Evening star., 1945-02-13
The Promise of YoIto

Joiiit StdteHeHL summing up Cne
agreements reached by Prime Min
lister Churchill, President Roosevelt
and Premier-Marshal Stain during
their fateful eight-day meeting at
Yalta on the Black Sea.
Now for the first time since the
start of the war the three most
powerful of all nations, through
their heads of government, have
come definitely to grips with the
vast and enormously complex prob
lens OF the next peace, and although
not everything they say will be
accepted without question or reser-
vation, their success in working out
basic common policy on Europe,
and a fortnight and positive pro-
gram OF action to implement that
policy, must certainly be regarded
as an achievement of the highest
order, offering more than a little
hope and encouragement to our sick
and torn world.
First of all, as the indispensable
precondition to everything else, the
three powers have closely co-ordi-
mated their plans for new and even
more powerful blows to bring about
the unconditional surrender of Nazi
Germany. Further-and this covers
the most important first step in
establishing postwar European Sc
curity-they have reached an under
standing under which each will
occupy separate zone of the de-
feated Reich, with France wisely and
realistically invited to participate
and with overall unifcation of
occupation policies provided for
through an Allied control commission
to be set up in Berlin.
The Yalta statement must sound
like the crack of doom in the ears
of the Nazis and the Prussian mill
tarists. The people of Germany,
told that their resistance is hopeless,
are reaSsured that no one wishes to
destroy them, but clear notice is
served that Russia, Britain and the
United States are inflexibly resolved
to exact reparations in kind, to
punish war criminals, to disband all
German armed forces, to break up
forever the German general staff,
to put an end to German militarism,
to wipe out Naziism root and branch
and to eliminate or control any
German industries capable of arms
production. To some these terms
may seem Carthaginian, but force
full argument can be made to the
contrary, and the issue, in any case,
will undoubtedly be debated and
clarified in the discussion which it
is certain to precipitate.
Similarly debatable, but to much
greater degree, is the procedure
agreed upon by the Yalta conferees
to deal with the tremendously diff
cult Polish, question, which next to
the German question constitutes the
thorniest problem in Europe. The
exile government of Poland in Lon
don and the Russian-recognized
Lublin regime are to be replaced by
Polish Provisional Government of
National Unity" made upnot mere
ly of the Lublin Poles but of other
Poles now in Poland or abroad, the
latter presumably including some
members of the London exile group.
This new political body, once it is
established, will be pledged, more
over, to hold free and unfettered
elections" as soon as possible, per-
mitting call democratic and anti
Nazi parties to put forward their
own candidates.
To settle the Polish.Russian
boundary dispute the Yalta confer
ees have agreed that the Curzon
Line-which the Allied Powers ten
tatively fixed after the last war but
which the Poles never accepted-will
be put into force, with some digres-
sions here and there in favor of
Poland, and~with the final delimita-
ton of the country's western from
tier, embracing present German
territory, to be decided at the peace
conference. The arrangement, both
political and territorial, is bound to
give rise to doubts in many minds,
but there is certainly at least this
much to be said for it: That no
matter how questionable it may be
in some respects, it represents a firm
and concrete approach to situa-
ton that is pressing for action, and
at the same time-as far as words
go, at any rate-seeks to safeguard
Polish independence.
Only one other country-Yugo-
slavia, where a broadening OF the
government is recommended is
mentioned by name in the Yalta
statement, the conferees having held
merely "a general review of other
Balkan problems" But in their
declaration on liberated Europe the
Big Three, unequivocally accepting
the responsibility of helping the
freed peoples and the peoples of
former Axis satellites to restore or
der and economic life during the
inevitable temporary period of in
stability" reaff1rm their faith in
the Atlantic Charter and exnress