Within no time of withdrawal of US forces, blisteringly fast takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, a despotic Islamic fundamentalist reactionary organization, has stunned one to all. Obvious question that has arisen is how could a 3-lakh strong official Afghan army built and trained by US military for over 20 years spending around $ 83 billion surrender so meekly to 60,000 Talibani fighters? And then images of masses of people literally climbing on and clinging to departing US aircraft have not only been horrifying but indicated how common Afghans are frightened with the Taliban takeover as the memories of earlier demonic Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001 continue to haunt them. How is that despite an open and direct invasion of the US of the country in 2001, 20 years of de facto US occupation, installation of a puppet government of US and the rotation of a million of US troops, the country remained as backward and war-torn as before and the promised export of democracy to that land remained ever elusive? Why did the US imperialists needed to suddenly announce withdrawal of army from there knowing fully well that hardcore Islamic fundamentalist Taliban was poised to overrun the country? What prompted the former US President Donald Trump to initiate dialogue with Taliban three year back in Qatar and virtually elicit an international recognition to such a brutal and fanatic group like the Taliban? The Taliban has fully exploited its newfound legitimacy and started holding countless meetings with foreign diplomats and conducting many media interviews. And now, both China and Russia, two formidable imperialist powers after counter-revolution, are also seeking to smoothen relationship with Taliban to get a foothold in Afghanistan hitherto in the US fold. Clearly, Afghan people known for their bravery, freedom-loving and simple-minded nature, are the worst victims of terrible power struggle among the despotic warlords, disintegration of their motherland into isolated fiefdoms of these warlords and imperialist machination for over four decades. Feudal ideas, thoughts, customs and manners were deeply rooted for centuries together in the Afghan society, from which stemmed religious fundamentalism, cleverly fanned up by the US imperialists and their allies, that miserably gripped people of Afghanistan. Now with the Taliban taking over, their future is totally uncertain, livelihood shattered and life hinging on a thread. No one having minimal conscience and feeling for their global brethren can afford to be a silent spectator to such predicament of Afghan people. They need to act but act consciously being fully conversant with facts, turn of events, identifying friends and foes and above all, a correct appraisal of the situation based on scientific methodology of analysis.
Afghanistan after British colonial rule ended in Indian subcontinent
After the British imperialists had withdrawn from the Indian subcontinent in 1947 and India and Pakistan were born through partition, it was a new beginning for Afghanistan too, albeit not without problems. Afghanistan, also a former British colony, sought aid from the US to modernize its army but was refused. It then turned towards the Soviet Union which responded positively. Initially, Soviet assistance was guided by the lofty concept of proletarian internationalism and global obligation of a socialist state. Under the impact of Soviet socialism, democratic forces and democratic thoughts which started growing in Afghanistan in the beginning of 20th century gained further ground. As a result, certain democratic reforms were attempted for the first time in that land. But as soon as the Khrushchevite revisionist established their stranglehold in Soviet Union, gradual emergence of a hegemonic attitude towards Afghanistan became glaring.
Misadventure of Soviet revisionist leaders in Afghanistan
In 1974, as a culmination of a series of events, the world people witnessed the overthrow of monarchy in Afghanistan which was subsequently declared as a republic. In the background of such a situation, when Afghan people’s national aspiration was gradually developing, Nur Md. Tarakki of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) backed by the Soviet revisionist leadership, seized power from Sardar Mohammed Daoud, the first president of the republic, through a coup in April 1978. PDPA declared establishment of a Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. This transfer of power through a coup like incident with the help of a foreign power, for obvious reasons, worked as an obstruction to the normal process of fulfilling the national aspiration of the Afghan people for establishing democracy, which was manifested in that the country decades earlier. Though there was a support for Marxism-Leninism which was crystallizing in Afghanistan, continuous Soviet interferences in the internal affairs of that country gave birth to resentment against the Soviet Union among the patriotic masses and forces. The military intervention in the country, has not only intensified their indignation against the Soviet revisionist leadership but prompted them to look upon the Soviet revisionist leadership as a colonial force. The oppressive rule by the new Tarakki government also created a sense of deep resentment and strong anti-Soviet reaction among the freedom loving democratic minded people which ultimately turned into a rebellious mood and the crystallizing endorsement to Marxist philosophy received a tremendous setback, if not virtual rejection. As days passed on, Afghan rebels swelled more and more in number and within a short time, a civil war engulfed most of the provinces of the country. In such a situation, Mr. Hafizullah Amin seized power in a palace coup in September 1979. Finding that the government of its choice being overthrown, revisionist leadership of the Soviet Union nakedly intervened militarily in Afghanistan, dethroned and executed President Hafizullah Amin and installed one Babrak Karmel in the Presidential chair. This further accentuated anti-Soviet reaction among the freedom loving democratic minded people of Afghanistan. Worst was the fact that because of such a flawed step by the revisionist Soviet leadership led by the then President Brezhnev, the forces of reaction, religious fanatics, the outmoded conservative elements i.e. all those who hindered social progress and people’s emancipation from decades long feudal bondage got an upper hand.
Soviet blunder opened passage to US imperialism
In this troubled water, the US imperialists and its infamous espionage wing, CIA, kept on instigating the mutually warring rebellious warlords as well as the different factions of the Mujahedeen, a coalition of guerrilla groups, in Afghanistan and liberally provided them with arms, money, satellite reconnaissance, intelligence data and even arranging for recruitment from among the Afghan refugees in militia to fight invading Soviet army. The US rulers also arranged military training of these recruits with the help of Pakistan, then a close ally of US imperialism. As admitted in the CIA’s own documents, secret US aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul was initiated in 1979. In 1988 was created the Al Qaeda, another conglomerate of rabid Islamic fundamentalists by the US imperialism.
By 1989, the revisionist leadership of the Soviet Union was compelled to withdraw their forces from Afghanistan and a new government was formed with the support of the Mujahedeen. But terrible power struggle among the warlords continued with armed conflicts in various places. In this pathetic murky situation, emerged the Taliban militia in 1994, once more with the blessings, patronage and support of the US imperialists as well as of the Pakistani capitalist rulers. The Taliban recruited thousands of young Afghan men, refugees and orphans who had never seen their country at peace and had themselves been rootless, jobless, economically deprived with little self-knowledge and hence restless as well as aimlessly desperate. Both the Taliban and the Al Qaeda, two dreaded Islamic fundamentalist forces, developed perfect understanding between themselves and worked in tandem. As the budding left democratic forces of Afghanistan were suppressed, the Taliban rapidly spread its influence and finally with the aid of the Pakistani army captured power in 1996. So, aspirations of the Afghan people were not only unfulfilled but the country was kept in perpetual tensions and conflicts within and without by the reactionary forces.
Horror of first Taliban rule
But the Taliban rule was marked by resurgence of obscurantist feudal culture and religious revivalism and hence became progressively unpopular. On the other hand, Afghanistan, a land of rich mineral deposits including gold, copper, lithium, high quality gemstones as well as natural gas and petroleum and, above all, the largest grower of opium and other toxicants was always in the radar of US imperialism. Even the geographic location of that mountain-surrounded country with miles of miles of terrains is of immense strategic importance in so far as military surveillance over entire Middle- East, Indian sub-continent as well as entire East Europe is concerned. Moreover, Afghanistan lies precisely on the route for pipelines for transporting gulf oil through the ports of India and Pakistan. So the US imperialists, on a prowl in the Middle East, increased their neo-colonial dominance in Afghanistan as well and were waiting for an opportune moment to topple the Taliban government and install a puppet regime there. In absence of mighty socialist camp, the imperialists particularly the US imperialists were and are still unbriddled in their pursuit of overlordism and brigandage throughout the world.
Full scale war of aggression launched in Afghanistan by US
When a stated terrorist attack pulverized the twin tower building in New York on 11 September 2001, the US government then under President George Bush, then pretending to be a crusader against terrorism particularly Islamic terrorism, held the Al Qaeda responsible for that and declared war on Afghanistan, which was then ruled by the Taliban, ally of the Al Qaeda. Bush said the Taliban regime had turned down his demand to hand over Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, the notorious Al Qaeda chief, who was originally promoted by the US imperialists but later turned a Frankenstein for them. The US imperialists were of the opinion that Laden was a “guest” of the Taliban operating his network from Afghanistan. The NATO coalition troops led by the U.S. quickly dislodged the Taliban regime and established a transitional government.
From 2001 till date, Afghanistan had one after another client regimes of US imperialism, limitlessly oppressive and utterly corrupt. On the other hand, the US imperialists, in the name of containing ‘terrorism’ of the Al Qaeda and others, deployed huge army, sophisticated artillery, bombers, weapons of mass destruction and ravaged that country through continuous war in blatant transgression upon its national sovereignty. The 20 year long Afghan war had cost US over $2.26 trillion of which $530bn had been the estimated interest payments on the money the US government borrowed to fund the war. As per official report, casualty figure of the US was over 4,000. On the other hand, more than 20 lakh Afghan people had lost their life. Millions more have become refugees. 1.84 crore Afghans badly need humanitarian need for survival. Plight and penury of theirs knew no bounds.
Economic peril of Afghanistan
Back in 2001, Afghanistan’s economy lay in ruins due to more than two decades of war that predated the US-led invasion in October of that year. Situation worsened further during 20 years of de facto US occupation. In 2020, dethroned President Ashraf Ghani said 90 percent of the population was living on less than $2 a day. The nominal GDP of Afghanistan is close to $20 billion, which is equivalent to the Jammu & Kashmir economy. IMF loan constitutes 40% of GDP while share of drug trafficking is between 6 and 11%. GDP growth rate dropped to 2-3% once foreign aids and loans began to taper. Current account deficit (import exceeding export) is an unsustainable 27.5% of GDP. A mere 12% of the land is arable, and supports 70% of the population. The poverty ratio far exceeds half the population. And now, the US government has frozen the foreign currency assets and gold of the Afghan central bank, DAB, which is lodged in the US. Also, IMF has frozen its credit line to Afghanistan. So the economy is in further peril. The Taliban would soon find that salvaging a lopsided economy, heavily reliant on aid and loans, is far tougher than overthrowing a faltering regime. It is well known that the bedrock of any nation-building effort is security and gradual improvement in the standard of life of common people. But if war, instability, plunder, torture, graft and corruption continue to flourish, the formal economy is destined to wither. That is exactly what has exacerbated in Afghanistan in the last 20 years.
Mounting rage among people
Rage and discontent among Afghan people against US invasion was already mounting. It also gave birth to deep sense of national humiliation in the freedom-loving people of that country. Because of the weakness or rather in absence of any powerful secular democratic force, the dreaded Taliban whom the Afghans once rejected had been usurping the rising wave of hatred towards the invaders-cum-occupiers and of a common cause of anti-US imperialist nationalist sentiment. Also, in absence of a resistance movement involving the entire nation and led by enlightened democratic forces, the dislodged Taliban began to regroup, howsoever detrimental to people it might have been. The US imperialists, cunning to the core as they are, were hiding their real intention by raising a bogey that any movement against the US occupation was a terrorist act perpetrated by the Taliban. On the plea of curbing terrorism, they were stepping up their military presence and activities in Afghanistan. Surely, the US imperialists were no saint to hand down much longed democracy and peace to Afghanistan. Led by the US military-industrial complex, the US-based banks, industrial and mining monopolies have made huge fortunes through pillage there on the pretext of providing the Afghan people a stable democracy, a shining path of moderate Islam. But the Afghan people saw the most ineffective, immensely corrupt administration and faltering governance in the US-backed Ghani regime.
People’s growing wrath against US-backed Ghani government
Alongside the US imperialists, their stooge Ghani allowed networks of patronage and corruption to take root in the country’s armed force. High-ranking officers in Afghan militaries, for example, are known to have inflated their rosters with fictitious names and collected pay-cheques for these “ghost soldiers”. This practice emerged because the top army posts were awarded to political loyalists rather than those with military acumen. These politically connected officers used their positions to extract wealth for themselves. All these were in the full knowledge of the US imperialists. Corruption and self-seeking mentality has been so deep-rooted in the Afghan army that they had no morale to fight the Taliban. As the Taliban offensives intensified, they tamely surrendered and handed over all their weapons to their supposed foes. Thus the “uniquely benign imperium” of the US rulers has given the Afghan people, beside ruthless oppression, repression, economic ruination and an atmosphere surcharged with war tension, a medieval despotic and religious fanatic rule as against promised democracy. The fact that the Talban is not invincible is evident from the fierce resistance still being provided by the national Resistance Front in Panjshir valley is located north of Kabul.
Deal with Taliban by Pentagon rulers
As soon as the US imperialist rulers could sense that aggravation of military assault could be counter-productive because public mood, both in Afghanistan as well as their own country, was glaringly hostile against their puppet government, and the Taliban was gaining strength very fast, they switched over to a new strategy to serve the heinous class interest of US imperialism in Afghanistan. So former US President Donald Trump initiated a talk with the Taliban representatives in Doha, Qatar, in October 2018. Before the Doha talks started, the Taliban had maintained that they would hold direct talks only with the U.S., and not with the Kabul government. The US effectively accepted this demand when they cut the Ghani government off the process and entered direct talks with the insurgent Taliban. The talks continued into the next year for eight rounds. In September 2019, Trump abruptly suspended the talks with the Taliban on the pretext of killing of a US soldier by the Taliban forces. However, the stalemate was short-lived as the US rulers had the compulsion of arriving at a deal with the Taliban to keep their indirect control over Afghanistan so that neither China nor Russia, their imperialist competitors in the global market, could derive any significant economic and political advantages in the obtaining situation. Finally, the US and the Taliban signed a peace agreement in February 2020 to, as officially declared, withdraw US troops within 14 months in exchange for a Taliban promise to denounce terrorist groups and keep away from attacks on America. On the other hand, by having a pact with Taliban, the US imperialists have ensured that no threat is posed to US interest in Afghanistan. Moreover, as China and Russia have been holding out an olive branch to the Taliban, the US rulers felt that a clandestine pact with the Taliban might be remunerative for them in future. Because, with Russia, China and Iran challenging US dominance and overlordism in the Middle East, a strategic retreat for the time being might have been considered prudent by the Pentagon rulers.
Secret clauses of agreement not revealed
The agreement outwardly declared itself as a welcome truce to bring peace in war-ravaged Afghanistan, was not without any string attached. The agreement had four key elements: a Taliban guarantee that it would not allow foreign armed groups to use Afghanistan as a launchpad to conduct attacks, complete withdrawal of the US-led forces, an intra-Afghan dialogue and a ceasefire. After the agreement was signed, the US put pressure on the Afghan government to release thousands of Taliban prisoners – a key Taliban precondition for starting intra-Afghan talks. Talks between the Taliban representatives and the Afghan government began in Doha in September 2020 but significantly, did not reach any breakthrough. Clearly, the US sidelined the Afghan government to give prominence to their bonhomie with the Taliban. The agreement also laid out that the US must share with Taliban which of its bases would remain open under Afghan control so that those were left unscathed. According to those privy to the deal, the annexes to the agreement document leave the markers for peace remarkably vague, making it far from certain that the Taliban must convert into a counter-terrorism force as former US President Trump suggested. Perhaps by asking the Taliban to be a force of counter-terrorism, Trump was indirectly asking them to tilt to the US camp which, notwithstanding creating, funding and arming the various terrorist groups, pretends to be a crusader of terrorism-a ruse to undertake gangsterism and military aggression in any country it targets. This assumption gains credibility when it is found that despite withdrawal of army, significant presence of CIA in Afghanistan is not discarded. Despite repeated demands even within US legislature, the deal that US rulers have entered into with the Taliban has not been made public in its entirety. Only, in a statement, the US State Department said that “the secret annexes were consistent with the public agreement and include specific commitments by all parties to efforts to continue to reduce violence until a permanent and comprehensive cease-fire is agreed in intra-Afghan negotiations. while preserving the right of all parties to self-defence”. “The United States has ‘a robust monitoring and verification mechanism’ to track and assess the behaviour of the Taliban”, it added. But those who have seen the agreement said the specifics were so nebulous that they doubted how much leverage would the US retain. Yet, given the background of the US imperialists of organizing coup d’état to install regime of their choice, military aggression and occupation on false pretext, stationing 170,000 troops in more than 800 overseas military bases in 150 countries, it is hard to believe that it has been a unilateral retreat by the US from Afghanistan. It appears that something crucial is hidden from view. For example, the Biden administration previously warned the Taliban that they would lose legitimacy if they seized power by force. The Taliban has now taken power in Kabul by force only. And the US have acquiesced in the move. Does it not smack of some hidden agenda? Further, President Joe Biden endorsed the Trump-Taliban deal, but pushed the deadline for withdrawal to 1 September and claimed: “We’re on track, exactly where we expected to be.”
US cannot lose profit opportunities in Afghanistan
Which track the US are expected to be on? Answer would be provided by the days to come. But there ought not to be a grotesque delusion that the US is deserting Afghanistan for good. They cannot. Because the Pentagon regime cannot afford to dilute profit opportunities of the US monopolists and MNCs by way of exploiting cheap labour and raw material there. Since 2001, the US have appropriated more than $144 bn to Afghan reconstruction. Much of that money went to private contractors, the NGOs and the US government. The auditing of reconstruction effort of the US in Afghanistan has highlighted huge waste, fraud and abuse. The illicit economy, meanwhile, has boomed and hefty profit accrued to the US drug lords masqueraded as big business houses. After the US forces drove the Taliban out from power in 2001, Afghanistan cemented its place as the leading global supplier of opium and heroin.
Losing grip over Afghanistan would, therefore, mean augury of retreat from Middle East which, at present, is being milked by the US MNCs to the hilt. A decade ago, a Pentagon study estimated an untapped mineral wealth of over $1 trillion in Afghanistan. It included gold and most importantly copper and lithium, the metals that hold the key to the world’s electric and electronic goods production. So a promise of bankrolling of Afghan economy in return for mining rights by the US imperialists cannot be ruled out in the days to come. In fact, imperialist China is also eyeing on that besides seeking to integrate Afghanistan into the Belt and Road project and protect the route. Further, no imperialist force can give up the opportunities of making easy money from illicit drug trade so easily. So will not the US also. It is only a manoeuvre given the present context when popular opinion against precipitation and continuation of war by the US imperialists in the different parts of the world particularly Middle East is on the rise.
Even within the US, anti-war protests and solidarity with the nations and people who oppose the US war machine are growing. “Why should Pentagon be costing federal treasury of trillions of US dollars to orchestrate wars abroad”, the anti-war groups have been asking particularly when the US imperialist economy is ridden with grave crisis and losing trade-war with China? Obviously, war monger US rulers have no answer to that. On the other hand, US machination has failed in Syria. Unable to face united resistance from China. Russia and Iran, the US are now in a bit of backfoot. China has said it was ready for “friendly relations” with the Taliban, while Russia and Iran are also making diplomatic overtures. Such ups and downs of a powerful imperialist force do happen in a situation of imperialist-imperialist contradiction which often results in war including world wars. Time would tell how this contradiction would shape and influence future world events.
Stand of India and Pakistan
Incidentally, while Pakistani capitalist rulers who had been supporting the Taliban for long are elated because they feel they are now poised to derive significant political mileage, the Indian imperialist rulers are in a dilemma. The Indian monopolists and MNCs have invested in excess of $3 billion (Rs 22,500 crores) in different projects in Afghanistan. Also India’s much vaunted project of the Chabahar Port in Iran’s eastern coast along Afghan border would be hurt badly, if not punctured for good. The BJP, which is running Indian government, is a trusted caretaker of the ruling Indian monopolists and itself a crass Hindu communal-fundamentalist force. It has been consistently spewing anti-Muslim venom as well as crying hoarse against Islamic terrorism. But once the BJP government could sense that a Taliban rule was in the offing in Afghanistan and the US has tacit approval to it, it began a secret talk with the Taliban in Doha to secure interest of Indian monopolists there. Till today, neither the BJP Prime Minister nor any of his cabinet or party colleagues have uttered a single word against the Taliban, let alone calling it an Islamic terrorist organization. Now, India has commenced open dialogue with the Taliban. Why the BJP? Even pseudo-Marxists like the CPI (M) and CPI have said in a joint statement that “the earlier Taliban government of the 1990s was marked by an extreme fundamentalist approach, which was disastrous for women, girl children and suppressed ethnic minorities. It is imperative that the new set-up controlled by the Taliban give due regard to the rights of women and acknowledge the rights of ethnic minorities.” They could not say otherwise as they are aware of the stand of the Indian ruling class they are so eager to curry favour with for pelf and power.
Terrorism is born in the labour room of imperialism-capitalism
One more point needs to be discussed in this connection. If one looks at the contemporary world situation, one would find that there is a sinister spurt of racism-communalism-fundamentalism-ethnic chauvinism and terrorism. Why is this happening? Who is behind all these? Who is weaving ploys to make these inhuman and disastrous activities into a common trend? Any super-natural entity? Or the perpetrators of these heinous crimes are very much alive and active in this material world? History would say that menacing rise in fundamentalism-terrorism is a feature of present day unipolar imperialist-capitalist world. More crisis-ridden is capitalism endemic of the oppressive system, more is the surge of fundamentalist-terrorist organizations-be it Hindutvawadi Sangh Parivar in India, Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan, the Taliban in Afghanistan, Jamaat-e-Islam in Bangladesh, the IS in Middle-East or Buddhist fanaticism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka or so called “Christian culture” of Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Slovakia’s Robert Fico, the rightist forces of Europe or white supremacist KKK in US. And the facts show that these fundamentalist-terrorist groups are created, armed and funded by the imperialists-capitalists, as stated earlier. Because, mortally afraid of historically-ordained anti-capitalist revolution, the imperialists-capitalists, on the one hand, want to precipitate divides among the toiling people by fomenting fundamentalism-racism-casteism-parochialism etc., while, on the other hand, they seek to destroy secular scientific rational thinking and instead promote irrationality, obscurantism, frenzy, fanaticism to blunt reasoning faculty as well as keep people terrified and intimidated by sponsoring terrorist outfits. At the same time, they often brand legitimate democratic movements also as terrorist acts with a view to ruthlessly crushing them. Thus terrorism is a very convenient tool in the hands of the bourgeois rulers to suppress class and mass struggles. Spurt in terrorism in one country, in its turn, might well give fillip to the rise of counter brand of terrorism in another country, particularly in the neighbourhood.
It must be recorded here that terrorist outfits or acts of mindless violence and killing could not make their headway when socialism as a world order existed with its full might, socialist movement was living and vibrant, united and militant mass and class struggles of different sections of toiling people, were being systematically conducted under the leadership of revolutionary and progressive forces in this or that country all over the world. The impact of these struggles sent shivers down the spine of the capitalists-imperialists who then did not dare to indulge in such malevolent acts. In absence of mighty socialist camp, a powerful united sustained anti-imperialist militant peace movement can only work as a bulwark against evil capitalist-imperialist designs.
Taliban is already unmasking its diabolic face
Coming back to the Taliban, their rule would be nothing but a diabolically fascist one as besides political power, the Talibanis would also regiment the socio-cultural life of the people with imposition of arch fundamentalist proclamations and decrees. Their double-facedness is already exposed. Immediately after assuming power, they were displaying a civilized face with promise of safety to all, preservation of women’s rights, media freedom, a forgiveness to all who fought against them, amnesty for erstwhile government officials and assurance that Afghanistan would no more be a haven for terrorists. They also sought to portray themselves in media glare as more moderate in contrast to their previous Islamic fundamentalist despotic rule. But that all these have been publicity blitz aimed at reassuring world powers and a fearful population, is now laid bare. Older generations remember the Taliban’s previous rule, when they largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music, and held public executions. Now a resurgence of that despotism is very much on the card. On 17 August, armed Taliban foot-soldiers entered the civilian half of the airport, opened fired and drove out around 500 people desperately trying to flee the country by clinging to the departing aircrafts. 12 people have been killed in and around the airport by either gun shots or stampedes. Yet, thousands of frightened Afghans continue to race to the airport and borders to flee the country. Heavily armed Taliban cadres are playing the Gestapo to segregate and eliminate all Afghans, who worked for the previous regime, by conducting door to door search. Neither children nor women are spared from their heavily armed moral police. Women are forced to be shrouded in burqas with vision-blocking grilles. Democratic-minded people including journalists and artistes are harassed and served with life threat. Thus these arch Islamic fundamentalists are not only coercing and persecuting people to be swamped with religious backwardness, bigotry and medieval darkness but are also working against the original preachings of Islam. This cannot be tolerated by any right-thinking democratic-minded people, not even an honest follower of Islam. Exactly that is what is seen in Afghanistan amidst all chaos.
Surging protest of Afghan people is heartening and welcome
What is a sparkle in the pervading darkness is that defying all brutalities, edicts and even death threats, a section of the common people including brave women are bursting forth in protest against the Taliban rule. On 18 August, Taliban cadres fired at protesters waving flags in Jalalabad, killing three. “Our flag, our identity,” a crowd of men and women waving black, red and green national flags shouted in the capital Kabul, on the day of 19 August when Afghans were celebrating independence from British control in 1919. The Taliban terrorists fired on a protesting crowd in the eastern city of Asadabad and killed several protesters. The Taliban also fired into the air near a rally in Kabul. Similar scenes were witnessed in another eastern city, Khost. The taking to the streets by flag-waiving protesters marked spread of popular opposition to the Taliban. At some protests elsewhere, media have reported people tearing down the white flag of the Taliban.
But such courageous protests cannot beget the desired result unless the entire people close their ranks and launch an organized conscious protest movement and gradually escalate it to resistant movement under a correct revolutionary leadership. As we had mentioned earlier, Afghanistan once had seen surge of communist movement as people rallied behind it. But the faulty move of the Soviet Khrushchevite revisionist leaders whom the Afghan people presumed to be following Marxist line fostered a wrong impression among the Afghan people about communism. So they turned away from it and allowed the imperialist sharks and their protégé fundamentalists-terrorists to sneak in and run amuck. But now when they find how they have been defrauded by the imperialists and their lackeys so much so as to find it difficult to even hold on to their life, let alone growing wretchedness and height of insecurity, it is incumbent on them to search for the truth and true ideological-philosophical guidance to get back honour and dignity of life, achieve the cherished emancipation from the yoke of imperialist oppression and medieval barbarism of Islamic fundamentalists. The lessons of the various of erupting people’s agitations round the world like the historic movements of the working people in European countries, the ‘Yellow Vest’ movement of France, the inspiring ‘Occupy Wall Street Movement’ in US itself with slogans against capitalism, the upsurge of ‘Arab Spring’, show that valiant people’s struggles against injustice are more often than not rudderless and gradually subside if there is no proper leadership to direct it along the right track. In the present era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, any just movement even the national liberation struggles cannot achieve victory unless they conduce to anti-capitalist proletarian revolution and conducted under correct revolutionary leadership. The Khrushchevite revisionists were not communists but renegades who had deviated from Marxism-Leninism and assumed the role of capitalist-roaders to dismantle socialism through counter-revolution. So their betrayal is no folly of noblest ideology of Marxism-Leninism but a proof what disaster could be engendered if correct Marxist line, approach and outlook are abandoned. The task that history adjures to all suffering humanity across the country including Afghanistan is to isolate the divisive forces, compromising social democrats and other bourgeois groups, strengthen the genuine communist party on their respective soils, and intensify class and mass struggles under correct revolutionary leadership and based on higher proletarian ethics and culture so that the path is laid for accomplishment of anti-capitalist revolution. If there is no genuine communist party in any country, then due initiative needs to be taken to found such a party based on Leninist model and through arduous struggle. While extending our fraternity and solidarity with the struggling Afghanistan people on behalf of the fighting Indian people, we sincerely urge upon them to imbibe this historic truth and traverse along that line.
Sources of information: Global Research 19-06-17, 22-08-17, Workers’ World 24-12-18, 05-07-21, 15-08-21, Frontline 29-09-17, 01-03-19, The Guardian 29-02-20, 17-08-21, Al Jazeera News 29-02-20, 07-07-21, 15-08-21, 16-08-21, 17-08-21, New York Times-10-09-19, 08-03-20, First Post 13-06-21, Congressional Research Service -04-06-21, US News 20-06-21, The Print-25-06-21, The Hindu 28-06-21, 04-07-21, 09-07-21, 11-07-21, 12-08-21, 13-08-21, 16-08-21, 17-08-21, 19-08-21, 23-08-21, 31-08-21, Times of India 11-09-19, 07-07-21, 20-08-21, The Statesman- statesman-06-05-19, 07-05-19, 17-07-21, 20-07-21, India Today 12-08-21, The Wire-13-08-21, Hindustan Times 06-05-19, 16-08-21, 19-08-21, 20-08-21, BBC 18-08-21, Washington Post 18-08-21, 21-08-21, ABP 18-08-21, CPI (M) website 18-08-21, 19-08-21, AP News 18-08-21, Indian Express 19-08-21, 20-08-21, Republic World 25-08-21, US policy in Afghanistan (document)
