The members of the Soviet delegation all deeply agreed with Shapovalov's view. For the Soviet Union, development in the transportation sector was indeed an urgent matter that could not be delayed.
"Comrade Shapovalov makes a great deal of sense, but according to Comrade Yosef's instructions, our country should now place the development of national defense industry first," said Troitsa of the Ministry of Industry.
"The Soviet Union was surrounded by wolves. The Imperialist countries had never relaxed their encirclement and containment of the Soviet Union. Once we showed any sign of decline, there was no doubt they would pounce and tear savagely at our great motherland."
"Transportation construction was clearly not something that could be completed overnight, and it required enormous investment. Especially in a place like the Soviet Union, where geological conditions and the natural environment were even more complicated, the cost would only be higher than in East Africa."
"Therefore, before the external crisis is resolved, the development of all other industrial sectors should yield to national defense industry."
Troitsa's assessment was more in line with the Soviet leadership's current judgment of the situation. In 1926, the Soviet Union's total industrial output was not even half of Germany's. Compared with the two industrial powers, the United States and East Africa, the gap was even wider.
Although Tsarist Russia had left the Soviet Union with a fair amount of assets, these industries were basically unable to meet the needs of the Soviet economy's development. Take traditional sectors such as coal, textiles, steel, and machinery: their technology was backward, their output was low, and their industrial goods were of rather poor quality.
In emerging industrial sectors at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Soviet Union could be said to be almost entirely blank, such as electricity, chemicals, automobile production,