Oriental Studies, who in interviews published in The Times of India
in May 1987, described the Soviet intervention as a ‘real tragedy’
and stated that it ‘was necessary to involve scientific and specialist
circles before taking this decision. This was not done sufficiently in
- Today the government is trying to involve such specialists
when deciding something important in a variety of fields including
foreign policy’ (Lifschultz, 1987).
The recognition of strategic failure
Glasnost’, as I noted earlier, permitted all sorts of aspects of the
Afghanistan war to be publicly exposed in the USSR. However, it
did not take glasnost’ for the Soviet leadership to become aware of
the disaster area which Afghanistan had become. This became
clear with Kim Tsagolov’s 1988 interview with Artom Borovik
(Borovik, 1988). This interview cost Tsagolov his rank and his
position (Mendelson, 1998: 113), but the substance of what he said
was scarcely contestable. And his conclusions were devastating.
Fundamentally, he addressed the position of the PDPA: ‘The terri-
tory on which state power has been firmly and definitively estab-
lished has barely increased in recent years. It is impossible to name
a single province or district where the question of who is in charge
(kto kogo) has been definitively decided in favour of state power.’
He described the ‘Saur Revolution’ as a ‘military coup’ (voennyi
perevorot), and observed that the ‘party was unable to become an
organically united political organisation’. Political work among the
masses ‘remained on paper’ (ostalas’ na bumage). He also spoke
scathingly of the economic consequences of the conflict: ‘As a
result of the war a large number of enterprises, transport, electri-
city lines, communications and roads have been partially or com-
pletely put out of action.’ He added that ‘unemployment and
inflation are growing. The living standards of workers are falling.’
As more information became available in the post-Soviet period, it
became clear that Tsagolov’s views had been quite widely
shared within key Soviet circles. However, the fact that his views
were well grounded did not mean that all circles found them
The Road to Soviet Withdrawal 129