Two major points came out of the Yalta Conference: the Soviet Union agreed to enter the Second World War against Japan in exchange for the return of land it had lost to Japan during the Russo-Japanese War four decades earlier, and the Allied leaders agreed to free elections in the soon-to-be-liberated countries of eastern Europe.

As it turned out, Soviet assistance fighting the Japanese proved to be of little import: the Communists didn't join the Pacific war until two days after the atomic bomb was dropped. And history records those soon-to-be-liberated people of eastern Europe—the people of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria—waited a long time indeed before they were given an opportunity to vote in a democratic election.

But this is not to say the Yalta conference had no significance. In fact, the name Yalta has transcended geography and established itself on the linguistic map. Since the late 40s, Yalta has been used as shorthand to refer to "decisions about the fate of the many made by the few under circumstances that suggest duplicity."