As after the war, Poland gave Stalin: Yalta Peace lessons for Ukraine
In early February 1945, the leading democracy of the Western world - the United States and the United Kingdom - made concessions to the Eurasian despotism - the Soviet Union - in the question of the post -war arrangement of Europe. For Stalin's promise to end the war against Hitler as soon as possible, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to compromise on the solution of "Polish" and "Yugoslav" issues, and more broadly on the political system of all of Eastern Europe.
But the agreement with the devil remains an agreement with the devil, even if it is aimed at a noble purpose: Stalin deceived the partners, and soon through the entire continent "Iron Curtain". The dreams of millions of people for a bright future were sacrificed by careless allies, which allowed themselves to give way to local success in global values.
What lessons did the free world out of the time, and did it be awarded at all? Discussion of the "Polish issue" took a quarter of the whole working time of the conference-not only because the second thing was the largest country of Central and Eastern Europe or the Polish people were the first to enter the war with the Germans and did not make weapons even after the state's surrender, but also because The Polish precedent had to resolve other controversy of the post -war continent.
The compromise was reached on three conditions. First, the Prosisvitsky Provisional Government in Warsaw was supposed to be supplemented by representatives of the emigration government from London and local Democrats; secondly, the new national unity government had to hold free elections to parliament; Third, the final borders of Poland had to determine the future peace conference.
It is told that when, after the publication of the common communique, Molotov told Stalin that such formulations in the agreement with the West would interfere with the Soviet plans, the leader replied: "Nothing wrong. We will do everything in our way later. " It took a year and a half to deceive their allies.
Only a month after the Yalta Conference was completed - and on March 27, sixteen Polish politicians and underground leaders - the "underground state", which flew to Moscow for negotiations, were detained by the NKVD, but the war was going, so the event did not respond.
Between June 17 and 21, 1945, these oppositionists were convicted and imprisoned for 4 months to 10 years, but in Stalin, it was these days that were negotiating in Moscow that there were negotiations on the creation of a national unity of Poland, so the free world was He continued to hope for the best. The following 1946 Soviet and Polish special services defeated the armed national underground - "damn soldiers" - and held a falsified referendum on June 30.
Poland's post-war Sovietization was the election to the Constituent Seimas in January 1947, at which only 10% of the vote was able to gain on voters and numerous falsifications, the rest went to communists and parties. Having preserved in the country the external signs of "independence" - the government, the army and multi -party parliamentarism - the USSR turned Poland into its satellite, and under the same scheme did so with other Eastern European countries.
In response to Stalin's expansion on March 12, 1947, the US doctrine was proclaimed to "containing" the Soviet Union, but it was too late - half of the continent came under the full control of Moscow. Two years, one month and one day, took place between the signing of the Devil and the announcement of the Crusade against him (at least in the form of "restraint").
Only Greece has been saved thanks to economic and military assistance, and the rest of Eastern Europe has eventually turned into USSR satellites - the Socialist Camp. In 1953, the residents of Eastern Germany paid blood for his efforts, in 1956, Czechoslovakia-in 1968, and the Poles were rising to fight the regime three times: in 1956, 1970 and 1981-1982.
The account of direct victims of the domination of the Soviets in Europe goes to tens of thousands, how many human fates were crippled - no one will say. The price of a compromise with Stalin was extremely high, and it was paid not by those who agreed to this compromise. The history of the first half of the twentieth century gave us many examples of how to protect yourself in a small one necessarily leads to the need to fight for the great.
Deep concern instead of specific decisive action, the pacification of the aggressor, compromises with the tyrant - nothing of this is able to guarantee peace and stability to anyone. From the Munich Agreement to the Yalta Conference, the Western World learned not to have dictators, no matter how appropriate cooperation with them, at least temporary.
On September 30, 1938, Neville Chamberlain reported the British Parliament about the results of negotiations with Hitler: "I believe it is peace for our time. " On March 1, 1945, after an agreement with Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt assured Congress that he "returned from Crimea with a firm faith that we began the way to peace in the world.
" The story twice laughed at the confidence of both leaders, and the uncompromising times of the Cold War seemed to show that the negative lesson of "pleasing" was learned. But only a quarter of a century after the end of the global confrontation, as it turned out that some conclusions need to be repeated twice.
Again, it should be reminded that the unresolved dispute on one edge of the continent can quite realistically lead to mobilization, distribution of gas masks and digging trenches on another region. It is necessary to repeat that unwillingness to die for Gdansk (or Donetsk) today can make it necessary to die for Paris tomorrow. It deserves a new thesis that a nation, which is among the war and shame, chooses shame, will necessarily receive a war in addition.
On March 21, 1945, the American Ambassador Averel Harriman wrote Roosevelt: "We must clearly understand that the Soviet program is the construction of totalitarianism, the curtailment of personal freedoms and democracy, as we know it. " The current state of affairs . . . We are not least to "thank" because on March 21, 2014, on the day of the final legalization of annexation by the Russian Federation, no one who would say similar words about the "Russian measure" program was found in the West.