Afgantsy

by Rodric Braithwaite

  5 Sher Ahmad Maladani, interview, Herat, 10 September 2008.

  6 Afghanistan Justice Project, Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, 1978–2001, The Century Foundation (www.tcf.org), 2005, p. 21 (http://www.afghanistanjusticeproject.org/).

  7 Ismail Khan, who was an officer in the Herat garrison, gave an extensive account of the rising to Sikorski (Dust of the Saints, pp. 228 et seq.). The casualty figures Khan gives are not credible, and his role in the rising has been exaggerated, though he later became a major mujahedin leader; he fought the Russians, was captured by the Taliban, and served as a minister in the government of President Karzai. For a scholarly account of his career, see A. Giustozzi, ‘Genesis of a Prince: The Rise of Ismail Khan in Western Afghanistan, 1979–1992’, Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics, September 2006, and A. Giustozzi, Empires of Mud (London, 2009).

  Part I: The Road to Kabul

  1 A. Snesarev, Afganistan (Moscow, 2002), p. 199. The book was originally published in 1921, but the author was arrested under Stalin and it remained largely unknown until it was republished eighty years later.

  1: Paradise Lost

  1 P. Hopkirk, The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (London, 1992), p. 305.

  2 W. Ball, Monuments of Afghanistan (London, 2008).

  3 A. Rasanaygam, Afghanistan: A Modern History (London, 2005), pp. 42–5; L. Dupree, Afghanistan (Oxford, 1997), p. 599.

  4 Kh. Khalfin, Politika Rossii v Srednei Azii (1857–1868) (Moscow, 1960), pp. 19–43. This scholarly work contains much well-documented information on Russian official thinking about Central Asia in the nineteenth century. Like Khalfin’s other book on British policy in Afghanistan, Proval britanskoi agressii v Afganistane (Moscow, 1959), you need to aim off for the Soviet and Marxist bias.

  5 A. Lyakhovski and S. Davitaya, Igra v Afganistan (Moscow, 2009), p. 16.

  6 Ibid., p. 20.

  7 Hopkirk, The Great Game, p. 22.

  8 There is an account of Orlov’s expedition in E. Parnov, ‘V Indiyu—Marsh’, Znanie—sila, No. 10/04 (http://www.znanie-sila.ru/online/issue_2962.html).

  9 Russian officers told the journalist Charles Marvin in the late 1880s that Russia could invade India, but had no intention of doing so: C. Marvin, The Russian Advance towards India (originally published 1882; Peshawar, 1984), p. 78; for Bennigsen see D. Lieven, Russia against Napoleon (London, 2009), p. 64.

  10 Khalfin, Proval britanskoi agressii v Afganistane, pp. 33–4.

  11 There is a cursory and unconvincing discussion of this episode in Lyakhovski and Davitaya, Igra v Afganistan, pp. 25–6.

  12 Ibid., p. 32.

  13 Khalfin, Politika Rossii v Srednei Azii (1857–1868), pp. 31–2 and 73, quoting documents in the Central State Military Political Archive of the USSR (TsGVIA).

  14 Ibid., pp. 89–104.

  15 This is the broad conclusion of Alexander Morrison’s Russian Rule in Samarkand, 1868–1910: A Comparison with British India (Oxford, 2008). The quotation comes from p. 292.

  16 Khalfin, Proval britanskoi agressii v Afganistane, p. 30. Khalfin is a useful corrective to most British accounts of the Afghan wars; J. Stewart, Crimson Snow (Stroud, 2008), pp. 39–42.

  17 C. Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat (London, 2004), pp. 221 et seq.

  18 G. Forrest, Life of Field Marshal Sir Neville Chamberlain, G.C.B., G.C.S.I. (London, 1909), pp. 142–51.

  19 D. Loyn, Butcher and Bolt (London, 2008), p. 109.

  20 Marvin, The Russian Advance towards India, p. 43; W. F. Monypenny and G. Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (London, 1910–20), Vol. VI, pp. 154–5.

  21 Hopkirk, The Great Game, p. 175, quoting John W. Kaye, History of the War in Afghanistan (London, 1851).

  22 Lyakhovski and Davitaya, Igra v Afganistan, p. 49.

  23 Ibid., p. 64.

  24 N. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (London, 1971), p. 508.

  25 P. Blood (ed.), Afghanistan: A Country Study (Washington, DC, 2001).

  26 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 1995) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml).

  27 Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat, pp. 221 et seq.

  28 N. Dupree (Wolfe), An Historical Guide to Kabul (Kabul, 1965), p. 68.

  29 A. Abram, MS diary (by kind permission of Mr Abram).

  30 Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat, p. 30.

  31 J. Steele, ‘Red Kabul Revisited’, Guardian, 13 November 2003.

  32 Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat, p. 216.

  2: The Tragedy Begins

  1 Alexander Lyakhovski, conversation, Gelendzhik, 19 September 2007.

  2 For example, see V. Snegirev, Ryzhy (Moscow, 2000), p. 146.

  3 V. Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1996), Vol. 1, p. 188.

  4 D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 10.

  5 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 1995) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml).

  6 ‘An Appeal to the Leaders of the PDPA Groups “Parcham” and “Khalq”’, dated 8 January 1974, Cold War International History Project (www.cwihp.org), by permission of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

  7 Afghanistan Justice Project, Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, 1978–2001, The Century Foundation (www.tcf.org), 2005, p. 13 (http://www.afghanistanjusticeproject.org/).

  8 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana.

  9 Dmitri Ryurikov, interview, Moscow, 23 July 2009.

  10 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2009), p. 108.

  11 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, pp. 81 and 16.

  12 Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, Vol. 1, p. 192.

  13 See notes on Puzanov’s report taken by Odd Arne Westad from the original at the Center for the Storage of Contemporary Documentation (TsKhSD), fond (f.) 5, opis (op.) 75, delo (d.) 1179, listy (11.) 2–17. Westad’s notes are published by the Cold War International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC (http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm/topic_id=1409&fuseaction=va2.document&identifier=5034DB6A-96B6–175C-91262B384BCC068C&sort=Collection&item=Soviet%20Invasion%200f%20Afghanistan).

  14 G. Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (New York, 2005), p. 96.

  15 N. Ivanov, Operatsiu Shtorm nachat ranshe (Moscow, 1993), Chapter 14 (http://militera.lib.ru/prose/russian/ivanov_nf/index.html); Valeri and Galina Ivanov, interview, Moscow, 14 March 2010.

  16 There are conflicting accounts of the rising in R. Sikorski, Dust of the Saints: A Journey to Herat in Time of War (New York, 1990); A. Hyman, Afghanistan under Soviet Domination 1964–81 (London, 1982); A. Giustozzi, Genesis of a ‘Prince’: The Rise of Ismail Khan in Western Afghanistan, 1979–1992 (Crisis States Research Centre, London School of Economics, September 2006); Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending, quotes Olivier Roy, Afghanistan, Islam et modernité politique (Paris, 1985), p. 146, as giving a wide margin for the total number of casualties, between 5,000 and 25,000 victims; A. Lyakhovski and S. Davitaya, Igra v Afganistan (Moscow, 2009), p. 135, give a low estimate for the number of Soviet victims. Other low estimates are in G. Zaitsev, Alpha—My Destiny (St Petersburg, 2005), p. 118; V. Zaplatin, ‘Do shturma dvortsa Amina’, Zavtra, No. 51 (316), 21 December 1999 (http://www.zavtra.ru/cgi/veil/data/zavtra/99/316/61.htm); Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 78; and V. Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina (Kiev, 2002), p. 53. Even some Russians accepted the higher figure. D. Cordovez and S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan (Oxford, 1995), p. 36, quote a high estimate given by a senior Soviet official in 1989. The Russian Ambassador, Zamir Kabulov, told me in Kabul on 7 September 2008 that he accepted the figure of 100.

  17 The official transcripts of these Politburo meetings, and of the telephone conversations with the Afghan leadership, were published informally in the early 1990s, when the archives were briefly open. Most appear in Lyakhovski’s Tragedia i dobles
t Afgana. English translations are on the website of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Cold War International History Project, ‘Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan’ (http://www.wilsoncenter.org).

  18 A full text is in Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 1995, and comes from TsKhSD, f. 89, per. 25, dok. 1, ss. 28–34; a shorter version is in Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 119–22; a translation is on the website of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Cold War International History Project (http://www.wilsoncenter.org).

  19 Woodrow Wilson Center Cold War Archive: transcript of CPSU CC Politburo Session on Afghanistan, 22 March 1979, TsKhSD, f. 89, per. 25, dok. 2.

  20 Ali Sultan Keshtmand, interview, London, 25 May 2009.

  21 A. Hyman, Afghanistan under Soviet Domination 1964–81 (London, 1982), pp. 126, 149, and 152.

  22 D. MacEachin, ‘Predicting the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan’, Center for the Study of Intelligence (https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/); Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending, pp. 103–4.

  23 For a list of these requests, see O. Sarin and L. Dvoretsky, The Afghan Syndrome: The Soviet Union’s Vietnam (Novato, CA, 1993), pp. 79–84; and Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 1995, passim.

  24 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 90.

  25 Zaitsev, Alpha—My Destiny, pp. 114–15.

  26 I. Tukharinov, Sekretny komandarm (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/secret_com/index.shtml).

  27 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 69.

  28 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 131 and 133. Pavlovski’s final report is on p. 192.

  29 Zaitsev, Alpha—My Destiny, pp. 126–7.

  30 Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina, p. 163; Sarin and Dvoretsky, The Afghan Syndrome, pp. 79–84.

  31 MacEachin, ‘Predicting the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan’.

  3: The Decision to Intervene

  1 Much remains obscure about these events. The following account draws heavily on two sources: V. Mitrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, February 2002, and M. Slinkin, Afghanistan, Trevozhnye Leto i Osen 1979 g, Kultura narodov Prichenomorya, No. 4, 1998, pp. 138–52 (http://www.nbuv.gov.ua/Articles/KultNar/avtory/slinkin/knp/index.htm). Mitrokhin was an archivist in the KGB who kept extensive notes on the documents he handled, which he brought to the West when he defected after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He rarely gives document references or even dates, and his account needs to be approached with caution. I have added material from A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 1995) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml), passim. But the details are still buried in the archives of the KGB and in Kabul.

  2 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2004), p. 153.

  3 A. Maiorov, Pravda ob afganskoi voine (Moscow, 1996), p. 74.

  4 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004; A. Borovik, The Hidden War (New York, 1990), p. 247.

  5 Memorandum by Richard Holbrooke in Washington National Records Center, RG 330, McNamara Vietnam Files: FRC 77–0075, Vietnam—1966. The text was kindly given to me by Sherard Cowper-Coles.

  6 That at least is the opinion of Mitrokhin and Lyakhovski. I have not come across any confirmation from the Afghan side that it was so perceived by Taraki.

  7 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 155.

  8 M. Slinkin, NDPA u vlasti (Simferopol, 1999), p. 128.

  9 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 160.

  10 Mitrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan, p. 52. This passage seems to be a continuation of the telegram of 13 September referred to above.

  11 Telegram from Puzanov and others to Brezhnev, ibid., p. 53.

  12 Ibid., p. 55.

  13 Ryurikov kept a diary on behalf of his ambassador, which is at Mitrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan, pp. 59–62. This account of the shoot-out comes from the diary entry for 19 September, supplemented by interview with Ryurikov in Moscow on 24 July 2009 and 9 March 2010. According to Ryurikov, copies of his diary were sent to a number of departments in Moscow. See also Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 173.

  14 Interview with Taraki’s wife in D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 45.

  15 V. Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina (Kiev, 2002), pp. 163–8.

  16 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 156.

  17 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 44.

  18 Ibid., p. 42.

  19 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 167–9.

  20 Ibid., pp. 176–80. Kurilov’s account has been much shortened. General Bogdanov believes that Kurilov was carried away by his imagination. In his book The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan (New York, 2009), Gregory Feifer reports Gulabzoi’s insistence that he did not leave Kabul in a box.

  21 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 181.

  22 Mitrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan, p. 71.

  23 This account is based on the sometimes contradictory depositions of Ekbal, Vadud, and Jandad during the investigation into Taraki’s death which was conducted after Amin was overthrown. See Ablazov, Afganistan chetvertaya voina, pp. 149–56.

  24 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 185–6.

  25 Ye. Chazov, Zdorovie i Vlast (Moscow, 1992), p. 182. Chazov is reporting what he was told by Andropov.

  26 The views of Gorelov, Zaplatin, and Tabeev are recorded in Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, pp. 71–7.

  27 G. Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (New York, 2005), pp. 96–7; Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 189.

  28 A. Volkov, ‘40-aya Armia: Istoria sozdania, sostav, izmenenie struktury’ (www.rsva-ural.ru/library/?id63).

  29 Lyakhovski implies as much in Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 213, though the facsimile of Chernenko’s note which he reproduces on p. 214 indicates that Grishin, Kirilienko, Pelshe, Tikhonov, and Ponomarev were also present.

  30 R. Gates, From the Shadows (New York, 1996), p. 132.

  31 Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending, p. 310.

  32 S. Coll, Ghost Wars (London, 2005), p. 48.

  33 This account of Andropov’s paper is based on notes taken by A. Dobrynin provided to the Cold War International History Project by Odd Arne Westad.

  34 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 215; facsimile on p. 214.

  35 Quoted in Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 218–20.

  36 A. Lyakhovski, Cold War International History Working Paper No. 51: Inside the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the Seizure of Kabul, December 1979, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, January 2007, p. 27.

  37 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 1995, Chapter II.

  4: The Storming of the Palace

  1 A. Lyakhovski, Cold War International History Working Paper No. 51: Inside the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the Seizure of Kabul, December 1979, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, January 2007, pp. 30 and 32.

  2 Yevgeni Kiselev, interview, Moscow, 24 March 2010.

  3 Figures from http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ _« ».

  4 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan.

  5 A. Savinkin, Afganskie uroki: Vyvody dlya budushchego v svete ideinogo nasledia A. E. Snegareva (Moscow, 2003), p. 755.

  6 L. Shebarshin, Ruka Moskvy: zapiski nachalnika sovetskoi razvadki (Moscow, 2002), p. 195.

  7 Directive No. 312/12/001, signed by Ustinov and Ogarkov and despatched on 24 December. See A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2004), p. 252.

  8 Order No. 312/1/030, 25.12.79, is referred to ibid., p 258; it is quoted in full there in Chapter 2.

  9 D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 107.

  10 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2009, p. 331; V. Korolev, ‘Uroki Voiny v Afganistane 1979–1989’ (http://www.sdrvdv.org/node/159)
.

  11 FCO File FSA 020/9: Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan, Folio 2: Kabul telegram to FCO of 27 December 1979.

  12 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, pp. 106–7.

  13 Article on the history of the 56th Guards Independent Airborne Assault Brigade (http://www.andjusev.narod.ru/a/56_DSCHB.htm).

  14 Sergei Morozov, interview, Moscow, 31 May 2007.

  15 B. Gromov, Ogranichenny kontingent (Moscow, 1994) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/limited_contingent/index.shtml).

  16 I. Tukharinov, Sekretny komandarm (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/secret_com/index.shtml).

  17 Gromov, Ogranichenny kontingent.

  18 Many accounts wrongly say that Amin moved to the nearby Dar-ul Aman Palace, which was built by Amanullah.

  19 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 246.

  20 L. Grau, The Take-down of Kabul: An Effective Coup de Main, Combat Studies Institute, Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2 October 2002.

  21 Lyakhovski, Cold War International History Working Paper No. 51, p. 63.

  22 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 249.

  23 Ibid., pp. 249 and 253.

  24 Lyakhovski, Cold War International History Working Paper No. 51, pp. 49 and 52.

  25 Alexander Lyakhovski, conversation, 18 September 2007.

  26 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 242 and 253–382.

  27 There is a brief note on Colonel Kuznechkov in T. Popova, Pomyani nas, Rossia, Leningrad Committee of Mothers, 1991, which contains photographs and notes on the soldiers from Leningrad who died in the war. Kuznechkov was the first.

  28 The story about the KGB cook is repeated in, among other places, V. Kuzichkin, Inside the KGB: Myth & Reality (London, 1990), p. 315. Kuzichkin’s account of events in Afghanistan is inaccurate, but he claims to have heard the story from Talybov personally. See also V. Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1996), Vol. 1, p. 206.