The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

then moved on to comment on some issues that seemed particularly important orcontroversial to him. For example, with reference to the separation of the party and statepositions, he said: “We tried to implement it, but because of the specifics of the Afghansituation, we failed. As the country is in a state of war, we have to concentrate power in thehands of one individual.” He agreed that it was necessary to create an efficient system oflocal organs of power. “Until now we have not eliminated the feudal way of governing,” headmitted.“Our troops, particularly the ground troops,” said Taraki, “were under the stronginfluence of mullahs and religious fanatics, who called themselves ‘Muslim brothers.’ Wecall them ‘Satan’s brothers.’ It is natural that the moral condition of such soldiers was low.Now we are going to cut the arms of Satan’s brothers off, which will certainly improve thesituation. Not one soldier betrayed us. It is officers who are the traitors,” Taraki lied in hisattempt to flatter the Soviet leaders. He hit the bull’s eye, because Gromyko, who had beensilent until then, suddenly got stirred up.“This is very interesting. This is a class-related phenomenon.”Taraki also expressed his disagreement with the remark that the Afghans do notalways take the Soviet military advisers' recommendations into consideration. Hereassured his hosts that there was no groundless repression, and finally moved on to themain topic. Most probably, he did not understand the full extent of the threat that had beendirected at him.“You mentioned that somebody could take advantage of the powers that I amendowed with as the general secretary of the PDPA and the chairman of the RevolutionaryCouncil. This is a very serious business. From now on I will very closely watch everything505