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In 1947, the world was recovering from the Second World War, which devastated half the world, there were ruins, unemployment and famine everywhere. Stalin, on the other hand, is trying to use the catastrophe to strengthen the influence of the USSR, the article says. TSN.
Moscow delivers food to those countries where communist governments have been established. Despite the fact that in the USSR itself people are dying of hunger, in the Kremlin, in this way, they seek to capture as much of the post-war Europe as possible. US President Harry Truman understands the danger of communist regimes coming to power in Western Europe.
“The people of the liberated countries hope that we will protect their freedom. Our indecision will bring the world to the brink of a new war and will negatively affect the well-being of America itself,” Truman noted.
He goes on the offensive – he entrusts the plan to the Secretary of State, General Marshall. This ascetic strict general went down in history thanks to the plan he developed for the restoration of Western Europe and Japan. Assistance was offered to Eastern Europe and even the USSR. However, Stalin, who did not want to strengthen the role of the United States, refused and forced the governments of Eastern Europe controlled by him to do the same. For 48 years, the Marshall Plan has worked. Fully justifying the goal – economic miracle in Western Europe. The United States did not lend money, but as an irrevocable aid. And also food, fuel, industrial equipment, building materials – everything that the governments of these countries themselves have identified as necessary.
“The Marshall Plan was in effect for only 4 years – from 1948 to 1952. Aid amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars in today’s equivalent. They helped Britain, France and, of course, Germany. Each country took advantage to rebuild its economy. Unique horizontal processes began between European countries, which later led to the birth of such an organization as the EU,” historians say.
And the United States managed to stop the spread of communism in Europe, download its own production and gain a foothold in the role of world leader. In Europe, which quickly achieved prosperity, the reasons for new wars disappeared. The communist model in the east was noticeably losing, creating an unpleasant contrast for Moscow. The final fiasco of the USSR in this geopolitical battle for Europe marked the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Russia, which has declared itself the legal successor of the USSR, is trying to restore both its old borders and its influence. However, all these imperial ambitions of hers are now shattered in Ukraine. The war unleashed by Putin has consequences completely opposite to his goals. It destroys in Ukraine all remnants of ties with Russia, the same post-Soviet identity that kept Ukrainians in Moscow’s sphere of influence and old infrastructure for thirty years. Even the Ukrainian railway will soon switch to European rails – not figuratively, but literally.
The new Marshall Plan will radically change post-Soviet Ukraine, Ukrainian experts say. But there is one important condition. “If Ukrainians do not introduce the old schemes of corruption, nepotism and friends in government, it will lead to huge economic growth. Thanks to these global funds, we will be able to build a new Ukraine, forever move away from outdated technologies that we inherited from Soviet times. We will see that this situation, in fact, will regenerate our worldview, the Ukrainians,” the expert is convinced.
The economic breakthrough that Ukraine will be able to make thanks to such a plan can turn it into a leader in the region, economist Anatoly Amelin believes. Ukraine has significant gas reserves, a developed system of gas pipelines and storage facilities, so it can provide both itself and Europe with gas. Must restore its grain and food production. Provide logistics links, produce weapons. But it must continue to serve as a wall protecting Europeans from Russia.
“We believe that the active phase of the war will end in the near future, but the war will not end as long as the Russian Federation exists near our borders. And if so, then we need to build a plan for a militarized economy or a wartime economy where security comes first. Rebuilding after the war will mean that we will have to change tax rules and regulatory rules. In order for capital to come, both internal and external, we need to have the most liberal conditions for doing business. Plans for the renewal of Ukrainian cities are already being prepared. They should also become different – more modern and comfortable,” he notes.
“We can replan, rethink our cities, which were last planned after World War II. If we are talking, for example, about the same Bucha or Irpen, where many worked in Kyiv and went to work every day, perhaps it is worth changing the logic of the city during this redevelopment of the city. So that Bucha and Irpin would not be such satellites of Kyiv, which are connected with it by rail, but would be self-sufficient cities and people could not spend three hours on the road, ”experts suggest.
How successful the Marshall Plan will be in Ukraine, first of all, depends on the Ukrainians themselves, according to the experts we interviewed. Ukraine runs the risk of losing credibility and leadership if it misses its historical chance and all recovery processes get bogged down in bureaucracy and corruption. And these internal enemies, experts say, may turn out to be more dangerous than Russia.
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