Afghanistan, Soviet campaign in (1979-89). The Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan was a conspicuous element in the long civil war in Afghanistan which began about 1974 and grew in intensity after the Saur (April) revolution of 1978. The military coup of 27 April 1978 brought to power the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a small group of left-wing intellectuals and military officers who embarked upon a programme of radical reform. Of this, the central feature was a comprehensive land reform intended to break the power of the notables and enlist peasants for the revolution, but which instead unleashed a series of rural disturbances which the PDPA found it difficult to contain. Moreover the PDPA was divided and a struggle for power led in September 1979 to the victory of the leader of the radical Khalq (People) faction, Hafizallah Amin.
The USSR had sympathized with the aims of the revolution and given help, including the services of military and civilian advisers, but had become convinced that the PDPA was too radical and called for the adoption of a more conciliatory programme and the formation of a broader based government. Sometime between September and December 1979 the decision was taken to intervene with military force, overthrow Amin, and establish a broad-based government under Amin's rival, Babrak Karmal, leader of the Parchami faction of the PDPA. This operation was carried out on 27 December 1979: airborne troops seized control in Kabul, killing Amin, and four weak motor rifle divisions, assembled mainly from reservists in central Asia, entered Afghanistan across the land frontier.
It seems likely that the USSR hoped that the new government would shortly stabilize the situation and Soviet troops could be quickly withdrawn. In fact Karmal proved unable to form a broad-based government or to offer a sufficiently conciliatory programme, the Afghan army (which had mainly Khalqi officers) disintegrated, and the resistance, supported by overwhelming international condemnation of the Soviet action, gained in strength. A massive flight of refugees took place: eventually c.3.5 million to Pakistan and c.2 million to Iran. Although the Soviet aim seems to have been to confine the use of Soviet troops to garrisoning main cities and safeguarding communications, particularly the supply line from the Soviet border to Kabul via the Salang Pass, ‘the limited contingent’, as the Soviet Fortieth Army in Afghanistan was termed, was obliged to take a larger part in military operations until the PDPA could recruit and train a sufficient force to keep order and also, by political means, win over some of its opponents.
The resistance (known as the mujahedin by themselves and as dushmans by Soviet writers) consisted of two elements: local units who fought in different areas more or less independently of each other; and a group of seven Islamic parties based in Peshawar in Pakistan who claimed (not always with much justice) authority over the local groups and acted as channels for foreign aid to them. In 1980 there was very little attempt by the Soviet and PDPA forces to do more than try to protect the main cities and lines of communication and the resistance had a free run in much of Afghanistan. In many areas they fought little but conducted their own affairs; when they did fight they usually fought from ambush. Only gradually did the Soviet forces reorganize to deal with the problem, in particular by introducing more air power, especially helicopters—the Mil-24 armoured helicopter became one of the major weapons of the war. New tactics were developed involving the use of helicopter-borne troops to seize commanding heights and to cut off the retreat of the mujahedin. In the meantime the PDPA improved its intelligence and gradually rebuilt its forces, training new officers; extending conscription; and developing new forces such as the Sarandoy, a heavily armed militia, Revolutionary Defence Forces to guard installations, commando brigades for strike action, and much later irregular militias recruited from ex-resistance fighters. In the late 1980s these last units undertook an increasing amount of the fighting and they became dominant in certain localities. Also, with Soviet aid, the air force and air defence forces were greatly improved. By 1983 the improved capacity of the reformed PDPA forces was demonstrated as in the siege of Khost. Most larger operations against the mujahedin were conducted as joint operations, for example the series of attacks on the Panjshir valley, the refuge of one of the most renowned of the mujahedin commanders, Ahmad Shah Masʿud.
Although the PDPA-Soviet operations were far from subduing the resistance they were enjoying some success by 1985 in extending government control over the country and hampering the passage of supplies from Pakistan and Iran. Concerned that resistance might flag, the USA decided to supply improved weapons to the mujahedin, in particular British Blowpipe and US Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. Many commentators have seen this decision as the turning point in the war: the new missiles diminished the PDPA-Soviet ability to deploy air power and, it was argued, inclined the USSR to seek peace. Undoubtedly the new missiles helped to restore the military balance which had been tilting the Soviet way in 1985 but the mujahedin's Chinese 12.7 mm machine gun claimed far more successes against helicopters; moreover, the USSR, which had been seeking a basis for withdrawal since May 1980, had already decided in 1985 to press more urgently for a way out of Afghanistan. In October 1986 Gorbachev told the new Afghan leader, Najiballah, that the Soviet forces would be withdrawn and that he should put his house in order quickly. The national reconciliation programme in Afghanistan was speeded up, nearly all the radical reforms abandoned including land reform, and peace was actively sought through the UN. Negotiations, which had begun in 1981, had stalled on the question of a timetable for Soviet withdrawal. Agreement was reached at Geneva on 14 April 1988 that half the 100, 000 or so Soviet troops would be withdrawn on 15 August 1988 and the remainder within nine months; the last Soviet troops left on 15 February 1989, having suffered some 64, 000 casualties in ten years. The PDPA regime survived until April 1992 when it was overthrown not by the mujahedin but by the defection of its own irregular militias.
The war left Afghanistan unstable and prey to continuing civil war. Its effect on the Soviet army was in some respects analogous to that of the Vietnam war on the US army: mistrust between military and political leaders, together with feelings of waste, betrayal, and diminished self-confidence.
Bibliography
- Cordovez, Diego, and Harrison, Selig, Out of Afghanistan (Oxford, 1995).
- Roy, Olivier, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan (
2nd edn. , Cambridge, 1990). - Sarin, Maj Gen Oleg, and Dvoretsky, Col Lev, The Afghan Syndrome (Novato, Calif., 1993).
- Urban, Mark, War in Afghanistan (
2nd edn. , New York, 1990)
— Malcolm E. Yapp
