September 28, 2024

80th Anniversary of Churchill, Stalin, and the “Naughty Document”

In October 1944, Prime Minister Winston Churchill flew from London to Moscow to meet with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin for a conference given the codename TOLSTOY. Churchill had met the previous month with President Franklin Roosevelt in Quebec. The next meeting between all of the Big Three leaders would have to wait until after that year’s presidential election in the United States. Meanwhile, in Moscow, Churchill and Stalin came to a fateful decision about the future of central Europe by means of what the Prime Minister later called his “naughty document.” Churchill tells the story in the final volume of his memoirs, Triumph and Tragedy:

We alighted at Moscow on the afternoon of October 9 and were received very heartily and with full ceremonial by [Soviet Foreign Minister] Molotov and many high Russian personages. This time we were lodged in Moscow itself, with every care and comfort. I had one small, perfectly appointed house, and [British Foreign Secretary] Anthony Eden another nearby. We were glad to dine alone together and rest. At ten o’clock that night we held our first important meeting in the Kremlin. There were only Stalin, Molotov, Eden, and I, with Major Birse and Pavlov as interpreters.

It was agreed to invite the Polish Prime Minister, M. Romer, the Foreign Minister, and M. Grabski, a grey-bearded and aged academician of much charm and quality, to Moscow at once. I telegraphed accordingly to M. Mikolajczyk [Prime Minister of the Polish government in exile] that we were expecting him and his friends for discussions with the Soviet Government and ourselves, as well as with the Lublin Polish Committee. I made it clear that refusal to come to take part in the conversations would amount to a definite rejection of our advice and would relieve us from further responsibility towards the London Polish Government.

The moment was apt for business, so I said, “Let us settle about our affairs in the Balkans. Your armies are in Roumania and Bulgaria. We have interests, missions, and agents there. Don’t let us get at cross-purposes in small ways. So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have ninety percent predominance in Roumania, for us to have ninety percent of the say in Greece, and go fifty-fifty about Yugoslavia?” While this was being translated I wrote out on a half-sheet of paper:

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Roumania: Russia 90%, The others 10%
Greece: Great Britain 90% (in accord with USA), Russia 10%
Yugoslavia: 50–50%
Hungary: 50–50%
Bulgaria: Russia 75%, The others 25%

I pushed this across to Stalin, who had by then heard the translation. There was a slight pause. Then he took his blue pencil and made a large tick upon it and passed it back to us. It was all settled in no more time than it takes to set down.

Of course, we had long and anxiously considered our point and were only dealing with immediate wartime arrangements. All larger questions were reserved on both sides for what we then hoped would be a peace table when the war was won.

After this there was a long silence. The pencilled paper lay in the centre of the table. At length I said, “Might it not be thought rather cynical if it seemed we had disposed of these issues, so fateful to millions of people, in such an offhand manner? Let us burn the paper.” “No, you keep it,” said Stalin.

Churchill’s “naughty document” is preserved at the Churchill Archives Centre at Churchill College, Cambridge.