Yalta Conference

Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, the leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union, held a key Conference for the establishment of new world order and the distribution of the interests among the major world powers in the Yalta Palace on the Crimea Peninsula in the northern part of the Black Sea between February 4 to 11, 1945. This conference is also known as the Crimea Conference or codenamed as the Argonaut Conference.

The main contents of this Conference were as follows: (1) As for the post-war arrangement of Germany, the three great powers decided to occupy and divide Germany among 4 major powers including the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union and that Germany must pay war compensation and decided the general principles of complete elimination of German militarism and Nazism. (2) On the Polish question, the three countries decided that the eastern border of Poland should follow the Curzon line, with a 5 to 8 km extension in favor of Poland in certain regions, and agreed that Poland should acquire new territories in the north and west, leaving the final determination of the border to the peace conference. After a heated debate on the organization of the Polish government, it was agreed to reorganize it based on the Lublin government, accommodating other democrats at home and abroad. (3) Regarding the Far East, the Soviet Union promised to declare war against Japan within two to three months after the end of the war in Europe on the following conditions: maintaining the status quo in Outer Mongolia (present-day Mongolia), returning the southern part of the Kuril Islands and adjacent islands to the Soviet Union, internationalizing the commercial port of Dalian, leasing the Soviet port of Lushun as a naval base, joint operation of the Middle East Railway and the South Manchurian Railway by the Soviet Union and China, and handing over the Kuril Islands to the Soviet Union. (4) On the issue of the United Nations, the meeting agreed that Ukraine and Belorussia republics of the Soviet Union should be the founding members of the United Nations, decided that the United States, Britain, France, Soviet Union, and China would be the permanent members of the Security Council of the UN, and established the principle of unanimous consensus among the permanent members when deciding on the substantive issues.

In addition, the meeting also discussed relevant issues regarding Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy, and some other European countries. The meeting ended with the signing of the “Yalta Agreement”, and adopted the “Declaration on Liberated Europe” and “Crimean Declaration” and some other declarations and documents.

The conference played an important role in easing the conflicts among the Anti-fascist Allies, consolidating the Anti-fascist United Front, maintaining the Alliance in wartime, coordinating combat operations against the German and Japanese fascists, accelerating the process of victory in the Global Anti-fascist War, as well as punishing war criminals after the war, eliminating the influence of Nazism and militarism, and promoting the formation of peace and stability after the war. The foundation for the establishment of the United Nations was laid at this conference.

However, some of the agreements of the conference were made without the consent of the countries concerned and have a clear tendency of power politics of the big powers. This seriously undermined the sovereignty and interests of China and other countries.

For the Soviet Union, Yalta Conference was the most important conference held by the Anti-fascist Allies during the World War II. The Soviet Union achieved a wide range of results at the conference: It gained the right to partition and occupy Germany; it established the Soviet-Polish border in favor of the Soviet Union and retained the Soviet-backed Lublin government in Poland. The principle of “unity of powers” established a strong position and role for the Soviet Union in the United Nations and it gained significant rights and interests in the Far East. Thus, in terms of establishing a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and securing a favorable position for the Soviet Union in the postwar European and world landscape, the Yalta Conference issued a warrant to the Soviet Union.

The arrangement of the post-war world order made by the three major powers at the conference is known as the “Yalta System”, which has had a profound impact on the formation of the post-war bipolar world.