For Germany this problem is vital. For Russia, a vast continent of over 8 million square miles, bigger than the United States and Capada put together, it is a side issue. Ever since the Revolution the sole aim of Soviet transport policy has been to build up a satisfactory system of internal communications. Practically no attention has been paid to international connections; and even now, after more than two decades, the purely domestic transport problem is far from solved. It is this fact that will most obviously hamper the development of Russo-German exchanges.
It is not remarkable that Soviet transport policy should have been ingrowing in character. The transport system of Tsarist Russia was ill-developed and poorly equipped. Such as it was, it was torn and twisted by three years of war and more of civil strife. When it was planned to raise industry and agriculture to a modern pitch adequate transport was more than ever essential Transport has always been the basis of economic development. It was especially so in Soviet Russia: the new industrial revolution there was centrally planned; and the plan was to operate over distances covering big differences in climatic conditions,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.