As a research subject this title had its origins in the four years (1969–73) the author spent in Pakistan as Head of Chancery at the British Embassy in Islamabad, followed by a year as Foreign and Commonwealth Office Fellow at the Centre of South Asian Studies at Cambridge. He took as his general area of study the relations from about 1800 onwards between the Tsarist and Soviet Governments and those of South Asia, as defined by the FCO, namely India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ceylon and Nepal. More specifically, Soviet relations with South Asia were the subject of a paper read by the author at one of Professor Kinsley's seminars on international relations in the summer of 1974. A revised version of that paper forms the basis of this article.