Who would you support in the Soviet-Afghan War?

[Cory]

Probably Afghanistan at the time, but neither with hindsight.

You would support the Afghan government but not the USSR?

This. People forget there was no Soviet "invasion". They intervened to defend the Afghan Communist government from armed reactionaries.

I also hate this notion that the Mujaheddin were anything other then Islamists who were hell bent on turning Afghanistan into a backwards hellhole. They launched a rebellion against the notion of women's rights and land reform. They were no better then the French counter-revolutionaries, the White Russians, or the Confederate rebels of the American Civil War. If anything they were actually worse.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Probably Afghanistan at the time, but neither with hindsight.

You would support the Afghan government but not the USSR?

This. People forget there was no Soviet "invasion". They intervened to defend the Afghan Communist government from armed reactionaries.

I also hate this notion that the Mujaheddin were anything other then Islamists who were hell bent on turning Afghanistan into a backwards hellhole. They launched a rebellion against the notion of women's rights and land reform. They were no better then the French counter-revolutionaries, the White Russians, or the Confederate rebels of the American Civil War. If anything they were actually worse.

Soviet Communism was more evil than any other ideology except Nazism

[OSR stands with Israel]

What I dont get about the fringe left(Not Democrats but Socialists) is during the Iraq and Afghanistan war they called the Iraq and Afghanistan insurgents not terrorists but just resistors to the  American Occupiers but when it comes to when the Soviet Union fighting the insurgents they are nothing but islamic fundamentalists  who want to destroy freedom which the Soviet Union is trying to bring to Afganistan. Never Mind that more people died in The Soviet War in Afghanistan then the US war in Iraq,  the USSR was far far more brutal then the US ever was and unlike the US they didnt care about civilian casualties. Also unlike the US they didnt try to impose democracy in Afghanistan, they imposed a dictatorship. This proves the fringe left is hypocritical just like the fringe right is


On a side note: I do think the US war in Iraq was unjustified but I do think the US war in Afghanistan was justified

[OSR stands with Israel]

Last thing if the Soviets didnt create a communist coup in Afghanistan and then invaded  the Taliban would never have  risen to power as they rose to power because the USSR destroyed all infrastructure in Afghanistan which created a civil war. Woman's rights in Afghanistan would be a reality like 1979 and there would be no Islamic fundamentalist rule which would mean no safe haven for terrorists to train which means no al-queda. So the Soviet invasion is responsible for many of the troubles the world faces today

[TNF]

Probably Afghanistan at the time, but neither with hindsight.

You would support the Afghan government but not the USSR?

This. People forget there was no Soviet "invasion". They intervened to defend the Afghan Communist government from armed reactionaries.

I also hate this notion that the Mujaheddin were anything other then Islamists who were hell bent on turning Afghanistan into a backwards hellhole. They launched a rebellion against the notion of women's rights and land reform. They were no better then the French counter-revolutionaries, the White Russians, or the Confederate rebels of the American Civil War. If anything they were actually worse.

Soviet Communism was more evil than any other ideology except Nazism

No

[The Free North]

The PDPA under Taraki was both ruthless and stupid.


Did he think that imposing state atheism on a conservative muslim country was going to go over smoothly? Perhaps that may have worked with a western society, but Socialism, without significant modifications, was never going to work in the Muslim world regardless of how many Soviet tanks drove through Kabul.


Perhaps a flexible implementation of socialist policies and broad realization of the established ideologies of the people of Afghanistan could have avoided some of the chaos that eventually ensued? 

[The Free North]

Moreover, did Afghan society even remotely mirror a Marxist class divide?

Afghanistan was and still remains, in some parts, essentially feudal. Obviously the Soviet Union was fairly rural in 1917 with only a small urban proletariat and still managed to produce a revolution many thought would occur in Germany or a similar country. But it seems like the people of Afghanistan would have little inspire them to a workers revolution with such high levels of religiosity and decentralization.

[Famous Mortimer]

The PDPA under Taraki was both ruthless and stupid.


Did he think that imposing state atheism on a conservative muslim country was going to go over smoothly? Perhaps that may have worked with a western society, but Socialism, without significant modifications, was never going to work in the Muslim world regardless of how many Soviet tanks drove through Kabul.


Perhaps a flexible implementation of socialist policies and broad realization of the established ideologies of the people of Afghanistan could have avoided some of the chaos that eventually ensued? 

I don't know about Taraki's position on religion specifically but even if he did try to "impose state atheist" (which I doubt) he was in power for only like 2 years. After him, Afghan Communist leaders made no attempt to impose atheism. They mentioned God in speeches and there was religious programming on state radio.

[Zioneer]

As I recall, Massoud was the most moderate of the anti-Soviet (and later anti-Taliban) fighters, right? I get the feeling that he's been lionized a bit much, but could he and more moderate Afghan socialists strike a deal once the Soviet leave?

[Famous Mortimer]

Hell, in 1987, 2 years before the Soviet withdraw, the Afghan Communists enshrined Islam as the official religion of the country.

They weren't against religion, they were against fundamentalist religion. But to most of the people in Afghanistan, there was no distinction between the two. A version of Islam where women weren't allowed to be bought and sold wasn't really Islam to them.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This. People forget there was no Soviet "invasion".

Oh for God's sake.

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Well firstly the PDPA government was not exactly anyones idea of 'legitimate' (not in a traditional Afghan way, not in a Western Democratic way, etc) and was as blatant a Soviet puppet government as could have ever been wished for (particularly after the Soviets helped the one faction kill off the other). Secondly, to describe the Mujahideen as 'armed reactionaries' is to place crude propaganda other accuracy. They were an incredibly diverse bunch of people united - and it is a bit of a stretch to use that word - by a desire to rid their country of foreign occupation. Mostly they were just ordinary Afghans.

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Racist drivel.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Moreover, did Afghan society even remotely mirror a Marxist class divide?

Well no. Even Kabul didn't. The class base of the PDPA was the usual one for insane Asian Communist Parties (i.e. intellectuals).

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Feudal is the wrong word entirely, but a traditional society based around subsistence agriculture and regional commerce would be accurate, yes. Attempts from the 1950s onwards to 'modernise' Afghanistan's economy and society were notably ineffectual. These days of course most of Afghan society is better described as 'completely fycked up', something that is very much a legacy of the Soviet invasion.

[ingemann]

At the time I would support the mujahedins, USSR was our enemy and the enemy of our enemy are maybe not our friend, but it's usual a good thing supporting them.

With hindsight... well I had to think about it, but still the Muhahedins. I know we have some (very very stupid) people here loving USSR, and USSR in the late 70ties and 80ties was not the horrible monster of the Stalin period. But it was a still a enemy who wanted to overrun my country and was able to do it, even if they likely would have been defeated afterward. Was the Muhahedins worse people than the Soviets, are they our enemy today; yes to both. But USSR was a existential enemy, while the modern Islamic terrorist are little more than vermins, irritating but not really a threat toward us as a group.

[Illuminati Blood Drinker]

I wonder how many of our impeccable leftists would have supported the U.S. if it had invaded Iran in 1979 to defend the "pro-woman" Shah against the "Islamist reactionaries"...

[Cory]

Soviet Communism was more evil than any other ideology except Nazism

You don't know what you're talking about. Radical Islamism is patently worse for every sector of society then Stalinist Communism could ever be.

North Korea > ISIL.

Well firstly the PDPA government was not exactly anyones idea of 'legitimate' (not in a traditional Afghan way, not in a Western Democratic way, etc) and was as blatant a Soviet puppet government as could have ever been wished for

This is beside the point.

(particularly after the Soviets helped the one faction kill off the other).

This was the right thing to do for reasons previously mentioned in this thread.

Secondly, to describe the Mujahideen as 'armed reactionaries' is to place crude propaganda other accuracy. They were an incredibly diverse bunch of people united - and it is a bit of a stretch to use that word - by a desire to rid their country of foreign occupation. Mostly they were just ordinary Afghans.

Yes they were a very diverse group of people, united in their desire: to revolt against the social progress made by the Afghan Communists. These people were led by local warlords and were explicitly Islamist in character. To deny this is nothing more then historical revisionism.

Yes many of them were "ordinary Afghans" (what an obvious weasel phrase, by the way). Ordinary Afghans who wanted to overthrow the Communists to entrench their conservative Islamist way of life.

Racist drivel.

Nothing I said is in any way racist. You saying this just proves you are being defensive and have no real argument to substantiate your point. In your world anyone who criticizes third world people's ideologies = racist. If anything you're expressing the soft bigotry of low expectations. It's not like the Taliban just appeared out of thin air. There was the sociological pretext that enabled it.

There was a significant base of people who gladly supported that movement, and rural conservative culture that enabled it . You're in denial.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You don't know what you're talking about. Radical Islamism is patently worse for every sector of society then Stalinist Communism could ever be.

North Korea > ISIL.

I'm not sure why one form of mass death is preferable to another (is it better if you die horribly because of extremist idiocy if said extremist idiocy waves a red flag? I don't see the logic there comrade) and I'm not sure if you have much of an understanding of this particular phase of Afghanistan's tragedy if you think that 'Radical Islam' was a major factor. All of the people who fought against the Soviet military and its puppet government were Muslim (of course) and almost all of them fairly 'conservative' (also of course), but hardly any were particularly political beyond that. There were Islamist political parties but they were basically clubs of intellectuals and lacked a genuine mass following even if their call to revolt was eagerly seized on: i.e. Ahmad Shah Massoud was popular because he became an overnight folk hero due to military exploits and a vague sense of Tajik pride not because he was associated with the Jamiat-e Islami (which was about as radical as weak tea, but thats besides the point). And while its true that a lot of money ended up (via the CIA-ISI link and the Zia regime in Pakistan) heading towards the undeniable nutter Hekmatyar and his friends, those guys were an absolute joke in military terms for all their western hardware and never won a single significant fight with Soviet forces.

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No... it really isn't.

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Pretty sure that the right thing to do was to not get involved in the first place.

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Dude, there was no social progress made by the PDPA. If you mean all that footage of a slightly more 'Western' looking Kabul before the war etc, that was a result of the policies of Zahir Shah and Daoud Khan. All the Commies did was to propose a bunch of idiotic and dogmatic policies which they tried to implement in a manner that is fair to call heinous. This resulted in popular revolt and the civil war that continues (in many guises) to this day. I don't call permanent civil war progress.

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Thing is, as a racist you aren't much good at working out what is an isn't racist are you?

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Yes that's true. The Taliban emerged out of the refugee camps in Pakistan. Those camps existed because of the Soviet invasion. The Taliban were able to take over the country with horrifying speed because Afghan society had been destroyed by the invasion and the civil war. Had the Soviet Union not invaded Afghanistan then there would be no Taliban.

[The Free North]

ITT: Leftists trying to justify invading and occupying Afghanistan while they called the US imperialists for the same exact action 10 years ago.

To be fair, there are tangible differences between Soviet Imperialism and Western Imperialism, at least in theory.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I guess with hindsight the Iran-backed Shia militias win as the least worst faction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehran_Eight

[DC Al Fine]

Have to give credit to Sibboleth for demolishing the shockingly bad history on this thread.

As for the OP, yeah definitely support the anti-communists.