In February of 1945, as the armies of Soviet Russia, Britain and America were poised to deliver the death blow to Nazi Germany, the Big Three met in the Crimean resort of Yalta to discuss the future of Germany after its inevitable defeat -- and the make-up of much of the rest of Europe.
Stalin, whose armies at that time occupied a vast territory in Eastern Europe, had a significant advantage in that the U.S. wanted Soviet support in their war against Japan. Roosevelt also needed StalinΓÇÖs consent to the creation of a supervising body in the U.N., now known as the Security Council. In exchange, the U.S. and Britain readily gave in to the Soviet leaderΓÇÖs demand to control Eastern Europe. While Stalin agreed to free elections, the process was largely meaningless since by then, all former nations east of Germany were effectively under Red Army control.
The decisions of Yalta were confirmed when the Big Three reconvened in the former Prussian estate of Potsdam, after the fall of Hitler in July 1945. For the next 45 years, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Eastern Germany became communist vassal states under the political and economic control of the Soviet Union, until the break-up of the U.S.S.R. in 1990.
