Russia at war 1941-1945

The official Russian line still was that all had gone well at Potsdam. In reality, the whole atmosphere at Potsdam was radically different from that at Teheran and Yalta. There was much angry recrimination on a wide range of subjects. Thus, the British and Americans treated the policy the Russians were pursuing, particularly in Bulgaria and Rumania, as a violation of the Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe; the Russians counter-attacked by making similar charges about the British in Greece. Truman made great difficulties about recognising the Bulgarian, Hungarian and Rumanian Governments. There was also some

recrimination about British and American property—notably oil equipment—in Rumania

which had been confiscated by the Germans and had since been taken over by the

Russians. The Russians also charged that the Western Powers had set up an "Italian Fascist régime" in Trieste.

But all this, although indicative, was not yet fundamental. The two major differences were focused on Germany and Poland. It is true that all the demilitarisation,

denazification, etc., measures were, on the face of it, strictly in accord with previous decisions; on the face of it, too, Germany was placed under the joint control of the Four Powers. The unity of Germany as a political and economic entity was implicitly

recognised, and the Russians later claimed great credit for having firmly opposed, as early as March 1945, any Western proposals for the partition of Germany into a western part centred on the Ruhr and Rhineland, a southern part, including Austria, and with Vienna as its capital; and an eastern part, with Berlin as its capital. But while such a partition was not brought about, Potsdam undoubtedly laid the foundations for a different kind of partition. All Russian attempts to secure a foothold in the Ruhr were firmly rejected; but what made the "zonal" division of Germany even more obvious was the agreement that was finally reached on reparations—ostensibly in return for the Western Powers' acceptance of the fait accompli of the Oder-Neisse Line as the western boundary of the German territories "under Polish Administration", pending the final German peace settlement. These territories were not to be regarded as part of the Soviet Occupation Zone of Germany.

If, as Stettinius complained, Britain and the United States were not in a strong position at Yalta, Truman and Byrnes thought they were in a very strong position indeed at Potsdam.

The American atom test bomb had just been successfully exploded and Truman, in the

words of Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, was "immensely pleased" and "tremendously pepped by it". The President said "it gave him an entirely new feeling of confidence" in talking to the Russians.

He [Truman] stood up to the Russians in the most emphatic and decisive manner,

telling them as to certain demands that they absolutely could not have and that the United States was entirely against them... He told the Russians just where they got off and generally bossed the whole meeting.

[Stimson, quoted by W. A. Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, New York, 1962, p. 249.]

Churchill was delighted with the new President, and fully supported his "tough" line with the Russians and what came to be known as his "Open Door" policy in Eastern Europe.

He also blew up at the Russians' "effrontery" in wanting to control one of the former Italian colonies on the Mediterranean.

The Russians were glad to see the last of Churchill, but when, after the British General Election, Churchill and Eden were replaced by Attlee and Bevin, they found that they had nothing to congratulate themselves on. According to Mr Byrnes, Bevin was very

"aggressive" indeed in his "forceful opposition" to the new Polish boundaries.

[James F. Byrnes, Frankly Speaking (London, 1948), p. 79.]

Soon after Potsdam, a member of the Russian delegation remarked to me that he had

found Mr Bevin an "ochen volevoi chelovek" —a "very strong-willed man", which was a polite way of saying that he had found the new Foreign Secretary extremely pigheaded.

The foundations for the real division of Germany, officially still to be under Four-Power control, were laid by the reparations agreement reached at Potsdam. Even before Potsdam the Russians had been helping themselves indiscriminately to reparations—still termed