The Sovietization of Eastern Europe, 1944–1953
Journal: Cambridge University Press eBooks
Year: 2010

The great Soviet victories at Stalingrad (January 1943) and Kursk (July 1943) reversed the tide of the war against the Nazis and made it likely that Soviet armies would occupy vast stretches of territory in Europe. Allied conferences at Teheran in November 1944 and Yalta in February 1945, and the notorious "percentages agreement" between Iosif Stalin and Winston Churchill in October 1944, confirmed that Eastern Europe, initially at least, would lie within the sphere of influence of the Soviet Un