The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

“Valery, do you think that we would have built socialism in the USSR, that we wouldhave won World War II, if power hadn’t been concentrated in the hands of one person—Stalin?”“The USSR and Afghanistan are different countries. We have different histories anddifferent destinies. And, besides, look how the world has changed between the time of ourrevolution and the military coup in Afghanistan. It seems to me that we cannot accept suchconvenient parallels in understanding history. To be more precise, I want to say that wehave no right to transfer the historical experience of the Soviet Union onto Afghan soil.”Dvoryankov remained silent for a while. Then, betraying his exhaustion from thechallenging and apparently endless discussion, he turned to Tamara and began to tell her ofhis second marriage. At fifty-four, after the death of his first wife, he married again.Starostin, shooting his wife a threatening glance, continued where he left off.“And now, Nikolai Alexandrovich, let’s move on to Decree Number Four, whichestablishes the state symbols of Afghanistan. The state flag is red. Red is the color ofPashtuns and all Aryan peoples. Afghans, as far as I know, perceive this color favorably.However, look at the coat of arms. Why does it need the word ‘Khalq’ on it, the name of theruling party? Imagine if our flag boasted the letters ‘CPSU.’ I suppose that it would be muchmore appropriate to put some sort of symbol on the flag of the DRA. Perhaps a mountaineagle, a snow leopard, or an ibex. Or a universal slogan, lines taken from the poetry byAjmal Khattak, or from some other well-known classical Afghan poet.”“Well,” started Dvoryankov, “I agree that our friends have not fully thought itthrough, and I didn’t do much to help them. There certainly could have been moreinteresting variants. Let’s move to the fifth decree,” suggested the professor.278