African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1514 The Tsar in East Africa

This situation is not surprising. After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Hungarian monarchy was briefly restored, which also shows that Hungary's economic backwardness made it a supporter of the stability of the Habsburg royal family, or rather, it did not object to the continued existence of the monarchy.

On the contrary, Austria, due to its higher level of industrialization, now has various factions, including the National Party, the bourgeoisie, and the Labour Party, who are dissatisfied with the current monarchy.

……

Germany has a national party, Austria has a national party, and East Africa, which is also "German," is no exception. However, just like the Labour Party, the German National Party of the Rhine Empire is not a significant force.

The reason is simple: with the full implementation of the East Africa Seventh Five-Year Plan in 1931, a series of major projects, such as the Zambezi River renovation, the North African Railway, and colonial construction, were launched, which acted like a powerful medicine and directly revitalized the sluggish East African economy.

For a time, East Africa's economy seemed to have returned to what it was twenty years ago. During the first two five-year plans, various large-scale projects were launched, and they were even larger in scale and more financially robust. East Africa's unemployment rate was reduced to an extremely low level.

As a result, East Africans are busy making a living and have no time to join political parties or groups like people in other countries, or even try to overthrow the current government.

Dar es Salaam.

A car drives along a wide asphalt road. Dar es Salaam is in summer, during the short rainy season. The temperature is relatively warm and comfortable, and the air is quite refreshing.

The only slightly annoying thing is the construction noise that comes from the streets from time to time. In 1931, the Dar es Salaam municipal government began to renovate the original old town.

Dar es Salaam is one of the oldest cities in East Africa, with many buildings dating back to the last century, some even over fifty years old. Also demolished were former state-run opium dens, gambling houses, and brothels—places once frequented by sailors on the western Indian Ocean shipping routes.

Before the Suez Canal opened, the red-light districts of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa were incredibly popular, with Persian beauties, Japanese horses, and distinctive black women... catering to the needs of most passengers on the Indian Ocean routes.

This should also be considered a difference between East Africa and the Soviet Union. Both were about accumulating funds, but the lower limit in East Africa was much lower. However, it must be admitted that this blatant gray industry was indeed very lucrative and had extremely low costs.

However, East Africa, as a "civilized country," has long since banned these gray industries, and now it is erasing these dark histories along with the old buildings in the city.

As a result, the residents of Dar es Salaam suffered greatly. During the day, the eastern part of the city was filled with the sounds of crushers, bulldozers, and other vehicles, making it impossible for people to live in peace.

"This year, Dar es Salaam is undergoing massive demolition and construction everywhere. I don't know when this will end." In the driver's seat of the car, a middle-aged man in his twenties or thirties, gripping the steering wheel, looked at the streets ahead blocked by road construction and said with some helplessness.

His wife, who was in the passenger seat, said, "This time, all the old towns in Dar es Salaam are included in the renovation project. It probably won't be finished for another year or two."

"This has indeed affected the travel of citizens. However, Dar es Salaam is not what it used to be. In the past, the empire only had two important port cities, Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. Now, with the rise of other towns in East Africa, Dar es Salaam's position in the national economy is not what it used to be."

It can be said that since Mombasa surpassed Dar es Salaam to become the largest city in the empire, the morale of the people of Dar es Salaam has declined considerably.

Twenty years ago, Dar es Salaam and Mombasa were arguably the two most dazzling cities in East Africa. But today, East Africa has more than a dozen large cities with populations of over one million.

Moreover, the situation on the east coast of East Africa is completely different from that on the west coast. Luanda and Cabinda on the west coast can rest easy because of their geographical location and natural environment. As long as they do not make any major mistakes, they have almost no competitors on the west coast.

Dar es Salaam and Mombasa are not as secure on the east coast. Cities like Beira and Maputo are not much weaker, and other eastern coastal cities such as Pemba, Clemente, Nacala, and New Hamburg are also quite strong.

Of course, the most sought-after city on the east coast of East Africa right now is Hinder, located at the mouth of the Zambezi River. Some East African economists believe that Hinder may even become the most economically developed city in East Africa in the future.

Because Hinder is backed by the Zambezi River, once the Zambezi River is transformed, its fundamental advantages in economic development will be almost unmatched. It has a vast economic hinterland and is also the most important sea outlet in central East Africa.

In contrast, Dar es Salaam and Mombasa rely almost entirely on railways and highways for transportation to the interior, which severely limits their development.

The man said to his wife, "Even in the declining city of Dar es Salaam, it is still a top-tier city that many countries and regions can never reach."

"In East Africa, there are too many modern metropolises, which makes Dar es Salaam less dazzling. In the past, in Russia, only St. Petersburg could barely surpass it in size. But in reality, Dar es Salaam's industry, technology, and openness far surpass St. Petersburg."

"Of course, St. Petersburg has now been renamed Leningrad by the Labour Party, so I don't know what the situation is like in Russia now."

The man spoke with a nostalgic tone, revealing a special affection he held for St. Petersburg.

His wife comforted him, saying, "Alexei, we should accept reality. Although we don't want to admit it, the Soviet Labour Party has performed quite well in recent years, especially during this economic crisis. The Soviet Union not only did not suffer a severe blow, but it also went against the tide."

"Looking at the whole world, perhaps only East Africa's economic performance is not inferior to that of the Soviet Union. Russia is ultimately just a childhood dream for us. The Russians of today have probably long forgotten the existence of our country."

East African newspapers have generally presented a fairly and impartial picture of the Soviet Union, especially in recent years, where they have not concealed the Soviet Union's economic achievements as other countries have.

Of course, while the good aspects of the Soviet Union were not concealed in East Africa, the dark side was also thoroughly exposed, especially the tragic plight of Soviet peasants and the horrific Great Purge.

However, East African accounts of the Soviet Union are generally positive, but this did not inspire the same yearning for the Soviet system among the lower classes in Europe and America.

The main reason is that East Africa and the Soviet Union had many similarities in their ways of doing things, political systems, and economic policies. So much so that some East African scholars have shamelessly said that "the Soviet Union's economic achievements stemmed from its clumsy copying of East Africa."

This isn't entirely without basis. For example, the Soviet Union's Five-Year Industrial Development Plan is widely recognized worldwide as a copy of East Africa's system. Of course, East Africa's Five-Year Plans no longer emphasize industry as much as before, but rather focus more on various economic sectors, including finance, technology, agriculture, and services.

In the financial sector, the Soviet Union was virtually nonexistent. In the field of science and technology, as a late-developing country, the Soviet Union lacked strong independent research and development capabilities and even had to rely on the Cheka organization to steal technology from other countries.

Of course, East Africa has done this kind of thing quite often, especially at the end of the last century and the beginning of this century, when East Africa's science, education and industry lagged far behind those of Germany and the United States. East African national security agencies sometimes acted as "technology thieves".

The situation was quite unique in agriculture. The Soviet Union invested a considerable amount in agriculture, but the results were not very satisfactory.

In summary, the Soviet Union's current five-year plan focused primarily on the industrial sector, especially heavy industry, while even light industry failed to develop. Therefore, the gap between the Soviet Union and other major industrial powers remained significant.

Even so, by 1931, the Soviet Union's total industrial output had already ranked second in Europe, second only to Germany.

However, this ranking is ultimately somewhat inaccurate, because at that time, other European countries were basically struggling with the economic crisis, with many companies going bankrupt, factories shutting down, and workers losing their jobs.

Therefore, while industrial activity in other countries declined significantly, this did not mean that their industrial strength was much weaker than that of the Soviet Union.

After listening to his wife's words, the man said helplessly, "Unbeknownst to us, almost ten years have passed since we came to East Africa, but we see no hope for our restoration of our nation. Moreover, other countries have all supported other powers. Even if the Soviet Union really collapses in the future, can we really restore the glory of the Romanov dynasty...?"

The speaker was none other than "Tsar" Alexei. At this moment, compared to his ignorance when he first arrived in East Africa, Alexei was undoubtedly much more mature.

Furthermore, his two older sisters had already married, and Alexei himself had also settled down and started a family in East Africa. Although he was of noble birth, a fallen phoenix is ​​no better than a chicken. In the end, Alexei chose to marry a former Russian noblewoman who had fled to East Africa.

His sisters did not choose to marry into the Russian nobility, but instead chose to form families with East Africans. After Alexei came of age, they basically stopped participating in politics, or rather, their ambitions had long been worn down.

Only Alexei, the "Tsar," persisted in the cause of restoring the country, for it was a responsibility he could not escape.

Alexei had been living in East Africa for over ten years. When he arrived in East Africa, World War I was still ongoing, while his wife and her family had fled after the war ended.

The wife said, "The Soviet regime is completely stable. Unless other countries intervene militarily, but even a powerful country like Germany would not do so, let alone these countries overseas."

“Especially in recent years, the support from the East African government for us has become increasingly less. Now, this so-called government-in-exile is more like a place where a group of down-and-out people gather to reminisce.”

The purpose of East Africa supporting the Tsarist Russian government-in-exile was not to cause trouble for the Soviet Union, but to use Alexei to attract former Russian nobles, wealthy people and their wealth to East Africa, thus contributing to the East African economy.

Therefore, in the first three or four years after the establishment of the Tsarist Russian government-in-exile, the East African government was relatively active, but afterwards, it paid little attention to this government-in-exile.

After all, by this time, the Soviet Union had seized power nationwide and had confiscated the property and exterminated the families of the former elites. As for those who could escape, they had already fled before. Even those upper-class Russians who escaped the Soviet Union later were basically penniless.

Of course, the East African government did not completely ignore Alexei and others; at least his safety was of considerable concern to the East African government.

However, in recent years, as the Soviet government’s interest in the Tsarist Russian government-in-exile has greatly diminished, East Africa has also invested less and less in Alexei’s security.

As for the Soviet Union, the main reason for abandoning Alexei and other remnants of Tsarist Russia was that Alexei and others no longer posed any threat to the Soviet Union.

On the contrary, the Russian bourgeois government-in-exile, supported by other countries, attracted the full attention of the Soviet security services.

Alexei sighed and said, "From the very beginning, the East African governments have only been using us. In fact, they have never funded any of our major events."

"Even the diplomacy between the East African government and the Soviet Union was not as strong as that between other countries and the Soviet Union. Therefore, hoping that East Africa would help Russia restore its rule was like hoping that pigs could fly."

East Africa's support for Alexei was very limited. In the early days of the Tsarist Russian government-in-exile, they could still use their connections in Russia to carry out some sabotage activities. However, after the Soviet Labour Party completely seized power, their former connections disappeared, and they were either sent to prisons in Siberia or swept the streets.

The former supporters of Tsarist Russia who had fled to East Africa obviously could not continue to fund the restoration of the empire out of their own pockets. The East African government also did not allocate funds and often restricted them from engaging in some radical actions.

Therefore, the current Russian government-in-exile is essentially a club for disillusioned Russians.

Alexei's wife, on the contrary, was not interested in the so-called restoration of the country. She said, "This is a good thing. At least our safety is still reliable. Restoration is just a pipe dream for us. Moreover, even if we really restore the country, we will not be the ones to inherit the Soviet Union's legacy in the end."

His wife was very open-minded because she knew that Russians would never accept the rule of the Tsar again, and even East Africans would not think that the monarchy was a good thing. It was only because East Africa's economy and society were stable that most people did not care about this matter.

Basically, it is very difficult for countries that have gone through the process of monarchy to restore it, and the difficulty will increase with the development of the times. Only by being content to be a mascot can the continuation of the monarchy be guaranteed.

Of course, Ernst's special status lies in the fact that he was the founding monarch, and under his rule, East Africa had not yet encountered any problems. Therefore, the royal family could still hold great power. However, once Ernst died, this situation would most likely change.

Therefore, the Rhine Empire royal family has been looking for a way out and eventually completed a smooth transfer of power. This included the issue of the dispersion of royal family members. In the past, the Rhine royal family was small and many ideas could not be realized. However, after decades of development, Ernst's direct bloodline now has nearly thirty people.

(End of this chapter)