Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and josef stalin. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen for our next event. Its more or less the keynote of the day because it is the talk on the yalta conference though all of the programs, all of the sessions will be wonderful. We have Serhii Plokhii here from harvard. Hes the professor of ukrainian history and director of Ukrainian Research institute at harvard. As i mentioned the morning hes been on our list for a longtime and we have finally found the right time to bring him down here to enlighten us. His many titles include the last elm pmperor, the cossack myth and forgotten bastard of the Eastern Front. Ladies and gentlemen, dr. Serhii plokhii. [ applause ] thank you very much for this introduction. Thanks to the organizers of the conference for bringing me here, and i also want to thank all of you because coming from boston and thinking that the weather is like today decided to come inside and listen to presentations like mine, i really appreciate that, that sacrifice. Thank you. The organizers really couldnt find a better time to have a conference like that, given that we are really having this, our symposium 75 years almost daytoday to the conference that took place in crimea back in february of 1945, and the conference thats still with us on many levels. On february 4th of this year, that was exactly the anniversary of the conference. I checked the Media Coverage and, of course, the conference was not forgotten. There were pieces online on the anniversary of the conference coming from russia. There was an oped in the new york times. There was bbc, a major expose on the conference. Its interesting that an issue of the conference the titles were different and the emphasis were different. So the conference is important for all of these countries but for different reasons. New york times oped it was the title was about Something Like we still live in the world made by stalin. And in germany it was about the conference making the postwar world. In russia what a wonderful time it was and maybe the founders of the United Nations should gettogether and Start Talking again. Well, yalta is the conference that is remembered not just on the anniversaries like february 4th of 2020. Its the conference that is there [ laughter ] whether it is february or april or may it doesnt matter because of its symbolic importance. [ laughter ] and if you think that this is just a one time, one particular situation where someone wants to make fun out of any of this that you see on the screen, this is not exactly the case. Every president ends up to be in a photograph that would be adjusted in an appropriate way. There would be chinese leaders, german leaders, depending on the situation, and the question is really why. I dont think theres more iconic image that exists there of diplomacy as such. Diplomacy of world war ii and diplomacy in general and in that sense yalta keeps coming back again and again and in this country yalta was very much part of major debates and discussions in history but also in politics in the late 40s, 50s, 60, through most of the cold war yalta was there and the question that certainly one has good reason to ask why yalta. We talked about and in the excellent presentation by professor Gunter Bishop there were conferences that led to yalta. There was also mention of potsdam. Yalta is a conference that is happening still very muchg middle of the war but itddzdc still considered as a conference, as a peace ii. S64o yo yalta. So . ,hphn de. I cuif1 o mlx lox loi that were. Qfnp r itbcqgw ymn e 1w 1 iahp hc hahp hc 19;mhc anniversay or ni;p0m r t hahp hc 9m zh tra 8r . 1nally. Zlsdz clt eeee tcoun lkbay that. Ueny8h afz7v[5rt hahp hc o[. ahp hc urm÷ xcoge n of th rouqd6 40 ill be more thancak a bpo bcs answer questiocynw[]kt y kpi6e so,deah let me0g1 ap 27 cvacns inm would spend ten years to work for a worst place than yalta they would not find one. And if you think that he was lying frling from the mediterranean and fdr was flying i dont remember now maybe virginia, maybe not they were coming from much, much warmer places. And thats the take over by the workers and peasants of the czar palaces at the beginning of the 1920s and then destroyed by the nazis and had to be rebuilt by josef stalin in time for the conference. There was a question whether it was stalins choice and whether he wanted to show the destruction of crimea. Stalins preference was the bigger town, bigger city where it was logistically easier for him to organize the conference and still relatively warm, but he had to get fdr to come all the way to the soviet union and it was Harry Hopkins who was very influential to roosevelts Foreign Policy who knew that fdr read mark twain and mark twain traveled to the crimea and thats where he met the russian czar. So there was this crimea was at least on fdrs map somewhere, because of the crimean war, because of mark twain and fdr wanted to go to the places he did see before. That didnt sound right but crimea fit the bill and eventually thats what happened. What the western leaders saw in crimea was not just a destruction done by the fight and done by the germans. A few months before the yalta conference, 200,000 crimean settlers were forced to resettle from that area by stalin so that added to the devastation and depopulation of the area in crimea where the conference was taking place, along the sea line. Theres a good he question, why if it was such a devastating place, if it was so cold and unpleasant, why then it was yalta . The main reason was that stalin as already was mentioned refused to go anywhere else. He was afraid of flying after flying to tehran, he had some problems with his ear and he decided not to do that. He also, as many dictators was quite paranoid in the sense that he didnt want to go anywhere, where he was not under the protecti protection. And tehran was also a place which was partly occupied by the red army. Potsdam was completely occupied by the red army and yalta was not an exception from that. So thats also he bought the premises which helped him in his negotiation. But why did the leaders of the western world decide to go through all that trouble and travel, and travel so far as yalta and professor bishop already mentioned fdr couldnt fly above a certain level, and those were conditions, those were really unpressurized cabins, so it was very difficult especially in view of his health, his Health Condition at that time. Why did they do that . Well, the reason was that they actually needed something from stalin. They were there to negotiate with him not just the end of the war but also the peace after the war before the soviets were in berlin. Before the soviets were solidifying their control over eastern europe. Thats why churchill flew to moscow in october of 1944 to make that agreement because he saw how fast the red army was moving and he thought if i can get anything from stalin in terms of the agreement this is the right time. So, fdr really puts his life on the line. He could very well not return from that trip. Either just dying in the plane, or they had to fly over the german positions, they were shooting at them. So thats very important to keep in mind about the yalta conference. The place where it takes place also tells you something about the disposition of forces at that time. Who meets whom in that negotiation and who has the trump cards and this is josef stalin and his minister of foreign affairs, and they are portrayed here this, is one of the photos from the soviet archives that became available after 1991. They are waiting for fdr and churchill before that famous photograph was taken that i started this presentation with. So that would be 20 minutes before that they are waiting in the court of the palace. That is president roosevelt after landing in, at the airfield in the crimea. You see that hes tired. You see that hes sick. You can see here that he doesnt have much time. And thats a photo, in my opinion, also stresses the point that i tried to make a few minutes ago about who needed whom and the kind of sacrifice that fdr and what he prepared to undertake, what risks he was prepared to take. He told his son where his wheelchair was, but he decided to go to yalta. Now let me be more specific what does fdr wants and needs. Why does he go there . At the very top of his agenda is the creation of what became known as the United Nations. Creation avenue world order. Liberal institutions. The world knows influence and world which would fit very well both pragmatically interests of the United States, politically in terms of business but also would look like, southern lind york ideologically right from the perspective of the United States that comes into existence in revolt, in a revolution against an empire. Thats very important to understand for the mindset of 1945. Also very important to understand in terms of tensions that would be there between the british and the americans because the americans would be very suspicious that what churchill is trying to do is this going through the soft underbelly of europe, into the central of europe. This is about british imperialism. This is not about the common goals. This is not the best way to defeat germany. The russians are trying to secure control of Central Europe, trying to secure control over the mediterranean. So theres a lot of tensions of that kind there. So United Nations is at the top of fdrs agenda and thats pushed by the state department and people in the state department. Then there were other generals. Generals want fdr to go to yalta to negotiate for participation in the pacific war. The estimates are that if the war actually, if the battle starts on the main islands per se, the losses can get up to 57,000 of american soldiers. So they need allies. They need the soviet union there. Nobody knows what the bomb is, whether it would work or not. Whether it would blow up half of the United States or being something that can be delivered somewhere. Its a bigger unknown. You need a lot of imagination. A lot of imagination to think that the atom that you cant see and you can split it and it can create a major explosion. So from that point, what becomes obvious by the summer of 1945, by the time of potsdam is not obvious at all in february of 1945. You can you could be laughed at if you suggest Something Like that to the average person in 1945. Thats okay. Thats the thing you can see. But it can blow up half of the world. So this is two main points on fdrs agenda. Another photo from the soviet archive and here you see churchill who is not happy. Hes not happy for a number of reasons, and my colleague professor bishop probably will be talking about both happiness and unhappiness, but one of the reasons why hes not happy is that he realizes for the first time that britain becomes a third rate power. Literally third rate. So at the top would be the soviet union and the United States and number three is still not bad, pretty good, especially by todays standards. But britain would be there. It wasnt clear and obvious at tehran when most of the soldiers on the western side that were on the front lines, they were british. Not the americans after dday they outnumber the british. The british are junior partner in this Alliance Work in the west and when you bring in stalin that diminishes the british negotiation power. And he want as lot. He wants really to he gave balkans away to a degree to stalin in 1945 but hes not willing to do the same with poland. So the future of germany, the role of france as a great power which britain, an ally in the future and help to keep western and Central Europe away from the soviet union, very important for him. Theres a long list. Thing that he wants to achieve. But his negotiation power is actually diminished in yalta compared to what is happening what happened before that at tehran. And this is the map that helped us to understand why those two western leaders are at yalta and also help us to understand the first day of the discussions that was dedicated to the situation on the front. If you read Time Magazine and its a nice way to present allies are working together but as you can see only one ally is on the fence. And the reason is conference is taking place after. The u. S. And british are still recovering from a major surpr e surprise. They are not prepared to continue their advance. The soviets are advancing. They started their major offensive on january 12th, 1945. And by the time of the yalta conference they are 40 miles away from berlin. They already established bridge hats on order. So when fdr and stalin meet, who will be First Americans in manila or soviets in berlin. So theres no question the soviets will be there first. Whoever has more divisions on the ground and more successes to show has the louder voice in the negotiations. That brings us back to something we keep forgetting whether we want that or not. Yalta is not a peace conference. This is a war time conference. Whats happening on the front line at that particular moment matters a lot and gives a lot of power or takes a lot of power from the negotiator. This is an illustration to what we had already started to discuss in terms of who contributed what to the defeat of nazi germany, which is a separate question than the defeat of japan, right . When we talk about contribution of Different Countries to victory in world war ii, we have to be there are two major theaters and we quite often talk just about europe. But thats the number of people who died in world war ii. As you see, of course, the soviet union is at the very top but did you expect china to be there as well . We dont hear very much about china. Look where poland is. And the United States and you can United Kingdom are here. They help us understand the situation but dont really contribute much to the question about the overall, overall impact, overall contribution because, again, the chinese there, poland and indonesia but we dont argue because indonesia more people died, made a bigger contribution to this or that. But thats a good way to start and think about world war ii in a little bit different ways from how we imagine it here. In terms of the impact that it had on every day life, on regular families, on destruction of life worldwide. Regarding the situation on the front in february of 1945, there is approximately between 12 and 13 million of men and women in the red army, on the Eastern Front. And somewhere around from 4 to 4. 5 million of american and british soldiers. So its anywhere between two to three times more soviets there. And that is more or less would be reflected also in the number of the divisions. But even more important than number of divisions is the dynamics of what is happening to yalta. Soviets are about to take berlin. They are in fully control of poland. They are fighting in budapest and the western allies are stuck. Issues that were discussed, the conference apart from the military coordination of the milita military, on the western front and Eastern Front was the future of germany. We talked about that earlier. The question was whether there would be several small germanys. Roosevelt at some point saying when i was a student and i traveled and everything looked so wonderful and peaceful and there were all this, the german states. So he has no real problem with dividing germany into a number of states. Churchill was also excited about that. Germany, but in yalta he was the one who was pushing for that. And fdr and churchill were champions of that idea and they were in a position where they were not prepared to commit, and the main reason for that is they advised they brought from their state department to a foreign office. And the advice was if you try to introduce Something Like that you would have to keep troops on the ground and there would be a real occupation because there would be german resistance unless there are moments from below that could be supported, that those regions, those lands would go independently, imposing that from above would mean actually the occupation and insurgency. And then counter insurgency. And the british were not prepared to do that for financial reasons. The United States government believed that what happened, what would happen after world war ii is actually what happened after world war i, the United States would go into isolationist mode. There is no way to keep american troops in europe for more than two years. Congress would never allow them to do that. So the idea pretty much dies in yalta despite the fact that the documents that are signed there still suggest that situation could happen. But the big iraq that is being discussed is about the zones of occupation. And that is where churchill tries to get the zone of occupation for france. He needs to build up the france as a great power. He also tries to bring france into the Security Council of the United Nations. He needs allies in europe. He doesnt think britain actually would be able on its own to keep germany down. Stalin doesnt believe the soviet union on its own could do that as well. It is very interesting, we are all, when we think about the future, our vision is based on what happened in the past. We base it on experience. And these are people who just 20 years earlier thinking about the year 2,000, right . From their perspective world war i anticipate thats where they are now and its very recent in their mind. They think the United States will not stay in europe but they also know that germany, no matter how much it has destroyed to date will be back in 20 years. That is their thinking and we know it will be a very powerful force. So stalin agrees to the froenen zone of occupation but says you can give them zoechbs occupation from your own zones of occupation from british and from america and that is eventual what happens. And now the big issue is dealing with germany is rep