While it was clear that the advancing Soviet army gave Stalin a chance to exercise his imperialistic ambitions, the other Allies felt the need to give him some leeway, because they wanted to keep the anti-Nazi coalition strongly together.
The Allies knew that, if they did not appease Stalin, there remained the possibility that he would switch sides again, and the massive resources of the Soviet Socialist dictatorship would be placed at Hitler’s disposal. Additionally, the Allies wanted Stalin’s support in the Pacific, where the fight against the Japanese was even more brutal than the fighting in Europe.
The capital city of Iran can be spelled either ‘Tehran’ or ‘Teheran,’ and it was in this city that the Allies met in late November and early December 1943, as historians Herb Romerstein and Stan Evans write:
While military matters were the immediate topics at Teheran, postwar political and diplomatic issues would be considered also. Of special interest were the states of Eastern Europe that lay in the path of the Red Army advancing west from Russia, and what would happen to them when they were “liberated” by Soviet forces. Foremost among the nations getting notice in this context were Yugoslavia and Poland, the first the subject of extended comment by Churchill, the second stressed by Stalin as a security issue for Moscow.
At Tehran, then, Churchill backed Stalin’s man in Yugoslavia: Josip Broz Tito. The nickname ‘Tito’ had appeared when Josip Broz began a Soviet-backed communist group which hoped eventually to govern Yugoslavia.
From the time the Nazis had invaded Yugoslavia, Draza Mihailovich had been leading an underground resistance group in an effort to push the Nazis back out of Yugoslavia. The group was called the Chetniks, and Mihailovic - his surname is sometimes spelled without the final ‘h’ - rallied the cause of freeing Yugoslavia.
Because Hitler and Stalin were allies until June 1941, Tito, as Stalin’s agent, offered no resistance to the occupying Nazis until Hitler broke his alliance with Stalin.
In a stunning and masterful propaganda effort, Stalin suddenly directed his radio and print media to portray Tito as a resistance leader, and to denounce Mihailovic as a traitor who’d collaborated with the Nazis. The effort was so successful that even Churchill and the British government were fooled.
While Mihailovic continued his efforts against the occupying Nazis, Tito’s guerrillas attacked Mihailovic’s fighters. Tito conducted occasional token raids against the Nazis to support the propaganda effort portraying Tito as the true resistance hero.
Churchill agreed, at Teheran, that Tito would be the postwar leader of Yugoslavia, and so unwittingly delivered the Yugoslavs from Hitler’s dictatorship into Stalin’s dictatorship. Tito would function as Stalin’s puppet from 1941 until 1948/1949.
As soon as he consolidated power at the war’s end, Tito ordered Mihailovic to be arrested and executed after a show trial. Stalin’s misinformation effort had succeeded, and the western Allies had support Tito, a communist dictator, over Mihailovic, who had been the authentic leader of the anti-Nazi resistance.
