Stalin: A Biography

The Yalta Conference took decisions of enormous importance and Stalin was at his most ebullient. He asked to be rewarded for promising to enter the war against Japan after the coming victory over Germany. In particular, he demanded reparations to the value of twenty billion dollars from Germany. This was controversial, but the Western leaders conceded it to Stalin. More hotly debated was the treatment of Poland. At the insistence of Roosevelt and Churchill the future Polish government was to be a coalition embracing nationalists as well as communists. Yet they failed to pin down Stalin on the details. The wily Stalin wanted a free hand in eastern and east-central Europe. Roosevelt and he were on friendly terms and sometimes met in Churchill’s absence. As the junior partner of the Western Allies Churchill had to put up with the situation while making the best of it; and when Stalin demanded south Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands — known to the Japanese as their Northern Territories — in return for joining the war in the Pacific, Churchill was as content as the American President to oblige. Stalin and Churchill also acceded to Roosevelt’s passionate request for the establishment of a United Nations Organisation at the war’s end. For Roosevelt, as for Woodrow Wilson after the First World War, it was crucial to set up a body which would enhance the prospects for global peace.

The Western Allies were not in an enviable position. Although Germany was on the brink of defeat, there was no telling how long Japan might hold out. The American and British forces in Europe, moreover, had been told they were fighting in alliance with the Red Army. Not only Pravda but also the Western establishments buffed up Stalin’s personal image. No sooner had the USSR entered the war with the Third Reich than the British press replaced criticism with praise. On the occasion of Stalin’s birthday in December 1941 the London Philharmonic Orchestra, not previously known as a communist front organisation, played a concerto in his honour.¹⁹ Public opinion more widely in the West was acutely grateful to the Red Army (as well it might have been) and, less justifiably, treated Stalin as its brave and glorious embodiment. A military confrontation by the Western Allies with the USSR would have been politically as well as militarily difficult. More could have been done nevertheless to put pressure on Stalin; and although Churchill was firmer than Roosevelt, even he was too gentle.

In fact the worst contretemps among the Big Three at Yalta occurred not during the formal negotiations. Roosevelt after a drink at lunch told Stalin that in the West he was known as Uncle Joe.²⁰ The touchy Soviet leader felt himself the object of ridicule: he could not understand that his nickname indicated a high degree of grudging respect. Needled by the revelation, he had to be persuaded to remain at table. The use of nicknames was anyway not confined to Stalin: Churchill called himself ‘Former Naval Person’ in telegrams to the American President.²¹ Stalin was not averse to taking a dig at Churchill. At one of the Big Three’s meals together he proposed that to prevent a resurgence of German militarism after the war the Allies should shoot fifty thousand officers and technical experts. Churchill, knowing Stalin’s bloody record, took him at his word and growled that he would rather be shot himself than ‘sully my own and my country’s honour by such infamy’. Roosevelt tried to lighten the atmosphere by saying that the execution of forty-nine thousand members of the German officer corps would be quite sufficient. Churchill, nauseated by the banter, made for the door and had to be brought back by Stalin and Molotov, who apologised for what they claimed had been a joke.²²

The British Prime Minister remained unconvinced that Stalin had been jesting; but not for a moment did he contemplate withdrawal from the Yalta Conference. As at previous meetings, he — like Stalin and Roosevelt — saw that the Allies had to stick together or hang separately. When personal insults, however intentionally, were delivered to one of them, the others had to smooth ruffled feathers. In fact it was one of Churchill’s entourage, General Alan Brooke, who had the worst verbal exchange with Stalin. This had happened at a banquet at the Tehran Conference when Stalin rose to accuse Brooke of failing to show friendship and comradeship towards the Red Army. Brooke was ready for him and replied in kind that it seemed that ‘truth must have an escort of lies’ in war; he went on to assert that he felt ‘genuine comradeship’ towards the men of the Soviet armed forces. Stalin took the riposte on the chin, remarking to Churchill: ‘I like that man. He rings true.’²³