The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

enewed force.“According to our forecasts, the revolution was supposed to be carried out by theParchamis. We all thought that they were more decisive and better organized, but wemiscalculated. In fact, the opposite has happened. And now, I’m afraid, you will have to deal withthe Khalqis, who will receive all the key positions in the government. They are also betterpositioned in the armed forces.”After the meeting with Ulyanovsky, Zaplatin was introduced to the secretary of the CentralCommittee. Ponomaryov, whom the general had only seen in newspaper photos or on TV,energetically stood up to greet him and shook his hand. Ponomaryov acted much moreauthoritatively than Ulyanovsky. One could make no mistake about the status of Ponomaryov asone of the most distinguished Communist Party veterans, who began his career along with Stalin.As Zaplatin had already received an extensive briefing with Ulyanovsky, Ponomaryovproceeded to discuss the political situation and Zaplatin’s tasks in Afghanistan. There were lots ofthem, but the most important one was to make sure that the Afghan armed forces were wellprepared for the forthcoming battles against counter-revolution. Ponomaryov seemed to have nodoubt in the inevitability of such battles.By the end of the meeting, Ponomaryov said: “We, I mean the Central Committee of theCPSU, do not have eyes and ears in Afghanistan yet. We have to fully rely on the information of theKGB and GRU. This is why we made the decision to send a group of competent party advisers withthe goal of strengthening the People’s Democratic Party. That would ensure that the CentralCommittee would have many more opportunities to be privy to the internal developments of thePDPA. But that should not preclude you from assisting us as well. You should quickly and honestlyinform us about every significant development. Naturally, you should do it via your proper144