movement, a position that was buttressed by an increasingly close collaboration between left-wing Catholics and Communists.

Other groups, however, have clout in the Spanish labor movement too. There is, for example, the Organización Revolucionaria de Trabajadores (Revolutionary Organization of Workers), which is very strong both in Madrid and Navarre. Three additional trade union bodies compete with the PCE from outside the Comisiones, and while it is fair to say that none is national in scope, each has a significant following in certain regions: the Unión General de Trabajadores (the General Union of Workers-the trade union branch of the PSOE) in northern Spain and in Madrid; the Unión Sindical Obrera (The Syndicalist Labor Union) in the Basque country; and the Oposición Sindical Obrera (Syndicalist Labor Opposition) in Madrid as well as in Valencia.

Furthermore, it is important not to overestimate the PCE's political strength. Much of it stems from the current weakness of the political Center in Spain, and this state of affairs could change if such people as Fraga Iribarne, José María de Areilza, and Pío Cabanillas manage to organize independent and "moderate" political associations. That, in turn, depends on whether the most conservative Spanish elements succeed in preventing the Arias government from carrying out any political liberalization. So far, the "ultras" have been able to do so. Yet, recent developments tend to indicate that their power to maintain the status quo may be waning: in early March, Arias Navarro reshuffled his cabinet and ousted five ministers, including José Utera Molina, cabinet representative of the official state party, the National Movement, and Arias Navarro's most prominent critic within the government.

In addition, the military continues to retain its status as the most powerful force in Spanish society. Should the existing regime find itself increasingly isolated, the military might be tempted to intervene, and while a coup under the aegis of nationalist, leftwing elements cannot be ruled out-especially in the wake of events in Portugal last April-a putsch under quite different auspices appears more likely. Rightist groups do, after all, remain strong in the military establishment. The installation of rightist military government could, of course, prove highly damaging to the interests of the PCE.

68 Iribarne, currently Spain's ambassador to Great Britain, served as Franco's Minister of Tourism and Information from 1962 to 1969 and has been especially active in the last few months in trying to found a broad, centrist political association. Also prominent in these efforts has been de Areilza, a well-known Spanish diplomat who has been ambassador to the United States (1954-60) and France (1960-64). Cabanillas, Minister of Tourism and Information from January 1974 to the following October, is one of the most popular Spanish personalities. See the poll published in Informaciones (Madrid), Jan. 20. 1975.

1960's to achieve a more "balanced" role vis-à-vis the South Asian powers-specifically, to improve its relations with Pakistan while maintaining its longstanding friendship with India. A highlight of those efforts was Moscow's success in inducing Rawalpindi and New Delhi to suspend fighting over Kashmir in 1965 and to reach at least a temporary settlement of their differences at a conference convened in the Soviet city of Tashkent, with the USSR acting as mediator. Subsequently, Moscow negotiated an arms agreement with Pakistan. While the Soviet authorities failed in efforts to promote an Asian collective security system (an idea opposed by Pakistan and politely sidetracked by India) and were also rebuffed by Pakistan in a 1968 initiative to encourage regional economic cooperation, their quest for better relations with all of South Asia continued through 1970. This course was interrupted, however, by the traumatic events that overtook the subcontinent in 1971, starting with the outbreak of civil war in what was then East Pakistan in March and climaxing in another war between the Indians and the Pakistanis in December.

The civil war was the culmination of the long struggle of the Bengalis in Pakistan's eastern province-physically separated from the rest of the state by India's territory-to achieve political autonomy within a federal system and thus escape the traditional domination of West Pakistan.' The war was precipitated by the decision of former Pakistan President Yahya Khan to use military force to crush the Bengali movement and its political leadership, the Awami League, headed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which in turn declared East Pakistan's independence on March 26. In the ensuing conflict, hundreds of thousands of Bengalis were killed, and millions more took flight to India. Rahman himself was arrested and interned in West Pakistan.

Faced with the influx of some 7-10 million refugees, and fearful of the consequent threat to India's political stability and economic resources, New Delhi sought to enlist outside help in bringing pressure to bear on Yahya Khan to come to terms with the Bengalis. Moscow, fearing the consequences of chaos in the subcontinent, made the somewhat

3 United Pakistan, embracing territories primarily to the northwest but also to the northeast of India, was formally constituted as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan in 1947, upon gaining independence from Great Britain. By 1970, the Bengalis in the eastern province comprised about 55 percent of the total population of Pakistan, although they occupied well below half of its territory and were treated virtually as a colony by the regime in the West.

Part of a Soviet task force, sent at the request of the government of Bangladesh, engaged in clearing mines and sunken ships from the harbor of Chittagong.

-Wittek for ADN-Zentralbild via Eastfoto.

extraordinary decision to issue a public message to Yahya Khan in early April 1971, urging him to halt. the "bloodshed and repression" in East Pakistan and calling on him to reach a political settlement with the Awami League. This act of intervention in what Pakistan regarded as its own internal affair established a limited convergence of Moscow's and New Delhi's immediate strategic interests. Allowing the Awami League to set up a government-in-exile on Indian territory, New Delhi committed itself to the creation of a "Bangladesh" (literally, Bengal nation) either within or without the state of Pakistan. For some months, this was also Moscow's objective.

From the Soviet point of view, there probably would have been advantages to a settlement between Yahya Khan and Mujibur Rahman establishing an

4 For the text of the Soviet message signed by Nikolai Podgorny (Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet) and for other Soviet pronouncements during the 1971 crisis, see "The Soviet Union and the Struggle of the Bangladesh People," Soviet Review (Moscow), Supplement, Jan. 18, 1972.

autonomous Bengali province within a still united Pakistan. Such a settlement would have changed political alignments in the country, since the Awami League had won a solid majority of seats in the Pakistan National Assembly in the elections of December 1970 and was in a position to set up a government with a Bengali prime minister. Such an appointment would undoubtedly have led to a coalition of the League and the political leaders of the "have-not" provinces of the West, and thus to the isolation of the predominantly Punjabi militarybureaucratic power complex that had ruled Pakistan for 20 years and had tied the country into the United States' alliance system. A political shift of this sort would no doubt have produced a regime responsive, at the least, to economic cooperation with India and more disposed to collaborate with the USSR.

Only when the prospects for such developments appeared doomed did the Soviet authorities agree to back Indian military action against the Pakistanis. Even after the signing of a 20-year Indo-Soviet pact of friendship and cooperation in August, accompanied by shipments of arms to India, there were signs that Moscow would have preferred to avoid an Indo-Pakistan confrontation. Not until September, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited Moscow, did the Soviet authorities apparently agree to sanction Indian military intervention in East Pakistan should it become necessary. By late fall the die

5 India, Ministry of External Affairs, Bangladesh Documents, New Delhi, 1972, pp. 237-77. The minority party leaders rallied around the Awami League in March, directing their fire mainly at Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, head of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the largest party in the West and the one with the firmest base

in the Punjab. They rejected Bhutto's concept of "two Pakistans," for they feared that the PPP would impose a Punjabi domination of the smaller provinces and strongly opposed the revival of "One Unit," the administrative integration of the four West Pakistani provinces that Ayub Khan had instituted earlier. See Dawn (Karachi), March 16, 1971. For the negotiating position of the minority parties, see ibid., March 21 and 23, 1971, and Morning News (Karachi), March 25, 1971.

For a comprehensive account of the events of 1971, see the writer's chapter, "The Subcontinent," in William Griffith, Ed., When the Great Powers Realign, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, publication scheduled for the fall of 1975.

• Reporting evidently on the basis of an official briefing, Dev Murarka summed up the results of Mrs. Gandhi's conversations with the Soviet leaders in this fashion: "In the first place the Soviet side has stopped the impression of ambiguity [on the Pakistan issue], which it did before Mrs. Gandhi's visit to Moscow. In the second place, the Soviet side, in spite of its known and strongly expressed preference for peace, has accepted the idea that, if unavoidable, India can take very firm steps in East Bengal without being concerned about Soviet support at any level-political, economic or otherwise." See "Two-Fold Gains for India," Western Times (Ahmedabad), Oct. 16, 1971.

was cast: increasing Indian military pressure along the borders of East Bengal caused the Pakistanis to retaliate with air and ground attacks in western and northern India, prompting New Delhi in turn to launch a full-scale operation against Pakistani troops in the east. In this situation Moscow stood firmly behind its Indian ally, three times vetoing a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire, as well as supplying the necessary military hardware for a quick victory. On December 16 the Pakistani army was forced to surrender, and the independence of the People's Republic of Bangladesh became a de facto reality."

Soviet Theory and Strategy

Moscow's support of the Indian intervention in Pakistan constituted a momentous decision for the Soviet leadership. It committed the USSR to the dismemberment of a sovereign state and to a radical redrawing of the political map of the South Asian subcontinent. India's intervention was different from other such actions in the past in that it was made not on behalf of a government in power but on behalf of a revolutionary force opposing the "legitimate" regime; it was also the first intervention undertaken by a medium-level power to meet with success."

In the Soviet view, it was important to provide a theoretical justification for Moscow's support of India: the result was a modification of Soviet doctrine to defend the Bengali insurgency as a struggle for "national liberation," which, in Soviet theory, is as legitimate as class struggle. A recent formulation of this notion from a Soviet military source states:

Any war that is waged by a people for the sake of freedom and social progress, for liberation from exploitation and from national oppression or in de

7 Concerning the events on the subcontinent in 1971, the most useful analysis written from the Indian point of view is probably Mohammed Ayub and K. Subrahmanyan, The Liberation War, New Delhi, S. Chang & Co., 1972, pp. 156 ff. For a revealing and perceptive Pakistani account of the events, see G. W. Choudhury, The Last Days of United Pakistan: Emergence of Bangladesh, Bloomington, Ind., Indiana University Press, forthcoming. Among the most incisive analyses by American scholars, see Norman D. Palmer, "The New Order in South Asia," Orbis (Philadelphia), Winter 1972, and "South Asia and the Great Powers," ibid., Fall 1973; and Barnds, loc. cit.

It should also be noted that the upheaval in East Pakistan imposed an enormous burden of economic and social responsibility on India, a medium-rank power with serious problems of its own-a situation which again has no parallel in recent history.

fense of its state sovereignty against an aggressive attack, is a just war. . . . The main types of war rarely emerge in "pure" form; several types often intertwine and one type changes into another. . . . National liberation wars of oppressed peoples against colonialists may go hand in hand with civil war against internal reactionary forces."

The notion that the Bengali rebellion was a struggle for national liberation justifying outside intervention startled and disturbed many Third World governments with divisive national or ethnic problems of their own. In public statements, Soviet spokesmen seemed to make an effort to quiet such fears, claiming that other countries had been misled (by the Americans and the Chinese, inter alia) about the situation in Pakistan and alluding to the extreme nature of the geographic and ethnic absurdities that had characterized united Pakistan. At the same time, the Soviet position was clearly intended to serve notice that Moscow had the capability as well as the will to intervene in Third World conflicts on behalf of forces of national liberation and "progressive social changes."

While there is no reason to doubt the sincerity of Soviet references to the justness of Bangladesh's cause-indeed, the Soviets had for years expressed sympathy for the Bengalis' aspirations-it is also clear that theoretical considerations were probably the least important factor involved in Moscow's decision to support India's intervention in Pakistan.

The overriding impetus behind Moscow's course was, most certainly, the Soviet perception of the realignment of world forces brought about by the diplomatic and political breakthrough achieved in 1971 between the United States and the People's Republic of China. In Soviet eyes, this breakthrough posed an enormous threat, strengthening the PRC's hand vis-à-vis the USSR and also enhancing the

9 Marxism-Leninism on War and Army: A Soviet View, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1972, pp. 70 and 88; republished in the United States under the auspices of the US Air Force.

10 The apprehensions of the Third World countries were reflected in the voting in the UN General Assembly on an Argentine resolution of Dec. 7, 1971, calling for a cease-fire and a withdrawal of Indian and Pakistani troops to their own territories: 104 nations voted for the resolution and only 10 against, eight of them Communist countries. For a Soviet statement blaming the "unwarranted fears" of such nations on "American diplomacy," see Alexander Baryshev, For Peace and International Security, Moscow, Novosti Press, 1973, p. 64. The Soviets also took strong issue with the Chinese, who-predictably-debunked the "national liberation" theory and scored New Delhi and Moscow for interfering in Pakistan's internal affairs. For a summary statement of the Chinese view, see Jen-min Jih-pao (Peking), Jan. 31, 1972.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Prime Minister of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is welcomed by Soviet party chief Leonid 1. Brezhnev during a March 1972 visit to Moscow.

-V. Musselian for TASS via Sovfoto.

United States' ability to exploit the Sino-Soviet conflict in strategic maneuvering. The immediate consequence was to enhance India's importance to the Soviet Union and the USSR's importance to India." Since the mid-1950's, the basic aim of Moscow's pro-Indian policy had been to strengthen the country as an Asian counterweight to China; by the winter of 1971, with US President Richard Nixon in effect offering China a "legitimate sphere of influence" in Asia, it became all the more necessary to ensure that India--now treaty-bound to Moscow -emerge as the primary power in South Asia, and

11 To quote an Indian source at the time: "Of all the powers, the Soviet Union must be the most anxious and worried over the Sino-US thaw, [for] the Soviets have not many friends in Asia. The complementarity of Soviet and Indian interests is also clear. Moscow would probably welcome a better and more meaningful dialogue with India and many other countries of the world. India can utilize this opportunity for a franker and healthier relationship to mutual advantage." V. P. Dutt, "Sino-US Relations and India," Hindustan Times (New Delhi), July 31, 1971. See also Sisir Gupta, "The Great Powers and the Subcontinent," Journal (New Delhi, Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses), April 1972; and K. Subrahmanyan, "Power Growing Out of the Barrel of a Gun," Tribune (Ambala), July 27, 1971.