194 ISLAM AT WAR
that would stir up the Muslim population in those portions of the Soviet
Union that bordered on Afghanistan.
Whatever the reason, the Russians sent thousands of men into Afghan-
istan over ten years, during which 15,000 Russians and an estimated
1,000,000 Afghans would die. It was a guerrilla war that had no major
battles. It featured large-scale military operations, but no set-piece battles
between modern armies.
The Afghanistan government had been taken over by a radical branch
of the Afghan communist party in the late 1970s. After purging those
communists inadequately submissive to the Soviets, these radicals had
begun an immediate “sovietization” of Afghanistan. They persecuted and
murdered mullahs, seized and redistributed land, prohibited arranged mar-
riages, and generally attacked the roots of Afghan culture in order to bring
Afghanistan into the world of socialism.
The attacks on the mullahs were a particular mistake, which the Afghani
communists should have understood, but apparently did not. Outside of
the few major cities, Afghanistan was organized in tribes. Illiteracy was
almost universal, and the mullahs in each community were not only the
spiritual leaders, they frequently served their villages as teacher, scribe,
and sage. Mullahs were highly respected by their communities; they
played a critical role in the fabric of the village and tribe.
The redistribution of land was equally destructive of Afghan culture.
The mullah, the electedmalik,who was generally the wealthiest land-
owner of the community, and possibly one or two other individuals formed
the principal part of village administration. The redistribution of land at-
tacked this second leg of the civil government and further exacerbated the
political disarray. Afghan communist party attacks against them provoked
a rebellion, and central governmental officials were either driven out of
the villages or murdered. When the Soviets invaded, Afghanistan was
already in a civil war.
A further aspect of Afghan society made the eventual Soviet invasion
a disaster. Afghan society revolved around three essentials, the family, the
Pashtunwali(an unchanging set of rules learned from childhood that pro-
vided guidelines for behavior, including the blood feud orbadal), and the
Islamic religion.
The last two caused the principal problem for the Soviets. First, when
indiscriminate Soviet attacks against villages killed women and children,
every surviving male was obliged byPashtunwaliblood feud rules to
avenge the dead members of their family.
This blended with the Islamic concept of the jihad. The devout Islamic
Afghans believed that by fighting a foreign invader they becamegazi,or