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2022
ВЕСТНИК САНКТ-ПЕТЕРБУРГСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА ВОСТОКОВЕДЕНИЕ И АФРИКАНИСТИКА
Т. 14. Вып. 2
РОССИЯ И ВОСТОК
UDC 327
Soviet Project of Nation-State-Building in Afghanistan
M. M. Nabat
43, ul. Ozerkovaya, St Petersburg, 198516, Russian Federation
For citation: Nabat M. M. Soviet Project of Nation-State-Building in Afghanistan. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies, 2022, vol. 14, issue 2, pp. 162-175. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2022.201
The article examines the Soviet Union's policy in Afghanistan during the period of its military presence there (1979-1989) as a set of measures corresponding to the modern interpretation of the concepts of nation-building and state-building. It also analyzes modern theories of nation- and state-building and highlights their main trends, forms, and problems. The author also proposes a unique approach that combines these two concepts as "nation-state-building" in relation to the Soviet project in Afghanistan. The article elaborates on the main tasks of the Soviet policy in the 1980s in Afghanistan as well as their implementation and results. Due to the combination of "nation-building" and "state-building" concepts in a complex structure of "nation-state-building", the article draws conclusions, first, about the applicability of this approach to the specific Soviet project of state-building in Afghanistan, and, second, about the complexity of the project itself, which included ideological, political, economic, and military components. On the basis of archive documents, memoirs of military and diplomatic actors, and a wide scope of academic research, the author substantiates the idea of large-scale tasks of nation-state-building in Afghanistan in Soviet foreign policy, and also indicates that the implementation of the project encountered great difficulties from the unfolding civil war to the inability of the Afghan leaders to consolidate the political life of the country. Soviet leadership quickly realized the unreadiness of the Afghan society for the proposed systemic social transformations. Despite the fact that the goals of the Soviet project were not achieved, this does not diminish its scale and historical significance.
Keywords: Afghanistan, nation-building, state-building, USSR, economic assistance, Soviet foreign policy.
Introduction
In recent years, the number of academic publications about the Soviet experience of state and political transformations in Afghanistan has increased. This indicates rising interest in the subject, and, especially, in light of the current events in Afghanistan related
© St Petersburg State University, 2022
to the withdrawal of American troops and the end of the American nation-building project, an even larger number of publications should be expected. The authors of these publications use modern nation-building and state-building theories to compare the state-building models proposed to Afghanistan by the governments of the USSR and the United States and supported by the long-term military presence. The main purpose of these works is to refute the well established idea of the exclusively forceful and ineffective instruments of Soviet influence on Afghan political and public life.
In his work Russian Lessons: We aren't the first to try nation-building in Afghanistan, Paul Robinson analyzes the Soviet experience in nation-building in Afghanistan, drawing parallels with American activities. Among the shortcomings of both the Soviet and American approaches, the author highlights the underestimated role of the agricultural sector. He claims that the USSR trained tens of thousands of Afghans and sent thousands of advisers to Afghanistan, but despite this, a lack of human resources, weak political institutions, and a split among PDPA members were obstacles to the country's economic development [1].
In his article The Blind Leading the Blind: Soviet Advisors, Counter-Insurgency and Nation-Building in Afghanistan, Artemy Kalinovsky notes that in recent years the Soviet experience has been frequently referenced in connection with the US military presence in Afghanistan, mainly from the point of view of military failures rather than its counter-insurgency strategy [2]. He argues that the Soviet Union was implementing un-planned and improvised nation-building projects in Afghanistan through the work of many advisers and technicians, educators, and party activists. We disagree with Kalinovsky's interpretation of the Soviet project as "spontaneous". The very organization of the foreign policy work of this level in the USSR has always been carried out on the basis of planned and coordinated actions of various ministries, departments and organizations. In addition, archive documents confirm the level of preliminary work and the comprehensive nature of the implementation of the assistance project to Afghanistan [3], although this, of course, does not exclude possible shortcomings both in preparing and in implementing this assistance. But this clarification does not remove criticism of Kalinovsky's statement. It is important to distinguish between the lack of a planning system and the miscalculations in putting it into practice. It seems correct to view the Soviet aid project as a set of measures that can be considered within the modern interpretation of the nation-state-building policy, and possibly even more complex in terms of the social transformations tasks. According to Kalinovsky, the Soviet nation-building was aimed at developing a successful governing party, extending its reach to the rural zones and providing material incentives to help the PDPA gain legitimacy. We would like to add that the Soviet nation-state-building program also included building infrastructure, schools, institutes, and hospitals. By 1988, with the help of the Soviet Union, 130 enterprises and facilities were built, including three international-level airports and 2800 km of roads were paved. Very important for Afghanistan was exploration and development of the natural resources of gas, oil, iron, copper ore, etc. Sales of natural gas in the USSR provided about 40 % of Afghanistan's income from domestic sources, which also helped increase the legitimacy of the Afghan government [4, p. 120].
Canadian scholars A. Minkov and G. Smolenets, experts in the field of defense and strategic analysis, wrote a three-part study on cooperation between the USSR and Afghanistan. In the first part, 4-D Soviet Style: Defense, Development, Diplomacy,
and Disengagement in Afghanistan During the Soviet Period. Part I: State Building, the authors analyze the progress and results of the Soviet political project implementation of modernization of Afghanistan so that it might be useful to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) [5]. It is difficult to disagree with the authors' opinion, as they saw the ineffectiveness of Afghanistan's state and political system in its decentralization and inability to perform modern functions and tasks. They rightly emphasize that, above all, interethnic and tribal politics made it difficult to create equal, ethnically representative national institutions. We share the authors' opinion about the USSR's contribution to the creation of a strong Afghan army, which was able to ensure the security of the Afghan government after the withdrawal of the Soviet troops, which underlines the success of the Soviet state-building in Afghanistan.
Particularly noteworthy is the work of Martin Kipping, Two Interventions: Comparing Soviet and US-led state-building in Afghanistan [6], in which he compares the Soviet and American experiences of "intervention" and "state-building" from the point of view of three key areas (in his opinion) of state-building: security, fiscal policy, and the legitimacy of the state. Kipping considers state-building primarily as state coercion rather than democracy: "State-building can broadly be defined as an external intervention with the objective of creating or strengthening the structures of modern statehood in a given territory, which include most importantly the monopoly on the use of force and the ultimate decision-making authority within a demarcated territory" [6, p. 3]. He differentiates state-building from nation-building, as the latter includes democratization and creation of national identity. Kipping stresses the fact that Najibullah managed to stay in power for more than three years, which indicates the success of the Soviet state-building. Another important point he makes is successful institutions and state capacities building by the Soviets in the areas secured by the Soviet and Afghan forces, mainly in cities. Among the obstacles to successful Soviet state-building in Afghanistan were factionalism within the PDPA and the extreme dependence of the Afghan state on Soviet aid. But he does not go further to reveal the nature of this factionalism, which should be done. Perhaps it is a matter of political culture, still closely related to the remnants of pre-modern societies, such as the principles of pashtunwali, tribal mentality, and nepotism.
Among Russian authors there is an interesting article by E. V. Pinyugina, Afghanistan: How to Create a Modern State? [7] in which she highlights three features of state-building in Afghanistan: the weakness of statehood in terms of territorial control and taxation; and isolation of the people from the political elite carrying out transformations and outside help, or intervention. To the social difficulties she adds the nomadic way of life of some part of the population, the influence of the clergy, that is, the religiosity of the population in the form of Islam, and a militant mentality in upholding rights and sovereignty. An attempt to make a comprehensive explanation of the state and political processes in Afghanistan makes her work useful for new research. Still, Pinyugina mentions that Afghanistan is an Islamic country, but does not emphasize the role of the Pashtuns' tribal law known as pashtunwali which defines the lifestyle of Afghan people, as well as puts a considerable impact on their comprehension of Islam.
On the other hand, a comprehensive explanation should not obscure the need to identify the central links of state-building. Therefore, it seems justified to consider creating a capable state apparatus, primarily in terms of maintaining law and order in Afghanistan, as the most significant condition for all other processes of national consolidation. This
consideration is typical for the use of the state-building concept. For example, Armin von Bogdandy et al., emphasize that the key point of state-building is the organization of a monopoly on organized violence: "the aim of state-building is... the establishment of a state as a concentration and expression of collective power without the need to exercise coercion" — with references to the ideas of M. Weber and M. Canovan [8, p. 584]. Therefore, they see nation-building only as a legitimation of public authority and a political form of collective identity. They emphasize the fundamental importance of establishing a constitutional order and strong political leadership plus a national democratic consensus.
Special attention should go to the thesis of American political scientist Steve Hess: the key role in preserving and maintaining a stable regime of power in Afghanistan, in practice, was played not by the presence of a foreign military contingent, but by stable and growing assistance with aid and weapons. Without going into details of his argument, it is important to note that there is a direct dependence of the capacity of state power on sustainable provision of instruments for maintaining order and legality, as well as solving humanitarian problems, which ultimately increases the legitimacy of the government. It is also important to emphasize that it is precisely this stability, coupled with other factors, that makes it possible to approve the practice of implementing state measures and stimulate reciprocal support and legitimacy at the local, and, above all, the rural level. Hess also emphasizes that the initial success of such a government is possible only because of the "neopatrimonial regime" of personal patronage, informal alliances and rental interests, which is the only possible solution for the conditions of the Afghan mentality and traditions. However, it does not seem necessary to completely ignore the importance of the military presence, since in the beginning of the implementation of the Soviet aid project, it was the military presence that laid the necessary foundation for the subsequent complete independence of the Afghan government in resolving issues of law, order and security [9].
Finally, it should be emphasized that there is a large group of authors in academic research, who consider the Soviet nation- and state-building project in Afghanistan but absolutely ignore the influence of American policy, as well as the policies of American allies and other countries (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, etc.) interested in the failure of the Soviet project. It seems that speaking about the collapse of the Najibullah government one should take into account not only the termination of Soviet aid, but also the buildup of American-led aid to his opponents. Thus, based on political considerations, the Americans at a certain stage supported the destruction of Afghan statehood, including, which turned out to be especially disastrous in the future, strengthening the institutional practices of weakening the central government and reducing its effectiveness.
The purpose of this article is to systematize views on the Soviet policy in Afghanistan applying the nation-building and state-building theories. The author also proposes a unique approach to consider these concepts together as nation-state-building for the USSR project in Afghanistan as well as the introduction of specific criteria for its evaluation which included ideological, economic, military and political components.
Nation and State-Building Theories
The idea of nation-building started to be used in academic literature in the middle of the 20th century, thanks to studies by American scholars Charles Tilly, Reinhard Bendix, and Karl Deutsch [10-12]. In their interpretation, the concept of nation-building explains
the processes of national integration, characterized by the establishment of the so-called "modern nation state", distinct from feudal states and empires. In other words, the opposition of modern and traditional societies, widely accepted in social sciences of the 20th century, appears as a theoretical prerequisite for this idea. This very premise led to the idea of a historical transition from the traditional to the modern phase of social development that was called modernization. Hence, the nation-building theory serves as a supplement and conclusion to the broader theory of modernization of society [13-17]. However, it is important to add that the theory of modernization itself is a kind of secondary to the theory of capitalism, which spread back in the 19th century and characterizes current historical processes as trends in the transition to the capitalist stage of social development [18-22]. Consequently, if in the course of using the nation-building theory there is a need for historical generalizations regarding the development of the social system, then it should be correlated with the theories of modernization and capitalism.
Nation-building consists primarily of the formation of a civil society with broad and equal political rights and responsibilities for representatives of all social groups. The self-awareness of civil society in relation to other countries is manifested in identity as a political nation. At the same time, nation-building consists in the emergence of a bourgeois elite, replacing the former elites of traditional, precapitalist societies in power.
Political projects of nation and state-building are an expression of modernization and development processes of capitalism at the state level. It is important to note that in academic literature, the nation- and state-building projects are considered overwhelmingly as American projects for countries the United States plans to influence, and some are accompanied by military intervention, as for example, in the works of James Dobbins et al. The Beginner's Guide to Nation-Building [23], America's Role in Nation-Building: From Germany to Iraq [24], and Jonathan Monten's Intervention and State-Building: Comparative Lessons from Japan, Iraq, and Afghanistan [25]. In other words, it is not about the projects developed and proposed by the political forces of a country and therefore expressing certain interests and views of a given society, but projects proposed by foreign politicians with other interests and views. Moreover, it turns out that nation- and state-building projects are not an end in themselves for which foreign armed forces are only means, but a secondary circumstance perceived as a goal only after military intervention, carried out to solve other, one's own problems. This practice is simply called "exporting democracy". Only the accumulated experience of such situations makes the approach to nation- and state-building projects more systematical and academic, as evidenced by the number and nature of publications on this topic.
Some authors identify the concepts of "nation-building" and "state-building", arguing that the second replaced the first in the new historical era after the Cold War and September 11 as a more instrumental and realistic strategy [26]. Others, such as Francis Fukuyama, argue that the concept of "nation-building" reflects more the experience of the United States in uniting peoples who do not have common roots, culture, and traditions on a new land and with a new political order, while the European scientific community differentiates the terms "state" and "nation" and emphasizes that building a nation in the sense of creating a society united by a common history and culture is impossible with the help of an external force, that is, by another more powerful state [27, p. 134].
As Bremmer notes, the important theoretical distinction between "nation-building" as the construction of identity and "state-building" as the creation of political governance
institutions was in practice blurred by the cautious politics of the Bush Administration [28, p. 29].
The correct distinction was given by René Grotenhuis, i.e., if "state-building" characterizes the level of institutional processes, then "nation-building" is a question of identity, which concerns ethnicity, religion, language, and culture, to the extent that they provide for cohabitation, use of resources and recognition of laws [29, p. 12]. It is important to note that in relation to American policy in Afghanistan, researchers rightly use mainly the term "state-building" since this project did not pursue the complex goals of creating a nation, although along the way it could contribute to them [6; 25; 30].
However, the Soviet project in Afghanistan, as will be shown in this article, had the tasks not only at the state-building level, but also at a broader level of nation-building.
Despite the difference between the concepts of "nation-building" and "statebuilding", it seems appropriate to emphasize their common modernization orientation. As a rule, in real political practice, these processes complement each other and are used jointly to solve complex problems of social development of underdeveloped countries. Therefore, in this article we will use the terms "nation-building" and "state-building" jointly as "nation-state-building". This term not only corresponds to the concept of this article, but it can also be met in academic literature, for example, in Elham Gharji's article Afghanistan: State, Boundaries, and the Threats of Perpetual Conflict, although the meaning of this term, used in our article considerably differs from the one referred to by other authors [31].
Implementation of the Soviet Nation-State-Building Project
in Afghanistan
Soviet foreign policy was based on the historical-materialist understanding of its era as the imperialist stage of capitalism with the emerging system of socialist countries. During the Cold War this understanding determined all Soviet foreign policy projects and programs. The new stage of Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War was marked by the "Peace Program" adopted in 1971 at the 24 th CPSU Congress as a system of measures meant to change the nature of international relations in the direction of reducing the confrontation tension between the USSR and the United States [32, pp. 53-54]. This program defined the most important tasks: to refuse the use of force in international relations; detente and to end the arms race; to eliminate the remnants of colonialism; and provide mutually beneficial cooperation between the USSR and interested states. As a result, cooperation with the governments of the Third World countries, including Afghanistan, increased, and the latter was being mentioned in the reports of the General Secretary in all subsequent congresses of the CPSU. For example, at the 25th CPSU Congress in 1976, Leonid I. Brezhnev noted: "Speaking generally about our relations with the Asian states, it is necessary to mention our good neighbor Afghanistan, with whom we recently extended the Treaty of Neutrality and Mutual Non-Aggression which was almost half a century old" [33, p. 15]. In the subsequent congresses reports more and more attention was given to the relations with Afghanistan. This indicates the long-term and stable foreign policy interest of the Soviet leadership which served as a basis of the nation-state-building project in Afghanistan initiated by the USSR.
The Afghan project of the Soviet leadership was not unique, but was a special case of a global project to involve economically backward Third World countries to follow the socialist way of development. Mongolia, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, Angola and other countries followed this path, but at a different pace. They were different in their level of cultural and historical stages of development, as well as by their state and political systems. But they also had common features that united them in the Soviet foreign policy approach.
As to the social internal structures of these countries, they were predominantly agricultural with low level of technological development and labor productivity, where political relations were based on clan, tribal, and patron-client relations with archaic forms of law and morality and the system of power and responsibility that was based on patriarchal family foundations.
If we use the theoretical model of the sources of power of the nation state by Michael Mann, then the Soviet project of nation-state-building for the Third World countries is complex in its structure and is characterized by the following four main parameters [34, pp. 22-28]. In the field of ideology, the project implied the formation of a socialist worldview among the masses of the population through education and enlightenment. In the economic sphere it was planned to carry out technological modernization through strengthening the role of the public sector, centralization and planning of the national economy with the involvement of the socialist countries in economic relations. The development of the military source of power in these countries consisted in the formation of the institutions of a professional army and militia on the basis of a national law. The political part included the creation of a national government representing the interests of all social groups, and a people's democratic party capable of leading the political process.
Other researchers also had a similar approach and comprehensively considered the nation-building project, in particular J. Dobbins et al., who proposed the hierarchy of nation-building tasks as the following: Security: peacekeeping, law enforcement, rule of law, and security sector reform; Humanitarian relief: return of refugees and response to potential epidemics, hunger, and lack of shelter; Governance: resuming public services and restoring public administration; Economic stabilization: establishing a stable currency and providing a legal and regulatory framework in which local and international commerce can resume; Democratization: building political parties, free press, civil society, and a legal and constitutional framework for elections; Development: fostering economic growth, poverty reduction, and infrastructure improvement [23, p. xxiii].
The complexity of studying social processes in Afghanistan in the context of the Soviet policy resulted from the multipurpose nature of the USSR's foreign policy project itself. It can be supported by the report on the work of Soviet advisers during the period of 19781988, where their experience is structured almost in the same way: the political sphere, the economic sphere, the scientific-theoretical sphere, the organizational sphere and the ideological sphere. Although the military sphere was not highlighted there, probably, due to its special importance it required a separate analysis and was not within the competence of the CPSU advisers. Thus, the entire set of tasks was included in the Soviet project, which corresponds to the concept of nation-state-building [3, pp. 125-128].
The Soviet nation-state-building project in Afghanistan had several stages; the final one is the period of the Soviet military presence. Therefore, the background of this stage is not analyzed in this article. It is important to note that with Muhammad Daoud coming
to power in 1973 and the change of the monarchy form of government to the republican one, the internal politics exacerbated the struggle for power at different levels, and later on led to a civil war. In this situation, many UN international assistance programs began to curtail [35, pp. 18-20]. The Soviet government decided urgently to provide assistance in order to support political forces interested in rapprochement with the USSR and the socialist countries. This role was assumed by the PDPA, which came to power in 1978. Therefore, the Soviet aid project was precisely the project of building a people's democratic state, with specific political and economic institutions characterized by a high degree of centralization and planning. But in case of Afghanistan the lack of political experience of legitimate political coercion based on the delegation of rights to the central government by civil society was especially significant. Coercion has been traditionally seen as an action in someone's specific interests or on the basis of their compromise, but not as an abstract civil order. These difficulties were well understood by the Soviet leadership and taken into account in the political planning. Thus, Yury Andropov at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1983 said: "To solve the Afghan problem, one must proceed from the existing realities. What do you want? This is a feudal country, where tribes have always ruled over their territory and the central power did not always reach every village" [36, p. 13].
Moreover, the political movements in Afghanistan did not have mass support, as they were guided by the immediate pragmatic goals of the political struggle, which was waged on the principles of clannishness and nepotism, and were structurally ruined by factionalism often of an interpersonal nature. Even the PDPA was not ready and developed enough to carry out the transformations that the USSR had counted on in its nationstate-building project [3]. But declaratively, the Afghan government played along with the plans of the Soviet Union, turning them into instruments of its private voluntaristic goals. The following comment from the advisers' report on the first period of their work in 1978-1979 is indicative: "The foundation for the development of the new society was ill-considered, hasty, and shallow" [3, p. 101]. From the very beginning, the Soviet leadership was taking into consideration the backwardness of Afghanistan, which did not allow the USSR to set socialist goals at that stage, and involve these types of countries in allied and partnership relations [3]. USSR Foreign Minister A. A. Gromyko at a Politburo meeting of the CPSU Central Committee clearly pointed out that: "Our strategic goal is to make Afghanistan neutral, to prevent it from joining a hostile camp" [37, p. 26].
It is also important that the Soviet Union constantly carried out coordination attempts to unite the PDPA as the most important political institution in the implementation of the Soviet nation-state-building project. In other words, through recommendations, through training, through propaganda, the Soviet Union made maximum efforts to form a political force capable of carrying out the proposed project on the part of the Afghan leadership. As part of this project, the Soviet leadership insisted on changing the nihilistic attitude of the PDPA leaders to Islam, and recommended using its progressive aspects for national unity [3, p. 102]. Soviet advisers also carried out a similar work as part of the modernization of such politically important social institutions as local authorities, the media, and the Armed Forces.
Purposeful assistance was also provided in organizing the propaganda work and influencing the masses using the press, radio and TV, oral speeches of the president and other leaders, leaflets, as well as work with the population in the mosques [3, p. 114]. As for
the press, a good example is the newspaper Anis, the oldest daily newspaper in Dari, with some articles in Pashto, which represented the Central Council of the National Front. The newspaper regularly published articles about joint Soviet-Afghan projects [38, pp. 1-2; 39, pp. 1-2]. On a regular basis, the newspaper published large coverages describing the main projects of the USSR in Afghanistan, which facilitated the economic development of the country and contributed to the construction of a new state, at the same time emphasizing the Soviet Union's role being a first state that recognized the independence of Afghanistan in 1919, as well as the most important role of the USSR in signing the Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement with Afghanistan in 1956 [40, pp. 1-2; 41, p. 2]. The Anis newspaper also brought to the attention of the population the important policy issues of the Afghan government, explained new areas of cooperation with the USSR and did not hide the goals of the Soviet nation-state-building project [42, p. 2; 43, p. 2].
Although the Soviet party and state-building program did not become a guide for Afghan politicians, this should not negate the complexity of the Soviet program and the activity of the Soviet side in attempts to put it into practice. According to the reports of the Soviet advisers: "The Central Committee of the PDPA was extremely little and inconsistently engaged in the formation of a healthy and effective state apparatus..." [3, p. 105]. And this fact again confirms that the Soviet Union had been monitoring the implementation of the nation-state-building project. Similar conclusions on the long-term planning of nation-state-building project can be made on the basis of the changes in the project itself, caused by the internal political processes in the USSR, which did not affect the level of large-scale tasks of the state-building in Afghanistan. Thus, the National Reconciliation tasks originated from the idea of the impossibility to continue nationstate-building project by escalating civil confrontation in the form of an armed conflict. This line of reconciliation also affected the party system, which resulted in the change of the PDPA charter and the principles of its work. The Soviets coordinated the nation-statebuilding project with the Afghan side, both at the level of party and state leadership, as well as with the advisers' work. At the same time, as it is concluded in the report of advisers from 1988 due to the specific character of the Soviet political system in the state-building project in Afghanistan the party dominated rather than the government [3, p. 125].
During the first five years of the implementation of the Soviet project, the state sector of the economy was strengthened, but in the provinces the private sector continued to dominate. This suggests that the central government was limited in its economic policy and that it did not find support in the provinces. The strength of the private sector is confirmed by the fact that even at the government level there were discussions about the possibility of private sector representatives to enter the Soviet markets (carpets, lambskin). At the same time, the USSR became the main economic partner of Afghanistan, both through imports (sugar, wheat, soap, oil products, machinery, equipment) and through exports (gas, carbamide, wool, cotton, olives, raisins). The USSR helped in creating transport communications, so important for the unity and centralization of the economic system of the state (the Kabul-Hairaton highway, a bridge over the Amu Darya, a base in the port of Hairaton). Trilateral clearing cooperation between the USSR-DRA-India has also been strengthened [44, pp. 1-4; 45, pp. 3-5].
The Soviet leadership was well aware of the history-tested principle that a coercive apparatus consisting of armed forces and means of coercion play a key role in statebuilding. The capacity of the state is expressed in the ability to mobilize in its own interests
such a force that would suppress any resistance to legal order. The experience of the new states of the 20th century confirmed the correctness of this principle. Guided by it, the emphasis was placed on the implementation of the functions of enforcing order, but because of civil confrontation and the military weakness of the central government, the stake was primarily made on the use of the Soviet military contingent.
At the same time, a plan was being implemented to form Afghan military state institutions capable of performing as soon as possible all the necessary functions of coercion and maintaining law and order on their own. Qualified military specialists were trained in the Soviet Union and Soviet advisers assisted in training and advising the military and police in Afghanistan itself [46, p. 175]. At the Politburo Commission of the CPSU Central Committee in 1988 N. G. Yegorychev reported that there were 350 thousand people in the armed forces of Afghanistan [47, p. 47]. V. S. Khristoforov, with reference to M. A. Gareev, reports the following figures for the armed forces of Afghanistan for 1989: 329,000 personnel, including 165,000 from the army, 97,000 from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and 57,000 people from the Ministry of State Security. Supplies of weapons, equipment, and fuel for the Afghan security forces had been increasing. By 1989 the army was very well equipped with: 1,568 tanks, 828 infantry fighting vehicles, over 4,880 artillery pieces and mortars, 140 combat aircraft and helicopters [46, p. 285].
However, it is important to note that there was a lack of social base necessary for providing the required number of Afghans for armed forces. Low literacy, lack of discipline, and a backward worldview could not be compensated by any positive advantages of the local population which was required for low enforcement employees. Moreover, in an ideological sense the Afghans were mainly rural peasants and shepherds and still had difficulty in understanding the national and state interests of the army and militia. There were also widespread cases of the use of force in private interests in violation of the law [48, pp. 103-104; 49, pp. 311-312]. As E. A. Shevardnadze noted at the Session of the CPSU Central Committee on November 13, 1986, that ".neither our, nor the Afghan comrades have mastered the issues of the state function without our troops" [37, p. 27].
After the Geneva Accords were signed, Pakistan and the United States in violation of them did not stop supplying weapons to the Mujahideen, so there was a need to increase the military assistance to Afghanistan to compensate for the absence of Soviet troops. In terms of currency the volume of supplies increased from 267.6 million rubles in 1980 to 3972.0 million rubles in 1989 [50, p. 258]. In general, for the entire period of Soviet military presence, according to V. A. Merimsky: "Every day of the war cost our state more than 10 million rubles" [51, p. 298].
After the decision on the withdrawal of the Soviet troops the combat activity of the 40th Army began to decline and consisted of supporting the Afghan army in their independent operations, which resulted in the reduction of the government-controlled territory and the aggravation of military and political situation in the country [51, p. 291]. In general, it is completely wrong to consider and assess the Soviet military contingent activities outside the framework of the political goals that the Soviet government was solving in Afghanistan. As part of the Soviet project, the military contingent was considered a temporary measure for the period of building Afghanistan's own capable armed forces. Therefore, it would be fair to agree with the statement that "For the 40th Army the task had never been set to win a military victory in Afghanistan" [51, p. 297]. Such a victory with the nation-statebuilding goal could have been won only by the Afghan army, consisted of representatives
of the Afghan people with a social base in it, with the realization of the national interests of coercion to the rule of law carried out by legal means. But due to various circumstances this turned out to be a difficult task.
Conclusion
The Soviet foreign policy project in Afghanistan during the period of 19791989 raised the deep-seated needs of the Afghan society for modernization through state-building and the creation of a civil society. The contradictions of social development that Afghanistan had faced at that period of time led to a civil war in a specific form of confrontation between various social forces, manifested itself through clan, tribal and religious-ethnic semi-feudal relations. The resolution of the civil conflict would have been possible if the economic conditions allowed the dominance of some forces interested in a radical political reform of the country. But to the extent that this did not happen and the war prevented the strengthening of these economic tendencies the balance changed towards the reactionary forces and the traditional worldview of the peasants. The Soviet project had been designed for the potential of the April revolution, and therefore for the advanced development of the political consciousness of the people, but the capabilities of the political leadership of the social forces of Afghanistan that went to rapprochement with the USSR were overestimated. The civil war could not transform into a successful phase with the dominance of those public interests that wanted to pursue the nationstate-building project and the foreign support for the anti-government armed opposition aggravated the difficulties of establishing state authority and state order.
Nevertheless, using the combination of the concepts of nation-building and statebuilding in one complex concept of nation-state-building the author in this article draws conclusions, first of all, on the applicability of this approach to a specific Soviet statebuilding project in Afghanistan, and, secondly, on the complexity and multipurpose nature of the project itself, which included ideological, economic, military and political components. Thus, in the Soviet ideology the goals in Afghanistan were to create a whole complex of social institutions that would correspond to the conditions and tasks of the late 20th century. The archive documents, memoirs of the military and diplomats used in this article, as well as academic research on this topic, make it possible to consider in detail and prove the idea of the large-scale tasks of nation-state-building in the Soviet Union's foreign policy in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The fact that the goals of the project were not achieved does not diminish either their complexity or their historical significance.
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Received: November 6, 2021 Accepted: February 28, 2022
Author's information:
Maria M. Nabat — MA in Political Sciences; [email protected]
Советский проект национального и государственного строительства в Афганистане
М. М. Набат
Российская Федерация, 198516, Санкт-Петербург, ул. Озерковая, 43
Для цитирования: Nabat M. M. Soviet Project of Nation-State-Building in Afghanistan // Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Востоковедение и африканистика. 2022. Т. 14. Вып. 2. С. 162-175. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2022.201
Рассматривается политика Советского Союза в Афганистане в период военного присутствия (1979-1989) как комплекс мероприятий, соответствующих современной трактовке концепций национального и государственного строительства. Анализируются современные теории процессов национального и государственного строительства (nation-building/state-building) и выделяются их основные тенденции, формы и проблемы. Предлагается авторский подход, объединяющий эти две концепции в национально-государственное строительство (nation-state-building) применительно к советскому проекту в Афганистане. Подробно анализируются основные задачи советской политики в Афганистане в 1980-е годы, их реализация и результаты. Благодаря сочетанию концепций национального и государственного строительства в комплексной конструкции «национально-государственное строительство» сделаны выводы о применимости такого подхода для рассмотрения специфического советского проекта государственного строительства в Афганистане и многоплановости самого проекта, включавшего идеологическую, политическую, экономическую и военную составляющие. На основании архивных документов, мемуаров военных и дипломатов, а также достаточно обширной базы научных исследований автор обосновывает идею содержания во внешней политике СССР масштабных задач национального и государственного строительства в Афганистане, а также указывает, что реализация проекта столкнулась с большими трудностями, начиная от развернувшейся гражданской войны и заканчивая неспособностью афганских лидеров консолидировать политическую жизнь страны. Советское руководство достаточно быстро осознало неготовность афганского общества к предлагаемым системным социальным преобразованиям. Несмотря на то что цели советского проекта не были достигнуты, это не снижает их масштабности и исторической значимости.
Ключевые слова: Афганистан, национальное строительство, государственное строительство, СССР, экономическая помощь, советская внешняя политика.
Статья поступила в редакцию 6 ноября 2021 г.; рекомендована к печати 28 февраля 2022 г.
Контактная информация:
Набат Мария Маджитовна — магистр политологии; [email protected]
