Andre Vltchek: There are many topics that are taboo in the West and its colonies. I will tell you one short story. I was living in Hanoi and one day an old gentleman from Afghanistan, an educator, came to visit. He was on an official visit to UNESCO. We were introduced and I spent two afternoons taking him around Hanoi. At one point we were sitting in a café and I asked him, “How was Afghanistan during the Soviet Union?” and he said, “Look, it was the only time that my country had any hope. This is when the teachers were both men and women, and women had the same rights as men; and when the country was actually developing for its people.” I said “But this is not what we read!” And he said, “Of course, it’s not what you are going to read but . . .” He gave me many examples and we ended up talking for two days. He’s not the only person who was enthusiastic about the pro-Soviet era in Afghanistan. I talked to other people later, mostly their educators, and now I am convinced that even the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan was totally different from what we are told through the mass media in the West.
Noam Chomsky: The United Nations had a representative in Kabul in the ’80s working on women’s rights, a well-known international feminist. She was one of the women who organized International Women’s Day. Towards the end she wrote a couple of articles about the state of women in Kabul under the Russians, and it was a very positive picture. She said the only real problem they had was Hekmatyar and the rest of the U.S.-backed Islamist extremists who were throwing acid in their faces. But other than that, they were very free. They wore what they liked, went to college and had opportunities. I think she sent the article to the Washington Post, which refused to print it. Then, more interestingly, she sent it to the major feminist journal in the United States and they refused to print it. Finally it was printed in the Asia Times, or somewhere like that.
Andre Vltchek: It was not only women who apparently benefited; the state of education also was quite good. There were new schools being built. Health and the infrastructure improved.
(from the book "On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare" by Noam Chomsky & Andre Vltchek)
Preferences and special entitlements for applicants and employees with disabilities.
Employers in Vietnam must comply with the government’s determination of the percentage of employees with disabilities to be recruited in certain job categories, with financial penalties for noncompliance. Additionally, employees with disabilities have certain protections regarding the terms and conditions of their employment. For example, employees with disabilities are not allowed to work more than a seven-hour day or a 42-hour week.
Employment preferences for female applicants and employees.
Vietnam’s labor laws require employers to give a preference to females who qualify for a vacant position. Entities that employ a substantial number of female employees will be considered for tax incentives by the government. Female employees are provided equal opportunity for all aspects of their employment, as well as protection against discriminatory actions or behavior that would violate their dignity.
http://www.crossborderemployer.com/post/2011/05/17/Vietname28099s-Employee-Friendly-Labor-Laws.aspx
I guess states have a class character, don't they, you bad poster
Crow posted:yes, dumbass, now those Saigon ladies have to live under this horrific reactionary hell:
Preferences and special entitlements for applicants and employees with disabilities.
Employers in Vietnam must comply with the government’s determination of the percentage of employees with disabilities to be recruited in certain job categories, with financial penalties for noncompliance. Additionally, employees with disabilities have certain protections regarding the terms and conditions of their employment. For example, employees with disabilities are not allowed to work more than a seven-hour day or a 42-hour week.
Employment preferences for female applicants and employees.
Vietnam’s labor laws require employers to give a preference to females who qualify for a vacant position. Entities that employ a substantial number of female employees will be considered for tax incentives by the government. Female employees are provided equal opportunity for all aspects of their employment, as well as protection against discriminatory actions or behavior that would violate their dignity.
http://www.crossborderemployer.com/post/2011/05/17/Vietname28099s-Employee-Friendly-Labor-Laws.aspx
I guess states have a class character, don't they, you bad poster
that must be why global companies racing to the bottom are relocating to vietnam
this is a very good article on Vietnam's economy and the drastic reduction of poverty: https://return2source.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/actually-existing-socialism-in-vietnam/
remember, the US had completely wrecked Vietnam for generations with mass bombardment, genocide, and the use of weapons with extremely serious long-term health effects, and then lost its biggest source of aid and trade with the collapse of the USSR, its very hard to build socialism after that sort of destruction
Afghanistan: Front Line of the Anti-Soviet War Drive
In their drive for world domination, the U.S. imperialists have never had any compunction about siding with the most retrograde social forces. It is impossible to comprehend the current plight of Afghan women without examining Washington’s role in backing the forces of Islamic reaction against the Soviet Union and its PDPA allies starting in 1978.
Many of the modernizing left nationalists who led the PDPA were educated and trained in the Soviet Union, which they rightly saw as a source of social progress. The Soviet Union was a workers state that embodied key social gains of the October 1917 Russian Revolution, centrally a planned economy and collectivized property, despite its subsequent degeneration under a nationalist Stalinist bureaucracy. Progressive-minded activists in Afghanistan in the 1970s looked at the example of Soviet Central Asia, just across the border, which was a modern society where women went unveiled, were educated and participated in public life and where everyone had access to free education and health care.
On coming to power in April 1978, the PDPA began to implement serious reforms favoring women and poor peasants, such as redistributing the land, lowering the bride price, educating women and freeing them from the burqa. In the context of this cruelly backward country, which had far more mullahs than industrial workers, such reforms had an explosive impact. They fueled a revolt by reactionary traditionalists who sought to maintain the old society, including its all-encompassing degradation of women. When the Muslim insurgency threatened the PDPA’s hold on power, the government made repeated requests for Soviet assistance, until the Soviets finally dispatched tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan in December 1979.
This was the only war in modern history fought centrally over women’s rights. From the start, the U.S. imperialists, determined to strike a blow against the Soviet Union, took the side of benighted reaction. Democratic president Jimmy Carter and his successor, Republican Ronald Reagan, backed the mujahedin holy warriors to the hilt in the biggest covert CIA operation in history. Billions of dollars in aid went to an array of Islamist groups based in Peshawar, Pakistan, and to that country’s ISI intelligence service. The CIA used the ISI and the Egyptian and Saudi intelligence services to create, train, finance and arm a network of 70,000 Islamists (including Osama bin Laden) from more than 50 countries to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, giving a huge boost to Muslim fundamentalist movements the world over.
We wrote at the time of the Soviet intervention: “For revolutionary socialists there is nothing tricky, nothing ambiguous about the war in Afghanistan. The Soviet Army and its left-nationalist allies are fighting an anti-communist, anti-democratic mélange of landlords, money lenders, tribal chiefs and mullahs committed to mass illiteracy.... The gut-level response of every radical leftist should be fullest solidarity with the Soviet Red Army” (Spartacist [English-language edition] No. 29, Summer 1980). The threat of a CIA-backed Islamic takeover on the USSR’s southern flank posed directly the need for unconditional military defense of the Soviet Union. Moreover, the extended Soviet presence opened the possibility of social liberation for the Afghan masses, particularly women. We proclaimed: Hail Red Army! Extend social gains of the October Revolution to the Afghan peoples!
In contrast, the bulk of the left internationally, with few exceptions, eagerly joined the imperialist chorus against the Soviet Union and whitewashed the mujahedin. The International Socialist Organization and its then ally in Britain,Tony Cliff’s Socialist Workers Party (SWP), stood foursquare with the imperialists. The 12 January 1980 issue of the SWP’s Socialist Worker blared, “Troops Out of Afghanistan!” In 1981, the then fake-Trotskyist United Secretariat of Ernest Mandel called for “stopping Soviet occupation in Afghanistan.” In howling with the imperialist wolves against the Soviet intervention, these groups made common cause with the worst enemies of the rights of women and all the oppressed.
Huge Gains for Afghan Women Under Soviet Presence
Freeing Afghan women from purdah (seclusion) and giving land to the peasants required ending the domination of the mullahs and tribal khans and overturning the country’s entire social structure. But the popular base of support for such moves within Afghanistan was very narrow. The country utterly lacked a proletariat with any social weight. Its tiny manufacturing workforce of some 35,000 was dwarfed by the quarter million Islamic clerics. Those elements in the cities aspiring to progress were surrounded by a sea of nomadic herdsmen and landless peasants beholden to the khans and the landlords. Thus, the presence of the Red Army, together with substantial Soviet aid, was essential to social progress.
Afghan women made unprecedented gains under the Soviet umbrella. While the 1964 constitution had declared women equal to men, equality largely remained on paper except for a few women in the upper strata of urban society. A thin layer of women had taken off the burqa and obtained education and employment outside the home, but even in Kabul, the main urban center, half of all women still wore the full veil in the late 1970s. Throughout the country, 98 percent of women were totally illiterate. In the 1980s, in contrast, there were vast opportunities for women to escape at least the strictest restraints of purdah. Many thousands became university students, workers, professionals and leftist activists.
Suraya Parlika, a founder of the PDPA-affiliated Democratic Women’s Organization, recounted some of these accomplishments in the 2007 documentary Afghan Women: A History of Struggle: “Women worked very hard to get their rights. They formed childcare centers in their workplaces to make it easier for women to work. Maternity leave was extended to three months from six weeks and they were still getting their salary.” The Afghan government also began mass literacy campaigns and provided free medical care.
By the late 1980s, women made up 40 percent of the country’s doctors (women doctors were in high demand, especially in rural areas, where women were still strictly secluded and barred from consulting male doctors). Sixty percent of the instructors at Kabul University and 65 percent of the student body were women. Family courts, in some cases presided over by female judges, had replaced the mullahs’ sharia courts. The number of working women increased 50-fold. By 1987, there were an estimated 245,000 women working in fields ranging from construction, printing and food processing to radio and TV journalism and especially teaching, where they made up 70 percent of the workforce.
In a 1994 PhD thesis, Educated Afghan Women in Search of Their Identities, the Afghan-born academic Sharifa Sharif reported on her 1987 interviews with 30 women workers in Kabul, undertaken as part of a survey for the United Nations Development Program. The sharp increase in women’s participation in economic life was partly due to the war, which had taken away many men and brought women from the countryside into Kabul. But it was also the result of greater legal rights, supportive government policies and economic development, including the construction of new homes, factories, schools and hospitals.
The transformation of these women from backward traditionalist areas into skilled workers gives a glimpse of what might have been achieved if Afghanistan had been able to continue its Soviet-assisted development. While initially encountering fierce resistance from their families, women workers were exposed to technology, education and literacy. They took pride in acquiring job skills and becoming ustad (expert masters) in their fields. Some were sent for training to the Soviet Union. At a construction site, Sharif interviewed a 23-year-old widow and mother of two children, who was one of three female crane operators, a job never before done by a woman in Afghanistan.
Many women took up arms against the mujahedin threat. Four of seven military commanders appointed in 1986 were women. By 1989, the regime reported having armed some 15,000 women. The same year, all female members of the PDPA received military training and arms. The arming of unveiled women with Kalashnikovs symbolized the social transformation then under way in Afghanistan. As early as 1984, Indian journalist Patricia Sethi reported encountering 15-year-old girls carrying rifles who were members of a civilian brigade in a village near Kabul: “They spoke fervently and passionately about their revolution and what it meant for young women in Afghanistan: it meant ‘an education, freedom from the veil, freedom from feudalists who want to keep us down,’ said Khalida. ‘We do not want to become the fourth wife of a 60-year-old man, existing solely for his whim and pleasure’” (India Today, 31 July 1984).
Soviet Withdrawal Betrayed Afghan Women
[*Trotskyite nonsense*]
After the Soviet withdrawal, the Afghan government fought on valiantly for three years. The Partisan Defense Committee—a class-struggle legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League—wrote to the PDPA government in 1989 offering to organize an international brigade to help fight the forces of Islamic reaction. When that offer was turned down, the PDC, at the request of the Afghan government, launched an international fund drive to aid civilian victims of the mujahedin siege of the city of Jalalabad, raising over $44,000. The Afghan forces were able to repel this attack.
When the mujahedin finally took Kabul in 1992, re-enslaving Afghan women, the various tribally-based militias carried out a vengeful war of mass murder, torture and rape of rival ethnic populations, which left at least 50,000 people dead in Kabul alone. This led to four years of horror under the rule of various warring fundamentalist factions which brought the city to the point of famine and total devastation.
A recent New York Times article (“In Afghanistan, a Soviet Past Lies in Ruins,” 11 February) captured some of the destruction wrought by these U.S.-backed cutthroats. The article notes that in the Soviet House of Science and Culture during the 1980s, “Soviets and Afghans gathered for lectures, films and the propagation of modernizing ideas that for a while refashioned Kabul, including a time when women could work outside the home in Western clothing.” It continued:
“But during the civil war of 1992-96, the House of Science and Culture was occupied by one faction and wrecked as another lobbed shells down from a nearby hill. Today, the auditoriums are littered with rubble; cold air comes in through rocket holes; and once-bold Soviet murals of men and women, Afghans and Russians, are hidden in the squalid darkness near cartoon images depicting a Taliban fighter instructing children to become suicide bombers.”
Eventually the Taliban, recruiting from the historically dominant Pashtun ethnic population, emerged as the strongest of the mujahedin factions. Backed by Pakistan and supported by the U.S., it came to power in 1996. A year later, an American diplomat declared: “The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did. There will be Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that” (quoted in Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia [2000]). Only when the U.S. rulers realized that there would be no Aramco (or any other oil company) and no pipelines did they start talking about the Taliban’s barbaric treatment of women.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/babrak-karmal-government-succeeds-in-attempts-to-convince-afghans-to-accept-the-soviets/1/360892.html
The double shuffle
Babrak Karmal Government succeeds in attempts to convince Afghans to accept the Soviets
Patricia J. Sethi July 31, 1984
Little seems to have changed in Afghanistan since the Soviet occupation in December 1979. Except that the long-term strategy adopted by the Kremlin seems to be paying off. Last month, Bombay-born journalist Patricia J. Sethi returned from a 10-day tour of the country, which included a lengthy meeting with President Babrak Karmal, with a first-hand account of the current situation and an insight into what the Soviet's future plans are. Her report:
Kabul is a city on guard. The runways of its international airport groan under the weight of Sukhoi bomber squadrons, as well as MiG-17s and MiG-21s bearing Afghan and Soviet insignias. At regular intervals, MI-8 and MI-4 Hind helicopters gunships flutter off on reconnaissance sorties to buzz the hills around Kabul even as squat-bellied Antonov transport planes dock down to disgorge troops and supplies. T-52 tanks flank the airport perimeter, with their guns constantly trained into the hills.
Along the city's broad poplar-lined avenues, convoys of armoured personnel carriers, military jeeps and trucks - and even the occasional tank - rumble off to the Afghan army barracks at Bala Hissar fort, or onto highways linking Kabul with Afghanistan's other cities.
All government buildings, and now even schools and hotels, have teams of Sarandoi (security police) armed with pistols and Kalishnikovs on constant patrol outside the entrance gates. Anyone who enters has to produce identification papers or he is subject to a thorough search.
At night, as curfew sets in at 10 p.m., tanks and armoured personnel carriers clank through the streets to set up positions at important office buildings and to man all intersections till 4 a.m. when the curfew ends. Army troops with AK-47s drawn to shoot-on-sight halt any vehicle or person who has dared to intrude on the curfew period. If the electricity fails, four high-beam searchlights, positioned on top of four hills which dissect and surround Kabul, criss-cross the city all through the curfew hours at regular one-minute intervals.
Flares set on the city's outer walls light up the cool star-studded spring nights, following a regularised pattern: green flares signalling that all patrols are moving normally; orange flares suggesting that something suspicious is going on; red flares indicating impending danger which immediately lets loose a barrage of helicopter-gunships to direct ground forces in the problem area; white flares signalling the all-clear.
During a 10-day stay in Kabul, however, the electricity stayed on all night (diplomats say that the last serious power disruption occurred many months ago) and it was very quiet except for one night when gunfire resounded in the hills. The battle waged for two hours: according to the bazaar gossip and diplomats, the Mujahedeen fired several surface-to-air missiles (SAM) into the general vicinity of the airport.
The response was vigorous: artillery guns, bombers, helicopters pounding the area from whence the rockets came. Diplomats contend that the rockets did not do much damage and the exaggerated response is a natural reaction by troops who are fighting an enemy they cannot see or engage in a regular battle.
Many diplomats also admit that the number of sustained or major rebel attacks in and around Kabul have fallen sharply since 1982. This is attributed to better and much more sophisticated security operations, a government policy of pay-offs and unconditional pardons which has attempted to neutralise the opposition within the country, and a growing sense of anger among the populace at the violence which has taken innocent civilian lives (as a result of heavy security at government buildings, the Mujahedeen have been targeting civilian centres. In the past three months in Kabul, the Mujahedeen claimed responsibility for the April bombings of three schools because of traditional Islamic objection to educating women; the March 21 bombing of a mosque run by pro-government mullahs which left seven dead and 24 injured; the May bombing of a cinema theatre which killed four and injured 14).
The military alert that has Kabul in its grip should not in any way suggest that there is a sense of panic there or that a siege mentality prevails among the population.
On the contrary, except for the curfew period, it is life as usual in the city. The mullahs call the faithful to prayer five times a day, strains of Allaho Akbar rending the air. The bazaars teem with turbaned, bearded merchants haggling over deals and sealing bargains over cups of chai and strips of nan: the more modern element sorting out business over Coca-Cola and Sprite, bottled in Afghanistan.
Kabul is the central market - "the main depot or clearing-house" as one diplomat puts it - for goods travelling from Japan and China to the Gulf states, and between Western Europe and India (Afghan duties and taxes are minimal, if any). Any currency is accepted in transactions: the pound, the dollar, the rouble, even the Indian rupee.
Thus you will find stores full of goods from all over the world: Chinese pottery and silks; Russian chocolate and refrigerators; American jeans and cigarettes; Japanese televisions and video-recorders; Iranian pistachio-nuts and rugs; French cologne and after-shaves. Toyotas vie for the alley ways with Mercedes-Benzes, Chevrolets and Beiras.
Army vehicles are constantly scurrying about, the Sarandio is ever vigilant, but the masses go about their daily routine in the calm, relaxed fashion endemic to the subcontinent. Army convoys appear to bother no one; in fact graciously give the right of way to private cars and taxis trying to overtake them. (Compare)
One night army troops guarding the intersection of Ansary Watt and Peace Avenue during the curfew had a particularly raucous singing session complete with hand-clapping and wolf-whistles until the manager of the nearby hotel advised them "to cool it" so that his guests could get some sleep.
When the Russians first moved into Afghanistan in December 1979 it was a specific response to what they viewed as three serious threats:
- The strategic threat as spelt out by the US policy of "containment and encirclement" of the Soviet Union by countries friendly to the US;
- The upsurge of a theocratic Islamic fundamentalism with Khomeini's victory in Iran which could trigger off sympathetic vibrations in the Soviet Union's Central Asian Republics;
- Former Afghan President Hafizullah Amin's overtures to the US (he had seven meetings with US diplomats based in Kabul between September and November 1979) which could alter the political balance in Afghanistan from that of a buffer nation for the Soviet Union to that of a US ally.
"The Russians had to react and they reacted," says one high-ranking diplomat stationed in Kabul. "What they planned was a quick strike, the restoration of the original political balance with a government friendly to them in command, and a hasty exit with perhaps a token force left behind. But that plan fell victim to a terrain which has made it historically difficult for any government in Kabul to control the countryside and an insurgency encouraged by western aid."
Now, this diplomatic source continues, the Russians are locked into a situation where they must stay on until the following conditions are met: neutralise the insurgency; stabilise the regime of President Babrak Karmal; establish direct relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Afghanistan and Iran which will secure boundaries thereby eliminating support for rebel elements.
There is a general consensus among diplomatic sources in Kabul that the Russians are committed to stay - and they plan to stay on indefinitely.
To this end they have unleashed 110,000 troops in Afghanistan (with another 40,000 ready to move in at a moment's notice from bases in the Soviet Union near the Afghan border); there are 4,000 Soviet advisers at every level of the Kabul Government advising on economic, security and political matters. The Soviet tab is estimated by solid sources on the subcontinent to be some US $1.5 million a day.
So far, according to non-aligned diplomats in Kabul, the cost of the occupation policy is not hurting the Soviet Union a great deal. The death toll for the four-year occupation period is about 4,000 Russian soldiers; the injured some 12,000.
"They've reasoned in the Kremlin that the $1.5 million a day price-tag is well worth their national security interests and they've concluded that international opinion against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan is not worth worrying about," says one diplomatic source. "And since the Soviet Union is a closed society the Government does not have to concern itself too much with domestic public opinion."
Despite government propaganda through the mass media which extolls "the Great Soviet-Afghan Friendship" and "the kindness of the people of the Soviet Union to their brothers in Afghanistan", the Russians have no illusions about their popularity. They are obviously respected and treated well by party cadres and government officials, but many mullahs and merchants resent their presence because they fear that "a socialist revolution threatens our power and property".
As a result, Russian troops maintain a low profile, confined to their barracks for the most part - venturing out only to help monitor the curfew hours. They are taken out on Saturdays under escort to the bazaars to do their shopping. There are occasional incidents of looting, rape or drunkenness by Soviet troops but according to diplomatic sources they are fairly well-behaved.
When questioned about the Soviet presence in Kabul, one Soviet official pointed out that "time changes everything. In another 10 or 20 years, the new generation of Afghans will view our presence differently". And he noted that only a generation ago, the peoples of the Central Asian Republics resented the white Russian of the north. "Things have changed a great deal since those days," he added.
Given the Kremlin's decision to hang tough in Afghanistan, diplomats in Kabul contend that the rebels based in Pakistan have a difficult task ahead. For one thing, they are no match for a super-power which is prepared to remain in Afghanistan indefinitely, and to throw in as many troops and weapons as are needed for the job.
Besides, adds one informed analyst, the rebel leadership is wracked by divisions and factions: "Not one of them is a Ho Chi Minh." Non-Afghan intelligence sources tell of the luxurious life-styles of rebel leaders in Peshawar. Some of them are said to control 50 per cent of the truck traffic trade between Karachi and Peshawar. And a few recently paid US $10,000 apiece to marry 16-year-old girls as fourth wives.
Moreover, some of the rebels fight as mercenaries, switching sides if the offer is better. Given these factors and the improved security apparatus in most of Afghanistan's major cities, diplomats assess that the Mujahedeen "will continue to be a nuisance factor" in the Afghan political equation, but how serious a nuisance factor will depend on how well they can organise and how sophisticated their weapons.
Right now they are getting close to $25 million a month from the West plus another $10 million from the Arabs. Their antiquated weapons have now given way to Redeye anti-aircraft SAM missiles, RPG rockets, anti-tank wire-guided missiles and sophisticated walkietalkies which can connect various patrols within a 10-kilometre range. But despite the qualitative and quantitative increase in aid to the rebels, diplomats in Kabul maintain that as of today the Soviet superpower definitely has the edge.
In the opinion of several analysts, the only rebel leader who might have posed a threat to Karmal over the long range was Ahmad Shah Massoud, the 28-year-old head of a band of some 7,000 guerrillas based in the 70-mile-long Panjshir valley, north-east of Kabul.
The Soviets had bought a truce with him last year after their sixth siege of the Panjshir failed. Massoud's price was high: $350,000, but the Soviets reckoned it was worth a long-term negotiated settlement with him. Besides, unlike the rebel leaders in Pakistan, Massoud was a genuine and committed nationalist who chose to remain in Afghanistan to fight. He used the truce money to build up his base and to buy more arms.
By November last year, however, the Soviets were seriously worried that Massoud was getting too big for his Afghani pantaloons. He was granting interviews to foreign journalists depicting himself as the Tito of Afghanistan, the Lion of the Panjshir.
The Soviets began to brace themselves for alternatives which would rule out all further deals with Massoud. When the truce came to an end in February, civilians in the valley were advised to move to Kabul while new negotiations took place. Massoud made three demands this time: double the original price-tag, deal directly with the Russians (he refused to deal with Karmal) and autonomous jurisdiction over the Panjshir.
The Russians acquiesced willingly to the first two demands; they told him they would have to consider the third. Since they had no intention of agreeing to the autonomy clause, they stalled Massoud even as they put their seventh push into the Panjshir into effect, a thrust aimed at wiping out Massoud. Massoud in turn tried to prove that he was a power to be reckoned with at the bargaining table; his followers destroyed two bridges on the Salang highway in early April: one near Dusi and the other on the Gorbund river north of Kabul.
Unlike in the previous sieges, the Russians did not include the Afghan army in the seventh thrust for fear of a possible leak to Massoud. Only top Afghan officials were briefed about a general plan; the specifics were totally in Russian hands.
In the second week of April, Russian commandos were air-dropped from mountain height into the Panjshir's side valleys to seal off all exit routes from the main valley. Shortly thereafter, some 20,000 Soviet troops, mobilised at Roha in the south and Faizabad in the north, pushed in from both ends to seal off the main valley. Even as this occurred, the truce negotiations continued under the white flag.
On the morning of April 18, the Russian negotiating group flew up a helicopter to Massoud's base camp near Roha in the Panjshir to inform him that the Soviets could not accept his autonomy clause. They offered him a top-level position in the Government. He refused. The truce fell apart. Minutes after the helicopter carrying the Soviet negotiating team left the scene (no more than 15 minutes had elapsed) when bombers and MiG-jets from bases at Kabul, Bagram and Doshambe (near Stalinabad in the Soviet Union) carpet-bombed the valley.
Any Mujahedeen assistance from Pakistan through the side valleys was wiped out by the Soviet commandos who had been air-dropped the week before. From April 18 to April 24 the main operations were carried out by air; ground and infantry forces moved in slowly starting April 21. Major Afghan units handled the mopping-up operations; Karmal's Government announced the "successful" mission on April 24.
The Russians took 2,000 casualties during the seventh siege of the Panjshir: the heaviest toll came during the commando drops; later mines dug in throughout the valley floor inflicted many injuries.
But defense analysts insist that the Panjshir strategy marks the beginning of qualitatively different tactics by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. "They are going to depend much more on their superior air power to attack rebel strongholds, thus reducing the number of Soviet casualties," says one military expert.
"And they are going to concentrate on cutting off rebel groups from their supply routes to Pakistan." The message that Massoud ostensibly sent on May 9 to Peshawar asking for boots, clothes and arms suggests to some observers that the last tactic is already working.
Internally, Karmal has embarked on a two-part policy with Soviet guidance and assistance which will set in motion "a national democratic revolution which is anti-feudal and anti-imperialist with a socialist orientation," to use the President's own words. He intends to turn Afghanistan into a modern, progressive society by building up a machinery loyal to the revolution and in turn loyal to Karmal and the Soviet Union, at the same time assuring Islamic elements within Afghan society that the revolution does not run counter to Islam.
Throughout the country, Karmal's People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) has established party cadres at all levels of social and political life - cadres which preach the virtues of the revolution. Eleven Young Pioneer Palaces have been set up with assistance from the GDR and the Soviet Union "to imbue 80,000 young Afghans with the spirit of the revolution," in the words of Simoy Yusufi, director of Kabul's Young Pioneer Palace.
Every year 5,000 youngsters go to training camps for young pioneers in the Soviet Union and in other socialist countries. The PDPA has established a youth organization headed by Dr Salu Marjan which has attracted 125,000 children around the country to work for the glory of the revolution. "The purpose of the youth movement is to instill in our youth patriotism, internationalism, a sense of sacrifice and enthusiasm for the revolution," says Marjan.
The Russians have also built factories, schools, hospitals and a polytechnic modelled on Soviet patterns - all of which are expected to change the face of feudal Afghanistan. The Russians also train the Afghan army and have reorganised the defence system on Soviet lines.
Keeping in mind that a great leap forward to a socialist revolution could boomerang in an Islamic country, Karmal has moved very slowly with the traditional aspects of Islamic society unlike his predecessor Amin.
For example, even though the ideology of the PDPA is decidedly leftist, there is no mention at all of communism or of Marxist-Leninism. To make his PDPA and his revolution more palatable to Islamic elements in Afghan society, Karmal has conceived a broad-based National Fatherland Front which is composed of various groups of Afghan society. He held a Jirga (national assembly) last year to permit all political groups to give vent to their opinions and make suggestions about the revolution. He has released 80 per cent of those who had been imprisoned by his predecessor Amin, and even western diplomats admit that his regime is much more humane when compared with the butchery that characterised Amin's leadership.
Karmal has set up an Islamic Affairs Commission to ensure that Islamic practices and beliefs continue: mosques are being rebuilt, Karmal is seen attending services at mosques, the holy days are observed, the tithes and property of the mullahs remain untouched.
"The purpose of our national democratic revolution is not to get rid of religion but to incorporate religion and the characteristics of our society into the revolution," says President Karmal. "Revolutionary government should be at the service of its people. What the people want, we want. Islamic beliefs and traditions are part of Afghan society and we respect them."
Karmal has reverted to the original Islamic colours (red, black and green) in the Afghan flag (Amin had switched to red) and he has changed Amin's compulsory education programme to an "optional literacy programme for women". Property rights are scrupulously observed; in fact, merchants and businessmen are encouraged with loans, credits and tax exemptions.
Some Third World diplomats in Kabul insist that despite Karmal's image as a Soviet puppet in the West, he has moved slowly, constructively and moderately - walking the fine line between Islam and revolution - so that for the first time in the history of Afghanistan "there is at least a semblance of organised government in the country."
Thus Kabul is a curious mix of revolution and Islam. Chadri-clad women walk side-by-side with young women in short skirts or jeans.
In the village of Bagrami outside of Kabul, a chadri-clad woman at the water tap rushed off when I tried to talk to her. But five 15-year-old girls, carrying rifles and claiming to be members of "the civilian brigade to defend the revolution", talked to me at length.
They spoke fervently and passionately about their revolution and what it meant for young women in Afghanistan: it meant "an education, freedom from the veil, freedom from feudalists who want to keep us down," said Khalida. "We do not want to become the fourth wife of a 60-year-old man, existing solely for his whim and pleasure."
Karmal is also eager to reach a negotiated settlement with his neighbours which will establish him unequivocally as Afghanistan's leader and bring about the peaceful conditions necessary for him to build his national democratic revolution in Afghanistan.
Thus far, however, the four-year-old experiment in shuttle diplomacy by UN mediator Diego Cordovez has reached a stalemate. Last year, Cordovez came as close to a breakthrough as possible. Pakistani Foreign Minister Sahabzada Yakub Khan appeared willing to settle for an agreement which reaffirmed the territorial integrity of the two nations thus tacitly accepting the Durand line as the legitimate boundary between Pakistan and Afghanistan and putting an end to the Pushtun question which has plagued relations between the two countries throughout history - in exchange for a signed Afghan assurance that the Soviets would be asked to withdraw their troops in stages.
No timetable was to be written into the agreement, just the formal acceptance of a Soviet withdrawal. It was also agreed in principle that all refugees could return to Afghanistan.
But when Yakub Khan went to Washington, US Secretary of State George Shultz and National Security Chief William Clark insisted that the specific timetable for a phased withdrawal of Soviet troops (beginning two months from the day the agreement was signed and to be completed in eight months) be written into the document.
Yakub Khan returned to Geneva with the new demand and the talks fell through. Not much has happened since on the mediation front. Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko pointedly snubbed Zia-ul-Haq when the latter attended Yuri Andropov's funeral in Moscow this year. And in his May Day message, Karmal resurrected the Pushtun question (after a long period of silence) when he affirmed "the solidarity of the Afghan peoples with their Pushtun and Baluch brethren".
During a three-hour-conversation with Karmal, he insisted that he strongly supports a negotiated settlement and that he wants direct talks with Pakistan tomorrow. But as he sees it, "the Government of Zia-ul-Haq will not negotiate directly because its ears are being tweaked by the United States".
Karmal refuses to talk with rebel leaders in Pakistan because they are "bandits" and he contends that Russian withdrawal is a bilateral issue to be resolved by the two governments involved. "The Soviets came at our request and they will leave at our request," he says.
Karmal continues to hope for a peaceful resolution of the Afghan question. "We are optimists and we are a patient people," he says. "Sooner or later the issue will be resolved. We know that the people of Pakistan want peace with their brothers in Afghanistan. Either the military junta of Zia will finally come to terms with reality or the people of Pakistan will move to remove the obstacles. Zia is sitting on a powder keg. Governments come and go; the will of the people remains."
Edited by Crow ()
It should also be noted that the annual death rate for the Soviet interned population was about 4%, which incorporates the effect of prisoner executions (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993). Excluding the desperate World War II years, the death rate in the Soviet prisons, gulags, and labor camps was only 2.5% (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993), which is even below that of the average "free" citizen in capitalist Russia under the czar in peacetime in 1913 (Wheatcroft, 1993). This finding is not very surprising, given that about 1/3 of the confined people were not even required to work (Bacon, 1994), and given that the maximum work week was 84 hours in even the harshest Soviet labor camps during the most desperate wartime years (Rummel, 1990). The latter maximum (and unusual) work week actually compares favorably to the 100-hour work weeks that existed even for "free" 6-year old children during peacetime in the capitalist industrial revolution (Marx and Engels, 1988b ), although it may seem high compared to the 7-hour day worked by the typical Soviet citizen under Stalin (Davies, 1997).
In fact, demographic data alone are sufficient to disprove the conjecture of Rummel (1990) and others that Stalin and his successor murdered millions of people in the 1940s and 1950s. In particular, Chalk and Jonassohn (1990) census data indicating that the population of the Soviet Union had risen to 209 million by 1959, of which 75 million had been born since 1940, implying 209 - 75 million = 134 million of these living in 1959 having been in existence before 1940. Combining the early 1939 Soviet population of 168 million with 24 million new Soviet citizens (who were added as a result of Soviet re-annexations of formerly Russian territory later in 1939) implies a population of 192 million at the end of 1939. Given Rummel's (1990) own estimates of 20 million Soviets killed by the Nazis in World War II, there are a total of 192 - 20 - 134 = 38 million people left who could have died from deaths not related to the Nazis. That number of deaths represents only 38 / 20 = 1.9 million per year over the 1940-1959 interval, or under 1.0% of the population annually. Such an annual death rate is far less than the over 3% Russian death rate under the czar even in peacetime in 1913 (Wheatcroft, 1990), is less than the 1.9% Soviet death rate in 1928 before Stalin took full control (Buck, 1937), is even below the 1.1% death rate in the final year of communism in 1990, and is significantly less than the 1.6% death rate under Yeltsin's capitalist Russia (Becker, 1997a)
stegosaurus posted:why are we more secretive than the bolsheviks, who published internal debates in their underground highly illegal newspaper?
because the US spy/surveillance/suppression state is actually several times more insidious, widespread, and effective than anything that anyone ever dreamed of existing in the USSR?
Crow posted:It should also be noted that the annual death rate for the Soviet interned population was about 4%, which incorporates the effect of prisoner executions (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993). Excluding the desperate World War II years, the death rate in the Soviet prisons, gulags, and labor camps was only 2.5% (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993), which is even below that of the average "free" citizen in capitalist Russia under the czar in peacetime in 1913 (Wheatcroft, 1993). This finding is not very surprising, given that about 1/3 of the confined people were not even required to work (Bacon, 1994), and given that the maximum work week was 84 hours in even the harshest Soviet labor camps during the most desperate wartime years (Rummel, 1990). The latter maximum (and unusual) work week actually compares favorably to the 100-hour work weeks that existed even for "free" 6-year old children during peacetime in the capitalist industrial revolution (Marx and Engels, 1988b ), although it may seem high compared to the 7-hour day worked by the typical Soviet citizen under Stalin (Davies, 1997).
In fact, demographic data alone are sufficient to disprove the conjecture of Rummel (1990) and others that Stalin and his successor murdered millions of people in the 1940s and 1950s. In particular, Chalk and Jonassohn (1990) census data indicating that the population of the Soviet Union had risen to 209 million by 1959, of which 75 million had been born since 1940, implying 209 - 75 million = 134 million of these living in 1959 having been in existence before 1940. Combining the early 1939 Soviet population of 168 million with 24 million new Soviet citizens (who were added as a result of Soviet re-annexations of formerly Russian territory later in 1939) implies a population of 192 million at the end of 1939. Given Rummel's (1990) own estimates of 20 million Soviets killed by the Nazis in World War II, there are a total of 192 - 20 - 134 = 38 million people left who could have died from deaths not related to the Nazis. That number of deaths represents only 38 / 20 = 1.9 million per year over the 1940-1959 interval, or under 1.0% of the population annually. Such an annual death rate is far less than the over 3% Russian death rate under the czar even in peacetime in 1913 (Wheatcroft, 1990), is less than the 1.9% Soviet death rate in 1928 before Stalin took full control (Buck, 1937), is even below the 1.1% death rate in the final year of communism in 1990, and is significantly less than the 1.6% death rate under Yeltsin's capitalist Russia (Becker, 1997a)
ignoring the people born after 1940 discounts child mortality though which the other mortality rates dont
Panopticon posted:Crow posted:It should also be noted that the annual death rate for the Soviet interned population was about 4%, which incorporates the effect of prisoner executions (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993). Excluding the desperate World War II years, the death rate in the Soviet prisons, gulags, and labor camps was only 2.5% (Getty, Ritterspom, and Zemskov, 1993), which is even below that of the average "free" citizen in capitalist Russia under the czar in peacetime in 1913 (Wheatcroft, 1993). This finding is not very surprising, given that about 1/3 of the confined people were not even required to work (Bacon, 1994), and given that the maximum work week was 84 hours in even the harshest Soviet labor camps during the most desperate wartime years (Rummel, 1990). The latter maximum (and unusual) work week actually compares favorably to the 100-hour work weeks that existed even for "free" 6-year old children during peacetime in the capitalist industrial revolution (Marx and Engels, 1988b ), although it may seem high compared to the 7-hour day worked by the typical Soviet citizen under Stalin (Davies, 1997).
In fact, demographic data alone are sufficient to disprove the conjecture of Rummel (1990) and others that Stalin and his successor murdered millions of people in the 1940s and 1950s. In particular, Chalk and Jonassohn (1990) census data indicating that the population of the Soviet Union had risen to 209 million by 1959, of which 75 million had been born since 1940, implying 209 - 75 million = 134 million of these living in 1959 having been in existence before 1940. Combining the early 1939 Soviet population of 168 million with 24 million new Soviet citizens (who were added as a result of Soviet re-annexations of formerly Russian territory later in 1939) implies a population of 192 million at the end of 1939. Given Rummel's (1990) own estimates of 20 million Soviets killed by the Nazis in World War II, there are a total of 192 - 20 - 134 = 38 million people left who could have died from deaths not related to the Nazis. That number of deaths represents only 38 / 20 = 1.9 million per year over the 1940-1959 interval, or under 1.0% of the population annually. Such an annual death rate is far less than the over 3% Russian death rate under the czar even in peacetime in 1913 (Wheatcroft, 1990), is less than the 1.9% Soviet death rate in 1928 before Stalin took full control (Buck, 1937), is even below the 1.1% death rate in the final year of communism in 1990, and is significantly less than the 1.6% death rate under Yeltsin's capitalist Russia (Becker, 1997a)
ignoring the people born after 1940 discounts child mortality though which the other mortality rates dont
you lost me, who's ignoring those born after 1940?
stegosaurus posted:I was referring to the czarist secret police and I don't think that's true. Trade unions being illegal is worse than whatever the nsa is doing with people's selfies
not when you consider the fact that the reason trade unions arent illegal in America is because they dont even need to be anymore
We can fire you for any reason *presses the ANY key*
Crow posted:Panopticon posted:Crow posted:In fact, demographic data alone are sufficient to disprove the conjecture of Rummel (1990) and others that Stalin and his successor murdered millions of people in the 1940s and 1950s. In particular, Chalk and Jonassohn (1990) census data indicating that the population of the Soviet Union had risen to 209 million by 1959, of which 75 million had been born since 1940, implying 209 - 75 million = 134 million of these living in 1959 having been in existence before 1940. Combining the early 1939 Soviet population of 168 million with 24 million new Soviet citizens (who were added as a result of Soviet re-annexations of formerly Russian territory later in 1939) implies a population of 192 million at the end of 1939. Given Rummel's (1990) own estimates of 20 million Soviets killed by the Nazis in World War II, there are a total of 192 - 20 - 134 = 38 million people left who could have died from deaths not related to the Nazis. That number of deaths represents only 38 / 20 = 1.9 million per year over the 1940-1959 interval, or under 1.0% of the population annually. Such an annual death rate is far less than the over 3% Russian death rate under the czar even in peacetime in 1913 (Wheatcroft, 1990), is less than the 1.9% Soviet death rate in 1928 before Stalin took full control (Buck, 1937), is even below the 1.1% death rate in the final year of communism in 1990, and is significantly less than the 1.6% death rate under Yeltsin's capitalist Russia (Becker, 1997a)
ignoring the people born after 1940 discounts child mortality though which the other mortality rates dont
you lost me, who's ignoring those born after 1940?
"of which 75 million had been born since 1940, implying 209 - 75 million = 134 million of these living in 1959 having been in existence before 1940"
"192 - 20 - 134 = 38 million people left who could have died from deaths not related to the Nazis"
he subtracts the 75 million persons alive at 1959 who were not born yet in 1940 from the figures he goes on to calculate the mortality rate with. child mortality in the russian empire was the most important factor in the overall death rate, something like half of peasant children didn't live to their 5th birthday (let alone their 20th). a famine induced by incompetence or genocidal madness (depending upon the pet theory in question) would hit children hardest, so to discount them from this hypothetical death rate wouldn't disprove said pet theory.
Panopticon posted:Crow posted:Panopticon posted:Crow posted:In fact, demographic data alone are sufficient to disprove the conjecture of Rummel (1990) and others that Stalin and his successor murdered millions of people in the 1940s and 1950s. In particular, Chalk and Jonassohn (1990) census data indicating that the population of the Soviet Union had risen to 209 million by 1959, of which 75 million had been born since 1940, implying 209 - 75 million = 134 million of these living in 1959 having been in existence before 1940. Combining the early 1939 Soviet population of 168 million with 24 million new Soviet citizens (who were added as a result of Soviet re-annexations of formerly Russian territory later in 1939) implies a population of 192 million at the end of 1939. Given Rummel's (1990) own estimates of 20 million Soviets killed by the Nazis in World War II, there are a total of 192 - 20 - 134 = 38 million people left who could have died from deaths not related to the Nazis. That number of deaths represents only 38 / 20 = 1.9 million per year over the 1940-1959 interval, or under 1.0% of the population annually. Such an annual death rate is far less than the over 3% Russian death rate under the czar even in peacetime in 1913 (Wheatcroft, 1990), is less than the 1.9% Soviet death rate in 1928 before Stalin took full control (Buck, 1937), is even below the 1.1% death rate in the final year of communism in 1990, and is significantly less than the 1.6% death rate under Yeltsin's capitalist Russia (Becker, 1997a)
ignoring the people born after 1940 discounts child mortality though which the other mortality rates dont
you lost me, who's ignoring those born after 1940?
"of which 75 million had been born since 1940, implying 209 - 75 million = 134 million of these living in 1959 having been in existence before 1940"
"192 - 20 - 134 = 38 million people left who could have died from deaths not related to the Nazis"
he subtracts the 75 million persons alive at 1959 who were not born yet in 1940 from the figures he goes on to calculate the mortality rate with. child mortality in the russian empire was the most important factor in the overall death rate, something like half of peasant children didn't live to their 5th birthday (let alone their 20th). a famine induced by incompetence or genocidal madness (depending upon the pet theory in question) would hit children hardest, so to discount them from this hypothetical death rate wouldn't disprove said pet theory.
gotcha, well, i dunno:
Panopticon posted:child mortality in the russian empire was the most important factor in the overall death rate, something like half of peasant children didn't live to their 5th birthday (let alone their 20th).
it's a little disingenuous to join these as one sentence like it's something peculiarly russian, rather than something true of low average age in most peasant communities during most times in history, and also "let alone their 20th" makes it sound kind of like death in young adulthood is a comparable component of low average age among peasants, when it really isn't as far as i'm aware
dipshit420 posted:i agree with professor dick wolf that it is criminal for 1st world countries to have employment shortfalls and that the state should try its hardest to ensure there is valuable labor available to its citizens
naw work sux. tasty and affordable commodities are all anyone needs
Sources:
http://www.privatizationbarometer.net/index.php
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=h9FFVgu-Ff0C&pg=PA243&lpg=PA243&dq=yugoslavia%20public%20sector%20percentage%20of%20economy&source=bl&ots=hD9ja4U8R8&sig=yVtJazEErc1FwP0Fgs_5EJKozPw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEsQ6AEwCWoVChMIsrKimPvvxgIVAdEUCh0TNQhb#v=onepage&q=yugoslavia%20public%20sector%20percentage%20of%20economy&f=false
http://www.karlmarx.net/china-1/thechineseeconomicmiracle
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDcQFjADahUKEwiUibbc_e_GAhUL6RQKHZuxDdA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpersonal.lse.ac.uk%2Festrin%2FPresentations%2FOrganizations%2520in%2520Economy%2520and%2520Society.ppt&ei=WTOwVdT4MovSU5vjtoAN&usg=AFQjCNFeNHkMLIIDe2CTg0Lx5-4ocZFjiQ&sig2=b9zn7BQS4PoDj7bq97dspg
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7A8ep7V7MvkC&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=north%20korea%20public%20sector%20share&source=bl&ots=oCgLlNYEG9&sig=VHZDQFcwhese03MWCgY6auq_NFE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDUQ6AEwA2oVChMIsJLq_f3vxgIVgZEUCh3v6Aoz#v=onepage&q=north%20korea%20public%20sector%20share&f=false
http://swopec.hhs.se/eijswp/papers/eijswp0236.pdf
(modern china figure from yasheng huang's "capitalism with chinese characteristics, 1990s figure from "the debate amongst market socialists")
edit:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b20GC0ZfrgsC&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=cuba%20public%20sector%20percentage%20of%20net%20national%20income&source=bl&ots=7YFTb4sSQh&sig=ffJHv2GUVidMuEFfopEbvrixqzg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBjgKahUKEwigvMmdhPDGAhXKtRQKHW4yA1w#v=onepage&q=cuba%20public%20sector%20percentage%20of%20net%20national%20income&f=false
Edited by Crow ()
"According to all accounts, factory wages in China, which of course started at a much lower level than wages in advanced capitalist countries, have more than tripled in the last decade. Some say urban blue-collar wages have gone up five times in that period. This is not what is happening in other developing countries.
In addition, inflation in China is low — the present annual rate is 1.4 percent, making those fatter paychecks very real.
Here are some Western sources from this year:
The Economist, March 4: “Since 2001, hourly manufacturing wages in China have risen by an average of 12 percent a year.”
Imagine if workers here had been getting a 12 percent raise every year for the past 15 years! Even with a union contract, wage increases in the U.S. have barely kept pace with inflation."
http://www.workers.org/articles/2015/07/21/china-rising-wages-and-worker-militancy/
littlegreenpills posted:welp looks like the labor aristocrats of the P€opl€'s RepubliKKK of Ch¥na are net exploiters of the third world proletariat now, very sad
//me coming to get you//
I entertained the possibility that having an ardent belief in what you're doing protects you from the worst effects, and the dupes of capitalism are being psychologically damaged by fighting for something that they don't really believe, or at least isn't what they thought they were fighting for. Am I delusional?
Edited by Urbandale ()
Red_Canadian posted:This isn't strictly speaking relevant, but since this is the current good education thread, I was wondering; do rates of PTSD in communist armies match those of the oppressors? I just haven't heard much about it. I mean, you figure it would be a crazy problem in Vietnam, is it just shovelled under the rug, or is it a concern that is being addressed and I just never hear of it.
I entertained the possibility that having an ardent belief in what you're doing protects you from the worst effects, and the dupes of capitalism are being psychologically damaged by fighting for something that they don't really believe, or at least isn't what they thought they were fighting for. Am I delusional?
Nope. Soldiers only get PTSD if they do something bad