Moscow Conferences

Moscow Conferences meetings held between 1941 and 1947 at Moscow, USSR. At a conference in Sept.-Oct., 1941, American and British representatives laid the basis for lend-lease aid to the USSR in World War II. In Aug., 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and W. Averell Harriman, representing U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, met with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin to discuss the opening of a second front in Europe. The third conference (Oct., 1943), attended by the American, British, and Russian foreign ministers, resulted in the pledge to establish a United Nations organization for the maintenance of peace. At the fourth Moscow Conference (Oct., 1944) Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin discussed the political difficulties of Poland and agreed on armistice terms for Bulgaria and a joint policy with respect to Yugoslavia. For the foreign ministers' conferences held at Moscow in 1945 and 1947, see Foreign Ministers, Council of .

Moscow conference, held in October 1943 with a view to improving Anglo-US relations with the USSR prior to the Teheran conference the following month (see Eureka). It was attended by the foreign ministers of the UK, USA, and USSR, and their military advisers. The Soviet delegation was assured that an Allied invasion of France would take place the following spring (see OVERLORD); a declaration against those responsible for Nazi atrocities in occupied countries was signed; it was agreed to establish the European Advisory Commission; a protocol was drawn up on joint Anglo-Soviet action to bring Turkey into the war on the Allied side; and the Four-Power Declaration (also known as the Moscow declaration) was issued. It was also agreed that after the war Austria should become an independent state again.

A conference was also held in Moscow in August 1942 when Churchill, accompanied by his military advisers and Averell Harriman, accepted Stalin's invitation to meet members of the Soviet government and to discuss the question of a Second Front.

For the conferences held in Moscow in October 1941 and October 1944see Three-Power conference and TOLSTOY. See also diplomacy and Grand Alliance.

Declaration of Moscow a conference on October 1943 where U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet premier Josef Stalin signed the Declaration Concerning Atrocities. It asserted that those responsible for atrocities committed during World War II would be “judged and punished according to the laws” of the countries in which the acts were committed.