Gorbachev cuts his losses homes. Courtesy of Uncle Sam: Mujahedin arms spree in Pakistan. The retreat from Kabul: FEATURES the Soviet Union as a state capitalist regime, ponents of the invasion, were always wide of the mark. Brezhney went in to support a client regime in trouble, not as part of a global strategy for expansion to "warm water ports: The troops made no effort to impose collectivisation or other measures on the arcas they controlled: on the contrary, the Kamal regime installed by Moscow made a continual series of overtures Those like the British Socialist Workers Party who argued then and now that Moscow's line was 'imperialist", and who now argue that socialists should 'welcome" the Soviet defeat' show how far they have strayed from a class analysis. In a major article, Socialist Worker *Defeat in South East Asia was a blow which US imperialism took a decade even to begin to recover from. Despite its victory in the Gulf the 'Gorbachev faces a similar nightmare. The The United States decision to supply surface to air missiles to the mujahedin was an impor- wrought by yet another attempt at imperialist subjection can only continuc.' (February 4, To see the US supply of Stinger missiles as an agency for the type of change welcomed by socialists is a feat of 'marxist' analysis reserved for those who share the SWP's bizarre view of Few class conscious workers will share the SWP's glee at the mujahedin victory, which they claim will encourage the opponents of Surprisingly, however, the 1979 invasion was supported not only by those who routinely hacked the Moscow bureaucracy, but also by some clements from the western ultra left and and concessions to the islamic forces, culminat- Pentagon has not yet fully erased the memory. repercussions of this defeat will echo way Inside Afghanistan the cycle of misery qualitatively indistinguishable from the USA. ing in the new constitution at the end of 1988. All socialists should welcome it. beyond the borders of Afghanistan. tant factor in Russia's defeat... Russian rule everywhere'. line was 'imperialist" some of the issues and offers some answers. Leonid Brezhnev's decision in 1979 to send troops to prop up the weak pro- Moscow regime in Kabul was a gamble which brought serious setbacks to the Hostility to the intervention poisoned the ground for Soviet diplomatic initiatives in much of the "Third World", especially the muslim Though the troops were seeking to preserve that had been for decades in the Soviet sphere of influence", their intervention gave the US warmongers a golden opportunity to sep up carved up by the arbitrury imposition of borders talism in Iran, lost no time in starting to funnel aid to the fundamentalist mujahedin, soon tory. The effectiveness of their guerrilla warfare is open to considerable dout, and their impact for many years was much greater on naive The intervention also brought the USSR the huge domestic cost of what proved to be not a limited and straightforward policing action but a prolonged and unwinnable guerrilla war, taxing the morale of Soviet troops, breaking the myth of their invincibility, and offering the While an escalation of Soviet involvement could have struck heavier blows at the mujahedin, in the absence of popular support for the regime in Kabul, this could only have been at the expense of viitual genocide. Es timates of Soviet losses are unreliable: however the figure of 15,000 Soviet dead is not apparent- However there was never any indication that the Soviet troops were sent in to "sovictise", an- an existing pro-Moscow regime in a country and whose nationalities had been crudely Reagan, still smarting from the US humilia- tion at the hands of Khomeini's fundamen- making them the best-financed guerrillas in his- nexe or 'assimilate' Afghanistan to the USSR. raised by pro-Stalinist supporters or by op Moscow leaders no plausible casy escape westem joumalists than on the Soviet forces. ly contested - with many more injuries. ments for siting Cruise and Pershing g In both Washington and London a S Arguments of Soviet 'expansionism", their cold war propaganda, backed quoted the "evil empire" as a pretext for his massive military build-up and the new Thatcher goveriment was covered for the self-determination by an economic boycott Reagan lso able to cash in on the interven- tion as a reserve weapon in its argu- touching new concern was dis- viously been completely ignored. of the Afghan people* - who had pre- Soviet bureaucracy. by British imperialists. missiles in Europe. Page 10
Page 11 February 1987 Geneva talks under segis of with mujahedin, announces change of name New policy proposals include incentives for February 1989 The last convoys of Soviet der. Intensified feuding between mujahedin govemments of Afghamstan, USSR, Pakistan troops pull out from Kabul and cross the bor- May 1986 Najibullah, bead of political police, January 1987 Culmination of Soviet-Afghan offensive. Revolutionary Council annourices kix-month renewable unilateral ceasefire and a November 1987 New ansembly of notables adopts a now constitution restoring islamic rules of inheritance, and changing the official designation of the state, climinaling the tenn "democtic" A new agrorian law rises max- imum permitted size of land-holding, and February 8. 1988 Gorbaches announces swifter than expected schedule for withdrawa] April 14, 1988 Geneva accord signed by October 1988 Leftist faction opposed to talks and deals with mujahedin expelled from December 1988 PDPA, in new bid for deal Babrak Kurmal and a new Parcham. cahinet flown into Afghanistan in Soviet planes. State apparatus, purged to death by Amin, teeters on Karmal fres bazaar merchants From state con- April 1984 Radio Kabul claims major vic- fories in military offensive against mujahedin involving over 500 Soviet tanks and amoured 1985 Gorbaches strategy to Afghanise" the war begins, with autumn amembly of tribal November 1985 Karmal presents "ten thicace" inclading a now system of local clections designed to draw in non-members of PDPA. 1986 Regime boasts it has built 100 mosques in six years. Religious teaching mintroduced into schools. US aid to mujahedin reaches March 1986 US decision to supply mujahedin December 1986 Najibullah appenis from Moscow for goverment of national unity in- and abandonment of marxist-leninist ideology: December 27, 1979 Massive Soviet invasion using forces from Soviet muslim republice February 1980 Troops from Muslim republics withdrawn, replaced by Russians. Ten years of chiefs, mullahs and other "personalities". 1987 US aid for mujahedin hits 5600m. private, especially foreign, investment. tokes helm from Karmal as party chiel. abolishes restrictions on big landlords. with portable anti-nircraft missiles. crisis 1980 Land refonns annulled. cluding mujahedin leaders. including mullahs. point of collapse. general amnesty. United Nations. Imop carriers: trol. up the demand for a halt to all further supplies mujahedin factions will quickly fall out over ing. none of then has anything progressive to In the absence of a central state machinery or difference of the imperialists (who don't care who rules Afghanistan, on whatever haris, an long as it represents a sctback for Moscow), the in the foreseeable future for a healthy socialist cument to emerge in Afghanistan to challenge the reactionary rule of the guerrillas, the work- ing class movement in Britain, the USA and other inperialist countries should at least take of arms and cash to the mujahedin, and expose the complicity of self-styled "democratic" im- perialism in the restoration of 13th century- style feudal and istanic repression on the such a threat rests on the vastly superior living peoples of the southern Soviet republics. sions which might otherwise be exploited by the For Afghanistan, the future looks bleak. It scems that the Kabul regime may hang on * longer than the wester media had predicted: trol over the vast bulk of the countryside, its days must be numbered. Then the rival ogy and archaie institutions (the mildest of which isrestoring the monarchy), and corrupted by years of casy cash, arms sales and dope deal- a predominant military power among the mujahedin factions, and with the predictable in- most likely scenario appears to be a "Lebanisation' of Afphanistan into zopes of in fluence around the various gucrrilla groupings. Though there appears to be little or no scope new, reactionary. pro-imperialist or islamic regime on its southem flank, which may in- Socialists cannot argue for a defence of the USSR which depends upon the permanent In fact the best defence of the USSR against standards, education and culture enjoyed by the together with prompt mensures to reverse the truditional attitudes of Great Russian chauvinism, and thus defuse the national ten- but since it has completely lost any scrious con- division of the spoils; tied to reactionary ideol- offer the peasantry or the tiny working class, military subjection of neighbouring peoples. Name the Soviet muslim republics. Fighting for reactionary ideology and institutions - mujahedin guerrilla. women and men of Afghanistan: UR islamic reactionaries. defence of ile USSR itself, hy establishing a sored Renamo mercenaries. Moscow has even Similarly in Asia, Moscow is more interested in links with the bourgeois governments than with the workers struggles in the Philippines and Indonesia. All this cynical horse-trading with imperialism is as much a key component of Gorbachevism abroad as glasnost and The other main argument rused by the op ponents of a Soviet withdrawal is thar the im- pending mujahedin victory will endanger the ly in its traditional "spheres of inflocnce", and ments (as in Afghanistan itself), they would raise not a finger in military action in support insurgent revolutionaries in