VOKS and SSOD as the Agents of the USSR’s Cultural Diplomacy in India in 1954-1964

This research work is devoted to the study of the mechanisms of Soviet-Indian cultural cooperation during the leadership of N. Khrushchev. The chronological framework of this study is determined by the new foreign policy of the Soviet state. It was aimed at creating a positive image of the socialist model of development abroad and expanding contacts with non-socialist states. In the mid-1950s, cooperation between the USSR and India began to intensify, while the second one became a major, developing player in the Asian region, and also formed a movement against neocolonialism with the newly independent states. Cultural cooperation between these states was carried out through the activities of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, which in 1958 was reorganized into the Union of the Soviet Friendship Societies. The study of these organizations’ activity is central in this work. It was made through the study of their documents, stored in the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF). Also, the study of Soviet cultural diplomacy is impossible without identifying the images created by Soviet actors for the Indian population. In order to accomplish this task, the study was written with analizing the Soviet magazine The Soviet Land, published by the Soviet Embassy in India, and brochures and catalogs from exhibitions of Indian art in the USSR. The purpose of this work is to reveal how cultural diplomacy was carried out in India, how the process of transferring the positive image of the USSR was arranged and on what ideas it was built.