Ideology and Soviet Policy towards Colonial and Ex-Colonial States with Special Reference to India 1917 – 1971

The success of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia made Lenin and his successors not only the rulers of the Soviet Union but also mentors of the international communist movement. Inevitably, the question of communist attitude to nationalist movements in the colonial world, and in the post-world War II period, to the new nationalist regimes of the ex-colonial states had to be decided by the Soviet leaders from time to time. This policy naturally changed over the years. The article seeks to analyse the relative influence of ideology and Soviet State interests on the policies enunciated over the years.

Chinese Communist Attitudes Towards Buddhism in Chinese History

In the journal Hsien-tai Fo-hsueh (Modern Buddhism), September 1959, there appeared a long article entitled “Lun Tsung-chiao Hsin-yang Tzu-yu” (“A Discussion Concerning Freedom of Religious Belief”), by Ya Han-chang, which was originally published in the official Communist ideological journal Hung Ch'i (Red Flag), 1959, No. 14. Appearing as it did in Red Flag it is justifiable to conclude that the views expressed in it represented the accepted Communist attitude toward religion. In this article, Ya wrote that the basic policy of the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Republic of China is to “recognise that everyone has the freedom to believe in a religion, and also that everyone has the freedom not to believe in a religion.”