THE LEFT IN INDIA'S FREEDOM MOVEMENT AND IN FREE INDIA 5 the whole country. Gandhfs programme of triple boycott, his slogan of "Swaraj in one year', united campaigns undertaken by the Congress and the Muslim leaders throughout the country—all these brought into action hundreds of thousands of young men and women, the first countrywide mass upsurge witnessed in India. Impact of Russian Revolution Parallel to this internal development was the international development—the October Revolution in Russia. Indian revolutionaries living and working abroad began to converge on Moscow, while several people working in India for the revolutionary cause left the country. Braving the hazards of a trek over the Himalayas, the latter landed first in Afghanistan and then in the Asian Republics of Russia. Revolutionary groups operating fiom Kabul in Afghanistan, Tashkent in one of the Eastern Republics of the Soviet Union and in Moscow itself came into contact with the Soviet Communist Party, many of them having personal interviews with Lenin himself. Moved by the i spiring slogan of self-determ. nation for oppressed nationalities give'n by the Soviet Government and the Russian Communist Party, they took the side of the Soviets, many of them participating personalty in the defence of the Soviet State against the attacks of the reactionaries in the Civil War. Their very stay abroad and the stories of their activities influenced large numbers of revolutionaries in India itself. A new dimension was thus given to the perspectives and plans of the earlier revolutionaries. Those who, during the years preceding the war and, during the war itself, were trying to get material and military assistance from Britain's imperialist rivals, started thinking of getting the same assistance from Soviet Russia. Many of them committed themselves to the idea of communism, though their understanding of communism was hazy and distorted. The Russian Communist Party, its leader Lenin and the Communist International paid great attention to the revolutionary emigres staying on the soil of their country not only from India but from other Asian countries, particularly China, Korea, Iran and Turkey. Groups and organisations of Communists hailing from these oppressed Asian countries were formed and the specific pro lems they raised came under discussion at the First and Second Congresses of the Communist International. Lenin himself took personal interest in and gave a lot of his time to understand the problems raised by the comrades coming from these countries. Patient Work by Lenin Finding that many of these emigre comrades had a poor understanding of the theory and were equally lacking in the understanding of the concrete conditions of the struggle in their respective countries, Lenin worked patiently to combat their simplistic ideas of communism, their efforts to transplant the Bolshevism of Soviet Russia to countries which had very little resemblance to pre-revolutionary Russia. Cautioning against painting