1869, Ep. 147 with Vassily Klimentov, author of A Slow Reckoning

8:47PM Feb 26, 2024

Speakers:

Jonathan Hall

Vassily Klimentov

Keywords:

soviets

afghanistan

islam

soviet

war

communist

people

soviet union

thought

soviet afghan

afghan

islamic

central asia

parallels

russia

disappeared

fighting

book

context

islamism

Welcome to 1869, The Cornell University Press Podcast. I'm Jonathan Hall. In this episode we speak with Vassily Klimentov, author of the new book A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists and Islam. Vassily Klimentov is an SNSF postdoctoral fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, and a Research Associate at the Geneva Graduate Institute, the institution where he got his PhD in international history. We spoke to Vassily about how the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan failed in large part due to the Soviets disregard for Islam; how this miscalculation was fueled by communist ideology; and, what parallel lessons the Soviet Union in the United States could have both learned from their occupations of Afghanistan. Hello, Vassiliy, welcome to the podcast.

Hi, Jonathan. Thanks for having me.

It's a pleasure. And I'm looking forward to talking to you about your new book from our Northern Illinois University Press imprint, A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists and Islam. Tell us the backstory to this book, how did it come to be?

Okay, it came to be in an odd way. I had a career before being an academic, I was, as you mentioned a worker, I was working in the Middle East, on the Syrian crisis between 2014 and 2015. And before that, I was working in other countries and in Switzerland, and so I was there when Russia started bombing Syria in 2015. And it was very much of an unexpected event for a lot of the observers, I was a Needs and Assessment Officer in one of the British NGOs, but and so I always wanted to maybe go back to academy, but this kind of event made me think about what would be the the history of that. Russia hadn't been involved in a war abroad for a very long time, and actually, since the Soviet Afghan war. And here again, it was at war with some type of Islamist opposition or Muslim Islamic opposition, whatever you, you call it. And so initially, my idea was actually to look at the I don't want to say the long duration, I want to say that the kind of the broader period going back from the 70s, to the present of Russia's interactions with Islam and Islamism, and how it came to be aware of that problem in Russia's view, and how it thought it could be a basically a threat to Russia. Because if people remember, in 2015, the major justification for bombing Syria postulated by Russia was to fight Islamists before they come to Russia, you could believe that entirely. We could believe that, to some extent, it doesn't matter. The question is, how how these kind of obsession with Islamism came to be and I wanted to start, since I'm a historian by training, I wanted to start at the origins and the origins were very much linked to the Soviet Afghan war. And so that's how I came to I basically left my job and returned, I started a PhD in Geneva, and wanted to start with this, so I got to work thinking this would actually become the first part of a longer study. But it actually ended up being just the study itself.

Nice, nice. Yes, your book is over 300 pages, a lot of information in this book, very impressive. Part of the beginning of your research you went to the archives in Moscow, and you mentioned this in the book that you found the notes of one of the Soviet ambassadors to Afghanistan, and in his assessment of the Soviet Afghan war, he believed Islam had been the main impediment to the Soviets in Afghanistan. Tell us more about how the Soviet's inability to deal with Islam in Afghanistan brought about their downfall.

All right. So yeah, obviously, this document I found it very early on. And so at the time it was still fine to go to Russia, it was basically from the period from 2016 to 2020. And so it was one of the first documents I saw it was at the State Archive of Social Political History. They had the notes of Nikolay Egorychev and Egorychev and was one of the last Soviet ambassadors to Afghanistan, he was there in 1988. So there at the very end when the Soviets were already withdrawing, so they had actually come to terms with the idea that the war was over, that they had lost it and that they would be leaving without having basically achieved much--that they would be leaving but the communist regime would somehow stay. But there was a lot of concern on the Soviet side that actually for like for the pro-American regime and the Islamic will fall just after the withdrawal in 89. So a lot of the Soviets were talking at the time but Okay, is it gonna be like for the Americans in Saigon, but actually, we leave and six months later, the communists are out. This is not what's going to happen. But still, this was the concern at the time. And so there was a lot of soul searching and introspection and discussions about like, Well, how did things go so wrong? Because after 10 years, there was this understanding, but literally nothing has been achieved. But the territory held by the Soviet / communist Afghan forces was roughly the same as in 79 when the Soviets arrived, Afghanistan intervened in Afghanistan. And they were nowhere closer to building socialism. And so Egorychev was very much making. In his notes, basically, a pros and cons. He had these two columns, and he was trying to figure out much in the same way, like anyone would do about any topic of trying to put Well, what are the factors which played against the Soviets and what factors played for the Soviets and you will find a lot, a lot of things which were quite, well you would expect basically that, yes, the Mujahideen, so the Soviets, the Islamic opposition, fighting the Soviets and the Afghan communist forces had support from abroad, it had popular support, it was much more used to fighting in the Afghan mountainous terrain. It was much more motivated, much more cohesive, it has a clear ideology. But interestingly, his first point was Islam. But he thought that the Soviets were never able to get the politics on Islam, right. And this was a major reason, in his mind, probably the first reason he puts explaining a paradoxical and this was interesting and basically launched me into this idea of like, what should have happens for someone who was very much a staunch communist the cynical ideology of he was a former Moscow communist party boss, he was as hardline as it gets. He was one of the people in the hardline faction who was marginalized after the there was a fight for Khrushchev succession. And he was in the hardline faction and eventually, relative to cover, but he was among the people who actually more hardline than Brezhnev. So how does it come with someone as convinced as him of the communist for that actually, the problem was with religion. And this leads me to the project. And this kind of leads to the whole idea about the book of how the Soviets who came with very much ideology in hand with the idea of building this socialist utopia of going with heavy industrialization, land reform, the collectivization of agriculture, mass education, women's education, notably, and also the idea that they will jumpstart Afghanistan from, quote, unquote, the Middle Ages, basically, how they saw it to some kind of Soviet style progress with this very much pre build houses with massive infrastructure projects, but also very much in terms of culture was what the Soviets saw as culture and traditions mean, which religion will be disappearing, more or less slowly, and but it will become more and more as obsolete to the Afghan to the Afghan man who would be interested in electrification and healthcare and running water and all these ideas of like, how the Soviets will much so progress, very much a material progress, and which would very much marginalize or rendered completely uninteresting for like, local traditions, and local religion. And this didn't happen at all, actually, they found that interest or this kind of progress and innovation was absolutely not as high as they thought. And but on the contrary, the local contexts played a bigger role, the local religion was very strong local traditions were very strong, and not being able to have a strategy to both integrate and actually adapt their communist playbook to the context was a major reason for my failure. So this is one of the stories that the book tells about how they started using a logical approach, and ended up very much withdrawing but still when they were withdrawing they were still trying to have a much more kind of watered down vision for Afghanistan.

It's fascinating. It's just amazing to see, you know, ideology meets religion, and with the Marxist Leninist view of religion, being replaced by progressive communism and modernism, they thought that Islamism would be replaced, and people would go to communism, and clearly as you stated, that didn't happen. Only the KGB realized the threat that Islamism post, tell us how this ideological blindness impacted the Soviets efforts.

So yeah, the story about the KGB is, is quite interesting. So I wouldn't say that only the KGB realized it. It's actually partly true. So the funny thing was that the Soviets who came to Afghanistan to build socialism, also had a very and this is very much constituted, but they actually had to a very kind of distorted view of the Soviet Union itself. So people, policymakers from Moscow, most of them actually believed that I call the Soviet Union, there was a kind of uniformity, that, for example, Islam had more or less disappeared in Soviet Muslim regions. This wasn't the case at all. So in their minds, they had this blueprint of Soviet Central Asia, which is Muslim, as a blueprint for Afghanistan, thinking that actually we like to call a good socialist order was very much similar in Central Asia, as it was, for example, in western in the western Soviet Union, this wasn't the case at all, actually, it's kind of had moved to the private sphere in Central Asia, there's quite a bit of new research and that it was so out of the public sphere, but it has very much remained strong. So it hadn't at all disappeared. And so there was a lot of mismatch, as we discovered, but including the Soviet Union, the situation was not as clear as it sounded, and, but actually, the Islamic region was not disappearing everywhere. And so the KGB was a bit more concerned about Islam and Islam is because it was tasked with monitoring Islamism, and basically all anti-Soviet activities within the Soviet Union. But it was also very much mistaken visit, because it has this obsession with the foreign hands. And so the method is concerned with browsing history, that possible contagion from Afghanistan into Soviet Central Asia. However, they always do it from a foreign hand. They never thought that this could be an appealing ideology for Soviet Muslims, they always thought that well, the Iranians or the Americans or the Pakistani or the Afghan, which someone had to be behind them in the Soviet Union, trying to promote that showed that there was no interest. And so the KGB was also very much misled, about about Islam and Islam.

I think it's fascinating that, that they own assessment within the USSR within Central Asia, that Islam had gone into the private sphere hidden, but they weren't able to see that, that they weren't able to see that they were blinded by their ideology. So they thought that that Central Asian blueprint, oh, we can just bring that that progress in quotes to Afghanistan. And clearly that wasn't the case.

Yeah, I mean, this is a fun story to talk about about a bit. I, it comes that so the Soviet Union was both a very authoritarian country, but one where you actually had quite quite a level of decentralization, in the sense that the people in charge of this Soviet republics of Central Asia were mostly local, or like almost always local, so communist, for sure, but Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Kazakh, and so on. And so it was a strong interest from them to report to Moscow, but Well, everything is fine. Like Islam is disappearing, we're like very much on top of things. And so for a long time, that's how there's a lot of the huge story, which is also how they reported about cotton production, that it was increasing, increasing until a big scandal happens when it happened, but it was absolutely not increasing. But it was also the same on Islam. They have been reporting for years that Islam had more or less disappeared, until the late 80s, when actually everybody discovered but even party functionaries were very much attending Islamic burials and various Islamic rituals and so on. And but even if they actually cultivated Islam in the private sphere, they will just start talking about that much. And everybody was very happy with this kind of, I don't like Yeah, could you could say, syncretism, which has emerged between communism and Islam, which was partly cultural, but also partly a way of traditionally organizing things in these regions. And so these were not typically the people in Afghanistan, the people, I'm guessing were the, the more like ethnically Russian people who felt that well, Islam had disappeared the Soviet Union since the 30s, more or less, and taht we are now able to gradually see it disappearing in Afghanistan. And this doesn't mean they will conducting at a some lectures in Afghanistan, for example, all this was part of it, but it was not a central, it was just a basic disregarding region as something not important. We will not not paying much attention to it as any kind of factor. And thinking, Well, yeah, that's, that's completely irrelevant, more or less. And so by treating it as completely irrelevant, we have ended up basically completely leaving Islam to the Mujahideen. And when they ended up thinking, well, they had to hide somehow to also try to, to propose their own, let's say Islamic communism. So it was, it was too late. It was already late 80s. And the war had been lost and kind of any attempt that that's a winning hearts and minds to use, like an anachronic term. This was passed. There was maybe a window in from 1980 to 1982. To do something for the Soviets with the Afghan Congress on having a bit of building popular support numbers and after that period passed the situation could not be salvaged.

So they realized too late, they realized too late. So winning hearts and minds, you use that term what what lessons could the US have made in their own war in Afghanistan, which clearly didn't work out as well, either? What are some lessons they could have learned? or and or were there any lessons that they did learn?

It's a good question. I mean, I think there are many, many parallels. As far as I know, as far as I understand, the US hadn't much interest in the Soviet experience, thinking that very kind of war will be very different. They developed more interest for the Soviet experience with time, as they became as well stuck in fighting in Afghanistan. And this idea of parallels, I though quite a bit. It's I think, to kind of understand to which extent there is a repetition of mistakes is fascinating. Because you would think that wars are different. And there are obviously quite a lot of difference. But the parallels in the warss and the mistakes made by the two superpowers fighting in the same place are very much notable. And I will mention a few here because I had tried to kind of, again, not not all of them, but I think the key idea is the United States, both, like the Soviets had this belief that they would impose their own development model on Afghanistan. And surely, it's different from the communist model, in some ways, but it's also this idea that they would come they would offer this development model, they will promote it, including by force, and that people will support it because they want progress because they want running water, because they wanted electrification, infrastructure, healthcare education, and that just by building that, you will aggregate support from the African population, and investment that was kind of forced forced for modernization or rapid modernization, it it's very similar between the two. And both times it hasn't worked, you could say, maybe it was obviously more heavy handed from the Soviets. But a lot of that infrastructure building generates all of that industrialization is very similar and has failed both times. And both times, the forces which came had and there was quite a lot of stories you could find about that it in the book about the Soviets had no knowledge about the context. They didn't really bother about studying Afghanistan in advance. And they actually even sidelined the people who knew about Afghanistan. So It's true, because the idea was that well, the communist playbook, in like the dogma should work more or less the same way anywhere. This is the idea behind the the communist thing is that it's it's reproducible. You could have it here, you could do it again, it's good with anywhere. And so you don't really need to adapt anything to the context to Islam to just you come and you do it like, like Marx. And so there was also this belief in in the western idea, like democratization, but also this kind of progress, it should work. You don't have to do much context adaptation. And so you don't have to, they're all saying you don't have to really know about what what in groups or where the language is, or what the religion says or what's the trajectory of the traditions are just come, and you do infrastructure projects, and then you have a lot of other powers, you have this idea that being so ideological and dogmatic, the Soviets never really tried to coopt too much of the opposition in the beginning. This would come much, much later on, you will think it could we separate the people who are very much ideologically bent on fighting us from people who we could bring in some kind of coalition government, with the Afghan communists. And they were opportunities early on which we didn't exploit. And then it was too late, the same for the United States, a lot has been said about not being able to split the Taliban early on from the ones who maybe have been, would have been amenable to talk with a pro US government, from, for example, the al Qaeda and the radicalized groups who were absolutely bent on fighting until the end. You could think about the idea that being both quite ideological, you didn't have any kind of exit strategy. The Soviets didn't have any kind of benchmark of like, what would look like the end of the Soviet project in Afghanistan they came thinking it was for a few weeks, then it was for a few months. And 10 years later, they were leaving. Much like the Soviets did, the States came without a clear idea of how long this commitment will last and it lasted for 20 years. And so this idea that when you don't have a real project or real state building project and you don't know what the milestones are, was very similar. The difficulty of managing their Afghan allies that's that's a fascinating one and a very fun once the Soviet struggled in imposing any kind of discipline. On the Soviet on the Afghan communists of trying to reconcile you had always been fighting you had always corruption, always a lot of problems. With the problem being that you could not easily change them. You're more stuck with your local allies, and they actually have much more agency. But it was often found in the literature before that, because they know from time they know the context much better. They know the local situation much better. They know actually what to say, to Soviet allies to orient their activities in a certain direction. There's high turnover among the Soviets. So every time a new person comes, they're very much dependent on local, on the local communists and so on. And you could not really replace the person in charge, without making it look like a failure. And as I'm telling that story, obviously, it resonates very strongly with with the American experience, where you had a similar situation, we have a lot of turnover, where even you have very much disappointment with the Hamad Karzai at the time, how would you replace him or his ministers, whoever you can't, and so we are stuck in that situation. Over time, the role of Pakistan has been much analysed as well, it was obviously an enemy in Soviet times. But even if it was an ally of the United States during the war, it still was a sanctuary for the forces opposing the Americans. And so in that sense, is this kind of the more for the military buffs, but this idea that, quote unquote sealing the border, it was very much central to military operations in both wars, that you could not win in Afghanistan, if you're unable to control the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And in both wars, they tried, and they basically failed at finding a way because they never had enough troops to divert to prevent the movement across the borders are fighters, for example, that would come go to sanctuaries, replenish, come back, and so on. And so this was also the problem. So there are a lot of them. And maybe one one, I will I will come to to to, again, is also the one about Islam, is that we disregard to Islam tradition, context, it was also present in the in the American war, the Americans had not much idea about Islam, they didn't think about adopting anything, we didn't think about coopting Islamic into the regime, assuming that it was important. And like the Soviets, they by default, left the claim to Islamic legitimacy to the opposition. And the Mujahideen had it fighting the Soviets and the Taliban had it fighting the Americans, saying that we are actually Muslim warriors training for an infidels who are here to destroy Islam, and not being able to address that claim, that very central kind of dichotomy claim about the war was a major problem for the Americans. And they have tried, but it never kind of worked out. And so I mentioned just a few here, I could do a lot more. But it's really fascinating how these wars resonate. They obviously also differences, right? I think one of the, the central ones I will just end on that is that, like the for the Soviets, I mentioned that window in 80/81. The window for the Americans was a bit clearer for the Soviets maybe was a window, but when the Soviets came to kind of prop, a falling communist regime, or comments within which was already very much struggle, which was present before the Soviets came, but which was struggling, they didn't have much popularity, or they had some popular support in communist quarter, but not much. And then they lost it very quickly as they started bombing against, I think, the honeymoon and kind of the popular support enjoyed by the US forces and the allied forces, I'm guessing it was longer, that you actually had a year and a half, two years from 2000 to one, maybe 2003, when you had a lot of enthusiasm from the American project. But you actually had a real possibility to turn things around after the Taliban defeat. And then you you had popular support, and maybe this is a major difference. But that was a bigger chance of success.

Interesting, interesting. Yeah, those are amazing parallels and but I like to come back to the point is that Islam was the the deciding factor for both wars in that here are two of the world's largest armies at the time, going against one of the poorest countries in the world. And these these invading armies, spending billions of rubles or billions of dollars, but but not having any core mission and not having any understanding of the people on the ground. It's a it's a tragedy, ultimately.

The book is about theSoviet Afghan war, but it's it's also an important one to study if you're interested in any of the conflicts involving the Russia after Afghanistan. So we talked about the parallels between the Soviet Afghan War and the US Afghan war if you want to call it like, but there's also quite a lot to say about the parallels between the Soviet Afghan War and the wars in the Caucasus in Chechnya in the 1990s. In Chechnya, again in the 2000, but also with war between Russia and Ukraine right now, the way the invasion of Ukraine has happened. There's many parallels with the ways the intervention, the invasion of Afghanistan has happened in in 79. And so this kind of historical repetitions it is good to be aware of thembecause it helps contextualize, and it helps analyze, because often people see every kind of event as completely unique and independent and having almost no, no context and no history. That's not so actually, when you when you look at the broader picture it is this repetition of policymaking decisions, these kind of more heavy trends in terms of how foreign policy for example, here of process as the Soviet Union operates. And so that's also interesting to know.

That's a great point. Your book not only covers the Soviet Afghan war, but it basically offers a background to all the wars that came after that all the way up to the Ukraine war. So anyone that wants to understand the historical background to the war in Ukraine, I would strongly recommend you read Vassily's new book, A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists, and Islam. It was a pleasure talking with you.

Thank you very much, Jonathan. Thank you much for interviewing me for a podcast. I mean, it's a pleasure for my book to be out with Cornell University Press, and hopefully many people will read it.

That was Vassily Klimentov author of the new book A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists and Islam. If you'd like to read Vassily's new book, use the promo code 09POD to save 30% on our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu. If you live in the UK and want to save 30%, please use the discount code CSANNOUNCE and visit the website combinedacademic.co.uk Thank you for listening to 1869, The Cornell University Press Podcast.