Yalta Conference

February 4-11, 1945

The Yalta Conference took place February 4-11, 1945 at Yalta, Crimea between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin.   Agreements reached included: 1) the demand for Germany’s unconditional surrender 2) the establishment of a "provisional government of national unity" in Poland  3) a promise that the USSR would enter war against Japan 4) matters of the United Nations and other matters including those pertaining to Islands in Asia and  the repatriation  of Soviet citizens.

 They agreed the Polish Lublin government supported by Stalin would undergo reorganization to broaden its base and include members of Poland's London government-in-exile. Stalin promised "free and unfettered elections based on universal suffrage and the secret ballot" in Poland as soon as possible.   In addition, the Curzon line was accepted as the Polish-Soviet border.  In essence, the Western Allies surrendered the center of Europe to the Soviets.

 Stalin demanded that at the end of the war all Soviet citizens be repatriated to the Soviet Union whether they wanted to or not, and Churchill and Roosevelt agreed, unknowingly condemning many dissidents and old Russian exiles to death.  In his book, "The Sword and the Shield," (former KGB employee) Mitrokhin writes (Basic Books 1999. page 134): “In their desire to honor obligations to their ally, both the British and American governments collaborated in a sometimes barbarous repatriation….On June 1[in South Austria] battle-hardened soldiers of the 8^th Argylls, some of them in tears, were ordered to break up a Cossack religious service and drive several thousands of unarmed men, women, and children into cattle trucks with rifle butts and pick handles.  There were similar horrors on succeeding days.  Some of the Cossacks killed themselves and their families to save them from torture, execution or the gulag.”

              Quotes on Yalta

                  Text of the Agreements                      

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