How Stalin Got the Baltic StatesDr. Vilnis V. Šveics, 1989

2. The British Give Baltia to Stalin.

It was stated above, that in 1939 the British and French did not concede to the Soviet Union the right to annex the Baltic States and Finland.

By 1941/42 the political realities had changed, and so had the attitudes of the leading powers. Britain, actively supported by the United States, was now an ally of Stalin's Russia in the war against Hitler's Germany and took a quite different stand on the question of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (even of Poland).

An East European researcher describes the changed position:

Everything that was asked of Hitler and not granted — the latter preferring war — was obtained by the Russians from Roosevelt and Churchill. All, and even more... 17 

Since 1941, Stalin sought recognition of Russia's territorial claims in Romania, the Balkans, Baltic States and Finland and since then, Churchill was ready to recognize them, as was also Roosevelt.1

Let us examine if historical evidence substantiates this assertion.This investigation is much more important than tracing Hitler's deeds and intentions because Churchill and Roosevelt were, with Stalin, the winners of the war, who determined the fate of the Baltic States, Europe and the world. The defeated German dictator was not consulted...

British Foreign Minister Eden visited the Soviet allies in Moscow in December 1941. He writes:

The ideas of the Russians were very clearly defined and did not change during the three following years. — Stalin proposed... [that] Russia take back her frontiers of 1941 with Finland ... and incorporate the Baltic States.2

It is important to note, that there is no longer any talk of spheres of influence, but a unequivocal demand "to incorporate" the three countries and that Britain clearly understood it. So did the U.S., according to Secretary of State C. Hull:

Stalin had formulated specific territorial demands ... categorically. In concrete terms, the Baltic States — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.... must be incorporated in the Soviet Union...3

A quite well informed participant of the top level negotiations among the Allies reports:

Ever since (his) visit to Moscow in the winter (of 1941/42), ... Eden ...argued that the recognition of the boundaries Stalin claimed was a small price to pay for Soviet cooperation in the war, even if this meant that the peoples of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were forever consigned to Russian overlordship.

...

(British Ambassador to the U.S.) Halifax reported, "Mr. Eden cannot incur the danger of antagonizing Stalin, and 18 the British War Cabinet have ...agree(d) to negotiate a treaty with Stalin, which will recognize the 1940 frontiers of the Soviet Union..."4

The British were determined to conclude as soon as possible an Anglo-Soviet treaty of alliance, whatever the price. The secret correspondence between Churchill and Roosevelt is very informative. It includes a letter of March 7, 1942, in which Churchill writes:

[I] feel that the principle of the Atlantic Charter ought not to be constructed so as to deny Russia the frontiers she occupied when Germany attacked her. This was the basis on which Russia accepted the Charter, and I expect that a severe process of liquidating hostile elements in the Baltic States, etc., was employed by the Russians when they took these regions at the beginning of the war. I hope, therefore, that you will be able to give us a free hand to sign the treaty, which Stalin desires as soon as possible.5

The consent was evidently given, and the treaty was signed on May 26, 1942. Roosevelt seems to have accepted the argument that it would not be fair to deny the Baltic countries to the Russians, who had worked so hard "severely eliminating hostile elements" there...

What about the solemn promises in the Atlantic Charter? It seems to have been mere wartime propaganda ploy to be applied or disregarded at will. It was not applied either to the British or the Soviet empire. Churchill confirms that in a secret letter to Roosevelt on Feb. 2, 1943:

Russia has signed a treaty with Great Britain on the basis of Atlantic Charter binding both nations mutually to aid each other....By it and by Atlantic Charter the two nations renounce all idea of territorial gains. Russians no doubt (! - V.V.Š.) interpret this as giving them right to claim ...their frontier of June 1941...6 19 

Churchill also agreed with Stalin to divide their spheres of influence in Eastern Europe when they met in Moscow, October 9, 1944. In the words of the British Prime Minister himself:

The moment was apt for business, so I said, "Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans. - - - Russia ...(is) to have ninety per cent predominance in Rumania, for us to have ninety per cent of the say in Greece, and to go fifty-fifty about Yugoslavia....

Churchill then added a 50-50 split for Hungary and gave Stalin a 75-25 predominance in Bulgaria.

It was all settled in no more time than it takes to set down. ... The pencilled paper lay in the center of the table. At length I said, "Might it not be thought rather cynical if it seemed that we had disposed of these issues, so fateful to millions of people, in such an offhand manner? Let us burn the paper." — "No, you keep it," said Stalin.7

Churchill was so gifted at finding the mot juste8....

Less than seventeen months later, he bitterly complained that, ...the ancient States of Central and Eastern Europe ... lie in the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another not only to Soviet influence, but to a very high and increasing measure of control from Moscow....

The Russian-controlled Polish Government have been encouraged to make enormous and wrongful inroads upon Germany, and mass expulsions of millions of Germans on a scale grievous and undreamed of are now taking place. The Communist parties.... are seeking everywhere to obtain totalitarian control....9

By that time it was too late to do something about it. Britain had already "won the war"....