Aleksandr Antonovich Lyakhovskiy Working Paper pp

PREFACE 

 

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 is recognized as one of the pivotal 

moments of Cold War history, yet the circumstances surrounding this event have remained murky 

ever since they took place.  This Cold War International History Project Working Paper presents, 

for the first time in English, substantial examples of the work of the preeminent Russian military 

historian of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Alexander Liakhovsky.  After serving as Deputy 

Director of the USSR Defense Ministry working group in Afghanistan under General Valentin 

Varennikov from 1987 to 1989, since 1991, Liakhovsky has written a series of important Russian-

language works on the conflict, including Tayni Afganskoy Voyni [Secrets of the Afghan War] 

(1991), Tragedia I Doblest’ Afgana [The Tragedy and Valor of Afghanistan] (1995) and Plamia 

Afgana [The Flame of Afghanistan] (1999). A new edition of The Tragedy and Valor of 

Afghanistan appeared in July 2004.  All of these works incorporate important primary sources, 

including the author’s extensive oral history interviews with many of the Soviet military 

participants in the Afghan operation ranging from senior figures in the Defense Ministry in 

Moscow to officials managing the seizure of Kabul to soldiers engaged in the storming of Amin’s 

heavily-guarded presidential palace.  Although the Soviet collapse facilitated the release of much 

previously secret communist documentation that has greatly enhanced understanding of the 

political (CPSU) and intelligence (KGB) processes pertinent to the Afghan invasion and war—and 

much important scholarship and archival evidence in these areas has appeared in English

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Liakhovsky’s oeuvre constitutes the most significant contribution by Russian scholars to a fuller 

comprehension of the Soviet military dimension of the conflict. 

 

 

In this Working Paper, the co-editors, in cooperation with Liakhovsky, have selected 

excerpts illuminating the Soviet military occupation of Kabul, including the dramatic and in some 

cases bloody operations that led to the elimination of Amin and some of his defenders, at a 

substantial cost to the Soviet military invaders.  In particular, excerpts have been translated from 

The Tragedy and Valor of Afghanistan (2004).  As this Working Paper aims merely to present an 

illustrative sampling of Liakhovsky’s work, full citations are not provided, and scholars wishing to 

obtain fuller documentation or analysis may consult the original Russian-language works, or 

contact the author himself at 

[e-mail]

.  The translations have been made by Gary Goldberg 

and Artemy Kalinovsky. 

 

  James G. Hershberg (George Washington University)  

  Svetlana Savranskaya (National Security Archive) 

 

January 2007 

 

                                            

1

 See, e.g., Raymond L. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, rev. ed., 1994); 

Odd Arne Westad, “Prelude to Invasion: The Soviet Union and the Afghan Communists,” International History 

Review 16:1 (February 1994), pp. 49-69; Odd Arne Westad, “The Situation in ‘A’: New Russian Evidence on the 

Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan” (and accompanying translated Soviet and East German archival documents) 

CWIHP Bulletin 8-9 (Winter 1996/1997), pp. 128-132, 133-184; “New Evidence on the War in Afghanistan” (articles 

and translated documents), CWIHP Bulletin 14-15 (Winter 2003-Spring 2004), pp. 139-271; Odd Arne Westad, The 

Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University 

Press, 2005), esp chap. 8; and on the intelligence aspects, Vasilyi Miktrokhin, The KGB in Afghanistan, CWIHP 

Working Paper no. 40  (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, February 2002). 

 

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"Inside the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the Seizure of Kabul, December 1979” 

 

 

After Hafizullah Amin came to power in mid-September 1979 by overthrowing his rival Taraki, the situation 

in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) quickly worsened. The regime quickly lost all authority. The 

alarming processes in the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and government bureaucracy and the 

growth of discontent among the popular masses were actively inflamed by external forces hostile to the PDPA regime. 

The US, Pakistan, and several Arab countries rapidly increased military aid to the opposition movement. A 

concentration of Pakistani army subunits and military maneuvers was periodically noted on the DRA’s southern 

borders. With military and moral support from abroad by the end of 1979 the rebels had managed to raise the strength 

of their irregular formations to 40,000 men and launch combat operations in 16 of the (then) 27 provinces. They 

controlled Laghman, Kunar, Paktia, and Paktika completely. 

 

 

They held up to 90 percent of the territory and all the main lines of communications in the provinces of 

Jowzjan, Takhar, Badakhshan, Logar, Ghowr, Kapisa, Ghazni, Zabol, Helmand, Farah, Herat, and Badghis. Garrisons 

of government troops were located in provincial capitals and therefore they were included the PDPA’s zone of control. 

But the government completely controlled the situation in only three provinces: Kabul, Kunduz, and Baghlan. In sum, 

a threatening situation had developed for the PDPA. Amin took energetic steps to stabilize it, mainly by force. 

 

 

In our internal and partly in foreign publications all the failures and mistakes of the PDPA are associated with 

Amin and the armed actions of the rural population against the new regime are connected with the actions of outside 

forces and the opposition. There is some truth here, of course, but the main thing is that it led to a tragic development 

of events, to a civil war – the adventurist actions of the PDPA in the countryside and the lost battle for the peasant 

masses. The history of the Basmachi movement in the Soviet Central Asian republics is evidence: mistakes, even 

criminal actions, of several local Soviet bodies drove support of the Muslim population to the Basmachi since 

economic and social reforms capable of attracting peasants to the side of Soviet power had not been carried out by that 

time. The local leadership’s errors did not give birth to the Basmachi but rather strengthened it at the expense of 

people who bore a grudge against the new regime. They facilitated the expansion of the social base of the 

counterrevolutionary movement and the growth of its popular basis. In Afghanistan the same causes and tendencies 

resurfaced. 

 

 

The Soviet leadership had artificially formed the opinion that Amin would soon be overthrown. It was 

presumed that the ascent of the opposition to power was practically inevitable within a few months. Information about 

Amin’s contacts with US representatives emerged. Mutinies began in the army, instigated by “the Four”.  Meanwhile 

Amin hardened his policy toward the opposition and the Khalqis, the supporters of his predecessor, Taraki, even more. 

Manipulating socialist slogans and covering himself with democratic phraseology, Amin pursued the establishment of 

a dictatorial regime and unleashed a wide-scale campaign of terror and repression in the country incompatible with the 

PDPA’s declared goals. He adopted a policy of turning the Party into an appendage of his dictatorship. 

 

 

First Amin liquidated everyone who had ever spoken against him or expressed even the slightest 

disagreement, then those who enjoyed authority in the Party and could become his competitors. Soon representatives 

of several “non-Amin” groups and factions were subjected to repression. In reality a hunt occurred not just for 

Parchamists (wing of the PDPA who had opposed Taraki and Amin–ed.) but for some Khalqis, who were divided into 

“Aminists” and “Tarakists.” 

 

 

Special attention was devoted to the army. Purges were conducted in the army every month Amin was in 

power. The most active, the most independent thinking, the most ardent Khalqis who could not accept Amin were 

eliminated. To fill the shortage of young officers a three-month commanders’ training course was organized for which 

Pushtuns devoted to Amin were selected. At the end of the course they received the rank of lieutenant and were sent to 

military units. They customarily received the name “Amin’s fledglings.” 

 

 

In September 1979 Amin published a partial list of those who had been executed: there were 12,000 names on 

it. According to some estimates the numbers of those killed by the autumn of 1979 reached 50,000 or even more. 

 

 

Murders of people who were in no way guilty reached a massive scale, which caused a sharp reduction of the 

social base of the regime and increased the stream of refugees to Iran and Pakistan (expanding the social base of the 

opposition). Many eminent members of the Party and government who were Khalqis and also the main mass of the 

 

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