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Stalin blasted Indian Communists

The Indian Communists's internecine wars sparked the fury of no less a figure than Joseph Stalin, one of the world's most hated and perhaps equally admired dictators.

Revealing this in his memoir, Stalin's interpreter and diplomat Nikolai Adyrkhayev said the Russian leader was a bitter critic of the Indian Communists and their activities in the early '50s. The book was released recently in Moscow.

Quoting eyewitnesses, Adyrkhayev said the scathing attack came at Stalin's meeting with a Japanese delegation in 1951. Commenting on the bitter rivalry and faction fights among the Japanese Communists, Stalin is reported to have said, ''In India they have wrecked the party and there is something similar with you.''

Hearing this, Japanese Communist party general secretary Kyuichi Tokuda shot back, ''We don't know what is happening in India. But the Japanese party is facing a split, as a section in the organisation opposes the majority. We have come to Moscow to seek comrade Stalin's advice to help us find a way out.''

The memoir also mentions Stalin's curt reply. ''We are no judges and will not decide whose position is right and whose is wrong,'' he said. ''It is your party which should decide.''

This has provided a picture completely different from what Stalin's detractors would make people believe about the dictator's calculative moves to impose his will not only on the politics at home but also on the international Communist movement.

Though there is no official record as such, many orientologists in Moscow recall that it was Stalin who impressed upon the Communist Party of India in the '50s to withdraw the armed struggle in the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh.

Following the tussle between the hard-liners and the moderates among the Indian Communists, a high-level Communist Party of India delegation reportedly reached Moscow to seek the Russian leader's opinion.

When Stalin was conveyed the CPI stand on the Telangana movement, he asked his foreign policy adviser Molotov to recount how many guns and armed soldiers were present to launch the historic October revolution.

As Molotov's figures ran into hundreds of thousands, Stalin, looking at the tiny Telangana on the map of India, told his guests, ''Hope you understand the realities.''

On their return, the CPI withdrew the armed struggle in Telangana.

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