Lessons from the Soviet experiences with the socialist modernization of Afghanistan (1978 1989) by Dr. Andrei Zagorski The Soviet Afghanistan policy in 1978 1989 (from the April 1978 coup organized by the People s Democratic Party of Afghanistan PDPA to the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1989) went through several phases. At each stage, a comprehensive set of policy tools was applied by Moscow in order to assist the PDPA in the socialist type modernization of the country by political, military, economic, social and ideological means. The emphasis in applying those tools was changing depending on the objectives and the lessons learned by the Soviet leadership through this period. So was the relevance attached to the political and civil policy instruments. Although the coup took Moscow by surprise, it quickly embraced the April revolution and engaged in a large scale and fatal sovietization experiment in a neighbour country with the overwhelming Islamic culture. This experiment failed leaving a significant fall out behind. Although one could argue that the attempt to forcibly implant Soviet practices in Afghanistan was doomed to fail, this experience gathered over those years has a much wider relevance. Although Soviet, or socialist in nature, it represented for (one more) attempt of an accelerated modernization of a poor country with traditional society. As such, it reveals many features common for many other endavours at modernization of developing countries. The lessons of the socialist modernization of Afghanistan, therefore, remain relevant for the future experiments of the sort even if based on a different underlying concept, democracy or good governance among them. From the moment of the 1978 coup, the Soviet leadership did not believe in the feasibility of a socialist experiment in what it described as a backward feudal country with incapable leadership. Afghanistan was perceived not ripe for a socialist transformation of the society as it remained among the poorest countries in the world largely dominated by the rural population engaged in traditional economy. Nevertheless, acting largely within the context of the cold war, once the PDPA took over Kabul, Moscow signaled its readiness to support the new regime and established the principle that it could not afford losing Afghanistan to the enemy. Thus, for several years, the Soviet Union fought for the survival of the regime in Kabul. This policy triggered a fatal chain of decisions which led Moscow into the invasion of the country in December 1979. The focus of the preservation of the weak unpopular regime, and the identification of the Afghani army as the single most important institution and political force to keep the government in power implied the preeminence of the military means in the Moscow s policy. All governments in Afghanistan between 1978 and 1992 were comfortable with this policy as they did not rely on political support domestically and sought for a powerful external factor to compensate for their weakness. Nevertheless, the Soviet policy from the very beginning went much beyond providing military assistance to Kabul. It applied a complex mix of policy tools, such as providing economic, financial and technical assistance, economic development, development of state institutions and capacity building, including training of personnel both In the 1990s, the MGIMO University in Moscow and the University of Geneva developed a project which sought to reconstruct the Soviet policy on Afghanistan prior and during the invasion. This project collected numerous previously classified documents and benefited from interviews with many officials involved. The findings of the project are reflected, inter alia, in: Pierre Allan, Dieter Kläy, Zwischen Bürokratie und Ideologie. Entscheidungsprozesse in Moskaus Afghanistankonflikt. Bern, Stuttgart, Wien: Verlag Paul Haupt, 1998. The publication has served as an important source for this paper.
within the country and abroad. Many of those tools would now fall under the concept of the reconstruction of a country. This paper focuses on non military reconstruction and modernization policy of Moscow against the background of the developments in Afghanistan in 1978 1989. The paper starts from a brief summary of the Soviet assistance to Afghanistan provided prior to the 1978 coup. It then focuses on the Soviet agenda for Afghanistan in 1978 and 1979 prior to the invasion. In this phase, the Soviet Union concentrated on capacity building and the provision of technical assistance in the expectation that this would help to avoid direct intervention. The third section summarizes the Soviet policy between 1980 and 1986 which is marked by heavy reliance of the Babrak Karmal government on Moscow and by its failure to strengthen political support to the regime. The fourth section looks at the Soviet exit strategy in 1986 1989 which went hand in hand with the attempt to achieve a domestic and international political settlement to allow for a face saving pull out of the Soviet troops. The concluding section presents some generalizations on the Soviet experiences with Afghanistan. 1. The Soviet assistance to Afghanistan prior to the 1978 coup Afghanistan belonged to the Soviet client states since 1919. Moscow regularly provided the country with financial assistance, supplied with arms, and trained its officers. It helped to develop the infrastructure which included telegraph and radio communication, roads and pipelines construction, airports modernization. These projects largely concentrated in the North of the country which, inter alia, helped to more ore less closely connect Afghanistan with the Soviet Union as well. Especially after the World War II, Moscow engaged in the economic development of Afghanistan by assisting especially in the construction of electric plants, irrigation, raw materials extraction (oil, gas, cupper), as well as in the development social infrastructure, such as educational facilities. From 1955 the Soviet Union developed as the leading country to provide foreign assistance to Afghanistan. Special importance was given to equipping the army of the country with the Soviet (Warsaw Pact) weapons systems and to training the officers corps both in the Soviet union and in the country itself. In 1977, the Soviet Union had a total of 350 technical and military advisers in Afghanistan. In 1956 1978, a total of 3,000 officers (air force, air defence, artillery, medical personnel and others) had been trained in the Soviet Union. An even larger number of them were trained in different Warsaw Pact countries. As a result, the Soviet Union was not just providing assistance but directly trained the new armed forces of Afghanistan. The program was ambitious as included the prospects for the introduction of new weapons systems and the development of new types of forces, such as special forces. The focus on the military cooperation was also politically motivated. Many of the officers got indoctrinated during their education in the Soviet Union and were considered an important Soviet resource in the country although the authorities in Kabul did not trust and hesitated to promote them to senior positions. This was one of the reasons why the PDPA and especially its radical wing developed strong roots within the army. By 1978, Its 5,000 officers members represented for roughly one third of the entire membership in the party. Thus, Afghanistan did not appear to Soviet officials as terra incognita. Moscow gathered a long time experience in assisting the country, although no single attempt for the modernization, beginning with the 1920s, succeeded. Both Islamic and leftist opposition to the changing governments in Kabul grew in the country long before the 1978 coup. Gulbeddin Hekmatiyar and Burhanuddin Rabbani, two prominent leaders of the armed resistance to the PDPA regime, both recruited supporters from the Muslim youth movement established in the late 1960s almost parallel to the National democratic youth movement led by Nur Taraki, the official leader of the 1978 coup.
2. Capacity building for the Taraki regime After taking over the power in Kabul in April 1978, the PDPA regime declared its goal of a socialist transformation of the country, largely along the lines of the Soviet practices. However, the regime was seeking to increase its political and social support by a fast implementation of a series of reforms which would not be entirely new to Afghanistan and would largely fall under the concept of modernization. Those included, inter alia, the accelerated pursuit of a land reform by confiscating land from land lords and distributing it among poorest peasants, communes and state farms, providing education to the population which was overwhelmingly illiterate, expanding the state sector in the economy primarily by developing industries, promoting women s emancipation and, particularly, education, as well as ensuring the equality, including the linguistic one, to all peoples residing in the country. Taraki also verbally committed himself to Islam and to the neutral status of the country. At the same time, the regime developed ambitious plans of reconstructing the existing and at building new state institutions largely along the Soviet practices. Especially since local specialists experienced in administrating the country left the government administration en masse after the coup, the PDPA sought to compensate their exodus by importing the expertise and know how from the Soviet Union. This resulted in a large scale experiment of a sovietization of the country. The toolbox of the Soviet policy Following the request from Kabul, the Soviet Union launched a massive effort to provide technical assistance to Afghanistan and engaged in capacity building by seconding hundreds of advisers to the government in Kabul. A group of senior advisers from the Communist party of the Soviet Union consulted the PDPA leadership on all relevant policy issues and, particularly, on the build up of the party itself. Soviet advisers were seconded to all ministries. Each minister received at least two advisers who worked on decisions to be taken and consulted the ministers. Soviet advisers were establishing the security service, intelligence, social organizations, mass media. The emphasis was made on seconding Soviet staff to central governmental. There were almost no advisers seconded to provincial administrations which, as a result, were left on their own. Particular importance was attached to restructuring the Afghanistan s armed forces following the Soviet model. Priority was given to modernization and increased mobility. Advisers were seconded from the top down to the regiment level of the armed forces. Political officers were introduced into the army in order to ensure its loyalty. By the end of 1979, 1.5 thousand Soviet advisers were seconded to civil agencies of Afghanistan, 3.5 to 4 thousands of military personnel and technical experts worked in the armed forces of the country. Their general task was to transfer the Soviet know how in the respective areas by assisting the administration in decision making and in the organization of practical work. The more particular mandate of the advisers teams included four main objectives: to consolidate and broaden political and social support to the PDPA; to increase the influence of the PDPA in the army ; to create social organizations with broad membership (the Socialist/Democratic youth organization, the Army youth, the Democratic women s organization, or the Workers organization); to set up the structures of the central government
The Soviet Union took over the burden of economic assistance to Afghanistan which was steadily growing following the demands from Kabul. It included, inter alia: Supply of energy resources and, in the first instance, of petroleum products. Moscow compensated the interrupted supply from Iran and was covering about 62% of the Afghanistan s annual consumption of petroleum products. Provision of long term credits on beneficial conditions. Covering 80% of the costs of agreed projects worth a total of some 450 millions U.S. dollars annually, or almost 2.3 billion dollars appropriated for the period of five years. Financing Afghanistan s imports of consumption goods worth 250 millions U.S. dollars a year. Students and military were sent to the Soviet Union for training. Moscow also massively increased the amount of military assistance (arms transfers) to the Kabul government. The effect While the Soviet Union was providing intensive technical and material assistance to the Taraki government, the political ownership of the process largely remained with Kabbul. The latter revealed little competence as well as little comprehension of the developments in the provinces. Most importantly, the government revealed little ability and willingness to learn from those developments and improve its performance. All appointments were done based on the political, tribal, or clan affiliation of the candidates. Competence was not an issue at all. The inner strife between the two factions of the NDPA paralyzed the government which further isolated itself and never managed to properly reach out to the provinces. It is also important to note that the bulk of the Soviet advisors not only proved to have little knowledge but also failed to appreciate the real situation in Afghanistan. Their advice was predominantly dogmatic and often exacerbated the failures of the government in Kabul. As a result, the top down reforms launched by the government, instead of increasing its popularity, further alienated it from the population and triggered a massive growth of opposition and refugees flow. It is characteristic, however, that it was not specifically the introduction of Soviet practices but, largely, any changes towards social modernization which alienated the initially rather indifferent population and pushed it into active opposition. It was particularly the land reform that was strongly resisted in the rural areas. Peasants, en masse, refused to take the land from the landlords whom they traditionally saw as a buffer to and protection from the central government. The majority of provinces did not even think of introducing the reform. In July, 1979, Kabul was forced to stop its implementation. The first bigger crisis shaking the Kabul government and alarming Moscow, the upheaval in Great in March 1979, started with a protest against women s education. Apart from this, Kabul messed its relations with the Muslim clerics who led the protest and resistance. It failed to deliver on the promise to ensure the equality of the peoples. On the contrary, Amin, the master mind behind the 1978 coup and Kabul s policies in 1978 and 1979, pursued the policy of further pashtunization of the country. The government in Kabul responded to the political strife within the party, resistance to reforms and mounting opposition by increasing the repressive nature of the regime. It not only sought to forcibly introduce the top down reforms but also started to intensively use military force against the opposition.
This increased the isolation and weakened the government which occurred to lose the army as an instrument of its policy. The number of deserters grew sharply. By the end of 1979 the army shrank from 90,000 to 40,000 and lost half of the officers. The government units often changed the sides and joined the opposition. Units loyal to different factions in the PDPA repeatedly fought against each other. The regime no longer trusted the army (and particularly the officers trained in the Soviet Union), and sought to escape the collapse by Soviet military intervention. Moscow s response The Soviet leadership was aware of the danger of a military intervention as it saw the Kabul regime increasingly isolated and realized that the intervention would result in fighting against the population. Therefore, Moscow s response was threefold. It urged Taraki to change his policies. It was prepared to significantly increase assistance given to the regime, and was considering specifically to dramatically increase the combat preparedness of Afghanistan s armed forces Kabul was urged, in particular: To broaden its social and political support by establishing a united front bringing together different strata of the Afghani society. Such a front was considered to serve as a tool for political education and engagement of the population. To restore the unity of the PDPA and to reintegrate the Khalk faction into the government. Moscow went as far as to advise Kabul to include the moderate conservative Islamic opposition into the political consultations and even into the government. To stop repressions and torture, and to abide by the legal norms. To strengthen the army. To reverse the practice of government appointments based on the loyalty to the Taraki/Amin faction. To establish control along the borders to Pakistan and Iran to prevent insurgency The seek an arrangement with Pakistan. To combat the armed resistance on its own. Moscow was prepared to significantly increase financial, economic, military, ideological and technical assistance to help Kabul to meet those ends. In April 1979, in a memorandum to the Politbureau, the KGB Chief Andropov, Foreign minister Gromyko, Defence minister Ustinov, and the head of the CPSU Central Committee International Department Ponomarev laid out what was to become the Soviet policy: Continued political support to Kabul Increased arms supplies, financial and economic assistance Training of personnel Support the erecting of a system of political education Intensification of visits exchange at different levels Political and diplomatic measures to curb external interference Other socialist countries were to be informed of the measures to be taken However, few believed that this policy would work. In another memorandum of late June 1979, the same senior group on Afghanistan questioned the effectiveness of further support to Kabul. They described the army as the single most important instrument that could alleviate the situation. Hence, the emphasis was put on increasing the capacity of the armed forces to combat the insurgence. A large group of senior Soviet military inspected Kabul s army in August 1979 in order to assess its needs and recommend policies to significantly improve its performance. 3. The invasion
Moscow s strategy to increase the capacity of the Afghanistan s armed forces was never properly tested although there were signs that it was unlikely to work out. From September 1979, any larger operation of the army was conducted only with the approval of the Soviet military advisers. The latter worked to raise its preparedness and took over the planning of the operations. Though Soviet military registered some improvements in the Autumn, this effect started began vanishing soon. The strategy was not given time to be tested because of the new coup in Kabul in September 1979 which resulted in the murder on Taraki and the take over by Amin. Few in Moscow would expect Amin to follow the political advice and to be able to consolidate the regime. Particularly the KGB was convinced that no arrangement with Amin would help but his replacement still could save the situation. The Soviet leadership was ripe to intervene militarily in order to remove Amin and to back his successor Karmal. Moscow s objectives and tools The political agenda for Afghanistan was set in Moscow only after the invasion, in January 1980, and was similar to what it wanted from Taraki. Karmal was expected to: consistently pursuit the policy of restoring the unity of the PDPA form a broad alliance of leftist and democratic organizations under the leadership of the PDPA; reach out to young people, especially students launch negotiations with biggest tribes on the terms of the cessation of their resistance develop cooperation with moderate Islamic circles in order to isolate reactionary ones establish cooperation with shiyahs. The Soviet contingent that was dispatched in the country included 50,000 military, 2,000 civil personnel, and 1,000 KGB officers. It was supposed not only to take control over important facilities and communications but also to exercise some civil social functions, such as to provide medical assistance to the population, build schools and hospitals, repair roads. It was also tasked to erect a system of political education around the PDPA in order to raise a new political elite of the country that would be committed to the socialist orientation. Strengthening of political education and propaganda was given high priority. Moscow increased the staff of the Kabul Bureau of the Press Agency Novosti which was tasked to help the Afghani counterparts to prepare materials for newspapers and magazines, to disseminate printed materials and films. Those measures included support for Afghani journalists. The focus was on the younger generation. Ideological cadres of the PDPA were trained at the Academy of social sciences under the PDPA Central Committee. Moscow finally shipped to Kabul the radio station promised to Taraki. The effect Karmal was more responsive to the advice while, at the same time, was perceived as a very week leader unable to deliver. He started by promising a radical change in the policy. A new Constitution was adopted. The red banner of khalkists was replaced by the green black red one. 15,000 political prisoners were released. Decrees were issued to reverse property confiscations under Amin. Wages and officers salaries were raised. Peasants were provided with seeds, fertilizers and credits. Prices for agriculture products were raised. The intention to admit other progressive patriotic parties and to hold free elections was declared. Kabul signaled a policy of reconciliation with Islam by readmitting religious symbols, although steps in that direction largely reproduced the Soviet model of dealing with and controlling religious organizations. A department for religious affairs was established under the Council of
Ministers and was transformed into a Ministry at a later stage. In Kabul, 20 new mosques were constructed and 800 repaired. The institute of field mullahs was introduced in the army which partially helped to improve the moral of the troops. State funding was provided to newly established religious institutions for the purposes of explaining the goals of the April revolution. State funding was also available for pilgrims. The Key project Karmal was supposed to work on was the establishment of a National Front to provide for a new legitimacy of the regime. A Conference of Afghani national and patriotic forces was established in 1980 and was transformed into a National front in 1981 to include the PDPA, trade unions, the PDPA youth organization, the Women s Union, and the Union of writers and journalists. Those organizations represented for 2% of the Afghani population. Karmal succeeded to increase the membership in the NDPA from 80 to 100 thousands by 1983. Despite some changes, the regime largely failed to meet the benchmarks set by the Soviet Union. The National front failed to anchor in the provinces of the country, and Karmal sought to substitute it by reviving the traditional institution of Loya Jirga an assembly of the seniors if the local tribes. Kabul never risked to hold free parliamentary elections. In 1981, it publicly admitted the failure of the land reform. The record of the consolidation of the army was ambiguous. By 1981, the number of servicemen further dropped to some 25,000. Following the pressure from Soviet advisers, Kabul reduced the drafting age from 22 to 20, started drafting reservists under 35 for the second time, and extended the length of military service to three years. This enabled the army to grow to 130,000 but certainly did not help to improve the moral of the troops. Under Karmal, the army continuously avoided to engage in fighting. The inner strife in the party continued. The PDPA and particularly its leadership remained isolated in the society. Continued practice of politically biased appointments resulted in further increasing incompetence of the administration at all levels. The initiation of negotiations with Pakistan and Iran failed, as Islamabad insisted of the formation of a government in free elections. The more Karmal failed meeting the benchmarks, the more rerpressive his regime became. Furthermore, Karmal consistently pursued the policy of gradually transferring the burden and the responsibility on the Soviet representatives. He largely succeeded in doing so. As a result, particularly the Soviet troops were not only directly involved in war fighting but took over the main burden of it from the Summer of 1980. Moscow s response The Soviet Union was getting increasingly disappointed with the developments in Afghanistan and particularly with the performance of the leadership of the NDPA. Tension grew between Moscow and Kabul. The Soviet leadership increasingly realized the dangerous developments and sought to respond by increasing the weapons and food supply, and by accelerating the training of the Afghani officers. However, it also increasingly realized that this strategy did not work out. The more resources were invested, the lesser was the efficacy of Moscow s policy. The Kremlin gradually realized that continuing the war was not a viable option. In 1985, the commander of the 40 th army, the operative group of the Defence ministry, and the General Staff assessed the situation as hopeless and urged to pull out. The option of enabling the PDPA regime to master the problems on its own was no longer considered realistic. In 1982 and 1983, Andropov sought to explore the possibility of a political solution to be negotiated with Pakistan but was not prepared to negotiate the regime change in Kabul. Even this limited attempt to
change the policy died with Andropov. A thorough review of the Soviet policy was then only initiated in 1985 under Gorbachev. The policy of national reconciliation The Gorbachev years are less instructive for the purposes of this paper. At this juncture, the Soviet policy was no longer about the modernization, or reconstruction of the country but, rather, about identifying the best possible exit strategy. As Karmal vehemently opposed the idea of the Soviet pull out, it took Moscow another change in the leadership in Kabul replacing Karmal with Najibullah in 1986. Moscow pushed towards a policy of national reconciliation which abandoned the idea of the political monopoly of the PDPA and admitted the possibility of a transformation of the regime by embracing the idea of a coalition government that would include the opposition. This was the beginning of a gradual dismantlement of the socialist experiment in Afghanistan. Despite some positive record of that policy over 1987, not a single relevant resistance group engaged with Kabul. The opposition prepared for the decisive power struggle after the pull out of Soviet troops. In January 1989, it announced the creation of its own interim government in Ravalpindi, Pakistan. The U.S. insisted on a resignation of the PDPA. Pakistan insisted on the introduction of an Islamic regime and demanded for an interim government in which the opposition would receive a majority. The Peshavar Alliance would only agree to the creation of the interim government to monitor the withdrawal of the Soviet troops provided it would be led by Heckmatiyar and Massud. Majibullah was not ready to give the Peshavar Alliance the majority. Moscow explored the possibility of a return of Zakir Shah from emigration to lead process of reconciliation. Meanwhile, the single most important question was how long Najibullah would be able to keep Kabul after the Soviet pull out. Both, the Western experts and Soviet officials did not give him much time, at most 3 to 4 months. Therefore, Moscow s exit strategy was focused on the means to extend the life time of the Kabul regime. The important components of this policy were establishing vast reserves on weapons, ammunition and food prior to the withdrawal. Moscow agreed to transfer to Afghanistan more modern weapons systems. It continued to heavily supply Kabul with weapons and food all over 1989 and 1990. Moscow intensified training of Afghani officers, maintained a group of senior military advisers to the government, and agreed to retain Soviet technicians in Afghanistan to assist in repairing military equipment. It also pledged to assist Kabul in establishing contacts with the opposition residing in Pakistan, Iran and Western Europe. Due to massive economic and military support, the regime kept going longer than expected. Nevertheless, in September 1991, the Soviet Union and the US reached an agreement to cease weapons supplies into Afghanistan from 1 January, 1992. From this moment, the Najibullah regime survived only for four months. Conclusions The Soviet leadership became hostage to the principle established in 1979 that, by no means, it could afford loosing Afghanistan. This triggered the fatal dynamic of escalation of the conflict
leaving little room for reconsidering and amending Moscow s policy objectives for them to become more realistic. The knowledge of Afghanistan was rather superficial, and the reality on the ground could not be comprehended through the prism of preset ideological clichés. The readiness of the population to embrace social change was not given to the extent the Soviet leaders would assume. The assumption to be able to mobilize wider political support for social change in the Islamic society was wrong. So was the assumption that a land reform could have such a mobilization effect. The rejection of the Kabul policy was only increased and obtained an additional strong motivation due to the heavy external presence both advisers and troops. The long record of friendly relations between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union did not help. Moscow saw technical assistance and military intervention merely as technical tools to strengthen the government in Kabul and stabilize the situation. However, despite of the dramatic increase in the amount of the assistance provided, the situation did not improve but, rather, worsened. The gap between the amount of assistance and the achieved effect constantly grew. The dramatic increase in the number of Soviet advisers dispatched in the country did not make a difference. The advisers did tot register any significant progress in achieving the benchmarks set in Moscow. The majority of Soviet advisers had little knowledge of the country. They proved rather incompetent and failed to provide Moscow with appropriate feedback. The Soviet discourse remained highly indoctrinated thus preventing both Moscow and Kabul from sharing the ownership of the process and/or to listen to different political and social forces in Afghanistan. There was little or no coordination of activities among groups of advisers. Representatives of different agencies developed different, even diverging understanding of the objectives to be followed. The PDPA turned out to be a week and incompetent partner. At the same time, Moscow had either limited leverage over Kabul (1978 1979), or Kabul demonstrated responsiveness (since 1980) but was unable and/or willing to follow. The regime remained isolated and failed to reach out to the provinces. The Soviet Union largely failed in capacity building that would increase political and technical efficiency of the administration in Kabul. As a result, Moscow allowed Kabul to largely transfer the burden and the responsibility for the decisions and their implementation to the Soviet advisers and, most particularly, the Soviet troops.