Marina Shapovalova, writer
The world after 1945 has become better than the pre-war and inter-war ones insofar as there was an awareness of previous mistakes and crimes. Not only the losers, but also the winners. And the uncorrected mistake, fatal, was that among the winners was Stalin. Not the peoples of the USSR, who paid for the victory over the brown plague at a terrible and bloody price, but Stalin personally. To whom, for this, the bloodless winners were left to be further torn to pieces.
And yet, the war forced too many to overestimate their experience, their previous views and principles, which allowed the post-war world to hold out for decades. By no means the worst decades, even for us, who remained behind the "Iron Curtain", which then rusted and gradually crumbled.
While the First World War was completed by the signing of documents that gave rise to the Second World War. Although it was an unprecedented shock for Europe, it would seem that it buried the old world with all its achievements, delusions and superstitions. But the new one was not born then. Nobody canceled the dangerous delusions and even thought about them, becoming hardened. We know the result.
I also want "simply stop shooting" - that the soldiers get out of a foreign country to their barracks. We would all breathe a sigh of relief at the thought that children no longer die and do not sit for days in basements. But something tells me that in such a “simple” form of relief, one breath is enough. Therefore, it will not.
For Russia, there will definitely not be any “sigh of relief” even in the event of a truce or a complete cessation of hostilities in Ukraine. It no longer depends on what happens in Ukraine - Russia is undermined from within. All scenarios lead to its inevitable collapse, the difference is only in terms. The maximum and slowest will not last up to 10 years. And this is the key to the inevitable paradigm shift to which Russia is now doomed. Which will become a terrible break for people living in Russia, none of us have ever experienced anything worse. If in this process the will to transform oneself and one's space is not fully manifested, then I do not know what will remain on this vast territory. There will be either intelligent life or deserted taiga.
But this is not enough for world peace.
Because if the reasons for the appearance of “Russians” or “Northern Koreas” are not comprehended by everyone, if instead of this a “simple explanation” is proposed for the alleged excess, then new ones will appear. In the same way, with the same principles of international relations between the same organized political sovereigns, one can only come to the same point. If it does not turn out to be final for humanity once, then the second time is unlikely to be lucky. After World War II, the political elites understood this. And they made adjustments that allowed us to move forward at that stage.
Now we need to understand what was not taken into account then. What broke the "mechanism" after the seemingly successful end of the Cold War - which of its principles turned out to be unsuitable for further peaceful coexistence in the changed circumstances? What needs to be reviewed and changed?
History makes you learn its lessons not by washing, but by skating. Or it will end.