Foreign Aid and the Communist Bloc Sankar De THERE is considerable strength in the argument that disciplines with claims to social relevance, like economics or political science, should be responsive to the changing demands of the times. The above two books certainly satisfies this condition. India's political and economic relations with the communist bloc, excluding the mighty China and the insignificant Albania, have in the recent past been becoming increasingly extensive and cordial, climaxed by the August 1971 treaty between India and the USSR. However, the intellectual counterpart of this development, which should have found expression in an appropriately large number of treaties on the political origins and economic consequences of this new-found solidarity, has so far been tenuous. In fact, apart from Sumitra Chisti's small but useful monograph on India's bilateral trade with East Europe,1 one finds it difficult to recall any other worthwhile publication in this area. In so far as the two books under review represent an attempt at filling this gap, their purpose is laudable.
