The Road to Berlin (107 page)

Meanwhile the remaining business of the conference flowed on amidst these secret conclaves. On 8 February, after a tense and complicated meeting of the foreign ministers, the plenary session attended to the question of membership of the United Nations, with the President facing solid Anglo–Soviet opposition to the manifest ambiguity of his ideas. Having reduced the Soviet request to two republics (Lithuania had been quietly dropped) as signatories of the United Nations Declaration, Stalin faced further prevarication from the President and finally asked him that if he (the President) would just explain his difficulties, then something might be done about them. On the President’s earnest pleading, Stalin withdrew his formal proposition that the two Soviet republics (the Ukraine and Belorussia) sign the United Nations Declaration, in return for American and British support for them at the actual UN Conference and specific reference to them in the text of the foreign ministers’ decisions.

Over the question of trusteeships, Stalin could watch with undisguised delight as the Prime Minister, refusing to be restrained by the President, lashed out in defence of the British empire: he agreed to the practice of trusteeship being
applied to former enemy territories, but the British empire should remain inviolate, a point on which Stettinius hastened to reassure him. Since he was in the process of recovering Imperial Russia’s ‘rights’ lost to Japan in 1904–5, Stalin must have relished this fierce defence of the imperial principle and could store it away for future use, combining this with an assertion of ‘democratic principles’ to legitimize his hold on newly won gains in eastern Europe. But the talk over Yugoslavia took on a grimmer note, with the Prime Minister and Stalin on opposing sides: the Soviet side suspected British duplicity in undermining the Tito–Subasic agreement by detaining Subasic in London, and Stalin charged the Prime Minister with delaying the formation of a Yugoslav government. Though Stalin actually supported the British amendments to the original agreement, he demanded unequivocal three-power support—in the form of a telegram to the Yugoslav leaders—for the compact. Once the government was formed, the Russians would underwrite two of the British stipulations, a National Council enlarged to include former members of the last Yugoslav parliament who had not been compromised by collaboration, and ratification of legislative acts by the Constituent Assembly. Molotov rejected as a ‘humiliation’ to the Yugoslavs the proposal that the government formed out of the Tito–Subasic agreement should continue only until the free will of the people was declared.

Iran also proved to be another stumbling block and came up for discussion at the foreign ministers’ meeting on 8 February. Backed by Stettinius, Eden submitted that no pressure be put upon Iran to grant oil concessions and the withdrawal of Allied troops should be set in train once the truck route to Russia was closed down. Molotov at his most intractable responded by arguing that the withdrawal of troops was quite a new issue and that, although the Soviet Union had not been well treated, oil concessions scarcely warranted all this attention; matters could wait. In the face of the Prime Minister’s reluctance to raise this question in plenary session, and equal American indifference, Eden went directly to Stalin on 10 February, to be met with every show of accommodation to ‘think about’ eventual withdrawal of Allied troops and a waving away of Molotov’s dour resistance with a heavy-handed jibe about the latter’s hurt feelings in the negotiations over oil concessions. Iran got but passing mention in the proceedings of the conference. The same deliberate indecisiveness attended Soviet attempts to revise the Montreux Convention and the status of the Dardanelles, for all Stalin’s protestations about the outmoded nature of existing arrangements.

Compared to Poland, however, these were both literally and figuratively peripheral matters. The struggle over verbal formulae and political commitment reached its climax in the closing phase of the conference, centred on guarantees for free elections in Poland—which must be, as the President observed, as free of suspicion as was Caesar’s wife (though Stalin interjected that she was not above suspicion)—and a specific Anglo–American commitment to the western frontier. On the evening of 9 February at the meeting of foreign ministers, Eden dropped his own bombshell: the British War Cabinet referred to growing public criticism of
the territorial demands of the Lublin government and therefore suggested couching the terms of Poland’s western frontier to read ‘and such other lands to the east of the Oder as at the Peace Conference it shall be considered desirable to transfer to Poland’. Moreover, in the period between the formation of a new provisional government and the proposed elections, the non-Communists would simply be eliminated—hence the political balance of the government should be maintained beyond the period of elections. It had to be a draft on these lines, Eden insisted, or nothing. Molotov proceeded to juggle with words, referring again to the ‘reorganization’ of the government ‘now acting in Poland’ and this whole body to be recognized by the three great powers. Eden did not want a ‘reorganization’, he demanded something wholly new; equally, he rejected Molotov’s objections to the three ambassadors reporting on the elections—and, in any event, they would do this whatever the present conference decided.

This British draft overrode the previous American formulation, but it was treated in the sense of an ‘amendment’ to the American text. Molotov worked mightily to align these two versions yet to retain the cogency and purpose of the Soviet arguments. For all practical purposes he succeeded. He expunged reference to a ‘fully representative’ government from the final text, reinstated the ‘Polish Provisional Government’ (a synonym for the Lublin government) and hung on grimly to the ‘reorganization’ of the existing government; and, like Stalin, he skilfully used the proposed ‘Declaration on Liberated Europe’ to insert a caveat about ‘anti-Nazi’ as well as democratic parties, thus driving a coach and horses through any specific interpretation of party political affiliations.

The result, in essence, was a conundrum: when is a new government not a new government? Everything hung on the significance of ‘reorganization’. The British and Americans might expect a new government to emerge from ‘reorganization’, while the Soviet Union could take it to mean that ‘reorganization’ meant recognition of a government in being—the Lublin government. The British and Americans, however, refused to take the step of affording that specific recognition, in spite of Molotov’s pressure to this end. There remained the question of the guarantee over elections. Wearied by Molotov’s total obduracy, the American delegation gave up its demand for ambassadorial reporting on the elections and settled for an inconclusive formula on the role of ambassadors—more presumptive than real. However, the Prime Minister and Eden resolved not to surrender so easily and met with Stalin privately to discuss the elections, all on the eve of the plenary session of 10 February. The Prime Minister asserted that he must give Parliament a guarantee of fair elections in Poland, to which end there must be British representatives at hand. Stalin proffered an immediate solution: recognize the Polish government and an ambassador would have no difficulty whatsoever. The Red Army would not interfere but it depended on what arrangements the British made with the Polish government; after all, General de Gaulle had his representative in Poland. The Prime Minister was nudged to the edge of recognition.

Hurrying into the final plenary session after this consultation with Stalin, Eden laid the final document before the conference. It bore all the signs of having been cobbled together by many hands, as indeed it had been: it embodied the original American proposal (buttressed by the Soviet submission), subject to Soviet revision, drastically revised by the British and revised in turn by Molotov. The Prime Minister’s latest exchange with Stalin had also to be slid into the document. The President gave his agreement at once. However, the Prime Minister brought up the subject of the western frontiers, referring to his telegram from the War Cabinet which opposed the extension of the frontier to the western Neisse, the same telegram proposing that no mention be made of the Poles going beyond the Oder. President Roosevelt for his part wanted no mention whatsoever of frontiers and suggested consulting the Poles; nor could he by American constitutional practice commit his government without the ratification of the Senate. Stalin objected. The eastern frontier must be mentioned. The Prime Minister now held fast to his refusal to commit his government. Nevertheless, Stalin squeezed out a reference to the Curzon line—‘the eastern frontier of Poland should follow the Curzon line with digressions from it in some regions of 5 to 8 km in favour of Poland’, and Poland should receive ‘substantial accessions of territory’ in the north and west. The new Polish government would be duly consulted and a final decision delayed until ‘the Peace Conference’.

The Declaration on Liberated Europe, presented in its final form to the plenary session on 10 February, occupied less of the attention of the conference. Designed to bind the wartime allies to commitments of common policy, the original document urged the three governments to assist the liberated nations of Europe to ‘solve by democratic means their pressing political and economic problems’. Stettinius, who introduced this document, did not proceed with the proposal to set up an Emergency High Commission for Liberated Europe, which would hold sway until the World Organization came into being. Discussions over the document became a stalking horse for other issues—the President’s faith in democratic guarantees, the Prime Ministers suspicion of any move directed against the British empire, Stalin manipulating the terms ‘fascist’ and ‘non-fascist’ in the context of Poland. Soviet attempts at amendment, meant to broaden Allied support for those active in the struggle against German occupation, were rejected: ‘mutual consultation’ was transmuted into the more stilted and stiffer ‘joint machinery’ for the received text, and after some resistance the Russians agreed to Eden’s proposal to invite the French government to associate themselves with the Declaration. Stalin was not averse to supporting this document, and its ‘anti-fascist’ theme seemed to strike a responsive chord in him: sound sentiments and good words, drawing the line between fascist and non-fascist.

Behind the ‘spirit of Yalta’, which had undoubtedly triumphed and justified much of the euphoria, lay the reality of Soviet military victories, the epitome of which was represented by Poland; the United States and Great Britain could seek but they could not demand. Yalta tested the alliance to its limits. The
underlying issue was the degree to which the Soviet Union under Stalin would or would not pursue a path of co-operation. Within very strict and formally prescribed conditions Stalin indicated that he had chosen the path of collaboration, subject to a proper (and at times seemingly exaggerated) recognition of Russia’s rights; to this end he engineered compromises and offered concessions of a minimum order, but concessions nevertheless. He had gained his prime objective, the establishment of a pro-Soviet Polish government, the Lublin government, and then warded off all efforts to encumber it with ‘democratic’ appurtenances, though the issue of Poland’s western frontier still remained to be solved. He was also denied immediate satisfaction over reparations from a defeated Germany: the sum of 20,000 million US dollars set for full reparation from Germany was split down the middle in favour of the Soviet Union, but the final protocol of the Yalta conference mentioned this only as a
basis for discussion
. In a burst of genuine anger at the plenary session of 10 February, Stalin demanded to know of the Prime Minister whether the British wanted the Soviet Union to get reparations or not. A secret protocol permitted the Soviet Union to put its own figures before the Moscow Reparations Commission; other nations might do the same. Otherwise Stalin seems to have been well satisfied with the de-militarization and de-Nazification proposals for Germany.

Although sceptical in the beginning, Stalin also came to view the proposed World Security Organization as a serious venture and went markedly out of his way to help the President out of the manifest muddle over membership and voting. The vista of this kind of co-operation may have stretched even further, to thoughts of an American loan to aid Russian reconstruction—certainly Stalin pointedly referred to the outstanding contribution made, at the President’s instance, through Lend-Lease. In the Far East he obtained handsome restitution of Russia’s historical losses and a grip on Manchuria which was generosity, at China’s expense, taken to extremes—it was a strange turn of events which persuaded the President to enter into a binding commitment in Asia while so skilfully avoiding any such constraint in Europe. The President’s bald announcement that the United States was unlikely to keep its troops in Europe for more than two years after the defeat of Germany must have worked the same deep impression on Stalin as it did on the Prime Minister. Stalin could also express his unbounded enthusiasm for the Declaration on Liberated Europe, which, contrary to the President’s expectations, could in no wise alter or interfere with the Soviet hold on eastern Europe.

In terms of big three unity, Stalin had held out the prospect of collaboration. Since the alternative was too gloomy to contemplate, his partners seized avidly upon this sense of compatibility, forgetful that the terms were strict and prescribed. There were no outright ‘surrenders’ enacted at Yalta, for nothing slipped out of Stalin’s iron fist; nor could it be prised open. However, ambiguity was piled on ambiguity, most of which went unchecked at the time. And Stalin was a past-master at exploiting ambiguities.

Two days after the close of the Yalta conference, as the grandees went their separate ways in their cruisers and aircraft, the battle for Budapest ended in a welter of butchery, looting and rape. Battle-weary but triumphant Soviet soldiers machine-gunned the limping, broken German survivors and their Hungarian helpmates, or went about rounding up stunned civilians to swell the total of ‘prisoners’ taken in this ferocious fighting which spilled over the Danube and spewed into the tunnels and the cellars of Buda’s rock. Pest burned fiercely, slabs of buildings crashing into ruins and spreading a fiery rain in the city. Successive Soviet combat echelons moved through these twin hazards, killing and looting at will as ferocity alternated with childishness—taking women or seizing toys to hoard as presents for children. To give pleasure and yet inflict excruciating pain, to remember home but ravage foreign families, was all part of the mood of the Soviet soldier. It took a little time for sheer criminality to gain the upper hand, stimulated by the deliberate, bloodthirsty and horrifyingly vengeful language of the propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg, a slur and stain on Slav honour but a reflection of the degradation which all Slavs had suffered—not an eye for an eye, but two eyes for one eye, all rising to a hysterical frenzied crescendo which the Party felt impelled to check. Words, however, meant little, and while Red Army troops might mouth the slogans of death and vengeance, their conduct was governed by their immediate memories. The first-line fighting troops might pass without molesting anyone, but the second echelons—recruited
en route
, pulled out of prison camps or freed from forced labour, given a machine-pistol and a uniform—were brutalized from the outset. Even then there was a bewildering admixture of the maudlin with the bestial—the collective, guttural croak of
‘Frau komm’
with sweets and dollies for the children.