Bitter Rehearsal Book

Well-written and informative.I will give S.M. Plokhy kudos, for he tells the story of Yalta from the basis of what happened and what the actual dynamics were behind it. Gone are the ideas of certain groups being sold out by some evil conspiracy, this work focuses on the fact that a lot of what went on at Yalta was a combination of realpolitik, and the first fractures in the World War II grand alliance. The book does a great job of demonstrating what was accomplished during the conference and what took place.

Stalin was never going to let Poland truly be independent, regardless of the opinion of Great Britain or the United States, and since the Red Army had overrun that country on its way to Berlin, protests by other countries were essentially irrelevant. Might in this case made right, and no one had the power or the will to make Stalin change his mind. There are a number of other revelations: for instance, yes, Alger Hiss was a Soviet spy at the time, but his Soviet Army spymasters apparently had little interest in the political intelligence Hiss could provide, so he apparently did little of import for the Soviets.

From the perspective of the early Cold War years, Yalta failed to prevent the Soviet takeover of eastern Europe. But if diplomacy is the art of the possible, and if one judged the conference's results according to the sitaution at the time, then the US and Britain, achieved more than they are generally credited with.

Admittedly, Roosevelt and Churchill were in a lousy bargaining position due to Red Army advances in eastern Europe. They needed a lot from Stalin but had little to offer him for it. Still, the US got what it wanted: a Soviet entry in the war against Japan and coopeation in the new UN. Churchill managed to restore French power and forestall an economic collapse of central Europe without serously undermining British interests. The Soviets were satisfied: they recieved superpower status, German reparations, control over eastern't Europe and a sphere of influence in the Far East. Eastern Europe got screwed over, but that couldn't be helped since the Red Army already occupied it. The US and British could have condemned Soviet action in eastern Europe, but only at the cost of global stability and peace. Despite what many uninformed hardline conservatives then and now said, a US war with the Soviets was unrealistic. Heck, Stalin never even betrayed anybody. He simply disregarded the "Declaration on Liberated Europe", just like Churchill did.

In all, a fantastic book.