Struggle in Soviet Russia - Chapter 648

In August, Moscow has just entered the midsummer season, but in Kolkata, India, thousands of kilometers away, the weather is already unbearably hot.

In the northern section of the city, Balakpur, a shanty area near the Hooghly River, the raging flames have obscured the entire city for a whole night. When another morning comes, the thick stench of corpses is wrapped in coke. The breath of the river permeates the entire river, and together with the smoke lingering over the city, there are countless vultures, these carrion-eating guys are like flies that are eyeing stinky meat, even if someone shoots to drive them away, There is no way to drive them away from the city.

Calcutta is a deformed city. A small area with the Governor’s Palace as the core is the so-called “white area”. The people living there are all white people who are the masters of this country, mainly the British. This urban area has complete facilities and many luxury houses. Whether it is public security or the layout of the streets, it is very complete and in place. Outside the “white area”, there is the so-called “Indian area” where Indians live, and the locals in Calcutta call it “black town”.

In the black town, all the places you can see are low and broken shacks. There is no electricity, no transportation facilities, not even the basic drainage facilities in the city. The broken wooden shacks are connected one by one, and the streets are narrow. , Sewage flows across, once a fire or something happens, a large block of blocks will often be burned to white ground, causing countless casualties.

Even in this hellish area, people who are almost poor and white cannot live a peaceful life at all. What they have to face is not only the poverty that is difficult to get rid of for a lifetime, but also the poorer the poorer the more they cannot get rid of it. Another disaster – religion.

It’s very interesting, and at the same time, it’s very incredible that the poorer people tend to be, the more religious they are. When they can’t eat or wear clothes, they still believe that there are many omnipotent gods in this world. These gods overlook the world, reward the good and punish the evil, give blessings to those who accumulate virtue and do good deeds, and punish those who do a lot of evil. Sent to hell.

Of course, religious believers like this are relatively rational. In this world, there is a type of religious believers who only allow events to exist in the kind of **** they believe in. Only the **** they believe in is the right **** and represents the world. The existence of all order, and other religions, the gods that others believe in, are all aliens, and those who believe in aliens are the so-called pagans.

All infidels be damned!

So, just two days ago, a fire between Hindus and Muslims broke out in Kolkata, a large-scale fire that almost burned the whole of Kolkata and lasted for a whole day.

In this magical land of India, the fire between Hindus and Muslims is not new. They will fight each other from time to time. Take Kolkata, for example, between Hindus and Muslims in this city, It’s almost a fight every once in a while, but it’s the first time that it has really caused a global sensation.

More than 5,000 people were killed, more than 20,000 people were injured, and most of the city was set on fire. This is the most direct consequence of this fire. The news spread all over the world yesterday, detonating global public opinion.

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Moscow, Kremlin.

Carrying a briefcase in his hand, Victor walked briskly up the front steps, greeting the oncoming staff while fumbling in his pocket to find the key to his office.

It was a little stuffy in the narrow office. Victor put the briefcase on the desk, turned on the air conditioner first, then pulled on the collar, took off his coat, and threw it directly on the hanger.

Compared with the air conditioners of later generations, the air conditioners of this year still have a lot of gaps, at least, their cooling effect is not so good.

In order to cool himself down as much as possible, Victor poured himself another glass of wine and threw two ice cubes in. Then, he went back to his desk and lit a cigarette.

Just now, he went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to attend a meeting, a meeting on the British issue.

The religious conflict that broke out in Calcutta shocked the whole world. Moscow, India has been paying attention to it. Naturally, it responded immediately. Comrade Molotov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, met with the British Chargé d’affaires in the Soviet Union. Frank Roberts, to whom he expressed the alliance’s deep concern over India.

It must be emphasized that the attitude expressed by the alliance to the British side is “deep concern”, not a serious accusation. You must know that after the religious conflict in Calcutta, Washington’s attitude was a serious accusation. Mr. Truman’s spokesman The media’s statement is that the United States believes that the British colonial system in India has come to bankruptcy. From a humanitarian point of view, London should choose a decent way to leave India.

It must be admitted that the impact of the religious conflict in Calcutta is too bad. The pictures published in the “Washington Post”, whether it is the dead bodies in the streets or the vultures covering the roof, are all horrifying after seeing them. , no matter from which angle you consider it, such a tragedy is sensational and unacceptable to modern social morality.

The cause of the whole conflict was Jinnah’s idea of ​​”Partition of India and Pakistan”. From the perspective of Muslims, he believed that after independence, India could not be a whole, but should be divided into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. , he led the Muslim League, rejected the five seats granted to Muslims in Congress, insisting on Pakistan’s autonomy.

The position of the Muslim League was criticized by the Congress Party as “a betrayal of India”, and thus the conflict between the two sides began.

Of course, when the conflict initially broke out, its intensity was not so great. The most direct reason for its intensification was that the British Governor in India, Wei Feier, first agreed with the idea of ​​partition of India and Pakistan, and then he was in conflict with the idea of ​​partition of India and Pakistan. When the Congress party talks, it supports the Congress party to unilaterally organize a provisional government. In addition, after the religious conflict broke out, he also arranged for people to instigate the two sides to expand the fight, and on the other hand, arranged for the military and police to suppress the two sides. Of the 5,000 people who were lying on the street, I am afraid that a large number of them were shot and killed by the military and police.

Marshal Archibald Percival Wifeel, who served as governor of India for four years, thought he knew the country very well and was capable of breaking the political deadlock here and continuing the fertile continent. Remain within British colonial territory. But it turned out that he knew nothing about the country, and all his efforts not only failed to keep India in the British colonial territory, but accelerated its secession.

A religious conflict in Calcutta turned the British colonial policy into a target of public criticism. Almost overnight, the whole world was flooded with criticism of London, and the associated effect was that all British colonies began to become turbulent. This includes Libya in North Africa and Tripolitania’s demonstrations seeking independence, which broke out on the third day after the religious conflict in Calcutta. If there is no connection between the two, I am afraid no one will believe it.

So, the trouble facing the British now is unprecedented, and their anxiety is predictable.

It was in this context that the Coalition made a sort of courtship to the British, a nonchalant “deep concern” enough to make London aware of the Coalition’s shift in its diplomatic stance.

This is also the case. Just after the meeting between Comrade Molotov and Frank Roberts, the intelligence officers of the People’s Commissariat for National Security listened to the telegram sent by Frank Roberts to London. In this telegram, he He elaborated on the statement made by Comrade Molotov on behalf of the Union this time, and at the same time made a suggestion to London: he believed that the Soviet Union’s attitude towards Britain had undergone some subtle changes, although he did not think that the Soviet Union pursued communism. An alliance of states with the Confederation of Socialism can become a trustworthy friend of the British Empire, but it is obviously wrong to simply define a relationship lacking friendship as hostile. Therefore, he suggested that London should revise its policy towards the Soviet Union and maintain as much as possible a relationship with Moscow. A pragmatic diplomatic relationship based not on mutual trust but on interests.

This telegram from Frank Roberts is very important for Moscow to further establish its policy towards Britain.

For Victor, he is also very satisfied with the appearance of this telegram, because the existence of this telegram shows that his previous proposals are now practically feasible. For a period of time, if there are more interactions that are beneficial to each other, then the three suggestions he made before will hopefully be passed.

Don’t think that these things are irrelevant to Viktor himself, on the contrary, if his proposal can be approved by the Central Committee, it means that he already has a certain say in the foreign affairs of the alliance. Why? Because he has actually participated in the decision-making process of the alliance’s foreign policy, in other words, the diplomatic proposals he put forward are already eligible for the approval of the Central Committee. In this way, when it comes to diplomatic issues next time, others will not take his views seriously.

How are young cadres trained? How did it get the attention of leaders step by step? Isn’t that a process.