World Must Impose Mandates in Russia after Ukraine as It Did in Germany after 1945 or Risk Violence and Revival of Muscovite Imperialism. Kuzakhmetov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Mar. 6 – The international community must impose direct military rule on Russia and its regions after Moscow suffers defeat in Ukraine to punish aggression, to prevent Moscow from attacking regions and republics that may seek to go their own way, and to block a near certain recrudescence of Muscovite imperialism. Maksim Kuzakhmetov says.

            In short, the Russian journalist who has become an activist for the Ingermanland national movement in the northwestern portion of what is now the Russian Federation says, the West must at least for a time impose mandate rule on Russia much as it did on Germany after 1945 (idelreal.org/a/32300231.html).

            Such rule, Kuzakhmetov says, need not be repressive, although it certainly was in Soviet-dominated East Germany. Instead, it will be directed at preventing the remnant of the Russian state from attacking regions and republics going their own way and then launching a new attack on Russia’s neighbors.

            Germany provides a model in a double sense, he suggests. After World War I, the victorious powers imposed a draconian peace but did not occupy the country. As a result, within a generation, Hitler came to power and dragged Europe and much of the rest of the world into a new and even more horrific war.

            But after World War II, the victorious powers behaved differently, imposing foreign rule for a time that prevented inter-German violence and the revival of German imperialism. As a result, Germany is a democratic country fully integrated into the international community. If the West follows this second path with Russia, that can be true for Russia and other successor states.

            Kuzakhmetov’s argument is only the latest call for mandates over all or much of Russia after its coming defeat in Ukraine. (See windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/03/after-russia-disintegrates-siberia.html.) But it is especially important because he makes two important points that are often neglected even by those favoring freedom for the regions and republics.

            On the one hand, in the wake of the war in Ukraine, there are going to be many armed Russians who will likely feel they have nothing to lose by engaging in violence against Russia’s former possessions and new neighbors. Indeed, such people are likely to believe that they are acting as patriots by doing do.

            And on the other, having moved in that direction, such Russians are ever more likely to engage in imperial revanchism not just within the current borders of the Russian Federation but more generally especially as many of these people are likely to believe that the real source of secession is not in the regions and republics but in the West.

            Only temporary mandates, the Ingermanland activist suggests, can prevent such tragedies from happening.