In 1965, the Soviet Union and Pakistan began to engage in high level contacts between heads of government. Ayub Khan was hosted at the Kremlin and was taken to a dacha on the outskirts of Moscow where he played clay pigeon shooting with Soviet leaders. In his memoirs, Ayub records his conversations with Soviet leaders as covering everything from China, SEATO, and CENTO to Indo-Pak disputes. The Soviets facilitated Indo-Pakistani peace talks in Tashkent (now in Uzbekistan).
West Pakistan was separated from the Soviet Union by a narrow strip of the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan wedged between modern Pakistan and Tajikistan. The Soviets were also apparently eyeing a warm water port on the Indian Ocean. East Pakistan received a visit from the President of Yugoslavia in 1968.
Prior to 1971, the Soviet Union had limited contacts with the Awami League. On March 24, 1971, the Soviet consul general in Dhaka met the Awami League leadership to convey Moscow’s views on the constitutional crisis in Pakistan. They preferred a political solution even as West Pakistan prepared for a military assault.
Liberation War
The Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, signed on August 9, 1971, was a decisive factor in the geopolitics of the Bangladesh Liberation War. The friendship treaty cemented ties between India and the Soviet Union, while China and the United States pursued a rapprochement facilitated by Pakistan. The Soviet Union used its veto to strike down draft resolutions tabled in the UN Security Council which would have undermined the war effort of Bangladesh and India.
The Soviet veto was strategically vital in ensuring the success of Bangladesh-India Allied Forces in December 1971, which led to the surrender of Pakistan. At the UN Security Council, the Soviets shielded India from premature calls for a ceasefire. This indirectly benefitted the Mukti Bahini, which was busy conducting operations to drive out Pakistani occupation forces from Bangladesh with Indian military aid.
Post-liberation early years (1972 - 1975)
Among the first countries to recognize Bangladesh were Eastern European nations, including East Germany, Poland, and Bulgaria. The former Yugoslavia also expressed solidarity with the newly independent state. The USSR established diplomatic relations with Bangladesh on January 25, 1972.
As prime minister, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman undertook his first bilateral visit outside South Asia to the Soviet Union between March 1 and 3 of 1972. He held talks with Soviet premier Alexey Kosygin and general secretary Leonid Brezhnev. During this visit, the two countries issued a Joint Declaration which outlined support for national liberation movements, including the Palestinian cause in the Middle East; a condemnation of racial discrimination and apartheid, which was prevalent in South Africa; and the principle of disarmament.
One of my relatives (my mother’s eldest uncle Nurul Momen Khan, who served as the first Director General of National Security Intelligence) was part of Bangabandhu’s delegation in Moscow. He came back with fur caps as souvenirs for the rest of the family. The freezing weather in Moscow left a chill down his spine.
The Soviet Union offered to clear mines in the Chittagong harbour at free of cost. A salvage unit from the Soviet Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok was dispatched to Chittagong, with 22 vessels and an estimated 800 naval personnel. The salvage unit conducted mine clearing operations for 26 months. A Soviet sailor, Yuri V Redkin, lost his life during the operations and was buried in the Bangladesh Naval Academy.
Relations with other Warsaw Pact countries were warm and cordial. The Bangladesh prime minister met with the East German foreign minister Otto Winzer in Dhaka on January 17, 1972. The East German premier Horst Sinderman visited Dhaka in December 1974. The Bangladesh foreign minister Abdus Samad Azad toured capitals in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
The former Yugoslavia, led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito, emerged as a key ally of Bangladesh in the early 1970s. As a leading member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Yugoslavia enthusiastically welcomed Bangladesh on to the world stage. Marshal Tito toured Bangladesh in 1974.
Solidarity with the Eastern bloc was reflected in many of the Awami League’s domestic policies, including nationalization of banks, insurance companies, and key industries. Socialist planning heavily influenced the government’s economic policy. Relations with the Eastern bloc dramatically cooled down after 1975. Bangladesh dropped many of its early socialist policies and moved towards the market economy.
In foreign policy, however, Bangladesh continued to chart the middle path. It refrained from entertaining Asian collective security proposals floated by the Soviets. Bangladesh’s foreign policy was independent of both the Eastern and Western blocs.
Umran Chowdhury works in the legal field.
