The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

escalated mass repressions, killing anyone suspected of disloyalty of the slightest degree.Many of their victims were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.Major landowners, merchants, bankers, and entrepreneurs were executed simplybecause they belonged to the “wrong class of ideological persuasion.” Clerics were killedbecause the state deemed religion unfit for their state designs. The intelligentsia was killedjust in case. Mass executions of peasants were staged because peasants were unreliable andallegedly would join the counter-revolution at any moment. The areas of traditionalsettlement by Pashtun tribes were bombed by the Air Force. Tribal settlements weredestroyed by artillery fire. Teams of assassins were sent wherever, according tointelligence reports, small groups of ikhvans were noticed.When the Soviet advisers attempted to stop this orgy of violence, they werereminded of their own Great October Revolution. “Remember how during the Civil War,and in the following decades, you rooted out and eliminated any real and potential enemiesin the most cruel and merciless way, gradually guaranteeing the triumph of socialism?” Theadvisers attempted to object, claiming that the Soviets had admitted that these repressiveactions were wrong and that they had also made other mistakes. But their objections wentunheard. Afghan leaders of every rank seemed to be embroiled in a perverse competitionover who could kill more of their own citizens. Their actions were encouraged from thevery top of the Afghan leadership.A Soviet adviser on fighting banditry and crime with the Ministry of the Interior ofthe DRA, Colonel Kliushnikov, once appeared in the Soviet embassy in an extremelyagitated state. He met Bogdanov and told him the following story: “Young PDPA activistsarrived in the center of the Paktia province in the south of the country. They gathered255