#1390 - Year-end economic conference

East Africa has a large number of colonies along the Persian Gulf coast, which is the basis for East Africa to colonize the Middle East. The Middle East and Central Asia are one of the main directions of East Africa's economic colonization at this stage.

Since the last century, East Africa's trade with the region has reached Afghanistan in the east, the Russian hinterland in Central Asia in the north, the Red Sea coast in the west, and the Arabian Sea in the south.

However, East Africa was not a major participant in international affairs in the Middle East and Central Asia at that time. Apart from those local countries and forces, the most powerful countries in the Middle East and Central Asia were Britain and Russia.

The situation of other powers is similar to that in East Africa. Because they lack a military presence in the Middle East and Central Asia, their trade with the countries in this region is like water without a source and a tree without roots. They will definitely not be able to compete with Russia and Britain.

This is very important. Without military guarantees, Russia and Britain can engage in unfair competition with other industrial countries. After all, if we really discuss the quality and price of industrial products, let’s not talk about Britain for now. If we really open up competition, Russian industrial products will definitely fail.

But it is precisely because Russia has a large amount of sphere of influence in Central Asia and the Middle East that Russia's poor industry can monopolize the local market. Although other countries may also be able to trade within Russia's sphere of influence, it is insignificant compared to the benefits Russia gains.

Similarly, East Africa's ability to become a major new player in the Middle East is due to its military presence in the Middle East, and its military presence and deployment in the Middle East was completed during World War I.

To put it bluntly, the sphere of influence that East Africa gained in the Middle East was snatched from Britain and Russia. For example, Qatar, the Beibu Gulf, Gwadar, etc. used to be Britain's sphere of influence, while northern Persia used to be Russia's sphere of influence.

Although these newly added spheres of influence were seized from Britain and Russia, the concepts of the two are completely different.

The spheres of influence and colonies in East Africa that Britain seized from the UK were not valued by the UK in the past. For example, Qatar and the Gulf of Tonkin were included in Britain's sphere of influence in the last century in order to control the rampant piracy in the area and protect its own trade routes.

Secondly, East Africa has reached relevant agreements with Britain on these colonial issues. Although this was achieved by East Africa taking advantage of the situation during World War I, the agreement is written in black and white and Britain has no direct reason or excuse to go back on its word.

The situation in Persia was completely different. East Africa entered Persia when Tsarist Russia disintegrated, but the new Russian Labor Party regime had not yet had time to take over the political legacy left over by Tsarist Russia. Therefore, from the perspective of the Russian Labor Party, East Africa was like an outsider who was trying to seize its property.

Then, the two countries also had irreconcilable contradictions in political ideas. After all, there were still a large number of dreamers of "world unity" in Russia at that time, and if they wanted to achieve this goal, they would inevitably export ideology.

Russia's ideological exports are undoubtedly undermining the foundations and legal principles of the rule of other imperialist countries today, so the fact that it is not blocked or interfered with by the international community can be said to be "its own fault."

To put it simply, the East African regime represented by Ernst is a factory, and Russia's current political ideology is to encourage the workers of this factory in East Africa to overthrow the East African government, the factory owner, and thus gain ownership of the factory. This is naturally not tolerated by the East African government.

So, from a standpoint, the East African governments do not like Russia.

East African Defense Minister Pripyat said: "Our sphere of influence in Persia now determines that confrontation between us and Russia is inevitable, so while supporting Persia, we should also strictly guard against the export of Russian ideology."

"Especially since we are about to station troops in Persia, we should be wary of the Persian Labor Party, which is supported by the Russian Labor Organization, and try to contact and infiltrate our local troops."

Pripyat's concerns are not groundless. Weapons at the ideological level are always hard to guard against, and this time Russia's attack on Ukraine has demonstrated this vividly.

The fundamental reason why Russia was able to gain such a huge advantage in Ukraine was not the strength of its military, but the huge role it played in the ideological field, thereby supporting a large number of supporters in Ukraine.

Historical experience and facts from past lives have also proved that soldiers and even spies on the front lines of the confrontation with Russia were very likely to be won over by Russia. In the past lives, there were many people in the United States, Britain, (West) Germany, France and other countries who chose to join the Russian Labor Party, such as the Cambridge Five in the United Kingdom. Even people of their background could be influenced by the political ideas of the Labor Party, not to mention the grassroots personnel.

In response to this, Ernst said: "Our soldiers, intelligence personnel, logistics personnel, etc. in Persia should strengthen their psychological construction to avoid being deceived by Russia."

"At the same time, the Persian government should also cooperate with us to strengthen the strict defense of the Labor Party organizations in the country, and even rather kill a thousand people by mistake than let one go. At the same time, we should strengthen the negative propaganda against Russia in the field of public opinion, especially against Russian bureaucrats and expose social problems. For example, the Russian peasant group is a good propaganda target."

"We can use artistic processing to shape the public's negative impression of the Labor Party, which can greatly reduce the Russian Labor Party's infiltration into East Africa."

The peasants in the Tsarist Russia era definitely did not live as well as the peasants in the Soviet era, but the living conditions of the peasants under the rule of the Russian Labor Party were obviously not ideal either.

Although the Soviet Union's agricultural problems have always been criticized, the fact is that the quality of life of the vast majority of farmers has improved significantly compared to the Tsarist era.

In fact, Russia's agricultural sector has inherent deficiencies. If Russian agriculture had reached the level of the United States and East Africa during the Tsarist era, the Russian Labor Party would not have caused so much trouble later.

However, if Russian agriculture had developed to the same level as that of the United States and East Africa during the Tsarist era, Russia would not have become a weak link in the imperialist chain, and the Russian Labor Party would have been unlikely to come to power.

Moreover, the fact that the quality of life of farmers in the Soviet Union was higher than that in Tsarist Russia is not something worth praising too much. This is a vertical comparison. For example, the quality of life of farmers in East Africa today is higher than that in the last century. This is as it should be.

Unless East African society has been stagnant and no longer developing, which is obviously a very small probability, for most of the time, human society is a process of continuous development and progress. Even in feudal society, civilization development is also slowly progressing. After all, new technologies and new things are always emerging.

Of course, there have been times when human history has gone backwards, such as when the Germanic peoples interrupted ancient Rome, when the Mongols conquered Eurasia, and other special periods, but it is certain that most of the time the times have been progressive.

As time goes by, most countries should have made progress. Even in the Tsarist era, Russia itself was constantly developing. So as a latecomer, if the peasants' lives in the Soviet Union were not as good as in the Tsarist era, then this country would basically be over.

Therefore, social development should not only focus on vertical comparison over time, but also horizontal comparison. One of the important reasons why Soviet agriculture had so many problems was that the reference became agriculture in Europe, the United States and other countries.

Agriculture was a significant shortcoming of the Soviet Union, and this shortcoming continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union. This did not prevent Ernst from making a big fuss about Russian agriculture under the rule of the Russian Labor Party.

Of course, for now, using the problems in the agricultural development to criticize Russia will not be very effective. After all, Russia is not the Soviet Union yet. Russian farmers under Vladimir's New Economic Policy are singing praises to the Russian Labor Party.

…

The East African government could not always focus its attention on Russia or other countries in the world. In 1921, the most difficult problem facing the East African government was the difficulties encountered in economic transformation.

Half of 1921 had passed and the East African Five-Year Plan had been implemented for some time, but the East African economy not only failed to recover, but continued to fall into a state of depression.

This has also led to more frequent economic-related meetings held by East African governments in recent times.

In this way, the East African economy continued to be lukewarm until the end of the year, and Ernst made a relevant summary at the economic conference at the end of 1921.

"No country can maintain high growth all the time, and East Africa is no exception. You know, East Africa's economy has maintained rapid growth since the 1970s."

"This high-speed growth lasted until the end of the World War. In other words, the era of high-speed economic development in East Africa lasted for nearly 50 years."

"In just 50 years, East Africa has become a large-scale primary industrial power in the world, which is extremely rare in history."

“But it is precisely because of this that we are not satisfied with the current economic development progress in the first year of the 5th Five-Year Plan. However, if we compare it with other countries in the world, the economic situation in East Africa is actually quite good.”

Overall, in 1921, East Africa's economic situation was better than that of other imperialist countries and was above the passing line.

However, compared with the economic development of East Africa in the past fifty years, the economic development in the two years from 1920 to 1921 can be said to be a trough.

Most people are accustomed to the rapid development of the past fifty years, so they are obviously not satisfied with the current sluggishness of the East African economy.

However, Ernst was very clear-headed. He knew that the current economic situation was actually the true level of development. From the last century to the first twenty years of this century, the East African economy was able to achieve a leap forward. The first reason was the colonial dividend. The second was that it stood at the forefront of the Second Industrial Revolution. The third was that Ernst took advantage of his foresight and allowed East Africa to seize various historical opportunities.

With so many advantages stacked up, it was difficult for East Africa not to develop rapidly. Throughout the late 19th century and early 20th century, as long as the country was not too outrageous, its development would not be too bad, and even backward regions and colonies could make great progress.

East Africa can not only receive the outflow of technology and industry from Europe, but it is also an independent sovereign country without the risk of being restricted by other countries. Coupled with the colonial dividends, even if there are not many major moves, it should be able to develop to the level of Tsarist Russia at the beginning of this century.

"At this stage, the world economy is in a downturn, and since 1910, the East African economy has been integrated with the international community, so we expected this kind of impact."

"With the current industrial upgrading and transformation, in the next five to ten years, we should keep a calm mind, boost confidence in economic development, further consolidate the foundation of the national economy, and continuously improve the rules and system construction of the domestic market."

In 1921, East Africa's steel production had fallen back to 37 million tons. Although it was still the world's number one, the gap of more than 3 million tons in production reduction also shows the current sluggish market demand for steel.

In fact, during the major production cut in the steel industry in 1921, the East African government urged some steel production companies to reorganize, which is also one of the important factors for the current decline in East African steel production. Otherwise, it should not be a problem for East Africa's steel production to increase by one to two million tons.

After all, East Africa is only a primary industrial power. In terms of industrial quality, it can only rank in the middle among the great powers.

The demand for steel in the domestic market in East Africa has actually been increasing year by year, and the large number of European orders brought about by the World War has caused the growth of steel in the previous few years to exceed the growth rate of steel demand in normal times.

Among these, there is a key factor to consider, that is, the total population of East Africa is as high as more than 160 million, and coupled with East Africa's position as a primary industrial power, East Africa's steel production reached 37 million tons in 1921.

Therefore, based on per capita steel production, East Africa's data is not too high. Although the United States' steel production in 1921 was only more than 30 million tons, the U.S. population was nearly 60 million less than that of East Africa.

In terms of population, East Africa's steel market demand is certainly much greater than that of the United States, but East Africa's steel production is only a few million tons more than that of the United States. This to a certain extent shows that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the current East African economy.

As for other countries in the world, although the steel production of Germany and the United Kingdom is not as high as that of East Africa and the United States, it is still higher than that of East Africa from a per capita perspective.

It should be pointed out here that Germany's steel industry has also made great progress compared to its previous life. After all, Germany was not a defeated country this time, and the need for post-war reconstruction enabled Germany's basic industries such as steel to recover and develop rapidly.

It can even be said that German industry was not greatly affected by the war. After all, from the beginning to the end of the war, the battlefield was never within German territory, and German factories and related production equipment were basically intact.

The countries whose industries were most severely damaged by the war were France and Russia, especially France, which suffered extremely serious losses after the war. Given the current situation in France, it will probably take many years for the economy to recover to its pre-World War I level.

The losses of Russian industry were mainly due to the civil war, the destruction of means of production by domestic reactionary forces, and the lack of raw materials and markets in Eastern Europe, which also affected the development of Russian industry to a certain extent.

Therefore, in terms of the quality of industrial development, Germany, Britain, and the United States still rank ahead of East Africa, while France is completely stuck in the quagmire, and Russia has been at a middle-to-lower level since the Tsarist era.

However, France's situation was not too bad. After all, since the Franco-Prussian War, the development of France's domestic industry has been lagging behind other powers.

France's real focus is on investing in foreign industries, that is, in the field of capital exports. Although the rise of the Russian Labor Party regime also dealt a heavy blow to the French financial industry, France has a strong foundation and still has large investments in other countries. For example, before the war, France's investment in East Africa has been on the rise. In addition, France has a large number of assets and colonies that can be demonstrated.