Historical Framework of the Former Soviet Union’s Relations with India

by Shafqat Shaikh*

*The author is a former Ambassador of Pakistan.

The half-believed intermittent “Russian dreams” of reaching the warm- water ports on the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean and the oft-quoted “continuity theory” of the Russian Foreign Policy objectives deserve only a passing reference. Peter the great (1682-1725) often spoke of the “riches of India” ¹ and, in his alleged testament, described her as “the depot of the world”. “He who governs there” (India), he said, “is the true ruler of the world.” ² A “somewhat quixotic idea” ³ links Tsar Paul I to a French-backed planned invasion of India in 1801. His nineteenth- century successors attempted numerous unsuccessful schemes designed to weaken Britain by triggering uprisings in India. ⁴ This long-standing Russian interest in India is presumed to have passed on to the Tsars’ Marxist hiers. For Lenin, India was “the citadel of the revolution of the Orient” ⁵ and “our objective.” ⁶ In discussions with German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop in September 1940, Molotov maintained that “the focal points in the territorial aspirations of the Soviet Union would presumably be centered south of the territory of the Soviet Union in the direction of the Indian Ocean.” ⁷

Marx’s and Lenin’s views on India furnish a more relevant starting- point for our study since Marxist-Leninists, with their keen sensitivity to the dynamics of history, continually inform the assessment of the present with the experience of the past ⁸ and, in the Soviet idiom, action is always explained in terms of ideology and ideology is used to justify action. ⁹ Lenin, while emphasising the Imperialist powers’ exploitation of the resources and markets of colonies, took the fundamental Marxist analysis one step further by applying it to conditions during and after World War I. ¹⁰ As early as 1908 he noted similarities between Russian and Indian conditions like “. . . violence, plunder, abject poverty of the masses . . . chronic hunger.” ¹¹ He claimed that the Afro-Asian liberation movements, also aimed at weakening the imperialist hold, were the “natural allies” of the Bolsheviks. The Soviet Blue book on India (1918) underlined India’s potential for furthering the cause of world revolution. “There cannot be a social catastrophe in the west”, it noted, “while the west can still live and exploit itself upon the East.” ¹²
K.M. Troianovsky proclaimed that India would serve as the vanguard of revolution in the East, as Russia had in the West. ¹³ “The road to India”, observed Trotsky in 1919, “may prove at the given moment to be more readily passable and shorter for us…” ¹⁴ Lenin saw, in 1922, both India and China “inexorably and with mounting momentum … approaching their 1905.” ¹⁵

The dire need for trade and credits for repairing the huge damage caused by War compelled the Soviets to seek normalization of relations with the capitalist world. ¹⁶ Isolated, as the only communist state, and no longer required to wage a war of survival, the regime was taking the opportunity to strengthen itself for the struggles ahead ¹⁷ Inspiring revolution in India through Comintern propaganda or schemes of military aid now seemed a less immediate prospect than in the fi heady months after the revolution. ¹⁸ In India, the Communists cooperated with Congress till February 1922 when Gandhi called off Non-cooperation campaign. The Communist line toward congress vacillated from 1923 to 1926.¹⁹ The new “leftist strategy”, adopted in the wake of the Kuomintang liquidation of the Communist faction within its ranks in 1927, denounced Gandhism as “idealizing the most backward and economically reactionary form of social life” and termed Nehru a “tepid reformist” with “kerenskite tendencies.” ²⁰ The CPI strongly opposed Congress until 1934-35, when the USSR called upon overseas Communist parties to cooperate with non-Communists in combating the rising menace of Fascism. A rapid shift in Soviet diplomacy, reflected in the Munich Treaty (1938), created considerable confusion for Communist parties and it was only with the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941 that the CPI was called upon to back the British war effort. ²¹ The USSR refrained from sharp criticism of its British ally in post-war years and the CPI joined anti-British demonstrations as late as 1946.

The Russian revolution stimulated the political consciousness of the Indian proletariat, ²² the intellectual and the politician. Tagore, who visited Soviet Union in 1930, observed that “those who were in the depths of degradation have come out of society’s “black hole” to claim equality.” ²³ Nehru deeply admired the Soviet system which left an imprint on his mind. ²⁴ Nehru’s 1927 visit to Russia convinced him that India’s path would be made easier if the USSR were to find satisfactory solutions to the problems of poverty, illiteracy and industrialization.²⁵ He believed that it was in India’s interest to understand the new order in Russia – “a powerful neighbor, which may be friendly to us and cooperate with us, or may be a thorn in our side”. “In either event”, he observed, “we have to know her and understand her and shape our policy accordingly.” ²⁶

Communist writings on Hindu-Moslem antagonism during the 1920’s and 1930s blamed the phenomenon almost entirely on the British policy of “divide and rule.” ²⁷ The next few years saw the blame shifted to British agents – the religious leaders and, particularly, the Muslim fanatics. ²⁸ A.M. D’iakov conceded in 1939 that difficulties in organising an anti-imperialist front in India were greater than in most other colonial countries. He hailed Congress as the “peculiar form of the united anti-imperialist front” and condemned Muslim league as “a British puppet, not representative of the interests of the Moslem masses.” ²⁹ Jinnah’s success during the war years in strengthening and broadening the mass base of Muslim League led the CPI to reassess its position. General Secretary P.C. Joshi attempted to move the CPI to a posture of neutrality vis-à-vis congress league disputes in the interest of maximum mass mobilization behind the war effort. The congress, he stated, was “the premier political oraganisation of our people” but Gandhi’s neutrality toward the war effort represented only “a path of negation”. The Muslim League exercised considerable influence over “a large section” of Indian Muslims; it was not be dismissed as reactionary, nor was it alone responsible for the lack of communal unity.

Through Jinnah’s “dreamland of Pakistan . . . . leads nowhere except to stalemate”, the Congress should concede certain “sectional” demands of the Moslem league. ³⁰ An August 1942 CPI resolution recognized the right of secession for “every section of the Indian people which has a contiguous territory as its homeland, common historical tradition, common language, culture, psychological make-up and common economics life”. It stressed, though, that the recognition of such a right, while serving to dispel mutual distrust and achieve Congress-League unity, “need not necessarily” entail actual separation. ³¹ In 1944, the CPI endorsed the Muslim League demand for Pakistan. ³²

By early 1946 D’iakov, accepting the staying power of communal antagonisms, adopted a vague position on Pakistan. He acknowledged the “elementary democratic right of self-determination for regions inhabited by Moslems.” ³³ He noted that many “progressive” Indians felt that “Muslim reactionaries” were behind the league and that division of India would weaken her without solving the national question. ³⁴ He added, though, that many Hindu leaders opposing Pakistan reflected the strong urge of the bourgeois to rule the entire Indian market; these circles were not only against Pakistan but even against the right to self- determination in Muslim – majority areas. ³⁵

As the Ango-Russian relations deteriorated seriously in 1947, the Soviets became overtly critical of British plans in India. Some Soviet observers expressed apprehension that a fragmented sub-continent would allow the British to retain their predominant influence. ³⁶ D’iakov wrote in mid – 1947 that the Mountbatten Plan – the culmination of the British policy of “divide and rule” – was aimed at splitting India into conglomerates of feeble and mutually hostile states. He predicted that India, “like the Balkans in the past”, would be an arena of constant clashes. ³⁷

References

Cited in Arthur Stein, India & the Soviet Union – The Nehru Era (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960) p.2.
Cited in Maya Kulkarani, Indo-Soviet Political Relations (Bombay : Vora and Co., Publishers, 1968), p.26.
J.A. Naik Soviet Policy Towrds India – From Stalin to Brezhnev (Dehli : vikas publications, 1970), p.3.
Robert C. Horn, Soviet – Indian Relations – Issues and Influence (New York : Praeger Publishers, 1982), p.1.
Cited in Maya Kulkarani, op. cit; p.26.
Cited in Maya Kulkarani, op. cit; p.26.
Raymond J. Sloatag & J.S. Beddle, ed., Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-41, Documents of the German Foreign Office (Washington: Department of state) p.213; Cited in Maya Kulkarani, op. cit; p.26.
Robert H. Donaldson, Soviet Policy Toward India – Ideology and Strategy (Massachusetts: Harvard University press, 1974), p.1.
Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Foreign Policy of Soviet Union (London: Random House, 1960), p.4.
Robert C. Horn, op. cit ; p.1.
V.I. Lenin, “Inflammable Material in World Politics” in national – liberation, p.p. 14-15; cited in Robert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.2.
India for the Indians”, Blue Book (Moscow: 1918) cited in Arthur Stein op. cit; p.6.
K.A. Troianovsky, The East and the Revolution (Moscow: 1918); cited in K.K. Eudin and R.C. North, Soviet Russia and the East: 1920-1927 (Standford: 1957) p.92; further cited in Robbert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.5.
Jan Meijer, The Trotsky papers 1917-22 (The Hague: 1964), p.1, 623; cited in Robbert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.6.
V.I. Lenin, “on the Tenth Anniversary of Pravda” in National- Libarations, p. 297; cited in Robbert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.15
Robbert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.7.
Ibid., p.7.
Ibid., pp.7-8.
Arthur Stein, op. cit; p.8.
Cited in Arthur Stein, op. cit; p.8.
Overstreet and Windmill, Communism in India, pp. 192-222; Cited in Arthur Stein, op. cit; p.9.
Arthur Stein, op. cit; p.15.
Rabindranath Tagore, letters from Russia (Calcutta: 1960) p.40; cited in Nirmala Joshi, Foundation of Indo-Soviet Relation – A Study of Non-Official Attitudes and Contacts (1917-1947) (New Dheli: Radiant Publishers, 1975) pp.71-72.
Nirmala Joshi, op. cit; p.90.
Jawaharlal Nehru, Soviet Russia; pp. 131. Ff.; Cited in Arthur Stein, op. cit; p.16.
Jawaharlal Nehru, Soviet Russia; pp. 131. Ff; Cited in Arthur Stein, op. cit; p.16.
Robbert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.58.
Chattopadyaya, Muslimism & Bhuddism in the service of Imperialism; cited in Robbert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.63.
A.M. D’iakov, The National Policy of British imperialism in Inida (1939); cited in Robbert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.63.
P.C. Joshi, The Indian Communist Party: its Policy and Work in the War of liberations (London – 1942); cited in Robbert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.57.
Cited in G. Adhikari, Pakistan and Indian National Unity (London: 1943) pp. 31-32; further cited in Robbert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.64.
Mushahid Hussain, “Pakistan – Soviet Relations: Missed Opportunities”, The Muslim, September 13, 1981.
A.M. D’iakov, “ Contemporary India”; Bolshevik no. 4, 1946 pp. 49-53, cited in Robbert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.65.
Ibid; pp. 49-53;
Ibid; Cited in Nirmala Joshi op. cit; p. 156.
Robbert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.66.
A.M. D’iakov, “ The New British Plan for India”, New Times No. 24, 1947, p.14; cited by Robbert H. Donaldson, op. cit; p.66.