Soviet Russia and the Hindustan subcontinent

Unlike the other European powers and the United States of America, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) is permanently and physically present in and involved with Asia not only because it has more than a 6,000-mile-long frontier with four Asian states - China, Outer Mongolia, Afghanistan, and Iran but also because the eight Asian Republics in the Soviet federa tion - Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia, Tadjikistan, Turkeminstan, and Uzbekistan- together with Siberia and the Soviet Far East, have an area of almost 6 million 700. thousand square miles out of roughly 8 million 650 thousand square miles of Soviet territory. The Soviet leaders rightly claim that Russia is as much an Asian power as European.

And yet Soviet interest in the Hindustan subcontinent remained almost negligible until the mid-1950's. It is amusing to learn that Stalin told the Indian ambassador to the USSR, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan (who subsequently became President of India), that he believed Ceylon to be a part of India.