I REMAIN unrepentent on Afghanistan. I think the Russians were wrong to go in and the longer they stay the more damage they will do the cause of socialism in Afghanistan and elsewhere. It is obvious that hostility to the presence of Russian troops is now universal.
The recent demonstrations and strikes in the cities provide grim testimony to this fact. Can anyone seriously doubt that an overwhelming majority of the population of Afghanistan would, if offered the choice, demand the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops?
That this is the case is also clear to the Soviet leaders. Their sole aim is to ensure political stability in Afghanistan in order to safeguard their own interests inside the USSR. The intervention was intended as an injection to inoculate Afghanistan and prevent the virus from spreading to Soviet Central Asia:
So, if the West is prepared to put pressure on the motley rebel groups to do a dea set up a national coalition government and ensure stability, Brezhnev could well order a withdrawal. Those who are opposed to a withdrawal will then scream "betrayal', but it is only their illusions that will have been betrayed.
WHILE on the subject of Afghanistan I would draw the attention of readers to the latest issue of New Left Review, which contains another major article on the subject by Fred Halliday.
His pioneering article on Afghanistan was published several months ago and has become the source for virtually every article published in the far-left press on the subject. One been that the left in the West has been forced to study the history and evolution of this Door Asian country Fred Halliday is one of the few Marxists in the West who has paid consistent attention to the fate of revolutions in the 'third worid' His new article thus deseryes to be read by all those engaged in polemics on the subject.
I think there are two major weaknesses in Halliday's text. While extremely critical of the bureaucratic and repressive measures carried out by the late Hafizullah Amin, no serious alternatives are offered. Surely if revolutionary Marxists had, by a combination of interrelated factors, been propelled into power one of the first measures they would have promulgated would have been the preparation of ciccioral rous and an election of a constituent assembly.
This would not only have provided the Afghan left with a fair éstimate of the relationship of class forces on a national scale, it would have provided the most positive framework for proposing and. implementing social reforms.
Secondly, Halliday does not enter into a serious discussion of the Soviet invasion and the question of national self-determination. Given the meticulous attention which Halliday has paid to the North of Ireland and his support (with which i strongly disagree) for the right of Ulster Protestants to self-determination, this absence is strange. wonder?