The Yalta conference involved a meeting between U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin from February 4 to February 11, 1945 to discuss how World War II would be wrapped up. The three superpowers wanted to bring World War II to an end, and in their eagerness to do so, their agreement compromised three of the Baltic states. The Declaration document put together during the conference reflected Roosevelt's willingness for Russia to annex the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania after the war and establish puppet governments there ("The Yalta Conference (1945)," n.d.). It is generally accepted that the three leaders "attempted to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability" during the Yalta conference and that the decisions and agreements they made there caused in large part the ensuing Cold War ("The Yalta Conference (1945)," n.d.).
In the case of Lithuania, it went from being annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 to being occupied by German troops in 1941 to 1944, a nation that Lithuania served with during World War II ("Lithuania," n.d.). Then during the Nazi years, 240,000 Jews were massacred in Lithuania ("Lithuania," n.d.). It was not until 1988 that the Lithuanian independence movement came to the fore again, and in 1990, Vytautas Landsbergis, the Lithuanian popular movement's non-Communist leader, was elected president, resulting in rejection of Soviet rule by the Supreme Council on the same day and the restoration of Lithuania's independence ("Lithuania," n.d.).
Lithuania. (n.d.). InfoPlease. Retrieved on December 10, 2009 from: http://cdn.optmd.com/V2/67072/117577/index.html?g=AQAFli4=&r=www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107730.html
The Yalta Conference (1945). (n.d.). Retrieved on December 10, 2009 from: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/imperialism/notes/yalta.html
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