Democratic Republic of Afghanistan

[Adil3tr]

Does anyone have any marxist info on the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan? Was it legit?

[Red Commissar]

Well Khad is the most knowledgeable on Afghanistan... but to clarify what do you mean by "legit"? Do you mean legit as in it followed Marxist principles?

[RadioRaheem84]

Yeah where is Khad? Killing Hope by William Blum insinuates that the second guy who took over Afghanistan and ran it like a repressive state was CIA plant. Not much evidence exists for this assertion but most of the justification for the US to aid the Mujahdeen came from this period, even though the USSR denounced him.

[khad]

Yeah, I would like to know what the OP means by legit. Meanwhile, here are excerpts of David Edwards's Before Taliban, which probably has the best treatment of the Saur Revolution I've seen.



We can see in Taraki’s several journeys abroad the reinvention of a common theme in Afghan life histories. In Heroes of the Age, one of the common threads I noted in the lives of a tribal chief, a would-be king, and a Sufi mystic was the protagonist’s exile—sometimes voluntary, sometimes not—from his home. For the tribal chief, Sultan Muhammad Khan, that exile came at an early age, after the murder of his father, when it was no longer safe for him to remain at home. Exile for Sultan Muhammad brought the decisive moment in his life, when he had to resolve whether to stay in the court of his patron, the nawab of Dir, where he had manufactured a comfortable life for himself as a scribe, or to return home to face the dangerous challenge of confronting his enemies and thereby regain his honor. For the king-in-waiting, Abdur Rahman, exile came in his twenties, after seeing his father and uncle both lose the throne of Kabul. He too found a safe refuge and comfortable position with a foreign ruler; however, ultimately, like Sultan Muhammad, Abdur Rahman became dissatisfied with the subservient life of a courtier and set off to recover the throne that was rightfully his. For the Mulla of Hadda, exile meant leaving an impoverished home at a young age to gain religious knowledge and spiritual advancement in India. There, he not only gained the training he needed to become a religious authority but also encountered and fulfilled his preordained destiny by meeting the Akhund of Swat, who would guide him in the path of Sufi enlightenment.

In Taraki’s life history, the journey motif was redeployed and reinvented in interesting ways, with the first journey to Qandahar and Bombay resembling that of the Mulla of Hadda in particular. Thus, Taraki at a young age also decided to leave the poverty, oppression, and limited horizons at home to seek refuge and possible advancement abroad. His search exposed him to other worlds and provided him with the tools needed to open up new fields of knowledge, tools that he then took back to others in his native land. The second trip abroad, to Washington, followed the pattern of the exile journeys of Sultan Muhammad and Abdur Rahman. In Taraki’s case, it was not a family feud or dynastic upheaval that led to his exile but the early struggles of the radical movement to free Afghanistan from the chains of despotism and oppression. Both Abdur Rahman and Sultan Muhammad faced their moments of truth when they had to decide whether to chance a return that would lead them to their death or to their destiny. The biography tells us that Taraki also had to face the same sort of crisis; he had to decide whether to stay abroad in safety or to face the uncertain consequences of a return to the wrath of Prime Minister Daud.

His decision to return home and openly confront Daud is the most heroic act ascribed to Taraki in the biography. While his involvement in covert party organizing was certainly risky, this is the only time Taraki is portrayed facing off against an adversary (albeit over the telephone). Reading between the lines, one might speculate that Daud didn’t take Taraki seriously enough to bother putting him in prison and felt that surveillance was perfectly adequate for so humble an adversary. Daud during this period was sympathetic to most of the ideological positions of the leftists, and the educated elite with whom both men associated constituted such a small circle in those days that some of Taraki’s old friends might also have exerted their influence on Daud to keep him out of trouble. Or maybe none of this happened at all, and this story masks a more ignominious period during which Taraki accepted a government position for the money and then later had to explain it away by making up the story of his confrontation with the prime minister. Whatever the reality, the biographical depiction of these events provides Taraki with a narrative moment of reckoning that would have been typologically comprehensible to Afghans. Whether successfully or not, the biography tries to make of the new leader a recognizably Afghan, though also thoroughly modern, “hero” for a revolutionary age.

The next stage of this would-be heroic life features suffering (“Comrade Taraki . . . did odd jobs to eke out a living. However, as soon as he would land a good job, he was suspended through the intelligence service”); the production of a string of “revolutionary and class-conscious” novels; [14 (http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3p30056w&chunk.id=d0e966&toc.id=d0e535&toc.depth=1&brand=eschol&anchor.id=en1.14#X)] and the founding of the PDPA (“Comrade Taraki with a high revolutionary spirit almost openly took the initiative to launch his political party. To achieve this end, he began his meetings with a number of youths whom he had already groomed as young revolutionaries so that he could establish the workers’ party equipped with the working class scientific ideology”). The context of the party’s founding was the advent of a period of democratic liberalization in which Zahir Shah promised to open up the political process. This era began with the drafting of a new constitution in 1964 and the election of a representative parliamentary assembly in 1965.

Taraki himself ran for the lower house (wolesi jirga) of parliament from his native district in Ghazni, but he was defeated, as the biography explains, “through Government machinations and shameless intervention in the election.” Other Marxists, however, including Babrak Karmal and Dr. Anahita Ratebzad, were elected and immediately set about making their presence felt in the assembly. The elections had produced a lower house split between conservative and Marxist factions, with a relatively weak and ineffectual center, represented by Prime Minister Muhammad Yusuf, who had been appointed by the king to replace Prime Minister Daud. Immediately after the opening of parliament, the Marxists began accusing the new government of corruption and forced a vote of confidence; it was held on October 24, 1965, before a gallery packed with shouting, chanting Karmal supporters, who managed to disrupt the vote. The next day, the police locked the demonstrators out of the parliamentary chambers, so they took their protest to the streets and were eventually fired on by overwhelmed Afghan troops. This event led to more demonstrations and finally forced the resignation of Yusuf. [15 (http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3p30056w&chunk.id=d0e966&toc.id=d0e535&toc.depth=1&brand=eschol&anchor.id=en1.15#X)]

Although no direct role in the parliamentary crisis is ascribed to Taraki, the biography does tell us that he was working in this period to organize the PDPA and to found “the glorious historic and brilliant Khalq newspaper.” Although the paper was allowed to run for only six weeks and six issues, it managed in that short time to further divide the already factionalized political climate, especially through its open declaration that “the main issue of contemporary times and the center of class struggle on a worldwide basis, which began with the Great October Socialist Revolution, is the struggle between international socialism and international imperialism.” [16 (http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3p30056w&chunk.id=d0e966&toc.id=d0e535&toc.depth=1&brand=eschol&anchor.id=en1.16#X)] Religious leaders in the upper house of the parliament (meshrano jirga) demanded an investigation, and the government decided to ban the paper outright on May 23, 1966.

Despite the banning of Khalq, other leftist newspapers were started, including Parcham (Flag) and the Maoist Shu’la-yi Jawed (Eternal Flame). These publications played a cat-and-mouse game with conservative opponents and government censors, taunting with cartoons and editorials, creating minor provocations that went right up to the line that would get them noticed but not banned. One incident in particular stands out during this period, the publication of a poem in Parcham written by Bariq Shafi, the former editor of Khalq, titled “The Bugle of Revolution.” In this poem, the writer intentionally used forms of eulogistic praise (dorud) traditionally reserved for the Prophet Muhammad to celebrate Lenin. Where earlier provocations had resulted in scattered protests, impassioned mosque sermons, and delegations demanding an audience with the king, “The Bugle of Revolution” created a nationwide furor, as news of the outrage spread throughout the country. Inspired by the increasing immorality of the left, mullas from throughout the country traveled to Kabul, where they gathered in the Pul-i Khishti mosque near the central marketplace to protest the poem and give vent to their larger concern over the expansion of leftist influence. [17 (http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3p30056w&chunk.id=d0e966&toc.id=d0e535&toc.depth=1&brand=eschol&anchor.id=en1.17#X)]

In the parliament, leftist deputies employed the same practice, provoking their clerical opponents while trying not to directly offend the government. Karmal, in particular, was famous for offering public praise of the king while getting into symbolic tiffs with religious deputies, as evidenced in the following story told by Samiullah Safi, a fellow deputy of Karmal’s, whose story is the centerpiece of Chapter Four:
One time Karmal started a speech without the usual invocation of bismillah . One of the deputies announced, “I have a legal objection.” The president of the assembly, who was Umar Wardak, stopped [Karmal] from talking and asked what his objection was. I don’t remember which deputy it was, but he said that “whenever Karmal makes a speech, he doesn’t say ‘bismillah.’ He must say ‘[I]bismillah ul-rahman ul-rahim.’” If other people would forget to say the “bismillah,” he presumably wouldn’t have minded, but since it involved Karmal, who was a communist and a servant of Russia, . . . people were sensitive to his manner of speaking. So he said, “He must say the ‘bismillah’ before he begins his speeches.”
They put this objection to a vote—whether or not he should say “bismillah.” When the voting took place, even Hafizullah Amin, who was present, raised his hand to show that he thought that “bismillah” should be spoken. The only person in the parliament who didn’t raise his hand was Karmal. After that, Umar Wardak hit the desk with his gavel and said, “It has been unanimously decided that Mr. Karmal must say ‘bismillah ul-rahman ul-rahim’ before starting his speeches.” Then they gave him permission [to speak], and the light went on the microphone; but he started speaking from where he left off and didn’t say “bismillah.” Immediately the assembly broke out in a great hubbub. There was lots of shouting. Karmal didn’t say “bismillah,” so he pushed the mic away and leaned to one side, giving up on his speech. [18 (http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3p30056w&chunk.id=d0e966&toc.id=d0e535&toc.depth=1&brand=eschol&anchor.id=en1.18#X)]
Another, similar confrontation between Karmal and Maulavi Muhammad Nabi Muhammadi, a Muslim cleric who later became the leader of one of the exile Islamic resistance parties, resulted in a skirmish on the floor of the parliament in which Karmal received a cut on his head. According to Louis Dupree, “When his followers demonstrated outside the hospital, [Karmal] grabbed additional bandages and energetically tied them around his head before appearing to wave feebly to the spirited crowd.” [19 (http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3p30056w&chunk.id=d0e966&toc.id=d0e535&toc.depth=1&brand=eschol&anchor.id=en1.19#X)] The ultimate effect of this sort of incitement was the paralysis of the government, as a succession of prime ministers tried and failed to exert some modicum of influence over a dysfunctional parliament and incendiary press. Ultimately, this failure led to the mobilization of a coup d’état by Muhammad Daud, a cousin of Zahir Shah and the last prime minister prior to the advent of the democratic era in 1964. Among Daud’s early supporters were members of the PDPA, but they soon became disillusioned with Daud as he reverted to the autocratic style of governing that he had relied on during his earlier decade of rule.

At this moment, according to Taraki’s biography, Taraki struck on his plan to take “a shortcut” to revolution via the armed forces: “Previously, the army was considered as the tool of dictatorship and despotism of the ruling class and it was not imaginable to use it before toppling its employer. However, Comrade Taraki suggested this tool ought to be wrested in order to topple the ruling class thereby and this end could be achieved through extensively doing party work in the army and diffusing the epoch-making working class ideology among the armed forces.” Taraki entrusted the job of mobilizing a military base to the man who was becoming his closest confidant and protégé, Hafizullah Amin.
Comrade Amin who was responsible for the party affairs among the armed forces and enjoyed the trust of the young officers respecting his orders with extreme faith and loyalty soon realized that now the young officers in the armed forces on the one hand adored their great leader Noor Mohammad Taraki and on the other hand were ready to proceed with any revolutionary action with utmost discipline to place themselves in his command with deep loyalty and devotion. The Khalqi officers in the armed forces believed that Comrade Amin as the most faithful follower and disciple of Comrade Taraki was sincerely following his beloved leader’s instructions and faithfully and loyally reported to him on behalf of the Khalqi officers.
Throughout the mid-1970s, President Daud, who earlier in his career had been known as the “red prince” for his leftist views, became steadily more suspicious of his former allies on the left and of the intentions of his Soviet patrons. Many believe that in the months before the Saur Revolution, Daud was sufficiently concerned for his position that he was making plans to renounce or severely restrict aid from the Soviet Union while increasing his reliance on assistance from Saudi Arabia and Iran, both of which he visited in early 1978. Daud’s suspicions of the left were galvanized on April 17, 1978, when unknown assassins shot down Mir Akbar Khyber, one of the best-known Marxists and a close ally of Karmal. Khyber’s funeral attracted a large and vociferous crowd, and a new wave of leftist protests appeared likely in the days ahead. To forestall that eventuality, Daud dispatched police officers in the early morning hours of April 26 to arrest Taraki, Karmal, Amin, and other leading Marxists at their homes. Taraki appears not to have anticipated this move:
Holding his shot gun and on the verge of firing on the police, Comrade Taraki thought it was the thieves or the reactionaries who had raided into his house but soon realized that they were police officers of the inhuman Daoud Regime. When Mrs. Taraki confronted these officers, one threatened her with his weapon and wounded her arm with his bayonet: Sprinkling her blood on the faces of the police officers, Mrs. Taraki exclaimed “this blood would not remain unavenged.”
Showing a political dexterity that would ultimately be his undoing, Amin took advantage of the arresting officer’s leniency in allowing him to remain in his house for several hours to send a message to Marxist officers instructing them to begin their coup d’état on the following day—April 27. Thus, the long planned coup d’état got under way while Taraki, Amin, and other party leaders were in prison. Not until the afternoon, several hours after the beginning of the operation, were military officers able to “release great heroic leader, Comrade Noor Muhammad Taraki and others from their dark cells” and convey them by armored car to Radio Afghanistan, where military officers announced to the Afghan people that a new revolutionary government was now in control of the homeland. After the announcement and as the battle for Kabul continued to rage, the officers took Taraki and other leaders to an air force base outside the capital where they would be safe until the outcome of the coup could be assured.

http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3p30056w&chunk.id=d0e530&toc.depth=1&toc.id=d0e530&brand=eschol

[Adil3tr]

Legit means that it was at least to some degree for the people and a popular revolution, not just an invasion. I sure it could be far more complicated than that.

[khad]

Legit means that it was at least to some degree for the people and a popular revolution, not just an invasion. I sure it could be far more complicated than that.
Of course there was a popular revolution. Does that answer your question?

[Ismail]

Afghanistan under the PDPA pursued progressive social and economic reforms, but it also came to power via military coup, lacked critically necessary popular support in the countryside, and lost practically all of its legitimacy upon the Soviet invasion of the country. The charge that Amin was a "CIA agent" is baseless, and the only "evidence" is that Amin, who never moved himself from the Soviet sphere, wanted less dependence on the Soviets in terms of training the army, and wanted to appear less like a Soviet puppet by improving ties with various Arab states.

If that qualifies as a "CIA agent" then you could "justify" the claim that Salvador Allende was a "KGB pawn" using similar methods.

A detailed overview of the coming to power of the PDPA, the fall of Amin, and the military/political history of Afghanistan from 1977-1992 can be found here: http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7b69p12h;brand=eschol

For what it's worth, Najibullah (the man in Khad's avatar, the "Afghan Gorbachev") actually did try to shore up support for his country's government and as a result did make some initial headway, and in doing so he removed any mention of socialism in the revised 1987 constitution. After that Afghanistan just became an unstable albeit semi-progressive bourgeois democracy, but by then it was too late and the people of Afghanistan had no love for a former Soviet puppet trying to wriggle its way out of its puppetry without looking like opportunists.

For a Marxist-Leninist view, see: http://ml-review.ca/aml/AllianceIssues/ALLIANCE45AFGHANISTAN.html

[khad]

Your love of Amin is is quite baffling, and I and others have stuck it to you every time you shilled for your ultra-left garbage in one of these threads. That man did more to destabilize Afghanistan and purge socialists than anyone in Afghan history. If anything, the Soviet intervention prevented him from completing his purge of the party.

Although I don't think he was ever a CIA agent (not an unreasonable assumption, however, as he was trained at Columbia University), what he did made him about as effective as one--to destroy one's governing coalition at the very moment when the PDPA needed unity to establish a revolutionary government.


If that qualifies as a "CIA agent" then you could "justify" the claim that Salvador Allende was a "KGB pawn" using similar methods.Allende never murdered his own party en masse the moment he got put in charge.


For a Marxist-Leninist view, see: http://ml-review.ca/aml/AllianceIssues/ALLIANCE45AFGHANISTAN.html
You mean your traitorous Maoist and/or Hoxhaite view. Funny how an article that long never mentions how China trained the Mujahideen and gave them 400 million dollars' equivalent of military aid.

Behind every one of these articles is just another fake-socialist wrecker.

[Ismail]

Your love of Amin is is quite baffling,I never expressed my "love" for Amin.


That man did more to destabilize Afghanistan and purge socialists than anyone in Afghan history.By the time Amin came to power Taraki's government had already done an admirable job of having insurrections occur across the whole country. The regime also attacked Maoist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan_Liberation_Organization) and Hoxhaist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shola-y-Jaweid) forces in Afghanistan. In the end Amin discredited the government less than the Soviet invasion did.


Allende never murdered his own party en masse the moment he got put in charge.Red herring.


Funny how an article that long never mentions how China trained the Mujahideen and gave them 400 million dollars' equivalent of military aid.Considering the author was a Hoxhaist (ergo not fond of Maoism), that would have been a nice mention.

[khad]

I never expressed my "love" for Amin.

By the time Amin came to power Taraki's government had already done an admirable job of having insurrections occur across the whole country. The regime also attacked Maoist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan_Liberation_Organization) and Hoxhaist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shola-y-Jaweid) forces in Afghanistan. In the end Amin discredited the government less than the Soviet invasion did.
And rightly so. China was an ally of the American client Pakistan and would naturally work to destabilize Afghanistan.


Considering the author was a Hoxhaist (ergo not fond of Maoism), that would have been a nice mention.

All it is is providing cover for reactionaries. Omissions from ultra-left sect trash are more far more telling than what they say. China in fact was the principal agent behind the supply of the mujahideen, while marginal "socialist" states like Albania could sit there on their high horse and shake their finger disapprovingly and give reactionaries all the arguments they could ever want or need.


Red herring.Step before the firing squad, then.

[Ismail]

All you're doing is providing cover for reactionaries. The Soviet intervention was a a last-ditch response to the monster that Amin had become.As Hoxha noted in 1980, "The fact is that the Soviet social-imperialists had carefully prepared the ground for this occupation beforehand, intervening and aggravating the situation inside the country in their favour and binding Afghanistan with the chains of enslaving treaties which the Soviet social-imperialists use openly as instruments to occupy other peoples and countries or to keep them under their dependence and control. The fall of the monarchy and later on of Daoud was a cynical utilization by the Moscow rulers of the desires of the Afghan people for liberation because the people felt the heavy burden of the oppression and exploitation of the monarchy and feudalism and their Soviet allies and wanted to see their country free and sovereign....

The occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union... once more clearly demonstrates today that aggression and the use of military force constitute the most typical feature of Soviet foreign policy. In rivalry with American imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism has done its utmost, employing all manner of means to secure new strategic positions and extend its sphere of control and domination in Asia, Africa and Latin America and everywhere else. In these efforts they utilise every means, from diplomatic and political manoeuvres to military violence. But when the peoples take their fate into their own hands the defence of their just cause and rise in revolution such as occurred in Iran, the superpowers suffer heavy and irreparable defeat to their hegemonic positions. After occupying Afghanistan and putting it under their iron military heel, the Soviet social-imperialists are now trying to pacify public opinion that allegedly it only sent a few contingents there temporarily, for as long as is necessary, but in reality there is no limit to their stay. They will act in exactly the same way in Afghanistan as they did in Czechoslovakia, where to this day after 12 years, their occupation troops are still in that country... No one, no matter under what pretext, has the right of intervene in the internal affairs and life of other peoples or countries. Only the peoples are powerful and have the right to decide on the internal problems of their countries without any external interference....

The Albanian people express the profound conviction that the courageous people of Afghanistan will deal crushing blows to the Soviet social-imperialist aggressors and will oust them from their homeland."

[khad]

As stated before, if Amin had been left in power, there wouldn't have been much of a PDPA left. People don't live with their heads full of idealism. Sometimes actions must be taken because of developments on the ground at the moment. The fact is there was an existential threat to the PDPA in the form of Amin and the Soviet intervention removed him as well as hammered out a truce between the Khalq and Parcham factions of the PDPA. In fact much of the "intervention" before then was Soviet diplomats pleading to have Amin release jailed socialists.

The idealist presecriptions coming from a marginal state like Albania is called national suicide in any part of the world that actually matters in global affairs.

Furthermore, the Soviets were genuinely surprised that the Saur revolution occurred in the first place. It wasn't as all described by Hoxha in his propagandistic smear--"The fall of the monarchy and later on of Daoud was a cynical utilization by the Moscow rulers of the desires of the Afghan people for liberation because the people felt the heavy burden of the oppression and exploitation of the monarchy and feudalism and their Soviet allies and wanted to see their country free and sovereign...."

In fact, in their contacts with the USSR, the Afghan communists had always been advised to work with Daoud within the existing parliamentary system. The revolution was a revolt against Daoud's repressions when he started killing and rounding up the Afghan communists.

Of course, ultralefts like you would even deny socialists the right to self-defense

[Ismail]

The fact is there was an existential threat to the PDPA in the form of Amin and the Soviet intervention removed him as well as hammered out a truce between the Khalq and Parcham factions of the PDPA. In fact much of the "intervention" before then was Soviet diplomats pleading to have Amin release jailed socialists.Considering that the Parcham were reformist, right-wing "socialists" and the Khalq were the ones who had to endure the majority of the repressions under the King and under Daoud, I don't exactly care that the Soviets were able to use their militarily-enhanced influence to "hammer out" a truce between the two factions. In that case it's revisionists "hammering out" a truce with less odious revisionists.


The idealist presecriptions coming from a marginal state like Albania is called national suicide in any part of the world that actually matters in global affairs.Of course you always put geo-politics above anti-imperialism and socialism. As Hoxha noted in The Superpowers (p. 569), "The Marxist-Leninists must master historical materialism and apply it in practice. They must see the development of the world and the changes occurring in it from the angle of Marxism-Leninism. He who upholds the occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet social-imperialists and considers it a just and necessary action cannot be considered a Marxist, he is an anti-Marxist. Those self-styled Marxist-Leninists who try to 'argue' that the Afghan people and the elements of the middle and even of the top bourgeoisie who fight against the Soviet occupiers should not be described as patriots cannot be called Marxists... To underestimate these anti-imperialist moments, to fail to make the most of them and display 'orthodoxy' by demanding that these peoples in revolution abandon belief in their religion, and the customs and habits which derive from it almost at once, shows at least Marxist-Leninist ideological immaturity."


Furthermore, the Soviets were genuinely surprised that the Saur revolution occurred in the first place. It wasn't as all described by Hoxha in his propagandistic smear--The Soviets propped up both the monarchy and then Daoud. When Daoud moved away from the Soviet sphere the Soviets were happy to endorse the left-wing Khalq-led military coup, whereas before that they supported the reformist, right-wing Parcham in working peacefully with Daoud.

[khad]

The Soviets propped up both the monarchy and then Daoud. When Daoud moved away from the Soviet sphere the Soviets were happy to endorse the left-wing Khalq-led military coup, whereas before that they supported the reformist, right-wing Parcham in working peacefully with Daoud.
And they were right to back Parcham. I need not remind you how many Khalqi ultraleft types eventually joined the ranks of the Taliban. The Taliban #3 at one point was even a Khalqi. It's instructive, really--where ultraleftism will get you. Just like the pathetic Maoists who joined up with Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-islami and ended up being tortured to death by them.

The Soviets actually had some idea of how to make a functioning government. You may not have the ideal pieces, but you work with what you have. They backed Daoud because he was more progressive than Zahir Shah, and then they backed the socialist revolt against Daoud, even if the revolution had emerged under extreme duress.

Unlike ultraleft wreckers like yourself, they weren't willing to throw Afghan socialists to the wolves in the form of Amin, the CIA, ISI, and China.


As Hoxha noted in The Superpowers (p. 569), "The Marxist-Leninists must master historical materialism and apply it in practice. They must see the development of the world and the changes occurring in it from the angle of Marxism-Leninism. He who upholds the occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet social-imperialists and considers it a just and necessary action cannot be considered a Marxist, he is an anti-Marxist. Those self-styled Marxist-Leninists who try to 'argue' that the Afghan people and the elements of the middle and even of the top bourgeoisie who fight against the Soviet occupiers should not be described as patriots cannot be called Marxists... To underestimate these anti-imperialist moments, to fail to make the most of them and display 'orthodoxy' by demanding that these peoples in revolution abandon belief in their religion, and the customs and habits which derive from it almost at once, shows at least Marxist-Leninist ideological immaturity."
Real geopolitics is life and death, not an idealist parlor game. And for that matter, Taraki was very open to compromise with local conditions to ensure stability. It was Amin who began pushing a hard line and antagonizing local customs and elites, but of course Amin had Taraki murdered so he could step into power.

[Ismail]

I need not remind you how many Khalqi ultraleft types eventually joined the ranks of the Taliban. The Taliban #3 at one point was even a Khalqi.The Khalq were revisionists, too.


They backed Daoud because he was more progressive than Zahir ShahHow so? Because the right-wing "socialists" of the Parcham were legal so long as they tailed him? Actual Marxist-Leninists were not tolerated under either Zahir Shah or the King's cousin, Daoud.


And for that matter, Taraki was very open to compromise with local conditions to ensure stability.So willing he pleaded (http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7b69p12h&chunk.id=appd&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=eschol) for the Soviets to send Soviet-born Turkmen and Uzbeks in Afghan clothing into the country to help prop up the idea of "popular support" for the government while Kosygin probably spent time hitting his head on a desk.

[Kiev Communard]

The DRA was in no way "socialist" state, but such were the material conditions in Afghanistan back then that it was one of the few cases when the "lesser evil" argument in favour of it would be justified.

[khad]

How so? Because the right-wing "socialists" of the Parcham were legal so long as they tailed him? Actual Marxist-Leninists were not tolerated under either Zahir Shah or the King's cousin, Daoud.

Yes, just because you couldn't have your ultraleft Hoxhaite proxy under Daoud didn't mean that conditions weren't objectively better for socialists in Afghanistan


So willing he pleaded (http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft7b69p12h&chunk.id=appd&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=eschol) for the Soviets to send Soviet-born Turkmen and Uzbeks in Afghan clothing into the country to help prop up the idea of "popular support" for the government while Kosygin probably spent time hitting his head on a desk.Hey look, someone else can quote too.


The PDPA did not have a recognized foreign bogeyman to turn to, and the action that it had to defend was not a dynastic upheaval, which Afghans understood, but a revolution, an inqilab, which was an entirely unprecedented occurrence. Choosing the cautious path, the regime initially attempted to conciliate rather than upset the people it hoped to lead, soothing suspicions by inviting rural elites to meet the new ruler in darbar in Kabul. This was the traditional custom: bring the elders to the palace, present them with ceremonial robes and turbans, and assure them that the new rulers would treat them well and respect their autonomy. Taraki was new to the role, but he did his best; all through May and June, government newspapers published photographs and stories of the new leader meeting with groups of religious leaders and provincial elders. The vast majority of elders came from the Pakhtun frontier areas, including areas under Pakistani control, and it was not difficult to ascertain why the government sought out leaders from these areas. [9 (http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3p30056w&chunk.id=d0e1531&toc.id=d0e1133&toc.depth=1&brand=eschol&anchor.id=en2.9#X)] This is where most acts of antistate violence over the preceding hundred years or so had originated, and, even more than Bacha-i Saqao, it was the border tribes that had been responsible for sealing Amanullah’s unhappy fate. The Durranis of Qandahar may have been the erstwhile tribe of kings, but the Pakhtuns of the frontier were the kingmakers and breakers, a fact that Taraki alluded to when he told a group of Pakhtun elders, “You brother tribes be aware and consider the bitter experience of the Amani movement [those who supported the reforms of Amir Amanullah]. . . . The state is yours. It is not your master. It is your servant.” [10 (http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3p30056w&chunk.id=d0e1531&toc.id=d0e1133&toc.depth=1&brand=eschol&anchor.id=en2.10#X)]

The parade of elders continued through May and early June but then abruptly stopped in July, about the same time as the Parchami purges. [11 (http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft3p30056w&chunk.id=d0e1531&toc.id=d0e1133&toc.depth=1&brand=eschol&anchor.id=en2.11#X)] At this point Amin’s ascendance began in earnest, and the first sign of his new power was the adoption of a more aggressive plan of reform.So you first you blame the PDPA for being revisionist and reformist, and then you turn around and blame it for being too radical to conduct a proper mobilization of the masses, antagonizing deep-rooted social forces like religion. Now why does this sound familiar? It's precisely the same "damed if you do, damned if you don't" rhetoric people use about the USSR.

[RadioRaheem84]

Great discussion!