Percentages Agreement
백분율 협정
A secret, informal agreement reached between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin on 9 October 1944 during the Fourth Moscow Conference, dividing Southeastern Europe into British and Soviet spheres of influence by percentages. Churchill wrote on a half-sheet of paper: Romania (USSR 90%), Greece (UK 90%), Yugoslavia and Hungary (50:50 each), Bulgaria (USSR 75%). He pushed it across to Stalin, who made a large tick with a blue pencil and handed it back. Subsequent haggling between Molotov and Eden raised the Soviet share in Hungary and Bulgaria to 80%, and the agreement is now seen as the clearest pre-Yalta signal that the division of Europe into spheres of influence was already underway.
Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) comprehensive account of the agreement, its background, the 9 October 1944 meeting, percentages breakdown, Molotov–Eden negotiations, and historiography
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian-language article confirming the Churchill memoir account, the blue-pencil tick episode, the Berezhkov memoir corroboration, and the archival location (Public Record Office, PREM 3/66/7)
- winstonchurchill.org International Churchill Society confirms the 'naughty agreement' label, the half-sheet scene, and the 9 October 1944 date
- hi-storylessons.eu Institute of European Network Remembrance and Solidarity analysis confirming the agreement's role in determining post-war spheres of influence and citing British archival documents published by Elisabeth Barker