December 25 — the war in Afghanistan began. For many decades, Afghanistan’s system of government had been a monarchy, but this did not prevent it from maintaining good-neighborly relations with the USSR. The foreign policy of King Mohammed Zahir Shah suited the Soviet leadership, which carried out many economic projects in Afghanistan. However, Zahir Shah’s domestic policy caused dissatisfaction among various political forces—from Islamists to progressives.
As a result, in 1973 he was overthrown by his cousin Mohammed Daoud, who soon established his own authoritarian regime, disliked by both local Islamists and communists. Daoud’s attempts to carry out reforms failed. The situation in the country was unstable; plots against Daoud’s government were constantly organized, though in most cases they were suppressed. But in 1978 a revolution took place in the country, which went down in history as the April (or Saur) Revolution; as a result, the leaders of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), adhering to Marxist ideology, came to power with the support of officers of the Afghan army, and Mohammed Daoud and his entire family were killed. The PDPA proclaimed the country the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and Nur Muhammad Taraki—the founder of the PDPA—became president. The new leadership established friendly ties with the USSR and began sweeping reforms in the country, for which thousands of Soviet “advisers” arrived in Afghanistan. However, the PDPA’s attempts to quickly transform Afghanistan into a modern socialist state found no support among the Muslim population and met resistance from the Islamist opposition. All this led to destabilization in the country and the outbreak of civil war. With each passing day, the struggle between Islamist mujahideen and supporters of a republican form of government grew more intense. Mujahideen units began to receive political, financial, and military assistance from the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and China, and this support gradually increased in scale.
In this connection, the PDPA appealed to the leadership of the USSR for help—specifically, for direct military support.
But the Soviet Union initially did not want armed intervention, although it did provide assistance by supplying weapons and food and training specialists. The USSR did not want to lose control over Afghanistan, but the escalating civil war in the country made this threat increasingly real. And American military and economic activity in the region created the risk of Afghanistan leaving the Soviet sphere of influence.
Moreover, in the autumn of 1979 Taraki was killed, and Hafizullah Amin came to power. These events were regarded in the Kremlin as a counterrevolutionary coup.
As a result, by December 1979 more and more Soviet officials began to lean toward the idea that it was necessary to send troops into Afghanistan to stabilize the situation, even though a number of major representatives of the Soviet military elite opposed this step.
But on December 12, 1979, the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, at a closed meeting “within a narrow circle,” decided to deploy a Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces to Afghanistan. The Chief of the General Staff, Marshal N. Ogarkov, who was summoned to this meeting, spent an hour trying to convince the country’s leaders that this decision was mistaken, but without success.
As a formal justification for its decision, the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee cited repeated requests from the Afghan leadership for military assistance in fighting anti-government forces.
At the international level, it was declared that the USSR was guided by the principles of “proletarian internationalism.” The entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan began on December 25, 1979, when the 40th Army under the command of Lieutenant General Yuri Tukharinov entered Afghan territory. Almost immediately, the army was reinforced with helicopter units and fighter-bombers. Simultaneously with the troop deployment, a Soviet special services operation codenamed “Storm-333” was carried out with the aim of physically eliminating Hafizullah Amin. After Amin was eliminated, the country was headed by Babrak Karmal, one of the founders of the PDPA. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan provoked a strong reaction from the world community. The UN Security Council qualified the USSR’s action as an open use of armed force beyond its borders and a military intervention. And in the Soviet Union itself, as is well known, the truth about the Afghan war was concealed for many years; soldiers and officers were called by the neutral term “internationalists,” while the true role of the participants in the military campaign was kept silent. The operation to “provide international assistance to the Afghan people” was conducted under conditions of strict secrecy. The Soviet leadership expected that the war would not be long; however, it dragged on for 10 years.
By mid-1980, the contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan reached 70,000 personnel, and five years later it had doubled. In addition, in the north of the country a 100-kilometer security zone was created along the Soviet–Afghan border, where motor-maneuver and air-assault groups of the USSR KGB Border Troops carried out their tasks; and in the Asian republics several more units were stationed for special operations in Afghanistan or for rear-area support tasks. And although the first months of the war went well for the Soviet forces, mujahideen units offered the intervening forces stubborn resistance, successfully using guerrilla methods of warfare.
Moreover, they were helped by part of the local population and by foreign countries. The political situation changed only with a change of leadership in both states—in 1985 M. S. Gorbachev became the head of the USSR, and a year later M. Najibullah became the new president of Afghanistan. Then not only was the possibility of withdrawing troops from Afghanistan considered, but the first real steps in that direction were also taken. Both governments set a course for national reconciliation, and on April 14, 1988, a joint Soviet–American agreement was adopted, “On the Interrelationship for the Settlement of the Situation Relating to Afghanistan,” according to which all Soviet troops were to leave Afghanistan by February 15, 1989. This was carried out by the Soviet side. Over the 10 years of the Afghan war, more than 15,000 Soviet soldiers and officers were killed. The number of Afghans killed in the war, according to various sources, reaches two million. In the opinion of historians and specialists, for the USSR this war proved essentially pointless and became the most brutal and bloody battlefield unfolded after the Great Patriotic War. Despite the large number of combat operations conducted, it was not possible to suppress the opposition forces, political stability within Afghanistan did not occur, and the civil war in the country continued.