to provide the

Kremlin with accurate information.” (Reynolds, 114) Both

Roosevelt and Churchill believed that they could influence

Stalin through getting along well with him personally.

Churchill was reassured by Stalin’s “promise to respect

British predominance in Greece…” (Reynolds, 114) allowing

him to keep the communists from taking power. Roosevelt

didn’t care about the fate of Eastern Europe, saying to his

ambassador “that he didn’t care whether the countries

bordering Russia were communized.” His overriding aim was to

achieve a settlement that would satisfy Stalin and stabilize

Europe without offending American opinion.” (Reynolds, 110)

Much to Churchill’s chagrin, Roosevelt did not even desire

to discuss with him a formal agenda before the summit.

Stalin, on the other hand, had a difference view of his

western allies. Prior to the war he was more afraid of

Britain than Germany. “For Stalin, even more than for his

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partners, the wartime alliance constituted a marriage of

convenience. He never shook off his fear that the British

and Americans might sign a separate pace with Hitler…”

(Reynolds, 115) “Furthermore, as a Marxist-Leninist, Stalin

never abandoned the hope of eventual international

revolution.” (Reynolds, 116) However, he did not want

another war, and “From the documentation now available, it

would seem that Roosevelt and Churchill were right to feel

that Stalin was a man with whom they could conduct

meaningful negotiations.” (Reynolds, 117) Yet, because of

Stalin’s “fundamentally different” world view, “the American

and British leaders were wrong to believe that they were

developing a real rapport with the Soviet leader…”

(Reynolds, 117)

Reynolds concludes that Yalta was neither a total

success nor a failure for all sides involved. “Roosevelt

secured his priorities – agreement on the UN and a Soviet

pledge to enter the war against Japan. Churchill managed to

avoid firm commitments about Poland’s western border, German

dismemberment and reparations – the latter to Stalin’s

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undisguised irritation. The British also secured a larger

role for France in postwar Europe than either of their

partners wanted. Stalin, for his part, gained acceptance of

his main territorial goals in Asia and agreements that

seemed to recognize his predominance in Poland.” (Reynolds,

158) Roosevelt’s “declining health had certainly affected

his diplomacy, but it was not a determining factor.”

(Reynolds, 151) There was misreading on both sides, for

example, “that image of Stalin balancing between shadowy

power blocs was a Western delusion.” (Reynolds, 154) After

Yalta, Stalin established exclusive spheres of influence in

Eastern Europe, in what Churchill saw as inconsistent with

the percentages deal the two leaders made, which were

supposed to guarantee a certain level of influence of

Britain and the Soviet Union in these countries, and

Roosevelt saw as a violation of The Declaration on Liberated

Europe. The “need for some degree of political pluralism and

openness in order to persuade domestic opinion made no sense

to this ruthless dictator [Stalin].” (Reynolds, 160) Because

of the limiting factor of the presence of Soviet troops on

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the ground in Eastern Europe, “Yalta was less significant

than American and French stereotypes have made it out to

be.” (Reynolds, 161) The long term effect the summit did

have, in Reynolds’s view, was to bring about “a sense of

betrayal on both sides.” (Reynolds, 161) The Soviets viewed

subsequent leaders as less cooperative than Roosevelt, and

for Americans Stalin’s reversal on the issue of and free and

fair elections in Poland served to deter them from a summit

to end the Cold War (Reynolds, 161).

De Senarclens’s Yalta gives a full account of what

happened at the Yalta Conference, in line with his goal of

“offering the interested reader as clear and precise an

account as possible of the manner in which the negotiations

were actually conducted at Yalta by Roosevelt, Churchill and

Stalin.” (de Senarclens, viii) He begins by discussing the

relationship between the allies leading up to the

conference, starting with the formation of the alliance in

1941, and including the various goals of the allies, the

strategies they used in war, the events of the first meeting

between the three leaders at the Tehran conference, and the

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military and political circumstances right before the Yalta

Conference took place. Although critical of both Roosevelt’s

and Churchill’s performance, “this book refutes the thesis

according to which the Yalta conference amounts to a great

occidental capitulation to the Soviets. It demonstrates that

the division of the world into blocs is not the effect of

honoring the Yalta agreement but of the failure to do so,

and that, consequently” (de Senarclens, viii) Yalta marks

the line between the wartime alliance and the Cold War which

followed.

De Senarclens, one important aspect of this conference

is that there was no formal agenda laid out. “As at Tehran,

Roosevelt had ruled out an agenda; he hoped for free, frank

and informal discussions. He liked to improvise solutions

and did not like to feel himself helmed in by rigid forms of

negotiation.” (de Senarclens, 47) Roosevelt also sought “to

convince Stalin that there was no collusion between

Churchill and himself. In pursuance of this objective, he

refused all preparatory talks with the prime minister, held

him at arm’s length, was pleased when he could adopt the

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role of conciliator and arbitrator, and gladly discussed

with Stalin his own points of dissension with Churchill.”

(de Senarclens, 48) “By avoiding joint consultations with

Churchill, by refusing to assume the constraints of a

rigorous and complete agenda, by constantly seeking in vague

and extensible phrases the path to a compromise with Stalin,

by making a show of an absence of any direct interest in the

destiny of Central Europe and the Balkans, Roosevelt

displayed a lack of political judgment.” (de Senarclens, 86)

He criticizes Churchill by saying that he liked to hear

himself talk too much, he was not firm enough in his

demands, and “in spite of his political misgivings, [he] let

himself be carried away by the euphoric atmosphere of the

conference.” (de Senarclens, 86) In particular, Churchill

put aside his doubts that Stalin would honor his agreement

on free elections in Poland. “Stalin was a matchless

negotiator at Yalta. Skillful at dodging issues… he almost

invariably remained calm… When he took up difficult

questions, such as the Polish one, upon which he did not

intend to make any concessions, he dissimulated

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consummately, played for time, and lied without batting an

eyelid.” (de Senarclens, 49) Although he praises Stalin’s

strategy and criticizes Roosevelt and Churchill’s, the

author acknowledges that the Yalta agreement “was compatible

with the aims of the Western Allies.” (de Senarclens, 86)

They had agreed on The Declaration on Liberated Europe,

participation of France in the control commission of

Germany, a Soviet promise to join the war against Japan, the

guarantee of the independence and sovereignty of Poland, and

“setting up of a world organization founded upon liberal

principles and aimed at ensuring the harmonious evolution of

the postwar international community.” (de Senarclens, 87)

Like Reynolds, de Senarclens argues that it was not the

Yalta agreement that limited the Western Allies ability to

influence circumstances in Eastern Europe, but it was “By

deferring until 1944 the decisive moment of their

intervention on the Continent…” (de Senarclens, 87) which

left them with no choice but to cooperate sincerely with the

Soviet Union.

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Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as National Security

Advisor under President Jimmy Carter, writes in an article

titled The Future of Yalta that “The myth is that at Yalta the

West accepted the division of Europe. The Fact is that

Eastern Europe had been conceded de facto to Josef Stalin by

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill as early as the

Teheran Conference (in November-December 1943), and at Yalta

the British and American leaders had some halfhearted second

thoughts about that concession.” (Brzezinski, 279) De

Senarclens criticizes Brzezinski’s article on several

points, arguing he “reduced the matters negotiated at Yalta

– which on his reading were already settled at Tehran – to

essentially just one problem, the Polish one, but he fails

to lay bare all the facts even of that problem and in

particular to mention the ethnological justification of some

of the Russian claims.” (de Senarclens, 86) By reducing the

Yalta conference to this one issue, Brzezinski “neglects the

context of these negotiations and… underestimates the

importance… [of] Soviet participation in the United Nations

organization and to the whole range of United States and

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British interests throughout the world…” (de Senarclens, 86)

I agree with de Senarclens’s criticism, and he and Reynolds

agree that the facto of Soviet military presence in Eastern

Europe prevented any possibility of Western influence.

However, there were some salient points made in the

Brzezinski article, particularly about “Roosevelt’s well-

meaning vagueness about arrangements for Europe’s postwar

future and Stalin’s studied vagueness about the extent of

Russia’s desire to dominate that future.” (Brzezinski, 287)

I think Roosevelt was being intentionally vague with the

goal of preserving the alliance, and Stalin was being

intentionally vague in order to mask his goal of dominating

Europe.

The Roosevelt Diplomacy and World War II contains two articles

on the Yalta conference. The first, by William Henry

Chamberlin, is very critical of Roosevelt’s handling of the

situation, calling it “the high point of Soviet diplomatic

success and correspondingly the low point of American

appeasement.” (Chamberlin, 107) He mentions Roosevelt’s

failing health, his lack of a “prepared agenda and no

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clearly defined purpose, except to get along with Stalin at

any price…” (Chamberlin, 107) as well as neglecting to look

at State Department reports that contained recommendations

for the conference. He says that in exchange for promises

which were to soon prove worthless, Stalin got his way in

Poland, reassigning territory to the Soviet Union from

Poland and to Poland from Germany, which was in violation of

the Atlantic Charter. He also suggests that Roosevelt “gave

implied American sanction to the large-scale exploitation of

German war prisoners as slave labor…” (Chamberlin, 109) He

contends that it was not a military necessity to comply with

Stalin’s demands because the Soviet Union was not as strong

at this point as is claimed by defenders of the Yalta

agreements. As an alternative, he suggests that the Western

Allies could have gotten into Poland and Yugoslavia first,

or continued to recognize the Polish government in exile,

rather than acceding to Stalin’s wishes. He also argues that

the U.S. should not have agreed to give Stalin rights to a

port and the railroad system in Manchuria because they did

not need Stalin’s help to defeat Japan. According to the

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author, the Japanese were already trying to surrender to the

U.S. before Soviet involvement or the dropping of the atomic

bombs. “MacArthur recommended negotiations on the basis of

the Japanese overtures. But Roosevelt brushed off this

suggestion with the remark: “MacArthur is our greatest

general and our poorest politician.” (Chamberlin, 113)

Stalin’s involvement in Manchuria was a violation of Chinese

sovereignty, and allowed him to help the Chinese Communists

defeat the nationalist government, thereby weakening the

U.S. government’s position in Asia.

Sidney Warren’s article tries to counter the criticism

of Churchill and other critics of Roosevelt’s handling of

the Yalta Conference. Against the charge that Roosevelt’s

poor health adversely affected his performance, Warren says

“While he was worn and exhausted… the records of the

conference show conclusively that his mental acuteness was

unimpaired.” (Warren, 116) To the charge that Roosevelt was

unprepared, he counters that “A comparison of the pre-

conference briefing papers prepared by the State Department

with the minutes of the Yalta proceedings reveals that

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Roosevelt was thoroughly familiar with the major policy

statements contained in those documents.” (Warren, 116) He

also paints a much less favorable military position for the

Western Allies in relation to the Red Army, who where in

possession of most of Eastern Europe. “It was, therefore,

not a question of what Churchill and Roosevelt would permit

Stalin to do, but what they could persuade him to accept.”

(Warren, 116) The need to bring the Soviets into the war

against Japan is also defended by Warren, since it was

expected that brining down Japan could cost up to 1 million

American lives, adding “The atom bomb had not yet been

tested.” (Warren, 117) He also mentions Soviet security

concerns in relation to the issue of Poland and Germany.

Stalin wanted to extend Soviet territory to the Curzon Line,

which “had been made in 1919 by Clemenceau and the Americans

at Versailles, a conference to which the Russians had not

been invited. Then he added passionately, “Now some people

want that we should be less Russian than Curzon… and

Clemenceau… You would drive us into shame… I could not take

such a position and return to Moscow with an open face.””

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(Warren, 117) It would have been infeasible to have tried to

deny Stalin’s demand when considering his military position

and the line of argument he took. In regard to free

elections in Poland, he argues that the promise of free

elections was all that could have been hoped for with the

Red Army already in possession of the country (Warren, 118).

To the charge that Roosevelt had given too much away by

allowing the Soviet Union to take control of Manchuria, he

argues that by securing China a seat in the U.N. Security

Council, China’s international prestige is heightened

(Warren, 120). Warren does criticize Roosevelt as more

“conciliatory than the others. Exaggerating Allied

dependence on the Soviets, he was apprehensive about

jeopardizing the alliance… Perhaps Stalin, who mistook

friendliness for weakness, might even have yielded to

firmness on one point or another.” (Warren, 121) However, I

think Roosevelt had in mind the goal of maintaining the

peace after the war had concluded, so he wanted cordial

relations with Stalin.

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Russell Buhite’s Decisions at Yalta: an Appraisal of Summit

Diplomacy gives a thorough description of the settings,

personalities and the issues at stake at the Yalta

Conference. He takes a different approach than de

Senarclens, not going back to the start of the alliance in

1941, but discussing the setting for the meeting and

personal traits of the three leaders first, then taking on

each of the main issues that were discussed at Yalta. This

book includes a section on the issue of Palestine, an issue

not addressed in the other sources I discuss here. His final

chapter is titled “An Appraisal”, and in it he discusses

some of the theories about the Yalta Conference. On the

issue of Roosevelt’s health, he says “That President

Roosevelt suffered from a high degree of mental impairment

during the conference now appears beyond dispute; that he

was incapable of understanding the implications of his

actions, given the help and preparation of his assistants,

is not. His failures were generally not those of mental

capacity.” (Buhite, 130) He also supports the thesis “that

the Soviet Union held most of the military cards at Yalta,

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and thus the agreements simply reflected a realistic

assessment of conditions on the part of all participants.”

(Buhite, 130) He also poses questions which the other

sources did not, such as “whether wartime summit conferences

represented the proper forums for the conclusion of Allied

agreement; whether summit conferences generally are

defensible; whether the West had a chance to gain anything

at the Crimean Conference; and, assuming that President

Roosevelt knew vaguely what he wanted, whether what he

desired could be achieved.” (Buhite, 131) Buhite argues that

“No American president, not Wilson at Versailles, Roosevelt

at Tehran or Yalta, Eisenhower at Geneva, or Kennedy at

Vienna, has bee well prepared for the give and take of

complex negotiation.” (Buhite, 132) This is because the

nature of the presidency does not allow one the time needed

to prepare because so many other matters need attention. He

also says that the nature of summitry “is the emphasis on

mythmaking and the creation of illusion that emanates from

conferences of heads of state. At Yalta, Churchill and

Roosevelt were desirous of achieving at least the appearance

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of cooperation and agreement because they feared that

otherwise public opinion in their respective countries would

fore reactive policies toward the Soviets.” (Buhite, 132)

Buhite argues that it is far more productive to have

subordinate negotiators thrash out compromises than to have

heads of state do it because it allows experts to conduct

negotiations at greater length, and if a mistake is made it

can be referred to the head of state. He actually agrees

with Stalin, that it would have been better not to have this

meeting, but would rather have left most of what was done to

foreign secretaries (Buhite, 133). The trip could have been

detrimental to the health of Roosevelt and Churchill, both

of whom were not well.

Conclusion

I agree with David Reynolds’s argument in Summits. I

think that the argument that due to the military situation

on the ground, with the Soviet Union in control of most of

Eastern Europe, the Yalta agreement is the best that the

Western Allies could have hoped for. The promises of

democratic election for Poland and recognition on the

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Declaration on Liberated Europe were really the only thing

that Roosevelt and Churchill could have gotten out of

Stalin.

I also think there is something to Buhite’s argument

that the summit should not have taken place at all.

Roosevelt’s belief in his own charm and powers of persuasion

did not justify the need for this meeting. Buhite is right

to say that subordinate negotiators for each side could have

come up with a more favorable agreement for the West. Stalin

did not see a need for this meeting. It is quite possible

that the trip to Yalta hastened the death of Roosevelt, who

was quite ill the entire time, and probably not the best

person to be negotiating for the U.S., because by all

accounts Stalin was the best negotiator of the three. The

shape of Europe would likely have been the same, but I doubt

whether experienced negotiators would have given the Soviets

the concession in Manchuria.

I liked the approach taken by de Senarclens. His was a

nicely detailed description of the relationship between the

big three, and was somewhat distanced from ideology.

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Bibliography

Buhite, Russell D. 1986. Decisions at Yalta: an Appraisal of Summit

Diplomacy. Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources.

Brzezinski, Zbigniew. 1984. “The Future of Yalta”. Foreign

Affairs, Vol. 63, No. 2, p 279-302. Council on Foreign

Relations.

Chamberlin, William H. 1962. “A Pro-Russian Fiasco”. In The

Roosevelt Diplomacy and World War II, ed. Robert Dallek, 107-

114. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Reynolds, David. 2007. Summits: Six Meetings that Shaped the Twentieth

Century. New York: Basic Books.

Senarclens, Pierre de. 1988. Yalta. Translated by Jasmer

Singh. New Brunswick, New Yersey: Transaction, Inc.

Warren, Sidney. 1962. “A Realistic Response to International

Conditions”. In The Roosevelt Diplomacy and World War II, ed.

Robert Dallek, 107-114. New York: Holt, Rinehart and

Winston.