Ukraine, Ethnic Division, Decentralization, and Secession

FDR was very naive, to put it in the most charitable light, about the Communists. Eleanor thought that Communists were just "liberals in a hurry." But in the two months between Yalta and his death, FDR seems to have started to realize that Stalin was not going to keep his promises about free elections in Poland, etc.

Henry Wallace, the Vice President during FDR's third term, was a real doozy--if FDR had died a year earlier and Wallace had then won the 1944 election, there would have been no Cold War because Wallace would have done everything Stalin wanted.

Your points are all valid and consonant with mainstream explanations of Yalta. Red Army occupation of Eastern Europe, coupled with FDR’s desire to move along, was the decisive factor there; Putin did not miss the lesson.

Whether it mattered more that FDR wanted to placate Polish-American voters, or he was following Stalin’s advice via Alger Hiss is hard to say. The amazing thing is that Stalin could keep a straight face while pretending it was a concession to expand a Poland he knew he would control. (Perhaps FDR gets the Oscar for acting like he didn’t know every bit of it.)

You have no doubt seen claims that FDR thought he could win Stalin’s trust by giving him everything he could want. I do not know if that was true, but Obama seems to like the concept.

Hiss was there and presumably furnished valuable information to his Soviet handlers, but I don't know to what extent he acted as an advisor to the President.

Some of the bad deals at Yalta were a result of FDR's earlier failures to drive hard bargains, going back at least to the Teheran conference of December 1943 (the same month as our traitorous Secretary of State was born).

Obama's weakness is much less excusable--he inherited a position of relative strength, and had the history of the last 70+ years to learn from. Plus at least FDR was getting Stalin's help in beating Nazi Germany--all those Soviet soldiers killed meant fewer Americans had to die in the war. So at least there was a short-term benefit even if it created problems for the post-war world.

Russians and Ukrainians are both Eastern Slavs

To understand this, you need to go back to the 13th century. At that time there was Kievan Rus, a group of duchies in what is now ukraine, Belarus and western Russia.

They battled against the Khazars, byzantines, poles, bulgarians etc. but they were destroyed by the Mongol invasion

THAT was the start of the separation of "Russians" (more properly called Muscowites), Belarusyni and Ruthenians (Ukrainians).

Moscow in the 13th century was an outpost of the state of Vladimir-suzdal and got it's prominence by agreeing to be the tax-collector for the Great Khan.

As the Mongol power waned, the Lithianian Grand Dukes (pagans) came to power and took over western Ukraine and Belarus.

Then in 1410 they joined with the POles to form the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth (a multi-national state that was larger than the Holy Roman Empire at that time).

As time went by the BElarusyni were under Lithianian 'control' but really ruled themselves while the Ukrainians merged with the Poles -- the upper classes became polish while the lower stayed Ruthenian (the languages are roughly compatible, roughly like Flemish and English)

Moscow on the other hand grew in power as a tax collector and then 100 years later threw off the Mongol yoke. ARguably they absorbed a lot of the Mongol system of governance while the Ruthenians/Ukrainians absorbed Poland's chaotic democracy.

The Muscowites then, after the fall of Constantinople, decided that they were not only the "third Rome" but they also had the divine task of "the gathering of the Rus" -- gathering all the Eastern Slavs (and then all the Eastern Orthodox) under Caesar/Tsar.

In the 1700s the Cossacks in what is now Ukraine revolted against the Poles but jumped out of the Polish sizzling pan into the Russian fire. They wanted to keep their culture and language intact but Polish culture and langauge was too advanced and culturally compelling. Russian on the other hand was not so advanced but had a state that didn't care about human life.

and that was Ukraine's faith for 200 years, slowly Russified

The "Russians" in the Ukraine are those who speak the Russian language while Ukrainians are mainly just based on language.

Ukraine never had a chance to build up a higher culture as it was surrounded by more advanced cultures...

You're reading what you want to read. I never said that

Unlike what you think, Ukrainians are NOT stupid - by "higher culture" I meant literature, composers, poets etc. -- Ukraine has a lot of diverse and RICH folk culture, and if the Mongols had not invaded, they would have developed the literature etc.

But they didn't get the chance.

"Other cultures stole from them" -- incorrect. The Russian culture see's itself as an extension of, or a greater part of Ukrainian culture -- it is as a whole, Eastern Slavic culture.

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