The area is Russia's cotton store, with an annual production, according to Bolshevik figures, of 400,000-500,000 tons of cotton.
The entry of Germans into Central Asia would mean powerful rear support for Iran and Afghanistan. It is a matter for conjecture whether these states would not possibly be impelled by this means to undertake more active operations against India—if there is any such intention—in the event of Turkey too, having altered her attitude by that time. The threat to the British lines of communication to India thus acquires real significance, and will, without doubt, compel Britain to deploy greater forces in this area, which she would have to take from Europe or elsewhere.
General Questions of Economy from the Legal Angle.
The acquisition of oil, mainly in the Caucasus, immediately brings with it the question of its transport, in order to maintain agricultural production in the occupied areas. The question of transport, however, which is of decisive importance to the cultivation of the soil, is bound up again with settling the coal problem. At the same time, the question of finance in these areas appears of primary importance.
A question which likewise affects all areas is that of the almost complete abolition, under the Soviet system, of private property. It is not improbable that this question will have practical consequences immediately the area is occupied. Spontaneous action taken by a completely uneducated rural population, if and when they dissolve the Kolchoses by their own efforts, could result in untold material harm.
For this reason these problems require to be settled, not regionally, but as extraordinary matters for all areas, and local variations, and perhaps also differing tactical action could easily be combined with this.
Summary.
The following systematic constructional plan is evolved from the points briefly outlined here:
1. the creation of a central department for the occupied areas of the USSR, to be confined more or less to wartime.
Working in agreement with the higher and supreme Reich authorities, it would be the task of this department—