THE afghan war was a conflict between the Soviet Union and the Afghan rebel forces known as mujahideen. This confrontation began in 1979, when the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, and lasted for ten years. During this period, thousands of Soviet soldiers fought and died in Afghanistan (15,000 in all) and millions were spent, having a profound impact on the economy of the Soviet Union.
Background
For much of the 20th century, Afghanistan was an important partner of the Soviet Union, even during its royalist period. The Soviets played a very significant role in the Afghan economy, providing humanitarian aid as well as assisting with armaments, military training and infrastructure development.
The 1970s, however, shook the stability of the partnership between Afghans and Soviets – starting with a coup d'état that overthrew the Afghan monarchy in 1973 and led to Mohammed Daoud Khan to the country's presidency. However, during his government, relations with the Afghan People's Democratic Party (PDPA) turned bad, prompting the PDPA communists to organize a coup against the president.
This scam became known as Saur Revolution and took place in April 1978. With that, Daoud Khan was stripped of power and executed. Communists attacked the presidential palace, and 18 members of the president's family were murdered, according to historians. Thus, Nur Muhammad Taraki took power in Afghanistan.
After assuming the presidency, Taraki's government initiated a series of reforms in order to implement a communist agenda in the country. Thus, land reform was initiated, secular education was introduced and women were allowed to enter political cadres in Afghanistan.
These changes had very negative repercussions, especially in the interior, dominated by large landowners and conservative groups who saw the current measures as a threat to Islam. The dissatisfaction turned into rebellion when these groups took up arms and began to rebel against the government.
Taraki's command was shaken by an internal split in the PDPA that prompted a dissident to stage a coup (the third only in the 1970s) to oust him from power. With this new scam, Hafizullah Amin he became the president of Afghanistan, but he came to grief with the country's biggest ally: the Soviet Union. We will see the reasons below.
Afghanistan occupation
Amin's administration generated dissatisfaction in the Soviet Union for two reasons: 1) the Soviet government began to suspect the possibility of rapprochement of the Afghans with the United States; 2) the Soviets were irritated by Amin's inability to control the mujahideen, which operated inside.
So, in December 1979, the Soviets began their invasion of Afghanistan to remove Amin from power and put in a president he trusted. Until the beginning of that year, the Soviet leadership had shown that they were not interested in this invasion, because of the great strain it would generate.
Such an occupation was initially organized with 8,500 men invading the country. The attack resulted in the death of Amin – and thus Babrak Karmal took power. The occupation of Afghanistan has made the mujahideen summon a jihad (holy war) against the Soviets, starting a ten-year struggle.
You mujahideen, which operated in the interior of Afghanistan, operated with guerrilla tactics. Those who fought in the north of the country took advantage of the region's geography and hid in the middle of the mountain range. During the years of the Afghan War, these groups also relied on US support in providing weapons and military training.
There is a disagreement among historians about the true intentions of American participation in this conflict and support for the mujahidin. Some scholars defend the idea that the Americans supported the Afghan rebels to force the immediate withdrawal of the Soviets. Others claim that the strategy was to support the rebels to ensure the continuation of the war and increase the strain on the Soviet economy.
In any case, historians are aware that there was an internal group in the CIA that imposed difficulties and barriers on the Soviets, when negotiations for the withdrawal of troops were initiated. This group became known as bleeders and expanded efforts to block diplomatic negotiations, precisely to ensure the continuation of the conflict. The American interest in eroding the Soviet economy was part of the country's strategy on account of Cold War.
The Soviets began organizing efforts to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan from the turn of 1985 to 1986. This was because the war was extremely unpopular in the Soviet Union and, furthermore, its impact on the national economy was so great. The negotiations were carried out during the government of Mikhail Gorbachev, which announced in 1988 the total withdrawal of troops.
The last units of the Soviet army withdrew from Afghan territory on February 15, 1989. The Soviets, however, continued with financial support until January 1992, with the intention that the Afghan government would not be overthrown by the rebels.
With the departure of Soviet troops, the fight against the rebels was handed over to the Afghan government, led by Mohammad Najibullah. This government supported itself while receiving economic aid from the Soviet Union, but once support ceased, it was unable to contain the force of the mujahideen. Also in 1992, Najibullah was removed from power.
For the Soviet Union, the war was a great failure, as it was not able to defeat the mujahideen, the impact on its economy was gigantic. It is estimated that the Soviets spent approximately 2.6 billion dollars over the ten years of the Afghan War. High spending on the conflict is directly related to the severe crisis that hit the Soviet economy in the late 1980s.
In the case of Afghanistan, instability and destruction caused by years of war led to the deaths of over a million citizens. Furthermore, American financial and military support for the country's fundamentalist rebels had a serious future consequence. From the Afghan Islamists emerged two of the biggest Islamic fundamentalist groups of today: the al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
*Image credits: Andrii Zhezhera and Shutterstock
By Daniel Neves
Graduated in History
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/guerras/ocupacao-sovietica-afeganistao.htm