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UNITE! Info #19en: 1/4 Social-imperialism's Afghan war
[Posted: 09.10.96]
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INTRO NOTE:
Two recent "UNITE! Info" items, #16en and #17en, of 04.10.96 and
05.10.96 respectively, have been dealing indirectly and in part
also directly with the question of the aggression by Soviet so-
cial-imperialism (which today no longer is in existence as such)
against a third-world country, Afghanistan, in 1979-1989. This
item too, and now more or less wholly, will be dedicated to the
same theme. Why? Why do I hold this question to be such a rela-
tively important one?
The social-imperialists' overt aggression in Afghanistan in '79-
'89 today is already history. But it's still something which
shows up with quite extraordinary clarity the sharp difference
between Marxism, on the one hand, and revisionism, on the other.
And the phenomenon of revisionism, that's one of the most impor-
tant political phenomena of all in our century.
What is revisionism? It's Marxism, socialism, proletarian poli-
tics in *words* but bourgeois politics, even imperialism, in
*deeds*. A discussion on this phenomenon and its root causes
follows in one of the chapters below.
The openly bourgeois media, in the Western countries, for in-
stance, of course never use the word "revisionism", at least not
in this important political sense. To them, everybody *is* a
"Communist" who has proclaimed him/her/self to be one, and the
same goes for parties - indeed, such revisionist parties as no
longer even find it tactically wise even to try to pose as
"Communist" still continue to be called so by the openly bour-
geois media. This of course is done in order to make it more
difficult for the masses of people to distinguish between actual
Communism on the one hand and revisionism on the other, and to
disredit the very idea of Communism. For Marxists, naturally
it's vital to draw a sharp dividing line between the genuine and
the faked (notwithstanding the fact that it sometimes may be
difficult to see which is which) and to enlighten everybody on
this.
An infamous example of a state ruled by revisionists is the Chi-
na of today, which, as all (who know some elementary facts of
history) can see, is completely different from the earlier, so-
cialist China which was guided by Mao Zedong's genuinely Marxist
political line. An even more infamous example of such a state
was the Soviet Union of yesterday (from approximately the mid-
50:s until 1991).
The aggression of that state against Afghanistan exposed to the
whole world, even more clearly than its earlier crimes, the true
character of it, and importantly contributed to its eventual
downfall.
Just as the US war of aggression in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
in the late '60:s and early '70:s very clearly and to the whole
world exposed the true character of US imperialism, and that of
its hackneyed supporters too, so did the Afghan war of the So-
viet Union expose the true character of *that* state and of
*its* hackneyed supporters.
This was so, despite the fact that in both of those cases of
superpower aggression there was a certain amount of meddling
on the part of the other superpower too, which tried to further
its own interests under the guise of "supporting" the resistance
of the respective country against the invader and his puppets.
After the invading Soviet troops were forced to leave Afghani-
stan, in 1989, internal strife has continued in that country,
undoubtedly to a great extent caused and aggravated by continued
interference by both superpowers. One of the warring factions,
the Taleban, recently conquered the capital and i.a. executed
one of the earlier leaders of the Soviet social-imperialists'
puppet regime in the country, Najibullah. This occasioned a
heated exchange among some people who all are calling themselves
"Marxists".
I on my part expressed, on the Jefferson Village Virginia Marx-
ism list, my opinion that this at least was a just action on the
part of the Taleban. Some others protested against this, and in
quite violent terms too. They made clear their staunch support
for the earlier actions undertaken by the Soviet Union in Af-
ghanistan and for those of its puppet regime. How could someone
who *opposed* these "very benficial" and "civilizing" deeds even
be allowed on a Marxism list at all, how could he indeed be con-
sidered a "civilized" person? In this direction went one "trend
of thought".
This discussion, or whatever you might call it, is the immediate
reason why I've now dedicated some Info items to the question of
events in Afghanistan 1979-1989. The present one contains the
following more or less brief chapters (each in one of the four
parts of this item):
Chapter 1: What took place in Afghanistan in 1979-89
Chapter 2: A discussion among Soviet leaders, 1979
Chapter 3: Certain "Marxists" today on events '79-'89
Chapter 4: On Quisling "Marxism" and its root causes,
on the strange "theory" of "Stalinism" and
on the superpowers as rivals and allies
CHAPTER 1: WHAT TOOK PLACE IN AFGHANISTAN IN 1979-89
In essence and very briefly, events in that country during that
time may be described in the following terms.
Soviet social-imperialist aggression against Afghanistan was
initiated on 27.12.1979. In a manner infamous in connection with
other imperialist invasions, Soviet troops were "called in" by a
"government" which thereby wholly transformed itself into a pup-
pet "government". They were resisted by the people. By January
1980, the number of Soviet troops in the country had reached
85,000.
The US imperialists eventually supported (with or without quota-
tion marks) the resistance but did not intervene directly. In
1989, the social-imperialists were forced to withdraw their own
troops, leaving behind some forces which to a greater or lesser
degree continued to act as their proxies.
During the 10-years long war of open aggression,
¤ 1.5 million Afghans were killed
¤ 5-6 million were forced to leave the country - the
biggest refugee cathastrophy in our time - and 1 million
more forced to leave their homes, to become refugees in
Afghanistan itself
¤ 7000 villages were annihilated and 5000 more seriously
damaged
¤ between 10 million (UN estimate) and 60 million (other
estimates) mines were laid throughout the country by the
invaders
¤ these mines have so far caused 200,000 deaths and
400,000 maimings; they continue today to take a heavy
toll and several decades will be required for their
removal
¤ large parts of the vital and scarce forests were sys-
tematically destroyed by the Soviet forces
¤ the infrastructure and the fields for agriculture were
destroyed to a great extent
In other words, this was a very "typical" genocidal imperialist
war.
To the elementary and well-known facts mentioned above, some
descriptions of events in Afghanistan in 1979-89 which I'll
quote in Chapter 3 should be compared.
In a pamphlet published in English in 1985 by the solidarity
movement in Sweden for the Afghan people's struggle against the
aggression, this kind of propaganda in favour of that aggression
was also commented on. I'll quote some passages from that pamph-
let, "Soviet Out of Afghanistan!", which initially mentioned
some facts on the Swedish solidarity movement:
"The largest demonstration to date in Sweden against the Soviet
intervention in Afghanistan was held on March 23, 1985. The de-
monstrators in Stockholm marched from Norra Bantorget to Kungs-
traedgaarden. The organizers counted more than 6,000 partici-
pants."
"Manifestations were also held simultaneously in the towns of
Falkoeping, Ludvika, Alingsaas, Goeteborg and Skara."
"In four years the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan has grown
from five people to more than 2,000 members today, with local
groups in 42 towns."
[From the 23.03.1985 speech by Sven Lindquist:]
"The strategy employed by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan is a
well-known one. The same strategy utilised by the USA in Viet-
nam. A guerilla movement which is supported by the people is
hard to defeat. And so the people must be driven away. To drive
the people away one bombs villages, burns crops and poisons the
wells."
"This is what the USA did in Vietnam. And this is what the So-
viet Union is doing in Afghanistan. They are bombing the civi-
lian population in to the cities or in to the refugee camps in
Pakistan and Iran. Now that the spring of 1985 has arrived,
every fourth Afghan (more than 4 million people) is on the run
from the bombs and from starvation."
"When a superpower decides to bomb a people back to the Stone
Age, it is always done with the best intentions. When the Ame-
ricans carried out their bombings in Vietnam, they said it was
to protect freedom and democracy against communist tyranny. When
the Russians carry out their bombings in Afghanistan, they say
it is to support the Afghan revolution against the tyranny of
fundamentalism."
"But if one looks closer at these statements, they turn out to
be completely hollow. There is no revolution in Afghanistan to
support. A revolution comes from below, it grows out of the de-
mands of the people. The so-called April revolution in 1978 was
not a revolution, but a military coup."
"A gang of Moscow-trained officers seized power without any po-
pular support whatsoever."
"That these officers were members of the Communist Party" [as
Sven Lindquist calls it] "does not make their coup a revolution,
since it has the vast majority of people against it."
"There isn't any 'fundamentalist tyranny' to fight against in
Afghanistan. Nor has there ever been. Afghanistan is not Iran.
Afghans are dedicated Muslims in a traditional and relaxed man-
ner - as long as their faith and country are not threatened."
"Not until after the Russian intervention has created the very
religious extremism they purport to be fighting against."
"And so it is with all the other good intentions with which the
Soviet Union beautifies its power play in Afghanistan: the land
reform, literacy, women's liberation."
"A few farmers have been given land through the land reform af-
ter the Russians arrived. Far greater numbers have had their
fields destroyed and their houses burned. A small number of wo-
men have learned to read and write since the Russians arrived.
Far greater numbers have had their men killed and their children
crippled by the Russians."
"To pass oneself off as the liberator of women is an old impe-
rialist trick. The British in India, the French in Northern Af-
rica, the Russians in Afghanistan - all of them have declared
themselves to be struggling for the liberation of women. And
everywhere has it been just as impossible to change the rela-
tionship between the sexes by foreign occupation."
"In Afghanistan, women had progressed a little way towards
their own liberation. In the capital, most young women had
thrown away the veil. Some of them even wore short skirts. At
the University of Kabul young women studied to become doctors,
teachers and [to take up] other intellectual professions. And
out in the countryside women worked the land without veils and
moved around freely in the secure environment of their home
villages."
"The Russians have not liberated these women, but have instead
forced them into refugee camps in Pakistan, where they are now
shut up indoors and heavily veiled. Even in Kabul the veil has
returned as a protest against the Russian occupiers."
"The veil, the sign of oppression of women, has been resurrected
as a religious and national symbol of freedom. And due to the
Russian invasion, the fight for women's liberation has been
pushed back to where it started 50 years ago."
"The Afghans are not Swedes. It is their human right not to be
Swedish, to have completely different sets of values from us on
decisive points. But we do have at least two sets of values in
common: national independence and the policy of neutrality."
[On the last-mentioned here, I on my part would like to comment
that the Swedish so-called "policy of neutrality" of course al-
ways did contain a considerable amount of hypocrisy. Sweden was
and is among the exploiting countries; Afghanistan was and is a
third-world country, one of the exploited countries in the
world.]
"For centuries Afghanistan has lain like a grain of wheat bet-
ween two immense millstones, the Russian Central Asian empire
and the British Indian empire, and still refused to let itself
be crushed. For 150 years the Afghans have pursued a policy of
neutrality every bit as consistently as the Swedish." [See com-
ment above.] "That policy has now been ended by the Russian oc-
cupation."
"When the superpowers attack a small country they always have an
invitation to refer to. The Americans said they were in Vietnam
by invitation of the South Vietnamese government - a puppet go-
vernment they had installed themselves. The Russians say that
they are in Afghanistan by invitation of the Afghan government,
also a government they themselves have installed."
"This is a very old trick. Soviet troops are specialists in let-
ting themselves be invited to take over their neighbours."
............
"It would be naive to think that one can achieve peace by giving
the superpowers a free rein. Resistance, here as elsewhere, is
the only language that the Mighty understand. That is the most
important lesson to be learned from the war in Vietnam."
"It took us 20 years before we discovered the war in Vietnam.
But then a solidarity movement grew up which played a decisive
role in bringing the war to an end. It has taken a long time to
discover the war in Afghanistan. When I first held a speech at
an Afghanistan demonstration four years ago, there were just 50
participants gathered. Today there are several thousand demon-
strating against the Soviets' war in Afghanistan. The solidarity
movement for Afghanistan grows ever stronger. Ten years ago to-
day the Vietnam war entered its final phase. On March 23, 1975,
the Vietnamese cut off all links between the American troops in
the north and those in the south. At the end of April the last
American soldiers left Saigon."
.........
"Our protests will continue to grow ever stronger until the day
comes when no more bombs fall. And the last napalm fires have
burned out. And the last Soviet soldier has left Afghanistan."
[It may be of interest, also in other contexts, to note that at
that time, 23.03.1985, Swedish Prime Minister Palme, among
others, sent a message to the demonstrations. As far as I remem-
ber, this was the first time he had supported this solidarity
movement in this manner. Two brief excerpts from the message, as
reproduced in the same pamphlet:]
"The Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan is a flagrant
violation of that nation's sovereignty and national integrity."
........
"Throughout Sweden, protests are being held today against Soviet
policy in Afghanistan. This is an important contribution to the
world-wide efforts to restore to the people of Afghanistan their
right to self-determination and national independence."
[Continued in part 2/4]
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