The communist regime in Afghanistan 1978-1992: Institutions and conflicts

Europe - Asia Studies

Volumn 50, Issue 8, 1998, Pages 1357-1380

  Halliday, Fred ^a   Tanin, Zahir ^a  

^a LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

COMMUNISM; INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK; POLITICAL CHANGE;

AFGHANISTAN;

EID: 0032420001     PISSN: 09668136     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09668139808412601     Document Type: Article

References (86)

1. Barnett Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan (London, Yale University Press, 1995), chapter 5.
2. Ellen Jay Trimberger, Revolution from Above (New Brunswick, NJ, Transaction Books, 1978). Trimberger (p. 3) gives five characteristics of such a revolutionary process. The first point is: 'The extralegal take over of political power and the initiation of economic, social, and political change is organised and led by some of the highest military and often civil bureaucrats in the old regime'. Characteristic number two: 'There is little or no mass participation in the revolutionary take over or in the initiation of change'. It may, however, be objected that the third criterion, the absence of mass violence, execution, emigration or counter-revolution, disqualifies the Afghan, and other non-colonial, cases from being termed 'revolution from above': the argument developed here is, on the contrary, that those were revolutions from above that, because of the very different internal and international conditions, did experience such mass resistance and sanguinary regime response.
3. For an early account of how the civil war of 1962-70 ended by strengthening the tribal forces vis-á-vis the state, see Fred Halliday, Arabia without Sultans (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1974), chapters 4 and 5. For a later anthropological perspective see Paul Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993).
4. For an early account of how the civil war of 1962-70 ended by strengthening the tribal forces vis-á-vis the state, see Fred Halliday, Arabia without Sultans (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1974), chapters 4 and 5. For a later anthropological perspective see Paul Dresch, Tribes, Government and History in Yemen (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993).
5. For some particularly relevant discussions of the limits and limited applicability of strong states, see the discussion and specificity of 'stateness' in J. P. Nettl, 'The State as a Conceptual Variable', World Politics, 20, 4, July 1968; the discussion of states that are weak and repressive in Nazih Ayubi, Over-stating the Arab State. Politics and Society in the Middle East (London, I. B. Tauris, 1995); the discussion of state capabilities in Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States (London, Princeton University Press, 1988); and the distinction between 'despotic' and 'infrastructural' power in Michael Mann, States, War and Capitalism (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1988). All of these are relevant to, but only tangentially discuss, the case of states without either modern or colonial apparatuses. Equally the exacerbation of state-society relations brought about by internationalised conflict, e.g. Cold War, is not brought into the picture. Each of these dimensions would, however, only strengthen the arguments being made.
6. For some particularly relevant discussions of the limits and limited applicability of strong states, see the discussion and specificity of 'stateness' in J. P. Nettl, 'The State as a Conceptual Variable', World Politics, 20, 4, July 1968; the discussion of states that are weak and repressive in Nazih Ayubi, Over-stating the Arab State. Politics and Society in the Middle East (London, I. B. Tauris, 1995); the discussion of state capabilities in Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States (London, Princeton University Press, 1988); and the distinction between 'despotic' and 'infrastructural' power in Michael Mann, States, War and Capitalism (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1988). All of these are relevant to, but only tangentially discuss, the case of states without either modern or colonial apparatuses. Equally the exacerbation of state-society relations brought about by internationalised conflict, e.g. Cold War, is not brought into the picture. Each of these dimensions would, however, only strengthen the arguments being made.
7. For some particularly relevant discussions of the limits and limited applicability of strong states, see the discussion and specificity of 'stateness' in J. P. Nettl, 'The State as a Conceptual Variable', World Politics, 20, 4, July 1968; the discussion of states that are weak and repressive in Nazih Ayubi, Over-stating the Arab State. Politics and Society in the Middle East (London, I. B. Tauris, 1995); the discussion of state capabilities in Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States (London, Princeton University Press, 1988); and the distinction between 'despotic' and 'infrastructural' power in Michael Mann, States, War and Capitalism (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1988). All of these are relevant to, but only tangentially discuss, the case of states without either modern or colonial apparatuses. Equally the exacerbation of state-society relations brought about by internationalised conflict, e.g. Cold War, is not brought into the picture. Each of these dimensions would, however, only strengthen the arguments being made.
8. For some particularly relevant discussions of the limits and limited applicability of strong states, see the discussion and specificity of 'stateness' in J. P. Nettl, 'The State as a Conceptual Variable', World Politics, 20, 4, July 1968; the discussion of states that are weak and repressive in Nazih Ayubi, Over-stating the Arab State. Politics and Society in the Middle East (London, I. B. Tauris, 1995); the discussion of state capabilities in Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States (London, Princeton University Press, 1988); and the distinction between 'despotic' and 'infrastructural' power in Michael Mann, States, War and Capitalism (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1988). All of these are relevant to, but only tangentially discuss, the case of states without either modern or colonial apparatuses. Equally the exacerbation of state-society relations brought about by internationalised conflict, e.g. Cold War, is not brought into the picture. Each of these dimensions would, however, only strengthen the arguments being made.
9. The great exception is Barnett Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan. Rubin's work provides a marker around which all other work can orientate itself: it has done for the post-1978 period of Afghan history what Vartan Gregorian's work has done for the pre-1978 period: Vartan Gregorian, The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: The Politics of Reform and Modernisation, 1880-1946 (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1969).
10. The great exception is Barnett Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan. Rubin's work provides a marker around which all other work can orientate itself: it has done for the post-1978 period of Afghan history what Vartan Gregorian's work has done for the pre-1978 period: Vartan Gregorian, The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: The Politics of Reform and Modernisation, 1880-1946 (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1969).
11. For discussion of the Ethiopian case see Andargachew Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Revolution 1974-1987. A transformation from an aristocratic to a totalitarian autocracy (Cambridge, CUP, 1993); Christopher Clapham, Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia (Cambridge, CUP, 1988); David & Marina Ottaway, Ethiopia, Empire in Revolution (London, Africana Publishing House, 1978); on 'revolution from above' in particular Fred Halliday & Maxine Molyneux, The Ethiopian Revolution (London, Verso, 1981), chapter 1.
12. For discussion of the Ethiopian case see Andargachew Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Revolution 1974-1987. A transformation from an aristocratic to a totalitarian autocracy (Cambridge, CUP, 1993); Christopher Clapham, Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia (Cambridge, CUP, 1988); David & Marina Ottaway, Ethiopia, Empire in Revolution (London, Africana Publishing House, 1978); on 'revolution from above' in particular Fred Halliday & Maxine Molyneux, The Ethiopian Revolution (London, Verso, 1981), chapter 1.
13. For discussion of the Ethiopian case see Andargachew Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Revolution 1974-1987. A transformation from an aristocratic to a totalitarian autocracy (Cambridge, CUP, 1993); Christopher Clapham, Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia (Cambridge, CUP, 1988); David & Marina Ottaway, Ethiopia, Empire in Revolution (London, Africana Publishing House, 1978); on 'revolution from above' in particular Fred Halliday & Maxine Molyneux, The Ethiopian Revolution (London, Verso, 1981), chapter 1.
14. For discussion of the Ethiopian case see Andargachew Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Revolution 1974-1987. A transformation from an aristocratic to a totalitarian autocracy (Cambridge, CUP, 1993); Christopher Clapham, Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia (Cambridge, CUP, 1988); David & Marina Ottaway, Ethiopia, Empire in Revolution (London, Africana Publishing House, 1978); on 'revolution from above' in particular Fred Halliday & Maxine Molyneux, The Ethiopian Revolution (London, Verso, 1981), chapter 1.
15. Migdal, Strong Societies, pp. 33ff. Rubin, Fragmentation, pp. 4-5, emphasises that what appear as pre-modern phenomena - tribalism, ethnicity, fundamentalism - are rather products of the modern world.
16. Migdal, Strong Societies, pp. 33ff. Rubin, Fragmentation, pp. 4-5, emphasises that what appear as pre-modern phenomena - tribalism, ethnicity, fundamentalism - are rather products of the modern world.
17. Rubin, pp. 63-64, gives revenue as 6% of GNP. The 20-30% figure is from Migdal, Strong Societies, p. 281. Rubin, p. 65, details the very high reliance of the pre-1978 Afghan state on external revenues: these amounted to over 40% of the total for much of the pre-1978 period.
18. Rubin, pp. 63-64, gives revenue as 6% of GNP. The 20-30% figure is from Migdal, Strong Societies, p. 281. Rubin, p. 65, details the very high reliance of the pre-1978 Afghan state on external revenues: these amounted to over 40% of the total for much of the pre-1978 period.
19. Rubin, pp. 63-64, gives revenue as 6% of GNP. The 20-30% figure is from Migdal, Strong Societies, p. 281. Rubin, p. 65, details the very high reliance of the pre-1978 Afghan state on external revenues: these amounted to over 40% of the total for much of the pre-1978 period.
20. The 18 000 figure is from first secretary of the Kabul city committee of the PDPA Zuhur Razmju, quoted in Asia and Africa Today, 1984, 4.
21. Oleg Sarin & Lev Dvoretsky, The Afghan Syndrome: The Soviet Union's Vietnam (Novato, CA, Presidio Press, 1993), p.72.
22. On this period see Raja Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan, A First-hand Account (London, Verso, 1988); Louis Dupree, 'Afghanistan Under the Khalq', Problems of Communism XXVIII, 4, July-August 1979; and Fred Halliday, 'War and Revolution in Afghanistan', New Left Review, January-February 1980.
23. On this period see Raja Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan, A First-hand Account (London, Verso, 1988); Louis Dupree, 'Afghanistan Under the Khalq', Problems of Communism XXVIII, 4, July-August 1979; and Fred Halliday, 'War and Revolution in Afghanistan', New Left Review, January-February 1980.
24. On this period see Raja Anwar, The Tragedy of Afghanistan, A First-hand Account (London, Verso, 1988); Louis Dupree, 'Afghanistan Under the Khalq', Problems of Communism XXVIII, 4, July-August 1979; and Fred Halliday, 'War and Revolution in Afghanistan', New Left Review, January-February 1980.
25. On the 'Eid Conspiracy', see Raja Anwar, pp. 119-120.
26. In an interview with Tanin in January 1998 Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of one of the main guerrilla groups, Hizb-i Islami, claimed that their supporters within the officer corps were in a position to topple the regime prior to the Soviet intervention.
27. Tanin interview with Genrikh Polyakov, former Afghan specialist in the International Department of the CPSU, Moscow, November 1995. For an account of KGB relations with the PDPA leaders in this period, and attempts to kill Amin, see D. Gai & V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, IIKPA, 1991), Chapter 1 and Alexander Morozov, 'Our Man in Kabul', New Times, 1991, 38-41. Morozov was deputy resident for foreign intelligence in Kabul from 1975 to 1979.
28. Tanin interview with Genrikh Polyakov, former Afghan specialist in the International Department of the CPSU, Moscow, November 1995. For an account of KGB relations with the PDPA leaders in this period, and attempts to kill Amin, see D. Gai & V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, IIKPA, 1991), Chapter 1 and Alexander Morozov, 'Our Man in Kabul', New Times, 1991, 38-41. Morozov was deputy resident for foreign intelligence in Kabul from 1975 to 1979.
29. Tanin interview with Kawiani, August 1995. Karmal, in a speech in April 1983, said that the party membership had grown from 18 000 at the time of the 1978 revolution to over 85 000 full and candidate members. Other estimates in Yearbook of World Communist Affairs, annual editions for the 1980s. In an interview with Halliday in March 1984 the leading Soviet expert on Afghanistan Professor Yurii Gankovsky gave figures for the PDPA of 100 000, for the Democratic Youth Organisation of 70 000 and for the Democratic Women's Organisation of 20 000. Ganovsky also said that two-thirds of the officers of the army and the Sarandoy were PDPA members.
30. 'Najibullah's Address', Embassy of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, News Bulletin, no. 28, 29 October 1987, p. 3.
31. Sarin & Dvoretsky, p. 76.
32. KhAD-i Nizami (i.e. military KhAD) and KhAD-i Sarandoy (Sarandoy KhAD).
33. Rubin, p. 25, defines qawm as a solidarity group, sometimes coincident with but often separate from and smaller than tribe, based on village, kinship, or other relationship.
34. Rubin, Fragmentation, pp. 132-134, 157; M. Hassan Kakar, Afghanistan: the Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 (London, University of California Press, 1995), chapter 9, 'KhAD as an Agency of Suppression'.
35. Rubin, Fragmentation, pp. 132-134, 157; M. Hassan Kakar, Afghanistan: the Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 (London, University of California Press, 1995), chapter 9, 'KhAD as an Agency of Suppression'.
36. This was certainly how it appeared to some observers at the time: e.g. Selig Harrison, 'The Soviets Are Winning In Afghanistan', Washington Post, 13 May 1984.
37. Najibullah speech to PDPA National Conference, October 1987.
38. On the regime's rural policies, see in particular the detailed reconstruction and evaluation by Antonio Giustozzi, From Revolution to Feudalism (London, C. Hurst, 1998).
39. Pierre Allan et al. (eds), Sowjetische Geheimdokumente zum Afghanistankrieg (Zurich, Hochschulverlag, 1995) p. 446, proceedings of Politburo meeting 13 November 1986.
40. Allan, Sowjetische Geheimdokumente, pp. 446-448.
41. Diego Cordovez & Selig Harrison, Out of Afghanistan. The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal (Oxford, OUP, 1995), p. 252. It is believed that the model for the Afghan unit was that of Saddam Hussein's al-haras al-jumhuri, the Republican Guard, whose functions, in addition to protecting the person of the president, included countering any possible coup attempts by the regular army.
42. Figures from Giustozzi.
43. In October 1987 several Karmal supporters were removed from the Politburo, including his brother Mahmud Baryalai, General Gul Aga, one of the three vice-presidents, and Anahita Ratebzad, Minister of Education after December 1979.
44. Jean-Claude Pomonti, 'Les adversaires du président Najibullah ont marqué des points', Le Monde, 21 October 1988; Laurent Zecchini, 'Moscou a repris en main l'armée et le PC á Kaboul', Le Monde, 11 November 1988.
45. Jean-Claude Pomonti, 'Les adversaires du président Najibullah ont marqué des points', Le Monde, 21 October 1988; Laurent Zecchini, 'Moscou a repris en main l'armée et le PC á Kaboul', Le Monde, 11 November 1988.
46. The Loya Jirgah was, in origin, an institution of the tribes, separate from the state. As the modern state developed, however, it had sought to incorporate such gatherings. In the context of Afghanistan of the 1980s, however, no such autonomous activity was in order: on both the state and opposition sides, the holding of such gatherings reflected the goals, and personnel choices, of those with power.
47. On this whole policy see Giustozzi, From Revolution to Feudalism.
48. The strength of pro-regime irregular units in the area north of the Hindu Kush, and with a population that was not Pashtun, encouraged speculation that the regime might, in the final analysis, opt for some partition of the whole country (e.g. New York Times Service, 'Kabul Plan Could Create Soviet Zone', International Herald Tribune, 31 March 1988): they would cede Kabul and the areas to the south and west to the mainly Pashtun opposition, while consolidating in the north with a capital at Mazar-i Sharif. There the comparatively flat terrain, proximity to the USSR and non-Pashtun ethnic composition might have allowed a pro-Soviet PDPA regime to survive. It would have been an Afghan equivalent, in reverse, of North Korea or North Vietnam, or a throwback to the client regimes established in Iran during World War I and World War II (Gilan, and Azerbaijan and Kurdistan respectively) or in China's Sinkiang province from 1934 to 1944. The announcement on 13 March 1988 of a deputy prime minister with responsibility for the north, when none was designated for the south, and of a new northern province, Sar-i Pul, appeared to confirm this (Le Monde, 6 April 1988). In the end, the regime did not apparently make serious plans for this: indeed the final collapse came, in part, from this very direction, through the revolts of General Dostom and his Uzbek militia.
49. The strength of pro-regime irregular units in the area north of the Hindu Kush, and with a population that was not Pashtun, encouraged speculation that the regime might, in the final analysis, opt for some partition of the whole country (e.g. New York Times Service, 'Kabul Plan Could Create Soviet Zone', International Herald Tribune, 31 March 1988): they would cede Kabul and the areas to the south and west to the mainly Pashtun opposition, while consolidating in the north with a capital at Mazar-i Sharif. There the comparatively flat terrain, proximity to the USSR and non-Pashtun ethnic composition might have allowed a pro-Soviet PDPA regime to survive. It would have been an Afghan equivalent, in reverse, of North Korea or North Vietnam, or a throwback to the client regimes established in Iran during World War I and World War II (Gilan, and Azerbaijan and Kurdistan respectively) or in China's Sinkiang province from 1934 to 1944. The announcement on 13 March 1988 of a deputy prime minister with responsibility for the north, when none was designated for the south, and of a new northern province, Sar-i Pul, appeared to confirm this (Le Monde, 6 April 1988). In the end, the regime did not apparently make serious plans for this: indeed the final collapse came, in part, from this very direction, through the revolts of General Dostom and his Uzbek militia.
50. Tanai had become a candidate member of the Politburo in October 1987. After the fall of the regime he was to place his forces at the disposal of the taliban.
51. Presented schematically by reference to their leading members or earlier inspiration, these were: 1. Karmal; 2. Nur plus Kawiani and Razmju; 3. Laiq and Najib; 4. Kishtmand; 5. Taraki's supporters - Gulabzoi and Sarwari; 6. Zarghun's faction - Karwal, Mohmand, Tanai; 7. Ziari; 8. Panjsheri; 9. Amin's supporters - Shah Wali, Sharai, Misaq. These last were brought in to try to reconsolidate the regime after the Soviet withdrawal.
52. For one account see Sylvie Gélinas, Afghanistan du Communisme au Fondamentalisme (Paris, Harmattan, 1997) chapter 1, 'La chute du régime pro-communiste et les institutions transitoires (mars-novembre 1992)'. An account by one of the generals who participated in the events of April 1992 is in Mohammad Nabi Azimi, Urdu va Siasat dar se deheyi-akhir-afganistan (Peshawar, Saba Kitabkhane, 1376). [1376 (sic) [Using Persian calendar].
53. For one account see Sylvie Gélinas, Afghanistan du Communisme au Fondamentalisme (Paris, Harmattan, 1997) chapter 1, 'La chute du régime pro-communiste et les institutions transitoires (mars-novembre 1992)'. An account by one of the generals who participated in the events of April 1992 is in Mohammad Nabi Azimi, Urdu va Siasat dar se deheyi-akhir-afganistan (Peshawar, Saba Kitabkhane, 1376). [1376 (sic) [Using Persian calendar].
54. Communication from UN official who met Najib after April 1992.
55. Two periods of defection were noticeable during the PDPA regime. The first, in 1978-79, involved above all Parcham leaders who sought refuge in the USSR and other communist states, from where they returned in December 1979. From 1986 onwards, defections came from the Najib regime, by people alarmed at the planned Soviet withdrawal. One official fled to Paris in late 1986, after attending a meeting at which Najib reported on his 12 December encounter with Gorbachev, at which the latter spelt out his intention to withdraw Soviet forces (Oberdorfer, The Turn, p. 240).
56. Laiq was one of Najib's closest friends and, by all accounts, his real mentor: he, in an unpublicised move, finally distanced himself from Najib and joined his opponents. Laiq and Abdul Wakil were the only party leaders who on TV denounced Najib as a traitor after his failed attempt to leave the country.
57. Allan (ed.) Sowjetische Geheimdokumente, p. 500.
58. Ahmad Sarwar, then Afghan ambassador to Delhi, interview, London, July 1996.
59. For the earlier history of Soviet strategic thinking on this see Jerry Hough, The Struggle for the Third World (Washington, Brookings Institution, 1986); for the later period Margot Light (ed.), Troubled Friendships. Moscow's Third World Ventures (London, British Academic Press, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1993).
60. For the earlier history of Soviet strategic thinking on this see Jerry Hough, The Struggle for the Third World (Washington, Brookings Institution, 1986); for the later period Margot Light (ed.), Troubled Friendships. Moscow's Third World Ventures (London, British Academic Press, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1993).
61. On the international dimensions, and attempts at negotiation, see above all Cordovez & Harrison, Out of Afghanistan. For further elaboration of how Moscow came to its decisions see Fred Halliday, 'Soviet Foreign Policy Making and the Afghan War: from "Second Mongolia" to "Bleeding Wound" ', Review of International Studies (forthcoming).
62. On the international dimensions, and attempts at negotiation, see above all Cordovez & Harrison, Out of Afghanistan. For further elaboration of how Moscow came to its decisions see Fred Halliday, 'Soviet Foreign Policy Making and the Afghan War: from "Second Mongolia" to "Bleeding Wound" ', Review of International Studies (forthcoming).
63. Vladimir Puzanov, ambassador up to November 1979, was a career diplomat; his replacement, Fikrayat Tabeev, was a former First Secretary of the Tatar SSR; the ambassador in the last phase, appointed in October 1988, was a senior diplomat, Yulii Vorontsov. In the early 1980s, and again after 1986, the ambassador in Kabul was flanked by the appointment of diplomats who answered to Moscow directly and had special responsibilities for the international dimensions of the conflict. For the memoirs of Vassilii Safronchuk, minister counsellor at the Kabul embassy from 1980 to 1982 and a key figure throughout, see 'Afganistan, pri Babrake Karmale i Najibulle', Aziya i Afrika Segodnya, 1996, 6, 8 and 10 and 1997, 1 and 5.
64. Aleksandr Lyakhovsky, Tragediya i Doblest' Afgana (Moscow, Iskona, 1995) gives a full list of Soviet military representatives in Afghanistan divided into three categories: 1. Leaders of the Operative Group of the USSR Ministry of Defence; 2. Commanders of 40th Army; 3. Chief Soviet Military Advisers with the Afghan armed forces. The second group comprised L. Gorelov (1975-79), S. Magometov (1979-80), A. Mairov (1980-81), M. Sorokin (1981-84), G. Salmanov (1984-86), V. Vostrov (1986-88), M. Sotskov (1988-89) and M. Gareev (1989-90).
65. Safronchuk, 'Afganistan pri Babrake ...', Aziya i Afrika Segodnya, 1996, 10, p. 69.
66. On the visits by Kryuchkov see L. V. Shebarshin, Ruka Moskvy (Moscow, Tsentr-100, 1992), pp. 206-213.
67. S. M. Akhromeev & G. M. Kornienko, Glazami Marshala i Diplomata (Moscow, Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, 1992), pp. 167-170 for bitter reflections on the Afghan war. For military accounts see Mark Urban, War in Afghanistan (London, Macmillan, 1988) and Mark Galleotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War (London, Frank Cass, 1994).
68. S. M. Akhromeev & G. M. Kornienko, Glazami Marshala i Diplomata (Moscow, Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, 1992), pp. 167-170 for bitter reflections on the Afghan war. For military accounts see Mark Urban, War in Afghanistan (London, Macmillan, 1988) and Mark Galleotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War (London, Frank Cass, 1994).
69. S. M. Akhromeev & G. M. Kornienko, Glazami Marshala i Diplomata (Moscow, Mezhdunarodnye Otnosheniya, 1992), pp. 167-170 for bitter reflections on the Afghan war. For military accounts see Mark Urban, War in Afghanistan (London, Macmillan, 1988) and Mark Galleotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War (London, Frank Cass, 1994).
70. Allan (ed.), Sowjetische Geheimdokumente, p. 448.
71. Sarin & Dvoretsky, The Afghan Syndrome, p. 112.
72. Odd Arne Westad, 'Prelude to Invasion: the Soviet Union and the Afghan Communists, 1978-1979', The International History Review, xvi, 1, February 1994, p. 55.
73. Allan (ed.), Sowjetische Geheimdokumente, pp. 12-14.
74. Ibid., pp. 200-226.
75. Ibid., p. 448; Shebarshin, pp. 205-206, gives the favourable KGB evaluation of his personality.
76. Ibid., p. 448; Shebarshin, pp. 205-206, gives the favourable KGB evaluation of his personality.
77. A.S. Chernyaev, Shest' let s Gorbachevym (Moscow, Progress, 1993), p. 58.
78. Shebarshin, pp. 206-213.
79. Interview with former Soviet diplomat, April 1997.
80. Allan (ed.), Sowjetische Geheimdokumente, pp. 458ff; Chernyaev, Shest' let, pp. 269-273.
81. Allan (ed.), Sowjetische Geheimdokumente, pp. 458ff; Chernyaev, Shest' let, pp. 269-273.
82. Chernyaev, Shest' let, p. 269.
83. Ibid., p. 271. An exasperated Gorbachev declared: 'No further replies to Najibullah, except an absolute no to these air strikes' (Chernyaev, p. 273).
84. Ibid., p. 271. An exasperated Gorbachev declared: 'No further replies to Najibullah, except an absolute no to these air strikes' (Chernyaev, p. 273).
85. Minister of State Security Gholam Faruq Yaaqubi told an informant in March 1992 that while the Soviet forces had not left large amounts of equipment when they left in 1989 the regime now had sufficient supplies for five years. Yaaqubi was to die, reportedly by his own hand, in the turmoil surrounding the final days of the regime.
86. Former Afghan foreign ministry official.