Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979–1989, and: A Long Goodbye: The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan (review)

Two important English-language books on the Soviet-Afghan War were published in 2011. This is noteworthy because for many years Western scholarship on the war was limited to a small group of academics, soldiers, retired diplomats, regional specialists, and journalists. Publication was sporadic. Now, Russian scholars, journalists, and former officials and soldiers have produced a variety of books on the subject, and the current conflict in Afghanistan has created a Western demand for more information on the last Afghanistan conflict.

Sir Rodric Braithwaite is known and respected as one of the grand old men of the Western expert community on the USSR/Russia. Following occupation duties as a soldier in postwar Vienna, Braithwaite studied Russian at the University of Cambridge from 1952 to 1955. He then entered the Foreign Service and, among other postings, had two tours in Moscow, the second as British ambassador from 1988 to 1992. This last tour spanned the end of the Soviet-Afghan War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, placing him in an optimum position to view and analyze these events. This is his third book on Russian affairs.

Artemy M. Kalinovsky is a younger analyst who has already established a name for himself in the academic community. With degrees in history from the London School of Economics and Political Science and from George Washington University, he is on the faculty of the Universiteit van Amsterdam. This book is a revised version of his doctoral thesis.

Scholarship on the Soviet-Afghan War begins with the work of two participants in that conflict. General Aleksandr Lyakhovskii (who died on 2 February 2009) wrote the pivotal work on the conflict (Tragediya i doblest’ Afgana) based on his service with the Soviet Ministry of Defense operational group inside Afghanistan during the conflict. General Makhmut Gareev wrote the pivotal work (Moya poslednyaya voina) on the Soviet withdrawal and aftermath based on his assignment as the senior Soviet adviser after the departure of the Soviet 40th Army. Braithwaite and Kalinovsky build on these earlier works, and both of them interviewed Lyakhovskii. Primary research in the documents of the war should be in Dari and Russian. Most of the available and accessible material, however, is in Russian, a reality that leads to a certain bias in almost all works on the subject.

Braithwaite uses his Russian-language skills and his access to Russian archives, diplomatic contacts, and a variety of Russian friends and contacts to lay out the Soviet perspective on events. He has produced a balanced, often sympathetic work on the Soviet Union’s long war in Afghanistan that discounts many of the assumptions, pronouncements, and misconceptions that are held in the West. The book is more detailed on political events (Braithwaite was, after all, an ambassador) and individual vignettes and is not so much a military history of the war as a thematic series of short vignettes about many of the people who were involved in it. This might sound like a chaotic approach, but it works well. The book is about the Afgantsy—the Russians who served in Afghanistan. This is their story written for an English-speaking audience.

Afgantsy’s core theme is that the Soviet 40th Army came to prop up a Communist regime in chaos. Soviet leaders intended to leave within two years but were trapped in the middle of a civil war. The Soviet army had its problems but fought successfully, controlled its battle space, and left the country in relatively good order. Braithwaite weaves the vignettes throughout this theme and covers peripheral topics such as advisers, troop hazing, women in combat, the combat experience, the missing in action, post-traumatic stress, and the internal politics of the Soviet Politburo. The book is remarkably well crafted; it also has the most poignant dedication I have read...