INDIA , AFG HANISTAN , IR AN , AND AG AIN INDIA

india, afghanistan, iran, and again india

As we were returning from India to the Soviet Union [in December 1955], we received an invitation from the government and the king of Afghanistan to stop in Kabul for several days of talks.1 We readily accepted this proposal, because Afghanistan interested us greatly. The United States was courting Afghanistan, had provided credits to it, had built roads and done other construction there, and had offered its services in extracting and processing the country’s natural riches. In short, they were making every effort to draw Afghanistan into the pro-U.S. bloc. This was disturbing to us, because it was clear to everyone—even to the uninitiated—that the imperialists were not interested in Afghanistan for its military strength. They were interested because it was a neighbor of the USSR. It would be to their advantage to use Afghan territory as a location for their military bases aimed against the USSR. Our border with Afghanistan was approximately 2,000 kilometers long [about 1,250

This part of the memoirs was tape-recorded in 1970. [SK]

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miles]. If Afghanistan made its territory available to achieve U.S. military objectives, that would be grounds for serious concern on our part. Britain was no longer sticking its nose into that part of the world. The role of world policeman was now being played by the United States. Therefore we wanted Afghanistan to establish friendly relations with us and take a trusting attitude toward our policies. We were not contemplating any aggressive action against Afghanistan and were not about to interfere in its internal affairs.2 When we received the invitation we thought it might to some extent contribute to the realization of our aims.

During our visit to India, the following tradition had been established: first a concert would be given in our honor, then our artists and performers, who had come with us or immediately after us, would give a presentation. We felt we had something to brag about in this connection, and these concerts made a very good impression everywhere. We wanted to do the same in Afghanistan. Therefore on the day after we had landed in Kabul, a troupe of our artists arrived from India, and we decided that if a concert was organized in our honor, we would suggest a performance by our artists in turn. Our artists gave one concert, but the local authorities warned us in advance that they would object to female artists performing in public, and they said: “It’s your business, but we would like to warn you that it will make a bad impression on the spectators and leave a bad taste in their mouths for a long time afterward, and some circles in Afghan society would refuse to come to your embassy any more.” So we dropped the idea. What did we need any extra problems for? After all, we wanted to win the favor of Afghan public opinion and the upper echelons of their society. Ordinary workers would not have the opportunity to attend these receptions. We valued having good ties with “polite society,” with government circles and people close to the king.

We held talks with the prime minister of Afghanistan, the king’s uncle, [Mohammed] Daud. We called him Daud for the sake of simplicity but he had a more complicated full name.3 The foreign minister [Mohammed Naim Khan] was also an uncle of the king.4 Both of them were intelligent, middleaged men. It was pleasant and useful holding talks with them. Then we were told that the king wanted to receive us. We too wanted to meet him. The meeting and conversation were brief. We told him about our impressions of India, about the internal situation in the USSR, and mainly about our economy. The tone of the conversation was warm, but we sensed that the king was not being entirely open, that he was holding himself back, sticking to certain limits. After taking our leave of him we continued our talks with the government. We had a number of questions that we discussed at that point: establishing closer

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contacts and building a road from the airport to Kabul, which they had asked us to do. The Americans had built the airport. They showed us the military college, which the king’s son had attended, as had the king himself.5 After our next round of talks we agreed to build a bread factory in Kabul. We assumed that the ice had been broken to some degree and that mutual trust, which had come into existence earlier, would continue to grow stronger.

The thought occurred to us that we should pay special attention to improving conditions for the population of Afghanistan, which was quite impoverished. There was hardly any real industry, the buildings in the residential part of the capital city made a miserable impression, and the clothes people were wearing couldn’t have been any poorer. The USSR proposed to lend a fairly substantial sum to Afghanistan at that point, although we ourselves had no excess foreign currency to dispose of. On the contrary, we needed foreign currency ourselves. The Kabul authorities refused to accept foreign currency from us, and later, through people we trusted, we heard the explanation of why they couldn’t accept that gift. They didn’t want to become a dependent state. Accepting such a gift would have tied their hands. They were grateful, but they didn’t want to accept it. We knew for certain that the United States was trying to persuade Afghanistan to sign a treaty allowing the United States to establish military bases there. They were trying to frighten Afghanistan with stories that the USSR had hostile intentions toward it. This caused us great concern. The amount of foreign currency we offered Kabul was quite substantial for our economy. Nevertheless, in my opinion, we acted correctly. If Afghanistan had made concessions to the United States and joined the U.S. military bloc, as Pakistan had done, that would have cost us many, many times more later on. We would have been forced to build fortifications and undertake other measures to defend our long border, but more important, we would have had more U.S. military bases close to our territory.

During the few days of our stopover in Kabul, some special competitive games native to Afghanistan were organized for us. Similar contests are held in Soviet Central Asia, which is called “chasing after the goat skin” [or “tearing up the goat”—the term in Russian is kozlodraniye]. Men on horses were divided into two groups, and each side had its circle that was like its home base. One side had to get hold of the goat’s carcass, and if it could throw the carcass inside the circle belonging to the other side, it was considered the winner. The horses were fiery and so were the riders. We were told that casualties often occurred in these games. If a rider was knocked off his horse and fell under the horses’ hooves, he could end up being killed or crippled. A huge crowd of people had gathered, special speakers’ stands had been erected, and

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the government, headed by the king, came to watch. The contest went on amid great tension. For me this was a new kind of game. I had never seen it before, and having seen it, I considered it coarse and boorish. Then another game was organized in our honor—a game involving a ball with men on horseback.6 Here too, there was plenty of danger, although it was more sportsmanlike [less crude]. Serious injuries happened in this game, too. We were told during our visit to India that during a competition in London a maharajah who had been playing broke his leg.

The Afghans followed the game closely and had stormy reactions to what happened on the playing field. Their faces were all aglow and their eyes were gleaming. In Kirgizia I once attended a special holiday or some special festivities and encountered the same kind of contests, which the Kirgiz, Tajiks, and Uzbeks7 also regarded as entertainment. The same kind of fiery passion could be observed there as we saw in Afghanistan.

For the first time in my life, when I was in Kabul, I saw women wearing the veil, the yashmak. This made a painful impression on me. It was as if a statue with the features of a human being was walking along with a basket on its head and with a black rectangle in front of its eyes—a net made of horsehair. It was through this thick net that the woman had to look and breathe. As we traveled around the city we saw many such figures. Sometimes in such an encounter the women raised the yashmak, apparently trying to get a better look at the Russians. It was explained to us that only older women were allowed to do this, but for young women and girls it was absolutely forbidden [to reveal their faces]. Of course there were cases when they risked their lives and violated this custom.

The king, the prime minister, and the foreign minister, during our conversations, all emphasized that when the Afghan people had fought against the British for their independence and had defended that independence [in 1919], the USSR had taken their side in the fight against the colonialists. The first country to recognize the free government of Afghanistan had been the USSR [also in 1919].8 On the other hand, the first foreign government to recognize Soviet Russia was the government of Afghanistan. Thus friendly relations had been established between us for a long time, although each side understood the situation in its own way—that is, the situation that existed in the other country. The Afghans frequently referred to the fact that Lenin had shown the proper understanding of their country, and they honored the memory of the great man who had extended a hand of friendship to the peoples of Afghanistan at a most critical time in their history. Soviet aid [from that era] had left profound traces. We took advantage of that and said that we were

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the successors of Lenin and great admirers of him, that the policies we pursued were based on his doctrines, and that we were continuing his line in relation to Afghanistan and would continue to do so in the future.

My impressions of Kabul were that it was cold (after all, it was winter), and to some extent I was physically affected by the altitude at which the city is situated.9 Bulganin especially suffered from the altitude. He could barely drag his feet around and was lying down the whole time, unless we had to go somewhere according to protocol. My mood was also affected, but I didn’t lose my capacity for work. Apparently my body has great powers of resistance. I was born that way. The palace they put us up in was luxurious and surrounded by a large park.10 I remember there were poplar trees in the park like the ones we have at home, but they had adapted to the severe climate. The severity was the result of being so high above sea level, because, after all, this was the south and cotton even grows in Afghanistan. But the milder climate was only down below in the valleys.

When we returned home we reported to the CPSU Central Committee about our trip. It was officially stated that the trip had been useful and that good meetings had taken place in India, Burma, and Afghanistan. Everyone was satisfied with the results of the trip. We agreed that we should continue to follow the Leninist policy of peaceful coexistence and do all we could from our side to strengthen friendly relations with our neighbors. Although India was not a direct neighbor of the USSR, it was pursuing its own policy of nonalignment with the military blocs formed by the United States, which was attractive to us, and therefore in relations with India we needed to exert every effort to win its confidence even more. The same held true for Burma.

Nehru came to visit our country again later, as did other public figures from Asia, and our official government delegation, in turn, traveled to India [in January–February 1960], headed by [Kliment] Voroshilov, chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR [making him titular chief of state]. The delegation included other prominent figures, in particular Comrade [Yekaterina] Furtseva.11

We granted Furtseva special powers to keep an eye on Voroshilov. At that time Voroshilov’s health was such that he couldn’t quite orient himself properly in situations, and he was incapable of behaving in a manner appropriate to his rank and status. His personality had changed in such a way that he was capable, without meaning to, of doing harm to our good relations with India. The trouble began with a conflict over the arrangements for the trip. Voroshilov indicated that he wanted to bring a very large retinue along with him, and the Indian government asked that it be reduced in size, because difficulties

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were arising over housing all those people. We called him to order and the problem was smoothed over.

When she returned home, Furtseva told about another incident in Calcutta. The official meeting was going along smoothly, at the proper high level, in keeping with the ranks of the guests. An itinerary was proposed to Voroshilov in accordance with what had been arranged in advance: to visit historical places, monuments, parks, and various institutions or facilities that they wanted to show our delegation. Voroshilov, who was the head of our delegation, got all steamed up: “Why are you trying to pull the wool over my eyes? You’re shoving all sorts of nonsense in my face for me to go visit. What do I need that for? I come from the Soviet Union, and I’d like you to show me your working class, your mills and factories. That’s what I’m interested in!” Everyone was embarrassed. The leaders of the Indian government and the state where Calcutta is located [West Bengal] were not averse to showing him what he requested, but the problem was that private ownership still prevails in India, and therefore if you want to go to a factory, you first have to have the approval of the owner. No government, neither the central nor the local government, could simply bring its guests to a factory without making arrangements with the owners.

This reminded me of an anecdote that circulated widely in our country at one time. A Soviet citizen went to Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, which at that time was still capitalist. He saw a huge building and asked “Who does that house belong to?”

“That’s the house of Bata.” “Bata?”

“Yes.”

“And who did it belong to before?”

“Previously it belonged to Bata, and it also belongs to Bata now.”12

That was typical in our country. Soviet citizens would ask as a kind of natural reflex when they saw an impressive building: “Who did that belong to before?” The answer would be that before the revolution the owner was Prince So-and-So, Count Such- and-Such, or So-and-So, the wealthy capitalist. But we haven’t had such people in our country for a long time. Still, they do exist outside our country, and that has to be remembered. Nehru intervened in the Calcutta situation. He’s a flexible man and, as prime minister of the country, was able to make the necessary arrangements. Thus, the owners of several factories agreed to have the Soviet guests visit their property.

When our delegation returned, we criticized Voroshilov rather sharply, explaining to him the elementary difference between the Soviet Union and India. In general that trip made an impression on Indian citizens because

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ours was a highly representative delegation, but nothing good was added to our relations with Nehru because Voroshilov got into a foolish squabble with him. If anything was added to our relationship with Nehru it was a spoon of tar in a barrel of honey. While they were in India, Furtseva gave Voroshilov comradely advice, but he behaved in a highly unrestrained manner toward her, and later in Moscow he attacked her and was highly displeased that we supported her against him. We said she had taken the correct position.

After Bulganin and I visited India [in 1955], the Indians requested our aid in building a metallurgical plant. We had information that they had made the same request to Britain and West Germany. They wanted to build three metallurgical plants at the same time. We granted them credits, came to agreement on the cost of the project, and signed the appropriate contract. After our plan for the factory was drawn up the decision was made to build it in the city of Bhilai. [This was the Bhilai steel mill.13] Because the Indian engineers were not sufficiently qualified and could not properly evaluate our plan on their own, the Indian leadership expressed a desire to consult with the British regarding our plan and to consult with us regarding the British plan. This was a rather original method of verification, but we had no reason to oppose it, because we were confident that our plan corresponded to the state of the art in world metallurgy. The Indian government was afraid it might offend us by showing a lack of confidence, but we were glad and even wanted the British to send us their conclusions about our plan, because the British have been specialists in metallurgy since way back when.

In my childhood and youth the British enjoyed great authority in Russia as experts in metallurgy. The owner of the metallurgical works in Yuzovka was the British capitalist Hughes [after whom Yuzovka got its name—the equivalent of “Hughes-ville”]. Not long after the revolution Stalin’s name was attached to this metallurgical complex. When I was young we used to sing a traditional work song, Dubinushka, with the following words:

The clever Englishman, to help him in his work,

Invented one machine after another,

But our Russian moujik [peasant], incapable of work,

Just kept singing “Dubinushka.”14

Later different words were made up for this song:

Oh-hoh, the years went by, one by one in a row,

And the scenery in our homeland changed completely

The “Dubinushka” song was laid to rest, along with the wooden plow—

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Replaced by our homegrown machinery.

Hey machine! Dear little machine, things go easier with you.

Hey machine, you iron machine! You run on your own power!

In other words, Britain gradually lost first place in world technology. When I worked in the Donets coal basin in 1913, the coalmine where I worked belonged to a French company. The British rented one sector of that mine to exploit a narrow seam of coal. A narrow seam is the most difficult to mine, and the British used a special machine to cut coal, along with pneumatic hammers. They were the first to introduce the coal-cutting machine.15 Even today Britain holds a leading position in a number of fields of technology, and we are forced to negotiate with them for the purchase of their latest state-of- the-art equipment.

So then, we passed our plan along to the British; they examined it, drew their conclusions, and reported to the Indian government. It was reported to us from India that the British had drawn conclusions that were highly flattering for us. Strictly speaking, the British made no specific comments but simply said that our plan corresponded to all the standards of contemporary metallurgical production. In contrast, our engineers found many things that needed to be corrected in the British plan. The Indian government did not ask us to send our plan to the Germans, because our official relations with West Germany had not been properly established.16 Likewise, the German plan was not sent to us. An unspoken competition began. We selected good people to be in charge of the project, administrators, engineers, even workers to go to Bhilai, and off they went to India. Like other foreign governments, India wanted us to build the factory on a contract basis. We refused because we didn’t want to act as employers and come into conflict with workers, because labor disputes invariably occur. Inside our country such disputes are possible and acceptable, but we didn’t want disputes between Indian workers and representatives of the USSR, because we didn’t want to have a black mark against us in the eyes of the proletariat in regard to the policies we were pursuing.

The Germans began work before we did, and we received information that they were well ahead of us. For our part we made every effort to build the steel mill so that it would produce steel and iron before the Germans did. I personally kept track of the construction work. Finally it was reported to me that we were pulling even with the Germans, that the gap between us was being eliminated. I had great respect for Comrade [Venyamin] Dymshitz,17 who had been appointed director of the construction project. I knew him from his work in the southern part of our country after the Great Patriotic War

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when he helped restore metallurgical plants in Ukraine. He was working at Zaporozhye18 then, and he displayed great organizational skills and was the first to introduce a new method for restoring blast furnaces to operation. Different sections of these furnaces were produced right out on the ground at the site, and then they were lifted by cranes to be riveted or welded directly in place. One blast furnace had remained intact (the others had been destroyed by the fascists), but it was obsolete; it was dragged off to the side and a new one put in its place. We gained approximately a year’s worth of production [by restoring these blast furnaces more quickly than usual.] Now I asked Comrade Dymshitz to come see me; I told him about the construction project in India and asked him to provide assistance at Bhilai.

Dymshitz went there and organized the work in such a way that we got ahead of schedule. He personally reported to Nehru about the course of the construction work and made a very good impression on him. This was good for us. We managed to finish work on our steel mill a little before the Germans.19 We turned the mill over to our hosts, and it began producing steel without any snags or complications from the very first. It’s true that one accident occurred that could not have been foreseen. Among the people working there was one of our good engineers, who was doing his job successfully. The Indian government developed a very positive attitude toward him. On one of his days off he went hunting with his teenage son. He fired at a duck and it fell from the sky; he went to retrieve it from the marsh where he was hunting, but he fell into a deep quagmire that sucked him down, and he perished. This was a source of great grief for everyone.

When the Indian government began to obtain steel and iron [from the Bhilai mill], our authority in that country rose sharply.20 The setting up of the equipment went smoothly. The various units began to function properly without any great effort, which does not always happen, if the machinery that has been set up goes immediately into full-scale production. The Germans, on the other hand, did not meet their schedule, although they had begun before we did. They had long periods of idleness in the process of setting up the machinery.

I wouldn’t want to give the impression, as is sometimes done among us, that we had God by the beard and that everything we did was the very best. No, unfortunately, that’s far from being true. Even today we lag substantially behind world standards in relation to a number of technical problems and fields of endeavor. I feel pained about this now, and I felt that way in those earlier times. Even though I’m retired, I suffer and feel pain for our country over the fact that we haven’t built up the strength we should have. And after

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all, it’s time that we did: 52 years have gone by since the working class of Soviet Russia won power, and still here we are trying to catch up, trying to catch up with the capitalists, and we can’t seem to be able to catch up with them in any way. This system, which we call the decaying capitalist system, has more than once given us such lessons that we stand there with our mouths hanging open from awe. I would like it very much if the opposite were true and that we were placing our adversaries in that kind of position. I say this because of course the Germans also are recognized experts in the field of metallurgy, and German technology is by no means on a lower level than ours. I would suppose that what was at work in this case is the fact that we have been engaged in construction much more than they have, and if we made many mistakes earlier, we had learned from them, and we avoided those mistakes when we were carrying out this construction project, which was a repetition of something similar. It doesn’t follow from this that we should belittle others or puff ourselves up and give ourselves airs, especially in relation to the Germans, British, Americans, and Belgians—who are all skilled experts in metallurgy and chemistry.

Many workers and engineers from India came to the USSR to receive training by working at our factories, including the metallurgical plant at Zaporozhye. This also brought our people closer together, and we got to know one another better. The Indians received a high level of training and then served their time, or “stood their watch,” in the appropriate place in production facilities in their own country, and they coped with their tasks splendidly. They always knew that we kept no secrets from them. Our people openheartedly shared their knowledge and experience. This was very important because capitalist corporations consider everything they have to be trade secrets. When we readily and willingly shared our knowledge, that made a strong impression on the people we were instructing. They understood that we sincerely wanted to help India free itself from the legacy of colonial oppression, which took the form of poverty and backwardness.

The capacity of the Bhilai steel mill at first was more than a million tons per year.21 As soon as construction was completed, the Indian government began negotiations with us on bringing the capacity up to 2 million tons per year. We accepted the proposal and set about doing this new job. In 1960 [on February 14–15] I visited Bhilai on the way to Indonesia and inspected the steel mill together with Nehru and India’s minister of industry. I stayed overnight at a local workers’ settlement and had a chance to talk with the workers. When I first met with people in India in 1955, I was seeing everything with the eyes of a tourist from the north to whom nature and the people of India

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appeared as something quite exotic; it seemed a land filled with strange and wonderful sights. But at this new stage [in 1960], we met simply as friends working together on a task and successfully accomplishing it. I was very pleased and satisfied.

[In 1955] we decided to provide India with assistance in organizing largescale agricultural enterprises similar to our state farms. For this purpose we offered Nehru the requisite number of tractors, combines, machines for planting and seeding, and other agricultural machinery as a gift. He gratefully accepted the gift. Later we sent engineers and agronomists to India as consultants.

Now I’m retired on a pension, and I sometimes hear people say that the actions we took were unintelligent, that supposedly we squandered the people’s resources organizing state farms and other projects in India and Egypt. I don’t know whether the people who say this have had the situation explained to them properly or whether such harmful ideas have deliberately been put into their heads.22

What is evident here is profoundly mistaken thinking. Let’s take a simple example. Friends who work at the same factory visit each other at home. First, one of them spends money to buy food and drink to treat his guest, then the other invites the first to visit him and likewise spends money on his guest. If you take their family budgets and the amounts spent on their guests, you get a higher percentage in real value than was spent by the Soviet government in delivering machinery [to such countries as India and Egypt]. But why did we need to do this at all? Because friends of the Soviet Union were living in those countries. We wanted to strengthen friendly relations with them and consolidate peaceful coexistence. If you want to establish peaceful relations between countries, you do the kind of thing you would do in personal relations. If the countries become friends, they are equally attentive in return; they invite people to come visit and they give each other gifts, but in the case of governments these are usually not consumer items but production facilities. In this way they are showing the potential they possess, and they have an impact on the consciousness of the citizens in the other country. This way of behaving has always justified itself and will do so in the future.

From the point of view of what it costs the USSR to give these miserly gifts, they paid for themselves unquestionably through the consolidation of friendly relations with India. When I visited the state farm that I’ve mentioned, I experienced a great feeling of satisfaction to see this very large farm with its fields being worked by modern machinery.23 This was an excellent model for all the agriculture in India to follow. People came from everywhere to have a look at this innovative facility. A living example is the best possible way of

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promoting a theory. We were successfully promoting the socialist form of agriculture based on large-scale mechanization. These were our motives, and we were grateful when Nehru accepted our gift. After all, not everyone accepted what we offered. In Afghanistan they would not take the foreign currency we offered, although we set no conditions for its use. They refused the gift not because they were wealthy but because they didn’t yet trust us. Of course they were trying to determine what our motives might be, because they knew that we were not that rich and nevertheless we were offering them a fairly substantial gift. They must have wondered what was going on.

They rejected our gesture, politely thanking us, but refusing. It was not at all pleasant for us to encounter this refusal, that is, an expression of distrust. We tried to evaluate the reason for this action and to guess what actions might follow on their side as a result. Our expectation was that after this they would begin to move noticeably closer to the United States, which would result in a strengthening of American influence in Afghanistan, that the United States in Afghanistan would obtain concessions or be allowed to establish military bases. The USSR would have had to respond with enormous military expenditures, which we did not want. Those were the considerations that guided us when we offered assistance. It was offered free of charge, but it would have proved to be profitable many times over. And I’m not even talking about the friendship aspect of the matter. When we win new friends we also increase our strength, by winning more and more hearts and minds over to our side, which reduces the possibility that our enemies might use our neighbors against us.

People will ask: “But what has the other side done for us?” The other side didn’t have the potential for doing anything for us. All it could do was thank us. Thus, in India, what they were capable of doing came down to a matter of treating us with fruit and mango juice. That was the first time I had encountered this marvelous product [in India in 1955]. Nehru always liked to watch how we would cope with these strange new fruits. Don’t laugh. It’s a difficult operation [to deal with a mango], and you have to accumulate some experience to cope with it. Nehru said: “Watch how I eat the mango. A traditional method has been worked out in our country. Then you can do the same.” Indira Gandhi, who was also at the table, told us that in India the general opinion was that it’s best to eat a mango sitting in a bathtub. That way you can constantly rinse your hands, because it’s a very juicy and rich fruit. Actually the most valuable gift we received in exchange from India was the understanding and trust we won from the Indian people and from Nehru.

The Americans spend billions of dollars providing aid [to other countries]. Their aid also takes the form of gifts, that is, useful facilities of one kind or

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another. In doing this they are always pursuing their own aims. Being a capitalist country, the United States doesn’t give any gifts unless it can extract something useful in exchange. A gift they give might be a concession to process some raw material or to organize some sort of production, some manufacturing operation, on the territory of the recipient country, but they extract enormous profits from “gifts” like that. At the same time they strengthen their military influence in such a country.

We are guided by the teachings of the great Lenin and are inspired by fraternal feelings toward the peoples of all countries. When we offer aid, we are not pursuing the aim of extracting any kind of material advantages or subordinating that people or country to us. We simply want to win their friendship and sympathy, to unite our common efforts in the struggle to ensure peace and the prosperity of all peoples of the world, but the internal arrangements [the social, economic, and political system] in each country is the business of its people. Of course we do everything we can to accelerate people’s understanding of the progressive nature of our society, built on the foundation of the teachings of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. But we have to be patient in all of this. Again I repeat: This is profoundly and essentially an internal matter [for each country].

Finally, later on, good relations did develop between Afghanistan and us. Even today that’s how our relations stand. After a while Afghanistan stopped waiting for us to make another aid proposal. They themselves began to take the initiative, asking us for aid. It was necessary to build a road through the mountains, including the need to drill tunnels through the mountains. This work was accomplished. In that country there were no railroads [because of the mountainous terrain]; there were only paved roads—main arteries that linked one province with another and through which the economic blood of the country flowed. Roads have colossal importance for them. The newly built road that we provided stretched for several hundred kilometers from Kushka on the Soviet border to the south,24 toward Pakistan, with a branch line from there to Kabul. The road we built took on great economic and strategic importance, although it cost the USSR dearly.

This road gives Afghanistan the possibility of shipping freight and transferring troops, if necessary, to the border with Pakistan. In principle, our own troops could also be sent down this road into the heart of Afghanistan. If a war was imposed on us, for example, by Iran [which was ruled by the proAmerican Shah Reza Pahlevi at the time], we might also be able to make use of this road. It was not easy for us to win the trust of the king and government of Afghanistan, to convince them that we would not abuse their trust, and

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that we were building this road for peaceful purposes. At the same time, we were providing security for our border in that sector. Afghanistan itself was not threatening us, but its territory, if we did not have friendly relations with it, could be used by our adversaries. I met many times with the leaders of Afghanistan. Eventually the king agreed to come take a vacation with us in the Crimea.25 We had invited him previously, but he found polite ways of refusing and took his vacations in France [on the Riviera]. He and I went hunting together in the Crimea. We didn’t find any game, to be sure, because actually it was not the hunting season. We went hunting merely as a means of entertaining our guest and showing him the beauties of the Crimea and what kind of game animals existed there: deer, wild sheep (mouflon), and all sorts of game birds. I see from the press [in 1970] that since my retirement Afghanistan continues to show trust in us, as before.26

In my talks with the king and government of Afghanistan, I told them about our successes in oil and gas extraction on the Soviet side of the border with Afghanistan. I said: “Evidently you too have these riches in your country, and they are of great importance for developing your economy. It’s necessary to carry out some prospecting for oil and gas reserves and other useful minerals. Why would these wealthy deposits exist only along the border and not extend into your territory? Of course they exist in your country, and all you need to do is get at them.” My interlocutors looked at me intently, but remained restrained and reserved at first. Later they proposed that we do some prospecting for mineral wealth, but strictly on the basis of contractual obligations. We found large gas deposits there. The Afghans have now offered to repay us for the work of our geologists and for the materials we provided for the industry of Afghanistan. The repayment would be in kind, with natural gas.

Of course people with a limited outlook might object: “Why do that? We could have spent those resources to meet our own people’s needs.”

That is a justified argument, but then you would be following a different kind of policy, leaving your neighbor in poverty. But that couldn’t continue for long; relations would begin to grow cold and could turn hostile. The American capitalists would propose to help Afghanistan exploit its mineral wealth. From that they would extract profits for themselves, but Afghanistan would receive something useful, and we would receive only harm as a result. The mood of the Afghan leaders and people would turn against the Soviet Union. Hostile forces on the territory of Afghanistan would direct their policies against us. In the end, military bases would be built on our neighbor’s territory. To counter this military threat, we would then have to spend many times more in the way of resources than we had given Afghanistan as gifts.

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That’s how the matter should be understood from the point of view of the interests of the state and not from the point of view of splitting hairs. You have to bear the burden of expenditure in advance, so that in the future you can make enormous gains, both in the material sense and in the form of friendship.

How did our relations with Iran proceed? It was a very complicated and difficult process. Its roots went back to the tsarist era. Russia was trying to impose its dominance over Persia and bend that country to the will of the Russian empire. Russian occupation troops were stationed in Persia. At one time this policy cost Russia the life of the remarkable dramatist Griboyedov, who had been sent as Russia’s ambassador to Tehran.27 During World War II the father of the present shah28 followed a pro-German policy, and therefore the USSR, in agreement with Britain, was forced to occupy Iran again, and its territory was divided in half [into a Soviet sphere of influence in the north and a British sphere of influence in the south]. That left its mark on our relations, although our only aim was to secure our southern border. It’s always true that a country that sends its troops onto the territory of another country, even when it is fulfilling some sort of obligation or gives appropriate explanations, risks losing the friendship [of the occupied country]. So a bad taste has been left from the past, and the current ruling Shah-in-Shah does not allow that to be forgotten.29 After World War II we began to withdraw our troops from Iran, but Stalin delayed the withdrawal. Then a civil war unfolded in Iranian Azerbaijan.30 The shah of Iran understood that the civil war was organized by us, and the partisan guerrilla fighters were supplied with our weapons. In the end the government forces suppressed the movement, and some of the guerrilla fighters fled across the border into our country. Again this left unpleasant traces in relations between Iran and us.

Taking advantage of the situation, the United States began to build military bases in Iran, aimed against us.31 The shah denied there were any such bases, but we didn’t believe him. We didn’t have a firmly established border with Iran, and there was a dispute over the line of demarcation that existed. [In 1956] we invited the shah for talks on this subject, agreed to establish a clearly delineated border, and signed a protocol to that effect along with a geographical map [delineating the border].32 We proposed that work begin on building a hydroelectric power plant on a river that forms the border between the Soviet Union and Iran [the Aras River].33 The shah did not immediately accept our proposals. Now I read in the papers that such work is being carried out. The waters of this river will begin to bring benefits to both the USSR and Iran, because they will be used to irrigate the land and grow crops of cotton and fruit. The people themselves will decide what is most advantageous to grow.

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I will allow myself to make the point again that this is a very important matter. In order to earn trust and confidence, one must undergo material expenditures. They will be repaid with interest, with plenty to spare, when relations of trust and friendship develop, and perhaps even an allied relationship.

It is better to bear the cost of useful expenditures, especially in the form of gifts and the organization of production in the neighboring country, than to suffer the costs of military construction and fortification that never pay anything back to anyone. They bring only death to our neighbors and to our own people. We should not regret our expenditures on strengthening friendly relations, because, as the saying goes, from doing good you can expect only good from your neighbor. We are now reaping positive fruits from the resources we spent strengthening our friendly relations with the countries on our borders. We have ensured the security of our borders in the form of guarantees that our neighbors will not be used against us by our enemies.

It’s pleasant for me now to read in the papers a statement by the shah of Iran about the policy of friendship in relations with our country. We really had to pay a lot and had to earn this type of statement; to put it crudely, we had to demonstrate our peaceful policy in deeds, not words. Even the shah, whose attitude toward us was very hostile, said in his latest statement, made about a month ago [in 1970], that the border between Iran and the Soviet Union was a border with a friendly country and that now Iran has the very best friendly relations with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union provides Iran with economic aid, technical aid, and so forth.

Today I heard on the radio that the building of the dam on the border river between our two countries will be completed this year. This is also an expression of friendly relations, because it’s impossible to build a structure like that on a border when relations are not stable. People might say: “We did a lot for China, but it took the road of hostility toward the Soviet Union anyway.” What of it? Such things happen. But we are not to blame for that. Even in the situation that has developed now between the Soviet Union and China, where it might seem that there is glaring evidence that we shouldn’t have spent what we did, I think our policy was correct. We did what we did in order to boost the Chinese economy and strengthen it on the road of building socialism. We helped sincerely so that our friend could develop, could build up its own economy, and consolidate its independence, just as we had done after the October revolution. But things turned out differently. Anything is possible. You can expect practically anything from people. Undeniably, Mao Zedong has carried out and is carrying out an incorrect policy. But I am deeply convinced that our friendship left a profound mark in the

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consciousness of the Chinese people. As one might say, the Mao Zedongs of this world come and go, but the people of China remain. The time will come when Mao Zedong is no more, and his followers will no longer exist, and then the useful and healthy seed that we planted in China will sprout and begin to develop further.

In 1959 China started military operations against India, and this put us in a difficult position.34 We made a statement that we had fraternal relations with China, that we stood on the common ground of building socialism. And what could bring our two peoples more closely together than the common aim of fighting for a better future? But that better future must not come at the expense of other nations! With our policies we are doing everything to raise the living standards of the Soviet people and not to harm our neighbors. We wish that everyone else would do the same. Then suddenly a war like this broke out! We had to choose. We considered India a friendly country, and we wished the same thing for its people that we wished for ourselves. However, China posed the question point blank [as to which side we were on]. The USSR had to make clear its position without any qualifications. If we supported India, we’d be coming out against fraternal China. India was a capitalist country, and it had not even made any claims that it was trying to build socialism or that it would build socialism in the future, whereas China was a socialist state. If we did not support China, we would be creating disunity in our struggle for a progressive future. If we took a neutral position, this neutrality would in fact rebound against us because it would do harm to China and to the socialist camp as a whole. Many complicated and difficult questions arose, and we had to call on all our resources to find the correct position.

Immediately after my return from the United States [at the end of September 1959], it was necessary for me to set out for Beijing for the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Chinese revolution [October 1, 1949]. A critical situation had been reached in our relations with China at that point, and if I personally had not headed our delegation, people in Beijing might have thought we had turned away from them, that our relations were cooling off. Therefore the Soviet delegation was headed by me as first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers [the equivalent of prime minister]—those were the posts I held at the time. So I had to go directly “from the ship to the ballroom,” as the saying goes.35 I had just returned from America, and I immediately had to get on a plane and fly to Beijing. I felt no enthusiasm. I felt that what awaited us there was not going to be simple at all. Not easy at all. I knew that everything would be done with excessive formality in receiving the Soviet delegation. I didn’t expect

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the inner warmth that I had felt between us earlier. Mao had made a policy turn of 180 degrees. He aspired to the role of leader of the international Communist movement. This egoistic position prompted him to oppose the CPSU and the other fraternal Communist parties. And from the Sino-Indian border there came press reports of casualties on both sides. I had little hope that anything useful could be retrieved from this situation, and on the eve of the celebration my mood was not at all a happy one.

In the course of the conflict the Indian army suffered greater losses, because it had less recent military experience and inferior weapons. The Chinese Communists, for their part, had been fighting against Chiang Kaishek for many decades, and they had fought against other domestic and foreign enemies. The Chinese army had developed skills, trained cadres, and each soldier was well-prepared in military respects. What did the voice of the Soviet Union sound like in the midst of this atmosphere? We were obliged to publish a statement by TASS.36 The TASS statement expressed regret that this conflict had arisen between two great nations: our brother and friend, the Chinese people, and our friend, whom we regarded with respect and sympathy, the Indian people. We did not try to analyze who was right or who was to blame. Otherwise we would have had to condemn one side and call it the aggressor. We ourselves were not particularly clear on this question. We did not know the details of the situation and did not even fully understand what had caused the conflict. We simply wanted to express our view as a peace-loving country with the hope that India and China would exert every effort to end the war and reestablish good relations.

When we drew up this declaration, we understood in advance that it would not receive an intelligent reception in Beijing. After all, China had started the fighting. India was too weak at that time and could not have started military operations, understanding that it would be doomed to defeat. No sensible person would have done that, and we considered Nehru sensible and not at all a warlike person. When I arrived in Beijing, the Chinese organized the appropriate welcome according to accepted procedures, but the coldness in their speeches and the looks on their faces could not be missed by anyone. The spectacle before us lacked the sincerity that had existed at the analogous celebration in 1954. In the course of our talks, Beijing expressed its dissatisfaction with our statement published by TASS. They asked: “Why did you make a statement like that, in such form and with such content? It’s a pro-Indian statement and it’s directed against China.” I explained our position. But the Chinese leaders attacked Nehru verbally; they really let him have it, calling him

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an imperialist, an agent of the United States, and an evildoer. What epithets didn’t they think up to award Nehru with!

We couldn’t agree with them, and I asked: “What do you want? This war is being waged over some scraps of border territory. If the existing border isn’t right, it should simply be corrected. But there are diplomatic means for accomplishing that.” In reply they said that they had made such attempts but nothing had come of them. But I didn’t back down. I said: “The regions where this dispute is being waged with arms in hand are sparsely inhabited mountainous regions, of little use to either side. Are there any vital interests there? Why make a show of intolerance over the existing borders, which were established only god knows when?”

They said: “No, no. Those are important regions. We cannot surrender them. That is Chinese land, which was seized by the British when Britain ruled India and India was its colony.”37

I asked: “When was the last time there was a war between India and China? I don’t know this subject. Help me to understand it.”

No one was able to give me a reply.38

So I said: “So then, why now, when India has freed itself from colonial oppression and become an independent country, and China has also freed itself from the exploiters and foreign oppressors who had been sitting on your backs, why should a dispute between your two newly liberated countries reach the point of war? Nehru, to be sure, is a capitalist politician, but of all the capitalist politicians he is the most intelligent and is pursuing a rational policy, adhering to neutrality and nonalignment with any military bloc and noninterference in the internal affairs of other countries.”

When I heard the same kind of remarks as before, I continued: “Let’s say that you succeed in removing Nehru from the leadership as a result of this war. Do you expect that a new government in India will have better relations with the socialist countries, including China? I don’t expect so. If Nehru is removed from the leadership, he’ll be succeeded by someone who will pursue an antisocialist and antidemocratic policy in general and will move toward rapprochement with the United States.

“Whether India will decide to take the road of socialism is the internal affair of the Indian people. What do you want a war for? You’re turning people against the socialist countries this way. People will take a mistrustful attitude toward your policies and say: ‘Here you are behaving in such a mercenary way. India is a very peace-loving country, and its policies are based on the pacifist idea of nonresistance to evil, as long as it is not attacked directly.’”

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Actually, Nehru was not exactly that kind of person. I saw and know of armed actions he took “against evil,” when India had border conflicts with Pakistan. But the policy that Nehru pursued in general impressed us.

In reply I again heard curses and epithets directed against Nehru and India. The Chinese said they would shed as much blood as necessary but would not surrender one scrap of their territory.

The celebrations [in Beijing] ended and the day for my departure arrived. All the Chinese leaders came to the airport to see me off. We had one more conversation there, which was deliberately organized with the intention of directly attacking the USSR. Chen Yi, the foreign minister,39 was assigned the task of conducting this aggressive conversation with me on behalf of the Chinese side. The others remained silent, making only occasional comments. Quite a long time has gone by since them. Time is the best test of the correctness of any position. Time has confirmed the rationality of the Soviet line taken in those years. Today I’m very pleased by the fact that we showed courage then and did not retreat. We went through a difficult experience but chose a correct basis for deciding our policy.

Long before the conflict with China, India had begun negotiations with us for the purchase of licenses, blueprints, and technical documentation for the production of MIG-21 [supersonic] fighters.40 This plane was no longer a secret to anyone. We had also sold MIG-21s to Egypt and Yugoslavia. After the conflict began, we faced the question: “What reply should we give India about these aircraft?” Of course China would blow things out of all proportion, shouting that we were giving military support to India in this border conflict by giving arms to India [in the form of the MIG-21s]. We agonized over this for a long time. We knew that an internal struggle was also going on in India. Some people advocated purchase and production of the MIG-21. Others were opposed to it and suggested that American aircraft should be acquired instead. The United States had agreed to provide the necessary blueprints and technical information.

What would it have meant for us not to sell the MIG-21s to India? It would have meant pushing India away. It would have meant giving her motivation to go buy licenses from America. Then India would have been tied in with the American aviation industry for the production of modern fighter planes. After weighing all the pros and cons, we decided that the Sino-Indian conflict was temporary, that the time would come when Mao would sober up; the conflict would be ended and forgotten. The Chinese know how to turn their face in the necessary direction when they want to, and to the necessary number of degrees, to smooth over everything that had gone before. We decided to

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carry out our promises, make the contract official, and ship several planes to Delhi. This could not have had any significance in terms of the use of those planes in the war. In India there were no trained cadres who could quickly master the art of flying these planes. This was a purchase that looked to the future. We granted the licenses for production without keeping it secret. We announced it publicly. Of course China immediately used the news reports about this to promote its propaganda among the other Communist parties. But we gave the necessary explanations, and the absolute majority of Communist parties understood us correctly. Otherwise the USSR would have been forced to adapt itself to Maoist China.

People might say: “Here Khrushchev was talking about India, and he’s dragged China into the discussion.” Yes, politics and life itself are interconnected and intertwined like that. It’s hard to talk about one country without touching on other countries and the relations between them. Returning to India, I can say that we pursued a just and rightful policy line aimed at friendship with India. The same applies to Iran, Turkey, and even Pakistan. Pakistan didn’t properly understand our policies and judged them incorrectly for a long time. This happened under pressure from forces orienting toward the United States. Later Pakistan came to appreciate our peace-loving policy. Soviet engineers and geologists, who have gone to Pakistan, found oil, gas, and other useful mineral resources there. That created conditions that could serve as a starting point for progress in the economy of Pakistan. The question of disagreements between our two countries remains, but such problems should not be resolved by means of war.

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