Question

In February of 1945 (shortly before F.D.R died) the allied leaders, Roosevelt Churchill and Stalin met at yalta to decide what they would do when the war was over. What did they decide?

Answer 1

Honestly you could probably find a paragraph of this in your textbook... -_-
Anyway I'm going to post a few paragraphs (NOT BY ME) here for you to read.

Objectives: Churchill: to draw the United States into World War II (a goal that went unrealized) and to secure more help for the weary British, who had been at war since 1939; Roosevelt: to cement relations with Churchill, discuss terms for Lend-Lease assistance, and strengthen domestic support for ties to Great Britain.

Outcome: At this, their first meeting, Churchill and Roosevelt began to forge a partnership. Roosevelt agreed to provide more Lend-Lease aid and to protect British shipping between Canada and Iceland. The two leaders issued a joint warning to Japan about that country’s aggression and sent a note to Stalin suggesting the three meet to discuss “our common effort.” They also issued the Atlantic Charter, which expressed a commitment to the principles of self governance and freedom for every country, called for the “destruction of the Nazi tyranny,” and looked forward to free trade, cooperation, and peace among all nations.
\[\text{Source:}\] http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/in-depth/the-conferences.html

Overview: The key Allied leaders, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, were known as the "Big Three" because of the might of the nations they represented and their peaceful collaboration during World War II. These three leaders met together only twice during World War II, but when they did conference, their decisions changed the course of history.

After the Tehran Conference, the three leaders promised to meet again, and this agreement came to pass at the Yalta Conference of February 1945. Although Stalin had expressed concern about Roosevelt's health during the Teheran conference, this concern did not translate into action. The Soviet dictator refused to travel further than the Black Sea Resort, Yalta, in the Crimean Riveria (then part of the Soviet Union, now part of Ukraine) for the next summit and, once again, Churchill and Roosevelt were both the ones taking long and tiring trips to attend the Yalta summit.

Each of the three powers brought their own agenda to the Yalta Conference. The British wanted to maintain their empire, the Soviets wished to obtain more land and to strengthen conquests, and the Americans wanted to insure the Soviet's entry into the Pacific war and discuss postwar settlement. Moreover, Roosevelt hoped to obtain a commitment from Stalin to participate in the United Nations. As the first topic on the Soviet's agenda for expansion, the subject of Poland immediately arose, and Stalin was quick to succintly state his case with the following words:

"For the Russian people, the question of Poland is not only a question of honor but also a question of security. Throughout history, Poland has been the corridor through which the enemy has passed into Russia. Poland is a question of life and death for Russia."

Accordingly, Stalin made it clear that some of his demands regarding Poland were not negotiable: the Russians were to gain territory from the eastern portion of Poland and Poland was to compensate for that by extending its Western borders, thereby forcing out millions of Germans. Reluctantly, Stalin promised free elections in Poland, notwithstanding the recently installed Communist puppet government. However, it soon became apparent that Stalin had no intentions of holding true to his promise of free elections. In fact, it was fifty years after the Yalta Conference that the Poles first had the opportunity to hold free elections. As mentioned earlier, at Yalta a principal aim of Roosevelt was to make sure that the Soviets would enter the Asian war, i.e., the war against the Japanese. Unfortunately, however, Roosevelt should never have spent any time agonizing over Soviet involvement in the Pacific war because Stalin did not need convincing. The Soviets themselves were keen to assuage the intense feelings of humiliation that resulted from a long ago defeat by Japan and loss of privileges in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War. The Soviets were keen on regaining lost territories and optimistic that they could obtain more lands.

However, Roosevelt was oblivious to Stalin's objectives because of Stalin's excellent 'poker face,' and he readily met Stalin's price, leaving the Yalta Conference exuberant because Stalin had agreed to enter the Pacific war against Japan. Moreover, the Soviets had agreed to join the United Nations given the secret understanding of a voting formula with a veto power for permanent members in the Security Council, there by providing the Soviets with more control in world affairs and greatly weakening the United Nations. Overall, Roosevelt felt confident that Yalta had been successful. The Big Three had ratified previous agreements about the postwar division of Germany: there were to be four zones of occupation, one zone for each of the three dominant nations plus one zone for France. Berlin itself, although within the Soviet zone, would also be divided into four sectors, and would eventually become a major symbol of the Cold War because of the division of the city due to the infamous Berlin Wall, which was constructed and manned by the Soviets.

The Big Three had further decided that all original governments would be restored to the invaded countries and that all civilians would repatriated. Democracies would be established, all territories would hold free elections, and order restored to Europe, as declared in the following official statement:

"The establishment of order in Europe and the rebuilding of national economic life must be achieved by processes which will enable the liberated peoples to destroy the last vestiges of Nazism and fascism and to create democratic institutions of their own choice."

In the postwar setting, Russia would gain the southern half of the Sakhalin Islands and Kuriles, half of East Prussia, Konigsberg, Germany, and control of Finland. In addition, Roosevelt let it slip that the United States would not protest if the Soviet Union attempted to annex the three Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) or establish puppet governments, therefore leaving Stalin as pleased with the overall results as Roosevelt, and more rightly so. The Yalta Conference is often regarded by numerous Central European nations as the "Western betrayal." This belief, held by countries such as Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and the Czech Republic, is rooted in the belief that the Allied powers, despite venerating democratic policies and signing numerous pacts and military agreements, allowed smaller countries to be controlled by and/or made Communist states of the Soviet Union. At the Yalta conference, the Big Three "attempted to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability," and many believe the decisions and concessions of Roosevelt and Churchill during the summit lead to the power struggle of the ensuing Cold War.

Aftermath: Yalta was the last great conference before the end of the war and the last trip of Roosevelt abroad. To observers he appeared already ill and exhausted. Arguably, his most important goal was to ensure the Soviet Union's participation in the United Nations, which he achieved at the price of granting veto power to each permanent member of the Security Council, a condition that significantly weakened the UN. Another of his objectives was to bring the Soviet Union into the fight against Japan, as the effectiveness of the atomic bomb had yet to be proven. The Red Army had already removed Nazi forces from most of Eastern Europe, so Stalin essentially got everything he wanted: a significant sphere of influence as a buffer zone. In this process, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable and sacrificed for the sake of stability, which would mean that the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia would continue to be members of the USSR.

\[\text{Source: }\] http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/notes/yalta.html

Steps for you to do, go and summaries all that, and I assure you. You'll get an A+.
Or you could just look in your textbook and copy the answer straight out of the book?