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Achievements Of Communism In Afghanistan&Exposing The Lies Of Ronald Reagan-MUST READ!
PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING BEFORE MAKING ANY COMMENTS.
Russians
enter Afghanistan in 1979 to combat imperialist-backed mullahs; in
defense of the Saur Revolution and social-progression; and in defense of
the Soviet southern borders from Islamic fundamentalism.
"The
religions of the East are deeply rooted and have many precious values.
Their spiritual beliefs cannot be reconciled with Communist atheism and
materialism. That creates a common bond between us."
--John Foster
Dulles, 1950. He was later Eisenhower's Secretary of State, and right
hand man in Eisenhower's anti-Communist/ "rollback" war drive.
"It's
all the Soviets' fault", "the evil Russians destroyed Afghanistan",
"the USA and its allies always wanted freedom and democracy for
Afghans", "its not the America's fault". These are but a few of the
absurd statements made about Afghanistan, demonizing the Soviets, and
glorifying the U.S and western roles. The turmoil, oppression and
bloodshed which has engulfed Afghanistan throughout the 1990's to the
present did not have to happen. In fact in the late 1970's Afghanistan
was moving upward, and into the twentieth century. The Afghan workers'
progress was derailed and destroyed because such achievements conflicted
with the interests of the imperialists, like many others before
Afghanistan.
For almost it's entire existence, Afghanistan has
been a primitive and backwards Islamic country where the people are
subordinate to strict authority of Islamic order governed by small
militant families, most of the population was illiterate, with almost no
modern technology or industry. Through most of the twentieth century
Afghanistan was a monarchy under the rule Shah Mohammed Zahir from
1929-1973. In 1973 a coup d'etat initiated by Mohammed Daoud, and
declared Afghanistan a Republic. Daoud's economic reforms had not
improved the economy and became very unpopular with not only the people
but the military as well.
In April 1978, the Great Saur
Revolution (or April Revolution) took place ousting Daoud's corrupt
regime. In Kabul and other places the people and army mobilized by the
left-wing PDPA (People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan), and declared
the DRA (Democratic Republic of Afghanistan) with a Socialist economy.
Nur Mohammed Taraki was the revolutionary and party leader who mobilzed
Afghanistan into revolution. From the victory of the Saur Revolution,
reforms swept Afghanistan. Inspite of the social progress the PDPA, it
was weakened by internal rivalries between Taraki's Khalqi faction
adapting to more Marxist principles, and Babrak Karmal's Parcham faction
resorting to more nationalism, thus making the party exclusively
left-nationalist. Power was taken from the previous elite (mullahs,
khans, money lenders and feudal landlords) and passed down the the
workers and peasants, land and agriculture was collectivized, debts were
cancelled, religion and politics were for the first time in Afghan
history separated. Although the offical program was atheism, Afghans
were still granted the right to practice Islam. Education became
available to every Afghan, as well as medicine, pensions, jobs; poverty
was fading away. Also was the case of women in Afghanistan whom until
the Saur Revolution were regarded as property by their husbands and
fathers, and most with no education. After the Saur Revolution women
were placed along side men in literacy classes, and later given jobs as
professors, doctors, government positions, basically any job available
to men was also available to women, who were also encouraged to stop
wearing the veils but could do so by their own choice. Afghanistan
definitely was moving up, and who could be against it?
"The
Communists were trying to change the law of God. They wanted to destroy
Islamic traditions -- to rid Afghanistan of poverty and make everyone
equal. This is against the law of Islam -- God has decided who is rich
and who is poor. It can't be changed by Communists. It's beyond
imagination."
Sahar Gul, Mullah Laghman Province (CNN Cold War: Soldiers of God, 1998)
The
Revolutionary gains in Afghanistan unfortunately was not convenient to
everyone. The mullahs, khans, and feudal landlords along with local
bandits who had no authority at this point were outraged and began their
counter-revolutionary campaign of terror targeting schools, collective
farms, acts of arson, and slaughtering Afghan workers, women,
intellectuals, and leftists in barbaric methods such as flayings,
beheadings, stonings, and repeated cuttings. The mullah's favorite
target for this kind of barbarity were Communist school teachers for
teaching women how to read. The Saur Revolution also severly angered the
United States, and their imperialist allies, who felt that the
Revolution was a serious threat to U.S control of the Persian Gulf oil
(decision made by Carter's crony Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1980), and began
training these Islamic counter-revolutionary psychotics in Pakistan who
called themselves the Mujahideen (holy warriors) who were out to fight a
jihad (holy war) against the newborn Afghan workers state. The USA was
to do anything in its power to destroy the Saur Revolution which did not
exclude a U.S-led invasion.
After the Saur Revolution,
Afghanistan signed a Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union
confirming good comradeship between both countries for Socialist unity.
As the Mujahideen continued their acts of sabotage and terrorism, the
Afghan People's government mobilized the armed forces to fight the
counter-revolutionaries. Although well-disciplined and trained, the
young Afghan Socialist state was not fully prepared to cope with the
Mujahideen, especially when a U.S-led invasion appeared imminent.
Honoring the Treaty of Friendship the Soviet Army entered Afghanistan at
the request of the People's government. The Soviet occupation took
place on Christmas eve of 1979. The imperialist world did not know until
it was fully completed. Once the imperialists learned of the Soviet
action, "INVASION" was on all their lips. The U.S-controlled U.N held an
emergency session calling for all Red Army troops to be completely
withdrawn from Afghanistan. The then U.S president Jimmy Carter attacked
the Soviet Union for violating "International Law" (more accurately
American Global Law) and organized an international embargo on grain
shipments to the USSR attempting to starve the Soviet people. Carter
hypocritically denounced the Soviet action as "the most serious threat
to the peace since the Second World War." Afghanistan was the only post
war Soviet action outside the Warsaw Pact territory, while the U.S had
intervened militarily repeatedly in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the
Middle East. And yet the Soviets were posing greatest threat to world
peace since World War II in Afghanistan?
Prior to the Soviet
intervention, Carter had been on an anti-Soviet campaign unlike any
practiced by previous U.S presidents. Making public the reactionary
activities by the pro-imperialist anti-Communist Soviet dissidents
(Moscow Helsinki Group) and their imprisonment in the late 1970s, Carter
used the liberal "human rights violations" to openly attack the Soviet
Union which was kept on shakey ground by the defeatist Detente (peaceful
co-existence) policy of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Detente was over
as a result of the Soviet action. After the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan, Carter stepped up his attacks which exceeded further than a
grain embargo. Carter restricted American athletes from participating
in the Olympic games to be held in Moscow in 1980, and later threatened
the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons while accusing the Soviets of
jeopardizing world peace. Carter was truly ready to start a third world
war over Afghanistan, with the ridiculous rhetoric of a fantasized
Soviet invasion of Pakistan, Iran, and then seizing the entire Persian
Gulf oil supply. He put all U.S forces in the Persian Gulf on high-alert
to protect his precious oil and deter a bogus Soviet threat created in
Jimmy's little head. Carter's reponse was covertly aiding woman-hating
Islamic fundamentalists, which did not begin after the Soviet
intervention, but six months earlier. Jimmy Carter along with Pakistani
dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq established training camps where Afghan
extremists received training and arms for the purpose of toppling the
Afghan People's government.
For the Soviet Union, the military
intervention in Afghanistan to combat the Mujahideen had two main
objectives. 1) To secure the southern border of the Soviet Union from an
Islamic fundamentalism, which could have very well spread a
counter-revolutionary jihad through the Muslim republics of the USSR.
This was the full intention of the American CIA, British MI-6 and the
Pakistani ISI when they were training the Afghan Mujahideen, also
promoting a jihad as a counter-revolutionary dagger through the Soviet
Union with guerilla attacks in Soviet Central Asia. Such a jihad in the
Soviet Union was especially advocated by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
of Iran who found himself on the same side of the barricades as the
imperialists who's interests he ended in Iran with his Islamic
Revolution in 1979. 2) To defend the social gains of the Saur Revolution
of 1978 to the Afghan people from the Mujahideen psychotics.
Due
to the fiercely independent nature of Afghan people in general, the
Soviet government and their Afghan comrades agreed in 1979 on a limited
contingent for a temporary occupation until order can be restored, and
the Soviet troops would leave. Unfortunately the Kremlin Stalinists not
wanting to anger the U.S imperialists any further, they introduced only
100,000 troops at a time. In Afghanistan, the Red Army successfully
liberated and secured Kabul and all of Afghanistan's major cities and
the surrounding villages from the Mujahideen. The Mujahideen however,
were able to use the country side to their own advantage, where Soviet
troops and convoys were most vulnerable. Afghanistan's deep gorges and
narrow roads were to be a real challege for the Russian forces. But the
Soviets would use their control of the air and artillery to provide
safer routes through Afghanistan for their convoys. The thick armored
Mil Mi-24 Hind Gunship (nearly 100% resistant against 50 caliber
rounds), the Soviets' most effective combat weapon, proved to be
exceptionally useful not only for convoy escort, but for direct attacks
on Mujahideen positions; thus saved many Soviet troops. The Red Army has
had a history of counter-insurgency warfare. The Red Army had
successfully crushed U.S-backed fascist insurgents: Forest Brothers in
the Soviet Baltic Republics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), remnants of
the Armia Krajowa
(Home Army) in Poland, and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army after the
Second World War. In Afghanistan, the Mujahideen would be another. While
Soviet and Afghan infantry was mobilized fighting the Mujahideen,
Soviet Spetsnaz commandos were dropped behind the Mujahideen lines and
attacked their bases with devastating results. Usually the Mujahideen
fled Russian and Afghan ground and air assaults in retreat. On the
escape routes, Soviet Airborne troops were dropped behind the lines and
ambushed the retreating Mujahideen. Although, certainly more challenging
than the previous insurgencies, these methods were nonetheless
effective against the Mujahideen counter-revolutionaries.
The
U.S proxy war in Afghanistan was completely bipartisan with both the
Republican and Democratic parties financing the Mujahideen (the Serbian
and Iraqi peoples would come to suffer from bipartisan U.S aggression in
the 1990's-present as well). The Americans especially were obsessed
with the "Soviet Vietnam" rhetoric. In 1980 Jimmy Carter's National
Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (the Democratic Party's own Henry
Kissinger) wrote a memo to Carter telling him that "We now have the
opportunity to give the Soviet Union its Vietnam". That same year at the
Khyber Pass in Pakistan, Brzezinski pointing to Afghanistan told the
Islamic reactionaries: "That land over there is yours. You will go back
to it one day, because your fight will prevail and you'll have your
homes and your mosques back again, because your cause is right and God
is on your side." Later, Texas Democratic Congressman Charles Wilson
said "There were 58,000 [American] dead in Vietnam, and we owe the
Russians one...I have a slight obsession with it because of Vietnam. I
thought the Soviets ought to get a dose of it." The imperialists' goal
from the begining was to kill as many Soviet officers and soldiers as
possible.
When Ronald Reagan took over he along with British
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher aid to the Mujahideen tripled from
Jimmy Carter's aid. Both Reagan and Thatcher praised their soldiers of
god as "freedom fighters", fighting a war with sticks and stones
shouting "allah akbar" against a powerful godless Communist demon.
Adding to that, Reagan and his conservative zealots were still plenty
sore at the heroic Vietnamese people's (whom they thought of as inferior
subhumans) victory over their seemingly unbeatable armed forces and
Soviet support for the Vietnam. Seeking "revenge" on the Soviets, Reagan
had the CIA arm his darlings with all the latest American weaponry. In
addition to US weapons, the CIA organized arms shipments from Great
Britain, reformist China, Egypt, Pakistan, Israel (YES!), Saudi Arabia,
Iran, Apartheid South Africa, NATO, as well as Japan, South Korea,
Australia and New Zealand to the Mujahideen training camps in Pakistan.
This covert action would cost the CIA billions of dollars, thus becoming
the largest and most expensive covert action in history.
One
of Reagan's little darling "freedom fighters" was a rich Saudi named
Osama Bin Laden who was among the first volunteers in the imperialists'
Mujahideen counter-revolution. He and Palestinian extremist Sheikh
Abdullah Azzam established an organization called Maktab al-Khadamat (Office
of Order); which not only worked with the CIA, MI-6, and ISI on
purchasing arms and explosives, but also recruited Islamic extremists
from all over the world. Tens of thousands of Muslim radicals were
recruited by the imperialists and Bin Laden from Central Asia, Middle
East, Far East, North Africa, and East Africa to fight their Jihad in
Afghanistan. Another fanatical Mujahid whom received lots of aid from
the CIA, MI-6, and ISI was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar's Mujahids
were known for their barbaric methods such as spraying acid in the faces
of women not covered; as well as acts of flayings, stoning, setting
alight Afghan intellectuals, Communists, leftists, workers, and women
labeled as "infidels". Ironically Bin Laden and Hekmatyar with their
well accumilated finances and training would later wage a jihad against
America.
In the capitalist media and entertainment, Reagan's
Mujahideen were depicted as heroes while the Soviets and their Afghan
comrades were demonized. The imperialist media were in an anti-Soviet
frenzy were quick to use the "genocide" label with faked stories such as
"wiping out the Afghan people", Soviets dropping "toy bombs" to lure
Afghan children to their deaths, butchering Afghan babies, mass rapes,
"yellow rain" chemical warfare without providing sufficient proof aside
from "testimonies" by Mujahids. But it was more than enough of what
American journalist Dan Rather aired on CBS news of a "Soviet genocide"
while dressed in Mujahideen headdress and garments. Naturally the
western public (especially the Americans) swallowed it whole, especially
when the lies appeared in Sylvester Stallone's Rambo III
(the only time a Soviet "toy bomb" ever appeared on screen).
Particulary in the very begining when Rambo was being debriefed by a CIA
officer, informing him of Soviet atrocities and the U.S involvement,
and later when Rambo was with the Mujahideen being informed of barbaric
Soviet atrocities. Yet while these tall tales of "Soviet butchers" were
being circulated, Reagan himself was covertly supporting fanatical
right-wing dictatorships in Latin America and across the Third World.
Despite
the imperialist lie of a "Soviet Vietnam", the Soviet and Afghan forces
were gaining the upper hand in the war against the Mujahideen, whom
were becoming demoralized and retreating by 1985. This was clearly
demonstrated in 1985-1986 when the Soviets launched their most effective
operation against the Mujahideen supply lines and bases forcing them to
retreat into defensive at Kandahar and Herat. Supply caravans from
Pakistan and Iran were destroyed or seized by Russian troops. The Red
Army also inflicted heavy losses on the Mujahideen in the Kunar and
Paktia provinces and forced them into massive retreat from those
strategic locations. Due to the Mujahideen's inability to defend their
supplies in an organized fashion, the Russians and Afghans annihilated
one Mujahideen group after another. It was only a matter of time before
victory against the Mujahideen fanatics was achieved. Even Dr. Jack
Wheeler, a pundit for the conservative Newsmax Media and cheerleader for
Bush's "war on terror", after 9/11 said, "The Soviets won in
Afghanistan. The famed up Mujahideen had slunk back to the refugee camps
in Pakistan, demoralized, dejected, and defeated. I was there, I saw
it. It was August, 1986, and the Mujahideen had given up. The Soviets
had won."
"Our sacrifices were not for nothing. We have after all brought there the achievements of the civilized world."
Soviet Veteran of Afghanistan, March 1988 (Workers Vanguard No. 756, 13 April 2001)
Unfortunately
during the operation in 1986, the Soviet liberal Stalinist leader
Mikhail Gorbachov pledged to the imperialists that he was making plans
to withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan, thus all major Soviet
operations against the Mujahideen came to a halt leaving it to the
Afghan People's Army. Even after this, the CIA gave the Mujahideen
reactionaries the anti-aircraft shoulder held Stinger missile, for they
weren't quite sure that their butchers would prevail. Prior to the
Stinger missile, the British had supplied the Mujahideen with their
anti-aircraft Blowpipe missile, which in the end turned out to be
virtually ineffective against Soviet air power, so the imperialists
needed another weapon that ended up being the Stinger. CIA director
William Casey (a culprit of the Iran-Contra Affair) dispatched two of
his cronies Milt Bearden and Frank Anderson to train the Mujahideen on
using the Stinger missile. This weapon limited Soviet control over the
air, but the Russians later produced effective counter measures such as
flares to fool the Stinger when launched. The Stinger also gave the
Mujahideen "freedom fighters" the ability to committ further atrocities,
such as in Khost when a Mujahid fired a Stinger at a plane carrying 50
plus school children to study in Moscow. The Soviets were finally able
to capture 3 Stingers in Khost after destroying a Mujahideen base in
early 1987.
The Mujahideen reactionaries would've virtually
been nothing without the support of the imperialists, and Gorbachov's
betrayal. When they weren't fighting the Soviets or their Afghan allies,
the Mujahideen fought each other. There was no real unity. They were
incapable of handling sofisticated weaponry properly, and had to be told
repeatedly. The CIA and their allies funding this war is what kept the
Mujahideen going, but even that was failing. The Afghan Jihad was
motivated by the fact that the Afghan Communists were educating the
Afghan masses, which was winning over the population in the late 80's
from the Mullahs. But more so the Mujahideen hated the fact that women
were being educated alongside men, and given professions within the
government, the military, the medical field, and educators. By the late
1980's over half a million female students were enroled at a university,
women were made up 40% of doctors and nurses, women made 60% of
professors, and even had their own councils. This freedom was made
possible only by the Saur Revolution and the Soviet military defense of
the revolution. Militia women even fought alongside Soviet and Afghan
troops against the USA's female-hating Mujahideen, defended many towns
throughout Afghanistan. These militia women were organized by the DOWA
(Democratic Organization for Women in Afghanistan). They especially
played a big role in fighting and defeating the Mujahideen at Jalalabad
(near the Pakistan border) with the Afghan People's Army, after the
Soviet pull-out. The Mujahideen's retaliations against women who
"violated Islamic law" continued at high rate. This included mass
shootings, mass rapes, stonings, and spraying acid in the faces of women
whom were not covered.
In 1986 Gorbachov promised the
imperialists that Soviet troops will be fully withdrawn by 15 February
1989. Soviet operations came to an abrupt halt, and turned over to the
Afghan forces. Gorbachov's betrayal threw the workers, women, peasants,
and leftist to the CIA's Mujahideen cutthroats, allowed a Soviet defeat,
and the enslavement of millions of Afghans. Afghanistan was to be the
first of the Socialist states that Gorbachov would sell out in order to
be loved by the imperialists. At the news of the complete Red Army
pullout from Milt Bearden in Pakistan, at CIA headquarters in Langley
the broke out the champagne while descended into endless chaos by the
Mujahideen "freedom fighters". 15,000 Soviet troops were lost in
Afghanistan, most sources note 1.5 million Afghans died on all sides.
"I
haven't had a bad night. It's not because I am without feeling for ...
or without understanding of how much agony goes along with war. It's
just that this was such a contribution to the end of what was otherwise
an evil that inflicted other kinds of pain and on so many other people,
that on balance it was worth it."
Frank Anderson CIA agent in Afghanistan. (CNN Cold War: Soldiers of God, 1998).
Only
from an imperialist government can come so much hypocrisy. Especially
since the CIA installed extreme right-wing dictators all over the Third
World. However, Frankie undoubtedly had his first horrible night on the
night of September 11, 2001. For that day he saw what he helped create.
Gorbachov's decision to withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan
was both sinister and traitorous. In order to achieve this betrayal, he
needed support. The Soviet media began a process of demonization of the
Red Army troops. They depicted propaganda along the same lines that the
imperialist media was doing, depicting Soviet troops as baby killers,
destroying villages indiscriminately, losers of the war, and a shame.
The Mujahideen was then depicted as fighters against a militarily
superior foreign invasion. Thus many of the returning veterans,
especially those who felt they were fulfilling their internationalist
duty in the war against the CIA's Mujahideen, the media had nothing but
contempt for these brave soldiers, and faced discrimination among
society. Due to this many Afghan vets found themselves in total
isolation. As they learned of this sinister betrayal by the Kremlin
Stalinists, many looked at the society with new eyes. As one young
Russian soldier said that he was sent to Afghanistan in 1986 "to fight
for internationalism" but as he returned home he was degraded, insulted,
and "called a rapist by the very same people who sent him there". (Workers Vanguard
No. 756, 13 April 2001). In fact after the capitalist
counter-revolution in the USSR, the Stalinist bureaucrats threw their
party cards away and became capitalists. This further isolated the
veterans who had nowhere to turn to, and grew to hate these traitors.
There was not one mention of the fight for women's liberation in
Afghanistan from imperialist-backed misogynistic Mujahideen, much less
the extension of the gains of the October Revolution defending social
progression of the Saur Revolution. As one Soviet woman put it, "The
propaganda says only that we invaded a foreign country, we sent our
children to die. They did not tell us about the women, or about the
children." Another said, "So they played on people's maternal feelings.
And it ended in the fact that the army was withdrawn, and we consider
this a terrible betrayal of the communists in Afghanistan". (Women and Revolution No. 40 Winter 1991-1992)
After
the Soviet withdrawal, the Afghan PDPA government continued with the
Afghan People's Army holding out alone against the CIA's Mujahideen. At
Jalalabad from March to May of 1989 the Mujahideen fanatics made
repeated attempts to take the city, but were defeated by the Afghan
People's Army assisted by revolutionary militias including Afghan
militiawomen, thus leaving the Mujahideen haunted by their failure. For
the next three years, the Afghan Army held out successfully against the
Mujahideen. Once the Soviet Union and the Eastern European deformed
workers states fell to capitalist counter-revolution, led to the
weakening and demise of the DRA in 1992 as Kabul fell to the Mujahideen.
The then Afghan leader Mohammed Najibullah and his brother were
captured by the Taliban. The Taliban then castrated Najibullah and his
brother, dragged them behind a jeep and then shooting them to death.
Their badly mutilated bodies were then hung from a lamppost in Kabul.
Burhanuddin
Rabbani, of the Mujahideen group now known as the "Northern Alliance"
became Afghanistan's president in 1992, then went on to fight the
Taliban. From then on the people of Afghanistan would endure the
terrorism of the now split up "freedom fighters" whom now fought each
other over power, systematically slaughtered innocents, subjugated the
Afghan masses to extreme poverty and religious totalitarianism. Not to
mention the U.S-led rape in 2001-present against Washington's former
darlings. Had the Saur Revolution been successfully defended, Afghans
would enjoyed a their country without the tribal warfare and imperialist
invasion, hence many Afghans who perished would've been alive today
thanks to Washington's reactionaries and Gorbachov's defeatism.
Gorbachov's withdrawal was a betrayal to the workers of Afghanistan.
A video documentary entitled Afghan Stories
made in 2002 by New York film producer Taran Davies for the purpose of
shedding light on the conflict in Afghanistan, and the 9/11 attacks. As
he traveled through Central Asia he interviewed a family of Afghan
refugees whom fled from the terror of the Taliban. Ali Baig lives in
Tajikistan with his wife Shukria and four children, and live under
constant harassment from the chauvinistic Tajik authorities. Ali and
Shukria had very comfortable lives with their family after the Saur
Revolution and during the Soviet occupation. In Afghan Stories Ali said,
"In 1978 I was accepted to a teaching school in Kabul. It was the
golden period in my life...I worked for a newspaper. I also taught as an
assistance professor." Afterwards his wife Shukria stated, "It was the
happiest time of our lives, I loved my job. I wore a white coat and a
stethescope and examined patients. Our lives were normal." Ali was a
successful professor of journalism at the Kabul university under the
pro-Soviet leftist government of Afghanistan, and Shukria was a
successful nurse at a Kabul hospital. After the Soviet withdrawal and
the fall of the PDPA government the Baigs, like many other Afghans lost
everything they had earned to the CIA's Mujahideen butchers, and
witnessed their atrocities against civilians.
Lies and Truths about the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan
LIE: The Soviets wanted to rule Afghanistan, then Pakistan and Iran for the oil in the Persian Gulf.
TRUTH:
Afghanistan before the Saur Revolution of 1978 had been one of the
Soviet Union's capitalist client states of the Third World. They were
already allies before Afghanistan's Socialist Revolution. The Soviet
Union always had an abundant oil supply in the Central Asian republics
and the Caucasus. If the Russians only wanted to conquer Afghanistan as
is absurdly believed today, why didn't they do it before? They had many
chances.
LIE: The Soviets wanted to force Communism on Afghanistan.
TRUTH:
Every military action taken by the Soviets after World War II has been
either requested or in honor of a treaty made by that group or country.
The USA and their U.N and NATO stooges however, have occupied countries
and toppled their governments (whether a dictatorship or democratically
elected) that threatened U.S colonial rule over the region. The Soviet
government despite its achievements was bureaucratically degenerated by
Stalinism. At the time of the Soviet action in Afghanistan, the Kremlin
Stalinist took up a truly Red action. They had virtually no interest in
seeing Socialist Revolutions anywhere but would support them if they
occured, and defended the countries where they occured from American
aggression. The Soviet government took Third World capitalist
anti-Western states as client states (Syria, Libya, Somalia, Iraq before
Hussein, Egypt under Nasser to name a few), abandoning any real class
struggle in these client states. The previous regimes of Afghanistan
before 1978 People's government were among these Soviet client states.
Also, the Soviet government would accepted countries pledging to be
neutral (such as Austria, Finland, or Ireland) with capitalist systems,
therefore not promoting class struggle in these countries.
LIE: Afghanistan was the Soviet Union's own Vietnam.
TRUTH:
It is sickening to compare the Soviets' defense of the Afghan Socialist
Revolution to the U.S-led mass murder of the Vietnamese people. In
Vietnam the Soviets were aiding their comrades as Communists should
against an imperialist bloodbath. In Afghanistan, the USA aided Islamic
fundamentalists whom they had previous problems with in places like
Iran, hence an unholy alliance. The American war in Vietnam was to keep
in power an incomptent and unpopular regime, to keep the workers and
peasants of Southeast Asia under U.S colonial rule. In Afghanistan the
Soviet war was for the purpose of defending social-progression (brought
by the workers and peasants of Afghanistan) from the agents of U.S
imperialism. The Russians succeeded in securing Afghanistan's cities
from the Mujahideen and were gaining the upper hand, whereas the
Americans couldn't secure even Saigon from the Viet Cong in spite of the
"military victories". The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army were well
organized, disciplined, and united; who's victory came in rebuilding
Vietnam from the imperialist onslaught. The Mujahideen were
disorganized, ill-trained, undisciplined, and plagued by tribal and
ethnic rivalry. Once the Mujahideen took over Afghanistan, they
systematically destroyed the entire country. The struggle of the Viet
Cong and NVA was an internal revolutionary struggle against brought by
the will of the heroic Vietnamese workers and peasants. The Mujahideen's
Jihad came from the imperialists' fund, i.e from the outside not
inside. Even CIA stooge Frank Anderson stated,
"It is entirely true
that this was a war that was fought with our gold but with their blood."
(CNN Cold War: Soldiers of God, 1998). Clearly there are no
similarities.
LIE: The Stinger missile brought down the Soviets in Afghanistan and turned the war around.
TRUTH:
A common lie told to boost America's image before September 11th 2001
that it was the Americans who forced the Russians to withdraw from
Afghanistan. However, American military analyst Alan Kuperman stated in
his article The Stinger Missile and U.S. Intervention in Afghanistan:
"The Stinger effectively was neutralized by technical and tactical
counter-measures well before the Soviets actually completed their
withdrawal. Thus, there is no evidence the Stinger even hastened Soviet
withdrawal. Had Gorbachev not decided autonomously to withdraw, it is
unlikely the Stinger could have chased him out of Afghanistan." Flare
dispensors were installed on Soviet and Afghan aircraft to fool the
Stinger heat-seeking missiles and detered them from engaging the
aircraft, along with effective air maneuvers.
LIE: The
war in Afghanistan destroyed the Soviet Union and the Mujahideen
inspired the "uprisings against Soviet rule" in Eastern Europe.
TRUTH:
What destroyed the Soviet Union was not the outcome of the war in
Afghanistan but the decades of Stalinist misrule, corruption, and
illusions of peaceful coexistence with imperialism ended with Gorbachov
and his reactionary policies of glasnost (capitulation) and perestroika
(market reforms) which contradicted the Bolshevik internationalist
policies of Lenin and the October Revolution, and led to the eventual
fall of the Soviet workers state. After Gorbachov's sell out in
Afghanistan, he then put as much pressure as possible on the Eastern
European Stalinist leaders to reform or resign. The result was isolation
for the deformed workers states of Eastern Europe where
counter-revolutionaries backed by the U.S gained power as one workers
state after another fell to capitalist counter-revolution.
PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING BEFORE MAKING ANY COMMENTS.
Russians
enter Afghanistan in 1979 to combat imperialist-backed mullahs; in
defense of the Saur Revolution and social-progression; and in defense of
the Soviet southern borders from Islamic fundamentalism.
"The
religions of the East are deeply rooted and have many precious values.
Their spiritual beliefs cannot be reconciled with Communist atheism and
materialism. That creates a common bond between us."
--John Foster
Dulles, 1950. He was later Eisenhower's Secretary of State, and right
hand man in Eisenhower's anti-Communist/ "rollback" war drive.
"It's
all the Soviets' fault", "the evil Russians destroyed Afghanistan",
"the USA and its allies always wanted freedom and democracy for
Afghans", "its not the America's fault". These are but a few of the
absurd statements made about Afghanistan, demonizing the Soviets, and
glorifying the U.S and western roles. The turmoil, oppression and
bloodshed which has engulfed Afghanistan throughout the 1990's to the
present did not have to happen. In fact in the late 1970's Afghanistan
was moving upward, and into the twentieth century. The Afghan workers'
progress was derailed and destroyed because such achievements conflicted
with the interests of the imperialists, like many others before
Afghanistan.
For almost it's entire existence, Afghanistan has
been a primitive and backwards Islamic country where the people are
subordinate to strict authority of Islamic order governed by small
militant families, most of the population was illiterate, with almost no
modern technology or industry. Through most of the twentieth century
Afghanistan was a monarchy under the rule Shah Mohammed Zahir from
1929-1973. In 1973 a coup d'etat initiated by Mohammed Daoud, and
declared Afghanistan a Republic. Daoud's economic reforms had not
improved the economy and became very unpopular with not only the people
but the military as well.
In April 1978, the Great Saur
Revolution (or April Revolution) took place ousting Daoud's corrupt
regime. In Kabul and other places the people and army mobilized by the
left-wing PDPA (People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan), and declared
the DRA (Democratic Republic of Afghanistan) with a Socialist economy.
Nur Mohammed Taraki was the revolutionary and party leader who mobilzed
Afghanistan into revolution. From the victory of the Saur Revolution,
reforms swept Afghanistan. Inspite of the social progress the PDPA, it
was weakened by internal rivalries between Taraki's Khalqi faction
adapting to more Marxist principles, and Babrak Karmal's Parcham faction
resorting to more nationalism, thus making the party exclusively
left-nationalist. Power was taken from the previous elite (mullahs,
khans, money lenders and feudal landlords) and passed down the the
workers and peasants, land and agriculture was collectivized, debts were
cancelled, religion and politics were for the first time in Afghan
history separated. Although the offical program was atheism, Afghans
were still granted the right to practice Islam. Education became
available to every Afghan, as well as medicine, pensions, jobs; poverty
was fading away. Also was the case of women in Afghanistan whom until
the Saur Revolution were regarded as property by their husbands and
fathers, and most with no education. After the Saur Revolution women
were placed along side men in literacy classes, and later given jobs as
professors, doctors, government positions, basically any job available
to men was also available to women, who were also encouraged to stop
wearing the veils but could do so by their own choice. Afghanistan
definitely was moving up, and who could be against it?
"The
Communists were trying to change the law of God. They wanted to destroy
Islamic traditions -- to rid Afghanistan of poverty and make everyone
equal. This is against the law of Islam -- God has decided who is rich
and who is poor. It can't be changed by Communists. It's beyond
imagination."
Sahar Gul, Mullah Laghman Province (CNN Cold War: Soldiers of God, 1998)
The
Revolutionary gains in Afghanistan unfortunately was not convenient to
everyone. The mullahs, khans, and feudal landlords along with local
bandits who had no authority at this point were outraged and began their
counter-revolutionary campaign of terror targeting schools, collective
farms, acts of arson, and slaughtering Afghan workers, women,
intellectuals, and leftists in barbaric methods such as flayings,
beheadings, stonings, and repeated cuttings. The mullah's favorite
target for this kind of barbarity were Communist school teachers for
teaching women how to read. The Saur Revolution also severly angered the
United States, and their imperialist allies, who felt that the
Revolution was a serious threat to U.S control of the Persian Gulf oil
(decision made by Carter's crony Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1980), and began
training these Islamic counter-revolutionary psychotics in Pakistan who
called themselves the Mujahideen (holy warriors) who were out to fight a
jihad (holy war) against the newborn Afghan workers state. The USA was
to do anything in its power to destroy the Saur Revolution which did not
exclude a U.S-led invasion.
After the Saur Revolution,
Afghanistan signed a Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union
confirming good comradeship between both countries for Socialist unity.
As the Mujahideen continued their acts of sabotage and terrorism, the
Afghan People's government mobilized the armed forces to fight the
counter-revolutionaries. Although well-disciplined and trained, the
young Afghan Socialist state was not fully prepared to cope with the
Mujahideen, especially when a U.S-led invasion appeared imminent.
Honoring the Treaty of Friendship the Soviet Army entered Afghanistan at
the request of the People's government. The Soviet occupation took
place on Christmas eve of 1979. The imperialist world did not know until
it was fully completed. Once the imperialists learned of the Soviet
action, "INVASION" was on all their lips. The U.S-controlled U.N held an
emergency session calling for all Red Army troops to be completely
withdrawn from Afghanistan. The then U.S president Jimmy Carter attacked
the Soviet Union for violating "International Law" (more accurately
American Global Law) and organized an international embargo on grain
shipments to the USSR attempting to starve the Soviet people. Carter
hypocritically denounced the Soviet action as "the most serious threat
to the peace since the Second World War." Afghanistan was the only post
war Soviet action outside the Warsaw Pact territory, while the U.S had
intervened militarily repeatedly in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the
Middle East. And yet the Soviets were posing greatest threat to world
peace since World War II in Afghanistan?
Prior to the Soviet
intervention, Carter had been on an anti-Soviet campaign unlike any
practiced by previous U.S presidents. Making public the reactionary
activities by the pro-imperialist anti-Communist Soviet dissidents
(Moscow Helsinki Group) and their imprisonment in the late 1970s, Carter
used the liberal "human rights violations" to openly attack the Soviet
Union which was kept on shakey ground by the defeatist Detente (peaceful
co-existence) policy of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Detente was over
as a result of the Soviet action. After the Soviet intervention in
Afghanistan, Carter stepped up his attacks which exceeded further than a
grain embargo. Carter restricted American athletes from participating
in the Olympic games to be held in Moscow in 1980, and later threatened
the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons while accusing the Soviets of
jeopardizing world peace. Carter was truly ready to start a third world
war over Afghanistan, with the ridiculous rhetoric of a fantasized
Soviet invasion of Pakistan, Iran, and then seizing the entire Persian
Gulf oil supply. He put all U.S forces in the Persian Gulf on high-alert
to protect his precious oil and deter a bogus Soviet threat created in
Jimmy's little head. Carter's reponse was covertly aiding woman-hating
Islamic fundamentalists, which did not begin after the Soviet
intervention, but six months earlier. Jimmy Carter along with Pakistani
dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq established training camps where Afghan
extremists received training and arms for the purpose of toppling the
Afghan People's government.
For the Soviet Union, the military
intervention in Afghanistan to combat the Mujahideen had two main
objectives. 1) To secure the southern border of the Soviet Union from an
Islamic fundamentalism, which could have very well spread a
counter-revolutionary jihad through the Muslim republics of the USSR.
This was the full intention of the American CIA, British MI-6 and the
Pakistani ISI when they were training the Afghan Mujahideen, also
promoting a jihad as a counter-revolutionary dagger through the Soviet
Union with guerilla attacks in Soviet Central Asia. Such a jihad in the
Soviet Union was especially advocated by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
of Iran who found himself on the same side of the barricades as the
imperialists who's interests he ended in Iran with his Islamic
Revolution in 1979. 2) To defend the social gains of the Saur Revolution
of 1978 to the Afghan people from the Mujahideen psychotics.
Due
to the fiercely independent nature of Afghan people in general, the
Soviet government and their Afghan comrades agreed in 1979 on a limited
contingent for a temporary occupation until order can be restored, and
the Soviet troops would leave. Unfortunately the Kremlin Stalinists not
wanting to anger the U.S imperialists any further, they introduced only
100,000 troops at a time. In Afghanistan, the Red Army successfully
liberated and secured Kabul and all of Afghanistan's major cities and
the surrounding villages from the Mujahideen. The Mujahideen however,
were able to use the country side to their own advantage, where Soviet
troops and convoys were most vulnerable. Afghanistan's deep gorges and
narrow roads were to be a real challege for the Russian forces. But the
Soviets would use their control of the air and artillery to provide
safer routes through Afghanistan for their convoys. The thick armored
Mil Mi-24 Hind Gunship (nearly 100% resistant against 50 caliber
rounds), the Soviets' most effective combat weapon, proved to be
exceptionally useful not only for convoy escort, but for direct attacks
on Mujahideen positions; thus saved many Soviet troops. The Red Army has
had a history of counter-insurgency warfare. The Red Army had
successfully crushed U.S-backed fascist insurgents: Forest Brothers in
the Soviet Baltic Republics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), remnants of
the Armia Krajowa
(Home Army) in Poland, and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army after the
Second World War. In Afghanistan, the Mujahideen would be another. While
Soviet and Afghan infantry was mobilized fighting the Mujahideen,
Soviet Spetsnaz commandos were dropped behind the Mujahideen lines and
attacked their bases with devastating results. Usually the Mujahideen
fled Russian and Afghan ground and air assaults in retreat. On the
escape routes, Soviet Airborne troops were dropped behind the lines and
ambushed the retreating Mujahideen. Although, certainly more challenging
than the previous insurgencies, these methods were nonetheless
effective against the Mujahideen counter-revolutionaries.
The
U.S proxy war in Afghanistan was completely bipartisan with both the
Republican and Democratic parties financing the Mujahideen (the Serbian
and Iraqi peoples would come to suffer from bipartisan U.S aggression in
the 1990's-present as well). The Americans especially were obsessed
with the "Soviet Vietnam" rhetoric. In 1980 Jimmy Carter's National
Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (the Democratic Party's own Henry
Kissinger) wrote a memo to Carter telling him that "We now have the
opportunity to give the Soviet Union its Vietnam". That same year at the
Khyber Pass in Pakistan, Brzezinski pointing to Afghanistan told the
Islamic reactionaries: "That land over there is yours. You will go back
to it one day, because your fight will prevail and you'll have your
homes and your mosques back again, because your cause is right and God
is on your side." Later, Texas Democratic Congressman Charles Wilson
said "There were 58,000 [American] dead in Vietnam, and we owe the
Russians one...I have a slight obsession with it because of Vietnam. I
thought the Soviets ought to get a dose of it." The imperialists' goal
from the begining was to kill as many Soviet officers and soldiers as
possible.
When Ronald Reagan took over he along with British
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher aid to the Mujahideen tripled from
Jimmy Carter's aid. Both Reagan and Thatcher praised their soldiers of
god as "freedom fighters", fighting a war with sticks and stones
shouting "allah akbar" against a powerful godless Communist demon.
Adding to that, Reagan and his conservative zealots were still plenty
sore at the heroic Vietnamese people's (whom they thought of as inferior
subhumans) victory over their seemingly unbeatable armed forces and
Soviet support for the Vietnam. Seeking "revenge" on the Soviets, Reagan
had the CIA arm his darlings with all the latest American weaponry. In
addition to US weapons, the CIA organized arms shipments from Great
Britain, reformist China, Egypt, Pakistan, Israel (YES!), Saudi Arabia,
Iran, Apartheid South Africa, NATO, as well as Japan, South Korea,
Australia and New Zealand to the Mujahideen training camps in Pakistan.
This covert action would cost the CIA billions of dollars, thus becoming
the largest and most expensive covert action in history.
One
of Reagan's little darling "freedom fighters" was a rich Saudi named
Osama Bin Laden who was among the first volunteers in the imperialists'
Mujahideen counter-revolution. He and Palestinian extremist Sheikh
Abdullah Azzam established an organization called Maktab al-Khadamat (Office
of Order); which not only worked with the CIA, MI-6, and ISI on
purchasing arms and explosives, but also recruited Islamic extremists
from all over the world. Tens of thousands of Muslim radicals were
recruited by the imperialists and Bin Laden from Central Asia, Middle
East, Far East, North Africa, and East Africa to fight their Jihad in
Afghanistan. Another fanatical Mujahid whom received lots of aid from
the CIA, MI-6, and ISI was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar's Mujahids
were known for their barbaric methods such as spraying acid in the faces
of women not covered; as well as acts of flayings, stoning, setting
alight Afghan intellectuals, Communists, leftists, workers, and women
labeled as "infidels". Ironically Bin Laden and Hekmatyar with their
well accumilated finances and training would later wage a jihad against
America.
In the capitalist media and entertainment, Reagan's
Mujahideen were depicted as heroes while the Soviets and their Afghan
comrades were demonized. The imperialist media were in an anti-Soviet
frenzy were quick to use the "genocide" label with faked stories such as
"wiping out the Afghan people", Soviets dropping "toy bombs" to lure
Afghan children to their deaths, butchering Afghan babies, mass rapes,
"yellow rain" chemical warfare without providing sufficient proof aside
from "testimonies" by Mujahids. But it was more than enough of what
American journalist Dan Rather aired on CBS news of a "Soviet genocide"
while dressed in Mujahideen headdress and garments. Naturally the
western public (especially the Americans) swallowed it whole, especially
when the lies appeared in Sylvester Stallone's Rambo III
(the only time a Soviet "toy bomb" ever appeared on screen).
Particulary in the very begining when Rambo was being debriefed by a CIA
officer, informing him of Soviet atrocities and the U.S involvement,
and later when Rambo was with the Mujahideen being informed of barbaric
Soviet atrocities. Yet while these tall tales of "Soviet butchers" were
being circulated, Reagan himself was covertly supporting fanatical
right-wing dictatorships in Latin America and across the Third World.
Despite
the imperialist lie of a "Soviet Vietnam", the Soviet and Afghan forces
were gaining the upper hand in the war against the Mujahideen, whom
were becoming demoralized and retreating by 1985. This was clearly
demonstrated in 1985-1986 when the Soviets launched their most effective
operation against the Mujahideen supply lines and bases forcing them to
retreat into defensive at Kandahar and Herat. Supply caravans from
Pakistan and Iran were destroyed or seized by Russian troops. The Red
Army also inflicted heavy losses on the Mujahideen in the Kunar and
Paktia provinces and forced them into massive retreat from those
strategic locations. Due to the Mujahideen's inability to defend their
supplies in an organized fashion, the Russians and Afghans annihilated
one Mujahideen group after another. It was only a matter of time before
victory against the Mujahideen fanatics was achieved. Even Dr. Jack
Wheeler, a pundit for the conservative Newsmax Media and cheerleader for
Bush's "war on terror", after 9/11 said, "The Soviets won in
Afghanistan. The famed up Mujahideen had slunk back to the refugee camps
in Pakistan, demoralized, dejected, and defeated. I was there, I saw
it. It was August, 1986, and the Mujahideen had given up. The Soviets
had won."
"Our sacrifices were not for nothing. We have after all brought there the achievements of the civilized world."
Soviet Veteran of Afghanistan, March 1988 (Workers Vanguard No. 756, 13 April 2001)
Unfortunately
during the operation in 1986, the Soviet liberal Stalinist leader
Mikhail Gorbachov pledged to the imperialists that he was making plans
to withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan, thus all major Soviet
operations against the Mujahideen came to a halt leaving it to the
Afghan People's Army. Even after this, the CIA gave the Mujahideen
reactionaries the anti-aircraft shoulder held Stinger missile, for they
weren't quite sure that their butchers would prevail. Prior to the
Stinger missile, the British had supplied the Mujahideen with their
anti-aircraft Blowpipe missile, which in the end turned out to be
virtually ineffective against Soviet air power, so the imperialists
needed another weapon that ended up being the Stinger. CIA director
William Casey (a culprit of the Iran-Contra Affair) dispatched two of
his cronies Milt Bearden and Frank Anderson to train the Mujahideen on
using the Stinger missile. This weapon limited Soviet control over the
air, but the Russians later produced effective counter measures such as
flares to fool the Stinger when launched. The Stinger also gave the
Mujahideen "freedom fighters" the ability to committ further atrocities,
such as in Khost when a Mujahid fired a Stinger at a plane carrying 50
plus school children to study in Moscow. The Soviets were finally able
to capture 3 Stingers in Khost after destroying a Mujahideen base in
early 1987.
The Mujahideen reactionaries would've virtually
been nothing without the support of the imperialists, and Gorbachov's
betrayal. When they weren't fighting the Soviets or their Afghan allies,
the Mujahideen fought each other. There was no real unity. They were
incapable of handling sofisticated weaponry properly, and had to be told
repeatedly. The CIA and their allies funding this war is what kept the
Mujahideen going, but even that was failing. The Afghan Jihad was
motivated by the fact that the Afghan Communists were educating the
Afghan masses, which was winning over the population in the late 80's
from the Mullahs. But more so the Mujahideen hated the fact that women
were being educated alongside men, and given professions within the
government, the military, the medical field, and educators. By the late
1980's over half a million female students were enroled at a university,
women were made up 40% of doctors and nurses, women made 60% of
professors, and even had their own councils. This freedom was made
possible only by the Saur Revolution and the Soviet military defense of
the revolution. Militia women even fought alongside Soviet and Afghan
troops against the USA's female-hating Mujahideen, defended many towns
throughout Afghanistan. These militia women were organized by the DOWA
(Democratic Organization for Women in Afghanistan). They especially
played a big role in fighting and defeating the Mujahideen at Jalalabad
(near the Pakistan border) with the Afghan People's Army, after the
Soviet pull-out. The Mujahideen's retaliations against women who
"violated Islamic law" continued at high rate. This included mass
shootings, mass rapes, stonings, and spraying acid in the faces of women
whom were not covered.
In 1986 Gorbachov promised the
imperialists that Soviet troops will be fully withdrawn by 15 February
1989. Soviet operations came to an abrupt halt, and turned over to the
Afghan forces. Gorbachov's betrayal threw the workers, women, peasants,
and leftist to the CIA's Mujahideen cutthroats, allowed a Soviet defeat,
and the enslavement of millions of Afghans. Afghanistan was to be the
first of the Socialist states that Gorbachov would sell out in order to
be loved by the imperialists. At the news of the complete Red Army
pullout from Milt Bearden in Pakistan, at CIA headquarters in Langley
the broke out the champagne while descended into endless chaos by the
Mujahideen "freedom fighters". 15,000 Soviet troops were lost in
Afghanistan, most sources note 1.5 million Afghans died on all sides.
"I
haven't had a bad night. It's not because I am without feeling for ...
or without understanding of how much agony goes along with war. It's
just that this was such a contribution to the end of what was otherwise
an evil that inflicted other kinds of pain and on so many other people,
that on balance it was worth it."
Frank Anderson CIA agent in Afghanistan. (CNN Cold War: Soldiers of God, 1998).
Only
from an imperialist government can come so much hypocrisy. Especially
since the CIA installed extreme right-wing dictators all over the Third
World. However, Frankie undoubtedly had his first horrible night on the
night of September 11, 2001. For that day he saw what he helped create.
Gorbachov's decision to withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan
was both sinister and traitorous. In order to achieve this betrayal, he
needed support. The Soviet media began a process of demonization of the
Red Army troops. They depicted propaganda along the same lines that the
imperialist media was doing, depicting Soviet troops as baby killers,
destroying villages indiscriminately, losers of the war, and a shame.
The Mujahideen was then depicted as fighters against a militarily
superior foreign invasion. Thus many of the returning veterans,
especially those who felt they were fulfilling their internationalist
duty in the war against the CIA's Mujahideen, the media had nothing but
contempt for these brave soldiers, and faced discrimination among
society. Due to this many Afghan vets found themselves in total
isolation. As they learned of this sinister betrayal by the Kremlin
Stalinists, many looked at the society with new eyes. As one young
Russian soldier said that he was sent to Afghanistan in 1986 "to fight
for internationalism" but as he returned home he was degraded, insulted,
and "called a rapist by the very same people who sent him there". (Workers Vanguard
No. 756, 13 April 2001). In fact after the capitalist
counter-revolution in the USSR, the Stalinist bureaucrats threw their
party cards away and became capitalists. This further isolated the
veterans who had nowhere to turn to, and grew to hate these traitors.
There was not one mention of the fight for women's liberation in
Afghanistan from imperialist-backed misogynistic Mujahideen, much less
the extension of the gains of the October Revolution defending social
progression of the Saur Revolution. As one Soviet woman put it, "The
propaganda says only that we invaded a foreign country, we sent our
children to die. They did not tell us about the women, or about the
children." Another said, "So they played on people's maternal feelings.
And it ended in the fact that the army was withdrawn, and we consider
this a terrible betrayal of the communists in Afghanistan". (Women and Revolution No. 40 Winter 1991-1992)
After
the Soviet withdrawal, the Afghan PDPA government continued with the
Afghan People's Army holding out alone against the CIA's Mujahideen. At
Jalalabad from March to May of 1989 the Mujahideen fanatics made
repeated attempts to take the city, but were defeated by the Afghan
People's Army assisted by revolutionary militias including Afghan
militiawomen, thus leaving the Mujahideen haunted by their failure. For
the next three years, the Afghan Army held out successfully against the
Mujahideen. Once the Soviet Union and the Eastern European deformed
workers states fell to capitalist counter-revolution, led to the
weakening and demise of the DRA in 1992 as Kabul fell to the Mujahideen.
The then Afghan leader Mohammed Najibullah and his brother were
captured by the Taliban. The Taliban then castrated Najibullah and his
brother, dragged them behind a jeep and then shooting them to death.
Their badly mutilated bodies were then hung from a lamppost in Kabul.
Burhanuddin
Rabbani, of the Mujahideen group now known as the "Northern Alliance"
became Afghanistan's president in 1992, then went on to fight the
Taliban. From then on the people of Afghanistan would endure the
terrorism of the now split up "freedom fighters" whom now fought each
other over power, systematically slaughtered innocents, subjugated the
Afghan masses to extreme poverty and religious totalitarianism. Not to
mention the U.S-led rape in 2001-present against Washington's former
darlings. Had the Saur Revolution been successfully defended, Afghans
would enjoyed a their country without the tribal warfare and imperialist
invasion, hence many Afghans who perished would've been alive today
thanks to Washington's reactionaries and Gorbachov's defeatism.
Gorbachov's withdrawal was a betrayal to the workers of Afghanistan.
A video documentary entitled Afghan Stories
made in 2002 by New York film producer Taran Davies for the purpose of
shedding light on the conflict in Afghanistan, and the 9/11 attacks. As
he traveled through Central Asia he interviewed a family of Afghan
refugees whom fled from the terror of the Taliban. Ali Baig lives in
Tajikistan with his wife Shukria and four children, and live under
constant harassment from the chauvinistic Tajik authorities. Ali and
Shukria had very comfortable lives with their family after the Saur
Revolution and during the Soviet occupation. In Afghan Stories Ali said,
"In 1978 I was accepted to a teaching school in Kabul. It was the
golden period in my life...I worked for a newspaper. I also taught as an
assistance professor." Afterwards his wife Shukria stated, "It was the
happiest time of our lives, I loved my job. I wore a white coat and a
stethescope and examined patients. Our lives were normal." Ali was a
successful professor of journalism at the Kabul university under the
pro-Soviet leftist government of Afghanistan, and Shukria was a
successful nurse at a Kabul hospital. After the Soviet withdrawal and
the fall of the PDPA government the Baigs, like many other Afghans lost
everything they had earned to the CIA's Mujahideen butchers, and
witnessed their atrocities against civilians.
Lies and Truths about the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan
LIE: The Soviets wanted to rule Afghanistan, then Pakistan and Iran for the oil in the Persian Gulf.
TRUTH:
Afghanistan before the Saur Revolution of 1978 had been one of the
Soviet Union's capitalist client states of the Third World. They were
already allies before Afghanistan's Socialist Revolution. The Soviet
Union always had an abundant oil supply in the Central Asian republics
and the Caucasus. If the Russians only wanted to conquer Afghanistan as
is absurdly believed today, why didn't they do it before? They had many
chances.
LIE: The Soviets wanted to force Communism on Afghanistan.
TRUTH:
Every military action taken by the Soviets after World War II has been
either requested or in honor of a treaty made by that group or country.
The USA and their U.N and NATO stooges however, have occupied countries
and toppled their governments (whether a dictatorship or democratically
elected) that threatened U.S colonial rule over the region. The Soviet
government despite its achievements was bureaucratically degenerated by
Stalinism. At the time of the Soviet action in Afghanistan, the Kremlin
Stalinist took up a truly Red action. They had virtually no interest in
seeing Socialist Revolutions anywhere but would support them if they
occured, and defended the countries where they occured from American
aggression. The Soviet government took Third World capitalist
anti-Western states as client states (Syria, Libya, Somalia, Iraq before
Hussein, Egypt under Nasser to name a few), abandoning any real class
struggle in these client states. The previous regimes of Afghanistan
before 1978 People's government were among these Soviet client states.
Also, the Soviet government would accepted countries pledging to be
neutral (such as Austria, Finland, or Ireland) with capitalist systems,
therefore not promoting class struggle in these countries.
LIE: Afghanistan was the Soviet Union's own Vietnam.
TRUTH:
It is sickening to compare the Soviets' defense of the Afghan Socialist
Revolution to the U.S-led mass murder of the Vietnamese people. In
Vietnam the Soviets were aiding their comrades as Communists should
against an imperialist bloodbath. In Afghanistan, the USA aided Islamic
fundamentalists whom they had previous problems with in places like
Iran, hence an unholy alliance. The American war in Vietnam was to keep
in power an incomptent and unpopular regime, to keep the workers and
peasants of Southeast Asia under U.S colonial rule. In Afghanistan the
Soviet war was for the purpose of defending social-progression (brought
by the workers and peasants of Afghanistan) from the agents of U.S
imperialism. The Russians succeeded in securing Afghanistan's cities
from the Mujahideen and were gaining the upper hand, whereas the
Americans couldn't secure even Saigon from the Viet Cong in spite of the
"military victories". The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army were well
organized, disciplined, and united; who's victory came in rebuilding
Vietnam from the imperialist onslaught. The Mujahideen were
disorganized, ill-trained, undisciplined, and plagued by tribal and
ethnic rivalry. Once the Mujahideen took over Afghanistan, they
systematically destroyed the entire country. The struggle of the Viet
Cong and NVA was an internal revolutionary struggle against brought by
the will of the heroic Vietnamese workers and peasants. The Mujahideen's
Jihad came from the imperialists' fund, i.e from the outside not
inside. Even CIA stooge Frank Anderson stated,
"It is entirely true
that this was a war that was fought with our gold but with their blood."
(CNN Cold War: Soldiers of God, 1998). Clearly there are no
similarities.
LIE: The Stinger missile brought down the Soviets in Afghanistan and turned the war around.
TRUTH:
A common lie told to boost America's image before September 11th 2001
that it was the Americans who forced the Russians to withdraw from
Afghanistan. However, American military analyst Alan Kuperman stated in
his article The Stinger Missile and U.S. Intervention in Afghanistan:
"The Stinger effectively was neutralized by technical and tactical
counter-measures well before the Soviets actually completed their
withdrawal. Thus, there is no evidence the Stinger even hastened Soviet
withdrawal. Had Gorbachev not decided autonomously to withdraw, it is
unlikely the Stinger could have chased him out of Afghanistan." Flare
dispensors were installed on Soviet and Afghan aircraft to fool the
Stinger heat-seeking missiles and detered them from engaging the
aircraft, along with effective air maneuvers.
LIE: The
war in Afghanistan destroyed the Soviet Union and the Mujahideen
inspired the "uprisings against Soviet rule" in Eastern Europe.
TRUTH:
What destroyed the Soviet Union was not the outcome of the war in
Afghanistan but the decades of Stalinist misrule, corruption, and
illusions of peaceful coexistence with imperialism ended with Gorbachov
and his reactionary policies of glasnost (capitulation) and perestroika
(market reforms) which contradicted the Bolshevik internationalist
policies of Lenin and the October Revolution, and led to the eventual
fall of the Soviet workers state. After Gorbachov's sell out in
Afghanistan, he then put as much pressure as possible on the Eastern
European Stalinist leaders to reform or resign. The result was isolation
for the deformed workers states of Eastern Europe where
counter-revolutionaries backed by the U.S gained power as one workers
state after another fell to capitalist counter-revolution.
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