The USSR was one of the first few countries that independent India established diplomatic relations with, and the first ambassador sent to Moscow was none other than the then Prime Minister's sister, Mrs. Vijya laxmi Pandit. This appointment was only a measure of importance that India attached to relations with a country that had stood for liberation of suppressed humanity. Despite the warmth shown by India, however, Stalinist Russia in the earlier phase did not reciprocate India's sentiments fully. Having defeated the mighty Hitler, and being a great military power herself, Russia did not attach much importance to a country which professed adherence to non - violence (Hadn't Stalin asked - even though apocryphically -- how many divisions does the Pope have?). Gandhi was considered a "charlatan and a mountebank", India's talk of non-alignment was dubbed as "only a cloak to cover collaboration with Anglo US imperialists. "The USSR then divided the world into two camps as Zhadnov has maintained -- of the 'Imperialists' and the 'democratic' countries (Communist Bloc). If India was not with the camp of Latter, then it must be with the Imperialists. Then came the twentieth congress of Communist Party which exercised the ghost of Stalin. A new atmosphere of liberalism came to pervade Soviet Russia. She was not willing to open its windows to the world. And India, under Nehru, was partly responsible for the "opening out " of Russia to outside influences and as a result lessening the tensions. India's contacts with the Soviet Union since the mid-fifties have been close. Indians, however, felt convinced that all that the USSR seemed to be interested in the sub-continent is to keep it out of the American attempt to make it a part of the ring of "Containment" round the USSR.