The impact of the Afghan War on soviet soldiers.

Defense of the Socialist Motherland is the sacred duty of everycitizen of the USSR.

Article 62, Soviet 1977 Constitution

Soviet invasion in Afghanistan started in December 1979, when thefirst military troops crossed the Afghan border. Only at the time of
'perestroyka', in the year 1988, Gorbachov, the leader of Politburo - startthe process of withdrawing military troops from the territory of
Afghanistan. Between 1979 and 1988, about 15,000 soldiers were killed, andmany others were wounded. Gorbachov wanted to stop that war. He stopped itas a historical fact. But did he stop that war inside the hearts ofthousands of veterans who came back to their homes? Did he prevent thenegative impact of that war on soldiers 'lives? The answer is simple - no.
My essay will give evidence in support of this opinion.

The Afghan War changed many people's lives in the USSR. Still, inpresent-day Russia, the consequences of that war are appeared. The greatestimpact of the Afghan War can be seen on the people who were there --soldiers who had to serve in Afghanistan and fulfill their 'internationalduty '. The war for which there was no need, had destroyed many soldiers 'lives. Fifteen thousand of them had been killed, and many others had beeninjured, some having become invalids, unneeded to the government who hadsent them to that war, and to the people who were not in the war. Everysingle young man who went to Afghanistan continued his life differentlyfrom the people who had never been there. The effect was due not merely toa war, but to the whole system of the ex-USSR. In my essay I will try todescribe both of these effects on soldiers 'lives.

The new life for the eighteen year old boys began when they graduatedfrom high school. Some of them became recruits during the spring draft,others during the fall draft. Recruits bound for Afghanistan would receive
8-10 weeks 'training before being sent to their units. [I] From that momentthey became subject to the subordination of officers through the formalchannels of authority, and the informal of dedovshina (discrimination bythe older soldiers). Newcomers were kept in line, while being beaten. Thiscontinued until the new soldiers agreed to acquiesce. [ii] That was just thebeginning of soldiers 'lives, being sent to the war they all experienced invery different ways. The impact of fighting and the experience of killing,dedovshina, an alien military institution, and an alien land changed thecharacters and lives of the soldiers before they returned home. 'We were inan alien land. And why were we there? To this day, for some, it doesn'tmatter. '[iii]

War in Afghanistan was not exclusively a male war. Many of the womenwho volunteered to served in Afghanistan were nurses, others filled avariety of support or nurture roles (as cooks, for example). The rest wereinvolved in paperwork or communication. For these in Afghanistan women themain problem became men. They attracted soldiers in Afghanistan not only assex objects but also as mother figures. [iv] Often women were raped bysoldiers who had been sent to Afghanistan instead of going to prison. Thusin the Soviet patriarchal society the belief that women who served in
Afghanistan were whores or prostitutes took root. Here, a woman who hadserved in Afghanistan describes her feelings:

'You fulfilled your international duty in a bed' ... My mother proudly announced to her friends: 'My daughter was in Afghanistan.' My naive mother! I want to write to her: 'Mother, be quiet or you'll hear people say your daughter is a prostitute.' [V]

After coming home, soldiers organized the form of a community thatthey had been accustomed to in Afghanistan, with their own customs andjargon. Coming back to normal life was enormously difficult for them,because of the reasons that I will explain in next paragraph. Thus, fromthe beginning they separated themselves from the surrounding society. Manyveterans became members of Mafia groups. The lives of the returningsoldiers differed from each other, but on one point it was the same forevery veteran: they could not live normal lives in society, as they wouldhave without having experienced the war. In the words of a veteran who hadserved in Afghanistan: 'You never really come home.' [vi]

One of the main reason for veterans holding back from society wasthat civilians met soldiers coming back to homes without honor. Forty-sixpercent of civilians said that the Afghan war was a Russian national shame,and only 6% of them said that they were proud of their soldiers who hadfulfilled their international duty in Afghanistan. [vii] Veterans felt thattheir efforts and endurance had not been wholly in vain. Often veteransbecame the object of criticism by media and public opinion. People thoughtthat the war had made warriors of the men, and, in fear, kept away fromveterans. The media blamed them - not the government - for taking part inthe war and partly for losing it. Thus, after coming back, soldiers startedto look with new eyes upon the society that had sent them to their death.
While they had been in Afghanistan, the public and media had expressedcontempt for the soldiers; after they returned, this sentiment onlyincreased.

Disrespect to the people and to the governmental system became commonamong soldiers who were experiencing discrimination after having fulfilledtheir duty. This situation galvanized potential men, unhappy with theirpolitical system into striking. During the putsch of 1991, many veteranssupported Mayor Sobchak, who supported the putsch against the newdemocratic government in Leningrad.

The long-term impact, and one of the most terrible consequences ofthe Afghan War, was the addiction of soldiers to alcohol and drugs. Death,drinking, and drugs became part of the veterans 'lives forever. Drugs wereessential to the survival of the soldiers. Drugs helped them to carry 40kilos of ammunition up and down the mountains, to overcome depression aftertheir friends 'deaths, to prevail over the fear of death. Drugs and alcoholbecame the usual procedure of self-medication when other options weredenied. The abuse of drugs created a generation of drug and alcoholaddicts. According to the official reports of the Russian Department of
Health Services, 40 millions medically certified alcoholics in 1985 wereregistered. Consumption of alcohol had increased 20,4% from its consumptionin 1950-79. [viii] If these were official reports then it is possible thatthey were only a part of truth, and another part is like the bottom part ofan iceberg - it cannot be predicted.

There wasn'ta single person among us who did not try drugs in

Afghanistan. You needed relaxation there, or you went out of your mind.

Veteran of Afghan War [ix]

Coming back home, veterans found employment in many different fields,from driving buses to banking. But most of them started to work on thefield which was closest to what they had done in Afghanistan. Emergencyservices such as the firemen, militia and rescue departments had a shortageof workers at that time and many of the Afghan veterans continued to workthere. Finding a job was one of the privileges which the government gave tothe veterans. This was maybe the only privilege which was really fulfilled.
But this was a strategic maneuver for the Soviet government: to preventveterans from assuming employment in the Union of Afghan War Veterans
Society. The government was afraid of this Union because it united the mostdangerous and prepared warriors in Russia.

Another major impact of the Afghan war on soldiers lives 'was injuriesand mental disorders. 'Most of us came home. Only we all came homedifferently. Some of us on crutches, some of us with gray hair, many inzinc coffins. '[x] Although a medical service was established on a modernand highly effective level (93% of the troops received initial medical aidwithin 30 minutes and the attention of a specialized doctor within sixhours), many soldiers became invalids during the war. Fifty thousandsoldiers were wounded in action, of whom 11,371 became invalids and wereunable to return to work, while 1,479 veterans received the most seriouscategory of disability. [xi] These veterans were unable to continue workingand leading normal lives. These circumstances forced them to live on theearnings of their family members and on the governments 'invalid benefit.
But even these benefits were paid inconstantly and were extremely low. Oneof the privileges which Afghanistan veterans received was a flat in a newlybuilt house. In the Soviet Russian system, which recognized no privateownership of property, every single citizen had to wait in a line ofthousands of people before getting a flat. Afghanistan veterans were put atthe beginning of that line, but corruption in the Russian bureaucracy hadwidened the process of granting new flats to the invalids and veterans.
Thus when the free market economy was established in Russia and all thelines for the flats were canceled, people had to buy them with their ownmoney, and many veterans and invalids of the Afghan War remained withouttheir flats. Thus the bureaucratic system in Russia had left most of theveterans without their privileges and benefits.

One mother wrote in the letter to Politburo 'Why did you ruin my son,why did you spoil his mind and his soul? '. [xii] While physical disabilitywas relatively easy to prove and to cure, the psychological damage was farmore complicated to diagnosis and to treat. Modern counter-insurgency warsinvolve a particularly high incidence of psychological damage; generally
Post-Traumatic stress disorders, symptoms which include flashbacks,emotional numbness, withdrawal, jumpy hyperalertness or over-compensatoryextroversion. This was caused partly because of the critical stresses ofcombat and injury. In most cases mental disorders were caused by unclearfront-line zones. Soldiers had experienced mostly 'road war' without clearfront-line meant that no place was safe. Soldiers were always ready for thebattle alarm; there was no time to rest. 'Knowing their terrain well, theresistance fighters can move with ease at night and night vision equipmentwould enable them to train accurately their weapons on enemytargets ...'[ xiii] And how could soldiers relax, knowing that an unguidedrocket could penetrate almost all security perimeters, that even a ten yearold boy could carry and use a pistol or a grenade? One veteran recalled:

... the leading vehicle broke down. The driver got out and lifted the bonnet - and the boy, about ten years old, rushed out and stabbed him in the back ... We turned the boy into a sieve.

Veteran of Afghan War [xiv]

Another historical testament to that violence was found in adifferent source:

'... in early May 1981 they killed a number of children in the village of Kalakan, the stronghold of SAMA. The Russian soldiers were stated to have said, 'When the children grow up they take up arms against us'...'[ xv]

How can people who killed a ten year old boy live normally aftercoming back to the motherland? Without safe place, restless - thesecircumstances may cause a healthy adult to become mentally imbalanced. Whatcan it do to nineteen year old boys, who had been drafted just afterfinishing their school and who had not seen life yet? They can easily losetheir minds. But psychological disorders became classified adequately tothe status of invalid only later. Yet, no category of invalidity was givento that disability. Thus, mentally sick veterans had to live almostentirely on support from friends and family. In this way the governmentignored the impact of the war, which was started by its decree, onsoldiers 'lives.

In a normal society the killing of another man is not permitted;killers receive the death penalty. During the war this situation had beenchanged and in Afghanistan soldiers had received a license to kill theirenemies, who were also human beings. With a machine-gun soldiers receivedthe power of life and death and the feeling of authority to do what theywished became common among Russian soldiers in Afghanistan. Problems ensuedwhen soldiers were unable to overcome that feeling once they has left theirguns behind. Some soldiers, unable to square the demands of war with thedemands of their conscience, were stamped with amorality. Others becamecompulsively violent. '... they killed thirty-one villages, slaying theminside mosques, in lanes, or inside their homes. '[xvi] Thesecircumstances created another impact of the Afghan War. By the end of 1989,about 3,000 veterans were in prisons for criminal offenses, while another
2,540 soldiers were imprisoned for crimes committed while serving in
Afghanistan. [Xvii] Thus the Afghan War created criminals who were trainedto kill. Among the crimes committed by soldiers in Afghanistan, the mostcommon were hooliganism 12,6%, rape 11,8%, theft of personal property
12,4%, robbery 11,9% and murder 8,4% (these percentages were taken from thetotal number of 2,540 soldiers convicted of crime). [xviii]

Thus the war had affected all of the soldiers who experienced it.
Some became criminals, others became invalids without any actual supportfrom the government. The rest had to face the psychological impact of thewar, which was called as 'afghan syndrome' by the media. Most of thesepeople decided to dedicate their lives to helping the victims of the Afghan
War. In Leningrad, several organizations were created with the aim to aidphysical and psychological victims of the war. LAVVA (Leningrad Associationof Veterans of the War in Afghanistan), 'K sovesti' Leningrad Information-
Publication Organization, 'Modul' Cultural-Leisure Center for Veterans ofthe Foreign War Association - these are just a few of many organizationscreated throughout the USSR. [xix] Left and unsupported by the government,these organizations aimed to provide extra facilities for the treatment ofinjured veterans, to compensate veterans fully or partly for the expensesof necessary treatment, to develop sports for invalid and to force thegovernment to support the invalids 'rights.

Thus the experience of the Afghan War had a twofold impact onsoldiers 'lives: first, the impact of the war itself and second, the impactof returning to a peaceful life after the war. In the words of one veteran:

What did the war give to us? Thousands of mothers who lost sons, thousands of cripples, thousands of torn-up lives. [Xx]
While in Afghanistan, soldiers experienced discrimination by the oldersoldiers and by the officers. The foreign land, the experience of fighting,the death of friends, the highly difficult conditions of living, and theabsence of a stimulus to fighting made most of the soldiers addicted todrugs and alcohol. Drugs became an easy source of relaxation because
Afghanistan is one of the biggest suppliers of marijuana on the blackmarket.

The term 'lost generation' can be applied towards the veterans of the
Afghan War. This war had created a generation of alcoholics and drugaddicts. It also made many young people invalids unable to work and to earnmoney on their own. The other 'creation' of the war in Afghanistan was theincreased rate of violence and immoral behavior among soldiers and veteransof the war. These circumstances had made criminals out of 19 year old boys.
Discrimination by the public opinion and media, and the unwillingness ofthe government to help victims of the war even increased the number ofcriminals, alcoholics and drug addicts among the veterans of the Afghanwar.
Footnotes:

-----------------------< br>[i] Vladislav Tamarov, Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam (San Francisco: Mercury
House, 1992), p.156.
[ii] Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War (London:
Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd., Midsomer Norton, 1995), p.35.
[iii] Vladislav Tamarov, Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam, p.64.
[iv] Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War, p.41.
[v] Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War, p.41.
[vi] Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War, p.45.
[vii] Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War, p.47.
[viii] Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War, p.51.
[ix] Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War, p.52.
[x] Vladislav Tamarov, Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam, p.164.
[xi] Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War, p.68.
[xii] Diego Cordovez, Selig S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, Inc., 1995), p.247.
[xiii] Nasir Shansab, Soviet Expansion in the Third World (Maryland: Silver
Spring, 1986), p.171.
[xiv] Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War, p.69.
[xv] M. Hassan Kakar, Afghanistan (Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1995), p.241.
[xvi] M. Hassan Kakar, Afghanistan, p.241.
[xvii] Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War, p.71.
[xviii] Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War, p.72.
[xix] Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War, p.81.
[xx] Vladislav Tamarov, Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam, p.164.

Evaluation of the historical sources:

The book Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War by Mark Galeottiwere used a number of materials written both in English and in Russian.
Mostly the references I have used were taken by the author from articlesfrom newspapers with the interviewees of veterans. I count this source ofinformation as reliable because the author showed the point of view on the
Afghan War of both veterans of Soviet military forces and from the United
States, which supported Afghanistan during that war.

Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam was written by a Soviet veteran who servedin Afghanistan for two years. Of course he supported the Soviet's militaryforces, so I used this source only to show the general mood of soldiersduring the Afghan War. The author's personal opinion was taken for this.

Afghanistan, by Hassan Hakar, showed the Afghan War from the Afghanside. This source was predisposed against the Soviets, so I used it to showthe other side of soldiers 'characters - the violence and murders of thecivilian population of Afghanistan. This source would be not reliable ifthe facts were not proven by the other sources I used.

Out of Afghanistan, by Diego Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison, wasinteresting because it supported both sides of the Afghan War withhistorical facts and documents. The book's facts were based on officialdocuments of both the Soviet and the Afghan governments. This source gaveme a whole, truthful picture of what happened in Afghanistan. According tothis information I built my opinion of what was the real impact of the
Afghan War on the personal lives of soldiers while they were serving in
Afghanistan.

Soviet Expansion in the Third World by Nasir Shansab, whosenationality is afghan, was useful because showed the tragedy of afghanpeople without insulting the Soviet military forces. It also showed the
Afghan army's dangerous force of resistance.

All these books after critical analysis gave me the information neededfor my essay.

Bibliography:

1. Vladislav Tamarov, Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam (San Francisco: Mercury
House, 1992)
2. Mark Galeotti, Afghanistan: The Soviet Union's Last War (London:
Bookcraft (Bath) Ltd., Midsomer Norton, 1995)
3. M. Hassan Kakar, Afghanistan (Los Angeles: University of California
Press, 1995)
4. Nasir Shansab, Soviet Expansion in the Third World (Maryland: Silver
Spring, 1986)
5. Diego Cordovez, Selig S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, Inc., 1995)