In this part of the world there have been only faint echoes of this startling event but in Russia and Europe there is enormous excitement over Stalin’s spectacular comeback, after more than half a century of oblivion, in the hearts and minds of the Russian people. The Russian authorities have reinstated verses in Stalin’s praise that had been erased, like everything else about him, after Nikita Khurschchev’s “secret speech” at the historic 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956.

Remarkably, this has happened even though Georgia, Joseph Stalin’s home province, is a separate and sovereign country now, no longer a part of the Russian Empire. No wonder then that the memories of three important episodes in this country associated with the Soviet Union’s tyrannical dictator and inspiring wartime leader, are flooding my mind.

The first dates back to March 5, 1953, the day “Uncle Joe” died. In New Delhi Jawaharlal Nehru paid an eloquent tribute to him in Parliament, calling him a “man of peace”, got both houses adjourned and declared a day’s holiday. The next morning there was some embarrassment at Teen Murti because it transpired that the Soviet Union, though in deep mourning, hadn’t stopped working even for a minute.

Secondly, Ajoy Ghosh, the general secretary of the then undivided Communist Party of India was the Indian “fraternal delegate” at the 20th Congress. Like other foreign comrades, he was kept out of the secret sitting. But before they left Moscow, they were all made privy to what had happened. Even so, on arrival in Delhi he gave me an interview stoutly denying that there had been any denigration of Stalin. The so-called secret speech, he claimed, was the invention of the “Western capitalist press controlled by imperialists”. But the cat was soon out of the bag, and when the next issue of New Age came out I was horrified to find that Ghosh had announced that the reporter who interviewed him had “misunderstood” him “completely”. Privately, however, he told me courteously that I should understand his compulsions. “Our original decision was not to share this information even with the Central Committee”.

... contd.