Books | Old Association

Friends of Soviet Union activities and growth of interest in the USSR as a Socialist country

In 1943, despite the fact that many prominent leaders if the Friends of Soviet Union movement were in prison for taking part in the famous Quit India movement, new organisations of the FSU appeared all over the country.

In October Revolution State Archives of the USSR, in Moscow, there is a letter sent to Moscow by D.P. Dhar (who later on became the Ambassador of Independent India to the USSR). On Friends of the Soviet Union letterhead, D.P. Dhar wrote:
Srinagar, 30 September 1943

Dear Comrade,

We have started a branch of the Friends of Soviet Union here. We want some literature on Soviet life and achievements. Com. Gladyshev of Tass agency, Delhi, asks us to write to you in this connection. I hope you will encourage us by sending some literature on the Soviet Union and oblige.

D.P. Dhar

Those days in Kashmir are remembered by Mr Motilal Misri, one of the founders of the Friends of Soviet Union in Kashmir in 1943 while still a student. According to him, “the first committee to function as a branch of the All-India Friends of the Soviet Union (FSU) was formed in 1942-43. Among the sponsors were eminent personalities like the late G.M. Sadiq, Ghulam Mohiuddin Kara, then a prominent leader of the National Conference, the late D.P. Dhar, the late Justice Jia Lal Kilam (then a leading advocate and an intellectual of high calibre), N.N. Raina (now Head of the Department of Physics, Kashmir University) and many others. It was during that period that the National Conference adopted a resolution at its Mirpur session characterising the Second World War as a people’s war after Hitler’s hordes had launched their attack against the bastion of socialism. The resolution said clearly that the USSR was the first socialist state and the defensive war it was fighting against the dark forces of