Today I received Gupta at his request. Gupta communicated that on 16-17 January a meeting of the Secretariat of the CPI took place in Delhi, at which was discussed the future work of the party apparatus in connection with the death of A[joy]. [Kumar] Ghosh….Gupta said that he desires that the ties of the CPI and CPSU do not become weakened in any way after the death of Ghosh. The assistance in various forms and the comradely advice of the CC CPSU have always been enormously useful to us, he underscored….Gupta said that no other party, not even the communist party of China, can occupy in the hearts of Indian communists the place which belongs to the CPSU… Gupta reported that after the death of Ghosh at the present time in the party there is an acute insufficiency of means for the preelection campaign. He expressed the fear that with the death of Ghosh the source for receiving means for the communist party from the CPSU might be closed. These questions were handled by Ghosh alone, Gupta underscored. He never consulted with him /Gupta/, and even less with [Elamulam M.S.] Nambudiripad and G. Nair/ with the latter two only about using the assistance/. All these matters were held in strictest secrecy from other leaders of the party and members of the National Council. This explains the fact that not a single report on this question has appeared in the press.
