Office of the Historian

201. Intelligence Appraisal Prepared in the Department of Defense1

Washington, February 8, 1980

AFGHANISTAN: THE PARCHAM REGIME (U)

Summary

(S) The Soviets apparently are using the current government to restart the Afghan revolution in the moderate direction in which they had hoped both Taraki and Amin would proceed. Despite numerous conciliatory gestures and the announcement of a “Fatherland Front,” members of the new government are leftists and Communists. They do not represent a broad national front and are instead a Soviet puppet government. Lacking credibility, legitimacy, and popular support, the government’s authority extends to those areas where it can be backed primarily with Soviet military power, on which it depends for survival.

(S/[handling restriction not declassified]) Babrak’s regime, installed by Soviet paratroops on 27 December, has been troubled by serious instability. Babrak’s Parcham group is engaged in a power struggle to consolidate its control of the new government and consequently has not addressed the nation’s problems, which are largely out of control. His Soviet mentors are displeased with the regime they installed, and especially with the incessant factional strife. They, however, rather than Babrak, will decide the outcome of the power struggle, and his tenure is likely to be brief. The Soviets have little to lose in experimenting with the government to find a leadership combination that might be capable of establishing tolerable conditions in the country. Under current conditions, their chances to do so seem very slim. In the short term, the Army officer corps, which is almost the only functioning national-level organization, is likely to assume a larger political role. The Soviets, however, have invested heavily in Afghanistan’s future. By the mid-1980s, thousands of Afghans now in Soviet and East European schools will begin to return to their country. These students are the future leaders of a Communist Afghanistan, which will remain under close Soviet guidance if not outright control.

[Omitted here is the body of the appraisal.]

  1. Source: Department of Defense, Afghan War Collection, Box 1, Afghan Politics. Secret; [codeword and handling restriction not declassified].↩