Pyotr Goncharov, 75, was working as a military interpreter in Afghanistan in the 1970s, when Soviet-Afghan relations were particularly robust, and was an eyewitness to the Soviet Union's military campaign in the country from start to finish
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th February, 2019) Pyotr Goncharov, 75, was working as a military interpreter in Afghanistan in the 1970s, when Soviet-Afghan relations were particularly robust, and was an eyewitness to the Soviet Union's military campaign in the country from start to finish.
The events that led directly to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics' (USSR) military intervention in Afghanistan, declaration of jihad and withdrawal of troops nine years later all happened right in front of his eyes. Now, precisely 30 years after the end of the Soviet troop pullout, he shared his memories and personal views on the controversial campaign's key events in an interview with Sputnik.
"We knew that everything in this country could change instantly, and everything indeed changed instantly," Goncharov said, starting his story over a cup of coffee.
Goncharov, a graduate of the elite Military Institute of Foreign Languages, first came to Afghanistan as a military interpreter for defense industry cooperation projects.
"In general, the Soviet-Afghan relations were exemplary in the early and mid-1950s, and in the 1960s," he said.
According to Goncharov, the Soviet Union built over 100 facilities across the country, including hydroelectric power plants and factories. The USSR also trained Afghan officers, granted a multimillion-dollar loan to assist the neighbor's economic growth and built roads.
"Afghanistan flourished," Goncharov recalled.
Goncharov, who was in his 20s back then, was an interpreter for a Russian scholar who was training Afghan officers to operate cutting-edge T-62 tanks, which had just been introduced to the country's army. The courses were attended by the Afghan military elite, and a senior officer named Mohammad Sarwar Nuristani assisted the Russian expert.
"One day, my expert and I were invited by the king's cousin, someone named Sardar Abdul Wali. He asked us: 'Do you know RPG-7 grenade launchers?' We answered: 'Yes, of course we do.' He told us to train RPG-7 squads in three weeks. So we began to train them," Goncharov said.
This is when Nuristani became particularly curious about their arrangements with the king's cousin, the interpreter recalled. On July 16, 1973, the Russian scholar asked Nuristani to take care of the T-62 tank training courses, explaining that he had to hand diplomas to 10 freshly trained grenade thrower squads the next day. The Afghan officer nodded and promised his Soviet comrade that he would "do it right," Goncharov recalled.
"The next morning, we woke up waiting for a car that was supposed to pick us up. There was no car. But there was a coup d'etat. We listened to the radio, and there was an announcement saying that the military had taken power and named Mohammad Sarwar Nuristani as one of the officers who distinguished themselves the most [during these events]," Goncharov said, grinning, even though back then this development came as quite a shock to him.
The monarchy was toppled in a bloodless coup by royal family member Mohammed Daoud Khan, who, in quite an unusual twist for Afghan history, chose not to proclaim himself as the new shah. Instead, he established a republic and became its first president.
After Daoud's visit to Moscow in 1977, the relationship between the freshly established republic and the USSR deteriorated because Kabul believed that Moscow was trying to limit its sovereignty. Instead, the Afghan president tried to boost his country's ties with the Western powers and Saudi Arabia, but he did not stay in power for long. In late April 1978, the government was overthrown in the Saur Revolution led by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA).
Daoud was brutally murdered along with most of his family at the presidential palace. The PDPA divided into two major factions � hardline Khalq and moderate Parcham � which took power, renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and established a new government led by Nur Muhammad Taraki from the Khalq faction.
Following the coup, the new communist government launched large-scale modernization efforts and a series of socialist reforms, which were not supported by the population. The situation has worsened due to the suppression within the PDPA, with Khalq members purging their Parcham opponents.
Opposition to the new policies and the accompanying suppression escalated into a civil war. The Afghan leadership repeatedly requested Soviet intervention, but Moscow rejected the appeals each time. Hafizullah Amin, who took power after assassinating Taraki, introduced even harsher measures and ordered thousands of executions.
In the end, the Soviets, fearing that hostilities might spill outside Afghanistan and engulf Central Asian republics, deployed a limited military contingent to Afghanistan on December 25, 1979. However, according to Goncharov, fear of possible insurgency was not the only reason behind the Soviet Union's decision to bring in troops.
"We had to decide to either deploy troops or leave Afghanistan completely, all of us � both military instructors, all 500 of them, and civil advisers. Afghanistan's economy and army relied heavily on Soviet advisers. But the civil war was raging on, and it was unclear what would happen next. Neither the army, police, nor any other security forces would have been able to protect our families, our advisers," he said.
According to Goncharov, it was a situation in which Russian experts had to rely on the limited military contingent already in the country to ensure their safety or leave.
"The deployment of troops was necessary," Goncharov stressed.
On December 27, 1979, Soviet troops stormed the Tajbeg Palace in an operation dubbed Storm-333, and killed Amin. Goncharov harshly criticized the operation.
"I believe that the storming of Amin's palace was completely excessive. It was possible to solve this whole affair simply amicably ... It was necessary to come and say that we came to help them and prevent a civil war. It was necessary to reach an agreement," he stressed.
In January 1980, Soviet forces became actively involved in combat operations against opposition forces, mostly supported by Pakistan. However, despite the military operation, common Afghan people were not hostile to Soviet soldiers, according to Goncharov.
"The Afghans themselves treated the Soviet soldiers very well ... I have a friend, an Iranian, who was in Pakistan throughout the war and supported the mujahideen [those engaged in jihad]. He was, so to say, an ideological enemy back then. He told me that he had not heard a single bad word about Soviet soldiers from ordinary Afghans," the former military interpreter said.
Surprisingly, even some of the mujahideen, who were waging a guerilla war against Soviet troops, were not so brutal toward them, Goncharov said. He noted that one mujahideen leader, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, whom he once talked to, did not kill Soviet prisoners of war, sending them to the Red Cross in Geneva instead.
"More than that, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi obliged prisoners of war to teach him Russian. He dreamed of becoming able to read [Russian novelist Fyodor] Dostoevsky in Russian. He was obsessed, captivated by the phrase from the novel Demons by Dostoevsky: 'If there is no god, then I am a god,'" Goncharov recalled.
On April 14, 1988, the United Nations, assisted by the Soviet Union and the United States, persuaded Afghanistan and Pakistan to sign agreements in Geneva to resolve the Afghan crisis. In May 1988, the Soviets began gradually withdrawing their troops from the country. The last Soviet troops left on February 15, 1989.
Goncharov was among the last to leave the country.
"I flew away on February 15, the very last day that was broadcast everywhere. As a senior translator, I had to wait until all translators left the country ... I think that leaving was the right thing to do," Goncharov said.
Although the Soviet Union stopped providing military assistance to the Afghan government in January 1992, opposition forces continued to receive help from abroad. Opposition parties took over in Afghanistan same year, but the insurgency nevertheless continued.
According to Goncharov, the Afghan people still think highly of the Soviet Union.
"Once I was returning from the embassy and took a taxi. There was a traffic jam, and the driver and I got to talking. He asked where I learned the language. I answered that I learned it at a military institute and worked in Afghanistan for a very long time. He asked me: 'So you are one of those shuravi [a collective term for Soviet people]?' He said that his father was a mujahid and died in the war against shuravi. He said: 'If he had been alive, I would have told him that he did not fight on the right side. He'd better fight on the side of the Soviet against the Mujahidin,'" he said.
The Soviet involvement in Afghanistan lasted for more than nine years, from December 1979 until February 1989. Some 620,000 Soviet soldiers and officers served in Afghanistan. More than 15,000 servicemen died, nearly 7,000 were disabled and dozens went missing.
