The Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers, also known as the Interim Meeting of Foreign Ministers, was held in Moscow between the foreign ministers of the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union from December 16 to 26, 1945. They discussed the problems of occupation, establishing peace, and other Far Eastern issues.
James F. Byrnes represented the United States, Ernest Bevin the United Kingdom, and Vyacheslav Molotov the Soviet Union. They issued a communiqué after the conference on December 27, 1945.
The establishment by the United Nations of a commission for the control of atomic energy
Aftermath
The Moscow Conference has been seen as advantageous for the Soviet Union. The conference was proposed by Byrnes, without an invitation offered to France or China and without first consulting with the United Kingdom. This was aligned with the goal the Soviet Union had previously wanted - that France and China would be excluded from peace settlements regarding the minor axis powers in Europe - and created a rift between the United Kingdom and United States. The conference also recognised the pro-Soviet governments in Romania and Bulgaria, granted the Soviet Union a role in post-war Japan, established international control of atomic energy, and achieved an agreement on a trusteeship in Korea - all were viewed as successes by the Soviet Union.[3] Veteran American diplomat George F. Kennan, who was then serving in the US embassy in Moscow, observed the proceedings first hand, and wrote in his diary on US Secretary of State Byrnes: "The realities behind this agreement, since they concern only such people as Koreans, Rumanians, and Iranians, about whom he knows nothing, do not concern him. He wants an agreement for its political effect at home. The Russians know this. They will see that for this superficial success he pays a heavy price in the things that are real."[4]:287–288
Writing in 1947, the London Economist argued that the Moscow Conference "ended the phase of post-war in which the victors clung to the belief that they could work out agreed policies... Willy-nilly, world politics moves back towards the balance of power, and issues now tend to be determined by the relative strength or influence of the two groups."[5]
Europe
The 1947 Paris Peace Treaties were the final peace settlement for Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Finland.
Japan
The Moscow Conference established the Far Eastern Commission, based in Washington, D.C., which would oversee the Allied Council for Japan, replacing the Far Eastern Advisory Commission. The arrangement, which gave the United States a dominant position in Japan, was a mirror image to the situation in Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania, where the Soviet Union was dominant. Both the far Eastern Commission and the Allied Council for Japan were dissolved following the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951.[6]
Korea
The December 27, 1945, issue of the Korean newspaper Dong-a Ilbo.Anti-trusteeship rally, December 1945.
On December 25, 1945, prior to the announcement of the final decision of the conference, the United Press reported that "Secretary of State Byrnes went to Russia reportedly with instructions to urge immediate independence as opposed to the Russian thesis of trusteeship."[7] Domestic media adopted the story on December 27. The communiqué was officially announced in Korea on December 28.
The section on Korea consisted of four paragraphs. The third paragraph called for the establishment of a Joint Commission, under the control of a consortium of the United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and China, including the decision that a four-power trusteeship of up to five years would be needed before Korea attained independence.[8][9]:34 Both the political left and political right of Korea opposed this trusteeship plan, with it being suggested that such a plan made Korea a vassal of the four powers.[10]:26
Protests against the trusteeship plan, which had also occurred on December 27, intensified on December 28. On the right, these protests were led by Kim Gu. On December 29, at Gyeonggyojang, a 76 member committee to oppose the trusteeship plan was formed, which included left wing leaders such as Pak Hon-yong of the Communist Party of Korea. Protests, leafletting, and discourse in the media continued the next few days. However, on January 3, 1946, the Communist Party reversed its position and issued a statement supporting the conference communiqué. This shift was not well received by the public. The shift coincides with the arrival of Soviet general Andrei Alekseevich Romanenko to Pyongyang on December 30, lending credence to the theory that the shift was due to a Soviet directive.[11] The shift of the left away from the anti-trusteeship movement led to intensified confrontation between the left and right.[12]
By January 23, unrest against the trusteeship plan had quietened somewhat, and right wing political groups stopped advocating for violence and for non-cooperation against military government.[13] The Joint Commission convened throughout 1946 and 1947, but it was increasingly obstructed, mostly by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union increased its military build-up in what would become North Korea and prevented the 1948 United Nations supervised election from occurring in the north. The failure of the Moscow Conference to peacefully settle the issue of Korea ultimately led to the Korean War in 1950.[14][9]:34
The anti-trusteeship victory protests are celebrated in South Korea annually on December 28.[12]
The conference did not address outstanding issues regarding: Iran, Spain, Greece, Libya, and the Dardanelles.[15][16] The Soviet Union was unwilling to withdraw from Iran, citing the Russo-Persian Treaty of Friendship and claiming their presence was legal to protect Baku.[17] As a counter to Anglo-American demands for their withdrawal from Iran, the Soviet Union pressed for British withdrawal from Greece. Reiterating their position previously voiced at the Potsdam and London conferences, the Soviet Union once again made demands for a military base in the Dardanelles.[18]
Potsdam Conference and the Potsdam Agreement of which the first article was the "establishment of a Council of Foreign Ministers to do the necessary preparatory work for the peace settlements".
The Potsdam Conference was held at Potsdam in the Soviet occupation zone from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to allow the three leading Allies to plan the postwar peace, while avoiding the mistakes of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. The participants were the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. They were represented respectively by General Secretary Joseph Stalin, Prime Ministers Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee, and President Harry S. Truman. They gathered to decide how to administer Germany, which had agreed to an unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier. The goals of the conference also included establishing the postwar order, solving issues on the peace treaty, and countering the effects of the war.
The Potsdam Agreement was the agreement among three of the Allies of World War II: the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union after the war ended in Europe that was signed on 1 August 1945 and it was published the next day. A product of the Potsdam Conference, it concerned the military occupation and reconstruction of Germany, its border, and the entire European Theatre of War territory. It also addressed Germany's demilitarisation, reparations, the prosecution of war criminals and the mass expulsion of ethnic Germans from various parts of Europe. France was not invited to the conference but formally remained one of the powers occupying Germany.
The Potsdam Declaration, or the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender, was a statement that called for the surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II. On July 26, 1945, United States President Harry S. Truman, United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Chairman of China Chiang Kai-shek issued the document, which outlined the terms of surrender for the Empire of Japan, as agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference. The ultimatum stated that, if Japan did not surrender, it would face "prompt and utter destruction."
The Tehran Conference was a strategy meeting of the Allies of World War II, held between Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943. It was the first of the Allied World War II conferences involving the "Big Three" and took place at the Soviet embassy in Tehran just over a year after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. The meeting occurred shortly after the Cairo Conference was held in Egypt for a discussion between the United States, the United Kingdom, and China from 22 to 26 November 1943. The Big Three would not meet again until 1945, when the Yalta Conference was held in Crimea from 4 to 11 February and the Potsdam Conference was held in Allied-occupied Germany from 17 July to August 2.
The Yalta Conference, held 4–11 February 1945, was the World War II meeting of the heads of government of the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union to discuss the postwar reorganization of Germany and Europe. The three states were represented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and General Secretary Joseph Stalin. The conference was held near Yalta in Crimea, Soviet Union, within the Livadia, Yusupov, and Vorontsov palaces.
The Paris Peace Treaties were signed on 10 February 1947 following the end of World War II in 1945. The Paris Peace Conference lasted from 29 July until 15 October 1946. The victorious wartime Allied powers negotiated the details of peace treaties with those former Axis allies, namely Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland, which had switched sides and declared war on Germany during the war. They were allowed to fully resume their responsibilities as sovereign states in international affairs and to qualify for membership in the United Nations. Nevertheless, the Paris Peace Treaties avoided taking into consideration the consequences of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, officially known as the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, whose secret clauses included the division of Poland between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, the occupation of the Baltic States, and the annexation of parts of Finland and Romania. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact changed the borders agreed after the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), and was signed on August 23, 1939. One week later, World War II started with Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland, followed three weeks later by the Soviet invasion of Poland, which was completely erased from the map. In the following years, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union changed the borders established by the peace treaties at the end of World War I.
The Cairo Declaration was the outcome of the Cairo Conference in Cairo, Egypt, on 27 November 1943. President Franklin Roosevelt of the United States, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China were present. The declaration developed ideas from the 1941 Atlantic Charter, which was issued by the Allies of World War II to set goals for the post-war order. The Cairo Communiqué was broadcast through radio on 1 December 1943.
The Treaty of San Francisco, also called the Treaty of Peace with Japan, re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers on behalf of the United Nations by ending the legal state of war, military occupation and providing for redress for hostile actions up to and including World War II. It was signed by 49 nations on 8 September 1951, in San Francisco, California, at the War Memorial Opera House. Italy and China were not invited, the latter due to disagreements on whether the Republic of China or the People's Republic of China represented the Chinese people. Korea was also not invited due to a similar disagreement on whether South Korea or North Korea represented the Korean people.
The division of Koreade facto began on 2 September 1945, when Japan signed the surrender document, thus ending the Pacific Theater of World War II. It was officially divided with the establishment of the two Koreas in 1948. During World War II, the Allied leaders had already been considering the question of Korea's future following Japan's eventual surrender in the war. The leaders reached an understanding that Korea would be liberated from Japan but would be placed under an international trusteeship until the Koreans would be deemed ready for self-rule. In the last days of the war, the United States proposed dividing the Korean peninsula into two occupation zones with the 38th parallel as the dividing line. The Soviets accepted their proposal and agreed to divide Korea.
The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, also known as the Japanese–Soviet Non-aggression Pact, was a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and the Empire of Japan signed on April 13, 1941, two years after the conclusion of the Soviet-Japanese Border War. The agreement meant that for most of World War II, the two nations fought against each other's allies but not against each other. In 1945, late in the war, the Soviets scrapped the pact and joined the Allied campaign against Japan.
Following the termination of hostilities in World War II, the Allies were in control of the defeated Axis countries. Anticipating the defeat of Germany, Italy and Japan, they had already set up the European Advisory Commission and a proposed Far Eastern Advisory Commission to make recommendations for the post-war period. Accordingly, they managed their control of the defeated countries through Allied Commissions, often referred to as Allied Control Commissions (ACC), consisting of representatives of the major Allies.
World War II officially ended in Asia on September 2, 1945, with the surrender of Japan on the USS Missouri. Before that, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, and the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, causing Emperor Hirohito to announce the acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration on August 15, 1945, which would eventually lead to the surrender ceremony on September 2.
The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during World War II (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers. Its principal members by the end of 1941 were the "Big Four" – the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, and China.
The Soviet occupation of Romania refers to the period from 1944 to August 1958, during which the Soviet Union maintained a significant military presence in Romania. The fate of the territories held by Romania after 1918 that were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940 is treated separately in the article on Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.
The formation of the European Advisory Commission (EAC) was agreed on at the Moscow Conference on 30 October 1943 between the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, Anthony Eden, the United States, Cordell Hull, and the Soviet Union, Vyacheslav Molotov, and confirmed at the Tehran Conference in November. In anticipation of the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies this commission was to study the postwar political problems in Europe and make recommendation to the three governments, including the surrender of the European enemy states and the machinery of its fulfillment. After the EAC completed its task it was dissolved at the Potsdam Conference in August 1945.
Council of Foreign Ministers was an organisation agreed upon at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 and announced in the Potsdam Agreement and dissolved upon the entry into force of the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany in 1991.
The Far Eastern Commission (FEC) was an Allied commission which supervised the occupation of Japan following its defeat in World War II. It succeeded the Far Eastern Advisory Commission (FEAC).
During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland, as well as Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, part of eastern Finland and eastern Romania. Apart from the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and post-war division of Germany, the USSR also occupied and annexed Carpathian Ruthenia from Czechoslovakia in 1945.
During the Cold War, the Iron Curtain was a political metaphor used to describe the political and later physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West, its allies and neutral states. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union, while on the west side were the countries that were NATO members, or connected to or influenced by the United States; or nominally neutral. Separate international economic and military alliances were developed on each side of the Iron Curtain. In recent research (2024) by Rodolfo Campos, Benedikt Heid, and Jacopo Timini, the Iron Curtain at its economic peak in 1951 functioned as a tariff-equivalent barrier of approximately 48%, contributing to economic isolation and challenges for Soviet-aligned countries. It later became a term for the physical barriers of fences, walls, minefields, and watchtowers that were built up along some of its sections, with the Berlin Wall being the most significant of these.
The term Big Four Conference may refer to one of several conferences between heads of state or foreign ministers of the victorious nations after World War I (1914–18) or during and after World War II (1939–45).
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Soviet Union 
Ernest Bevin 
James F. Byrnes 
