THE LEAVING OF AFGHANISTAN 331‘a friendly, neutral country’. He wanted to repatriate half of the Soviet
forces in 1987 and the rest a year later. With this in mind, he hoped to
begin talks with Pakistan. His main concern was that the Americans
might ‘creep into Afghanistan’. Akhromeev assured him that this was
very unlikely; he called on everyone to recognize a basic truth: ‘We
have lost the struggle. The Afghan people is now in its majority follow-
ing the counter-revolutionaries.’^11
The Politburo appointed Shevardnadze to ‘curate’ the Afghan
question. He worked well in this capacity with the General Staff and
Defence Ministry, which sided entirely with the new policy. Wanting
to acquaint himself with Afghanistan, he went with Dobrynin on an
exploratory visit to Kabul and they attended a Central Committee
plenum of the National Democratic Party on 5 January 1987. Party
General Secretary Najibullah itemized the problems that his adminis-
tration faced in town and village. He highlighted the hostile inter-
ference that Pakistan and Iran were conducting. Taking advantage of
Shevardnadze’s presence, he stressed that communist rule would col-
lapse unless the USSR continued to render assistance. Shevardnadze
wanted it to be understood that the days of Moscow ordering the
Afghan comrades around were finished. The hammer blow for
Najibullah was the news that the Soviet Party Politburo was entirely
behind Gorbachëv in prioritizing the pull-out of military forces. He
added that ‘we have reserves for cooperation’: he had started to feel an
emotional attachment to Najibullah and did not want to demoralize
the Afghan communist leaders as they faced up to the tasks of fighting
without an army of external intervention.^12
On 8 January Shevardnadze reported to the Politburo’s Afghan
Commission. He asked for recognition of the complexity of the with-
drawal process. He wanted work done on a plan to retain Soviet
military bases in the country – evidently he expected to keep some
kind of toehold for the USSR.^13 He also asked for serious thinking
about the political consequences. In his estimation, the pull-out would
weaken Soviet prestige around the globe among ‘socialist countries’.
(He can hardly have been thinking about ordinary Czechs or Viet-
namese but more likely about some of their leaders.) The commission
had to draft its ideas for the Politburo’s consideration. What alarmed
him more than anything else was that withdrawal would leave a
vacuum of power in Afghanistan that would foster the scale of ethnic
and religious bloodbath that had occurred in Lebanon. Bitter civil war
was in prospect.^14