Indias Relations with USSR a Precursor: An Overview

The study of India's relations with the USSR reveals that despite wide differences in outlook and policy great advance towards mutual understanding and cooperation was made. In spite of the earlier Soviet indifference and basic differences in Socio-political systems of the two countries, mutual relations improved markedly from 1953 onwards. There were many factors which demanded India to move closer to the USSR. India's attitude towards the USSR has been derived from its overall foreign policy objectives. In understanding and evaluating this attitude, it is therefore, indispensable to keep in view two important considerations: first, the assumptions, motivations, style, basic goals and the principles of India's foreign policy which governed her relations with other States in general; second, the specific goals which India sought to achieve in her relations with the USSR. It is the inter-relationship between the general and the particular objectives and the degree of their combination as well as contradiction that give us an idea of the various phases of India's relations with the USSR. Such an analysis, however, should not be restricted merely to the conceptual level. The interaction of such other factors as intimate geographical, historical and economic ties between the two States, the influence of external factors and the failure or success of Indian diplomacy at the international level should also constitute a part of the analysis.