Essay: Roosevelt, Stalin, and the Yalta Conference

        January 28th, 1945, would mark the end of the massive clash between Allied and Nazi forces in the Ardennes Region of the Benelux, known as The Battle of the Bulge. From this point forward, the Nazi forces would be on the run, as the vice of Allied forces in the West and Soviet forces in the East clamped down into Germany Proper. It had become clear to the world; the Axis of Evil was in its final retreat. The responsibility would fall upon the newly realized powers of the United States and the Soviet Union, to not only clean up the mess created by the vanquished revanchist nations, but also to restore stability to the globe. In the months leading to and after the end of World War II, several conferences were had between The United States, The United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union to determine how to deal with the aftermath. In examining this time of negotiation and the period immediately following World War II, we can understand the theories of foreign policy that the United States and the Soviet Union were operating from and how operating from these theories impacted the conclusion of World War II and the beginning of post-war Europe. 

        Perhaps one of the largest changes in the global order after World War II is the decline of the colonial powers such as France and the rise of a bipolar order of the United States and the Soviet Union. These two nations would go on to become the global hegemons for decades to come, with only each other to compete against. As the War neared its end, conferences were held between the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. The leaders of these countries, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin respectively, became known as “The Big Three.” The Big Three would oversee the vast majority of decisions regarding the destruction of fascism in Germany and Japan and the rebuilding of Europe, among many other things. In the interest of a clearer comparison of foreign policy, I will not include analysis of Winston Churchill or the United Kingdom’s foreign policy.  The UK shared many of the goals and priorities of the USA regarding Europe. The goals the UK pursued on its own do not rise to the level of contemporary importance or historic relevance that the goals pursued jointly with the USA do. Additionally, the jointly pursued goals were led by the USA, given their position of strength, and rising global power at the end of the war. Therefore, the inclusion of the UK’s self-pursued goals is not necessary for the scope of this research, and would only distract from the overall study of the diplomatic efforts in Europe at the conclusion of World War 2. 

         The Yalta conference was by far the most consequential meeting between The Big Three. In this weeklong conference, the parties agreed to eight important provisions, each in some way dealing with the conclusion of World War II. The first provision agreed to was the establishment of The United Nations and the guidelines and requirements of this international body. Requirements for membership, rules regarding voting, and the location for the UN headquarters were set (“The Yalta Conference”). Franklin Roosevelt understood that without participation from the Soviet Union, being the other global superpower, the United Nations would lack credibility. The Soviet Union was able to parlay its required inclusion into a few comprises on aspects of the United Nations, such as the makeup of the Security Council (“The Big Three”). Given the western concessions, the Soviet Union agreed to join the United Nations and San Francisco was chosen as the location for delegates to meet and create the Charter for the United Nations later that year. 

        The second major provision agreed to at the Yalta Conference was the Declaration for Liberated Europe. In this provision, it was agreed that there would be high levels of instability in areas recently liberated from Axis control. To help control this instability and quickly rebuild, The Big Three agreed that during this period of instability they would jointly apply the policies of their governments on these liberated areas and give said areas provisional governments which have the institutions of a democracy so that these nations could be given the ability to govern themselves (“The Yalta Conference”). This agreement affirmed a core principle of the Atlantic Charter signed just years earlier which states that the people of Europe should be given the reigns of self-government. The charter was signed by Roosevelt and Churchill in 1941 to demonstrate that they had no interest in territorial expansion at the conclusion of the war (“Atlantic Charter”). Notably, Stalin had made no such demonstration, and in the democratic elections, Roosevelt agreed to allow communists to join the government as he believed nations bordering the Soviet Union ought to be friendly to the Soviet Union (U.S. Department of State).

        Provisions 3-5 all deal with the disposition of the German state and are titled as follows, The Dismemberment of Germany, Zone of Occupation for the French and Control Council for Germany, and Reparations. The Dismemberment of Germany provision states that the United States, Soviet Union, and The United Kingdom shall possess the supreme authority with regard to Germany. Furthermore, in the exercise of such authority, these powers will take steps they deem required for future peace and security, including the complete dismemberment of Germany. Following this provision is the provision for a Zone of Occupation for the French. This zone of occupation would be carved out of the American and British territories as the Americans and British saw fit. Additionally, Roosevelt and Stalin agreed on the principle that Germany shall be responsible for paying reparations for the war to those nations it had fought. The reparations would be paid first to the countries who undertook the brunt of the war, mainly the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and France.  At the Yalta conference it was agreed that these reparations be paid in three forms: extracting the physical wealth of Germany, annual delivery of goods from current production for a fixed period, and the use of German labor (“The Yalta Conference).  

        While the agreements at the Yalta Conference were major progress in solidifying security and stability following the war, there were still some questions that needed to be answered. At the end of the Yalta Conference, the leaders of the attending countries agreed that they would meet again following German surrender to determine the borders of post-war Europe. This conference came in Potsdam, Germany from July 17th-August 2nd, 1945. Notably, Franklin Roosevelt had passed in the time between the two conferences and was replaced at Potsdam by new President, Harry Truman. However, the change in American leadership is not what would cause Potsdam to ultimately be a failure. The fall of Germany meant there was no longer a common enemy in Europe. The removal of imminent threat made both sides less willing to concede on points they otherwise might have. While the powers were unable to come to agreement on many issues, they were able to make progress on others. The main issues agreed upon at Potsdam regarded the situation of German armament and German culture. The powers at Potsdam came to an agreement that Germany be stripped of any means to wage war. This included a complete disarmament of the German military and all paramilitaries as well as forbidding the production of all military hardware in Germany. Regarding German culture, Germany was to be remade into a democratic society, with all discriminatory laws repealed and the arrest of Germans deemed war criminals. Additionally, German educational and judicial systems were to be purged of all authoritarian influences. (“The Potsdam Conference”).

        While the Potsdam Conference did make progress toward rebuilding a post-war Europe, it is also the point at which the two opposing theories of foreign display themselves for perhaps the first time. This difference is illustrated in the disagreement between Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin on how to assess reparations on Germany. At the Yalta Conference, it was agreed that reparations be taken via three methods: the wealth of Germany, annual delivery of produced goods, and the use of German labor (“The Yalta Conference). However, at the Potsdam Conference, Harry Truman sought to lessen the burden of paying reparations for Germany. Truman pushed the idea that each nation would only be able to extract reparations from the production in their zone of occupation. Truman’s concern in this instance is both based on the idealistic theory of foreign policy as well as relatively recent historical events. Truman’s idea regarding reparations was idealist because it was based on the desire to rebuild Germany in a form that it was durable and stable, which would help maintain stability in Europe as a whole. Truman saw a stable Germany as a benefit to all parties in a post-war Europe (“The Potsdam Conference”). The historical event Truman was cautious to avoid repeating was the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. The Treaty of Versailles imposed extremely harsh reparations on Germany, to the point that it was virtually impossible to pay them back without completely destroying the nation’s economy. The payment of reparations was a chief factor in Germany’s spiraling inflation following World War I, and eventually did crash the economy. This left Germany in a state of societal chaos and governmental instability, which were the perfect conditions for a radicalism movement such as Nazism (Chapman, Tamara). Truman hoped that by limiting the collection of reparations to the production of the zones of occupation controlled by each government, it would not only prevent the large scale hollowing out of German assets but would also encourage the occupying nations to rebuild their zones in order to obtain full payment of reparations. This would in theory result in a situation where aggrieved nations are paid full reparations and Germany is able to rebuild and flourish into a democracy. 

        While Truman’s course of action seemed to provide adequate consideration to all involved parties, Joseph Stalin was staunchly opposed. Stalin strongly supported the original agreement on reparations which would allow for a much larger scale removal of German assets, production, and manpower. Stalin was operating under the realist theory of foreign policy. Stalin was not necessarily seeking out opportunities to cooperate and advance Europe as a whole. Instead, he was far more concerned with guaranteeing the Soviet Union’s security and position in the face of what he perceived as a growing capitalist threat. Under the new proposal from Truman, the Soviet Union would receive less in reparations as its methods of extracting them were diminished. This meant that the majority of the burden for rebuilding the Soviet Union would fall onto the Soviets. Not only would this reduce the punishment applied to Germany, but it would also mean that large amounts Soviet resources and manpower would be needed to rebuild the country (Popowycz, Jennifer). This was seen as unacceptable to Stalin because vast regions of the Soviet Union had been completely destroyed throughout the course of the war. While each country had sacrificed some, Stalin’s belief was that no one had given as much as the Soviet people. Therefore, the Soviet Union should receive more reparations to rebuild as they had suffered more from the war. 

        The inability to make progress on a plethora of issues at Potsdam made it clear that there was tension between the two powers that would not be able to be negotiated away before the end of World War II. The Potsdam Conference is the last time the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union would meet to discuss post-war plans (“The Potsdam Conference”). While this conference made the prospect of a Cold War apparent to the Allied powers, the actions of the Soviet Union regarding both the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference suggest that the Soviet Union understood the tension and its veracity much earlier than the United States did. 

        Much of the Soviet Union’s foreign policy came directly from the paranoia of its leader, Joseph Stalin. Perhaps if the Soviet Union were negotiating the end of the war with another communist nation, Stalin would have been far more willing to compromise and see the situation through an idealist lens of foreign policy. However, it is well recorded that Stalin was extremely distrustful of his western counterparts as Stalin had plans to grow the borders of the Soviet Union into Eastern Europe and was well aware that the Western powers, in accordance with the Atlantic Charter, would not stand for such expansionism (“The Atlantic Charter”). This conflict along with the general conflict between the Soviet Union being an authoritarian-communist nation and the western powers being capitalist democracies pushed Stalin into a situation where he was unable to trust the leaders he was negotiating with. It is with this background of paranoia and distrust that Stalin approached every conference with the Western powers (“The Big Three”). Due to his distrust of these capitalist democracies, Stalin was operating under the realist theory of foreign policy because he feared that the growing influence of capitalist democracies threatened the security of the Soviet Union, and therefore he was approaching negotiations in a more zero-sum manner. In identifying the differences in the approaches to the conclusion of the war taken by the United States and the Soviet Union, it is important to dissect the agreed to terms at the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam Conference as well as to examine how issues where agreement was not formed played out following the conclusion of the war. 

        First, the agreed to provisions in the Yalta Conference clearly demonstrate the idealist foreign policy of Franklin Roosevelt. The first provision lays out the guidelines for the United Nations. The decision between the presumed post-war powers to arrange an international body in order to diplomatically settle geopolitical disputes was a landmark agreement toward rebuilding Europe. While the Western powers viewed the United Nations as an institution that would shape the global order for decades to come, Stalin was on board, but skeptical of the United Nations. While initially Stalin supported the foundation of the United Nations, closer to the end of the war Stalin grew hesitant as he feared the United Nations too heavily favored the west and the Soviet Union would not have enough leverage within the institution (“The Tehran Conference”). In order to get the Soviet Union to join the United Nations, Stalin requested that China be added as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and that all Soviet satellite states be admitted as members (“The Big Three”). The latter was unacceptable to Roosevelt, and eventually the parties agreed that two Soviet states (Ukraine and White Russia) would be granted membership status in the United Nations despite not being sovereign states (The Yalta Conference).  Franklin Roosevelt agreed to Stalin’s requests. This is perhaps the clearest instance of idealist versus realist foreign policy that occurs at the Yalta Conference. In this agreement, Roosevelt sees the United Nations as an opportunity for international cooperation and collaboration. He is willing to grant Stalin’s requests because the Soviet Union’s membership in the United Nations is paramount to the credibility of the institution and even though he is forced to comprise, he is still able to coax the Soviet Union into an international body for diplomacy which will help ensure a stable post-war Europe. On the other hand, Stalin’s approach shows the mistrust of the West held and the jockeying for position that Stalin was doing at the time. Stalin was worried that if the Soviet Union joined a majority democratic-capitalist body, the democratic-capitalist nations would use the credibility and power of the United Nations, which was only attainable with the Soviet Union’s membership, to condemn and involve themselves in Soviet affairs. It is for this reason that Stalin asks for Chinese inclusion on the Security Council, as this would provide a much greater balance in the most prominent committees in the UN. Additionally, Stalin’s request that two Soviet states, which were not sovereign, be allowed membership was another way Stalin sought to balance the makeup of the United Nations. The Soviet Union would also benefit from the credibility of being a United Nations member.  While Stalin ultimately did agree to join the United Nations, he did so, from his perspective, only after ensuring the security and position of the Soviet Union first. 

        The second provision agreed to at the Yalta Conference was the Declaration for a Liberated Europe. In this instance, Franklin Roosevelt simply did not have the leverage to get Stalin to agree up front not to expand into Eastern Europe. Due to the fact that from the time of the Yalta Conference to Germany’s surrender the Soviet Union occupied all liberated territory in Eastern Europe, Roosevelt had no credible means of coercing Stalin to allow these lands to be democratic. While Roosevelt and Stalin agreed to set up provisional governments with democratic institutions and allow democratic elections, the manner in which this played out in Eastern Europe differed from the outcome in Western Europe. For example, after the Allies had negotiated the Tito-Subasic Agreement, Yugoslavia was to hold democratic elections, allowing all democratic, anti-Nazi parties (“Conferences at Malta and Yalta”). However, due to a boycott of elections by supporters of the monarch, the communist party led by Marshall Joseph Tito won a landslide election. Before the next election could occur, Tito and his party banned elections and would continue to curtail democratic processes and institutions in Yugoslavia for years (“Josep Broz Tito”). This example demonstrates that in certain instances, even when Roosevelt specifically brokered a deal to allow a democratic system, the internal politics of another country may simply overrule or disallow the desired outcome of Roosevelt. Another situation would happen in Poland, which also allowed democratic elections which saw a victory by the communist party and a swift curtailing of democratic institutions. While there are obviously questions to be raised about the legitimacy of these elections given that they were overseen by the Constitution of the Soviet Union, it would not fall outside of Stalin’s realist view of foreign policy to rig elections in regions he perceived as strategically valuable to the survival of the Soviet Union (Popwycz, Jennifer). 

        Provisions 3-5 regarding the disposition of post-war Germany was an area where Roosevelt and Stalin were able to largely agree. The fact that Germany was the common enemy of both nations and both nations sought to avoid a similar situation again, the leaders were able to agree that it was in the best interest of a post-war Europe that Germany be dismantled politically, occupied by victorious nations, and forced to pay reparations.  Regarding these provisions, both Roosevelt and Stalin are operating comfortably from their own views of foreign policy. For Roosevelt, he is able to achieve the destruction of Germany as a state, set up zones of control for the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, and he is able to claim reparations from the zone of control. For Stalin, he too gains control of a zone of Germany, dismantles Germany as a state, prevents the western nations from occupying all of Germany, and is able to claim reparations. Both nations had largely similar interests regarding the disposition of Germany and therefore they were able to reach a relatively thorough agreement.  

        However, one key aspect regarding reparations agreed to at the Yalta Conference would fall become an issue at the Potsdam Conference. Stalin saw German labor as absolutely essential to rebuilding the Soviet Union and sought to conscript 5 million German prisoners of war into forced labor for a period of 10 years. While Truman sought to limit the use of German labor, he was unable to reach an agreement with Stalin, and both sides ended up using German prisoners of war to rebuild (“What Happened to German Soldiers After WWII”).

        The United States directed approximately 1.1 million German prisoners of war to be used as labor to rebuild Europe, with the vast majority being sent to France. Many of these Germans were forced to do jobs such as clear minefields, build infrastructure, or mine. While nearly 25,000 prisoners of war died or were injured each year clearing minefields and using prisoners of war in this was violated the Geneva Convention, The United States justified its actions by stating that the German government did not exist, and therefore were not protected under the Geneva Convention. By 1948, the United States had repatriated all German prisoners of war (“What Happened to German Soldiers After WWII”).

        While the Soviet Union sought 5 million German prisoners of war to be used as forced labor, they only ended up yielding 3 million. These prisoners of war were often sent to perform extremely dangerous jobs in unforgiving conditions, with a large percentage conscripted to logging in Siberia. While may German prisoners of war in the Soviet Union were sent back to Germany before the end of their 10-year term, a full 1/3 of the original 3 million Germans perished in Russian captivity (“What Happened to German Soldiers After WWII”).

        This is to make no moral assertions about any of the parties involved. Through the lens of foreign policy this demonstrates that nations with different political, economic, and foreign policy philosophies can often have similar policy in similar circumstances. While the Soviet prisoner of war scheme was larger, longer, and more deadly, the American scheme had prisoners doing similarly dangerous jobs in many circumstances. In this specific instance, not only was there a strong feeling that Germany owed the victims of its aggression in the form of rebuilding their destroyed nations, but these victim nations had suffered immense loses of human life and in many cases lacked the population base to rebuild. Additionally, in the Soviet Union the destruction was at such a massive scale that even with a large population it would take years to rebuild. Due to these and other minor factors, both the United States and the Soviet Union resorted to forced labor of German prisoners of war in order to rebuild their interests in post-war Europe. 

        Stalin’s realist foreign policy benefited the Soviet Union in the areas of Eastern Europe expansion and to a far lesser degree rebuilding post-war via use of German prisoners of war. Given that these subjects were priorities of Stalin and the Soviet people at the time, Stalin’s realist foreign policy was able to accomplish highly important goals. However, Stalin’s realist foreign policy failed the Soviet Union in the area of credibility. With suspicious elections in Poland and Yugoslavia and the subsequent dismantling of their democracies as well as the inability of Stalin to fully trust his western counterparts, Stalin’s realist foreign policy at the conclusion of World War II fed into the tension that would spark the cold war. 

        Roosevelt/Truman’s realist foreign policy benefited the United States in the areas of foreign relations, global credibility, and diplomacy. The founding of the United Nations, and it being headquartered in the United States demonstrated America’s commitment to maintaining peace through diplomacy. This not only granted the United States favor and credibility with many nations who had just experienced a brutal war, but it aligned the United States with the preeminent institution of global diplomacy and international relations, a title the United Nations still holds nearly 80 years later. 

        By dissecting the Conferences at Yalta and Potsdam as well as other contemporary events, we see that the foreign policy philosophy of Franklin Roosevelt/Harry Truman and the United States and Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union at the conclusion of World War II frequently opposed each other. However, the two parties were often able to negotiate and come to an agreement. Overall, the realist philosophy of Joseph Stalin hurt the Soviet Union’s credibility but accomplished the general goal of guaranteeing the Soviet Union’s security and global position.  Roosevelt/Truman’s idealist philosophy was able to find areas of cooperation among states and use diplomacy as an avenue for action. However, on occasion the willingness and desire to cooperate with other nations led the United States to assume a weaker position in negotiations on hardline issues. 

        After analyzing the success of the opposing nations and gaining a clearer understanding of the motives driving their actions, it is clear that there are areas where both nations could have improved their position if they were willing to compromise on their theories of foreign policy. Franklin Roosevelt and the United States placed faith in Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union to not immediately move into Eastern Europe following the war. Whether this faith was allocated out of true belief or because seemingly the only option was to hope it would not happen, it was clear that the Soviet Union had no plans to allow sovereign democracies in Eastern Europe.  Given the structure of the Soviet Union’s own government was authoritarian communist and the historical paranoia of the Russian people and Joseph Stalin, self-determining democracies on the border of the Soviet Union would only be seen as a potential threat, not a potential partner. The United States options were limited, given that the Red Army occupied the vast majority of Eastern Europe, ultimately the manner in which these territories were handled following the war would be decided by the Soviet Union. However, the United States did have an asset they could have leaned on in order to mitigate the Soviet Union’s ability to expand: the United Nations. While the United Nations was in its infancy and had yet to build up much infrastructure, it would not have been an unreasonable proposition for the United Nations to oversee elections in Eastern Europe. This would have ensured that Western nations had some input in and oversight of elections in Eastern Europe, allowing the United States to have some control over guaranteeing the legitimacy of the elections. 

        As for Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union, one of their principal concerns was rebuilding the homeland after the destruction caused by the war. Stalin knew this would take a lot of manpower and resorted to what can only be called slave labor in order to accomplish this. However, this enslavement of German prisoners of war ultimately did not make much progress toward rebuilding and instead cost the Soviet Union time, credibility, and money. Much of the enslaved force died or ended up too emaciated to work. Most did not remain for the full 10-year period as planned due to these factors and others. While the Soviet Union was ultimately able to rebuild much of the destruction caused by the war, it was done so at an extremely delayed rate and via inefficient and inhumane means. Given the Soviet Union’s communist economic structure, it is an unrealistic solution to suggest they should have made rebuilding the homeland a profitable endeavor as this would strike against their philosophy. However, there is a two pronged approached that if the Soviet Union had taken it is likely they would have avoided the inefficiency and inhumanity and still been able to rebuild at the same rate. The two prongs are: do not stretch too thin and employ the Red Army. By remaining in Eastern Europe and constructing the “Iron Curtain” the Soviet Union was focusing hefty amounts of resources and manpower into Eastern European countries. This allocation of resources drew from what otherwise could be used to rebuild the homeland. Additionally, at the conclusion of World War II the Red Army totaled 11,365,000 officers and men. Within just a few years of the conclusion of the war, this number plummeted to less than 3,000,000 officers and men (“Red Army”). Granted some of these men moved from military roles to civilian roles which assisted in reconstruction. However, had the Soviet Union maintained a large military and employed said force to rebuild much of the nation, they could have not only avoided conflict over slave labor, but also completed the task sooner. Given the development of Soviet logistics and communication in the military sector throughout the war, it is likely that the military was better equipped and more capable of tackling the monstrous task of rebuilding than any enslaved force could be. 

    While the United States and the Soviet Union were able to come to agreement on many issues at the conclusion of World War II their fundamental differences in foreign policy, exacerbated by their differences in domestic policy, were ultimately too great to overcome once the common foe had been defeated. These differences and the ability to find common ground set the stage for the next 50 years of human history; the Cold War.

References

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“What Happened to German Soldiers After WWII?” YouTube, YouTube, 5 Nov. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrDtRvkGyjY. Accessed 13 Nov. 2022.