Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party in March of 1985. He inherited a war that had become a Vietnam-like quagmire. From its earliest days of power, the Gorbachev team, led by foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, concluded that the Soviet Union must find a face-saving way out of Afghanistan. The ineffective Babrak Karmal was replaced by the former chief of the Afghan secret police, Mohammad Najibullah, who also was unable to negotiate a national reconciliation. In 1988, the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan signed an agreement known as the Geneva Accords, which called for the withdrawal of Soviet troops with a United Nations' special mission to oversee the agreement. On February 15, 1989, the last Soviet troops were withdrawn, but the civil war continued and, in fact, never ended. By 1996, the Taliban had gained control of most of Afghanistan, although hostilities continued, and they ruled from 1996 until their ouster in 2001.
The Soviet withdrawal represented one of the low points in Soviet history. One of the last documents in the Central Committee files is a position paper prepared by Shevardnadze and five other Politburo members on January 23, 1989, three weeks before the departure of the last contingent of Soviet troops. The downbeat memo confirms the tense situation in Afghanistan as both sides awaited the February 15 deadline:
The government is holding its positions but only due to the assistance of Soviet troops and all understand that the main battle lies ahead. The opposition has even reduced its activities, saving its strength for the next period. Comrade Najibullah thinks that they are prepared to move after the withdrawal. Our Afghan comrades are seriously concerned as to what will happen. . . . They express their understanding of the decision to withdraw troops but soberly think they cannot manage without our troops.
The current situation raises for us a number of complicated issues. On the one hand, if we renege on our decision to withdraw troops by
February 15, there would be extremely undesirable complications on the international front. On the other hand, there is no certainty that after our withdrawal there will not be an extremely serious threat to a regime which the entire world associates with us. Moreover, the opposition can at any time begin to coordinate its activities, which is what American and Pakistan military circles are pushing for. There is a also a danger that there is no true unity in the Afghanistan party, which is split into factions and clans.
The memo concludes that the Afghan government can hold Kabul and other cities, but expresses concern that a siege could starve out these cities. Soviet troops would be needed to keep supply lines open, but there is no way, under existing agreements, to keep them in the country.
In effect, the Gorbachev government was conceding that Afghanistan was lost and that there was nothing the Soviet Union could do to stop it. The USSR's reputation would be damaged and its influence in the region lost. Gorbachev's decision not to further prop up foreign communist regimes became the Gorbachev Doctrine of nonintervention in Eastern Europe and East Germany.
World History
