ABSTRACT
The members of the permanent committee bowed before the official decisions of Stalin. Molotov's ill-temper had increased; he felt that he had been slighted in his capacity of Minister for Foreign Affairs, a minister from whom Stalin had publicly exacted concessions. In the USSR. the absence of any free and responsible public opinion gives an especially acute edge to this bureaucratic particularism. At Teheran, Stalin had reached the culminating point of his political life. He remained at this height until Yalta, where he again took decisions which were contrary to the advice of the majority of the politburo and its famous permanent committee. Between Yalta and Potsdam he could no longer act with the same authority and independence. Fatigued by the immense effort which he had put forth during the war, and which had affected his health, he could struggle no longer, especially after Roosevelt's death, against the 'vertigo of victory' of the other people in the Kremlin.
