Svasti

“Nehru”に次の一節がある。

“[Nehru]… was irritated at the Nazi appropriation of the Indian symbol of good fortune, the swastika.”

「かぎ十字（卍）」や「まんじ」の由来は？「スワスティカ」の語源は、サンスクリット語で幸福や繁栄を意味する「スヴァスティ（svasti）」で、インドなど東洋のまんじは左旋回、右旋回の両方があるようだ。ナチスドイツの「ハーケンクロイツ」は右まんじがほとんどで、通常45度回転している。“Wikipedia”によると、タイ語のあいさつ“sawasdee”も同じ由来で、まんじやそれに派生するものはアジア、ヨーロッパだけでなく、アフリカやアメリカ先住民の文化にも見られるという。ナチスが採用した理由についてWikipediaは、「アーリア人とドイツ民族のつながりと民族の誇りを強調するため、目立ちやすい幾何学模様のスワスティカを党の象徴として使った」と解説している。迷惑したのは少林寺拳法だ。

インドのビール「Kingfisher」のデザインはびんも缶も美しい。

“Nehru”に話を戻すと、特に父親の死後、ガンディーを慕う気持ちが増すが、彼の西洋嫌いや断食など、極端な手法に戸惑う様子がよくわかる。英国との妥協を許さずスワラジ（swaraji）を目指すという彼の意見に近いのは、チャンドラ・ボース。米原さんが「打ちのめされるようなすごい本」で記していた不可触民（アンタッチャブルズ）に対して、独立式典でどのように振舞ったのかは、おそらく書かれていないだろう。

毛沢東、訪ソ

On 7 December 1949, Stalin arrived back in Moscow in time for two momentous events: the arrival of the new Chinese leader, Chairman Mao Tse-tung ant the celebration of his seventieth birthday… At noon on 16 December, Mao… arrived at Yaroslavsky Station where he was met by Molotov and Bulganin…. The visit started as awkwardly as it ended. Mao invited the Russians to a Chinese meal on the train but Molotov refused. Mao sulked….
At 6 p.m., Mao and Stalin met for the first time at the Little Corner. The two Communist titans of the century… aimed to seal America’s worst nightmare: a Sino-Soviet treaty that would be Stalin’s last significant achievement. Yet they observed each other coolly from the Olympian heights of their own self-regard. Mao complained of being ‘pushed aside for a long time’.
‘We’ve come to complete a certain task,’ said Mao. ‘It must be both beautiful and tasty’… which meant a treaty that was both symbolic and practical… Stalin’s first priority was protecting his Far Eastern gains, agreed at Yalta and confirmed in the Sino-Soviet treaty… Mao wished to save face, before signing away Chinese lands. This was stalemate. Mao suggested summoning Chou En-lai, his Premier to complete the negotiations.
… Molotov patronizingly tested Mao’s Marxist knowledge… After all, Molotov repeated prissily to Stalin, Mao ‘confessed he had never read Das Kapital’.
… Finally on 2 January, Stalin sent Molotov and Mikoyan to begin negotiations. Chou En-lai arrived on the 20 and started to negotiate with the new Foreign Minister, Vyshinsky, and Mikoyan. Mao and Chou were invited to the Kremlin only to be reprimanded by Stalin for not signing a critique of US Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s recent speech. When Mao grumbled about Stalin’s resistance to the treaty, Stalin retorted:
‘To hell with that! We must go all the way.’ Mao sulked even more. In the limousine out to Kuntsevo, the Chinese interpreter invited Stalin to visit Mao.
‘Swallow your words!’ Mao hissed in Chinese to the interpreter. ‘Don’t invite him!’ Neither of the titans spoke for the entire thirty-minute drive. When Stalin invited Mao to dance to his gramophone, a singular honour for a visiting leader, he refused. It did not matter: the game of poker was over. When reserving for himself the supreme priesthood of international Communism, Stalin allowed Mao a leading role in Asia. (pp. 535-538)

朝鮮戦争勃発

Kim Il Sung, the young leader of Communist North Korea, now arrived in Moscow to ask Stalin’s permission to invade South Korea. Stalin encourage him but shrewdly passed the buck to Mao, telling the Korean he could ‘only get down to action’ after consulting with ‘Comrade Mao Tse-tung personally’. In Peking, Mao referred back to Stalin. On 14 May, Stalin cunningly replied, ‘The question should ultimately be decided by the Chinese and Korean comrades together.’ He thus protected his dominant role but passed the responsibility. None the less, his magnates were worried by his reckless challenge to America and failing power of judgement. At 4 a.m., on Sunday, 25 June 1950, North Korea attacked the south…. (p. 538)

アバクモフ、失脚の危機

… On 29 September, Kuznetsov and Voznesensky were tried at the Officers’ Club in Leningrad… Before the trial finally started, the accused were ordered to leave Zhdanov out of their testimony. The main accused were sentenced to death by shooting next day and the Politburo endorsed the sentences….
… Malenkov informed Stalin that Voznesensky had frozen to death in the back of a prison truck in sub-zero temperature. After Stalin’s death, Rada Khrushcheva asked what had happened to Kuznetsov:
‘He died terribly,’ replied her father, ‘with hook through his neck.’
This little massacre consolidated the power of Malenkov, Beria, Khrushchev and Bulganin – the last men standing as Stalin entered his final years – but it was the swansong for Abakumov.
… Stalin was orchestrating another anti-Semitic campaign from his holiday.
The Jews were not Stalin’s only target: his suspicious of Beria (a Mingrelian) were constantly fanned by the ambitious [Akaki] Mgeladze, his boss in Abkhazia, who shrewdly revealed Beria’s crimes and vendettas of the late thirties… Stalin ordered Abakumov to check the notoriously venal Georgia, and build a case against the Mingrelians, not forgetting Beria himself: ‘Go after the Big Mingrelian.’
On 18 November, towards the end of his holiday, Stalin agreed to arrest the first Jewish doctor. Professor Yakov Etinger, who had treated the leaders, was bugged talking too frankly about Stalin. Etinger was tortured about his ‘nationalistic’ tendencies by one of Abakumov’s officers, Lieut.-Col. Mikhail Riumin … [and implicated] all the most distinguished Jewish doctors in Moscow… Abakumov ordered Riumin to desist but the officer tortured Etinger so enthusiastically that he died of ‘heart paralysis’ – a euphemism for dying under torture. Riumin was in trouble – unless he could destroy Abakumov first.
Abakumov was not guilty of idleness: Stalin was now redoubling the repression. Arrests intensified. In 1950 there were more slaves in the Gulags -- 2.6 million – than ever before. But Abakumov knew too much about the Leningrad and Jewish cases. Worse, Stalin sensed the foot-dragging of the MGB – and Abakumov himself. It was Yagoda all over again – and he needed a Yezhov.
… Within the MGB snakepit, the ebbing of Stalin’s favour and the death of Etinger presented Riumin with an opportunity…. (pp. 540-542)