3.1.1 to 3.1.8

The Yalta Conference (1945) The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and codenamed the Argonaut Conference, was the wartime meeting from February 4 to 11, 1945 between the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. The delegations were headed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, respectively. Overview The key Allied leaders, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, were known as the "Big Three" because of the might of the nations they represented and their peaceful collaboration during World War II. These three leaders met together only twice during World War II, but when they did conference, their decisions changed the course of history. After the Tehran Conference, the three leaders promised to meet again, and this agreement came to pass at the Yalta Conference of February 1945. Although Stalin had expressed concern about Roosevelt's health during the Teheran conference, this concern did not translate into action. The Soviet dictator refused to travel further than the Black Sea Resort, Yalta, in the Crimean Riveria (then part of the Soviet Union, now part of Ukraine) for the next summit and, once again, Churchill and Roosevelt were both the ones taking long and tiring trips to attend the Yalta summit. Each of the three powers brought their own agenda to the Yalta Conference. The British wanted to maintain their empire, the Soviets wished to obtain more land and to strengthen conquests, and the Americans wanted to insure the Soviet's entry into the Pacific war and discuss postwar settlement. Moreover, Roosevelt hoped to obtain a commitment from Stalin to participate in the United Nations. As the first topic on the Soviet's agenda for expansion, the subject of Poland immediately arose, and Stalin was quick to succintly state his case with the following words: "For the Russian people, the question of Poland is not only a question of honor but also a question of security. Throughout history, Poland has been the corridor through which the enemy has passed into Russia. Poland is a question of life and death for Russia." Accordingly, Stalin made it clear that some of his demands regarding Poland were not negotiable: the Russians were to gain territory from the eastern portion of Poland and Poland was to compensate for that by extending its Western borders, thereby forcing out millions of Germans. Reluctantly, Stalin promised free elections in Poland, notwithstanding the recently installed Communist puppet government. However, it soon became apparent that Stalin had no intentions of holding true to his promise of free elections. In fact, it was fifty years after the Yalta Conference that the Poles first had the opportunity to hold free elections. As mentioned earlier, at Yalta a principal aim of Roosevelt was to make sure that the Soviets would enter the Asian war, i. e. ,the war against the Japanese. Unfortunately, however, Roosevelt should never have spent any time agonizing over Soviet involvement in the Pacific war because Stalin did not need convincing. The Soviets themselves were keen to assuage the intense feelings of humiliation that resulted from a long ago defeat by Japan and loss of privileges in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War. The Soviets were keen on regaining lost territories and optimistic that they could obtain more lands.