Capture and occupation of Afghanistan

Capture and occupation of Afghanistan, 

The myth: Capture and occupation of Afghanistan

The myth that the Soviet Union, out of aggressive motives, actually seized neighboring Afghanistan and established a puppet political regime there, was carefully introduced into the consciousness of society during the Cold War, which provoked a civil war in the country and the subsequent long-term crisis. This simplistic view still prevails, largely due to the fact that most of the Russian and Western society is completely unaware of Afghan conditions.

Examples of using:

Afghanistan is considering demanding compensation from Russia for the occupation of the country, which began with the invasion of Soviet troops on December 27, 1979. This was unequivocally stated by the Afghan government on the 26th anniversary of the entry of Soviet troops, the Xinhua news agency reports. ... "The collapse of Afghanistan began with the invasion of the Soviet Union, which led to the complete destruction of the entire political, economic and social infrastructure of the country," the presidential press secretary emphasized.

Reality:

Diplomatic and economic cooperation existed between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan long before the April 1979 revolution. The Soviet Union, as the most developed of the border states, supplied Afghanistan with high-tech goods, including military equipment. From 1956 to 1978, the USSR supplied weapons to Afghanistan worth 1.2 billion dollars, and some of the deliveries were made on credit 1). Soviet specialists carried out many purely civilian projects: by 1979, with the participation of our engineers, about 70% of the existing road surface in the country and 3 out of 4 international airports in Afghanistan were built 2).

Along with the humanitarian factor, the Soviet interest in Afghanistan was explained by the geographical position of the country adjacent to the Central Asian republics of the Union. It was necessary to ensure the security of this Soviet "underbelly", because in the event that military bases of China or NATO appeared in Afghanistan, several strategic facilities, including Baikonur, were under attack, which quite naturally worried the leadership of the USSR 3). Therefore, the terms of Soviet-Afghan cooperation included the closure of the north of the country for all representatives of states hostile to the USSR, especially NATO countries 4). The Soviet leadership at that time did not make any other demands on the foreign and domestic policy of Afghanistan.

Soviet-Afghan relations deteriorated after the 1973 coup that led to the overthrow of the monarchy. Former Prime Minister Muhammad Daud, who proclaimed himself president, tried to draw the USSR into an armed confrontation with Pakistan for the sake of disputed territories inhabited by the Pashtun (Afghan) population and blackmailed the Union with a possible rapprochement with the USA and NATO 5). This deterioration in relations gave rise to the opinion that the April Revolution, carried out by the Afghan communists, was provoked by the USSR, however, available sources cast doubt on the correctness of this version.

Viktor Merimsky, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense in Afghanistan, cites in his memoirs the story of one of the workers of the Soviet embassy, ​​who claimed that he and his colleagues understood the situation in Kabul too late, so that the fact of the coup in Moscow was learned from media reports. Representatives of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan later stated that they hid information about the upcoming coup from the Soviet allies, arguing that "Moscow could dissuade them from this action due to the absence of a revolutionary situation in the country" 6). It is difficult to unequivocally prove that this information is correct, but due to the logic of events, the leadership of the USSR had every reason to fear the appearance of signs of the Sovietization of Afghanistan at that time, because this could provoke a response from Pakistan, NATO countries and China, as it actually happened.

Soviet representatives were in contact with the leadership of the PDPA, but at the moment there is no evidence of financing or other material support for the Afghan opposition from the USSR, while the international practice of those years knew much more open and significant examples of interference in the political life of neighboring countries. For example, during the Canadian parliamentary elections of 1984, "experts" sent by the Reagan administration worked at the headquarters of the Conservative Party. The victory of the conservatives in the elections made it possible to achieve the signing of the Canadian-American agreements on "free trade", which was opposed by more than half of the population 7).

During the reign of Taraki and Amin, the USSR sought to minimize its presence in the domestic politics of Afghanistan, but this was not always possible due to the specifics of the country's development. A military coup in Kabul under communist slogans would be perceived by many foreign states as the coming to power of a puppet regime that threatens to turn Afghanistan into a military base of the communist bloc, which would have eliminated the neutral status of the country that had developed since British rule in India. Thus, Iran and especially Pakistan regarded the new regime as a clear threat to their security. Given the good relations between the USSR and India, Islamabad could expect their joint geopolitical pressure, which could lead to dire consequences up to the territorial dismemberment of Pakistan. It should be remembered that at that time the example of Bangladesh declaring its independence was still fresh in memory, which explains the panic that seized Pakistan in those days. Markets in the region survived the crisis due to the outflow of capital 8), and the government was forced to turn to the United States and the Arab states for protection.

The main work on the formation and training of anti-Kabul formations on the territory of Iran and Pakistan began in the summer of 1979, after President Carter signed a directive of June 3 on supporting the Mujahideen movement. Islamic extremists operated on the territory of Afghanistan even in the days of the monarchy, before the Daoud coup: in the late 1960s and early 1970s, up to 600 people of radical Islamists were killed during the fighting. During the defeat of the anti-government conspiracy in December 1973, the same number of participants in the Mujahideen movement were arrested 9). After the overthrow of the monarchy, the situation was aggravated by recurrences of open rebellions, and after the communists came to power and foreign states intervened in the conflict, which took up the financing of the Afghan opposition, the situation became completely critical.

The scale of foreign participation in the training of "mujahideen" detachments is evidenced by the following data. In the early 1980s, the United States allocated 20-30 million dollars a year for the training of the Mujahideen, by 1988 the amount of annual funding reached 630 million 10) . In the American internal controversy, an estimate of the total cost of supporting the armed groups of Islamic radicals (Operation Cyclone budget) at $4 billion is used.

In 1980, the European Economic Community donated 18.8 million to the needs of the Afghan opposition, the largest contribution made in the same year by Saudi Arabia amounted to 700 million US dollars 11). About thirty thousand people were trained in the camps of Pakistan from June to November 1979, and thanks to the hard work of instructors from Arab states, the total number of Afghan anti-government formations in 1980 amounted to eighty thousand people, which was equal to the number of the Afghan armed forces in 1968. In fact, a parallel system of power structures was being formed in Pakistan and Iran, close in power to that at the disposal of the Kabul government.

According to Zbigniew Brzezinski, in many respects it was the American side that provoked the escalation of the conflict and ensured that the Soviet leadership made a decision to send troops into the country. 

“We did not force the Russians to intervene, but deliberately increased this likelihood. … On the day the Soviet troops crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: “Now we have the opportunity to give the USSR their Vietnam War”” 12).

Unfortunately, Nur-Muhammad Taraki chose mass repression as a response to the emerging threat: according to available data, from April 1978 to September 1979, about twelve thousand opponents of the regime were killed in Afghanistan, not to mention many dissidents who were placed in prisons 13). The Soviet Union politely tried to point out the inadmissibility of such a practice: during the next meeting, Kosygin “not for discussion, but as a wish” hinted at the danger of the practice of mass arrests, but Taraki rejected the claims of the Soviet side and stated that repressions are carried out only against those who really associated with extremists.

After the overthrow and assassination of Taraki by his assistant Hafizullah Amin, the repressions became even more widespread. The Politburo returns to this problem at a meeting on October 31, 1979:

 “In an effort to gain a foothold in power, Amin, along with such ostentatious gestures as the beginning of the development of a draft constitution and the release of some previously arrested persons, in fact, expands the scope of repression in the party, army, state apparatus and public organizations. He is clearly working towards the removal from the political arena of almost all prominent figures of the party and the state, whom he considers as his actual or potential opponents ... Amin's actions are causing growing dissatisfaction with progressive forces. If earlier members of the Parcham group opposed him, now supporters of Khalq are joining them, individual representatives of the state apparatus, the army, the intelligentsia, and youth. This gives rise to uncertainty in Amin, who is looking for a way out by intensifying repression, which further narrows the social base of the regime.” The directive adopted at the same time to the embassy requires Soviet diplomats in a conversation in Amin "to emphasize the need to stop unreasonable widespread repressions, which cannot but harm the cause of the April revolution"14) .

However, Amin ignored these requests of the allies, intensified police actions, and only demanded the entry of Soviet troops into the country to fight Islamic militants. This short-sighted course ultimately cast doubt on the PDPA's retention in power. In the event of the defeat of the Afghan communists, there was also a real threat to the security of the USSR, since after the "Carter directive" the victory of the armed opposition meant the country's transition to the control of the countries-opponents of the USSR. Therefore, the Soviet leadership ultimately agreed to an alliance with the opposition group of Babrak Karmal and decided to forcefully overthrow the Amin regime. To some extent, this action can be compared with the modern armed actions of the United States in defense of democracy in foreign countries, with the only difference being that the USSR de jure did not resort to direct aggression against Afghanistan and forceful confrontation with government troops, as was the case, for example, during the American invasion of Iraq. Moreover, the Soviet contingent did not plan to directly participate in the fight against groups of Islamic radicals penetrating from the territory of Pakistan but hoped to limit themselves to protecting the country's most important communications.

However, even after the overthrow of Amin, the power of the USSR in Afghanistan was far from absolute. The influence of the "advisors" was largely determined by their professional authority and training, which most Afghan officials did not possess, and could only be exercised through recommendations. The magnitude of the power of Soviet experts in each particular case was determined by the position of the “sub-soviet” leaders, who could either entrust their work to an adviser or completely ignore his recommendations. As an example of the first scenario, one can cite the practice of party building in the PDPA, in which advisers from the CPSU drafted statutory documents in Russian, then translated them into Dari, agreed again, and only then officially approved 15) .

When the Soviet representatives spoke out against the "listed" admission to the party to strengthen the positions of the ruling faction, Karmal, although he verbally agreed with them, did not make any attempts to implement this recommendation 16). In exactly the same way, the Kabul leadership acted with recommendations for agrarian reform. Soviet specialists insistently requested that it be carried out in stages, and that at the first stage it be limited to the redistribution of the lands of the largest landowners, but again they met with misunderstanding on the part of the PDPA 17).

Requests from the Politburo for the "creation of a broad front of leftist and democratic parties led by the PDPA" on the model of the "Fatherland Front" of Bulgaria 18) were also completely ignored, and this idea remained without implementation until the late 1980s, when there was the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country.

Thus, it must be recognized that at every moment of the Soviet presence, Afghanistan remained a de facto and legally independent state, the responsibility for the success of the defeat of which fell entirely on the shoulders of its government. However, despite them, now many former opponents of the PDPA regime admit that they were able to change the situation in the country only for the worse. For example, the publicist Kasim Akhgar, who previously fought in the Mujahideen detachments, now speaks positively about the times of the Soviet presence: 

“I, as a person who took part in the anti-Soviet resistance, admit that in those days the people lived better” 19) .

N. A. Mendkovich