As a result of the soviet-afghan war, was communism contained or did it expand?
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Recently declassified documents from archives in the former Soviet Union and memoirs of senior Soviet military and political leaders present the complex and tragic story of the ten years of the Soviet military involvement in Afghanistan. Most observers agree that the last war of the Soviet Union created or aggravated the internal dynamics that eventually culminated in the dissolution of the country itself. The documents presented here shed light on the most important moments in the history of the Soviet war in Afghanistan�the Afghan government�s requests for assistance, the Soviet Union�s initial refusal of troops, the reversal of this policy by a small group of the Politburo and the Soviet decision to invade; the expansion of the initial mission to include combat operations against the Afghan resistance; early criticism of the Soviet policy and of the People�s Democratic party of Afghanistan (PDPA) regime; and the decision to withdraw the troops. Taken together, these materials suggest some lessons that might be drawn from the Soviet experience of fighting a war in Afghanistan.
In March 1979, the Soviet leadership had to face a difficult situation as a result of the violent uprising in Herat, where several Soviet military advisers were executed, and the situation seemed to be spinning out of the PDPA's control. The Afghan leadership asked for urgent Soviet military assistance. Overall, there were over 20 requests for military assistance from the Afghan leadership in 1979. In the telephone conversation with Afghan Prime Minister Taraki, Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin explains to his Afghan counterpart that the Soviet Union would not send troops, and encourages Taraki to rely on the local population, and specifically to mobilize industrial workers of the Herat province, which shows the lack of understanding of the local situation on the part of the Soviet leadership (industrial workers, the �proletariat,� which was supposed to be the base of the socialist revolution were practically non-existent in Afghanistan). The Politburo session, convened urgently to discuss the situation in Herat, shows the differences of opinion among the participants: while practically all Politburo members were against sending Soviet troops to Afghanistan, some of them at the same time argued that �we cannot lose Afghanistan.� The decision arrived at after much deliberation and summed up by General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev was that economic and military assistance with equipment and advisers would be provided but no Soviet troops would be sent to Afghanistan.
Minutes of Conversation between Brezhnev and Honecker, and Andropov-Gromyko-Ustinov-Ponomarev�s reports to Brezhnev in the summer and fall of 1979 shed light on Soviet thinking on wider geostrategic implications of the situation in Afghanistan, the impact of the Iranian revolution in the region, perceived U.S. goals, and the suspected cooperation between Amin and the American special services. All these considerations contributed to the sense of urgency among the Soviet leadership.
According to former USSR Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin, this unusual memorandum from Andropov to Brezhnev was especially influential in changing the General Secretary�s position on the issue of sending Soviet troops into Afghanistan.
Excerpts from Lyakhovsky�s book and Georgy M. Kornienko�s memoir The Cold War: Testimony of a Participant (Moscow, Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya, 1994) present detailed accounts of how the final decision to send troops was made. The only documentary evidence of that highly secret decision is the handwritten document �On the Situation in A� of December 12, 1979 signed by the Politburo members.
The Soviet reading of the situation in Afghanistan is also represented in this report presented to the Politburo on December 31, after the invasion.
The Politburo sessions of January 17 and 28, 1980 carried extensive discussions of the situation in Afghanistan. Lyakhovsky and other authors report that at the same time, the top Soviet military and political leadership held secret deliberations on the possibility of early withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the first combat operations of the Soviet troops led to the change in the original mission of the Limited Contingent to include combat operations against the rebels.
The letter of �Pravda� correspondent Schedrov to the CC CPSU of November 12, 1981 reflects early criticism of Soviet involvement in Afghanistan along with a realization of the inadequacy of a military solution.
This report prepared by the KGB USSR and the General Staff states that the Soviet Commander of the Turkmen Military District and the Main Soviet Adviser in Afghanistan were given orders to capture an American citizen working with the mujahedeen.
At the Politburo session of October 17, 1985, General Secretary Gorbachev proposed to make a final decision on Afghanistan and quoted from citizens� letters regarding the dissatisfaction in the country with the Soviet actions in Afghanistan. He also described his meeting with Babrak Karmal during which Gorbachev told the Afghan leader: �we will help you, but with arms only, not troops.�Chernyaev noted Gorbachev�s negative reaction to the assessment of the situation given by Defense Minister Marshal Sergey Sokolov.
The first serious Politburo discussion of the need to withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan, which included the testimony of Marshal Sergei Akhromeev is reflected in the Minutes of November 13, 1986.
In his remarks to the Politburo on February 23 and 26, General Secreatry Mikhail S. Gorbachev return to the issue of the need to withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan several times. He emphasizes the need to withdraw the troops, and at the same time struggles with the explanation for the withdrawal, noting that �we not going to open up the discussion about who is to blame now.� Gromyko admits that it was a mistake to introduce the troops, but notes that it was done after 11 requests from the Afghan government.
Criticism of the Soviet policy of national reconciliation in Afghanistan and analysis of general failures of the Soviet military mission there is presented in Colonel Tsagolov�s letter to USSR Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov of August 13, 1987. This letter represents the first open criticism of the Afghan war from within the military establishment. Colonel Tsagolov paid for his attempt to make his criticism public in his interview with Soviet influential progressive magazine �Ogonek� by his career�he was expelled from the Army in 1988.
On May 10, 1988, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR issued a �closed� (internal use) letter to all Communist Party members of the Soviet Union on the issue of withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The letter presents the Central Committee analysis of events in Afghanistan and Soviet actions in that country, the problems and the difficulties the Soviet troops had to face in carrying out their mission. In particular, the letter stated that important historic and ethnic factors were overlooked when the decisions on Afghanistan were made in the Soviet Union. The letter analyzes Soviet interests in Afghanistan and the reasons for the withdrawal of troops.
The Politburo session of January 24, 1989 deals with issues of troops withdrawal and the post-war Soviet role in Afghanistan, as well as possible future development of the situation there.
On April 7, 1988, USSR Defense Minister signed an order on withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. In February 1989, the Defense Ministry prepared a statement of the Soviet Military Command in Afghanistan on the issue of withdrawal of troops, which was delivered to the Head of the UN Mission in Afghanistan on February 14, 1989�the day when the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan. The statement gave an overview of Soviet-Afghan relations before 1979, Soviet interpretation of the reasons for providing internationalist assistance to Afghanistan, and sending troops there after the repeated requests of the Afghan government. It criticized the U.S. role in arming the opposition in disregard of the Geneva agreements, and thus destabilizing the situation in the country. In an important acknowledgement that the Vietnam metaphor was used to analyze Soviet actions in Afghanistan, they military explicitly referred to �unfair and absurd� comparisons between the American actions in Vietnam and the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. What was the outcome of the Soviet Afghan war?Despite having failed to implement a sympathetic regime in Afghanistan, in 1988 the Soviet Union signed an accord with the United States, Pakistan, and Afghanistan and agreed to withdraw its troops. The Soviet withdrawal was completed on February 15, 1989, and Afghanistan returned to nonaligned status.
When did communism end in Afghanistan?However, with an aggressive armed opposition and internal difficulties such as a failed coup attempt by the Khalq faction in 1990 coupled with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Najibullah government collapsed in April 1992.
How did the Soviet Afghan war affect the Soviet Union?However, when the USSR invaded Afghanistan, people found that Russia was not a reliable ally. The same way Soviets invaded Afghanistan they could invade any country as well. The occupation of Afghanistan caused irreversible internal conflicts between the Soviet republics and the Soviet government.
How does the Soviet Afghan war fit into the larger history of the Cold War?The Soviet Afghanistan war is an integral part of the history of 9/11. The CIA decided to arm the Afghan resistance fighters (mujahedeen) to repel the Soviet invasion as part of the larger cold war strategy. After the Afghan victory, the US stopped financially supporting the Afghans.
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