The Soviet War in Afghanistan

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

P2/T2 Module

HIST 254
The Soviet War in Afghanistan

Module Convenor: Dr Mark Galeotti

When the Soviet military rolled into Afghanistan at

the end of 1979, it was in the expectation that it
would be staying no more than six months. A new
Afghan leader would be installed, the rebels cowed
by a display of modern firepower and that would be
that. The trouble was, the Afghans weren't prepared
to play by their rules, and the Soviets found
themselves bogged down in a ten-year war of
attrition that, while they did not lose, nor did they
manage to win.

This course will not only look at the war in its own
terms, it will use it as a means of exploring a much
wider range of issues. How did the aged Soviet
leadership come to make such a disastrous
blunder, and what does this tell us about power
politics in the Kremlin? How far did the huge gulf
between what the Soviet people were told was
happening in Afghanistan, and what they were
experiencing themselves, either directly or through
their sons, friends and husbands, contribute to
Gorbachev's policy of glasnost', openness?
Furthermore, the war can be used to raise and
discuss wider issues, about the impact of conflicts
on states and societies to the dilemmas of counter-
insurgency operations.

This is the reading list and course guide for both the lectures and the seminars. Individual
seminars will look in greater detail at aspects of the course raised during lectures, but do
please note that you will be required to show a knowledge of issues beyond those covered in
the seminars in the final exam.

Lectures
The 10 lecture slots will be taken up by 9 lectures and one showing of a video compilation of
extracts from documentaries about the war. Because of the logistical problems in booking a
suitable room and the video for the showing, exactly where it fits into the sequence is not yet
clear, but it will probably be in the latter weeks.
1. Introduction: Afghanistan and the Soviet Union and The Soviet Union in Crisis:
the decision to invade (This lecture will cover both these topics, which are listed
separately in this reading list.)
2. The Invasion and the Red Army
3. The War: neither lost nor won
4. Representations of the War: gossip and glasnost’

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The Soviet War in Afghanistan

5. The ‘Afghan Syndrome’: veterans and other victims

6. The War and Politics: veterans as groups and individuals
7. Learning the Lessons of the Battlefield
8. The Withdrawal and After
9. An Audit: the effects on Afghanistan and the USSR
10. Video Compilation

Seminar Groups
Different students may well have different interests and so the themes addressed by seminar
groups will vary slightly from group to group both to reflect this and to ease pressure on
books/journals. Groups will be following one of the following tracks:

Fighting the War for the military historians.

The Home Front, looking especially at the social and political impact back in the USSR.
Superpower Denied, concentrating more on the wider, international implications and
how Afghanistan contributed to the Soviet decline and collapse.

Seminar Fighting the War The Home Front Superpower Denied

1 Introduction; Introduction Introduction
2 2: The Soviet Union in 2: The Soviet Union in 1: Afghanistan and the
Crisis Crisis Soviet Union
3 3: The Invasion and the 5: Representations of the 2: The Soviet Union in
Red Army War Crisis
4 4: The War 6: The ‘Afghan Syndrome’ 3: The Invasion and the
Red Army
5 8: Learning the Lessons of 7: The War and Politics 9: The Withdrawal and
the Battlefield After
6 9: The Withdrawal and 10: An Audit 10: An Audit
After

Module Textbook
The required module textbook is M Galeotti, Afghanistan: the Soviet
Union’s last war (1995), which is available in paperback from the university
bookshop. The course is built around the structure and approach of the book,
so it really is worth getting it. Another book worth considering as an additional
purchase for the Fighting the War seminar focus is Scott McMichael’s
Stumbling Bear. There is no clear additional text for The Home Front,
although Svetlana Alexievich’s Zinky Boys is a fine collection of veterans’
experiences and well worth reading. While out of print, Roseanne Klass (ed), Afghanistan:
the Great Game revisited is a useful general source. Do not regard it as a text to cite or
even rely excessively on, but Milt Beardon’s fictional Black Tulip is a relatively well-
researched piece of fiction set in the war.

Assessment
HIST254 is assessed through the standard formula for Level II History modules:
40% Coursework essay, 2000-2500 words in length. Remember that marks may be
deducted for poor spelling and grammar, and also lateness.
20% Seminar Participation and Log.
40% Exam, a 2-hour unseen paper in which you will be asked to answer two questions. The
paper will be divided into three sections, reflecting the three seminar themes, and you
will have to answer one question from two. It is therefore important that you also revise
materials from the lectures outside the main focus of your seminar.

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1. Introduction: Afghanistan and the Soviet Union

Key themes
What kind of a country was Afghanistan?
What has its historical relationship with Russia been?
What was its relationship with the USSR before and after the 1978 ‘April Revolution’?

Required Reading
Galeotti M, Afghanistan: the Soviet Union's Last War, ch 1
Urban M, War in Afghanistan, ch 1

Useful Reading
Bradsher H, Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention
Ghaus A, The Fall of Afghanistan: an insider’s account
Grau L & Gress M (eds), The Soviet-Afghan War, pp 1-11
Hyman A, Afganistan under Soviet Domination, 1964-83
Magnus R, Afghanistan: Marx, Mullah and Muyahad
Urban M, War in Afghanistan, ch 2

Other Sources
Amstutz JB, Afghanistan: the first five years of Soviet occupation
Arnold A, Afghanistan: the Soviet invasion in perspective
Emadi H, State, Revolution and Superpowers in Afghanistan
Garrity P, The Soviet Penetration of Afghanistan
Girardet E, Afghanistan: the Soviet War, ch 5
Kakar MH, Afghanistan: the Soviet invasion and the Afghan response, 1979-82
McCauley M, Afghanistan and Central Asia
O’Ballance E, Afghan Wars, 1839-1992
Roy O, The Lessons of the Soviet/Afghan War
Steele J, The Limits of Soviet Power

Essay Titles
Why has Afghanistan historically been at the heart of so much rivalry between imperial powers?
Why has Afghanistan historically been such a difficult country for an imperial power to control?
Why has central power always been so weak in Afghanistan?
How ready was Afghanistan for the ideology brought by the ‘April Revolution’?
‘There is no such country as “Afghanistan” – instead there are many, many “Afghanistans.”’
Discuss with reference to the country before the Soviet invasion.

Afghanistan on the Net

As ever, be cautious with net-based sources, as it is often hard to assess their reliability. On the other
hand, there is a lot of excellent material, over and above that listed in the bibliography. Good starting
places are Afghan War 1979-89 @ http://www.afghanwar.spb.ru/index_e.html and Counter-
Insurgency Case Study 1: The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan @
http://www.specialoperations.com/Counterinsurgency/Afghanistan/.

When referencing a net-based source in an essay, give the page/article title, the full url (the long
location case, generally starting http://…) and also the date you accessed it (as some net sources will
change). It is thus vital that you print out what you use or take full notes at the time.

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2. The Soviet Union in Crisis: the decision to invade

Key themes
The growing problems of the PDPA.
Who supported and who opposed military intervention?
Soviet expectations as to the ease with which it could pacify Afghanistan.
What the decision to invade tells us about decision-making and Kremlin politics under Brezhnev.

Required Reading
Galeotti M, Afghanistan: the Soviet Union's Last War, ch 1
On future policy in connection with the situation in Afghanistan, Report to the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1 April 1979, SU&A:CWIHP (also to be distributed
at first lecture)

The Soviet Union and Afghanistan: Cold War International History Project Documents

This is an invaluable collection of translated classified documents placed on the net by the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars @ http://cwihp.si.edu/pdf/afghan-dossier.pdf. It contains
many very useful sources, over and above those noted in this bibliography (simply referenced as
SU&A:CWIHP). It can be printed off from the net, or a single hard copy is available in the
Departmental Library.

Useful Reading
CNN, The Cold War; episode 20: Soldiers of God, script on the internet @
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/20/script.html
Dobbs M, Down with Big Brother, pp 3-17
Galeotti M, The Age of Anxiety, ch 3
Ghaus A, The Fall of Afghanistan: an insider’s account
Grau L & Gress M (eds), The Soviet-Afghan War, pp 1-20
Grinevsky O, ‘Comparing Soviet and Russian decision-making in Afghanistan and Chechnya’,
Contemporary Caucasus Newsletter, Autumn 1998 – also on the net @ http://ist-
socrates.berkeley.edu/~bsp/caucasus/newsletter/1998-06_grinevsky.pdf
Lyakhovsky A, The Tragedy and Valour of the Afgan [in Russian] pp109-112, available in
translation @ http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/r8.doc
Marshall-Hasdell D, Soviet Military Reform and the Afghan Experience – Political Lessons
(RMAS SSRC Paper P12 1993) – also in the Departmental Library
Mendelson S, Changing Course
Parker J, Kremlin in Transition, vol. I, ch 3
The Soviet Union and Afghanistan: Cold War International History Project Documents,
SU&A:CWIHP
Urban M, War in Afghanistan, ch 2

Other Sources
Amstutz JB, Afghanistan: the first five years of Soviet occupation
Anwar R, The Tragedy of Afghanistan
Arnold A, Afghanistan: the Soviet invasion in perspective
Bradsher H, Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention
Hyman A, Afganistan under Soviet Domination, 1964-83
Kakar MH, Afghanistan: the Soviet invasion and the Afghan response, 1979-82
Khalilzad Z, ‘Moscow’s Afghan War’, Problems of Communism 35, 1 (1986)
Rees D, Afghanistan’s Role in Soviet Strategy
Valenta J, ‘Soviet decisionmaking on Afghanistan’, in Valenta J & Potter W (eds), Soviet
Decisionmaking for National Security

Essay Titles

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The Soviet War in Afghanistan

To what extent were the problems of the PDPA leadership the result of their lack of understanding
of their own people?
Why did the Soviet Union invade Afghanistan in 1979?
Was military intervention the only credible response to the growing problems of the PDPA?
How effectively and realistically did the Soviet leadership assess the implications of their decision
to invade?

3. The Invasion and the Red Army

Key themes
The conduct of the initial invasion.
The new Karmal regime.
Stiffening resistance.
The immediate international implications of the invasion.

Required Reading
Galeotti M, Afghanistan: the Soviet Union's Last War, chs 1, 2, 10, 11

Useful Reading
Dobbs M, Down with Big Brother, pp 18-24
Grau L & Gress M (eds), The Soviet-Afghan War, pp 1-20
McMichael S, Stumbling Bear, chs 1-2
Saikal A & Maley W (eds), The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, ch 6
Schofield C, The Russian Elite, ch 3
The Soviet Union and Afghanistan: Cold War International History Project Documents,
SU&A:CWIHP
Urban M, War in Afghanistan, chs 3-12, esp ch 12
Zaloga S, Inside the Blue Berets, ch 11

Other Sources
Amstutz JB, Afghanistan: the first five years of Soviet occupation
Arnold A, Afghanistan: the Soviet invasion in perspective
Blank S, Afghanistan and Beyond: reflections on the future of warfare (1993) also on the net @
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/ssipubs/pubs93e/afghan/afghan.pdf
CNN, The Cold War; episode 20: Soldiers of God, script on the internet @
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/20/script.html
Collins A, The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
Collins J, ‘The Soviet military performance in Afghanistan: a preliminary assessment’, Comparative
Strategy 4, 2 (1983)
Girardet E, Afghanistan: the Soviet War, ch 2
Ghaus A, The Fall of Afghanistan
Hyman A, Afghanistan under Soviet Domination, 1964-83
Kakar MH, Afghanistan: the Soviet invasion and the Afghan response, 1979-82
Khalilzad Z, ‘Moscow’s Afghan War’, Problems of Communism 35, 1 (1986)
Marshall-Hasdell D, Soviet Military Reform and the Afghan Experience – Political Lessons
(RMAS SSRC Paper P12 1993) – also in the Departmental Library
Marshall-Hasdell D, Soviet Military Reform and the Afghan Experience – Military Lessons
(RMAS SSRC Paper P13 1993) – also in the Departmental Library
Mendelson S, Changing Course, esp ch 3
Monks A, The Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan
O’Ballance E, Afghan Wars, 1839-1992
Saikal A & Maley W, Regime Change in Afghanistan

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The Soviet War in Afghanistan

Essay Titles
‘A stupid decision, executed flawlessly.’ Is this an accurate assessment of the initial invasion of
Afghanistan?
What grounds did the Soviets have for believing that a quick military intervention and the
installation of Karmal as Afghan leader would suffice to stabilise the situation in the country?

4. The War: neither lost nor won

Key themes
The conduct of the war: how this changed under successive Soviet leaders.
Changing Soviet approaches.
The rebels and their tactics.

Required Reading
Galeotti M, Afghanistan: the Soviet Union's Last War, chs 1, 2, 11

Useful Reading
Alexiev A, Inside the Soviet Army in Afghanistan
Blank S, Afghanistan and Beyond: reflections on the future of warfare (1993) also on the net @
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/ssipubs/pubs93e/afghan/afghan.pdf
Grau L (ed), The Bear Went Over the Mountain
Grau L & Gress M (eds), The Soviet-Afghan War, esp chs 4, 9
Khalilzad Z, ‘Moscow’s Afghan War’, Problems of Communism 35, 1 (1986)
McMichael S, Stumbling Bear
Marshall-Hasdell D, Soviet Military Reform and the Afghan Experience – Military Lessons
(RMAS SSRC Paper P13 1993) – also in the Departmental Library
Schofield C, The Russian Elite, ch 4
Urban M, War in Afghanistan, chs 3-12, esp ch 12
Zaloga S, Inside the Blue Berets, ch 12

The Foreign Military Studies Office

The US Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office employs some of the finest analysts of the Soviet and
now Russian military machines, and has produced some excellent detailed reports on specific
aspects of the Afghan War. See http://call.army.mil/fmso/fmsopubs/fmsopubs.htm#conflictaf for
a current listing. These are highly recommended.

Other Sources
Alexandrov S et al (eds), Afghanistan’s Unknown War: memoirs of Russian war veterans
Alexiev A, ‘Soviet strategy and the mujahedin’, Orbis 29, 1 (1985)
Blank S, ‘Imagining Afghanistan: lessons of a “small” war’, Journal of Soviet Military Studies 3, 3
(1990)
Carew T, Jihad! The Secret War in Afghanistan
Derleth J, ‘The Soviets in Afghanistan’, Armed Forces & Society 15, 1 (1988)
Grau L, ‘The Bear went over the Mountain: Soviet tactics and tactical lessons during their war in
Afghanistan’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 8, 1 (1995)
Isby D, Russia’s War in Afghanistan
Jajali A & Grau L, Afghan Guerrilla Warfare
Jajali A & Grau L, The Other Side of the Mountain
Magnus R, Afghanistan: Marx, Mullah and Muyahad
O’Ballance E, Afghan Wars, 1839-1992
Sabrosky A, ‘Red star falling? The Soviet “small war” in Afghanistan’, Smallk Wars & Counter-
Insurgencies 1, 1 (1990)
Saikal A & Maley W (eds), The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, ch 6
Yousaf M & Adkin M, Afghanistan: the bear trap
Zaloga S et al, Armour of the Afghanistan War

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Essay Titles
How effective was Chernenko’s bid to win a military victory?
How effective were the armed forces of the DRA?
Assess the importance of Soviet spetsnaz special forces in the conduct of the war.
How significant was US military assistance in the conduct of the war?
‘The finest guerrillas on the earth.’ Assess this description of the Afghan rebels.
Discuss the outcome and lessons of one of the following engagements: Panjshir 7 (1984),
Magistral (1987)

5. Representations of the War: gossip and glasnost’

Key themes
The slow relaxation of censorship on the war.
How Afghanistan contributed to wider processes of glasnost’.
What people thought and said about the war.

Required Reading
Galeotti M, Afghanistan: the Soviet Union's Last War, ch 5
Article in Pravda, 23 December 1979 (on the internet @
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/20/1st.draft/pravda.html)

Literary Representations of the War

The following are the key primary literary representations of the war available in English: Artem
Borovik’s The Hidden War and Gennady Bocharov’s Russian Roulette are essentially journalists’
accounts. Vladislav Tamarov’s Afghanistan: a Russian soldier’s story is a good first hand account
– his earlier book Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam is an interesting photo-essay. Oleg Sarin & Len
Dvoretsky’s hard-to-find The Afghan Syndrome is another good primary account. Svetlana
Alexievich’s Zinky Boys is an excellent and moving compilation of veterans’ accounts; Oleg
Yermakov’s Afghan Tales is a fictionalised series of accounts, as is Mikhail Evstafiev’s Art of War
(on the net @ http://www.artofwar.ru/english/mikhail_evstafiev/index_tale_evstafiev_engl.html). A
unique set of veterans’ stories is available in translation @
http://www.afghanwar.spb.ru/stories/index_e.htm. These are often hardly literature as such, but as a
genuine window into the experience of the war.

Alexander Prokhanov’s A Tree in the Centre of Kabul is a purely fictional attempt to put a positive
spin on the war, combining elements of thriller, love story and political pamphlet. From a completely
different perspective, Rob Schultheis was a Westerner living in Afghanistan, and his Night Letters tell
an interesting tale of life behind mujahedin lines. There are also, of course, umpteen Western
journalists’ ‘life among the rebels’ memoirs, most of which are depressingly poor, including Sandy
Gall’s Behind Russian Lines.

Useful Reading
Alexievich S, Zinky Boys
Borovik A, The Hidden War
Correspondent I. Shchedrov’s letter to the CC CPSU on the Situation in Afghanistan, 12
November 1981, Pravda, available on the net @
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/r15.doc
Kazemek F, ‘The Literature of Vietnam and Afghanistan: exploring war and peace with adolescents’,
The Allen Review 23, 3 (1996) – also on the net @
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/spring96/kazemek.html
Saikal A & Maley W (eds), The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, ch 5
Sheikh A, ‘Not the whole truth: Soviet and Western media coverage of the Afghan conflict’, Conflict
Quarterly 10, 4 (1990)
Shenfield S, ‘Making sense of Prokhanov’, Détente 9/10 (1988)

Other Sources

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Alexandrov S et al (eds), Afghanistan’s Unknown War: memoirs of Russian war veterans

Bocharov G, Russian Roulette
CNN, The Cold War; episode 20: Soldiers of God, script on the internet @
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/20/script.html
Heinemaa A, Leppanen M & Yurchenko Y (eds), The Soldiers’ Story
Marshall-Hasdell D, Soviet Military Reform and the Afghan Experience – Military Lessons
(RMAS SSRC Paper P13 1993) – also in the Departmental Library
Morozov I, ‘Goodbye, great mountains, we are going’, Soviet Literature August 1989
Prokhanov A, A Tree in the Centre of Kabul
Saikal A & Maley W (eds), The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, ch 5
Shneideman N, Soviet Literature in the 1980s

‘Afgan’ in the Soviet Media

The library has stocks of Current Digest of the Soviet Press, which printed translated articles, extracts
and abstracts – it is well worth looking through a few volumes (there are indexes) from relevant years
to get a sense for the changing tone of the reportage.

Essay Titles
How significant a role did the war play in the expansion of glasnost’ in Soviet media and public
debate?
How inevitable was the relaxation of Soviet censorship about the war?
‘Noteworthy more for the fact that it was about a one-censored war than for any real literary merit
or long-term effect.’ Discuss with reference either to the literature of the war in general or any one
book or author.

6. The ‘Afghan Syndrome’: veterans and other victims

Key themes
Why and how did veterans suffer when they came home?
Did this change over time?
Was this a ‘lost generation’?
Did the Afghan war radicalise Soviet Islam?

Required Reading
Galeotti M, Afghanistan: the Soviet Union's Last War, chs 4-5
Steele J, ‘Ivan, we hardly knew you’, The Guardian, 13 February 1989 – on the net @
http://www.guardiancentury.co.uk/1980-1989/Story/0,6051,110278,00.html

Useful Reading
Alexievich S, Zinky Boys
Arnold A, ‘The Situation in Afghanistan: how much of a threat to the Soviet state?’ in Shtromas A &
Kaplan M (eds), The Soviet Union and the Challenge of the Future, vol. III
Brill M & Fierman W, ‘The challenge of integration: Soviet nationality policy and the Moslem
conscript’, Soviet Union/Union Sovietique 14, 1 (1987)
Kuzio T, ‘Opposition in the USSR to the occupation of Afghanistan’, Central Asian Survey 6, 1 (1987)
Riordan J, ‘Return of the Afgantsy’, Détente 12 (1988)
Riordan J, ‘Teenage gangs, afgantsy and neo-fascists’, in Riordan J (ed), Soviet Youth Culture
Saikal A & Maley W (eds), The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, ch 5
‘The Tracks of War’, In Context, Winter 1989, also on the net @
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC20/Figley.htm

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Afgantsy in the Press

As well as the article by Steele, above, there are many other articles on the afgantsy in the Soviet and
Western press. Those available on the net include Peterson S, Christian Science Monitor, ‘Russia’s
veterans of Afghan war reinvent themselves’, 12 October 2000 @
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/10/12/fp7s1-csm.shtml and Schedrov O, ‘Russian veterans
still bitter a decade after Afghan exit’, Middle East Times, 14 February 1999 @
http://www.metimes.com/issue99-7/reg/russian_veterans_still.htm. It is also worth looking at the
Current Digest of the Soviet Press for the late 1980s (mentioned in the previous section) for Soviet
reportage: in particular, take a look at Rudenko I, ‘Duty’, Komsomol’skaya pravda, 26 February 1984
for the first account of the veterans and their problems.

Other Sources
Alexiev A, Inside the Soviet Army in Afghanistan
Alexiev A & Wimbush SE (eds), Ethnic Minorities in the Red Army
Clayton A, Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Soviet Army, 1979-1991 (paper, delivered March
1999) – on the net @ http://www.sovietarmy.com/documents/ethnicity.html
Dobson R, ‘Youth problems in the Soviet Union’ in Jones et al (eds) Soviet Social Problems
Jones E, Red Army and Society
Kramer J, ‘Drug abuse in the Soviet Union’, Problems of Communism March-April 1988
Kramer J, ‘Drug abuse in the USSR’ in Jones et al (eds) Soviet Social Problems
Marshall-Hasdell D, Soviet Military Reform and the Afghan Experience – Military Lessons
(RMAS SSRC Paper P13 1993) – also in the Departmental Library
Pilkington H, Russia’s Youth and its Culture, esp ch 4
Riordan J (ed), Soviet Youth Culture
Riordan J, ‘Soviet youth: pioneers of change’, Europe-Asia Studies 40, 4 (1988)
Schofield C, The Russian Elite, ch 6
Wishnevsky J, ‘Afghanistan and Soviet dissidents’, in Mastny V (ed) Soviet and East European
Survey, 1983-84

Essay Titles
How far and why did the afgantsy get especially poor support from the state?
Were the afgantsy right to feel betrayed by Soviet society?
Were the afgantsy a ‘lost generation’?
Did the Afghan War generate anti-Soviet sentiments in Soviet Central Asia?

The All-Russian Social Organisation for Invalids of the War in Afghanistan (OOOIVA)

Should you happen to know Russian, the OOOIVA is on the net @ http://oooiva.narod.ru/, with
information on their programme, membership, etc.

7. The War and Politics: veterans as groups and individuals

Key themes
The rise of the ‘afganets movement’.
Why did the afgantsy become politicised but then fade from view?
How effective was the afganets political movement?
The careers of Alexander Rutskoi, Boris Gromov, Alexander Lebed and other afgantsy.

Required Reading
Galeotti M, Afghanistan: the Soviet Union's Last War, chs 5-9

Useful Reading
Frank P, ‘Aleksandr Rutskoi – a political portrait’, Jane’s Intelligence Review May 1992

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Grau L & Thomas T, ‘Minister of Defense General Igor Rodionov: in with the old, in with the new,’
Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 9, 2 (1996) – also on the net @
http://call.army.mil/fmso/fmsopubs/issues/rodionov.htm
Lambeth B, The Warrior Who Would Rule Russia [on Lebed]
Riordan J, ‘Return of the Afgantsy’, Détente 12 (1988)
Saikal A & Maley W (eds), The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, ch 5
Schofield C, The Russian Elite, ch 6

Other Sources
Arnold A, The Fateful Pebble
Dobbs M, Down with Big Brother, pp 225-28
Dunlop J, ‘Barkashov and the Russian power ministries, 1994-2000), Demokratizatsiya – also on the
net @ http://www.demokratizatsiya.org/PDFs/%20DEM.dunlop.pdf
Elletson H, The General Against the Kremlin [on Lebed]
Letter from Colonel Dr Tsagolov to USSR Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov on the Situation in
Afghanistan, August 13, 1987, available via the US National Security archive @
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/r20.doc
Melvick A, ‘The Russian "Afgantsy": asset to the Russian armed forces’, Journal of Slavic Military
Studies, 8, 2 (1995)
Pope R, ‘Afghanistan and the Influence of Public Opinion on Soviet Foreign Policy’, Asian Affairs
(1981)
Steele J, ‘Ivan, we hardly knew you’, The Guardian, 13 February 1989 – on the net @
http://www.guardiancentury.co.uk/1980-1989/Story/0,6051,110278,00.html
Wishnevsky J, ‘Afghanistan and Soviet dissidents’, in Mastny V (ed) Soviet and East European
Survey, 1983-84
Woff R, ‘General Boris Gromov’, Jane’s Intelligence Review April 1989 {also in Departmental Library]

The NUPI Database

The Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (NUPI) Centre for Russian Studies provides an
excellent on-line database, which can be a very useful way to get at least basic biographical details of
a Russian leader or general, and quite possibly statements, articles, etc by them as well. The search
page for queries about individuals is @ http://www.nupi.no/cgi-win/Russland/personer.exe?SOK. Do
note that spellings can vary – Grachev, for example, is entered here as Grachev (because the
Russian Grachëv sounds like ‘Grachyov’), so try using just a part of a name if for some reason you
are drawing a blank.

Essay Titles
Was the afganets movement a ‘success’?
To what extent did the afgantsy even become a meaningful political force?
To what extent can one generalise about the political attitudes of the afgantsy?
Discuss the significance of his Afghan experience with relation to the professional and/or political
career of one of the following: Boris Gromov, Alexander Lebed, Igor Rodionov, Alexander
Rutskoi.

8. Learning the Lessons of the Battlefield

Key themes
The gulf between the war the Soviets had prepared for and the one they one they found
themselves fighting.
Soviet advantages and disadvantages in learning from their experiences.
How the Soviet military changed.

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The Soviet War in Afghanistan

Required Reading
Galeotti M, Afghanistan: the Soviet Union's Last War, chs 10-11

Useful Reading
Alexiev A, Inside the Soviet Army in Afghanistan
Grau L (ed), The Bear Went Over the Mountain
Grau L, ‘The Bear went over the Mountain: Soviet tactics and tactical lessons during their war in
Afghanistan’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 8, 1 (1995)
Grau L & Gress M (eds), The Soviet-Afghan War, esp chs 4, 9
Isby D, ‘Counter-insurgency and the lessons of Afghanistan’, in Leebaert D & Dickinson T (eds),
Soviet Strategy and New Military Thinking
McMichael S, Stumbling Bear, esp chs 5, 7, 8, 12
Schofield C, The Russian Elite, ch 5
Urban M, War in Afghanistan, chs 3-12, esp ch 12
Van Dyke C, ‘Military Doctrine: Kabul to Grozny: a critique of Soviet (Russian) counter-insurgency
doctrine’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies 9, 4 (1996)

Other Sources
Blank S, ‘Imagining Afghanistan: lessons of a “small” war’, Journal of Soviet Military Studies 3, 3
(1990)
Blank S, ‘Airmobile troops and Soviet airland war : from Afghanistan to the future,’ Journal of Soviet
Military Studies. 5, 1 (1992)
Blank S, Afghanistan and Beyond: reflections on the future of warfare (1993) also on the net @
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/ssipubs/pubs93e/afghan/afghan.pdf
Cordesman A & Wagner A, The Lessons of Modern War III: the Afghan and Falklands conflicts
Herspring D, The Soviet High Command
Hilali AZ, ‘Afghanistan: the decline of Soviet military strategy and political status’, Journal of Slavic
Military Studies 12, 1 (1999)
Melvick A, ‘The Russian "Afgantsy": asset to the Russian armed forces’, Journal of Slavic Military
Studies, 8, 2 (1995)
Nawroz M & Grau L, ‘The Soviet War in Afghanistan: history and harbinger of future war?’, FMSO
Paper (1995) @ http://call.army.mil/fmso/fmsopubs/issues/waraf.htm
Roy O, The Lessons of the Soviet/Afghan War
Saikal A & Maley W (eds), The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, ch 6
US Army, Lessons from the War in Afghanistan, 1989, declassified document available through the
US National Security Archive @ http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/us11.pdf

Essay Titles
How effectively did the Soviet military learn the lessons of the Afghan War?
To what extent did the war have an impact on the design of Soviet military equipment?
What were the main obstacles to efforts by the Soviet military to learn the lessons of the Afghan
War?
How did the war affect Soviet military attitudes towards one of the following: the role of junior
officers and small-unit tactics; the use of helicopters; the use of special forces.

9. The Withdrawal and After

Key themes
Why did Gorbachev decide to withdraw?
The lengthy process of international negotiation which led to the withdrawal.
The aftermath in Afghanistan.

Required Reading
Galeotti M, Afghanistan: the Soviet Union's Last War, chs 1, 9, 12
Meeting of the CC CPSU Politburo, 13 November 1986, SU&A:CWIHP

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The Soviet War in Afghanistan

Useful Reading
Bradsher H, Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention
Cordovez D, Out of Afghanistan
CPSU CC Politburo Decision of 24 January 1989, with attached report of 23 January 1989,
SU&A:CWIHP
CC Letter on Afghanistan, 10 May 1988, on the net @
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/r21.doc
Goodson L, Afghanistan’s Endless Wars
Khan R, Untying the Afghan Knot
McCauley M, Afghanistan and Central Asia
Magnus R, Afghanistan: Marx, Mullah and Muyahad
Mendelson S, ‘Internal battles and external wars: politics, learning and the Soviet withdrawal from
Afghanistan’, World Politics 45 (1993)
Mendelson S, Changing Course
Rogers T, The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan: analysis and chronology
Rubin B, The Search for Peace in Afghanistan
Rubin B, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan
Saikal A & Maley W (eds), The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, esp chs 2, 3
Urban M, War in Afghanistan, chs 9-12

Other Sources
Bennett A, Condemned to Repetition? The rise, fall and reprise of Soviet-Russian military
interventionism, 1973-1996, esp chs 5-8
CNN, The Cold War; episode 20: Soldiers of God, script on the internet @
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/20/script.html
Daley T, ‘Afghanistan and Gorbachev’s global foreign policy’, Asian Survey 5, 1989 [also in Nuffield]
Dobbs M, Down with Big Brother, pp 167-178, 223-228
Ellis D, Women of the Afghan War
Galeotti M, The Age of Anxiety, chs 4-5
Giustozzi A, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan
Huldt B & Jansson E, The Tragedy of Afghanistan
Laber J & Rubin B, A Nation is Dying
Parker J, Kremlin in Transition, vol. II, esp ch 14
Parrott B, ‘Soviet national security under Gorbachev’, Problems of Communism 37, 6 (1988)
Sestanovich S, ‘Gorbachev’s foreign policy: a diplomacy of decline?’, Problems of Communism 37, 1
(1988)

Essay Titles
Why did it take so long to negotiate terms for a withdrawal?
‘By withdrawing from Afghanistan, Gorbachev could portray himself as a peacemaker. This was a
piece of first-class public relations, like a burglar being hailed as a philanthropist for handing back
some of his ill-gotten gains.’ Discuss.
How effective an Afghan leader was Dr Najibullah?
‘If nothing else, the Soviets left their puppet regime in a much stronger position than it had
occupied in 1979.’ Discuss.
The DRA outlived the USSR – why?

10. An Audit: the effects on the USSR and the World

Key themes
How did the invasion affect the USSR’s international standing?
Was this the USSR’s Vietnam?
Did this bring down the USSR – or at least contribute to its fall?

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The Soviet War in Afghanistan

Required Reading
Galeotti M, Afghanistan: the Soviet Union's Last War, ch 13

Useful Reading
CIA, The Costs of Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan, February 1987 – declassified document
available from the US National Security Archive @
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/us11.pdf
Colton T & Gustafson T (eds), Soldiers and the Soviet State, esp ch 8
Galeotti M, The Age of Anxiety, esp chs 4-5
Hauner M & Caunfer R (eds), Afghanistan and the Soviet Union
Lieven A, Chechnya: tombstone of Russian power
Saikal A & Maley W (eds), The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan, esp chs 4, 7-10
Sestanovich S, ‘Gorbachev’s foreign policy: a diplomacy of decline?’, Problems of Communism 37, 1
(1988)
Van Dyke C, ‘Military Doctrine: Kabul to Grozny: a critique of Soviet (Russian) counter-insurgency
doctrine’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies 9, 4 (1996)
McIntosh S, ‘Leading with the chin: using Svechin to analyze the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan,
1979-1989’, Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 8, 2 (1995)
US Defense Intelligence Agency, The Economic Impact of Soviet Involvement in Afghanistan,
May 1983 – declassified document available from the US National Security Archive @
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/us4.pdf

Other Sources
Adkin M & Yousaf M, Afghanistan – the Bear Trap
Arnold A, The Fateful Pebble
Bennett A, Condemned to Repetition? The rise, fall and reprise of Soviet-Russian military
interventionism, 1973-1996, esp chs 5-8
Bennett V, Crying Wolf? War returns to Chechnya
Blank S, Afghanistan and Beyond: reflections on the future of warfare (1993) also on the net @
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/ssipubs/pubs93e/afghan/afghan.pdf
Borer D, Superpower Defeated
CNN, The Cold War; episode 20: Soldiers of God, script on the internet @
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/20/script.html
Emadi H, State, Revolution and Superpowers in Afghanistan
Freedman R, Moscow and the Middle East: Soviet policy since the invasion of Afghanistan
Galster S, Afghanistan: the Making of US Policy, 1973-1990 (National Security Archive, 2001) @
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/essay.html
Grasselli G, British and American Responses to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
Grinevsky O, ‘Comparing Soviet and Russian decision-making in Afghanistan and Chechnya’,
Contemporary Caucasus Newsletter, Autumn 1998 – also on the net @ http://ist-
socrates.berkeley.edu/~bsp/caucasus/newsletter/1998-06_grinevsky.pdf
Halliday F, The Making of the Second Cold War
Hilali A, ‘Afghanistan : the decline of Soviet military strategy and political status,’ Journal of Slavic
Military Studies, 12, 1 (1999)
Kuzio T, ‘Opposition in the USSR to the occupation of Afghanistan’, Central Asian Survey 6, 1 (1987)
Roy O, The Lessons of the Soviet/Afghan War
Saikal A & Maley W, Regime Change in Afghanistan
The Soviet Union and Afghanistan: Cold War International History Project Documents,
SU&A:CWIHP (see especially documents relating to Fidel Castro and Erich Honecker)
Wishnevsky J, ‘Afghanistan and Soviet dissidents’, in Mastny V (ed) Soviet and East European
Survey, 1983-84

Essay Titles
Assess the overall impact of the war on the USSR’s relations with one of the following: the USA,
China, the Middle East, the Developing World.
Critically assess Douglas Borer’s comparison of the Afghan and Vietnam wars.
Do Russian experiences in Chechnya show that the High Command learned the lessons of the
Afghan War?
To what extent did the Afghan War contribute to the collapse of the USSR?

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