The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

We’ve done it. We’ve succeeded in our revolution.” He wanted to impress Puzanov with an air ofwisdom and success. Alexander Mikhailovich offered a short toast, “To Soviet-Afghan friendship!”Dmitry Rurikov mentally applauded Puzanov. “Brilliant. This is what ‘old-school’ means.He’s hit a home-run.”Then the conversation began. Taraki said that the military coup that was realized “duringthe day, not under cover of night” * by the Khalqi officers had been provoked by Daoud and hisdespotic rule. If it weren’t for the murder of Khyber, if it weren’t for the arrests of the leadership ofthe PDPA, the armed uprising could hardly have occurred. However, Taraki saw the practicalmanifestation of the Hegelian dialectics of objective and subjective in such a development ofevents.“Sure, let’s put this into Hegelian terms,” thought Rurikov skeptically as he interpretedTaraki’s musings into Russian.They moved on to discussing specific issues. Taraki took out a rough draft of thecomposition of the future leadership of Afghanistan from the pocket of his worn sports coat. Forsome reason, he gave it to Alexei Petrov instead of the ambassador or Rurikov. Petrov immediatelycorrected Taraki’s mistake by passing the list to the ambassador, who in turn asked Rurikov toread it aloud. He began to read the notes out loud to the ambassador, commenting together withPetrov on the names from the list. After a preliminary discussion of the candidates on the list, theambassador stated his summary: “It would be good if the leadership of Afghanistan would consistof representatives of all patriotic and progressive forces in the country.” Taraki nodded inagreement, but didn’t care to further elaborate on the topic.* It appears as though Taraki had Alexander the Great in mind. Alexander, before the battle of Gavgameli, wasoffered by his military advisor Parmenion the option to attack at night. He responded, “Alexander does notsteal his victories as a thief in the night.” Later, the emphasis on victory during the day was very popular inAfghan propaganda.119