When the Red Army invaded Afghanistan to ensure that a pro-Soviet socialist regime remained in power in 1979, observers in the West assumed that it would follow the pattern provided by interventions in Eastern Europe during the 1960’s. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev decreed that no socialist state allied with the Soviet Union would be allowed to either change its form of government, or change its alliances. This led to Soviet-backed interventions in Ethiopia, Aden, Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia to support Marxist regimes. This doctrine combined with Afghanistan’s shared border with the Soviet Union set the stage for armed intervention in favor of the government led by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan. What the Soviet Union and the world did not anticipate was a decade-long struggle between the Red Army and insurgents, resulting in heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The
geo-political consequences of the war in Afghanistan are well documented, as
are changes in Soviet combat tactics, the muhahedin resistance, and the United
States’ role in supply arms and supplies to resistance groups fighting against
the Soviet Union. Less understood,
particularly in the West, is the experience of Soviet soldiers and civilian
personnel who served in Afghanistan due to conscription or as volunteers. Soldiers and civilians alike experienced
privation and horror for their nation.
Unlike the heroes of the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany, they
returned home garner the scorn and disdain of fellow Soviets, and a lack of
medical care and veterans’ assistance.
Not only did the Afghantsy not
win their war on behalf of the Motherland, but the fact they were even fighting
was hidden from the public until 1983, four years after the war began. As Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost, or openness, took hold and the
Soviet public learned more about the war, the rationale for fighting became a
subject of debate. Ultimately, the Afghantsy found themselves outcasts
among their own people.
Background
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
in 1979 came after a period of lengthy turmoil following a coup by Prince
Muhammad Daoud and leftist members of the military in July 1973. Daoud established a republic based on
political parties, electoral politics, and the rule of law.[i] Radical socialist and Islamist parties
dominated the party politics of the Afghan republic, preventing moderates
parties, or those without powerful patrons from playing a significant
role. Hassan M. Kakar argues that the
lack of an influential moderate voice in Afghan politics led to the increased
political violence and the involvement of foreign powers in Afghanistan over the
course of the following decades.
Since Daoud relied on his Communist
allies in the PDPA for support during the coup, he was unable to find support
from either liberal democrats or conservative Islamists. Eventual arrests and executions of members of
opposition parties led to demonstrations by members of the Islamic Association
in 1975. After the demonstrators were
suppressed, Daoud expelled the PDPA from his government, and embarked on
constitutional reform. The new
constitution, ratified in 1977, created a single-party system run by bureaucrats,
and allowed Daoud to enact legislation banning political activities and
granting immense power to a security bureaucracy. The acts officially eliminated the political
reforms of earlier years and fostered a climate of fear and unrest.[ii]
The years 1977 and 1978 bore
witness to increased anti-government terrorist activity by both leftist and
Islamist factions. The death of a
leading member of the PDPA in a terrorist attack in April 1978 led to a funeral
procession and street demonstration in Kabul.
When PDPA leaders spoke against the government during the procession,
the Daoud government arrested the leaders for violation of the criminal code
banning political activity. However,
delays in his arrest, allowed Hafizullah Amin to set in motion a coup by members
of the Khalq faction of the PDPA in motion.
Despite his arrest on 26 April 1978, other military officers staged the
coup on 27 April, killing Daoud.[iii]
After the coup, a heavily
factionalized PDPA took power, with the government headed by Noor Mohammad
Taraki and Babrak Karmal. The PDPA
instituted a Soviet-inspired socialists regime that pushed through land reform
and other social legislation, alienating itself from Afghanistan’s populace.[iv] Two factions within the PDPA strove for
power, the Amin-dominated Khalq, and the Karmal-led Parcham. Amin and Karmal held differing views on the
inclusion of other parties in a unity government, with Amin arguing for a
Stalinist domination of the state by a single party. He was able to out-maneuver Karmal’s Parchami
wing of the party and have them excluded from decision making in the Politburo,
although they were left in many government posts at the request of the Soviet
Union.[v] Amin and the Khalqi exiled several of the
Parchami leaders, sending them to foreign countries as ambassadors. When a coup plot was discovered involving
high ranking Parchami’s remaining in Afghanistan, particularly Defense Minister
Qader, they were arrested, and the exiles ordered back to Afghanistan. The ambassadors failed to return, with some,
like Babrak Karmal going into hiding with his Soviet sponsors.[vi]
Despite Soviet advice, Amin
aggressively pursued socialist reforms in Afghanistan, which further alienated
the populace. Land reform, changes in
marriage laws, a literacy program for women, and the condescending attitude of
Khalqi officials led to violent protest by local and religious leaders. The PDPA’s repressive response further
inflamed the situation when the 17th Division was ordered to suppress a riot
against the literacy campaign in Heart.
Led by two officers, the 10,000 men of the division defected to
anti-government rebels carrying all of their equipment and ammunition with
them. The PDPA government reacted by
bombing the city at the cost of an estimated 5,000 civilian casualties.[vii] These events further weakened the PDPA’s hold
on Afghanistan, and significantly strengthened the armed resistance movement
forming against it.
Amin used the Heart uprising to
bolster his own position against Taraki, eventually leading to open conflict
over the role of Minister of Defense.
Taraki lost th context of wills and assassination attempts, resigning
his post as Secretary General in September 1979, and hiding in the Presidential
Palace in Kabul. He was found dead there
on 8 October 1979, a victim of either suffocation or hanging, and Amin assumed
power in a tottering government to the dismay of the Soviet Union, which had
supported Taraki.[viii]
The Soviet Invasion
That the
Brezhnev regime did not want to send Soviet troops into Afghanistan is clear at
the outset. Since the PDPA based its
control over Afghanistan on its military power after taking over in a coup
rather than a revolution, It desperately need military aid to sustain itself.[ix] Taraki repeatedly requested aid from the
Soviet, and received arms transfers in the form of 100 T-62 tanks, 6 Mig-21
fighter planes, 12 Mi-24 helicopter gunships, and Su-20 fighter-bombers. To support these new deliveries, the Soviet
Union provided pilots and technicians to train crews and maintain the aircraft.[x]
The Soviet
Politburo met from 17-19 March 1979 to discuss the possibility of intervening
in Afghanistan, but while agreeing with Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko’s
assessment that Afghanistan must not be lost, chose not to send troops. KGB head Yuri Andropov appears to have made
the strongest case against armed intervention, arguing that, “It’s completely
clear to us that Afghanistan is not ready at this time to resolve all of the
issues it faces through socialism,” due to its lack of development.[xi]
Instead, Premier Leonid Brezhnev authorized deployment of two divisions on the
Afghan border, sending an additional 500 military and civilian advisors, and a
gift of 100,000 metric tons of wheat.[xii] Soviet Prime minister wrote Taraki personally
to tell him that since the situation in Afghanistan was an internal civil war,
the Soviet Union would render any and all aid with the exception of actual
troops.
Soviet officers in Afghanistan
offered conflicting advice. Before
Amin’s seizure of power, KGB Lieutenant General Ivanov and Soviet Ambassador
Puzanov argued for intervention due to their close relations with Taraki. However, the Chief Military Advisor,
Lieutenant General Gorelov, advised against the introduction of Soviet combat
troops in Afghanistan. General
Pavlovskii, commander of Soviet Ground forces, echoed Gorelov’s caution after
he visited Afghanistan in August 1979.[xiii]
Selig S. Harrison argues that the
key factor in the Soviet Union’s ultimate decision to invade Afghanistan to
install a friendly regime was the October 1979 murder of Nur Muhammad Tarki
shortly after he returned to Afghanistan from consultations with Leonid
Brezhnev in Moscow. Brezhnev took
Taraki’s murder as a personal affront, and worried that Amin might turn toward
the United States for assistance, leaving the Soviet Union with a vulnerable
southern border.[xiv] Scott R. McMichael agrees with this
assessment, indicating that Amin’s earlier connections to the United States
make this interpretation logical.[xv] Taraki’s assassination had an even more
significant impact on Yuri Andropov’s assessment of the situation in
Afghanistan. Andropov believed that Amin
was a dangerous influence on the Soviet Union’s border, and personally
supported Banrak Karmal’s Parcham faction.
Andropov argued that the Soviet Union should look for an opportunity to
topple Amin, and replace his regime with a more moderate one headed by Karmal.[xvi]
Once the Soviet leadership decided
to invade Afghanistan, events proceeded quickly, with Soviet forces deploying
and planning through October, November, and December. The invasion plan included troops stationed
in Soviet Central Asia and Soviet advisors in Kabul. Afghan forces guarding the radio station were
told that the shortage of diesel fuel required that their existing tanks be
drained so the fuel could be out in the new vehicles when they arrived. Similarly, the Afghan 7th and 8th
Mechanized divisions were tricked into removing the batteries from their
armored vehicles as part of winterization procedures. Other Afghan forces were duped into switching
their live ammunition for training rounds that would not be effective in
combat.[xvii]
The actual invasion began the night
of 24 December 1979, when Soviet troops began to land at airports and airbases
throughout Afghanistan, particularly the Kabul and Bagram airports and Heart,
Kandahar, and Jalalabad airbases. Soviet
ground forces moved from their airheads to occupy Radio Kabul two days later,
destroy telephone exchanges, seize the Ministry of the Interior. Paratroops from the 105th Guards
Airborne Division also secured ammunition depots and the post office. By midmorning on the 27th, the
Soviets transmitted a message to Afghan listeners of Radio Kabul that Babrak
Karmal has seized control with the assistance of Soviet forces.[xviii]
The death of Hafizullah Amin during
the storming of the Darulaman palace seems the only sub-par performance of the
invasion. M. Hassan Kakar claims that
Soviet forces used chemical weapons in the form of a grey gas hat caused
dizziness, nausea and paralysis, and resorted to the use of incendiary weapons
to root out stubborn defenders.[xix] Amin himself was killed during the fighting,
but accounts of how or why are muddled.
Kakar argues that Amin’s cook, a KGB plant, drugged him, and then killed
in his incapacitated state.[xx]
Scott McMichael contends that the most likely scenario is that Amin died in the
fighting, despite Soviet desires to take him alive for a later show trial.[xxi] McMichael’s assessment is validated by Mark
Urban, who also notes that General Lieutenant V.S. Paputin, First Deputy
Minister of Internal Affairs, and a confidant of Brezhnev also died in the
fighting at the palace, possibly while trying to keep Amin alive for his trial.[xxii]
While the paratroops secured Kabul
and Afghanistan’s airbases, Soviet Motor Rifle Divisions crossed the Oxus
River, which formed the border between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, and
moved to occupy key cities throughout Afghanistan. The armored columns preceded support units,
who were in turn followed by a battalion of engineers laying a fuel pipeline
from the Soviet Union to Kabul. Like the
airborne assault, the ground invasion was a textbook operation by Soviet
forces, and serves as a stark contrast to the waking nightmare the [xxiii]Soviet
soldiers of the 40th Army would experience for the next decade. Although the Soviets anticipated a lightning
quick operation to stabilize Afghanistan’s government and train new Afghan army
troops, neither the insurgents or the factions of the PDPA cooperated in
fulfilling this overly idealistic vision, forcing the Soviet 40th
Army to remain in Afghanistan.[xxiv]
Recruitment
The
Soviet’s misguided expectation that troops of the 40th Army would be
primarily used for garrison duties after completing the tasks of securing
cities and airfields, and installing Karmal as President had a negative impact
on the selection of the forces used for the invasion. They cobbled the ground forces making up the
40th Army primarily from under-strength Motor Rifle Divisions
located in Soviet Central Asia. To fill
out the skeleton formation, the Soviet command called up local reservists. Not only did this result in an invasion force
composed primarily of Central Asians, but left the units short of the skilled
technicians required for combat.[xxv]
The decision
to use Central Asian soldiers, particularly Muslims, in the initial invasion of
Afghanistan represented a significant shift in Soviet policy, which previously
refrained from sending non-Slavs into combat beyond the Soviet borders.[xxvi] Their use in this time and location was
indicative of both the way Soviet leaders perceived the 40th Army’s
mission in Afghanistan, and their desires to reduce negative public opinion in
Afghanistan and other Muslim states.[xxvii] The decision to deploy Soviet Muslim troops
in Afghanistan alters longstanding Soviet practice of sending only ethnically
Russian soldiers abroad. The Soviet
Union rejected Egyptian requests for Soviet Muslim pilots to serve there in the
1960’s when their presence might have encouraged rapport between the pilots of
the two nations.[xxviii] Wimbush and Alexiev further argue that this
policy dates to at least the creation of Nazi Germany’s East Legions, composed
of 250,000 Central Asian and Caucasian troops.
Once it
became Soviet forces became engaged in regular combat duties, not the garrison
and training activities originally envisioned, the predominance of Central
Asian soldiers in the 40th Army created problems. Not only did Soviet forces experience
problems due to fraternization between Central Asian Muslim soldiers[xxix],
but with the exception of Central Asians assigned to the MVD as internal
security forces, almost all Central Asian soldiers in the Red Army were
primarily used as labor in construction battalions, as cooks, or in logistics
functions.[xxx] As a result, these soldiers had limited
combat training and outdated equipment, and were unable to fight effectively
against insurgents.[xxxi] This ultimately led to an overrepresentation
of ethnic Slavs in the combat units sent to Afghanistan.
Negative
attitudes toward military service hampered Soviet recruitment efforts
throughout the 1980’s. Despite
exceptions, Soviet youth strove both to avoid Afghanistan and military
service. Natalie Gross argues that a
significant contributing factor was perceptions of “deviant” behavior in the
armed forces. The practice of dedvoschina, in which veteran soldiers
established a caste structure in which new recruits were bullied, beaten, and
stolen from played a major part in service avoidance, recruit suicide, and
later violence against “senior” soldiers.[xxxii] A related phenomenon, gruppovschina, appeared during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s
when Soviet ethnic minorities bonded together within the military to either
harass Slavic soldiers or as an act of self-defense.[xxxiii]
The
appearance of widespread violent and other criminal acts within the ranks of
Soviet forces that became public thanks to Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost in the middle part of the
decade also negatively impacted young Soviet’s desire to serve. The increasing use of drugs in Soviet society
starting in the 1960’s contributed to criminal behavior in both civilian
society and the military. Gross asserts
that for the 1989 conscription cycle, civilian authorities detained 25% of
inductees on suspicion of criminal acts, while 6.5% were previously convicted
of a crime.[xxxiv] Built on this base, thefts, drug sales, and
illegal sale of weapons plagued the Soviet armed forces through the 1980’s.
When
combined with Spartan living conditions and squalor, many young Soviets viewed
their military services as a punishment akin to exile to a labor camp. Afghanistan veteran Vadislav Tamarov wrote
that some young men broke their own legs or paid bribes to avoid service. He chose to enter a university, but was
drafted anyway.[xxxv]
Conscription avoidance and seeing military service as punishment were hardly
universal among Soviet soldiers or civilians in Afghanistan. Svetlana Alexievich interviewed a surgeon who
volunteered for service because he was admired the skills and experience of
surgeons who served there.[xxxvi] In another interview, an infantry sergeant
claimed that he quit his university studies during his second year, and
volunteered for Afghanistan because he wanted to prove his abilities as a man.[xxxvii]
After the
invasions in December 1979, local military draft boards decided which
conscripts would serve in Afghanistan at the time they selected the season’s
new recruits. These soldiers were not
generally notified of their posting to Afghanistan until after they were already
on the airplane for their deployments.[xxxviii] Even After designation for duty in
Afghanistan, soldiers’ duty assignments were not set. Vladislov Tamarov describes the a process
akin to children picking classmates for sports teams.
When I was drafted into the Army in April 1984, I was a
nineteen-year-old boy. The club where
they took us was a distribution center.
Officers came there from various military units and picked out the
soldiers they wanted. My fate was
decided in one minute. A young officer
came up to me and asked, “Do you want to serve in the commandos, the Blue
Berets?” Of course I agreed. Two hours later I was on a plane to
Uzbekistan, where our training base was located.[xxxix]
In selecting recruits for Afghanistan, draft boards
implemented a policy designed to reduce the public’s awareness of the war by
focusing on soldiers in secondary and tertiary cities and rural areas. Residents of large cities like Moscow and
Leningrad were less likely to serve than youth from less prominent
locations. Moscow, a city with 10
million inhabitants, was home to only 7,000 Afghantsy.[xl]
The Red
Army also faced challenges in recruiting qualified and motivated officer
candidates during the 1970’s and 1980’s, exclusive of any influences of the war
in Afghanistan. In contrast with Western
analysts assumptions that military officers had a privileged status when
compared to civilian workers with the same qualifications and responsibilities,
Natalie Gross believes that the opposite is the case. Her analysis indicates a severe shortage of
housing for officers, with as many as 100,000 being officially homeless. Those officers lucky enough to have housing
at all, were 30% less likely that civilians to have basic modern conveniences
in their dwellings.[xli] Since Soviet officers worked longer hours
than civilians, and engaged in administrative and training functions that
Western armies assign to non-commissioned officers, and the professional
standing of junior officers seems even less desirable.[xlii]
Soldiers’ Experiences
Particularly
in the first four years of the war, Soviet soldiers believed government
propaganda that they were going to Afghanistan to help the people live in peace
at the request of the Afghan government.
While regular Afghan peasants were peaceful farmers, they argued that
the mujahadeen were illiterates deceived by religion into fighting against the
socialist government of Afghanistan. In
one interview with soldiers going to Afghanistan, they expressed the belief
that the insurgents were drug addicts, who fought for money while stoned at the
behest of foreign powers.[xliii] Reality in Afghanistan turned out far
different.
Living conditions for Soviet
soldiers were spartan even within the confines of the Soviet Union. In Afghanistan, particularly at the beginning
of the war, they lived in tents or makeshift structures, even while performing
garrison duties. Although this improved
of the course of the war, Soviet soldiers faced overcrowding and inadequate
protection from weather. Limitations on
water forced many Afghantsy to go a
month between showers.[xliv] Substandard living conditions still prevailed
in 1994, long after the official end of the war, as Russian soldiers serving in
mountain outposts on the Tadjik-Afghan border as a defense against Taliban
incursion endured long durations of exposure to the elements, poor quality
food, bad housing, and tattered uniforms.[xlv]
Soviet soldiers faced a type of
combat for which they were woefully unprepared.
Instead of the high-speed mechanized combat the Red Army trained for,
the war in Afghanistan focused on small patrols, ambushes, snipers, and land
mines. High casualty rates due to the
large numbers of mines deployed against Soviet troops forced all foot patrols
and vehicles that left Soviet bases to take sappers and minesweepers with
them. In order to increase the
effectiveness of mines, insurgents might add anti-tampering devices or
additional explosives. Three
minesweepers from Tamarov’s platoon were killed in a single blast by a single
modified land mine. The danger from
mines was so great, that small units valued their minesweepers very highly.[xlvi]
Lester Grau
supports Tamarov’s first-hand account, showing that the 40th army
lost 800 soldiers and 300 vehicles to mines alone in 1981. The high casualty figures forced Soviet
forces to develop countermeasures such as reinforcing vehicle floors, issuing
flak jackets, and riding on top of vehicles.[xlvii] In 1985 alone, Soviet forces captured or
cleared 80,000 mines. Despite this
success rate, the number of soldiers wounded by land mines increased 25-30%
over the course of the war, while troop levels remained the same.[xlviii]
Unable to
face Soviet mechanized forces, Afghan insurgents frequently fought from ambush,
frequently using the irrigation tunnels and trenches Afghan villages utilized
for irrigation as shelter and firing positions.
It was so well known among Soviet forces that the Afghans did not dig
traditional foxholes that the insurgents were able to use them to confuse
Soviet patrols on at least one occasion.
They saw the foxholes simultaneously, but assumed them to
be ‘ours”. Even though Intelligence
didn’t make any mention of their own people being in the vicinity. Still it couldn’t be spooks – they don’t dig
in. They had their “kirizes,” which took
a heavy toll on men and technology.
Retaliation had little effect; it was just carried out to make reports
to headquarters look good. Artillery fire was useless.[xlix]
This unlucky platoon drove straight into an ambush armed
with rocket propelled grenades, and lost three armored personnel carriers and
had at least seven men killed. Air
support killed their immediate antagonists, but did not reduce their fear or
anger.
The stressful nature of
counterinsurgency combat combined with the inability to meet the enemy face to
face resulted in disturbing incidents.
An incident in April 1980 illustrates the problem. While a squad of soldiers investigated the
village of Deva in the Alishang Valley, an insurgent hiding among the villagers
show three of them. The Soviet response
was to shell the village, returning the next day with a force of helicopter
gunships and tanks. After surrounding
the village, soldiers entered it on foot, killing all of the adult men present.[l] In a February 1985 incident, insurgents
ambushed and massacred an entire Soviet border platoon, and tortured the
wounded, border forces conducted a campaign aimed at getting revenge on the
local inhabitants that lasted the remainder of the war.[li]
Some observers argue that these
occurrences were not solely motivated by a desire for revenge, but represented
Soviet policy. In order to deprive
insurgents of their source of support in the Afghan population, Kakar argues
that Soviet soldiers deliberately targeted noncombatants, civilian structures,
and crops.[lii] In this interpretation Soviet soldiers
engaged in a deliberate campaign of genocide against Afghan civilians, killing
people, destroying crops and irrigation systems, and airdropping mines. Retaliation against villages for individual
incidents was, thus, merely a part of this overall plan.[liii]
The incidence of atrocities, but
not the systematic implementation of them, is borne out by the testimony of
Nasratullah, a former Soviet soldier who deserted after witnessing the massacre
of 70 villagers at Kaligai. After villagers
sheltered him, Nasratullah worked with insurgents repairing equipment, and
eventually converted to Islam.[liv] While Nasratullah claims that he was not
forced to convert, another former Soviet soldier, Gennady Tseuma, says that
when the mujahadeen captured him, he was told that if he had to become a Muslim
and remain with the insurgents if he wanted to live.[lv]
In addition
to the risks of combat, Soviet soldiers faced a plethora of environmental and
epidemiological threats to their health in Afghanistan. Heat stroke, dehydration, altitude sickness,
and frostbite were consistent problems.
More dramatic and less insidious problems in the form of infectious
disease plagued Soviet forces through their entire deployment in
Afghanistan. Intestinal disorders, typhus,
hepatitis, malaria, tuberculosis, and skin diseases posed a constant challenge
for Soviet soldiers. Poor sanitation,
personal hygiene, and massive concentrations of forces exacerbated the problem. In 1986, when the first Soviet forces began
to leave Afghanistan, their temporary encampment became the scene of an
epidemic of viral hepatitis.[lvi]
Since 25%
of units in many areas of Afghanistan did not have access to bathing or laundry
facilities, it is no surprise that 20% suffered from skin infections, or that
50% of all soldiers in Afghanistan contracted dysentery during their 18 month
deployments. Water shortage contributed
significantly to the spread of disease, as soldiers ate from plates that were
scrubbed, but not washed. Soldiers were
only able to change undergarments every few weeks, resulting in rashes and lice
infestations.[lvii] In light of this evidence, it is little
surprise that the 40th Army suffered more casualties from disease
than from enemy action.[lviii]
Women’s Experiences
Significant
numbers of Soviet women worked in the war zone, drawn there to find work,
husbands, as field wives, as nurses, or in other nurturing roles. Journalist Gennady Bocharov wrote that few of
the women, including nurses who were intimately involved with caring for
wounded soldiers, who ventured to Afghanistan to find husbands, found them
there.[lix] Nurses came into contact with a particularly
disturbing juxtaposition of Soviet propaganda, supply problems, and human
suffering while in Afghanistan. One
nurse who arrived early in 1980 said that twice each week they attended
political indoctrination classes, where they were repeatedly told to inform on
everything they saw in order to keep the army safe, and that it was their duty
to secure the Soviet Union’s southern border.
She testified that the army hospital had a single syringe, and that they
disinfected wounds with gasoline after the surgeons drank their supplies of
alcohol. The hospital was also missing
basic supplies as hospital gowns.[lx]
Nurses may
have come close to understanding the inner turmoil many soldiers experienced
after months fighting insurgents when Afghan women came to the hospital for
treatment, but would not meet their eyes, or fought to focus on their healing
mission while dealing with severe burns and mutilated soldiers. The same nurse that reported the lack of
basic medical equipment also reported the confusion called when entire villages
were massacred in revenge for the death of a single Soviet soldier, and
expecting that Afghans would be grateful for Soviet medical assistance.[lxi]
Women
working as civilians in Afghanistan report having to fight to maintain their
independence in the face of Army officers who wanted to make them into field
wives[lxii],
even going to the Kabul airport to select them as they arrived from the Soviet
Union. She indicated that this was part
of a schizophrenic relationship between Soviet men and women in the war zone,
in which at one moment men would try to purchase their services as prostitutes,
but in others beg just for a glimpse of their hair because they hadn’t seen a
woman in a year, or shield them with their own bodies from a bombardment. The
highest compliment regular soldiers paid her was, “You can come with us on
recce patrol!” after killing an ambusher while on an excursion in the country.[lxiii]
As with
women who served honorably in Soviet forces during World War II, Soviet society
labeled many of the women who served in Afghanistan as a prostitute, preventing
most of them from wearing their hard-earned decorations. This perception was enhanced by the fact that
officers kept mistresses, or that some women in Afghanistan were, indeed,
prostitutes. However, Mark Galeotti
contends that labeling women who performed “their internationalist duty” in
this way is more a reflection of Soviet society’s extreme patriarchy and Soviet
Communism’s puritanical character.[lxiv]
Aftermath
The Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan had many costs.
The most obvious of those are the large numbers of Soviets and Afghanis
killed over the course of the conflict.
Although the official figures claim that approximately 15,000 Soviet
soldiers lost their lives, the actual figures of Soviet dead are closer to
26,000 men.[lxv] An additional 400,000 Soviets suffered from
disease or non-combat injuries, including infectious hepatitis, malaria, and
typhus.[lxvi] 1.3 million Afghans also died during the
course of the war due to illness, bombardment, or at the hands of Soviet troops
or mujahadeen.[lxvii]
In addition
to the obvious effect of death and destruction, the war in Afghanistan had
far-reaching consequences for the Soviet Union.
Not only did the war lead to increased drug use by veterans and others
in Soviet society, created the image of a lost generation of Soviet youth, led
to new openness about Soviet policies and history, and radically altered
Soviet’s ideas regarding the Soviet Union’s proper foreign policy.[lxviii] One significant aspect of this is the early
1990’s Soviet refusal to intervene against Romania’s dictatorship at the
request of the first Bush administration, or to join coalition forces in the
first Persian Gulf War in 1991. The most
important immediate national or international result of the war for the Soviet
Union was for Soviet citizens to question the legitimacy of Soviet foreign
policy and the Communist regime.[lxix]
However,
this interpretation ignores the importance of the Soviet’s war in Afghanistan
for individual citizens and soldiers.
When they returned from Afghanistan, the Afghantsy found it difficult to reintegrate into society, mothers
found it difficult to deal with the loss of their children, and Post-traumatic
Stress Disorder became recognized in the Soviet Union for the first time. Some soldiers remained in Afghanistan or
defected to the West to escape the trauma of service, or after capture by
insurgents.
Between 1979 and 1983 Afghantsy were not eligible for benefits
as veterans because the Brezhnev did not acknowledge it publicly as a war. Instead, Soviet forces were defending
Afghanistan from bandits or mercenaries.
Unless they were disabled, official policy defined Afghantsy from this period merely as “ex-service” personnel”. Only after 1983, were Afghantsy recognized as
veterans. However, local bureaucrats
frequently refused to honor the benefits this status inferred.[lxx]
As early as
1987, veterans of the war formed a national organization to insist on proper
monuments and benefits. The Afghantsy
complained that they did not receive the benefits extended to veterans of
previous Soviet wars, like easier admission to universities, access to telephones,
access to privileged stores, and priority for vacation requests.[lxxi] Soviet veterans also called for an end to
discrimination against disabled soldiers.
Other veterans groups also struggled to gain access to psychiatric care
and proper prosthetic devices for those who lost limbs during their service.[lxxii]
Mourning
the loss of children is always difficult for mothers, but it Soviet women whose
children died in Afghanistan found it particularly difficult. Soviet authorities would not allow families to
view their children’s remains, sealing their zinc coffins. One mother mourned this particularly, saying
that:
They brought in the coffin. I collapsed over it. I wanted to lay him out but they wouldn’t
allow us to open the coffin to see him, touch him… Did they find a uniform to fit him? ‘Mt
little sunshine, my little sunshine.’
Now I just want to be in the coffin with him. I go to the cemetery, throw myself on the
gravestone and cuddle him. My little
sunshine…[lxxiii]
Others were glad that the coffins remained closed,
preserving the memories of their living sons.[lxxiv] Other mothers grew angry with the military
officers escorting remains home, yelling at them that she did not “need their
military honors” and that she would “bury him my own way”.[lxxv]
Svetlana Pavlukova
harnessed the pain of losing one of her sons in action, by establishing a local
chapter of the Committee of the Soldiers’ Mothers in Altai, Siberia. This organization not only sought information
about the war, but also engaged in memorial activities to help manage members’
grief. The Committee engages in varied
activities, including working for the release of Prisoners of War, defending
deserters from prosecution, and antiwar activism.[lxxvi] In the case of the Altai organization, the
emphasis was not on policy, but memory – in addition to monuments, it published
memory books and coordinated funerals of soldiers killed in Chechnya.[lxxvii] Despite these efforts, many mothers had no
option but to visit small memorials like the small Moscow museum devoted to the
Soviet war in Afghanistan.[lxxviii]
Post-traumatic
Stress Disorder, which entered consciousness in the United States after the
Vietnam War ended in 1973, slowly entered the Soviet parlance after the end of
the Soviet War in Afghanistan.
Recognition and treatment of PTSD in the Soviet Union was slow enough
that Soviet veteran Vladislav Tamarov, author of Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam, remarked upon the quality of American
care when he visited American Vietnam veterans in Manhattan in 1989. Tamarov and other Afghantsy hoped to learn more about PTSD, but also to prevent a
future generation of scarred warriors.[lxxix] Conferences between veterans of Afghanistan
and Vietnam veterans provided former Soviet soldiers with their first
opportunities to receive treatment for their PTSD.[lxxx]
The Afghantsy faced unique problems in dealing with their understanding
of the war in Afghanistan due to the propaganda campaign that distorted the
nature of their mission from the beginning – they went to war believing that
they would be facing bandits or building schools and hospitals, not engaging in
a decade of combat against dedicated insurgents.[lxxxi] A study of Lithuanian veterans found that up
to 86% of those who faced combat had a difficult time readjusting to civilian
life, with 16% of them still experiencing the symptoms of PTSD 15 years after
the end of their service.[lxxxii]
Conclusion
The Soviet
experience in Afghanistan was as complex as it was varied. As in all wars, the Afghantsy experienced extremes of boredom and terror, injuries and
disease. They engaged in acts of extreme
charity and brutality toward each other and Afghans with startlingly rapid
changes in demeanor and behavior. While
the vast majority of Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan were conscripts, their
ranks were leavened with volunteers.
Despite Soviet propaganda showing the world the ethnic integration of
Soviet forces, almost all of the combatants were Russians or other Slavs, while
Central Asian minorities performed manual labor.
Soviet
soldiers quickly found that the vast majority of Afghans did not view them as
saviors or guardians, but as armed intruders, resulting in tragedy for both
sides. Fear, anger, and confusion led to
extraordinary atrocities on Afghan civilians by Soviet soldiers, who did not
understand either Afghanistan’s culture, or the war they were fighting. The fact that they were misled about their
mission in Afghanistan simply exacerbated the problem.
The result
was horrific for both Soviets and Afghans.
While 26,000 Soviet soldiers died in combat, and another 400,000 were
victims of disease, as many as 1.3 million Afghans perished during the
conflict. Soviet survivors continue to
carry the emotional and physical scars of their time in Afghanistan, just as
Afghanistan continues to suffer the consequences of the Soviet invasion almost
thirty years ago.
End Notes
[i]
Hassan M. Kakar. Afghanistan: the Soviet
Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1995), 12.
[ii]
Kakar, 13.
[iii]
Angelo Rasanayagam. Afghanistan: A Modern
History (New York: I.B. Taurus & Co., 2003), 67.
[iv]
Kakar, 15.
[v]
Diego Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison. Out
of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1995), 30.
[vi]
Cordovez and Harrison, 31.
[vii]
Mark Urban, War in Afghanistan
(London: The MacMillan Press, 1988), 30.
[viii]
Rasanayagam, 81.
[ix]
Mark Galeotti. Afghanistan: The Soviet
Union’s Last War (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1995), 7.
[x]
Urban, 32.
[xi]
Rasanayagam, 85.
[xii]
Rasanayagam, 86.
[xiii]
Galeotti, 9.
[xiv]
Cordovez and Harrison, 42.
[xv]
Scott R. McMichael. Stumbling Bear:
Soviet Military Performance in Afghanistan (London: Brassey’s, 1991), 4.
[xvi]
Galeotti, 9.
[xvii]
McMichael, 5.
[xviii]
McMicael, 6.
[xix]
Kakar, 26.
[xx]
Kakar, 27.
[xxi]
McMichael, 6.
[xxii]
Urban, 46.
[xxiii]
McMichael, 8.
[xxiv]
Galeotti, 15.
[xxv]
McMichael, 4.
[xxvi]
S, Enders Wimbush & Alex Alexiev. Soviet
Central Asian Soldiers in Afghanistan (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation,
1981), 7.
[xxvii]
Wimbush and Alexiev, vi.
[xxviii]
Wimbush and Alexiev, 7.
[xxix]
Galeotti, 26.
[xxx]
McMichael, 11.
[xxxi]
Alexiev, 42.
[xxxii]
Natalie Gross. “Youth and the Army in the USSR in the 1980s,” Soviet Studies 42, no. 3 (1990):481.
[xxxiii]
Alexander Alexiev. Inside the Soviet Army
in Afghanistan (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1988), 43.
[xxxiv]
Gross, 482.
[xxxv]
Vadislav Tamarov. Afghanistan: Soviet
Vietnam (San Francisco: Mercury House, 1992), 16.
[xxxvi]
Svetlana Alexievich. Zinky Boys: Soviet
Voices from a Forgotten War (London:
Chatto & Windus, Ltd, 1992), 58.
[xxxvii]
Alexievich, 70.
[xxxviii]
Alexiev, 6.
[xxxix]
Tamarov, 1.
[xl]
Alexiev, 7.
[xli]
Gross, 483.
[xlii]
McMichael, 123.
[xliii]
The Black Tulip, dir. Pancho Lane,
DVD, CreateSpace, 1988.
[xliv]
Galeotti, 35.
[xlv]
Spiritual Voices, dir. Alexander
Sokurov, DVD, Ideale Audience, 1995.
[xlvi]
Tamarov, 74.
[xlvii]
Lester Grau. “Mine Warfare and Counterinsurgency: The Russian View,” Engineer March 1999, 17 March 2008 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5414/is_199903/ai_n21442479.
[xlviii]
Grau, “Mine Warfare”.
[xlix]
Gennady Bocharov. Russian Roulette:
Afghanistan Through Russian Eyes (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990),
35.
[l]
Kakar, 133.
[li]
Sergei Alexandrov, Andrei Blinushov, and Vladimir Grigoriev. Afghanistan’s Unknown War: Memoirs of the
Russian Writers-War Veterans of Special Forces, Army and Air Forces of the
Soviet Afghan War (Toronto: Megapolis Publishing, 1998), 13.
[lii]
Kakar, 129.
[liii]
Kakar, 215.
[liv]
Tom Coghlan, “Red Army’s ‘ghosts’ of Afghanistan,” BBC News 24 Aug. 2005, 17 Mar. 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/4177312.stm.
[lv]
Ivan Watson, “A Former Soviet Soldier Lives Among Afghans,” NPR 17 March 2008, 17 March 2008 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6603677.
[lvi]
The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower
Fought and Lost, trans. Lester W. Grau and Michael A. Gress (Lawrence, KS:
University of Kansas Press, 2002), 296.
[lvii]
Alexiev, 46.
[lviii]
Alexiev, 44.
[lix]
Bocharov, 93.
[lx]
Alexievich, 22.
[lxi]
Alexievich, 23.
[lxii]
The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower
Fought and Lost, trans. Lester W. Grau and Michael A. Gress (Lawrence, KS:
University of Kansas Press, 2002), 294.
[lxiii]
Alexievich, 41.
[lxiv]
Galeotti, 42.
[lxv]
The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower
Fought and Lost, trans. Lester W. Grau and Michael A. Gress (Lawrence, KS:
University of Kansas Press, 2002), xix.
[lxvi]
Natalia Danilova, “The Social and Political Role of War Veterans,” The Journal of Power Institutions in
Post-Soviet Societies: An Electronic Journal of Social Sciences 2007, 7
April 2008 http://www.pipss.org/document873.html.
[lxvii]
Tom Coghlan, “Red Army’s ‘ghosts’ of Afghanistan,” BBC News 24 Aug. 2005, 17 Mar. 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/4177312.stm.
[lxviii]
Galeotti, 146.
[lxix]
Galeotti, 167.
[lxx]
Danilova, “The Social and Political Role of War Veterans”.
[lxxi]
Bill Keller, “Soviet Afghanistan Veterans Call for End of Neglect and for
Honor,” The New York Times 22 Nov.
1987, 7 April 2008 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEFD71E3FF931A15752C1A961948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all.
[lxxii]
Jonathan Steele, “Ivan, We Hardly Knew You,” Guardian Century 13 February 1989, 7 April 2008 http://century.guardian.co.uk/1980-1989/Story/0,,110278,00.html.
[lxxiii]
Alexievich, 53.
[lxxiv]
Alexievich, 123.
[lxxv]
Alexievich, 109.
[lxxvi]
Serguei Alex. Oushakine. “The Politics of Pity: Domesticating Loss in a Russian
Province,” American Anthropologist
108, no. 2 (2006): 299.
[lxxvii]
Oushakine, 301.
[lxxviii]
“Remembering the Soviet Vietnam.” Al Jazeera
English, 31 March 2008, 7 April 2008 http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D00E572F-3765-41F8-B3E8-60D9E7F67531.htm.
[lxxix]
Richard Severo, “U.S. and Soviet Veterans Share Pain of War,” The New York Times 10 June 1989, 7 April
2008 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE6DA1039F933A25755C0A96F948260.
[lxxx]
Catherine Merridale. “The Collective Mind: Trauma and Shell-Shock in
Twentieth-Century Russia,” Journal of
Contemporary History 35, no. 1 (2000): 53.
[lxxxi]
Vejune Domanskaite-Gota, Danute Gailiene, and Jurate Girdziusaite. “The Trauma
of War: Research on Lithuanian Veterans of the Afghanistan War after Seventeen
Years,” Union of Afghanistan War Veterans
of Vilnius 2006, 7 April 2008 http://www.afganai.lt/pages/en/war_trauma.
[lxxxii]
Vejune Domanskaite-Gota, Danute Gailiene, and Jurate Girdziusaite. “The Trauma
of War: Research on Lithuanian Veterans of the Afghanistan War after Seventeen
Years”.
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