Marshall plan for Moscow?
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:date: 2022-10-14T16:56:26
:category: faith
:tags: politics, blogComment, Russia, Ukraine
 
(my comments on `the Facebook comment`_ by Doug Hart)
 
.. _`the Facebook comment`:
    https://www.facebook.com/DouglasScottHart/posts/pfbid0ZnNzwoeMDJmJ2heYPsH6AeWyUWV422jkjXdc4222rcpxBTZrzmKozM12PDmih8jdl

I really don’t feel any hatred towards the Moscow nation as whole
(I don’t like to use the word Russia, Russian, because it is a
contested term, and just its use makes the speaker agreeing to
some parts of the Moscow narrative), but it doesn’t change
anything on what Pavel_ was writing being true, and it especially
doesn’t help me to think what to do when this war ends and Moscow
will be defeated.

.. _Pavel:
   https://www.facebook.com/pavel.kazda

Since 1989 there was that idea (I have first heard it by Mr.
Havel’s speech in the US Congress, but to his defence he meant
something different than what then actually happened) that in
order to help the part of Europe behind the Iron Curtain we
should help Russia/Soviet Union. One of many big fat lies which
are pouring from the Moscow and pro-Moscow media is that the West
never wanted to help Russia but only to enslave it and exploit
it. It is just not true: I still remember the amount of
celebration that even Russia is finally a normal country and
outflow of good will and attempts to help them to be such normal
country among other normal countries. 

I have heard couple of time during the years even suggestions
about “The Marshall Plan for Soviet Union/Russia”. Let me say
couple of words why I don’t think it is a good idea, despite for
what I said above my non-hatred for the Moscow nation and despite
how much I think the original Marshall Plan was an awesome idea.

My problem with this idea is that there are couple of substantial
situation between Nazi Germany in 1945 and Moscow after the
expected defeat in 2022/2023.

It is always difficult and quite often rather problematic to
transfer concepts from the individual level to the level of
communities or whole nations, but let me do it here. I hope
I won’t make much damage.

For an individual to go through metanoia (or even for the good
ol’ Ancient Greek catharsis) it is necessary for her to go
through true repentance and especially an admittance of one’s
guilt. I don’t know how well these concepts transfer to the
national level (although, actually, post-Nazi Germany did the
most of the admittance of one’s guilt I have ever heard about),
but one thing which seems to me obvious in case of a nation in
war is that it needs to be thoroughly defeated and that it stops
fighting because of its own decision. And when I say thoroughly
defeated I mean truly defeated, like the Red-flag-over-Reichstag
defeated, like the Nürnberg-tribunal defeated, like the
occupational-administration defeated. Stopping to fight, because
it cannot continue and preparing for the next opportunity is
certainly not it (which is how the Russian-Ukrainian War most
likely ends). Nobody ever suggested as the best case scenario for
this war in Ukraine anything more than Moscow completely
withdrawing from the whole area of the occupied Ukraine to the
borders of pre-2014 (i.e., all areas occupied after this past
February, both DPR and LPR, and Crimea; I would also
Transnistria, but that’s not necessary). Nobody ever suggested
that Ukrainian-flag-on-Spasskaya-tower is the goal of anybody.

The second difference from the Nazi Germany post-1945 is that it
was completely destroyed and incapable of survival. There were
serious voices claiming a possibility of famine. However the
Ukrainian war ends, there will be no damage to the Moscow economy
other than the self-inflicted one (and foreign sanctions, which
are in effect self-inflicted ones as well), given that (aside
from tiny exceptions around Belgorod and Kursk) there was no war
on the Moscow territory. UNRRA was not just friendly gesture but
largely a necessity. Nothing like that will happen in Moscowia
today. If they stop war tomorrow, leave occupied territories,
agree on some payment plan for the reparrations, do whatever it
would be necessary to stop sanctions, Moscow will be in largely
the same shape as it was before February 2022 (or February 2014,
annexation of Crimea) and just without around a million of people
(lost to war and emigration), foreign companies invested in
Moscow, they could continue ahead.

That’s just my few thoughts on the Marshall Plan for Russia
2022/3.