Things went differently in Slovakia, where on August 29, 1944, a popular insurrection broke out when the Germans entered Slovakian territory invited by the puppet government of Monsignor Tiso. The insurrection continued to the end of October 1944 before it was suppressed. The Red Army was unable to break through the German defenses in the Carpathians to help the insurgents.
At the beginning of October 1944 the Soviet army entered Hungarian territory. Horthy announced his break with Germany and asked the anti- Nazi Western powers for a cease-fire. But he was overthrown by Szalasi, the leader of the Hungarian fascists, which greatly prolonged the battle for Hungary. Several times the Soviets launched very costly offensives which did not bring the desired results. Military operations on Hungarian territory ended only with the German withdrawal in March 1945. Power passed to a coalition government supported by Moscow. After some time, the allies of the Communists and the fellow travelers were kicked out of the government and forced to flee the country; others in fact joined the Communist party. Rakosi, an old Cominternist, was placed at the helm. That he had spent twenty years in Hungarian prisons and his way of thinking had not changed since the 1920s had fatal consequences for Hungary.
On July 20, 1944, the German generals' plot against Hitler, long in the planning stages, was finally carried out. But the bomb that went off at Wehrmacht headquarters missed him. All the people involved in the plot were executed. Thus was lost the last hope of those officers who would have liked to reach an understanding with the Allies after Hitler's fall.
By the autumn of 1944 the Germans had successfully stabilized their front in western Prussia, along the Vistula, and in the Warsaw region.
In December 1944 the British and Americans, stopped by the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes (the Battle of the Bulge), appealed to Stalin to divert the Germans and begin the invasion of East Prussia ahead of schedule. By the end of January 1945, one week before the Yalta conference, Soviet forces had reached the Oder—Niesse line, were approaching Frankfurt-am-Oder and Kustrin (Kostrzyn), and had taken Schneidemlihl (Pita). The Red Army was only sixty-five kilometers from Berlin.
Selecting a meeting place for the Allied leaders was hardly the minor problem it might seem at first glance. While Roosevelt and Churchill corresponded about the site of their future meeting with Stalin, the latter had already made his decision.
Military action had ended in the Crimea in the middle of May 1944. The palaces in Livadia, Oreanda, and Alupka were renovated and the grounds cleared of debris. Airports, roads, bridges, and railways were quickly put in order. At the same time the native population of the Crimea was also cleared out: the Crimean Tatars were accused en masse, every man, woman, and child, of collaboration with the Germans and deported to Siberia and Central Asia. Whether or not Roosevelt and Churchill knew about these deportations, they constituted a violation of human rights bordering on genocide, a bad omen for the impending conference.
Churchill categorically opposed Stalin's proposal to hold the meeting at Yalta, fearing that it would give Stalin a great advantage. But Roosevelt insisted that they still had to reckon with the most important factor: in the Soviet Union all decisions were made by one man, Stalin. The future of the world would depend on his participation in the conference. The American president believed that if the Allies were patient and understanding, the USSR would take part in the new world organization of nations (the United Nations) and become a constructive force in world affairs.109 If on the other hand the wartime alliance against the Axis powers were to break up and the world were divided into two armed camps, the Soviet Union could become a disruptive force.
Roosevelt also had other, more practical, considerations. He was incurably ill, and several urgent matters remained unfinished: the utter defeat of Nazi Germany and the establishment of a future world order. He realized that the USSR remained the decisive Allied force in the European theater. Another important task was ending the war in the Far East. Japan still had an army of 4 million, a significant part of which (the Kwantung army) was inaccessible in Manchuria. Putting it out of action, potentially the most important part of the final stage of the war, could be done only by the Soviet Union. Roosevelt's military advisers gloomily predicted that without the Soviet army's help it would take another eighteen months after the end of the war in Europe before Japan could be brought to its knees. They calculated that a landing on the Japanese islands would cost 1 million American lives. This was a weighty argument. The president also knew that a test of the atomic bomb could be conducted no earlier than in five months, in July 1945.
At Roosevelt's insistence Churchill grudgingly accepted Stalin's proposal to hold the conference in the Crimea. From this time on Stalin was in complete psychological control of the situation. His political skill had never attained such heights, nor would it ever again after the conference. True, it was impressively buttressed by the bayonets of the Soviet army, then inundating Europe.
Under the unique conditions of the wartime alliance, a confrontation between two diametrically opposed systems of political thoughts, or more precisely, a clash of two worlds—the Soviet and the free world—took place at Yalta. However, something completely unexpected happened: a convergence not only of viewpoints but also of ways of thinking.
The Soviet world had tremendous advantages, first and foremost its military strength. Its ignorance of the Western world also worked in its favor. Moreover, the West as a whole, not only its leaders, recognized the Soviet Union's decisive role in smashing the German war machine; thus, the Soviet world also had Western sympathy for the sacrifices borne by the Soviet people and the desire to make compensation for them.
There were also more practical considerations. Roosevelt probably hoped—and this was his mistake—that a war in the Far East would divert the Soviet forces from Europe, thus weakening Soviet pressure. The mistake is almost incomprehensible, since the Soviet Union had promised it would declare war on Japan after the conclusion of the war in Europe, when the European theater of operations would no longer require many troops.
It was very easy for Stalin to satisfy Roosevelt. The American president was overwhelmed by Stalin's willingness to collaborate with Chiang Kai- shek, rather than with the Chinese Communists. Roosevelt was also satisfied that Stalin had agreed to join the United Nations under the conditions stipulated by the United States. How could the USSR have refused? It was granted three votes, since the Ukraine and Byelorussia were allowed to join the UN as independent members.
At the time of the Yalta conference, February 4—11, 1945, Soviet prestige in the West was at its peak.
The Western statesmen were concerned most of all over the situation in Poland, which was under Soviet control. Its future was in Stalin's hands. Both the American president and the British prime minister tried to coax what they could out of Stalin. But for Stalin the Polish question had essentially been decided. During the preliminary meeting of foreign ministers to discuss the agenda of the conference, Molotov suggested to Eden that the most important thing was not to interfere with the Poles because Poland was already liberated.110 Herein lay the essence of the Soviet position: the West should not interfere. Indeed, the Soviet Union was even prepared to make a few concessions, for example, the inclusion of several Polish leaders residing in the West as members of the Polish government which had been organized in the USSR and a promise to hold free elections (a promise never kept). The British requested permission to station British observers in Poland, with a guarantee of their freedom of movement. Stalin was magnanimous. Why observers? Let England and the United States send ambassadors to Warsaw. Churchill was grateful. Of course he understood that Poland's fate was in Stalin's hands and sought to mollify him. Still there was a ticklish ethical problem. England had entered the war to defend its ally Poland, invaded by Germany. Poland was a "question of honor for England."111 Stalin understood that, but explained that for the USSR it was not only a question of honor but of security. Churchill no longer insisted on the return of Lvov to Poland and even recognized the Curzon line as the border between the Soviet Union and Poland. Moreover, Churchill himself provided a justification: "[After] all Russia has suffered in fighting Germany and after all her efforts in liberating Poland, her claim [to Lvov and the Curzon lin$] is one founded not on force but on right."112