Does anybody have any resources or maybe learned insight about what exactly the USSR was doing in Afghanistan prior to the Saur Revolution? I know both the U.S. and USSR were involved in the Republic of Afghanistan, but I have very weak knowledge of the situation and I can't find any non-western-biased sources not depicting the U.S. involvement as wholly good and the USSR involvement as wholly bad.
Usually people correctly justify the Soviet "invasion" as a response to Operation Cyclone, but the Soviets had a presence there predating even that. I'm hoping somebody here has criticism or corrections for me that don't just repeat the Western anti-communist perspective.
Hey thanks is pretty much exactly what I was looking for.
" This is how a Marxist-led coalition of national democratic forces came into office. “It was a totally indigenous happening. Not even the CIA blamed the USSR for it,” writes John Ryan, a retired professor at the University of Winnipeg, who was conducting an agricultural research project in Afghanistan at about that time."
This is the part I get hung up on. It's hard to discern the truth because most other western sources confidently state that the USSR was involved in the revolution and thus it was intervention that justifies Operation Cyclone
https://podcastaddict.com/episode/77637032
Episode 99 of Radio War Nerd covers the crucial beginnings of the Soviet intervention, tying its part into the Islamic Revolution of the 70s and 80s