THE LEAVING OF AFGHANISTAN 333sarcastic remark that the Politburo still had the option of sending
another 200,000 troops into the war. Gromyko took the hint and fell
silent. Gorbachëv drew this conclusion: ‘So that the withdrawal of
forces is the only correct decision.’^20
In May 1987, as the military and political situation worsened for
Najibullah, the Politburo gathered for an emergency discussion.
Varennikov ridiculed the notion that the Afghan people had any in -
terest in socialism or democracy. Kryuchkov talked of his worry that
Afghanistan might be ‘lost’ to the USSR. The priority had to be to keep
it as a ‘friendly’ country. Kornienko and Akhromeev spoke of the
weaknesses that had been revealed in Najibullah and his entire party.
Gorbachëv contemplated the future. The mujahidin would not forget
that the Soviet armed forces had killed so many of their fighters. The
Afghan communists would resent the USSR for having let them down.
The outcome was unlikely to be an Afghanistan on friendly terms with
Moscow.^21 He asked for guidelines from the Afghan Commission, and
suggested that Shevardnadze ought to make yet another trip to Kabul.
Big changes were needed since Gorbachëv opposed the idea of the
next Afghan government being subject to communist domination.
Work had to be done on Najibullah. In Gorbachëv’s opinion, he was
unsuitable as President and at most should be Prime Minister. Gor-
bachëv wanted to finish with Afghanistan inside the next eighteen
months. He was shortening the schedule.^22
Shevardnadze witnessed the depressing situation in Kabul. On 11
June he reported to the Politburo that the Afghan Communist Party
was on the edge of collapse and that the Soviet military intervention
had damaged almost every family and settlement: ‘Anti-Sovietism is
going to last a long time in Afghanistan.’^23
The Politburo had yet to decide how to deal with the consequences
of withdrawal for Kabul and Moscow, and a heated discussion con-
tinued inside the Kremlin leadership. Shevardnadze meanwhile told
the world that the Soviet intervention was ending. On 15 July he
informed Foreign Secretary Howe, at Lancaster House in London, that
the USSR’s decision on withdrawal was irreversible. Howe promised to
pass on the encouraging news to Thatcher.^24 In September Shevard-
nadze delivered the same message to Shultz at a private meeting that he
had specially requested.^25 After the Washington summit in December
1987, Shultz reported to the North Atlantic Council that Gorbachëv
had promised Reagan to terminate the military intervention so long as
Soviet leaders could secure a process of Afghan ‘national reconciliation’.