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Электронное приложение к журналу «
Международная жизнь
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A. Filitov:
Here is an interesting fact: As military representatives at this conference dis-
cussed when the war would end, A. Antonov, the chief of the General Staff of the Soviet
Army, said that the war should objectively end by July 1 and possibly by December 1, 1945.
They were mistaken: The war ended earlier. It was clear that the war was won and now
peace had to be won. There was a need to decide what the postwar borders and new Eu-
ropean governments would be like.
The well-known Declaration of Liberated Europe was signed, which made it incumbent
on the great powers to help those countries build democracy. The declaration provided
for intervention to destroy the last vestiges of Nazism.
E. Pyadysheva:
I cannot help remembering official Ukrainian rhetoric today, which fal-
sifies historical facts and supports Nazi movements. The reaction of Germany, which po-
sitions itself as a state that has completely overcome its Nazi past, may also seem a little
strange. At present, Germany is Europe's principal foundation on all ideological issues.
However, when Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk recently said that Russia had
attacked Germany and Ukraine and that Europe had won World War II single-handedly,
no one in Germany reacted with a word of condemnation.
A. Filitov:
I would not like to modernize this issue so much. Until the end of 1943, the
West was advocating for the idea of federations that were to emerge after the war. In effect,
those were the attempts to create a cordon sanitaire against the Soviet Union because it
ended up outside those federations. The United States and Great Britain could have exerted
great influence on those federations via their ties with prewar politicians. If the federations
had been established at that time, then there would have been no need to think about
countries such as Ukraine joining NATO.
E. Pyadysheva:
The Americans of course initiated this confrontation mainly in an effort
to persuade the Soviet Union to enter the war with Japan. Moreover, the aforementioned
memo spoke about that in no uncertain terms. In fact, they did that. The Yalta conference
reached an agreement that the Soviet Union would join the war with Japan two or three
months after the end of the war in Europe.
Now, what main disagreements between the Soviet Union and its allies had to be resolved
just before and during the Yalta Conference?
A. Filitov:
The Polish issue was of course a principal concern.
The border issue was resolved quickly, especially given that at the Tehran Conference, none
other than Churchill had proposed the following scenario: In the east, western Ukraine
and western Belorussia would be part of the Soviet Union while Poland would get com-
pensation in the west. At the Yalta Conference, Stalin made well-known concessions: 5-8
km from the "Curzon line" to the east.
So the Yalta Conference, which drew up a "roadmap" for a world order for postwar
decades, was also an extraordinary event in terms of diplomacy, where a configuration of
political plans, aspirations and strivings by world leaders could be observed.