Material from P. Kutsobin outlining information reviewed by B. N. Ponomarev to be used in a conversation with I. Gandhi. Topics for the conversation include the dangers of the arms race, Israeli aggression in the Middle East, and Soviet build up in Afghanistan. Special attention is given to how questions related to the Communist Party of India should be addressed. 

After World War I, several communist movements tried to replicate the Bolsheviks’ take-over of Russia in European countries, most importantly and most often in Germany. All failed. As a result, the Soviet leadership and communists worldwide from around 1920 focused more energies on colonized countries, especially in Asia. As most of these seemed to lack the economic and sociopolitical conditions necessary for a communist revolution, the aim was to weaken if not overthrow European imperial rule, serving the interests of both the USSR and the local petit bourgeoisie, peasants, and few industrial workers. The perhaps greatest price was China. Moreover, India was seen to be (exceptionally) ripe for direct communist action.

Communists and some anti-colonial nationalists were also active in and across the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe, often sharing resources while being networked with the Communist International. Abbreviated as the Comintern (also the Third International), the latter was the key international communist organization: founded in 1919 in Moscow, headquartered there, and employing through its dissolution in 1943 thousands of professional cadres from around the world, principally from Europe and Asia, as Brigitte Studer’s Reisende der Weltrevolution: Eine Globalgeschichte der Kommunistischen Internationale (2020) shows. Also in the Soviet Union, the year 1920 saw the landmark Congress of the Peoples of the East, in Baku. And in 1921, the Communist University for Laborers of the East (Kommunistichyeskii univyersityet trudyaschikhsya Vostoka, KUTV) opened its doors in Moscow. It became the first full-fledged Soviet training center for Soviet Muslims and for foreign communist cadres, principally from Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, and it impacted Soviet views of the East, as Lana Ravandi-Fadai and Masha Kirasirova have shown in “Red Mecca” (2015) and “The ‘East’ as a Category of Bolshevik Ideology and Comintern Administration” (2017), respectively. The text here is the English translation, published in 1954 in the collection J. V. Stalin: Works: Volume 7, of a Russian text published in 1925 in the principal Soviet newspaper, Pravda, rendering a speech that the 1924-1953 Chairman of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) held to KUTV’s students in 1925.

This memo informs the Central Committee of the USSR of the Communist Party of India's decision to oppose signing the NPT due to perceived infringements on Indian sovereignty and a mistrust in the concept of security guarantees to India by the US. The recommended course of action is to forward comprehensive information to the CPI about the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons along the lines of a March 29 CPSU CC decree of that year in the hopes that the CPI's opinion on the NPT will change.

In this memo, the Soviet Ambassador to India is urged to meet with the leadership of the Indian Communist Party (Rao and Dange) and inform them, in light of the 22nd UN General Assembly session discussing the NPT, of the Soviet stance on the Treaty. The ambassador is instructed to emphasize the importance of nuclear non-proliferation for international geopolitical reasons, including preventing West Germany and China from acquiring nuclear weapons, as well as increasing domestic prosperity by using the atom for peaceful means. The ambassador is told to emphasize efforts of the USSR to prepare the draft treaty in collaboration with non-nuclear countries, as well as security guarantees in place for non-nuclear countries so that the Indian government greets the Treaty with understanding.

Yudin recounts his meetings with Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and Zhou Enlai. In three meetings, Yudin learned more about China's relations with other communist parties in Asia, economic conditions in China, and developments in the Korean War.

G.M. Malenkov speaks with representatives of the Indian Communist Party, including Dange, Ghosh, and Rao. The ICP delegation asks for Soviet advice on party organization and composition. Malenkov responds, warning the ICP to take care not to come off as a Soviet puppet. Malenkov's main suggestion is to determine a firm party line, and publish a singular and clear program for the party, so as to unite disputing factions.

Delegation representing the Indian Communist Party, including Rao, Ghosh, and Dange, discusses the internal disagreements within the ICP following the party's Second Congress, stemming largely over the question of armed struggle. Also touches on how the ICP should react to foreign policy issues, including US involvement in the Korean War.

Andrei Zhdanov instructs Shripad Amrit Dange on the Soviet Union's suggestions for the formation of an Indian Communist Party, following India's 1947 Partition.

Soviet record of conversation between delegations from the Communist Parties of the Soviet Union and China. They argue over China's policy toward India and toward Taiwan, and assert that China is pursuing a path that will hurt its Communist allies and risk war. Also notes the extent of Mao's personality cult in China.

Record of conversation between Nikita Khrushchev and top Chinese Communist Party leaders. Khrushchev blames the Chinese for the border conflict with India and for allowing the Dalai Lama to escape from Tibet. The two sides argue over how the Chinese should have handled these problems, with Mao accusing the Soviet Union of being "time-servers."