Afgantsy

by Rodric Braithwaite

  Part III: The Long Goodbye

  1 This much shortened translation of one of Igor Morozov’s most famous songs is printed with his kind permission. When it was first published the military censorship insisted on changing ‘O mighty land for which we fought/Can you now dry our mothers’ tears?’ to ‘O distant land, Afghanistan,/Can you now dry our mothers’ tears?’ in an attempt to shift the blame for the war away from the Soviet government.

  11: Going Home

  1 See A. Dyshev, PPZh: Pokhodno-polevaya Zhena (Moscow, 2007).

  2 V. Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi (St Petersburg, 2004), p. 9.

  3 Ibid., p. 378.

  4 This description of how to clean your uniform is in S. Aleksievich, Zinky Boys (New York, 1992), p. 50.

  5 Ibid., p. 50.

  6 Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi, p. 372.

  7 This description of a typical regimental morgue is based on Dyshev, PPZh, pp. 28–38; S. Nikiforov, Bez vsyakikh pravil (St Petersburg, 2008), p. 99; G. Koroleva, ‘Dvadtsat mesyatsev v adu’, Daryal, No. 3, 2001 (http://www.darial-online.ru/2001_3/koroleva.shtml).

  8 Blinushov kept notes on these incidents, which he wanted to work up into a book. But someone told the KGB, who confiscated all the material he had gathered together: A. Blinushov, ‘Cherny Tiulpan’ (http://www.reznik.pri.ee/document.php?Id108).

  9 A. Smolina, ‘Vsem devushkam, letavshim v afganskom nebe’ (http://artofwar.ru/s/smolina_a/text_0080.shtml).

  10 Yu. Lapshin, Afganski dnevnik (Moscow, 2004), p. 95.

  11 These figures are taken from Appendix 13 of A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 1995) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml). Though there are a number of soldiers named Viktor in the list who served with the mujahedin, none is easily identifiable with the young man referred to by Alla Smolina.

  12 V. Snegirev, Ryzhy (Moscow, 2000), pp. 257–304.

  13 Los Angeles Times, 17 December 1991; A. Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 1980–1992’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2009.

  14 Report at www.dtic.mil/dpmo/sovietunion/jcsd.htm; article in UralPress. ru of 17 April 2007 (www.uralpress.ru/art111069); record of 19th Plenum of the US-Russia Commission (http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo/sovietunion/AARVer319thPlenum.pdf).

  15 See http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ _ _ _ - ; NewsRU.com report of 27 September 2006 (www.newaru,com/russia/27se02006/afgan.html).

  16 See http://www.komitet92.com/index.html; http://www.komitet92.com/12poisk.html.

  17 Komsomolskaya Pravda, 13 February 2009; FontankaRu reported on 13 February 2009 that 417 soldiers had gone missing or been taken prisoner during the war. Of 119 who had been liberated, ninety-seven had returned to the Soviet Union. The remainder had stayed abroad (www.fontanka.ru/2009/02/13/031/).

  18 Krivenko, Ekipazh mashiny boevoi, p. 345.

  19 Stepanov’s story is in TrudRu, No. 206, 8 November 2006 (www.trud.ru/article/08–11–2006/109556_afgandkij_plennik.html).

  20 Article in Vlast, No. 6 (809), 16 February 2009 (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID116089&printtrue).

  21 Nikolai Bystrov, interview, Moscow, 31 May 2007.

  22 101st Motor-rifle Regiment website (http://101.int.ruindex.phpoptioncom_content&taskview&id204<emid5).

  23 Private information.

  24 Interfax-AVN, 29 December 2009, quoted in Johnson’s List, No. 35, 31 December 2009.

  25 S. Pakhmutov, ‘Badaber—neizvestny podvig’ (www.rustrana.ru/article.php?nid8803).

  26 V. Ablazov, Dolgi put iz Afganskogo plena: Stranitsy iz knigi (http://www.fond-dobrobut.org.ua/download/1991modzaxedmoccba.doc).

  27 This account of the rising is based on the 2009 film Myatezh v Preispodnei; S. Golesnik, ‘Nadezhda ne umiraet’, Soyuz: Belarus-Rossia, No. 406, 21 May 2009 (http://www.rg.ru/2009/05/21/propal-soldat.html); Pakhmutov, ‘Badaber—neizvestny podvig’; Vladimir Snegirev, interview, Moscow, 3 March 2010. The details are fragmentary and contradictory.

  12: The Road to the Bridge

  1 Record of Andropov at Politburo meeting on 7 February 1980 from Archive of the President of the Russian Federation, fond 3, opis 82, delo 75, pp. 1–4: kindly provided by Svetlana Savranskaya.

  2 Much of what follows is based on A. Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 1980–1992’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2009. Kalinovsky’s account of the Soviet withdrawal is the most scholarly and lucid so far. See also A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2004).

  3 D. Cordovez and S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan (Oxford, 1995), p. 65.

  4 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’, quoting V. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill, NC, 2007), p. 267.

  5 O. Sarin and L. Dvoretsky, The Afghan Syndrome: The Soviet Union’s Vietnam (Novato, CA, 1993), p. 123.

  6 Cordovez and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan, p. 123.

  7 A. Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod: Dnevnik dvukh epokh 1972–1991 gody (Moscow, 2008), diary entry for 30 March 1985, p. 614; Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

  8 V. Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1996), Vol. 1, p. 223.

  9 Among those who promoted the idea of a Gorbachev surge was W. Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military (New Haven, Conn., 1998), p. 103. The sources Odom quotes are unconvincing. Gorbachev himself denies that he had any such intention (Mikhail Gorbachev, conversation, Moscow, 10 March 2010). A more subtle analysis is in J. Prados, Safe for Democracy: The Secret Wars of the CIA (Chicago, 2006), pp. 485–7.

  10 The story was told by Najibullah, who was present: D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 365. Snegirev later added that Karmal subsequently hotly denied that he had said any such thing: V. Snegirev, Ryzhy (Moscow, 2000), p. 132.

  11 Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod, diary entry for 16 October 1985, p. 647.

  12 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

  13 Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod, diary entries for 4 April 1985 and 17 October 1985, pp. 617 and 650.

  14 Kryuchkov, Lichnoe delo, Vol. 1, p. 227.

  15 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

  16 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 532.

  17 A. Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS (Moscow, 2006), p. 47: Politburo meeting of 29 May 1986, notes taken by Svetlana Savranskaya, in the Gorbachev Foundation.

  18 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

  19 Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, p. 68; Prados, Safe for Democracy, p. 488.

  20 B. Gromov, Ogranichenny kontingent (Moscow, 1994) (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/limited_contingent/index.shtml); Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, p. 108: notes taken by Svetlana Savranskaya, in the Gorbachev Foundation.

  21 Notes on Politburo meetings of 21–22 January 1987 and 22 February 1987, Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, pp. 136–8 and 149: notes taken by Svetlana Savranskaya, in the Gorbachev Foundation.

  22 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

  23 Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, pp. 190–93.

  24 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’, quoting Matlock; Jack Matlock, emails to author, 27–28 February 2010.

  25 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

  26 S. Coll, Ghost Wars (London, 2005), p. 168.

  27 Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’, quoting from Soviet record of conversation between Reagan and Gorbachev on 9 December 1987 in National Security Archive, READD/RADD collection.

  28 Jack Matlock, email to author, 27 February 2010.

  29 Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod, diary entry for 1 April 1988, p. 749.

  30 Ibid., diary entry for 20 September 1988, p. 765.

  31 Literaturnaya Gazeta, 18 April 1990, quoted in Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 307.

  32 Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS, pp. 336–8.

  33 Helen Womack, a British journalist, travelled with the column. This detail is from her accoun
t.

  34 Gai and Snegirev, Vtorzhenie, p. 371.

  35 ‘Dalnyaya Aviatsia Rossii’ (www.sinopa.ee/davia003/dav03.htm).

  36 A. Gergel and A. Lizauskas, ‘Proshchai Bakharak!’, August 2009 (http://www.navoine.ru/magazines/12/5).

  37 V. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, 7 vols. (Moscow, 2001), Vol. 5, pp. 351–3.

  38 Ibid., p. 389.

  39 Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod, diary entry for 20 October 1988, p. 769.

  40 A. Lyakhovski and V. Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin: Pamyati Akhmad Shakha Masuda (Moscow, 2007), pp. 179–87.

  41 Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, pp. 378 et seq.

  42 Pravda, 7 December 1988, quoted in Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 1995 (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml).

  43 Vorontsov interview, Rossiiskie Vesti, No. 18, 23–30 May 2007.

  44 The description of the generals’ opposition to Operation Typhoon is from A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, pp. 668–71.

  45 Chernyaev, Sovmestny iskhod, diary entry for 20 January 1989, p. 781.

  46 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, pp. 208–9; Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, pp. 390–93.

  47 Ibid., p. 212.

  48 Gromov, Ogranichenny kontingent.

  49 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 213.

  50 M. Sotskov, Dolg i soviest (St Petersburg, 2007), p. 531, quoted in Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye’.

  51 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 675.

  52 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, p. 212.

  53 L. Grau, ‘Breaking Contact without Leaving Chaos: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2, April 2007, pp. 235–61.

  54 Rodric Braithwaite, Moscow diary (unpublished), entry for 3 March 1989.

  55 Quoted in S. Aleksievich, Zinky Boys (New York, 1992), p. 9.

  56 Anatoli Chernyaev, conversation, Moscow, May 2007.

  13: The War Continues

  1 Private information.

  2 A. Greshnov, Afganistan: Zalozhniki vremeni (Moscow, 2006), pp. 7–9, 17, 12, 10, and 61.

  3 B. Rubin, The Search for Peace in Afghanistan (New Haven, Conn., 1995), p. 89, quoted in P. Corwin, Doomed in Afghanistan (New Brunswick, NJ, 2003), p. 10.

  4 S. Coll, Ghost Wars (London, 2005), p. 171.

  5 A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2009), p. 928.

  6 G. Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (New York, 2005), pp. 227 and 228.

  7 Vladimir Snegirev says there were only 3,000 defenders and that they were outnumbered by ten to one: V. Snegirev, Ryzhy (Moscow, 2000), p. 156.

  8 A. Chernyaev et al., V Politburo TsK KPSS (Moscow, 2006), pp. 454 and 576.

  9 Greshnov, Afganistan, pp. 71 and 74; description of Jalalabad fighting, M. Urban, War in Afghanistan (London, 1990), pp. 274 et seq.

  10 M. Yousaf and M. Adkin, Afghanistan: The Bear Trap (Barnsley, 1992), pp. 227–33.

  11 Greshnov, Afganistan, pp. 84, 92, and 150–51.

  12 Ibid., p. 99.

  13 A. Giustozzi, Empires of Mud (London, 2009), pp. 54–7. Minko A. and Smólynee G., ‘4-D Soviet Style: Defence, Development, Diplomacy and Disengagement in Afghanistan during the Soviet Period, Part 1: State Building,’ Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 23, 306–27 (2010), p. 324.

  14 A. Lyakhovski and V. Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin: Pamyati Akhmad Shakha Masuda (Moscow, 2007), p. 220.

  15 A. Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 1980–1992’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2009, quoting ‘Gardez Victory: Soviet Message of Support Revives Kabul Regime’, Agence France-Presse, 14 October 1991.

  16 M. Gareev, Afganskaya strada (Moscow, 1999), p. 316.

  17 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, p. 227.

  18 Giustozzi, Empires of Mud, p. 210.

  19 Snegirev, Ryzhy, p. 157.

  20 S. Grigoriev, ‘Kak eto bylo: Kabul 1992 god’ (http://artofwar.ru/s_grig/publ_grig_5.html).

  21 Galina Ivanov, interview, Moscow, 14 March 2010; Grigoriev, ‘Kak eto bylo: Kabul 1992 god’.

  22 Valeri Ivanov, interview, Moscow, 14 March 2010; D. Lysenkov, ‘Posledni flag nad Kabulom’, SpetsNaz Rossii (www.tuad.nsk.ru/~history/Author/Russ/L/LjysenkovD/flag.htm).

  23 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 702.

  24 Corwin, Doomed in Afghanistan, p. 93.

  25 Valeri Ivanov, interview, Moscow, 14 March 2010; Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2004, p. 706. Where there are discrepancies between the two accounts, I have relied on Ivanov.

  26 US Committee for Refugees, World Refugee Survey, 1997, pp. 124–5 (http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,USCRI,HKG,3ae6a8b534,0.html); Corwin, Doomed in Afghanistan, p. 128.

  27 The account of the rise of the Taliban is summarised from Dorronosoro, Revolution Unending, pp. 245–56.

  28 Lyakhovski and Nekrasov, Grazhdanin, politik, voin, pp. 260–61.

  29 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2009, pp. 984–90.

  30 Arkadi Dubnov, interview, Moscow, 29 May 2007.

  31 President Putin in a 2002 interview for Brook Lapping’s BBC television series Iran and the West, first broadcast in February 2009.

  32 Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana, 2009, p. 998. Private information.

  33 Pir Said Ahmad Gailani, interview, London, 22 July 2008.

  34 The last stand of the 12th zastava is described at http://wolfschanze.livejournal.com/tag/%D0%93%D0%A0%D0%9F%D0%92%D0%A2 and http://kua1102.1ivejournal.com/38687.html. The links were kindly given to me by Oksana Antonenko.

  14: A Land Fit for Heroes

  1 V. Ogryzko, Pesni afganskogo pokhoda (Moscow, 2000), pp. 146, 20, and 151.

  2 W. Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military (New Haven, Conn., 1998), p. 259.

  3 R. Braithwaite, Across the Moscow River (New Haven, Conn., 2002), p. 138.

  4 G. Murrell, Russia’s Transition to Democracy (Brighton, 1997), p. 61; Braithwaite, Across the Moscow River, p. 146.

  5 V. Varennikov, Nepovtorimoe, 7 vols. (Moscow, 2001), Vol. 5, p. 230.

  6 The following account is taken from ibid., pp. 192 et seq.

  7 Alexander Lyakhovski, interview, Gelendzhik, 19 September 2007.

  8 Ogryzko, Pesni afganskogo pokhoda, p. 161.

  9 Igor Morozov, interview, Moscow, 11 March 2010.

  10 David Lloyd George, speech at Wolverhampton on 23 November 1918, reported in The Times, 25 November 1918.

  11 D. Gai and V. Snegirev, Vtorzhenie (Moscow, 1991), p. 253.

  12 M. Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union’s Last War (London, 1995), p. 74.

  13 Komsomolskaya Pravda, 21 December 1989, quoted in N. Danilova, Rasplata za dolg: Politika i kollektivnye deistvia veteranov voiny v Afganistane (unpublished), Chapter 2.

  14 Danilova, Rasplata za dolg, Chapter 2.

  15 Komsomolskaya Pravda, 22 July 1990, quoted ibid.

  16 Galeotti, Afghanistan, p. 76.

  17 V. Znakov, ‘Psikhologicheskie prichiny neponimania afgantsev’, quoted in Danilova, Rasplata za dolg, Chapter 2.

  18 Galeotti, Afghanistan, pp. 123–5.

  19 A. Kotenov, Neokonchennaya voina (http://www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/unfinished_war/index.shtml); (http://kotenev.chat.ru/).

  20 Gazeta.Ru, 12 June 2007 (http://gzt.ru/incident/2006/11/12/220000.html).

  21 N. Danilova, ‘Veterans’ Policy in Russia: a Puzzle of Creation, Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies, No. 6/7, 2007; ‘The Social and Political Role of War Veterans’ (http://www.pipss.org/document873.html).

  22 Federal Law No. 5- 3 of 12 January 1995.

  23 OOOIVA website (http://www.rfpi.ru/oooiva/index.php).

  24 Information from Dr Rod Thornton, Nottingham University. He served as a sergeant in Bosnia and said that the death of children was the hardest of all things to ta
ke.

  25 Web interview with Dr Matthew Friedman, Executive Director of the US Veteran Administration’s National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/interviews/friedman.html).

  26 Web interview with Colonel Thomas Burke, Director of Mental Health Policy for the US Department of Defense (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/heart/interviews/burke.html).

  27 ‘As a Brigade Returns Safe, Some Meet New Enemies’, New York Times, 14 July 2010.

  28 A. Allport, Demobbed: Coming Home after World War II (New Haven, Conn., 2009), pp. 87, 109, 164, and 209.

  29 Text at http://www.gr-oborona.ru/pub/rock/group.html.

  30 Galeotti, Afghanistan, p. 152.

  31 Alexander Gergel, email to author, 2 July 2009.

  32 Special edition of Voronezhskaya Gazeta, 11 February 2009.

  33 Yu. Zvyagintsev, ‘Afganski Izlom’, Vestnik ATN, August 1999.

  34 S. Aleksievich, Zinky Boys (New York, 1992), pp. 185–94.

  35 Moscow City website (http://mos.ru/wps/portal/!ut/p/c0/).

  36 ‘Afganski Sindrom dla SShA’, InfoRus, 14 February 2008 (http://www.inforos.ru/?Id20566).

  37 Alexander Yeshanu, email, 9 September 2009, posted on Artofwar.ru/.

  Epilogue: The Reckoning

  1 N. Shilo, ‘Afganistan: 30 let spustya’ (http://www.mgimo.ru/afghan/132585.phtml); article by Anatoli Kostyrya (http://www.afghanistan.ru/doc/16256.html).

  2 Oleg Bogomolov, interview, Moscow, 7 October 2004.

  3 G. Krivosheev, Rossia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka: Poteri vooruzhennykh sil (Moscow, 2001), pp. 536–9.

  4 A. Arnold, The Fateful Pebble (Novato, CA, 1993), pp. 188 et seq.

  5 A. Seierstad, The Bookseller of Kabul (London, 2008), p. 150.

  6 A. Kalinovsky, ‘A Long Goodbye: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 1980–1992’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics, 2009.

  7 The documentary evidence is inevitably thin or non-existent. The lower figure was suggested to me by Dr Antonio Giustozzi. General Lyakhovski quotes a figure of 2.5 million, but gives no source; the figure is improbably high: A. Lyakhovski, Tragedia i doblest Afgana (Moscow, 2009), p. 1018.