Vestnik MGIMO-Universiteta (Nov 2017)
SOVIET-INDIAN RELATIONS (1955 - 1971): THE BIRTH OF A FRIENDSHIP
Abstract
The most important stage in the relations between the USSR and India is the second half of the 1950s and the 1960s, when the systemic factors led to the transformation of the two states into natural strategic allies. The article studies the evolution of Soviet and Indian foreign policies and the impact of exogenous and endogenous factors on their strategies. The analysis of unique, special and universal aspects of the general strategy of two states reveals their geo-economic and geopolitical interests and conditions which promoted or limited the realization of these interests. All key subsystems of bilateral relations (political, economic, military-political and culturalcivilizational) are studied in their correlations. The analysis of the political parameters covers the summits, political consultations on a broad range of issues, cooperation between the USSR and India at the global and regional levels. The article focuses on the analysis of the global changes that largely determined the evolution of the Soviet-Indian relations. The significance of the formation of all-party consensus in India on foreign policy (from the middle of the 1950-s) is stressed. This concord concerns the main directions and macro objects, while there are differences in the methods of their achievement, which is linked both with different political and ideological platforms and with global changes in the world system. The analysis of Soviet-Indian economic relations covers the growth of trade turnover and changes in its structure, cooperation in the field of heavy industry and energy, the supply of Soviet machinery and equipment. Close military-political ties that is the cornerstone of the present bilateral relations originated in this period. At the same time it is necessary to point out the relative closeness of two countries in the sphere of cultural life (notwithstanding enormous differences of Russian and Indian civilizations): spiritualism as en immanent element of both cultures opposes materialism and consumerism of the developed world and multinational and multiconfessional composition of both countries brings them closer.
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