A Lesson To Be Learned

V. Skosyrev, A Lesson Which Should Be Learned. May 4, 1989

Original Source: Izvestiia, 4 May 1989.

FOR ALMOST TEN YEARS, Afghanistan, for us, has been a wound that would not heal. But let us be honest with ourselves. Though the Soviet soldiers, sent over the Amu-Darya, selflessly carried out their duty, as it is expected from the loyal sons of their Homeland, our involvement in Afghanistan caused a lot of doubts at home. our people did not accept this war. The proof of that is the letters sent to the editor, whose authors ask for the explanation of how the Soviet Army was sent beyond the borders without the sanctions of the Supreme Council, and without any attempt whatsoever to find out the opinions of the majority, beforehand. The readers are also interested in the present situation in Afghanistan and the perspectives of regulating the conflict.

Today our guest is the doctor of history, senior scientist of the department of the Eastern Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Yu. V. GUKOVSKII.

The Afghanistan war through the eyes of the historian

Q: Iurii Vladimirovich, before everything else, in your opinion, why did the Soviet Union become so deeply involved in the Afghanistan situation?

A: We can not be unconcerned with the fate of Afghanistan. We share with them a common border of about 2,400 kilometers. Ever since 1919, we provided Afghanistan with extensive aid. For example, by 1978 we took the first place among nations in providing the economic aid to Afghanistan. Over three thousand Afghani officers have gone through basic training in our country even before the April revolution of 1978. All of this can not be erased from history.

Q: I agree. But it is one thing to work together with the neighbor in different fields, including the military, but it is totally different to send your troops in to support him. In the last ten years, you have been in Afghanistan on many occasions. You participated in the conventions dealing with developing the new politics in that country. Please explain what made our leadership step over the fateful border in 1979?

A: It is not an easy question. It is known that at that time, there was a high-level committee dealing with Afghanistan. It had to give a recommendation on how to act when armed troops of extremist right groups infiltrate the territory of the neighboring country with which we have an alliance pact. I must say that following the April revolution the Pakistani influence started to increase, though it can not in essence be compared to that of the present time.

We could have used political and diplomatic means. I am convinced that they were not fully exhausted. Unfortunately a different policy prevailed. Do you remember that the cannons of Louis XIV were decorated with the sign “King’s last argument”? That was the “argument” they turned to. Not taking into account the particularities of Afghanistan, they were planning to stabilize the situation and to bring the soldiers home. it turned out to be quite different. The 40th Army was there for nine years and seven weeks. This is the longest war that Russia has been involved in since 1813.

Q: But wasn’t there anyone who stood up against the move which consequently brought about such strenuous effects both militarily and internationally?

A: It was not in vain that those times were called the “period of stagnation.” I will remind you of something that already came out in the press. Namely, the decision to send in the troops was taken behind closed doors by a few top leaders of the government.

It is true that doubts were expressed, but the last word was L. I. Brezhnev’s.

Q: Today, such practice is frowned upon. Yet it is important to establish another point. Namely, was the information which was going “up” becoming the basis for the governmental decisions sufficiently accurate?

A: Unfortunately not always. I want everyone to understand me correctly. We had people, working on the Afghanistan question, extremely competent in the question of the East. But their opinions were not listened to.

On the other hand, the quality of the information was not always adequate for the events. Apparently the lack of a scientific center for the Afghanistan studies was also felt. It does not exist even today (while there are such centers in the USA and other Western countries). As a result, there was not a timely development of an overall scientifically based policy in relation to Afghanistan.

It also happened that the information was given by not fully competent people. Here’s an example. One time, I had a chance in Moscow to read a report on the situation in the area of the Pushtun tribes in Pakistan, through which came the main flow of arms to the rebels. This report was totally unsatisfactory. In three days, I went to Kabul and in the consulate met with the author of the report, sent from the USSR by an official from one of the DRA ministries. He was a man of about thirty, but very pleasant. Since the facts from the report obviously did not match reality, I had to give him a sort of an exam. As it turned out, he did not know the area of the tribal zone, nor the population there. At the end of the conversation I asked: “What university did you finish?” He faltered and then named a medical school in one of the regional cities in Russia.

Q: Was it not for that reason that we were too optimistic in our evaluation of the perspectives of the April revolution? We even called it “socialist” …

A: I am familiar with only one article in the Soviet scientific journal, where it was asserted that following 1978, Afghanistan would start socialist reformation. In other scientific publications, the April revolution was characterized quite correctly as national-democratic. The April revolt truly played a key role in the history of the country. It has been in the making for a long time. It was not in vain that the American Afghanistan specialist Luis Dupre predicted a year before that if the Daud’s regime would not undergo reforms, revolution was unavoidable.

Unfortunately, under Amin, this little Afghani Pol Pot, the authority of the new rule was jeopardized by mass arrests, executions of undesirables, quick reforms which were not consistent with the national traditions, executions of the Moslem theologians. The number of compounds in the Afghani army went down three to four times and of officers ten times.

Q: Amin’s regime brought great hardships to Afghanistan. There is no question about that. But who in our country took upon himself the question of liberation of the foreign country from the dictator? The events related to this were presented in our country quite tendentiously, to put it mildly. Let us try to open the curtains a bit. Firstly, did you get to meet with our military personnel who were sent to Kabul at the end of December of 1979?

A: Of course I met with them. Though to tell the truth I arrived in Kabul two weeks after. I was now witness to the operation. What can I say? Under the terror and repressions established by Amin, many active participants and supporters of the April revolution were forced to seek political asylum in the foreign consulates (including our own). Others accepted illegal status and actively fought against the regime headed by Amin and obviously asked for help. After his downfall they came into the leadership of NDPA and the DRA government.

There are Afghani publications that say it was these people who planned the storming of the president’s palace. However, from the conversations with our officers, I found out that our subdivision participated in the operation. The battle did not last long. No one except Amin’s personal guards made an attempt to defend the regime.

I think it is time to tell the truth no matter how bitter it is. After all, across the border there are books written about this. Failing to mention this only gives birth to speculations.

Q: Withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan was not merely an act of state wisdom. It is a concrete and tangible result of Perestroika. It is approved by our people. On the other hand, when the discussion of the beginning of the war begins, there are a lot of different suppositions. Since it has been admitted that it is impossible to regulate a problem in a military fashion, it would also seem that the sending of Soviet soldiers into Afghanistan was a mistake. Nevertheless, the commander of the land troops, Army General V. I. Varennikov, in an interview with the magazine Novoe Vremia, said that in view of the threat to our southern borders which originated in 1979, the decision was adequate …

Source: Jonathan Eisen, ed., Glasnost Reader (New York: New American Library, 1990), pp. 3-7.

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