Lessons in negotiation from Stalin at Yalta
abe-winter.github.io
abe-winter.github.io
That is a bit sensitive these days, but Crimea wasn't Ukraine at the time. It was transferred to Ukraine in 1954 by N.Khrushchev (without much elaboration). He did many such transfers at the time. 40 years later, that caused several wars.
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/why-did-russia-give...
All these types of things in my opinions were 'investments' in the future. Geopolitical instability is always a good lever for waging war. First think which came to mind when reading your comment was Transnistria.
Otherwise these strike me as fairly boilerplate negotiating tactics; I didn't find that Yalta itself validated any of them.
Having said that, it's important to distinguish these kinds of negotiation porn stories with real-world negotiations. Especially for tech teams.
Negotiation exists so that in a world of low-trust we can all meet some of our goals by working together in a careful manner. It's a kind of careful "dance" where a back-and-forth between the parties slowly allows information to move back-and-forth so that goals can be met. It's the spot between sharing nothing and sharing everything.
A lot of management theory, like Agile, depends on some kind of weird total trust environment that's never, ever existed. That means negotiation has to happen. (If negotiation happens with your kids when you're talking about where to go for dinner, it happens in tech teams, trust me.)
Yes, in the end you'll end up with a bit of remaining information asymmetry that can be spun to make it like one party got away with a lot and took advantage over the other one. But the real goal is also mentioned in the essay: everybody comes back to the table again and negotiation happens again on the next deal. Nobody wants to sit down with Stalin again. And thankfully, nobody has to. Real-world negotiation is much more about building trust and deep friendships -- sometimes using games and tactics which can appear to be slimy -- than it is trying to bulldoze somebody.
Negotiation has gotten a bad name for many of us tech folks. It really shouldn't be that way. It's an important thing to learn and practice for everybody.
In wiser hands, this article would be worth reading.
> Use these underlying power dynamics to control the agenda
How did Stalin do this, exactly? What topic did he fight to avoid?
> If you’ve ever been an A student in a group project with a C student (or vice versa), you know this game.
Know what game?
If you care less about the consequences of your action than the other part, you get an advantage. This is not really recommended as a negotiation strategy in the long run (it only works once, and the other person is now your enemy), but it's good to know it can happen.
The C student will take any grade C and up and strives to do as little as possible whilst not pissing off the A student to go ballistic and report you to the professor.
Generally this is referred to as brinksmanship. The philosophy of brinksmanship is basically that when a situation is stable it is difficult to change. Takeing it to the the brink with chaos means you may be able to settle the chaos more in your favor.
The problem with it is that it's an awful long term strategy. In terms of game theory it's essentially the "defection" strategy, and negative sum.
In fact much of this blog posting seems to me like it could just as well be titled "a sociopath's guide"
However he had plenty of blunders too, especially being blindsided by Hitler's Operation Barbarossa in the eastern front.
I read the post and I don't think I would be able to or want to apply any of those lessons.
Still an interesting insight into Yalta
Unfortunately for him this included stroke specialists and he had a stroke. He received no care other than having a rug wrapped around him while he lay soaked in urine.
There is an excellent series of books about him by Simon Sebag Montefiore and his death is covered in Court of The Red Czar.
I don't want to lie in any circumstances, but I would like to detect that someone is lying to me.
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080112053013A...
> It was one thing for Stalin to begin trusting, to some extent, the judgment of Zhukov and Timoshenko (instead of Voroshilov & Co.) on how best to defend the USSR in the event of a German attack. It was quite another matter for Stalin to begin believing that a German attack would actually be launched.
> Several other answers have stressed Stalin’s refusal to accept the validity of intelligence reports re Barbarossa from Sorge and other spies. That is perfectly true. In fact, according to at least two books (‘Russia’s War’ by Overy; and ‘Third Reich’ by Burleigh), Russian Intelligence received no less than 84 different warnings of Barbarossa, from a variety of sources. Quite apart from British/American warnings (obtained via Enigma intercepts), Sorge, and various diplomatic listening posts; Moscow was being kept well informed by moles inside three German ministries: Economics, Air and Foreign. As the clock ticked down, the warnings became increasingly precise and accurate. It did not matter. Stalin kept on dismissing every warning as an “English provocation!” ... with the ominous footnote that the loyalty of the source should be investigated.
[..]
> Even after Barbarossa was launched, Stalin still refused to believe that Hitler could have ordered it. When Zhukov met him at the Kremlin late on June 22, 1941, Stalin was still insisting that the attack was “a provocation of the German officers” and that “Hitler surely does not know about it”. Once the truth finally sank in, it is hardly surprising that Stalin slunk off into isolation. Quite understandably, he feared that his staggering, glaring display of incompetence would mean the end of him. When Molotov led a deputation from the Politburo to winkle him out from his dacha on June 30, and talk him into coming back to the Kremlin to take charge, Stalin’s initial reaction to their arrival reveals that he assumed they had come to arrest him.
> This still does not answer the key question: why did Stalin trust Hitler’s intentions?
> As Churchill later wrote, at least as regards Hitler and Barbarossa, Stalin showed himself to be “the most completely outwitted bungler of the Second World War”. But ... there are a couple of rationalizations to explain Stalin’s apparently blind stupidity. To any logical man, Hitler’s decision to launch a two-front war - while Britain was still far from being conquered in the West – was crazy. Furthermore, the timing of Barbarossa was also wrong: Stalin knew that, by late June, the Germans were not likely to have time to crush the Red Army completely before the autumn rains made Russia’s roads into impassable bogs.
> However, I think that the likeliest explanation of Stalin’s obstinate trust in Hitler lies more in his Marxist convictions, and to his intense suspicion of Britain’s intentions, than anything else. Stalin did not see Nazism as being as much a natural enemy to Communism as was Capitalist Democracy. Above all, Stalin hated and distrusted the British. He constantly harked back to the 19th century Crimean War and ‘Great Game’ struggles for mastery of Central Asia, and to Britain’s post-WW1 interventions in the Russian Civil War. He was convinced that Britain was conspiring to undermine his pact with Hitler, and to form an alliance with the Axis powers to attack Russia. When Rudolf Hess flew to Britain in May 1941, Stalin interpreted it as the prelude to a secret Anglo-German pact to combine against the Soviet Union.
> Perhaps the most revealing clue lies in one of Stalin’s immediate reactions once he accepted the reality of the Barbarossa attack. He warned his cronies to expect, as a follow-up blow, an amphibious assault by Britain’s Royal Navy against Leningrad!
Probably the best observation in the whole article.
Why would the British want instability in Russia? That would suit Germany.
Basically no "western" élites want socialism and they do their best to stop them, they found ex socialist like Mussolini in Italy, they found "communism", they found nazism to stop that trans-national movement.
On "élites" consider a thing, if you are "Standard Oil" (that support nazis even during the first years of WWII) for you a government or another means nothing: you are needed by any parties and you'll be kept by both if you play your cards well, it's only a matter of business ability and timing. For instance actual "powerful&rich" automotive industry in Germany is property of the same families that finance nazis at their times, governments have changes, war etc does not change their business much, only vary a bit cash flow and volumes. Same in Italy, same in USA, same in Russian federation, Japan etc.
The only real problem for such subjects is a government really lead by citizen instead of by a kind of dictatorship, that's will really hurt their business. Dictatorship of any color for them are the same.
The big thing was the leader of the us was dying, probably of cancer.
Also you can read up separately on Harry Dexter White.
Edit to add: it wasn't until Khrushchev that the crimes of Stalin were revealed, and that was 1956. See the "Secret Speech" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Cult_of_Personality_a...
> The Bolshevik forces used chemical weapons "from end of June 1921 until apparently the fall of 1921", by direct order from the leadership of Red Army and from the Communist Party.
Roosevelt spent a few days in the Soviet ambasy together with Stalin and they agreed on how to divide the world - divide Germany, split China and Japan, get rid of the British and French empires, etc.
That's a great understatement for the single guy responsible for an amount of deaths 10 times greater than WWII casualties.
edit: number typo
I don't think it's entirely accurate, though. Yes, the US had to align with USSR, yes the public face was he was our ally, but the US was already aware he was a "bad dude." In fact, the US would have no reservations kicking off a public campaign to that end immediately following the war.
Any actual data on that? As far as I know it was exaggerated a lot, and real numbers show different view: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/01/27/hitler-vs-stalin-wh...
1984 was written at that time, after all.
Are Americans so poorly knowledgeable of Western literature they find this well versed but empty writing interesting?
That is just not how it is. Murderous psychopath can achieve success due to talents and hard work etc - neither makes him less guilty.
What makes Stalin or Hitler intellectually interesting are their tactics and abilities. The next succesfully murderous dictator will have them too. Else he would just stayed violent young man.
To understand Stalin's "success", you must first understand Russia and its history.
The idea that we can just profile Stalin/Hitler and what not, then try to find people that fit that profile to keep them away from power is at best naive and at worst dangerous.
And no, neither Stalin nor Hitler were merely passive victims of unchangeable history flow. Both made conscious decisions that made them who they were and how much power they gained.
Ukraine? I'll just leave this map link: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g7011f.ct004274/?r=0.032,0.683,...
P.S. I know, I know, but please, don't confuse history with momentary politics