Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Of the many fascinating episodes that punctuate the diplomatic history of World War II, few have intrigued scholars more than the secret Balkan spheres-of-action agreement worked out by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Marshal Josef Stalin at the Anglo-Soviet conference (British code-named TOLSTOY) held in Moscow in the autumn of 1944. It was late in the evening of 9 October. In his first encounter with Stalin since the meeting of the Big Three at Teheran in 1943, Churchill, believing “the moment … apt for business,” appealed to the Soviet dictator to “Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans.” Specifically, he went on, “We have interests, missions, and agents there. Don't let us get at cross-purposes in small ways.
1 Churchill's recollection is found in his The Second World War, vol. 6: Triumph and Tragedy (Boston, 1953), 226–28Google Scholar.
2 The Balkan agreement talks are located in “Records of Meetings at the Kremlin, Moscow, October 9 — October 17, 1944,” Prime Minister's Operational papers (PREMIER 3), File 343, Folder, 2, 4–17, Public Record Office, London (hereafter referred to as Kremlin Meetings). Copies of the half sheet of paper on which the Prime Minister jotted down the spheres of predominance he had in mind in the evening of question are in “Spheres of Influence in the Balkans” (PREMIER 3/66/7) (hereafter materials from this source will be referred to as Balkan File). For further discussion of this particular source material, see Siracusa, Joseph M., “The Meaning of TOLSTOY: Churchill, Stalin, and the Balkans, Moscow, October 1944,” Diplomatic History, 3 (Fall 1979), 443–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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23 Mastny suggests that as early as the Teheran Conference, in late 1943, Stalin was acutely alerted to disagreements between his Western powers (Mastny, , Russia's Road to the Cold War, pp. 123–24).Google Scholar
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33 Foreign Office to British Embassy in Moscow, 20 June 1944, Balkan File.
34 Foreign Office to British Embassy in Moscow, 8 July 1944, ibid (author's italics).
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76 Quoted in Churchill, , Triumph and Tragedy, p. 231.Google Scholar
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88 Grew Memorandum. Revealing here is Black, Cyril E.'s “The Start of the Cold War in Bulgaria: A Personal View,” Review of Politics, 41 (1979), 163–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
89 Interestingly, others such as Foy Kohler suggest that it was not until 1947–1948 that the “eastern block states were definitely lost to the west” (FRUS: 1949 (Washington, 1976), V, 3)Google Scholar (author's italics).