HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------
UNITE! Info #19en: 2/4 Social-imperialism's Afghan war [Posted: 09.10.96] [Continued from part 1/4] CHAPTER 2: A DISCUSSION AMONG SOVIET LEADERS, 1979 After the breaking up of the Soviet Union in 1991, many earlier confidential Soviet documents were made public, among them some protocols of discussions in the Soviet revisionist party's Po- litbureau. Here I shall quote from some extracts from one such protocol, that of a session lasting three days in March 1979. My source is the issue No. 4/1994 of the Swedish-languague magazine Afghanistan-Nytt, organ of the Swedish Afghanistan Committee, a solidarity organization for supporting the Afghan people's re- sistance against the aggression. (This organization was suppor- ted by a quite large number of people in Sweden, including many who considered themselves "left-wing". I joined it in the early 1980s.) What's interesting, among other things, to note here are the terms in which the Soviet social-imperialist chieftains them- selves are describing that possible action in Afghanistan which they were later in fact to undertake. Again, those descriptions of events in that country in 1979-1989, by people calling them- selves "Marxists", which I'll quote in Chapter 3 should be com- pared to those judgements on them which appear here, judgements already made in advance, so to speak, by some of the very per- sons responsible. I reproduce in translation from an article in Afghanistan-Nytt No. 4/94 by Stefan Lindgren, who reports on the Soviet protocol [comments within square brackets are by me]: THE HERAT UPRISING In March 1979, almost nine months before the Soviet invasion, considerable disturbances took place in the third-largest city of Afghanistan. On 17 March, the Soviet Politbureau convened for a three days long meeting. During the first two days, Brezhnev was not present. GROMYKO: "The situation in Afghanistan has seriously deteriorated. The centre of disturbances is now the city of Herat....As is known from earlier telegrams, the 17th Afghan division is stationed there. It restored order but now seems in practice to have dis- integrated. The artillery regiment and one infantry regiment which were part of that division have gone over to the side of the insurrectionists." According to Gromyko, the uprising was caused by thousands of revolters from Pakistan and Iran who with US help had caused chaos in Herat. Over 1000 people had died in Herat, he reported. The situation had not been adequatly met by the Afghan govern- ment, Gromyko held, and he continued: "As a characteristical thing may be noted that at 11 o'clock this morning, I had a conversation with AMIN, who is foreign minister and the deputy of TARAKI, and he expressed no anxiety whatsoever concerning the situation in Afghanistan but spoke with Olympic calm about the situation's not being all that comp- licated (...) Amin even said that the situation in Afghanistan is normal. He said that not one single case of insubordination on the part of the Govenors had been registered. (...)" "Within about half an hour we got a another message, which said that our comrades, the military Chief Adviser comrade Gorelov and the Charge' d'Affaires comrade Alekseyev had invited comrade Taraki to visit them (...) As far as military assistance was concerned, Taraki said in passing that perhaps help will be needed both on the ground and in the air. This must be under- stood to mean that we are requested to send ground forces as well as aircraft." "I hold that we must proceed from the most important fact when helping Afghanistan, and this is, under no circumstances must we lose that country." [A statement which of course was just as candid as, and similar to, for instance the discussion by the US imperialists in the late 1940s and early 1950s on how it came to be that "we" had "lost" China, about "who was responsible for that", etc etc.] Several other speakers expressed their distrust of the Afghan government and its heavy-handed purges of rivalling Communist [as those people of course would call them] factions. Even at this point in time, there within the Politbureau were put forward various proposals on armed intervention and even on a complete invasion. Defence minister USTINOV briefly reported: "Tomorrow, 18 March, operative groups will be sent to Herat's airfield." He at the same time presented two possible lines of action. In the one case, smaller forces would be sent. In the other, the Soviet Union would dispatch two divisions, or about 36,000 men. The proposals were met with some objections. KIRILENKO: "The question arises, against whom our Army will wage war if we send them there. Against the insurrectionists, but the insurrec- tionists have been joined by a large number of religious per- sons, Moslems and among them a large number of the common people. In this way we will be forced to a considerable degree to wage war against the people." The following day, KOSYGIN reported on his telephone conversa- tion with Taraki. The anti-aircraft batallion in Herat had also gone over to the enemy. "If the Soviet Union does not help us now", Taraki had said, "we will not be able to stay in power." This was understood by both Kosygin and Ustinov as a request for direct military assistance. But still, individual Politbu- reau members raised serious objections to an invasion. ANDROPOV: "We know Lenin's teachings about the revolutionary situation. What such situation might there be in Afghanistan? There isn't such a situation there at all. We can only help the revolution" [the counter-revolutionary Soviet revisionist leaders of course used such upside-down terms when speaking among themselves, too] "in Afghanistan by means of our bayonets, and this is absolutely impermissible for us. We cannot take such a risk." [Like the "traditional" imperialists, the Soviet revisionists would mix "moral" statements with candid ones. Here of course "impermissible" was the hypocritically "moral" and "it's too risky" the candid.] GROMYKO: "I wholly support comrade Andropov on our having to exclude such a measure as sending troops into Afghanistan. The Army is not reliable there. In this case our Army, if we send it into Af- ghanistan, will be an aggressor. (...) We must consider the fact that neither can we justify juridically the sending in of troops. (...) Afghanistan is not subjected to any aggression. (...) Furthermore it must be pointed out that the Afghans them- selves have not officially made a request to us concerning the sending of troops." The discussions went back and forth and a decision seems to have been reached only on the third day of the Politbureau session, when BREZHNEV was present and unequivocally made clear that sen- ding in Soviet troops could not be the right thing to do at this moment. The session was ended by a decision immediately to call Taraki to Moscow. This meeting did take place on the following day, 20 March. In a rather patriarchal tone, Brezhnev educated his col- league and warned him on his purges. "Repression", Brezhnev said, "is a sharp weapon which must be used very, very sparing- ly". As the same time, Brezhnev repudiated the idea of dispatching Soviet troops. "I'm saying it quite plainly: This is not necessary. It would only play into the enemy's hand." He also asked Taraki why he had not "had the borders closed", as if it would be possible to close the over 2,000 km long borders of Afghanistan to Pakistan and to Iran by means of a governmen- tal decree. During Taraki's continued consultations with Kosygin, Gromyko, Ustinov and Ponomarev, Ustinov was able to promise Soviet ship- ment of 12 Mi-24-type helicopters. Citing the unreliability of those Afghan helicopter pilots who had been trained in the So- viet Union ("Moslem brothers" or "pro-Chinese") [Who indeed *could* those "great" Afghan "Communists" trust, among "their own" people?], Taraki asked for the assistance of pilots and al- so tank crews from Cuba [! - note the method here!], Vietnam [!] or other socialist [well now....] countries. This proposal was bluntly turned down by KOSYGIN: "I cannot understand why this question arises...The question of sending people who would climb into your tanks and shoot on your people. This is a very serious political question." [Even one of the leading Soviet revisionists himself was shocked by the vile proposals of those people, or at least pretended to be.] After their meeting with Taraki, [the Soviet revisionist chief- tains] Gromyko, Andropov, Ustinov and Ponomarev worked out a proposal for a decision by the Politbureau, in which the Afghan leadership were criticized for their suggestion of introducing Soviet troops into the country. This line was an expression of "lack of experience" and "...it has to be held back also in the case of new anti-government actions in Afghanistan". [So far Stefan Lindgren's report on the Soviet revisionists' Politbureau session of 17-19 March 1979. - As is known, those people who held that meeting were to make quite a different de- cision only nine months later. And the "words of warning" ut- tered by some of them at that session of course were to be pro- ven "wise" indeed; only, the various imperialists did not always listen to such words yesterday and they will not do so tomorrow either.] [Continued in part 3/4] ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================