The percentages agreement was an alleged agreement between Soviet premier Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 and British prime minister Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 about how to divide southeastern Europe into spheres of influence during the Fourth Moscow Conference, in 1944 . This agreement was made public by Churchill. No confirmation has ever been made by the Soviet Union or Russia, or from the American side, which was represented in the meeting by Ambassador Averell Harriman.

The document

A draft document of the agreement, which was yet to be made in 1944, appeared under strange circumstances when it was supposedly intercepted in 1943 and fell into the hands of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...

's secret service. This was mentioned by General Jordana, in a famous speech he gave in April 1943 in Barcelona On October 9, 1944 Churchill and Stalin met at the fourth Moscow Conference

Moscow Conference (1944)

The Fourth Moscow Conference, also Tolstoy Conference for its code name Tolstoy, between the major Allies of World War II took place from October 9 to October 19 1944....

. Churchill's account of the incident is the following: Churchill suggested that the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 should have 90 percent influence in Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

 and 75 percent in Bulgaria

Bulgaria

Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

; the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 should have 90 percent in Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

; in Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

 and Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

, Churchill suggested that they should have 50 percent each. Churchill wrote it on a piece of paper which he pushed across to Stalin, who ticked it off and passed it back.

"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", said Churchill.

"No, you keep it", replied Stalin.

The two foreign ministers, Anthony Eden

Anthony Eden

Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC was a British Conservative politician, who was Prime Minister from 1955 to 1957...

 and Vyacheslav Molotov

Vyacheslav Molotov

Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...

, negotiated about the percentage shares on October 10 and 11. The result of these discussions was that the percentages of Soviet influence in Bulgaria and, more significantly, Hungary were amended to 80 percent – apart from that, no other countries were mentioned.

Historian Gabriel Kolko

Gabriel Kolko

Gabriel Kolko is an American historian and author.Kolko was born in Paterson, New Jersey, attended Kent State University and the University of Wisconsin , married Joyce Manning in 1955, and received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1962. Following graduation he taught at the University of Pennsylvania...

 has noted that, "There is little significance to the memorable and dramatic passage in Churchill's autobiography recalling how he and Stalin divided Eastern Europe":
If this agreement was true, then Stalin did keep to his promise about Greece, but did not keep his promise for Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary, which became one-party communist states with no British influence. Yugoslavia remained a non-aligned state in line with the Percentage agreement, though it was a one- party communist state, with very limited British influence. Neither did Churchill keep his promise about Greece, which became a one-party junta with no Soviet influence. Britain supported the Greek government forces in the civil war

Greek Civil War

The Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek governmental army, backed by the United Kingdom and United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece , the military branch of the Greek Communist Party , backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania...

 but the Soviet Union did not assist the communist partisans.

However, doubts should be raised regarding the accuracy of Churchill's account, which seems to serve political purposes at the time. First, it seems odd that the negotiating a matter of such importance takes place without the direct involvement of the Americans. They are represented only by their ambassador, Averell Harriman perhaps as an observer. Second, the agreement note, which Stalin is supposed to have read, is written in English. Finally and most importantly, Russia appears on it instead of Soviet Union. This is a matter that would have been hard for Stalin to endorse since the Soviets were very sensitive in keeping appearances.

External links

• The division of Europe, according to Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin (1944) (Scan of the napkin in question)
• Excerpt from the book STALIN