Stalin. Part 22: Political Race. Tehran-Yalta
Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk showed everyone that the world will never be the same. The USSR alone, without the help of its "allies", began to confidently grind fascist Germany, whose final defeat was only a matter of time.
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Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk showed everyone that the world will never be the same. The USSR alone, without the help of its "allies", began to confidently grind Nazi Germany, whose final defeat was only a matter of time. The United States and Great Britain sought to restructure the world after the war, trying to take a more advantageous position, because now Stalin not only had the right to dictate his conditions, but was also able to ensure their implementation. The US President, whose main task was to sink Churchill, quite easily accepted the USSR's demands on the border with Poland along the "Curzon Line". Roosevelt also did not oppose Stalin's desire to include the Baltic states in the USSR. The President was much more concerned about the post-war division of the German pie, but he was not going to share his plans.
It was not enough for Stalin to recognize his borders within the framework of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Without touching on the fate of post-war Germany, the leader of the USSR wanted his country to enter the southern seas and friendly states along the entire western border, wanted control over Finland, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and, of course, increase the supply of weapons. For the safety of his country, Stalin easily went to meet the desire of his Western partners to dissolve the Comintern (Stalin no longer needed it) and showed religious tolerance (this was very useful in a country where half of the population continued to stubbornly "believe the tales of God"). The Comintern was dissolved, the Synod was assembled, the patriarch was elected.
Churchill sensed that not everything was so smooth, and at a conference in Quebec he remarked to Harriman: “Stalin is an unnatural person. There will be serious troubles. " Stalin was preparing the trouble for Great Britain. He saw only the States as his "twins" in the post-war balance of power. Imperialist England was obviously losing political weight.
1. Tehran-43
Stalin was ready for a meeting with Roosevelt, but not in Alaska, as the US President proposed, where Stalin could not ensure himself the proper security, but in Tehran. Here, by the will of fate and Soviet intelligence, "Uncle Joe" [1] was able to visually demonstrate the work of his special services to the allies. Thanks to the reports of the Soviet intelligence officer N. Kuznetsov, it became known about the impending attempt on the "troika". Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin were to be kidnapped by the Nazis. The operation was headed by the famous German saboteur-militant Otto Skorzeny. The operation of the fascists failed, their negotiations were deciphered by the NKVD. Stalin showed the captured German agents to his partners and invited Roosevelt, whose embassy was in a dysfunctional area, to settle in his residence. Here, under the cover of three lines of defense of infantry and tanks, the US President could feel protected.
Researchers believe that Stalin's achievements in Tehran are comparable to the results of the Stalingrad and Kursk battles. Stalin not only received recognition of the borders of the USSR along the "Curzon Line", but also did not allow Lvov to be taken away from him:
- Excuse me, but Lviv has never been a Russian city! - Churchill was outraged, meaning that during the Russian Empire Lviv was part of Austria-Hungary.
- And Warsaw was! - Stalin retorted.
There was a threat in his words. Delays in the opening of a second front and clear successes in the war freed Stalin's hands. The ability of the USSR to resolve the issue of post-war borders in Europe by force became more evident with each passing day of the victorious war and aroused the concern of the parties. Stalin warned (threatened) that he would also take part of Finland if the Finns refused to pay the indemnity.
When Churchill, with his usual equanimity, began to speculate about the difficulties of the Allied landing operation in France, making it clear that the opening of the second front was an incredible concession to the USSR from the war-exhausted British armed forces, Stalin suggested that he consider this: “It is very difficult for the Russians to continue the war, - he said, lighting a pipe, - the army is tired, besides, it may have … a feeling of loneliness.
Stalin despised the allies for cowardice and selfishness. He made it clear to his “assistants” that their fears about the possible conclusion of a peace treaty by the USSR with Germany like “Molotov-Ribbentrop-2” with the transition from war to cooperation with the Nazis have good reasons. There was even a special radio game that misinformed the parties about the intentions of the Headquarters regarding peace with Hitler. Churchill assessed the threat and hastened to assure that Operation Overlord would begin no later than May 1944. Sovereign? Well, we'll see about that. Stalin understood very well that the struggle for power in Europe was just beginning. If the USSR was exhausted by the war, then the allied forces entered the game, having sat well on the bench. Stalin was not going to yield to them. The main thing for him was to ensure the security of the country's borders after the war, as from the west,and from the east.
In the east, the situation was as follows. Taking the obligation to start a war with Japan after the defeat of Germany, the USSR regained Sakhalin, the Kuriles and preemptive rights in China. Thus, the losses of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 were compensated. Stalin swiftly returned the USSR to the borders of the Russian Empire and was not going to stop there.
2. The Polish question
The race to Berlin has begun. The allies, who came to the nodding analysis, wanted to be the first to keep up and rob "Uncle Joe" of his victory. There was a big political game ahead. Against the background of the bloodshed of Stalingrad and the Kursk Bulge, the siege of Leningrad and the horrors of Nazi captivity, it seemed like the antics and leaps of "god monkeys". For the sake of preserving the integrity of his country, Stalin had to participate in this game. He intended to outplay his sworn friends, whose true desires he read like an open book.
Operation Overlord further exacerbated the contradictions between Stalin and the Allies. The opening of the second front pulled a significant part of Hitler's troops to the western front, the allies clearly sought to take part in the carve-up of the skin of a badly beaten Berlin bear. But Churchill was right. Stalin was preparing a surprise. On August 1, 1944, an uprising began in Poland.
In contrast to the émigré government hiding in London, the Polish Committee for National Liberation (PKLN) was organized in Lublin, liberated by Soviet troops. The pro-Soviet Polish Army was behind the PKNO. The émigré government was defended by the Home Army under the leadership of the talented and ambitious military leader Tadeusz Bur-Komarovsky.
The allies saw in the Polish uprising the intrigues of the insidious "Uncle Joe". Churchill became convinced of the correctness of his predictions about Stalin's "unnatural man", who, meanwhile, wrote to the British Prime Minister that he did not consider it necessary to interfere in Poland's affairs: "Let the Poles themselves do it." Negotiations began. The emigrant Polish government tried to play awkwardly at a table where players of a completely different level were gathered. As a result, the SS troops entered Warsaw, which somewhat complicated the task of our troops to liberate the capital of Poland and cost many lives, but did not change anything in the course of history.
From the very beginning, Stalin considered the Warsaw uprising a gamble doomed to failure, he needed PKNO as the basis of the pro-Soviet post-war government of Poland. When the head of the Polish émigré government, S. Mikolajczyk, began to make claims against Western Ukraine, Belarus and Vilnius, Churchill said: “I wash my hands. We will not break the peace in Europe just because the Poles are fighting among themselves. You, with your stubbornness, do not see how things are … Save your people and give us an opportunity for effective action."
With their narrow-mindedness, the Polish nationalists did not allow even Churchill to play in their favor! Alas, the tragedy of nationalism repeats itself over and over again. Not seeing how things are in the modern world, nationalists are trying to go forward, turning their heads back into the past. It seems to them that they are playing and that something depends on them. In fact, their chips have long been divided among the olfactory princes of this world. In 1944, Stalin and Churchill were such players in Europe. The latter needed Stalin's recognition of Britain's dominance in Greece. For this he was ready to give Poland to Stalin. The deal went through. Soviet troops did not enter Greece. The emigrant Polish government did not become the government of post-war Poland.
The deal had a very characteristic "design". It was a note on half a sheet of paper, where Churchill sketched out in percentage how much influence Russia and how much Great Britain in which countries would suit him, and handed it to Stalin while his words were translated. Stalin looked at the note and put a tick on it. One "clerk" took into account the data of another in his calculations. Nothing personal. Nothing extra. Complete melancholy and contempt for emotions. All in a few minutes of translation that olfactory advisors didn't need.
Stalin did not need the tension in Poland, the civil war, which was unleashed by the Home Army (AK), could provoke interference in Polish affairs by the British and prevent the formation of the government that Stalin needed. Therefore, he acted ugly. He invited the AK leaders to Moscow, allegedly for negotiations, and he himself arrested them. He did not give them money so that they would do as they were told, out of gratitude or for other motives that had nothing to do with politics, but simply cut them as unnecessary. For the sake of keeping your interests intact. As a result of Stalin's ugly actions, Poland became an outpost of the USSR on the western border for many decades, the Poles ate margarine, Okudzhava sang about Agnieszka, the integrity of the USSR was not threatened.
3. Yalta
At the last meeting of the troika in Yalta, the post-war borders of European countries were fixed. The USSR was becoming a powerful world player with two of its republics in the UN (Ukraine and Belarus). The veto in the UN Security Council provided the USSR with the ability to block any decision.
After Yalta, events began to unfold at an incredible speed. The USSR was inexorably approaching the capital of the Reich. Fascist leaders frantically tried to find allies in the West. Himmler tried to find understanding in the United States, offered Western countries to act as a united front against the USSR. Truman, who replaced the deceased Roosevelt, very reluctantly, but refused to violate the Yalta agreement, General Eisenhower openly declared that Germany had only one way - unconditional surrender. Moscow knew about the intrigues of the fascists and their support from Churchill.
Here is how Churchill described the successes of Stalinist diplomacy:
“From now on, Russian imperialism and communist doctrine did not put a limit to their foresight and desire for final domination. Soviet Russia has become a mortal threat to the free world”[2]. Churchill saw the task of the West in creating a united front on the path of the advancement of the USSR. Berlin became the target of the Anglo-American armies. The main task of our short-lived allies now was to grab more German land and regulate relations with the USSR in the liberated territories with the greatest benefit for themselves.
The world was on the eve of the first nuclear strike.
Continue reading.
Other parts:
Stalin. Part 1: Olfactory Providence over Holy Russia
Stalin. Part 2: Furious Koba
Stalin. Part 3: Unity of opposites
Stalin. Part 4: From Permafrost to April Theses
Stalin. Part 5: How Koba became Stalin
Stalin. Part 6: Deputy. on emergency matters
Stalin. Part 7: Ranking or the Best Disaster Cure
Stalin. Part 8: Time to Collect Stones
Stalin. Part 9: USSR and Lenin's testament
Stalin. Part 10: Die for the Future or Live Now
Stalin. Part 11: Leaderless
Stalin. Part 12: We and They
Stalin. Part 13: From plow and torch to tractors and collective farms
Stalin. Part 14: Soviet Elite Mass Culture
Stalin. Part 15: The last decade before the war. Death of Hope
Stalin. Part 16: The last decade before the war. Underground temple
Stalin. Part 17: Beloved Leader of the Soviet People
Stalin. Part 18: On the eve of the invasion
Stalin. Part 19: War
Stalin. Part 20: By Martial Law
Stalin. Part 21: Stalingrad. Kill the German!
Stalin. Part 23: Berlin is taken. What's next?
Stalin. Part 24: Under the Seal of Silence
Stalin. Part 25: After the War
Stalin. Part 26: The Last Five Year Plan
Stalin. Part 27: Be part of the whole
[1] This nickname was given to Stalin by Roosevelt and Churchill.
[2] W. Churchill. The Second World War. Electronic resource.
