The Yalta Conference took decisions of enormous importance and Stalin was at his most ebullient. He asked to be rewarded for promising to enter the war against Japan after the coming victory over Germany. In particular, he demanded reparations to the value of twenty billion dollars from Germany. This was controversial, but the Western leaders conceded it to Stalin. More hotly debated was the treatment of Poland. At the insistence of Roosevelt and Churchill the future Polish government was to be a coalition embracing nationalists as well as communists. Yet they failed to pin down Stalin on the details. The wily Stalin wanted a free hand in eastern and east-central Europe. Roosevelt and he were on friendly terms and sometimes met in Churchill’s absence. As the junior partner of the Western Allies Churchill had to put up with the situation while making the best of it; and when Stalin demanded south Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands — known to the Japanese as their Northern Territories — in return for joining the war in the Pacific, Churchill was as content as the American President to oblige. Stalin and Churchill also acceded to Roosevelt’s passionate request for the establishment of a United Nations Organisation at the war’s end. For Roosevelt, as for Woodrow Wilson after the First World War, it was crucial to set up a body which would enhance the prospects for global peace.
The Western Allies were not in an enviable position. Although Germany was on the brink of defeat, there was no telling how long Japan might hold out. The American and British forces in Europe, moreover, had been told they were fighting in alliance with the Red Army. Not only Pravda but also the Western establishments buffed up Stalin’s personal image. No sooner had the USSR entered the war with the Third Reich than the British press replaced criticism with praise. On the occasion of Stalin’s birthday in December 1941 the London Philharmonic Orchestra, not previously known as a communist front organisation, played a concerto in his honour.19 Public opinion more widely in the West was acutely grateful to the Red Army (as well it might have been) and, less justifiably, treated Stalin as its brave and glorious embodiment. A military confrontation by the Western Allies with the USSR would have been politically as well as militarily difficult. More could have been done nevertheless to put pressure on Stalin; and although Churchill was firmer than Roosevelt, even he was too gentle.
In fact the worst contretemps among the Big Three at Yalta occurred not during the formal negotiations. Roosevelt after a drink at lunch told Stalin that in the West he was known as Uncle Joe.20 The touchy Soviet leader felt himself the object of ridicule: he could not understand that his nickname indicated a high degree of grudging respect. Needled by the revelation, he had to be persuaded to remain at table. The use of nicknames was anyway not confined to Stalin: Churchill called himself ‘Former Naval Person’ in telegrams to the American President.21 Stalin was not averse to taking a dig at Churchill. At one of the Big Three’s meals together he proposed that to prevent a resurgence of German militarism after the war the Allies should shoot fifty thousand officers and technical experts. Churchill, knowing Stalin’s bloody record, took him at his word and growled that he would rather be shot himself than ‘sully my own and my country’s honour by such infamy’. Roosevelt tried to lighten the atmosphere by saying that the execution of forty-nine thousand members of the German officer corps would be quite sufficient. Churchill, nauseated by the banter, made for the door and had to be brought back by Stalin and Molotov, who apologised for what they claimed had been a joke.22
The British Prime Minister remained unconvinced that Stalin had been jesting; but not for a moment did he contemplate withdrawal from the Yalta Conference. As at previous meetings, he — like Stalin and Roosevelt — saw that the Allies had to stick together or hang separately. When personal insults, however intentionally, were delivered to one of them, the others had to smooth ruffled feathers. In fact it was one of Churchill’s entourage, General Alan Brooke, who had the worst verbal exchange with Stalin. This had happened at a banquet at the Tehran Conference when Stalin rose to accuse Brooke of failing to show friendship and comradeship towards the Red Army. Brooke was ready for him and replied in kind that it seemed that ‘truth must have an escort of lies’ in war; he went on to assert that he felt ‘genuine comradeship’ towards the men of the Soviet armed forces. Stalin took the riposte on the chin, remarking to Churchilclass="underline" ‘I like that man. He rings true.’23
Clever though he was, Stalin was no diplomatic genius. Yet the Big Three had conflicting interests and he took advantage. Stalin had been given his inch and aimed to take a mile. Already the idea had formed in his mind that the USSR should conquer territory in the eastern half of Europe so as to have a buffer zone between itself and any Western aggressor. Stalin had a decent working partnership with the exhausted Roosevelt; and although he and Churchill did not trust each other, they felt they could go on dealing across the table. Many in Poland and elsewhere felt that this co-operation was taken to excessive lengths. The Polish government-in-exile warned about Stalin’s ambitions, but in vain. On 12 April, however, Roosevelt died. Stalin, a man scarcely prone to sentimental outbursts, sent a warm letter of condolence to Washington. It was not so much the death of a fellow member of the Big Three as the collapse of a working political relationship that he mourned. Personal diplomacy had obviated many snags which could have disrupted the tripartite military alliance since 1941. Stalin had enjoyed being taken seriously as a politician by Churchill and Roosevelt for the duration of hostilities, and their meetings had enhanced his self-esteem. Roosevelt’s successor, Vice-President Harry Truman, had a more right-wing reputation. Stalin anticipated rougher modes of deliberation on world affairs in the time ahead.
43. LAST CAMPAIGNS
At last in summer 1944 the Western Allies were ready to open the second front. Operation Overlord began on 6 June, when American, British, Canadian and other forces under the command of Dwight Eisenhower landed on the beaches of Normandy in northern France. It was an amphibious operation of immense daring and cleverness. Having fooled the Wehrmacht about the precise spot, the Allied armies pushed the Germans into retreat. If Stalin had been beginning such an offensive in the East, he would have demanded that the Western Allies attack the Germans simultaneously. Yet he did not hurry his preparations any more than the Americans and the British had done in earlier years. The Eastern counterpart was to be Operation Bagration. The name was not chosen accidentally: Bagration was one of Alexander II’s most successful commanders in 1812; he was also a Georgian like the USSR’s Supreme Commander. Massive German forces remained in the east, 228 divisions as compared to the 58 facing Eisenhower and Montgomery. On 22 June, after months of preparation by Zhukov and Vasilevski, Operation Bagration was begun. It was exactly three years after the Germans had crashed over the River Bug in Operation Barbarossa. Deep, complex combinations of tanks and aircraft were deployed across the long front.1 In East and West it was clear that the final battles of the war in Europe were imminent.
The Pripet marshes between Belorussia and Poland were the next fighting ground, and Stalin basked in the glory obtained by the success of his military professionals. On 22 July Rokossovski’s forces crossed the Bug. Stavka concentrated the Red Army’s advance in the direction of Warsaw and Lwów. Stalin had last been involved in battles over the territory in 1920, and this time he was in total charge of the Red Army’s activities. When Lwów fell on 27 July, the Wehrmacht pulled back across the River Vistula. Neither Hitler nor his generals had a serious strategy to reverse the fortunes of the Third Reich. German forces faced the prospect of war against formidable enemies on two massive fronts. The Western Allies were grinding their way towards the Ardennes, while the Red Army could see Warsaw through their binoculars.