Victims of Yalta

Victims of Yalta is the British and The Secret Betrayal the American title of a 1977 book by Nikolai Tolstoy that chronicles the fate of Soviet people who had been under German control during World War II and at its end fallen into the hands of the Western Allies. According to the secret Moscow agreement from 1944 that was confirmed at the 1945 Yalta conference, all Soviet citizens were to be repatriated without choice—a death sentence for many by execution or work in a forced-labor camp.

Tolstoy describes the various groups of over five million Russians who had fallen into German hands. These include prisoners of war, forced laborers (Ostarbeiter), collaborators, refugees, émigrés, and anti-communists. Conditions in Germany for Soviet prisoners were appalling and their mortality rate high, making it attractive for many to join laborers, Russian auxiliary troops, or the Russian Liberation Army (ROA). The situation for Russian soldiers was complicated by the stance of the Soviet government that rejected efforts by the International Red Cross to intervene and considered anyone who had surrendered to the enemy a traitor. The Moscow conference of 1944 and the Yalta agreement laid the groundwork for the participation of the British and American governments to support the repatriation program of the Soviet government. Tolstoy was especially critical of Anthony Eden's role in trying to appease the Soviets.