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The Yalta Conference, held in February 1945, brought together the leaders of the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union to coordinate their war efforts against Germany and Japan. The conference resulted in agreements on post-war borders, demilitarization of Germany, and the creation of the United Nations. While controversial, the Yalta Conference played a significant role in shaping the modern world.
In the last days of the Second World War, a crucial event took place on the Crimean Riviera in the seaside resort of Yalta. Convened on February 4, 1945, what would become popularly known as the Yalta Conference, or Crimean Conference, had been codenamed the Argonauts Conference in the months leading up to the event. The plan was to bring together the heads of state of three of the most powerful countries of the time: the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States of America. The event had a significant impact on the direction of the war effort and shaped the destinies of a number of nations.
At the time, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) were already involved in the war effort against the Axis powers of Germany, Japan and Italy. An earlier meeting in Tehran in 1943, the Big Three had already coordinated some war efforts that were to the mutual benefit of the three countries. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States, arrived in Yalta with the hope that the Soviet Union would support the war effort in the Pacific and help defeat Japan. The armies of the Soviet Union, by the time of Yalta, had already breached Germany’s defenses and were moving towards Berlin.
Furthermore, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, hoped to enlist the support of the Soviet Union for free elections and a democratic style of government for Poland. Joseph Stalin, as leader of the USSR, sought the possibility of creating buffer states in Eastern Europe that would serve as territorial protection both politically and geographically for the Soviet Union. All three world leaders came to Yalta with concerns that had to do with how much influence each of them would have in the postwar world.
Eventually, each of the Big Three at the Yalta Conference achieved unity on at least part of what they wished to accomplish at the Yalta Conference. The Soviet Union entered the Pacific theater, declaring war on Japan as Roosevelt had hoped Stalin would. The USSR joined British and US forces to take down the Imperial fleet. Churchill obtained the promise of free elections in Poland, which took place in 1947, although his hope for a democratic form of government did not materialize. In 1949 Poland was definitively a socialist state. The Soviet Union, for its part, retained control of the eastern part of Poland, which was supposed to make up the difference by acquiring German lands along its western borders. All three left the Yalta Conference with the intention of starting the creation of a world organization that would replace the failed League of Nations.
The Yalta Conference has left a lasting legacy in several ways. Germany was forced to undergo demilitarization and the dissolution of the Nazi party. Up until the end of the 20th century, the Berlin Wall separated the country into two sections, which were remnants of the original four occupied zones that were developed for post-war Germany, with the zones supervised by the United States, the Soviet Union, the Kingdom, and France. The Polish borders were realigned and remain in place to this day. The foundations were laid for the creation of the United Nations, which still functions as the main forum used by most of the world’s nations to interact with each other. The first five founding members, which included the Big Three, were granted veto power by virtue of their permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council.
The Yalta Conference set the stage for the recovery from World War II, but did not resolve all the issues that persisted between the three countries represented at the conference. However, the Yalta Conference played a significant role in ending the war and helping to hasten the establishment of a world organization that would be more effective than the League of Nations ever was. While many historians today question the methods applied by the United States, United Kingdom and the Soviet Union to achieve these goals, the fact is that their cooperation as a result of the Yalta Conference made much of our modern world possible.
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