On the 9th of March this year “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” published an article by Nicolay Zlobin that was entitled “End of Yalta system”. Professor Zlobin proclaimed an end of the Cold War and the stand of two global systems —according to him, “Yalta system” was the quintessence of it.
On the 9th of March this year “Rossiyskaya Gazeta” published an article named “End of Yalta system” by Nicolay Zlobin[1]. Professor Zlobin proclaimed an end of the Cold War and the stand of two global systems —according to him, “Yalta system” was the quintessence of it.
In his article N. Zlobin bound the change of the world order to the series of Arabian revolutions — according to him, the latter are “giving up the regional remains of Yalta system for lost. Once it used to be the foundation of the post-war world politics. The system started to recede along with collapse of the Soviet Union, but creation of Kosovo and recognition of the South Ossetia has shattered its very principles. Due to the Northern African events, it belongs to history alone”.
Completely sharing author’s opinion regarding the ideological stand of two systems and the bipolar world that have actually lost its time, I’d still like to voice up certain thoughts, which this respectable political scientist somehow failed to notice.
Leaders of the USA, the USSR and Great Britain signed the Yalta agreements in February of 1945 and the Potsdam agreements followed in the August of the same year. These treaties have established the political resumes of the Second World War — according to which, Europe was divided into the spheres of Soviet and Western influence. They’ve also set up the state borders of the countries that today belong to various international institutions and organizations. Thus, the end of “Yalta system” that Nicolay Zlobin has proclaimed — had it actually come true — would have already washed out the foundation of European stability, which is based upon the Yalta and Potsdam agreements. In fact, destruction of “Yalta system” is a review of the WWII resumes, which may signify the new re-division of Europe (and not just Europe alone), thus causing an entire train of conflicts between such different countries as Germany, Poland, Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Japan and even Mongolia. Given the due credit to an immense geopolitical meaning of Arabian revolutions and an importance of the Russian decision to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia, I still cannot fail to mark out that all these facts have literally nothing in common with the post-war border-defining agreements. Arabian countries haven’t even been the subjects of 1945 agreements between the winners, while Abkhazia and South Ossetia were parts of the USSR at the moment, whose territorial integrity could have been disputed by neither America, nor Great Britain.
As to European countries and Japan — whose borders were changed by the Yalta and Potsdam agreements — an attempt to deny the universally recognized resumes of the bloodiest war in the human history may without a hint of exaggeration lead to unforeseen circumstances. Nicolay Zlobin has seemingly failed to consider the fact that it was Poland that turned out to be the main victim of the “Yalta system” crash — country-member of the European Union and NATO, I might add. Due to the above-mentioned agreements Poland obtained a number of territories that previously belonged to the Nazi Germany. They include city of Gdansk, south of Eastern Prussia, most part of Pomerania and Silesia, eastern part of Brandenburg, Wroclaw, Szczecin, Olsztyn and Opole. Total area of the Ziemie Odzyskane[2] — as Poles themselves dub them — makes up 103.788 square kilometers; in 1939 8.8 million people inhabited it. By the moment of their transition to Poland, only 4.5 million people dwelled there, including 1 million Poles and Ukrainians. Poland got these territories in exchange for the lost lands — from the Ukraine to Lithuania — in the east. At the moment the USSR acquired them, but today they belong to various states.
The German Democratic Republic (in July of 1950) and then the Federative Republic of Germany (in December of 1970) recognized the territorial integrity of Poland within these borders. Respective bilateral agreements — Treaty of Zgorzelec and Brandt-Zyrankiewicz Pact — stipulated it. In November of 1990, after the reunification of Germany, Polish and German governments signed a treaty that confirmed these borders. I believe that there’s no need to remind anyone that Kaliningrad once used to be called Königsberg and that its current status as the subject of Russian Federation is also a result of the very same Yalta and Potsdam agreements. Nicolay Zlobin argues that today both Poland and Germany are members of the European Union and thus the issue of interstate borders has lost its significance, having dissolved in the processes of European integration. Yet, I consider such arguments to be extremely thoughtless. Despite the historical Polish-German reconciliation, Poles are still very anxious about the very existence of such German organization as the “Union of the Expelled”. Headed by Erika Steinbach this union is not an extremist organization at all — on the contrary, its activity generally includes the informational coverage.
I don’t believe that the Ukraine will approve giving Lvov back to Poland and the same thing may be said about Belarus and its western territories. As for Russia, renouncement of the Yalta agreements would have raised an issue of Kaliningrad Oblast in the west and Sakhalin along with Kurile Islands in the East. Inadequate reaction of the Japanese leadership to President Medvedev’s visit to the islands of Kurile range and the fairly stiff Russian position on that issue may be the best response to the “end of Yalta”, proclaimed by Professor Zlobin.
Nicolay Zlobin has ended his March article, saying that it’s the way he perceives it from Washington. It is well-known that point of view largely depends on your location, which is why, being in Moscow I see this matter quite differently. 
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