ABSTRACT
This chapter revisits the first years of India–Soviet Union relationship by examining hitherto unused government and personal papers in India and Russia. In doing so, it aims to provide a ‘pre-history’ of the existing literature that invariably begins from the ‘years of late Stalinism.’ It argues that having started with great expectations from both sides, India-Soviet Union relations ran into rough weather in 1948 but shoots of recovery sprang rather soon; a development that has been overlooked. Secondly, it was not just the east–west Cold War that determined this ebb and flow but India’s repression of the communist-led revolution in 1948 and its decision to remain inside the British Commonwealth in 1949 and their first ideological and then indifferent reception in Moscow.
