Yalta Conference Joint Statement

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

The Yalta Conference Joint Statement opens by discussing terms for the defeated Germany. World War I had ended with the Germans signing an armistice, and the Allies had agreed that the only acceptable end to World War II in Europe would be Germany's unconditional surrender. By February 1945, the military situation had brought this goal within sight, and the Allies intended to dictate the terms for peace. They trumpeted their military cooperation during the war and proclaimed that they expected that cooperation to end the war soon, such that “the German people will only make the cost of their defeat heavier to themselves by attempting to continue a hopeless resistance.”

Critically, the Allies decided to dismember Germany into three and possibly four zones of occupation. This had two consequences. On the one hand, Germany had become a united state just seventy-four years earlier. By partitioning the country, the Allies let the Germans know that their continued unification as a nation-state was not a foregone conclusion. They meant to “destroy German militarism and Nazism and to ensure that Germany will never again be able to disturb the peace of the world.” If the Germans would not cooperate, it might come at the cost of their unification.

On the other hand, none of the Allies expected the division to be permanent. In fact, Germany would indeed divide into two states in 1949, the liberal Federal Republic of Germany in the western zones occupied by the United States, Britain, and France and the Communist German Democratic Republic in the Soviet-occupied east. The Allies' inability to agree on the political and constitutional terms of a reunified Germany made permanent until 1990 what was supposed to be only a temporary separation.

The Allies also intended to replace the ineffective prewar League of Nations with an organization of greater scope and, as it turned out, military capacity. Its institutionalization was announced, and the members of its security council were established—Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union, with France and China to be invited to join as well. As for the rest of Europe outside Germany, the Allied leaders agreed to “assist … the peoples of the … states of Europe to solve by democratic means their pressing political and economic problems.” This was meant to do away with Nazi and fascist governments and replace them with democracies. The Soviets had a very different idea of what it meant to “form interim governmental authorities broadly representative of all democratic elements in the population.” Russia had been invaded from its German border three times in the previous 150 years, and Stalin was determined that it would not happen again. The Red Army occupied nearly all of Eastern Europe; despite any efforts made by Roosevelt and Churchill to mitigate the situation, the Soviets were in a position to dictate future governments in those states, and they intended them to be Communist.

Poland and Yugoslavia were examples of the Soviets' prerogatives and power. By February 1945, Poland had been liberated by the Red Army; most Polish territory occupied by the Soviets between 1939 and 1941 was to go over to Soviet control permanently. Meanwhile, during the liberation, the Soviets had created a Communist-run provisional government in the town of Lublin. A government-in-exile already existed in London. The Yalta agreement called for the two groups to merge as the “Polish Provisional Government of National Unity” and to hold “free and unfettered elections as soon as possible.” Such would not be the case in Poland until 1989, when the Polish Communist government agreed to hold free elections and was swept from power.

Yugoslavia—the only nation-state to liberate itself from Nazi rule—was a different story with the same result. In June 1944 the Communist Partisans led by Marshal Josip Tito had agreed to unite with the provisional government in exile, led by Ivan Subasic. Thus the Allies merely needed to state that the agreement between the Partisans and the government-in-exile should be put into effect immediately and that a new government should be formed on the basis of that agreement. Free elections in 1946 brought the Communist Party to power under Tito, though Yugoslavia would remain a comparatively independent power in the Eastern European Communist bloc during the cold war.

The agreement also “reaffirmed our common determination to maintain and strengthen … unity of purpose and of action” and stated that “establishment of the proposed international organization will provide the greatest opportunity … to create … the essential conditions of such a peace.” Such would not be the case. While the resulting United Nations continues as a forum promoting world peace, the rest of the Yalta Conference Joint Statement is often taken as the first salvo fired in the cold war, dividing Europe between two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.