Communist Party and warned of an impending coup against the President. See also: CENTRAL COMMITTEE; GORBACHEV, MIKHAIL SERGEYEVICH; LIGACHEV, YEGOR KUZMICH; PERE-STROIKA
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Harris, Jonathan. (1990). “The Public Politics of Alek-sandr Nikolaevich Yakovlev, 1983-1989.” The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies. Pittsburgh, PA: Center for Russian and East European Studies. Yakovlev, Alexander. (1993). The Fate of Marxism in Russia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
The Yalta Conference was the second wartime summit meeting between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Mnister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin. It met from February 4 through February 11, 1945, in the Crimean city of Yalta. A mood of optimism prevailed at the conference because German armies were in retreat throughout Europe and victory was assured. The principal agenda item was Germany. Although there were sharp policy differences be1698 tween the three parties, the Yalta Conference reached agreement on most issues, and the Big Three came away convinced that allied unity had been preserved.
Germany, it was agreed, would be divided into three zones of occupation (a fourth zone was carved out of the British and American zones for France). Occupation policy would be made by a Four Power Allied Control Commission to be located in Berlin. Reparations were to be extracted from Germany, with the details to be determined by an Allied Reparations Commission in Moscow. Nazism and German militarism were to be extinguished, and war criminals were to be justly and swiftly punished. Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill are shown laughing in the conference room of Livadia Palace, during the Yalta Conference. ASSOCIATED PRESS. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
Poland proved to be an intractable problem. Churchill and Roosevelt sought unsuccessfully to persuade Stalin to recognize the London-based government in exile, but he continued to support the government installed by the Soviet Union in Lublin. At most, the Western leaders secured from Stalin a commitment to free and unfettered elections as soon as possible. No decisions were reached re
The “Big Three” at Yalta in February 1945: Winston Churchill, a gravely ill Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Josef Stalin. COURTESY OF THE RARE BOOKS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS DIVISION, THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS garding Poland’s postwar boundaries, although it was understood that the eastern boundary would be the Curzon line. As to the liberated countries in Eastern Europe, the conferees pledged in a Declaration on Liberated Europe to respect “the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live.”
A secret protocol stipulated that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan within three months after Germany’s surrender. As compensation, Russia’s losses to Japan resulting from the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 and 1905 would be restored. These included southern Sakhalin, adjacent islands, and the Kuril Islands. The Soviet Union also received the lease of Port Arthur, internationalization of the port of Dairen, and partial control over the Chinese Eastern and South Manchurian railroads as concessions. Regarding the United Nations, it was agreed that a United Nations conference would be held in the United States on April 25, 1945. The United States and Britain agreed to accept Ukraine and Be-lorussia as original members, thus giving the Soviet Union three votes in the General Assembly. Also, important provisions related to the voting rules of the Security Council were formulated, including a provision for the veto power of the five permanent members.
Because Stalin ultimately succeeded in imposing communist regimes on the peoples of Eastern Europe, some critics have accused Roosevelt of “selling out” Eastern Europe. However, the consensus of scholarly opinion is that the superior military position of the Red Army at the end of the war virtually guaranteed Soviet predominance, regardless of the decisions made at Yalta.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
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See also: POTSDAM CONFERENCE; WORLD WAR II
Buhite, Russell D. (1986). Decisions at Yalta: An Appraisal of Summit Diplomacy. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources. Clemens, Diane Shaver. (1970). Yalta. New York: Oxford University Press. Mastny,Vojtech. (1979). Russia’s Road to the Cold War: Diplomacy, Warfare, and the Politics of Communism. New York: Columbia University Press. Snell, John L. (1956). The Meaning of Yalta: Big Three Diplomacy and the New Balance of Power. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
conviction-or his inebriation. Along with Yeltsin’s appearance atop a tank, Yanayev and his shaking hands became a central image of the putsch. Yanayev was arrested immediately following the coup’s collapse and was amnestied by the Duma in February 1994. He went on to become a pension fund consultant. See also: AUGUST 1991 PUTSCH
Gorbachev, Mikhail. (1991). The August Coup: The Truth and the Lessons. New York: Harper Collins. Remnick, David. (1993). Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. New York: Random House.
ANN E. ROBERTSON
(b. 1937), USSR vice president, coup plotter.
Gennady Yanayev graduated from Gorky Agricultural Institute in 1959 and earned a history degree from the All-Union Law Institute in 1967. Before joining the Party in 1962, Yanayev worked in the agro-industry sector. After securing Party membership, he soon began working in the Gorky Komsomol organization (1963-1968). He was promoted to chairman of the USSR Committee of Youth Organizations (1968-1980) and later to deputy chair of the Presidium of the Union of Soviet Friendship Societies (1980-1986). He switched to working in the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions in 1986, becoming chair in 1990.
Yanayev rose following the Twenty-eighth CPSU Party Congress. In July 1990 he was named to the Central Committee and Politburo and given the Central Committee foreign policy portfolio. Following the creation of the Soviet presidency in late 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev nominated Yanayev as his vice president on December 27. The Congress of People’s Deputies approved him on the second ballot. He then resigned from his Central Committee and Politburo posts effective January 31, 1991.
Yanayev disagreed with Gorbachev’s reforms and was the public face of the group that plotted the abortive coup of August 19-21, 1991. He went on international television to claim that, as vice president, he had assumed the acting presidency of the Soviet Union. His quivering hands, constant sniffling, and stilted delivery suggested his lack of
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A decree or pronouncement by a Mongol khan.
The yarlyk (Mongolian jarligh; Tartar yarligh) was one of three types of non-fundamental law (jasagh or yasa) pronouncements that had the effect of a regulation or ordinance, the other two being debter (a record of precedence cases for administration and judicial decisions) and bilig (maxims or sayings attributed to Chinghis Khan). The yarlyki provide important information about the running of the Mongol Empire.
From the mid-thirteenth to mid-fifteenth centuries, all Rus princes received yarlyki authorizing their rule. Initially, those yarlyki came from the qaghan in Karakorum, but after Batu established his khanate, they came from Sarai. None of these yarlyki, however, is extant. In the mid-fifteenth century, Basil II began forbidding other Rus princes from receiving the yarlyk from Tatar khans, thus establishing the right of the Moscow grand prince to authorize local princely rule.
