Page 44 - Understanding NCERT Histroy 09th

BOX - 5 (Page no. 46)
Writing about the Russian Revolution in India
Among those the Russian Revolution inspired were many Indians. Several attended the
Goyal Brothers Prakashan
Communist University. By the mid-1920s the Communist Party was formed in India. Its members
kept in touch with the Soviet Communist Party. Important Indian political and cultural figures
took an interest in the Soviet experiment and visited Russia, among them Jawaharlal Nehru and
Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote about Soviet Socialism. In India, writings gave impressions
of Soviet Russia. In Hindi, R.S. Avasthi wrote in 1920-21 Russian Revolution, Lenin, His
Life and His Thoughts, and later The Red Revolution. S.D. Vidyalankar wrote The Rebirth of
Russia and The Soviet State of Russia. There was much that was written in Bengali, Marathi,
Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.

Source F (Page no. 47)
An Indian arrives in Soviet Russia in 1920
‘For the first time in our lives, we were seeing Europeans mixing freely with Asians. On seeing
the Russians mingling freely with the rest of the people of the country we were convinced
that we had come to a land of real equality. We saw freedom in its true light. In spite of their
poverty, imposed by the counter-revolutionaries and the imperialists, the people were more
jovial and satisfied than ever before. The revolution had instilled confidence and fearlessness
in them. The real brotherhood of mankind would be seen here among these people of fifty
different nationalities. No barriers of caste or religion hindered them from mixing freely with
one another. Every soul was transformed into an orator. One could see a worker, a peasant or
a soldier haranguing like a professional lecturer.’
Shaukat Usmani, Historic Trips of a Revolutionary.

Source G (Page no. 47)
Rabindranath Tagore wrote from Russia in 1930
‘Moscow appears much less clean than the other European capitals. None of those hurrying
along the streets look smart. The whole place belongs to the workers … Here the masses have
not in the least been put in the shade by the gentlemen … those who lived in the background
for ages have come forward in the open today … I thought of the peasants and workers in
my own country. It all seemed like the work of the Genii in the Arabian Nights. [here] only
a decade ago they were as illiterate, helpless and hungry as our own masses … Who could
be more astonished than an unfortunate Indian like myself to see how they had removed the
mountain of ignorance and helplessness in these few years’.

Activity
(Page no. 47)
Q. Compare the passages written by Shaukat Usmani and Rabindranath Tagore. Read
them in relation to Sources C, D and E.
 What did Indians find impressive about the USSR?
 What did the writers fail to notice?
Ans. (a) What did Indians find impressive about the USSR?

At that time when these passages were written by Shaukat Usmani and Rabindranath,
India was ruled by the British. Caste and class differences were followed by the Indians
and the Indians were ignorant and backward also. They were impressed by the fact that
all persons in Russia were treated equally. In spite of them not being very prosperous,

History Class IX H-37