Yalta’s ghost haunts Europe still

Press, 20 January 1982, Page 11

Yalta’s ghost haunts Europe still

By

DON McLEOD.

Associated Press, Washington The East-West confrontation over Poland has revived memories of the 1945 Yalta agreements, which purported to assure peace and freedom in East Europe after World War 11. With Poland under a martial law regime that President Ronald Reagan blames on the Soviet Union, allegations are being revived that the East bloc has not lived up to the pledges made at Yalta.

For some people the Yalta agreement itself, because of its aftermath, has become a codeword for Soviet domination of its East European neighbours. But the Yalta accords were intended to guarantee East European freedom.. President Franklin Roosevelt of the United States, Sir Winston Churchill of Britain, and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union reached the agreements at the Soviet Black Sea resort of Yalta as World War II was winding up in Europe. One of the Yalta meeting’s objectives was to bring the Soviet Union into the war against Japan once Germany was subdued. Agreement to form the United Nations was also reached at the conference.

But the conference is best remembered for its key decisions on post-war Europe. The Allies agreed, for instance, to divide Germany into zones for separate administration after its surrender instead of running a joint occupation. This decision leaves Germany still divided. The Allies also shifted the boundaries of Poland, restoring to the Soviet Union a section it gave up in World War I and adding to Poland parts of East Germany with big Polish populations.

Sir Winston Churchill said at Yalta that Britain had gone to war so that "Poland should be free and sovereign ... We drew our swords for Poland."

Stalin emphasised the problem of Soviet security, saving: “Throughout history. Poland has been the corridor for attack on Russia."

Soviet troops had by then occupied Poland and Moscow was militarily free to., do as it pleased. But the war was not quite over, and neither side wanted a split at that critical point.

The “Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe," adopted at the end of the session, obligated the big Powers to help the countries liberated from German occupation and the former Axis satellite States “to form interim governmental authorities broadly representative, of all democratic elements in the population and pledged to the earliest possible establishment through free elections of governments respon-

sive to the will of the people." The declaration also contained this provision: “When, in the opinion of the three governments, conditions in any European liberated State or any former Axis satellite

. . . make such action necessary, they will immediately establish appropriate machinery for the carrying out of the joint responsibilities set forth."

If Yalta were still binding, the West could argue that this obligates the Big Three to intervene jointly in Poland.

The Soviets, on the other hand, could contend that a responsive Government was formed in Poland by the will of the people and this Government is free to do what it wants.

Stalin also agreed at Yalta to include non-Communists in the new governments (of Eastern. Europe. At the time this was considered a big Soviet concession.

Coalition governments were formed according to the Yalta pledge. Elections were held in Hungary in 1945, in which Communists won only one-fifth of the vote. Early in 1948 Hungary’s Communist Party, through its control of the Ministry of the Interior, arrested leading politicians, forced the resignation of the Prime Minister, Ferenc Nagy, and gained full control.

In Rumania a coalition Government headed by a non-Communist was overthrown in December, 1947, and a people’s republic was proclaimed. Bulgaria’s coalition Government was replaced in a few months by a Communist republic. Communists captured onethird of the vote in Czechoslovakia’s elections in 1946, and emerged as the dominant coalition partner. Communists consolidated their total control in 1948.

The Communist Party gained control of Poland by January, 1947. In Yugoslavia and Albania Communist elements held power from the start, although maintaining substantial independence of Moscow. Thirty years after Yalta, 85 nations meeting in Helsinki. Finland, signed a pact of security and co-operation in Europe. Because it called for respect for European territorial boundaries some diplomats considered that it legalised the national borders that evolved after World War 11.

The Helsinki accords pledged increased co-opera-tion between the nations .of Eastern and Western Europe to allay three decades of tensions.- They also prohibited outside interference in the internal affairs of any of the signatory nations. This appeared to abrogate the Yalta obligations of the Big Three to insure internal order and democracy in the former captive nations of World War 11.