Despite Moscow's bureaucratic methods, its intervention in Afghanistan last December was motivated on defensive grounds. It was to protect the Amin government's progressive social measures trom being overturned by US-backed reactionary guerrillas.
The real threat to world peace comes from London and Washington now so energetically beating the war drums. The aim of such a campaign is clearly to prepare the ground for military action abroad and to undermine, at home, mounting opposition to their anti-working class policies.
THRUST It is for this reason that socialists completely oppose the hysterical calls in the press on the USSR to withdraw its troops. Whatever differences may be held with the bureaucratic methods of the Kremlin, the advance of the Red Army was to defend the gains of the Amin regime against a rightwing backlash.
In a civil war - such as the one developing in Afghanistan today -socialists must take a clear position. Certainly they do not call upon forces aiding the fight against reaction to withdraw from the battlefield and leave it open to US-backed monarchists and other reactionary forces. ionary forces in Afghanistan.
vention a 'violation' of the less lofty. As the New York into the government "... will depend largely on convincing to the CP daily are said to be ership position. These worker they were looking for a party that stood on the side of the oppressed against capitalism.
Their revulsion at the CP leaders' pro-imperialist line -as on Afghanistan - will, in the period ahead, open their minds increasingly to those who do oppose class-collaboration and imperialism.
Leaders of the Italian CP are meeting wide-spread anger from rank and file members over their 'condemning of the Soviet decision to use troops against reactThe CP leaders call the interComoalanes principle of self-determination.
But their real considerations are Times pointed out, the chances of the Italian Stalinists getting non-Communist Parties that they are independent from Moscow".
This is the real reason behind their position which they have tried to force down the throats of the party mass base. Letters running 5 to 1 against the leadmilitants joined the CP because introducing). The third was to begin aiding the reactionary forces based in Pakistan (under the benevolent eye of the military dictator General Zia).
According to the Washingtonbased magazine Counterspy, US aid to these guerrilla forces included financial support, equipment and the use of CIA members in the training of INADEQUATE Faced with this growing menace, the PDPA regime proved itself to be quite inadequate in defending the Afghan revolution. The leaders of the party - Taraki, Karmal & Amin -- were Stalinist by training and experience. Like their mentors in Moscow, they thought the revolution should be 'contained' within a national democratic stage (which meant tying the working class to a bloc with the 'progressive' sectors of the ruling class).
What this meant in practice was that the PDPA regime constantly sought to limit the revolutionary development within the "scheme' they had set out. They were frightened of mass mobilisations of the workers and peasants in case their actions 'got out of hand' and went further than intended.
This was evident both in the ot so doing in areas where women were bradluonally segregated from men in public life.
Similarly, in carrying out land reform, insufficient attention was paid to organising the provision of agricultural assistance to the new peasant owners who had previously relied on landlords for seed, tertilisers etc.
REPRESSIVE Moreover, the regime resorted more and more to repression to combat any forms of dissent. Criticism of bureaucratic methods used was met with dismissal from posts, imprisonment or execution. The Aqua, a secret police force assisted by Soviet advisers, was set up to deal with any opposition.
This lack of democracy combined with the bureaucratic methods of the regime - alienated a large amount of potential support and ensured that the popularity of the PDPA remained narrow.
Its ability to combat the reactionary forces was further weakened by the intense factional struggle that emerged within its ranks and which sapped its morale. It was as part of these struggles that, in 1979, Taraki was deposed and Amin came to powel.
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