IB HL History ResponseChris Wong

To what extent were Roosevelt and Churchill guilty of having "sold out" Poland at the Yalta conference? What other choice did they have?

The Yalta Conference was held on the southern coast of the Crimea on the Black Sea in Tsar Nicholas II’s former holiday home, the Livadia Palace. On February 1945, the defeat of Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the Nazis, was just in sight and the “big three”, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and the ill Franklin Roosevelt met to discuss the political order of the post-war Europe. Despite the conflict between the western world’s democratic ideology and the Soviet Union’s Communist ideology, both Churchill and Roosevelt recognized that the sacrifice of the Soviet Union was much greater compared to Britain and France, and by signing away Poland to Stalin, many historians debate whether or not Roosevelt and Churchill “sold out” their wartime ally, Poland. However, Roosevelt and Churchill were not guilty of having “sold out” Poland at the Yalta Conference because they were militaristically and politically unable to regain control of Poland from the Soviet Union.

Roosevelt and Churchill had no choice either than to give Poland to the Soviet Union as both Britain and France was militaristically exhausted from the Second World War and the removal of the Red Army from Poland would require militaristic means. During the Yalta Conference, the Soviet Union’s Red Army had already controlled almost all of Eastern Europe and was preparing to advance to the location of Hitler, Berlin. Despite the high amounts of casualties of the Soviet Union, Stalin knew that this fact would play a big role at the post-war conferences. According to historian Andrew Roberts, both Roosevelt and Churchill knew that for “four out of every five Germans who died on the battlefield are killed on the Eastern front”. Stalin was also clever in occupying the majority of Poland and knew full well that the removal of the Red Army from Poland would mean that Britain and France would have to start another war; a war that they had almost no chance of winning. Arguably, there was nothing militaristically that Roosevelt and Churchill could have done.

Roosevelt and Churchill are not guilty of signing away Poland to Stalin because theoretically, Stalin would establish the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity in Poland with the inclusion of democratic leaders of Poland and Poles from Europe; however, Stalin had no intentions of upholding the Declaration on Poland and instead established a Communist regime, which was not intended and was out of the control of Roosevelt and Churchill. In the Yalta Declaration, the Soviet Union committed to hold “free and unfettered elections”, as stated in the Declaration on Poland document. Aforementioned, the Soviet Union did not and never had any intentions of honoring their agreement. Taking into perspective the Red Army’s occupation of Poland, there was little or nothing that the Western European powers could do to influence the Soviet Union’s decisions, and going to war was not an option as Roosevelt rhetorically asked, “Do you expect me to go to war with Stalin over the Baltics?” As stated by historian Robert Dallek, the declarations of international peace and freedom was purely rhetoric and that “reality is what dictates”. Roosevelt and Churchill’s visions were, as previously

IB HL History ResponseChris Wong

mentioned, solely rhetoric and had no substantial influence on Stalin’s actions in Poland despite the clearly delineated agreements on paper.

Roosevelt and Churchill were not guilty of having “sold out” Poland at the Yalta Conference, as they had no militaristic or political power. Stalin was also decisive in occupying the majority of Eastern Europe, which left Roosevelt and Churchill with no option but to either fight an “impossible” war or appease Stalin. Arguably better than any other totalitarian leader, Stalin understood the concept that “might brings right” and that the agreements made at Yalta were futile.