December 27 1979 of the year. Last war
In order to assess the events of more than thirty years ago, it is probably worth recalling the policies of the Soviet Union in those years. After all, in unstoppable zeal to expand the bloc of socialist countries and prove their superiority to antagonistic America, the communist government acted according to the method according to which all methods were good for achieving the goal. It is impossible, of course, to say that the seizure of Amin’s palace and the coup in Afghanistan were some spontaneous decisions. At that time, the country has already accumulated considerable experience.
One need only remember that the troops of the Warsaw Pact countries suppressed the revolt in 1956 in Hungary cost 7 thousands of Russian soldiers and officers, while 25 thousands of Hungarians died. And in Czechoslovakia, events developed at all on a brilliant scenario. In the summer of 1968, the Prague airfield received a message from a Soviet transport aircraft, which, due to a malfunction, requested a landing. After that, the special forces soldiers on board seized the airfield for a very short time, to which reinforcements were immediately deployed. Only a few hours were occupied by television and radio centers, the editorial offices of the largest newspapers, and then the Central Committee with all the ministers, after which the latter were sent to Moscow. In just one day, Czechoslovakia ended up in the Soviet camp. In addition, the Soviet military carried out numerous actions in Africa, Asia, and South America.
In addition, everyone remembered the Vietnamese victory, the romance of Grenada and the events in Chile.
The beginning of the war in Afghanistan can be considered 27 December 1979 of the year - the date when the assault on Amin's Palace began. In principle, the government explained the beginning of hostilities for several reasons: firstly, there was a need to turn away from the Asian republics the threat of Islamism, which, by the way, actually appeared in the winter of 1978-79 of the year in Iran after the "anti-imperialist revolution". Secondly, Moscow was required to show international solidarity with friendly people in order to strengthen the anti-imperialist camp. Moreover, the Afghan rulers are accustomed to outside help. This concerned Taraki, Amin, Babrak, Najibullah and Karzai to the same extent. Of all of them, the Taliban can be called conditionally independent only, with their following the teachings of the Prophet. Moreover, the "lured" Afghanistan has always been easier to control. Thirdly, as mentioned above, the USSR was confident in the invincibility of its own army. As a fourth reason, one can take mercenary motives in the form of second salaries and admission to the authors' special distributors for the political bureau "To the situation in" A ", which was implemented by the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU from 12 in November 1979 of the year. To the West, who is in fact the owner of the house, and it doesn’t matter that it was just a feudal country that occupied the 108 position on the 129 list of developing countries.
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And a month before the fateful assault in Kabul, US Ambassador Dubbs was killed, and neither Islamists nor Maoists claimed responsibility for this, which Moscow interpreted as a cunning move by Amin who wanted to hide from the USSR a deal with Washington. In addition, our government decided that its Afghan counterparts were not able to maintain order in the country and accused the Americans of plans to deploy missiles on the territory of Afghanistan. Is it so - still unknown for sure.
We must not forget about the subjective factor - the personal position of Secretary General Brezhnev. About three months before the troops entered, Amin did not want to talk to him about the murder of his predecessor Taraki, which brought the Soviet leader to a heart attack and signed the death sentence for himself ...
In any case, the chronicle of the war begins with 27 December 1979 of the year. Approximately six months before this event, a secret Muslim battalion or the 154 th separate detachment of special purpose GRU, which included only Muslims, was created. Musbat, as he was called, the number in 700 people managed to secretly introduce the guard of the palace of Amin Taj-Bek. The defense itself consisted of three belts and Musbat fighters were in the middle between a powerful armed brigade and Amin's personal guard. On the day of the assault, part of the special forces neutralized the external guard. The rest got involved in the battle on the outskirts of the palace. The assault took only 40 minutes, as a result of which 7 special forces soldiers were killed. By the evening, Amina was gone. In parallel with these events, the Vitebsk and Pskov airborne divisions captured key facilities of the Afghan capital.
However, another important question remained behind the scenes: why did the Soviet Union choose the bloody scenario of changing the Afghan leader? Why it was impossible to go on the proven Hungarian or Czechoslovak variant? Some political scientists believe that the important reason for this was the career and political interest of the country's highest military. But in fact, this statement looks dubious. After all, there were sober-minded people who remembered the words of the Tsarist General Snesarev that the scenarios provided for 200 do not exclude the possibility that they can evolve along 201. In addition, it was not particularly necessary to hope for an abundant "starfall" - on the contrary, many incorrect decisions could lead to serious penalties.
In addition, the Afghan war could not be calculated economically, and as a result, the 10-year load on the USSR was not the last reason for its subsequent collapse. The resources of Afghanistan itself, too, were not particularly taken into account. And the arms race for something had to continue. And the old slogan "We will not stand up for the price!" proved to be ineffective in the new geopolitical situation.
Ultimately, 620000 military personnel passed through Afghanistan, of which 14453 people paid with their lives, went missing or were captured: 417 people became disabled: 10751 people. The titles of the Hero of the Soviet Union were awarded to 71 people, of whom 25 - posthumously. Think about them 27 December.
27 December 1979 of the year, exactly at 19.30 Kabul time on the radio broadcast the signal “STORM-333” - the signal to launch an attack on the residence of the head of Afghanistan Hafizullah Amin. At the same time, a multi-barreled anti-aircraft guns opened heavy fire on a palace on a high hill. Under cover of armor, the assault groups began advancing towards the target. The task was set clearly and unambiguously: not to enter negotiations, not to take prisoners, to destroy Amin ...
The last war of the Empire. Afghanistan
The theme of the film was the fateful decision of the Soviet leadership to send troops to Afghanistan. It cannot be said that this problematics has experienced and lacks commentators and analysts. It seemed that the end of 70-x - the beginning of 80-s was already sufficiently worked out in all directions, because there were also memories of the KGB special forces who killed H. Amin, the Afghan dushmans who fought with the “shuravi”, Soviet generals retired and many, many others related to this nearly a decade war.
It is impossible to say that we learn something fundamentally new about those events that were more than twenty years ago. Yes, the president of revolutionary Afghanistan Taraki asked A. Kosygin to send Soviet military equipment, as well as soldiers and officers to his country, but no one would know about it. Yes, Yu. Andropov and D. Ustinov insisted on the introduction of troops into Afghanistan, and A. Gromyko joined this decision. Yes, the KGB special forces “cleared out” President Amin in his palace. Yes, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was triggered by a monstrous civil war, which, in fact, has not ended yet.
But still one circumstance which has already become a tendency cannot be ignored. We are talking about the so-called “proverbs”, when the creators of this or that film or program can, while creating the much-needed, according to Mr. Fradkov, positive things for the Russians, suddenly in the most innocent place they completely unintentionally speak out.
The fact is that the familiar passages of Mr. Borovik about the great and terrible confrontation between the USA and the USSR, the CIA and the KGB suddenly broke a more than seditious thought that the greatness of our armed forces and special services in those years was another myth, and incompetent and at the same time tragic events in Afghanistan became a clear confirmation of this. Then the KGB was more concerned about catching those who wanted to leave the “socialist paradise”, and the high military ranks enthusiastically mastered the suburban dachas.
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