“Marxist Regimes” is a series of books about left-wing radical regimes. This volume, published in 1985, covers Afghanistan.
In 1978, the Afghan Communist party (the PDPA) took power by toppling the republican government of Mohammed Daoud, itself the result of a coup against the monarchy five years earlier. The PDPA was split in two main factions, the “radical” Khalq and the “moderate” Parcham. The Khalqis, who dominated the first phase of the revolution, were themselves split. The group around the revolutionary romantic and poet Noor Muhammad Taraki was seen as somewhat more moderate than the hardliners around Hafizullah Amin. All factions had a pro-Soviet orientation, Afghanistan having been part of Moscow's sphere of interest already during the monarchy. The Soviet leaders favored Parcham and the Taraki group over the Amin group. Despite this, Amin emerged victorious after a series of purges.
Amin's attempts to implement radical reforms in the Afghan countryside were met with opposition and incomprehension from the population (including the oppressed peasants who may have benefitted from the reforms), since they were seen as anti-Islamic. Tribalism and a patriarchal honor culture were other obstacles. The Khalq-dominated government in Kabul had virtually no support in the country at large, and even made the silly mistake of purging most Afghan civil servants (who had a tenuous power base in the countryside), making military repression the only way to force the modernizing reforms on a recalcitrant people. The result was predictable: traditionalist and fundamentalist rebellions in the name of Islam broke out in several provinces.
The Soviet Union feared that Afghanistan was slipping out of their sphere of influence, and blamed the destabilization on Amin's ultra-leftist policies. Amin responded by a series of erratic maneuvers. He promised to ease the repression and even put himself forward as a Muslim and a “secular leader blessed by Allah”. The born again moderate requested Soviet military aid while secretly trying to contact US and Pakistani representatives. The Soviets weren't amused – when the Soviet Armed Forces invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, one of their first targets was Amin, who was killed by Soviet commandos! The Soviets then installed the Parcham leader Babrak Karmal as the new president of Afghanistan. Karmal also became general secretary of the PDPA. While Karmal was more “moderate” than Amin in the sense that he more actively attempted to unite with Muslim groups and abolished some of the more controversial reforms, the de facto occupation of Afghanistan by the USSR simply fueled the flames of the Mujahedeen rebellion. Soon, the rebels began receiving military and financial assistance from the United States.
Since “Marxist Regimes: Afghanistan” was published in 1985, the story pretty much ends there. The author is Indian and sounds surprisingly even-handed, even to the point of slightly favoring Karmal's government. India tended towards a pro-Soviet position during the Cold War (their enemy Pakistan was pro-American), which may explain why the author seems to think that a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan, rather than an outright victory for the rebels, is the preferable solution. He also fears Muslim fundamentalism, at several points accusing the Mujahedeen leaders of being inspired by Iran. Interestingly, the author assumed that the Soviet troops and Karmal's government in Kabul were winning the war! We know what actually happened. The Soviets withdrew in 1989, the PDPA were overthrown by the Mujahedeen in 1992, and the Taliban took power in 1996. In their wake came a certain Osama bin-Laden, a veteran from the anti-Soviet struggles of the 1980's…
Now, “we” are in Afghanistan, but has anything really changed?
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