JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Journal of the Gábor Bálint de ...

January-March 2013 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume V., Issue 1.
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advisors. The balance of power in Afghanistan moved decisively in the Soviet Union’s favour.
Internationally, the attack on the American Embassy in Pakistan, fall of the Shah of Iran, loss of
American will after the Vietnam War, and increased Soviet military capabilities in the 1970s moved the
balance of power in the Soviet Union’s favour. This in turn created favourable conditions for its
southward march which influenced Soviet foreign policy and its decision to militarily intervene in
Afghanistan. (For details on balance of power politics and ideology of development in Afghanistan see
Lawrence Ziring, 1982, David Gibbs, 1987, Hafizullah Emadi, 1991, William H. Overholt, 1980, Maya
Chadda, 1981.)
Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was more of a military move than a decision to save the socialist
revolution in a neighbouring third world country. According to Lawrence Ziring, the decision to
militarily intervene in Afghanistan was a difficult one for the Politburo, and that it was only under
pressure from the Army’s high command that the order to advance across the Oxus was finally given
(Lawrence Ziring, 1982: 137). The Soviet leadership did not consider Afghanistan to be a Socialist state,
nor had Afghanistan truly undergone a Marxist revolution. In fact, the Soviet leadership perceived more
threat from the Afghan leadership and their socialist policies than from the resistance groups. A Soviet
official said “If there is one country in the developing world where we would like not to try scientific
socialism at this point of time, it is Afghanistan” (David Gibbs, 1987: 373). A Soviet diplomat opined that,
under PDPA, “The newspapers are terrible, and the cultural life is barren”. A US Embassy report noted
that “there are indications that the Soviets regret their close association with the Taraki regime” (Gibbs,
1987: 373). The Soviet Union developed strong dislike for Amin who promoted purges and radical
policies. In a July 1979 speech, Amin stated publicly that the regime would not share power with classes
that had been overthrown during the Saur Revolution. This speech was believed to be an affront towards
the Soviets.
According to Fred Halliday, the comparison of Afghan intervention with those in Hungary or
Czechoslovakia is quite inapposite. In the latter interventions there was no substantial counterrevolution
sustained from abroad, and the sustained regimes, headed by Imre Nagy and Alexander
Dubček respectively, were, on the available evidence, rather popular ones. In Afghanistan, by contrast, it
was precisely the scale of this counter-revolution which had brought matters to a head, and Amin was
an extremely unpopular President whose very position relied on day-to-day Russian support (Fred
Halliday, 1980: 41). Halliday argues that intervention to be morally defensible has to satisfy two criteria:
1. that such interventions either commands a genuine basis of popular support in the country concerned
or have a reasonable chance of subsequently winning that support; and 2. that the international
consequences, in terms of provoking imperialist retaliation, are not such as to outweigh the probable
advantages (Halliday, 1980: 41).
After the intervention, the Soviet Union justified its act with reference to the 1978 Treaty of Friendship
and Cooperation and declared that the Soviet troops had been invited in to defend the revolution. This
was a highly contentious reading of events. Although Taraki, as leader, had requested military aid at
various times since 1978, the fact that Amin, the internationally recognised leader of Afghanistan and the
only person with the constitutional right to ask for military assistance, had been killed by the invading
Soviet troops, undermined Moscow’s case.
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