'The subject of this book is Afghanistan under the rule of the
People's Democratic Party and, unlike nearly all other works relating to
Afghanistan during this period, its focus is explicitly on the regime,
its institutions and its successes and failures rather than on the
resistance to it or on the international dimensions of the conflict in
Afghanistan. It is based mainly on recently available Soviet material
including unpublished Red Army documents. [...] Much of this material
has not hitherto been used by Western writers and the work therefore
contains a great deal of valuable, new information. [...]
'The new things we learn from the work relate especially to the
structure and development of the PDPA, the development of its armed
forces and especially its use of tribal militias, and the way in which
it implemented policies intended to pacify Afghanistan, notably the
so-called national reconciliation policy. From the work as a whole
emerges a novel picture of a regime which floundered badly in its early
years but which steadily developed more realistic policies to mobilise
resources and find a mixed political and military solution to its
problems. In this endeavour the author argues that it came near to some
sort of success by the 1990s but was defeated when, denied resources in
1991-2, the militias on which it had come to rely so heavily fell apart
or abandoned the regime to make their own arrangements with the
resistance. 'This analysis constitutes a new way of looking at what
happened in Afghanistan and helps considerably in understanding the
difficulties which have beset Afghanistan in the last few years.'
Contents:
Part 1: The Limits of 'Sovietization'
Part II: The Afghan Regular Armed Forces: Reconstruction, Reorganisation
and
Structural Limits
Part III: The 'Pacification Policy, 1980-1991
Part IV: The Role of the Militias
Part V: Conclusions
Antonio Giustozzi took his Ph.D. in International Relations at LSE in
1997, after having studied contemporary history in Italy. His main
interest lies in the study of internal conflicts, civil wars and 'warlordism'.
FYI Mr Giustozzi's thesis is available at the LSE...
Giustozzi, Antonio (1997). War, politics and society in Afghanistan,
1978-1992. 436 leaves. Ph.D. (London) thesis 1997 LSE. Bibliography:
leaves 418-436. This thesis is the property of the University of London
and may not be removed from the Library. Location: THESES. Classmark:
F7428. Item ID 599018-1001. Classmark F7428