African Entrepreneurship Record

For ordinary East African citizens, moving into the cities for development, as long as they can secure a stable job, poses no great obstacle; especially with compulsory education in East Africa, even the new generation in the most remote areas has a relatively broad outlook.

This is also the fundamental guarantee behind East Africa’s population flows in recent years. Population movement in East Africa is mainly achieved through administrative measures, and only an educated public, under government guidance, will not trigger major conflicts and unrest.

This is not alarmism. In many European and American countries in the 19th century, large numbers of agricultural laborers flooded into the cities, inevitably causing serious social problems. Countries like Germany, where compulsory education was widespread, fared somewhat better.

But just imagine some illiterate, unskilled, and impoverished rural peasants from Poland entering German cities—their development is bound to run into setbacks, especially during periods when economic crises are frequent.

This example is not made up; at the beginning of the 20th century, a new round of capitalist economic crisis had already arrived. The first unlucky one was Tsarist Russia. While the East African Government was busy formulating the First Five‑Year Plan, the economic crisis in Tsarist Russia had already broken out; this crisis was also the root cause of the Russo-Japanese War in the previous timeline.

Japan and Russia are both victims of this round of economic crisis, and their contradictions within the Far East Empire are particularly acute, so with high probability Japan and Russia will still meet on the battlefield in this century.

Of course, for East Africa, an economic crisis is an opportunity. As early as the 1890s, the East African Government had already begun adjusting the national economy, that is, pushing the East African economy further toward a planned economic system. The First Five‑Year Plan is precisely Ernst’s attempt to imitate the Soviet Union of his previous life, using this crisis to further transform and upgrade East African industry.

However, judging from Ernst’s experience in his previous life, this round of economic crisis will not hit the various European and American countries too hard; this is one of the reasons why East Africa’s First Five‑Year Plan is relatively conservative in its design.

Only under a major crisis like that of 1929, which dealt a massive blow to the economies of Europe and America, would enterprises in various countries be willing to sell off all kinds of core technologies and machinery, thereby giving the Soviet Union an unprecedented historical opportunity for development.

The economic crisis of 1900 clearly does not reach that level. The crisis is short in duration, and its impact unfolds in sequence across countries. As a country that has fully shifted to a planned economic system, East Africa will naturally not be affected. After all, under nationwide planned production, even if East Africa faces overproduction, it will not be as severe as in the European and American countries.

The key lies in industrial integration. In Europe and America, private enterprises swarm into whichever sector is making money, and then, when the economic crisis hits, they all go down together. The current development of capitalist economies is rather crude, lacking unified global organizations and comprehensive treaty-based coordination.

Moreover, there are many Great Powers—the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, Tsarist Russia, Austria-Hungary, East Africa, Spain, the Far East Empire, and so on. Competition and conflict outweigh cooperation, and fighting their battles separately naturally weakens their ability to cope with crises.

As for the United Kingdom, as World Overlord its grip on the world is far inferior to that of the United States in the previous timeline, especially in the 20th century, where its World Overlord title is already somewhat undeserved.

Take Germany for example. Back when Germany was still divided, the United Kingdom could easily keep it in check. Now Germany has become one of the main challengers to British hegemony.

East Africa is also on that list. After the South African War, in the vast regions of eastern and southern Africa, East Africa stands alone as the dominant power, monopolizing nearly 43% of the entire African continent’s land area, while most of East Africa’s territory used to be colonies of the British in the previous timeline.

One could say that the damage the South African War did to British prestige is less than that of the Boer War in the previous timeline, but the damage to Britain’s real interests far exceeds that of the Boer War. In the Boer War the United Kingdom lost face, whereas in the South African War it was the substance that was stripped away.

After all, in the previous timeline the United Kingdom’s colonization of Africa lasted until the 1960s. It is easy to imagine how the British colonies that covered half of Africa’s area prolonged the British Empire’s hegemony for quite some time.

Of course, Ernst only takes responsibility for killing, not for burying. Even if the United Kingdom were to suddenly drop dead, Ernst would only clap his hands in delight. Under the current global configuration, even if the United Kingdom suddenly collapsed, East Africa would still be able to seize a certain initiative. Put simply, East Africa’s wings have already hardened.

Ernst: ”Right now in Tsarist Russia, the severe economic crisis will definitely deliver a shock; and given the size of the Russian economy, this crisis is bound to be transmitted to Europe and all parts of the world. Therefore, we in East Africa must be prepared, must build a solid economic moat, and further adjust our industrial structure, especially in making up the weak links in our economic development.”

”So during the First Five‑Year Plan, the tests facing our government will be severe. In opening up international markets, we must be more proactive and aggressive, especially in developing emerging markets in South America and the Far East states, thereby promoting our industrial exports. As for traditional markets such as the European and American countries, we must further increase our exports of agricultural products.”

”Of course, under the conditions of economic crisis, the purchasing power of all countries will decline, which will inevitably be unfavorable to international trade. Therefore, building a large domestic market is the fundamental way to safeguard our East African economy. This includes raising household incomes, stimulating consumer spending, promoting the spread of small home appliances to the countryside, bringing other industrial consumer goods into thousands of households, and enabling qualified production units to purchase automobiles, tractors, trucks, and other large consumer durables to raise productivity. This in turn requires us to further improve and expand East Africa’s power grid, gas stations, highways, railways, and other infrastructure.”

”The economic crisis is also an opportunity for us. Now that Tsarist Russia is suffering a serious economic crisis, we can follow the prevailing trend and bring in a batch of Russian high-quality industrial means of production and talent.”

Although Tsarist Russia is relatively backward among the Great Powers, it is undeniable that, for East Africa, Russia still possesses many high-caliber personnel, especially in fields such as chemistry, physics, and mathematics—areas that are currently weak spots for East Africa.

During the First Industrial Revolution, Russia learned advanced technologies such as shipbuilding, navigation, and steam engines from the United Kingdom. During the Second Industrial Revolution, Alexandria II in Russia carried out Peasant Slave reforms, which greatly promoted Russia’s industrial development. Take the 1900 economic crisis as an example: its point of origin is precisely Tsarist Russia, which fully shows that Russia’s industrialization has already made progress.

It is undeniable that in emerging sectors Russia is now even inferior to East Africa, but in many areas of traditional industry, Russia still has much that East Africa can learn from.

Russia has never been the frontrunner in the Industrial Revolution, but it has never been a laggard either. Especially in technological innovation, it has always remained firmly in the second tier.

For the East African Government, the demand for Russian talent is higher than the demand for Russian technology. There is no doubt that, starting from the time of Peter I, Russian society developed a fashion for learning from Europe; this allowed Russia in every subsequent era to produce a certain number of world-class scientists.

Especially in basic disciplines and theoretical research, Russia has always been among the world’s first tier. Therefore, if East Africa can use the 1900 economic crisis to bring in a batch of talent from Russia, it would provide an excellent supplement for a country like East Africa, whose own history is extremely short.

East Africa is usually quite fond of poaching talent, though the focus has generally been on the culturally close countries of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the talent from the German Region has indeed made outstanding contributions to East Africa’s industry and science and technology.

Russia is in no way weaker than European countries in the field of science, so the East African Government is planning to take advantage of Russia’s economic crisis to carry out talent-poaching operations targeting Russia’s highly educated elites, filling the gaps in East Africa’s education, research, and industrial high-end talent. The results may not be spectacular, but if East Africa can reel in even one or two genuine top-tier talents, it will have profited handsomely.