Not get sucked into Afghanistan, Andropov gets treatment earlier for his condition, make a sincere rapprochement with China, and focus on ramping up production of consumer goods.
I think that the USSR fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan was mostly a good thing. The government asked for the USSR's assistance and lives were at stake.
Firstly, you have fallen into the same trap that the leaders of the USSR did. The nominally socialist govt of Afghanistan was not widely popular with the masses because of their anti-Islam stance, among other things. Far more lives were lost due to the intervention and ofc set the stage for Afghanistan to become a failed state for many years.
Second, the "Taliban" as we know it today was not formed until the 90s, the "Mujahideen" was the label applied to the various groups of anti-Soviet forces, of which there were several groups of different nationalities and types of Islam, but what united them was the common cause against the 'godless foreigners' from the north propping up a deeply unpopular regime. This gave the CIA a golden opportunity to turn Afghanistan into the USSR's Vietnam, as they pumped millions and millions of dollars/weapons into the country to whoever would take it, all funneled through Pakistan and their notorious secret service, the ISI. Iran and China also had a lesser role in this as well, believe it or not. By the end, the Mujahideen had some of the best weapons in the world inflicting huge losses on the Soviets and can be seen as one of the factors that led to the fall of the Union. Later the US actually frantically tried to get the best weapons back once the Soviets left, but at that point they had been distributed all of the world. A huge colossal failure that absolutely ruined the prestige of the USSR, not to mention plunged Afghanistan into chaos into the present day.
I'd suggest listening to season 4 of the podcast "Blowback" for a detailed explanation of all this. It's brutal.
This is correct information as I have been told by members of the communist party of Afghanistan that are old enough to have lived it. They moved too far ahead of the people and earned their ire and lost their trust.
The government of Afghanistan wasn't anti-Islamist though, they passed Islamist laws and policies and I would argue they went too far in appeasement of those religious elements, rather than being truly secular. Give fundamentalists an inch, and they'll take a whole ass country.
And while it's claimed that the socialist Afghanistan government was unpopular, I don't see any evidence of this aside from neoliberal sources, and that has been said about every socialist government, and the government was at least popular enough to where it remained in power for many years until the USSR was pushed out by the Mujahadeen and increasing costs of the war itself. There's a marxist youtuber who is an arabic woman who grew up in Soviet-aligned Afghanistan and sings it's many praises.
I understand that the Taliban formed after the Mujahadeen, and were made of people from various backgrounds and various claimed ideologies and motivations, but after all my research, I still maintain that the Mujahadeen were nothing more than religious fundamentalists fighting against socialism, and that putting them down was necessary. My main concerns would have been the Soviets limiting civilian casualties and taking a stance more like China's approach to Xinjiang.
Yeah, it's unfortunate that China funded separatist and fundamentalist groups against the USSR. The Sino-Soviet split was a fucking travesty.
I admit, I don't know everything, and I've never set foot in Afghanistan, and I a Latino POC living in the U.S., and I'll gladly admit when I'm wrong or ignorant of something, and I'm not saying that the Soviets were flawless angels, but to me it seems you are slightly whitewashing the Mujahadeen and downplaying the achievements of the Afghanistan SSR.
Some issues with your post comrade... first it wasn't an official SSR, it was styled as the 'Democratic Republic of Afghanistan'. They outlawed Sharia law, gave rights to women, and instituted moderate Islamic secular policies that the majority conservative elements of the country did not agree with. Yes, the land reform was very popular with groups of the country, but very unpopular with others.
Regarding the popularity/sources, the leaders of the USSR itself themselves knew that the govt was not widely popular on the same level as USSR/Cuba/China and that it wasn't worth it getting involved, as they repeatedly voted against intervention several times before the decision to was made. After Brezhnev died, many of the Politburo were pissed at him for getting them into the conflict, as they felt deceived.
Also, whitewashing the Mujahideen? You seem to be conflating my description of their viewpoints to support of them, which I don't. Like I said, they were brutal, and extremely well armed and funded. Another poster said (that I agree with), that the govt ran too far ahead of the masses (to paraphrase a Stalin quote). I may be mistaken as well, this is just what I know from reading and a couple of Afghani acquaintances.
I understand you don't mean that you support the Mujahadeen's goals or methods, and I apologize if it sounded like an accusation, I just meant it sounded kind of in the same realm.
I don't know many people from SW Asia, or enough to have deep conversations with, and I will defer to you and those you spoke with, since you seem to be very informed and have a head on your shoulders, but do you have an explanation for this, then? I struggle with that supposedly Stalin wanted to almost outlaw Sharia law or women wearing full Niqab/Hijabs, but he was convinced not to. That doesn't mean thatnthe state wasn't too hard or soft on Islam, it's still definitely possible, and I understand my anecdote is removed from my perspective and could be wrong, but I struggle to "jell" that.
No worries comrade. Religion is always a tricky issue for Communists... while we are materialists and do not usually agree with the idealism of religion (of which I count myself), religion is a deep rooted part of people's culture that many people hold dear due to familial reasons or otherwise, especially in times of duress and poverty. It's usually best to live and let live. For example, in 1941 when the Great Patriotic War happened, people flocked to churches in fear, and Stalin knew to just let people do that, lest it build resentment at the difficult time. But then after the war, anti-religious sentiment was stepped up, and built so much resentment that we have the very hyper-religious Russia of today. Although I don't care much for the social democracies of Europe for many reasons, I think having a strong education system (to put it broadly) like theirs is the best tool as people will slowly turn away from religion over the generations once the fear of "this world" is less pronounced and their material needs are met and they are less inclined to find hope in the "next world".
I wonder just how avoidable this was for them. They didn't want to invade, but sometimes in chess you are positioned into making shitty moves by your opponent.
and long before that, they should have challenged high-level party members to ensure ideological consistency and thereby weed out opportunists like Khrushchev
"Conscientious practice of self-criticism is still another hallmark distinguishing our Party from all other political parties. As we say, dust will accumulate if a room is not cleaned regularly, our faces will get dirty if they are not washed regularly. Our comrades' minds and our Party's work may also collect dust, and also need sweeping and washing." - Mao Zedong
They should have allowed Stalin to step down when he wanted to. So he could act as a guide and mentor for the next leaders. Instead they worked him to death and then let Khrushchev step in and start fucking everything up.
I would've also wondered if things would've changed by more rapidly uplifting members of the YCLSU into full party administrative positions commonly held by the old guard would've helped reconnect the gaping wound generation gap caused by the great patriotic war by putting them directly under the the old Bolsheviks as mentorees in addition to lowering the average age of the gerontocracy by decades
I thought this was a generally good overview. TLDR is that mass privatization was the key driver of the collapse, and this was the key difference between what USSR and China. Soviet leadership ended up buying into western bullshit economics model while China did not. However, even this could've been reversed if the military didn't allow Yeltsin's coup to go on.
If Heydar Aliyev got the top job instead of Gorbachev, the USSR would've still existed to this day. Interesting article on it (Russian).
Aliyev would not have allowed us to lose our country that fast and that easily, and he was a very intelligent politician, just look at Azerbaijan now and Azerbaijan in the early 90s.
For those that don't know, Aliyev was the leader of the Azerbaijan SSR from 1969 to 1982, and afterwards he was a high-ranking member of the politburo, even becoming the First Deputy Premier at one point.
