ON FEBRUARY 8, Mikhail Gorbachev announced that Soviet troops would withdraw from Afghanistan in the ten months following May 15, 1988.
The fact that the withdrawal of these troops was decided on when "the causes that led to their presence in the country" — to repeat the phrase used by Leonid Brezhnev in the wake of the Soviet intervention — have not disappeared but are more operative than ever, is in itself a striking recognition of failure. More than eight years after the start of the intervention, the balance sheet is terribly negative:
• The USSR is bogged down in an invasion, which has led to slaughter and enormous destruction.
• Its intervention has run up against deepgoing hostility from the great majority of the Afghan population.
• The Afghan reactionary forces have been able to increase their influence enormously in the name of a struggle against the invader.
• The "progressive" regime in Kabul is even more unpopular and more fragile than it was on the eve of the Soviet intervention.
• The intervention in Afghanistan by US imperialism and its regional partners — including in particular Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, through their aid to the "Mujahadin" — is greater than ever.
• US imperialism and its European allies have gained considerable political advantage from the the vast revulsion of world public opinion, including in the workers' movement, against the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
• In the USSR itself, this "dirty war" has engendered "moral gangrene" in the ranks of the army and deepgoing discontent in the population. This is especially true in the "Muslim" republics, where anti-communist Islamic propaganda has enjoyed a vigor unequalled for several decades.
Why the we called for withdrawal
The Fourth International correctly judged that the massive intervention of Soviet troops, as it unfolded, was not only contrary to the right of self-determination of the people of Afghanistan but also to the real interests of the struggle of the exploited and oppressed throughout the region and to those of the Soviet workers' state. The prolongation of this intervention could only aggravate the harm that it did to these interests. This is why the Fourth International called for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
The withdrawal decision announced by Mikhail Gorbachev will be executed when the damage that it aims to limit has long since grown to enormous proportions.
In his February 8 statement, Gorbachev clearly refused to link the withdrawal of Soviet troops to an agreement with Washington and Islamabad on the formation of a new Afghan government, as is being demanded by the Pakistani dictatorship.
"This is a purely internal Afghan problem. Only the Afghans can settle it, even if they belong to different, or even opposing camps. When it is suggested that the Soviet Union must take part in negotiations over this and still more with third states, we answer clearly: Spare us this, it is not our problem, or yours." That is what Mikhail Gorbachev has said.
This attitude is in total contradiction with the crude interference represented by the intervention of Soviet troops in Kabul in December 1979, just as it stands in contradiction to the very numerous occasions throughout the history of the Soviet bureaucracy when it has negotiated the fate of governments in other countries with imperialism and forced its allies in these countries to conform to the results of these negotiations.
The coming months and years will make it possible to verify whether the principle declared by Gorbachev is more than a purely circumstantial argument, especially since under Gorbachev Moscow today is advocating a worldwide course of "reconciliation" marked by the worst kind of "peaceful coexistence" illusions. This conciliationist course has already revealed its futility in Afghanistan, where Najibullah's "national reconciliation" got the brush-off from the reactionary Islamic Alliance.
However, this did not keep Gorbachev in his February 8 statement from expressing a wish for the same sort of "reconciliation" for the Middle East, South Africa, Kampuchea and Central America! We will oppose any attempt by the Kremlin to pressure the peoples of these countries and regions into accepting so-called reconciliation with their worst enemies.
The USSR's duty is to provide aid, without strings, to the peoples struggling against imperialism and reaction. Only the leaderships of these struggles have the right to negotiate compromises with the imperialists and their partners. In this respect, since Moscow initially made ending US and Pakistani aid to the Mujahadin a condition for the withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, it rapidly found itself confronted with a new condition from Washington — the ending of Soviet aid to the Kabul government following the withdrawal of Soviet troops.
This sort of trading between Moscow and Washington, over the heads of their respective allies, in the last analysis can only harm the more advanced revolutionary struggles. To get what it wants in Afghanistan for example, Moscow might be led to make concessions at the expense of Nicaragua, which is less important for its own security. This is why, rejecting such deals in principle, we call for a withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan without negotiations between Moscow and Washington. The USSR must withdraw its forces from Afghanistan without delay, and continue to provide aid for the Afghan progressive forces struggling against the feudal-tribal and Islamic reactionaries, who are supported by imperialist and the reactionary Muslim states. It should conform to the announcement by Moscow on March 17 that its troops will withdraw, even if no agreement is reached with Pakistan and the United States. Moscow is continuing, however, to express its desire for such an accord and to pursue that end.
Washington raises the stakes
Even before being implemented, the Soviet decision has already sown deepgoing disarray in the enemy camp. This is true at an international level. The most reactionary currents in the imperialist countries are disgusted by the perspective of losing what has been one of their main anti-Soviet arguments in recent years. Some have gone so far as to denounce the decision for a Soviet withdrawal, calling it "Machiavellian"! Far from making it easier for Moscow to withdraw its troops, the US is upping the ante.
The same thing is happening on the ground. After having concealed their differences and rivalries behind a facade of unity against the Soviet invader, the various components of the Islamic Alliance based in Peshawar, on Pakistani territory, are clashing more and more openly. Recently, the strongest of these forces, but also the most fanatical and the most reactionary — Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islamic — has taken the leadership of the Alliance. As the Soviet troops withdraw, the Mujahadin organizations will lose their aura of "freedom fighters," as Reagan calls them, and appear as they are — profoundly corrupt reactionary organizations representing contending, irreconcilable ambitions for power.
If, however, the government proves incapable of surviving the Soviet withdrawal, its fall would anyway be a lesser evil than the Soviet Union getting bogged down indefinitely in Afghanistan. In any event, in the long run, the withdrawal will benefit the development of a mass revolutionary movement in Afghanistan and in its neighboring countries.