ABSTRACT
In February 1945, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met at the Soviet resort town of Yalta to plan the final stages of World War II and to negotiate the post war order in Europe. Among the provisions of the Yalta Agreements were: the movement of Poland's borders some 100 miles westward, the division of Germany into occupation zones, and the agreement that the nations of Eastern Europe were to be democratic and "friendly" to the Soviet Union. In later years Yalta became a symbol of betrayal for many of the people in Eastern Europe who felt that the Allies had left Stalin with a free hand in the region. Indeed, in the three years following the Yalta Conference, the Soviets systematically established Soviet-style communist regimes throughout the area. This chapter shows how quickly communism was established in Eastern Europe and how quickly it began to erode.
