The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

esolves a conflict better than any automatic rifle, and one might be spared having to ever fire.”Qadir laughed and replied, “Well, well…”***Deputy Resident Orlov-Morozov invited Khotyaev into his office. He put a pile of typeddocuments in front of him. “These are the materials of the plenary session of the Politburo of theCentral Committee of the PDPA that took place yesterday.”“Who translated this into Russian?”“The embassy staff. I am glad that they will be dealing with the translation from now on.The ambassador has sent the information cable regarding the plenary meeting of the Politburo. Ialready read it. It says that the meeting of the Politburo is a big step in achieving full unity withinthe PDPA. I have my doubts, to tell you the truth. Tell me what you think,” Orlov-Morozov said toKhotyaev.Vladimir took the materials and went to the common room. He sat on a chair, lit a cigarette,and began to read the documents. The plenary meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committeetook place. Taraki delivered a report titled “About the April Revolution and the Tasks of thePDPA.” It seemed like he wrote the text of the report himself. The salient point of Taraki’smessage, as it appeared to Khotyaev, was that the principles of Pashtun tribal democracy (thepractice of resolving all issues during jirga) and of the Marxist-Leninist theory of the democraticsocialiststate almost fully coincided. Taraki, in his report, stated that while other, particularlyEuropean, countries need decades or even centuries to build a socialist society, Afghanistanalready has a cultural predisposition to a democratic-socialist state because of the mentality of itscitizens, particularly Pashtuns. At the end of his speech, Taraki recommended some new membersbe brought into the Central Committee—namely those officers who secured the victory during the167