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Percentages agreement

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The percentages agreement was an agreement between Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill about how to divide south eastern Europe in spheres of influence. On October 9, 1944 the two leaders met in Moscow and Churchill suggested that the Soviet Union should have 90 percent influence in Romania and 75 percent in Bulgaria; Great Britain should have 90 percent in Greece; in Hungary and Yugoslavia, 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 and Vyacheslav Molotov, 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.

Stalin kept to his promise in Greece; the Soviet Union did not assist the communist partisans in the civil war, whereas Great Britain supported the Greece government forces.

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