Afghanistan and the Soviet Union: Collision and Transformation [Reprint ed.] 0367012162, 9780367012168

Table of contents :
Contents
List of Tables and Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of Contributors
Introduction • Milan Hauner
Part One: The Human Factor
1 The Collision of Evolutionary Process and Islamic Ideology in Greater Central Asia • Robert L. Canfield
2 The Mujahedin and the Preservation of Afghan Culture • Olivier Roy
3 The Sovietization of Afghanistan • Olivier Roy
Part Two: The Geopolitical Infrastructure
4 Central Asia and the Soviet "Midlands": Regional Position and Economic Integration • Leslie Dienes
5 Afghanistan Resources and Soviet Policy in Central and South Asia • John F. Shrader, Jr.
6 Afghanistan and the Transport Infrastructures of Turkestan • Victor L. Mote
7 The Soviet Geostrategic Dilemma • Milan Hauner
Conclusion, Robert L. Canfield
Maps
Index

Citation preview

Afghanistan and the Soviet Union

Afghanistan and the Soviet Union Collision and Transformation

EDITED BY

Milan Hauner and Robert L. Canfield

First published 1989 by Westview Press, Inc. Published 2018 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 1989 Taylor & Francis All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Afghanistan and the Soviet Union : collision and transformation / edited by Milan Hauner and Robert L. Canfield. p. em. Includes bibliographies and index. ISBN 0-8133-7575-4 1. Afghanistan-Relations-Soviet Union. 2. Soviet UnionRelations-Afghanistan. 3. Afghanistan-History-Soviet Occupation, 1979. 4. Soviet Central Asia-Strategic aspects. 5. Afghanistan-Strategic aspects. I. Hauner, Milan. II. Canfield, Robert L. DS357.6.S65A34 1989 303.4'82581'047-dc19

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-01216-8 (hbk)

88-28691 CIP

Contents List of Tables and Illustrations Acknowledgments List of Contributors

vii ix xi

Introduction, Milan Hauner

1

PART ONE THE HUMAN FACTOR

1

The Collision of Evolutionary Process and Islamic Ideology in Greater Central Asia, Robert L. Canfield

2

The Mujahedin and the Preservation of Afghan Culture,

Olivier Roy

40

3

The Sovietization of Afghanistan, Olivier Roy

48

13

PART TWO THE GEOPOLITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE

4

Central Asia and the Soviet "Midlands": Regional Position and Economic Integration, Leslie Dienes

5

Afghanistan Resources and Soviet Policy in Central and South Asia, John F. Shrader, Jr.

101

6

Afghanistan and the Transport Infrastructures of Turkestan, Victor L. Mote

120

7

The Soviet Geostrategic Dilemma, Milan Hauner

160

61

Conclusion, Robert L. Canfield

195

Maps Index

201

211

v

Tables and Illustrations Tables Distribution of supplies, shipment, and consumption of fruits and vegetables, 1970 and 1979 Ratio of nominal employment over actual average yearly employment in the state and collective farm sectors Participation of kholkhozniki in socialist production of Kirgiz collective farms Growth of wages, labor productivity, and capitalization in Uzbek agriculture, 1965-1983

4.1

4.2 4.3 4.4

Relative shares of population, territory, industry, and resources Soviet Turkestan, 1913-1984: Length of railroads, waterways, highways, and pipelines

6.1 6.2

73 85 86 89 132 134

Deployment of Soviet armed forces, 1986

169

Railroads of Greater Central Asia The development of railroads in the Russian/Soviet Midlands Oil fields and pipelines of the Soviet Midlands Gas fields and pipelines of the Soviet Midlands and Afghanistan Transport infrastructure in Afghanistan Mineral resources in Afghanistan The development of infrastructure on the AfghanistanSoviet border Major transport arteries of Eurasia

203

7.1

Maps 1 2

3 4

5

6 7

8

204 205

206

207

208 209

210

Photos Bridge crossing the Oxus River (at Hairatan) from Afghanistan into the Soviet Union Celebration of the opening of the Oxus River Bridge Natural gas pumping station near Shibarghan in northern Afghanistan North portal of the Salang Tunnel, Hindu Kush Mountains vii

19 19 143 173

Acknowledgments The editors are indebted to the Foreign Policy Research Institute for supporting the initial discussions from which this volume was developed. In addition, the editors would like to thank the following individuals for special services and for assistance: Michael L. Bennett for producing the maps; John F. Shroder, Jr., for permitting the use of his photographs and providing much helpful counsel on the maps; and Diane 0. Bennett for her skillful assistance on difficult editorial problems. Robert Canfield is indebted to Kathleen Laird for comments on his chapter, to Sara Pirtle for assistance in reviewing the economic sources, and to Kathleen Laird, Mary Kennedy, and Jennifer Day for production assistance at an early stage. The editors are especially grateful to Aimee Fishkind Campbell, who took responsibility for the seemingly endless details of preparing the final version of the manuscript for press.

Milan Hauner Robert L. Canfield

ix

Contributors Robert L. Canfield Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri Leslie Dienes Professor, Department of Geography, University of Kansas, Lawrence Milan Hauner Recent Hooper Fellow, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Victor L. Mote Associate Professor of Geography and Russian Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Houston, Texas Olivier Roy Charge de Recherche, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, France John F. Shroder, Jr. Professor, Department of Geography and Geology, University of Nebraska at Omaha

xi

Introduction Milan Hauner Since the dramatic events of a decade ago-the revolutions in Kabul and Teheran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Gulf War"Greater Central Asia" has recaptured the imagination of academia. Historians, Islamicists, anthropologists, political scientists, and defense analysts began to convene conferences and to produce collective volumes that concentrated on two seemingly unrelated subjects: the continuity and strength of ethnocultural patterns in Muslim Central Asia, on the one hand, and the limited range of U.S. military options for defense of th oil-rich Gulf region against hypothetical Soviet invasion, on the other. Yet the broader geostrategic implications of the continuing military involvement in and the economic integration of Afghanistan, by a state that is also the only Eurasian superpower, have not been sufficiently analyzed and discussed. Aware that a concentration on Afghan-Soviet relations alone cannot provide the necessary platform for a broader analysis in a multidisciplinary approach, the editors have tried to link the recent events in Afghanistan with the socioeconomic changes that the Soviet Eurasian Empire has been undergoing for some time. They were also aware of the importance that the adjacent northern region, aptly described by one of the contributors as the Soviet "Midlands," has assumed for holding the Soviet Eurasian Empire together along both the west-east and north-south axes of polarization. 1 Has this new, more comprehensive approach changed the interpretation of the causes that led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979? Despite the preeminence of the short-term political objectives that prompted the masters of the Kremlin to save a fellow Communist system (rather than individuals) from imminent collapse, there has always been a long-term strategic motivation for the Soviets to penetrate and control Afghanistan-a motivation that dates back to the tsarist conquest of Turkestan a century ago. A large amount of ink has been spilt in a dispute (in our view, a rather sterile dispute) over whether the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan should be considered primarily an "offensive" 1

2

Milan Hauner

or a "defensive" action. In our opinion, the two motivations cannot be separated from each other if one is dealing with a superpower. Moreover, in the context of the traditional Anglo-Russian rivalry over Central Asia (sometimes called the "Great Game"), which lasted until the departure of the British from India in 1947, the two seemingly contrasting notions, "offensive" versus "defensive," have been understood not as opposing strategies but, rather, as two faces of the same coin. Of importance now, it seems to us, are the kind of enduring relations that can develop in the wake of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which will be far-reaching regardless of how Gorbachev extricates himself from the burdensome Brezhnevian legacy. But the Soviets will not be pulling their troops out of Afghanistan because of sudden remorse or pressure of international opinion. The withdrawal, insofar as it actually occurs, will take place because the Soviet military campaign in Afghanistan has reached a stalemate thanks to the resistance of the Afghan population as a whole. Except perhaps for the case of Finland, such a stalemate is quite unprecedented in the history of the Soviet state and should not be attributed entirely to perestroika and Gorbachev's new leadership. Whatever the outcome of the diplomatic bargaining between Moscow and Washington on the one hand, and among Kabul, Islamabad, and Peshawar on the other, the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan has already created ominous and far-reaching implications for the nations of Eurasia. In the wake of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, which had brought down the strongest Western-supported power in Central Asia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan revived the century-old Russian imperialist threat to the Indian Ocean through the once-strategic corridors of Central Asia. Moreover, it entails a new set of possibilities in the long run. Whatever the original motives of the Soviets might have been, their new position improves certain options that were previously unfeasible. From here, they could eventually deny access to the Gulf on the part of the oil-importing countries of Western Europe and East Asia. And the occupation of Afghanistan will allow them to continue tightening the encirclement of China (as demonstrated by the early Soviet seizure of the Wakhan Corridor). Both of these options threaten the economic and strategic interests of the Western nations, as well as those of the nonaligned states-especially India, which nevertheless appears momentarily satisfied with the immediate benefits of its pro-Soviet policy. The contributors to this volume were asked to focus on the longterm significance of the junction between Afghanistan and Soviet Eurasia through the "Midlands" region-a relationship that could have wide implications. One obviously cannot interpret Soviet policy in Greater Central Asia just by investigating Afghanistan. A more fundamental,

Introduction

3

long-term spatial shift is taking place within the Soviet Eurasian Empire, whose center of gravity has for some time slowly but steadily been moving eastward from Europe to Asia. The mean center of population has already moved eastward by another 500 miles (800 kilOIrieters) since 1906, when the remarkable Russian scientist, D. I. Mendeleev, predicted this eastward shift. He also indicated that the eastward move of the population center would show a slight "southward bias," which has been amply confirmed by the demographic changes in Soviet Central Asia. Five factors in particular appear to be endowed with a new significance. Presumably, the same factors figure prominently in the minds of the decisionmakers in the Kremlin during their discussions regarding the new "Correlation of Forces." 1. The Changing Location of Mineral and Energy Resources. Because of the recent radical eastward shift beyond the Urals of vital Soviet extractive industries, the Soviets must invest heavily in mining, drilling, and other capital- and labor-intensive activities in Central Asia, Siberia, and Afghanistan. Currently, almost 90 percent of all Soviet mineral and energy resources lie east of the Urals. Soviet attempts to exploit the energy and raw material sources east of the Urals, in addition to the irrigation projects in Central Asia, constitute major economic activities in this part of the world (although the colossal project of diverting Siberian river waters into the arid steppes and deserts of Turkestan has been indefinitely postponed). These attempts, of course, converge in Central Asia, endowing it with a new economic potential, provided that the critical water shortage south of Lake Aral can be remedied. 2. Changing Structure of Human Resources. The resurgence of a radical Islamic ideology on the Soviet Union's southern flank could exacerbate Soviet problems with their Muslim peoples, who have long been recalcitrant. Tensions will likely mount because the young Muslims in Soviet Central Asia, of whom at least 2 million are estimated to be unemployed or "underemployed," are up against critical shortages of labor and stagnating birth rates in the European part of the USSR. Furthermore, as an ethnic group within the multinational empire, the Muslims are still underrepresented in the party secretariat, the managerial cadres, and the officer corps. The Soviet leaders must prevent the Islamic resurgence from spreading northward, but their problems with the expanding body of Soviet Muslims, whose numbers are expected to exceed the combined Slavic population of the empire within one hundred years, will likely worsen regardless of their efforts. 3. Transportation Improvements. A modern transport infrastructure, consisting of roads, railways, airfields, canals, pipelines, and electric power grids, has been systematically expanded from Soviet Central Asia

4

Milan Hauner

into Afghanistan. It constitutes the last remammg gap between the infrastructures of the Soviet Union, Iran, and South Asia. The digging, bridging, and tunneling of this geographic obstacle would enable the Soviets to project their economic and military influence further south, thus possibly leading to a policy of "hemispheric denial" (i.e., of Western power) in the Indian Ocean area. Furthermore, in the event of war with China, both the Trans-Siberian Railway (the single permanent link between the two largest concentrations of military power, separated by a distance of 6,000-9,000 miles or 10,000-15,000 kilometers) and the new strategic BAM Railway (running from Lake Baikal to the Pacific shore) will be disrupted. In that event, the Soviets would probably try to ship their vital supplies to the Far East by sea along the South Asian rimland. The establishment of a southern Sea Line of Communication (SLOC) across the Indian Ocean will thus be a long-term priority for Soviet strategists even during the Gorbachev era. 4. Changes in Geostrategic Relations. The establishment of Soviet air and army bases in Afghanistan, scarcely 480 miles (800 kilometers) from the vital Strait of Hormuz, introduced an important change in geostrategic relations in the region. The Indian Ocean (notably the Makran coast including Hormuz) came to be within easy reach. If additional territory were to become accessible as the result of a coup or the exploitation of separatist movements along the Indo-Persian Corridor (e.g., Kurdistan, Azerbaijan, Baluchistan, and "Pashtunistan"), a slow but persistent move by the Soviets toward the south (but not necessarily by crude military means, as in Afghanistan after 1978) would establish a naval stronghold on an "open sea frontage" hitherto denied to them (Mackinder 1904). 5. The Sovietization of Afghanistan. Together with the massive refugee problem, a very important factor is the social and "psychological" transformation of Afghanistan as a result of the Soviet occupation. The steady and systematic preparation of Soviet-trained and indoctrinated cadres could affect capabilities for the long-term development of Afghanistan. The mujahedin have no similar long-term educational programs to secure the replacement of indigenous leadership at all levels of teaching, health care, administration, and management. Moreover, the refugees from Afghanistan, who number well over 4 million, could easily become an instrument of destabilization through indirect Soviet instigation. Our central concern has been to draw attention to the wider structural conditions that set the context of decisionmaking-specifically, with regard to the military and security conditions in the region, which could eventually intensify the clash between Islamic interest groups on the one hand and the two forms of alien modernization, Western and Soviet, on the other.

Introduction

5

Taken together with the natural factors of human and resource geography, this situation might produce a new "spatial polarization" within the Eurasian Heartland of the Soviet superpower. Conditions such as these establish the range of feasible alternatives available to decisionmakers and so tend to shape policy and the course of international relations. The structure of economic, technological, political, and human conditions in the area seems likely to induce the Soviets to hold an advanced position in Central Asia. If they prove incapable of holding the whole of Afghanistan in the short run, they may try to control northern Afghanistan. If they prevail and become permanently ensconced there, they may eventually find the means to exert an increasing influence on the Indian Ocean area and the Eurasian "rimlands." This vast area, to which India provides the natural hub, has the potential to become an autonomous geostrategic region, encompassing, as it does, 1.5 billion people. Unable to feed its own subjects, the Soviet Union is unlikely to want to swallow India and control South Asia as it does Eastern Europe. Strategic considerations, however, might force the Soviets to establish some sort of control over this region sooner or later. This move along the north-south axis of polarization would result in a fundamental shift affecting the east-west non-nuclear power balance over Eurasia and Africa. Thus, the expansion of modem overland transport technology into Central Asia-notably by means of railroads, highways, and pipelines-could allow the Soviets to realize the century-old Russian dream of breaking out of the Central Asian Heartland and gaining access to the open warm sea, an option that Moscow could still be compelled to follow in order to preserve its status as a superpower. In our opinion it is necessary to contemplate the vast and incongruous region of Greater Central Asia from the widest possible arc of observation, despite its manifold political and geographical divisions-especially inasmuch as we are trying to assess the long-term trends as they might be seen from Moscow's perspective. On the one hand, the northern portion of Central Asia has been subjected to ruthless exploitation within the Russian/Soviet Eurasian Empire for the last hundred years and has acquired a specific function within that empire as a "Raubwirtschaft"type economy-that is, as a dependent service economy (see Chapter 4 in this volume)-and as a "landbridge" (see Chapter 6) between metropolitan Russia and the Far East. On the other hand, the southern portion of Soviet Central Asia (again, according to Leslie Dienes, with its "plantation" -type economy) has still not been fully integrated with the rest of the empire for two main reasons: population and geography. Across the deserts and steppes south of Lake Aral there is today the fastest-growing segment of the Soviet population-a segment that accounts for almost half of all Soviet citizens east of the Urals and is

6

Milan Hauner

unlikely to be outnumbered by the European settlers, largely of Russian stock. This population is Muslim in culture and tradition, and distinctly Asian (Turkic) in origin. The geographical characteristics of Central Asia are in many ways unique. The access to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean from the Central Asian steppes is blocked by consecutive and parallel mountain chains that are the highest in the world. In the opposite direction, to the north, lies the Arctic Ocean, into which flow the largest Siberian rivers; but this zone remains unsuitable for human activities. Today, however, those mountain obstacles blocking the way to the Indian Ocean have yielded to technological progress in the development of modem transportation of goods and people. The Arctic frontier, on the other hand, still resists human efforts to survive in the extremely cold climate. The geographical uniqueness of Central Asia is characterized by the continental drainage of its large rivers, which fail to reach open seas. More than 80 years ago the great British geographer, Sir Halford Mackinder, was inspired by this extraordinary natural phenomenon to describe the area as the core of the "Heartland." He then predicted the ascendancy of the Russian Eurasian Empire to the status of the strongest world power, because of its "remarkable correlation between natural environment and political organization . . . unlikely to be altered by any possible social revolution." What new role can Central Asia play in overall Soviet strategic conception of the Correlation of Forces? In the last hundred years the main long-term strategic function of Central Asia within the Russian/ Soviet Eurasian Empire was to buttress the vulnerable and single westeast nexus connecting the two main potential theaters of war-one in the West against the European enemies, and the other in the Far East against the "yellow peril." (The second function of Central Asia-namely, the use of the Indo-Persian Corridor for strategic diversions against the British Empire-lost its previous significance after 1947.) This centuryold west-east fulcrum has recently been placed under mounting pressure from a new axis of spatial polarization, formed this time in a northsouth direction across Central Asia. At the northern pole of the fulcrum is the main area of Soviet extractive industries and recent investment activities, but it is barren of population and lies amidst a ferocious climate. At the opposite end of the fulcrum is the ancient Turkestan, endowed not only with an agreeable climate but also with a relatively huge surplus of young workers. Its shortage of water and uneven distribution of industrial and agricultural resources are critical, however. Moreover, its major economic deficit lies in its geographic location; the region, unlike the "Midlands," has still not been effectively integrated with the rest of the USSR. Although it is here, in the four Muslim

Introduction

7

republics of the Soviet Union, that the only surplus labor force within the USSR can be found, the industrial development still suffers from lack of adequate investment. However, it is in the Southern Tier of Central Asia, which protrudes into the neighboring regions contiguous with the Indian Ocean, that the prospect for further economic penetration exists-hence the systematic expansion of transport infrastructure in order to establish new economic, and ultimately, political linkages there. But since 1978 this region has evolved into one of the most unstable regions in the world; it has become a kind of "soft underbelly" (to use the often-quoted Churchillian term) of the Soviet Eurasian Empire. The Soviet military presence in Afghanistan thus contained the potential for further escalation in this extremely volatile political environment, formed not only by Afghanistan itself and its neighbors, Iran and Pakistan, but also by the Muslim republics of the USSR. The region is also surrounded by the highest concentration of separatist movements in the world. But we must not confuse potentialities with realities. Although the Soviets, judging from their past record of systematic subversion, might be ready to exploit the regional unrest in the long run, they have ample reasons to behave cautiously so that their policy does not backfire in their own Muslim republics; the last thing Moscow would wish to encourage is self-determination in its borderlands. As for the present Soviet military deployment along the Southern Tier, this separate military theater remains a poor third when compared with the other two major theaters situated at the western and eastern extremities of the empire. With the exception of the 40th Army that operated inside Afghanistan, the southern theater of military operations (teatr voiennykh deistvyi, or TVD) has received over the last ten years a lower priority in number of troops and quality of equipment. In addition to the opportunity afforded the Soviets by the development of a modern transport network in Central Asia, one must not forget one long-standing geostrategic problem of the first magnitude: the threat of a war on two fronts, in Europe and in the Far East, which the Soviet Eurasian Empire might be compelled to fight simultaneously. Indeed, the Central Asian nexus must increase in geostrategic significance precisely because it lies approximately equidistant from the two main theaters of possible war operations. Because of the key position of this nexus, which points to the politically most unstable region located between the Soviet Union's Southern Tier and the Indian Ocean, Soviet strategists might fear the emergence of a third major front here. If the Trans-Siberian Railway is cut off from the Far Eastern military complex, then the IndoPersian Corridor (rather than the Black Sea-Suez route) will be the only passage through which the Soviets can gain access to the open sea

8

Milan Hauner

shore of the Indian Ocean, and from which they can establish a SLOC to East Asia (the Northern Sea Route through the Arctic, Bering Strait, to Vladivostok, remains ice-locked for at least two-thirds of the year). Moreover, it is only through the Indo-Persian Corridor that the Soviet Union can expand in Asia without risking the escalation of a major war. The military occupation of Afghanistan is the best proof of this contention. Whether the Soviets will behave more aggressively along the Indo-Persian Corridor depends not on some sort of a masterplan for world domination but on circumstances and the interplay of factors, both domestic and international, that form part of the Correlation of Forces. If the combination of opportunities and constraints is favorable, as it was in 1979, the Kremlin would be foolish not to exploit the situation, thereby strengthening the Soviet Union's superpower status vis-a.-vis its two major potential enemies, the United States and China. This dramatic scenario would have been rejected as a sheer fantasy inspired by the apocryphal testament of Peter the Great; it almost became a realistic, though still remote, possibility. It may seem an exaggeration to tell the reader precisely now, when Gorbachev's strategy of appeasement rather than confrontation is enjoying a triumphant ride throughout the world, that the Soviet Eurasian Empire has not forsaken its global ambitions. If its economy is in dire need of restructuring, its chief advocate should rely more on diplomatic and economic means than on military might. However, Secretary Gorbachev has not stated thus far that the Soviet Union is giving up its claim for parity with the United States in nuclear weapons, let alone its vast superiority in conventional forces. Moreover, there is no sign that the strategically important SLOC has been abandoned; on the contrary, its security was substantially enhanced by the recent Soviet acquisition of the Syrian port Tartus as a naval base. (This is the first time that the Soviet Navy has acquired a Mediterranean base since it was expelled from Alexandria by President Sadat.) Furthermore, when during the summer of 1987 the United States seemed to be bungling into another shortsighted military adventure in the Gulf by sending a huge fleet to confront the Iranians, the Soviets were quick to resume their soundings about the construction of the long-cherished direct railroad to the Gulf; they also offered to convert the existing Iranian pipeline running to the Soviet border (IGAT-l) from gas to oil. Here the Soviets displayed a remarkable diplomatic initiative-remarkable for its low-key, nonconfrontational tone-and they tried to maintain the difficult balance between Iraq and Iran at a minimum cost to their own naval deployment in the Indian Ocean. What, then, will be the Soviet Union's future strategy in Central Asia? The answer to that question will be determined not only by the speed

Introduction

9

and resolve with which Moscow extricates itself from the abortive military campaign in Afghanistan but also by the radical correction of the excesses committed during the Brezhnev era. What we must continue to focus on are the long-term structural processes in the region. To bring them to the attention of a wider readership is the purpose of this volume. Note 1. The present volume is the outcome of a two-day interdisciplinary conference that was organized in Washington during September 25-26, 1986, by the Foreign Policy Research Institute of Philadelphia. The chapters of this volume have been adapted from the conference panel entitled "Central Asia in a Wider Context." (Among the contributors, only Olivier Roy was unable to participate at the conference; he did, however, agree to the inclusion of his chapters.)

Reference Mackinder, H. J. 1904. The Geographical Pivot of History. Geographical Journal 23:421-442.

PART ONE

The Human Factor

1 The Collision of Evolutionary Process and Islamic Ideology in Greater Central Asia Robert L. Canfield

Whatever the outcome of this war, the Soviet system is evolving, as is the contemporary world of Islam. The Afghan resistance movement lies at the intersection of these two histories. -Roy (1986:1)

In Greater Central Asia-that is, in the nations of Afghanistan and Iran and in the Muslim republics of Soviet Central Asia-changes are taking place that must be examined over a longer period than many social scientists like to deal with. Economists, for instance, feel they are venturing into an abyss when called upon to forecast more than six months ahead; when they say, "Over the long term," they mean a period of scarcely a year. Political scientists-the brave ones-may take on as much as four years. Anthropologists, such as I am, on the other hand, have not yet shaken their nineteenth-century wont to think in terms of epochs and "stages." When anthropologists speak of "the long term," they refer to evolutionary processes. And evolutionary formulations often run into misunderstandings. Try as one might to describe social transformations objectively, the very decision to describe them may be taken as normative, implying either (from one point of view) acceptance or (from another) disapproval of the trends described. When the suggestion was made recently that a prolonged occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviets could entail danger for South Asia over the long term, it was taken as mere cold war rhetoric and so immediately won the embrace of the right and the reproach of 13

Robert L. Canfield

14

the left. At the same time, long-range projections are easily exploited by political opportunists: General Zia ul-Haq, for example, has been accused of using projections of a Soviet move to the Indian Ocean to bilk Congress for more arms. Even the effort to explain long-term change, the sort measured over several decades or half a century, presents a problem: Long-term evolutionary projections are sometimes considered unduly "deterministic," a charge that economists, despite their emphasis on "market forces," avoid by means of a sleight of hand that anthropologists have never acquired. As the issue of evolutionary determinism is too complex to be adequately defended in this chapter, I present two statements of faith. First, much of the present has been foreclosed by conditions already set in motion in the past. How the past happens to control the present is a matter of serious conceptual importance; indeed, the practical issue of how much room exists for maneuver in today's world is one of the continuing and urgent questions of our time. But we must acknowledge, in any case, that time and at least some of the transformations that move with it are inexorable. Second, the pace of social and political interaction is quickening in step with the increasing rate of technological improvement. This escalating pace entails a practical challenge: As the world changes more rapidly we must see further ahead, and with greater clarity, if we are to prepare wisely for the future; our increasing speed requires brighter headlights. Long-term projections of future trends are no longer mere academic games; they have become a practical necessity in the modern world. In this chapter I propose to look at two impulses for change that will surely affect political affairs in Greater Central Asia over a long period. Each change is working in a different direction. One, a source of Soviet imperial expansion, acts to shorten distances and so makes more areas accessible to centralized control-possibly Soviet control. The other, a preeminent force among the Muslim populations of Greater Central Asia as well as elsewhere in the Islamic world, acts to strengthen local nationalist, ethnic, and sectarian interests. Such interests work against imperial power, at least against the imperial power of a secular state like the Soviet Union. In Afghanistan these two opposing forces have ruinously collided. The Geopolitical Transformation in Greater Central Asia The modernization of transport systems, which effectively reduce the distances in time and cost between places, has radically changed the potential for the exercise of power in Greater Central Asia. Distance,

Collision of Evolutionary Process and Islamic Ideology

15

said Braudel (1972:355ff.), is "the first enemy"; it imposes a basic cost of social interaction. Changes in the technology of traversing distance thereby change the configuration of the costs and benefits of social interaction. 1 In Greater Central Asia such technological changes are shifting the configuration of strategic options for the various powers interested in the area.

Improvements in Transportation Systems The trend has been toward making more areas more accessible and thus more effectively integrated into larger economic and political systems. The most important means of accomplishing this integration in Central Asia in modem times has been the construction of railroads. In the nineteenth century the Russians and the British, competing for control over Central Asia, used railroads to integrate their respective empires. Russian rail encroached into Central Asia from Europe, and British rail intruded from India. The Russians completed the Transcaspian Railway in 1888. They extended it east of the Caspian to Merv (Mary) and Kushka in 1900; to Tashkent and Orenburg in 1904 (the same year in which they completed the Central Asian section of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which was their vital link to the East); and to Termez on the Afghanistan border in 1916. The British completed a rail line from the coast to Quetta in 1887 and to Chaman on the Afghanistan border in 1890. During the next few years they extended a series of narrow gauge rail lines into the tribal territories of the Northwest Frontier, and in 1917 they completed a westward spur from Quetta to Zahedan (Hauner 1985). The result of British and Russian railway expansion between 1888 and World War I was that Afghanistan came to be surrounded by modem transport systems controlled by the two great empires of Asia. Inside Afghanistan itself, transport remained relatively underdeveloped. In 1880, when Abdul Rahman came to power in Kabul, Afghanistan contained no road "fit for wheeled carriages" (Kakar 1979:223). Goods were transported on the backs of horses, donkeys, and camels. As a result, communities were generally small and isolated (it took nine days, for instance, to get from Kabul to Khost). They were also relatively autonomous: Different regions had different weight and measurement systems; and, as cash was rare, commerce was carried on in kind. One of Amir Abdul Rahman's priorities was to widen the "roads" so that they could bear his mule guns. His improved roads radically shortened connections between Kabul, his capital, and the other major cities; travel time to Khost, for example, dropped from nine days to four. But improvements of this sort were expensive and time-consuming; and although improvements in the national transport infrastructure continued

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Robert L. Canfield

apace into the present century, most of the roads were usable only by animal traffic. As late as the 1930s, camel caravans were still traveling from India to China via Kabul (Howland 1940:272). Mazar-i Sharif was twenty-one days from Kabul; Khanabad was seventeen. In 1907 the Russians and British, wearied of their "Great Game," formally agreed, in effect, to stay out of Afghanistan's internal affairs. Afghanistan thus became a sort of officially recognized buffer zone between their respective empires; in practical terms this meant that the difficult Afghanistan landscape served as both a technical and a political zone of separation between Russia and British India. 2 Afghanistan's role as a buffer region between two imperial infrastructures altered after World War II, when the pace of change in the country began to accelerate. Afghanistan embarked on a number of ambitious five-year plans for economic development. The first two (those of 19561961 and 1962-1967) committed more than 50 percent of the development resources to the improvement of transportation and communications facilities. A ring of paved road, including connecting spurs, was constructed around the western, southern, and eastern rims of the Hindu Kush. Two of the spurs linked up with highways in the Soviet Union; the one at Turghund (on the way to Mary) was completed in 1965, and the other at Sher Khan Bandar (on the way to Dushanbe) was completed in 1966. Another two spurs linked with roads in Pakistan; the one at Turkham (on the way to Peshawar) was completed in 1965 and the one at Spinbaldak (on the way to Quetta) was completed in 1966. A final spur linked up with a road in Iran at Islam Qala (on the way to Mashhad); it was completed in 1967 (see Map 5). By the end of the 1960s, more than 1,200 miles (1,920 kilometers) of highway had been paved. The most spectacular road-building achievement of the Afghanistan highway system was, of course, the Salang Pass, which reduced the distance of the northern provinces from Kabul by 125 miles (200 kilometers). The new Salang road made possible a radical increase in traffic between Kabul and the northern provinces; after 1964 more than 600 trucks a day were traversing the pass (Dupree 1973:645). The road also fostered significant changes in commodity and cash flows as well as, in the provinces, some major social realignments in the provinces (Barfield 1981). In addition to roads, the development plans stressed the construction of air transport facilities. By 1967 improved airport facilities had been constructed at Kunduz, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad, and Maimana; moreover, "international" airports were built at Kabul and Khandahar. These facilities included not only runways but also terminals and the meteorological and radio installations necessary to operate them. By the end of the 1960s, international airlines were operating to and from Afghan airports and an intranational airline,

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Bakhtiar, was providing regular flights between the larger provincial towns. As a result of these improvements in the transport infrastructure, travel time from Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif decreased to three or four days (and eventually one day) by car and to a few minutes by plane. Even so, most Afghans-virtually the entire 85 percent of the population who lived rurally-still traveled by donkey, camel or horse; it was the wealthy and the higher government officials who traveled by car or plane. Afghanistan became a nation in which several forms of transport, the very old and the very new, operated at once. Gradually, as transport means improved, distances (in travel time and cost) between the scattered, culturally discrete populations of the country were reduced. And because the Kabul regime held the greatest concentration of power, it was able to enlarge the amount of the country under its control. Instead of local leaders, who had previously dominated social affairs, government officials controlled the rural districts. Instead of religious authorities, government courts adjudicated local disputes. The army conscripted troops more widely and efficiently. And national leaders brought their policies more directly to bear on the public by means of telephones, radios, and, eventually, television. They also made direct personal contact with more rural people by means of the automobile and the airplane. 3 Improvements in transport and communications technology since World War II have thus, in effect, reduced the size of Afghanistan, making its citizens more accessible to one another as well as to the government. In the adjacent territories of Soviet Central Asia, similar but more advanced transformations in transport infrastructures have taken place, especially since World War II. The main reason for these transport improvements was a growing interest in the fuel and mineral resources of the Soviet midlands; but of cOUrse they also had strategic value. Gradually Soviet resource exploitation pressed eastward until, as Leslie Dienes illustrates in Chapter 4, most Soviet mineral and energy resources are now extracted from territories east of the Urals, particularly Soviet Central Asia. The mining of coal, lignite, and such minerals as lead, zinc, aluminum, uranium, molybdenum, copper, tungsten, mercury, and antimony entailed the development of highways and especially railroads, the main long-distance carriers (Dewdney 1982; Taaffe 1962). Central Asian railroads are now among the busiest in the Soviet Union; hard-surfaced roads have quadrupled in mileage since 1960. Runways, hangars, pipelines, manufacturing plants, and cracking plants-these and other technological improvements have brought Soviet Central Asia into a closer relation to the imperial economy. No longer a mere peripheral appendage of the Soviet Union, it has become a vital and closely integrated part of it (see Chapter 6).4

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Another effect of the improvements in the transport infrastructure of the Central Asian nations has been the shortening of distances between Afghanistan and the countries around it. Afghanistan's new accessibility to its neighbors has been reflected in the escalating flows of goods and travelers across Afghanistan borders. Its total annual exports and imports increased 600 percent between 1950 and 1978 (IMF 1986:176-177). And at least until the 1970s the value of its foreign trade increased annually by nearly 10 percent (Statistical Pocketbook of Afghanistan 1350 [1971]). The neighbor to which Afghanistan was becoming most accessible was the Soviet Union. This fact was reflected in the increased trade figures: Throughout Afghanistan's period of radically increased international trade, the Soviet Union was its largest trading partner; annual trade with the Soviet Union increased from about $28.6 million during the first five-year plan (1955-1960) to $48 million in 1970. The Soviet Union's "percentage share of Afghanistan's total export rose from 27.5% in 1337 [1958] to 36.0% in 1347 [1968]" (Hendrikson n.d.:2). And by 1975 more than 40 percent of Afghanistan's exports were going to Communist-bloc countries, carried over Soviet transport facilities. The significance of Afghanistan's growing accessibility to the Soviet Union was, however, overlooked until 1979, when the Soviet invasion revealed just how close the two countries had become. The invasion, according to the Soviets, was prompted by specific conditions within Afghanistan and motivated by immediate, short-term objectives. But the decision to invade reflected more than a change in policy: It expressed a change in circumstance. The easy accessibility of Afghanistan via the modern transport facilities of Central Asia not only changed the range of viable options for the Soviet Union; it also increased the feasibility of more direct involvement in Afghanistan's affairs. After the Soviets invaded, they effectively became even closer. They enlarged the air bases of Afghanistan, improved its communications and supply facilities, installed pipelines, and constructed railroads and highways across the Oxus and further south into the country. These installations connected more of Afghanistan's territories and resources, especially those of the north, with the Soviet infrastructure. Communities that only a few years earlier had been poorly linked into the Afghanistan economy became directly accessible to the Soviet system. The Soviets were attempting to install an infrastructure that, whatever their original intentions, would have changed the configuration of spatial relations in all of Eurasia: The completion of a modern transport and communications infrastructure in Afghanistan would not only have drawn Afghanistan more closely into the Soviet empire but, more important, it would have brought all of the nations of Greater Central Asia into closer proximity to one another. For a modern infrastructure in Af-

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Bridge crossing the Oxus River (at Hairatan) from Afghanistan into the Soviet Union. Photo by John F. Shroder, Jr.

Celebration of the opening of the Oxus River Bridge. Photo by John F. Shroder, Jr.

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ghanistan would effectively have bridged the territory previously left underdeveloped by the British and Russians, and would directly have linked the extensive transport infrastructures of the subcontinent and the Soviet Union. The result, in that case, would have been a precipitous reduction in the cost of overland shipping and travel between Europe and South Asia. Moreover, the Soviet infrastructure would have been directly connected along the extant transport networks of South Asia to the open sea. The much-discussed question of whether Baluchistan might have become a route of Soviet expansion to the Indian Ocean missed the point. Baluchistan has no direct transport line to the sea; its railhead connects instead to Sind, where there is a direct line to Karachi, linked at many points to the rail networks of South Asia. For the moment, the Afghanistan war is both an expression of that evolutionary process and a temporary disruption of it, for the fighting has destroyed the infrastructure of Afghanistan. In many places roads are barely passable, canals and underground canal systems (karezes) have been destroyed, power lines are damaged, and aircraft runways are pitted. Nevertheless, the process of infrastructural development will eventually recommence, and the trajectory toward distance reduction will continue. The pressing questions at this writing have to do with who will control the reconstruction in Mghanistan, and who will control. the new infrastructure of the country once it is rebuilfJ To the extent that the people of Afghanistan are able to control their segment of the Greater Central Asian infrastructure, the reconstruction process will work to their advantage because of the central location of their territories. Of course, any other power that comes to dominate the wider region of Greater Central Asia could likewise use a modern transport and communications network to its advantage, for the costs of social, economic, and political interaction in the wider region are likely to decrease dramatically as a new infrastructure is installed. The construction of railroads through Afghanistan, which the Soviets seemed to have undertaken at one poi~t, would be a costly and formidable engineering enterprise in the rugged terrain of the Hindu Kush, but it would certainly payoff as the chief long-haul carrier in both the Soviet Union and South Asia. The prospect of a reduction in the cost of shipping through Afghanistan and Soviet Central Asia following the introduction of modern transport will eventually loom in importance for the governments of Pakistan and India. At some point it will become evident to the major powers in South Asia that the configuration of strategic options is changing as Afghanistan undergoes reconstruction: India as well as Pakistan will become directly accessible to the Soviet economy, and Greater Central Asia and South Asia will become a single, larger socioeconomic region

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(see Chapter 7 in this volume; see also Canfield 1985b; Cohen 1973:308312; Hauner 1987). In any case we can assume that such technological improvements will transform Greater Central Asia from a relatively isolated marginal territory into one of the politically and economically important regions of the world. Once a crucial barricade between the north Eurasian and South Asian infrastructures, Afghanistan is likely to become a corridor linking them together.

The Changing Political Consciousness of the Muslim Populations But this is not the only social process taking place in the region. Moreover, as the outcome of the Afghanistan war suggests, the shortening of distances effected by improved transport infrastructures does not in itself determine how the various peoples in the region will interpret or react to the circumstances that result. The peoples in Greater Central Asia, like people everywhere, understand their changing circumstances in terms of structured frameworks of meaning-world views-that place the discursive flow of events in their lives into contexts of value and predictability. To understand the possible long-term impact of the modernization of transport systems in Greater Central Asia, we need to consider how the world views of these peoples-the particular moral and practical understandings that inform their experience-are likely to intrude upon this development process. World views are the conceptual frameworks in terms of which people understand their experience. But because people's world views only nearly match the discursive circumstances of life, they are often in tension with actual experience; the mismatch between experience and ideal images compels opinions and expectations to change. Thus, the hierarchically structured, more or less organized assemblages of ideas that constitute world views are coerced into new configurations by changing circumstances. But their specific configuration at any moment reflects an intrinsic necessity to be-at least as nearly as possible-both logically coherent and circumstantially functional. If the history of linguistic usage (which betrays the changing patterns of shared understandings among a given group of people) is any indication of this process, world views are apparently always righting themselves relative to changing contexts; indeed, they are doing so in terms of the logically ordered understandings already in place. The righting and reordering, the shifting of opinions and expectations, entail an uneven pattern of change in the understandings that make up world views. Some concepts and attitudes in a world view change rather easily, in conformity to the demands of circumstance.

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Others, when anchored in concepts of virtue, sublimity, fundamental process, and ultimate significance (notions too abstract to be challenged much by actual experience) resist change. In a sense, the more a world view varies, the more it remains the same; premises hold as Ptolemaic epicycles compound in order to preserve the essential character of the system. So public consciousness-the collection of understandings and moods that socially exemplify a world view-shifts in response to changing circumstances, even as underlying premises of value remain intact. 5 We may expect the technological improvements in Greater Central Asia to strain some of the extant understandings and attitudes of the peoples in the region, especially the more concrete concepts of value. The abstract concepts of value among these peoples are intrinsically bound up with the Islamic vision. Islam has indelibly shaped their notions of what is virtuous, sublime, fundamental, and ultimately significant, and the influence exerted by these notions is different from that of modem transport technology. Indeed, a new prominence of Islamic terms of value in discussions about public issues seems to have been working directly contrary to the effect of technological improvements. This cultural development tends to strengthen local and nationalistic interests, whereas the improvements in transport technology tend to strengthen imperial interests. To explain the influence of Islam, which works in a direction different from that of the trends induced by the modernizing of the transport technology, I will discuss some aspects of the Islamic world view as it generally relates to the political and social affairs of the Muslim peoples of Greater Central Asia. Then, after noting some of the significant changes that have taken place among these peoples, I will suggest the possible social and political consequences of the new understandings and attitudes that have taken hold.

The Place of Islam in Greater Central Asian Culture The new trend in the understandings and attitudes of the Islamic peoples can be explained in terms of certain changes that have occurred since the nineteenth century, when Western influences began to intrude upon the area. Before the rise of European influence, the established structures of social obligation and alignment were essentially based on ethnic, sectarian, and community ties, all of which were reinforced by Islamic notions. The peoples of this region were diverse, including more than a dozen ethnic and linguistic types, and three different Islamic sects-Sunni, Imami ("Twelver") Shi'ite, and Isma'ili ("Sevener") Shi'ite. 6 But the units of actual cooperation were smaller than the sect and the

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ethnic type: Kinship loyalties of various sorts, especially in rural areas, bore much of the burden of social and political affairs in local communities. These social units-whether based on community ties, kinship, or sectarian affiliation-were imbued with Islamic concepts of obligation. Islamic understandings, in fact, distinctly influenced all aspects of social and political life. They provided the imagery through which people gained a sense of significance in an infinite cosmos; but they also imbued the "secular" social ties-those based on loyalty to the neighborhood and the kinship group, for instance-with an Islamic cast. Islamic concepts of virtue and obligation permeated and reinforced the moral effect of nonreligious bonds: A good Muslim should, for example, be a good neighbor and a good kinsman. This permeation of "secular" social ties with Islamic overtones may have resulted from, or at least may have been enhanced by, the Islamic requirement to "enjoin the good and forbid the reprehensible"-"good" and "reprehensible" being defined, of course, in Islamic terms. But Islam was also useful to people in their dealings with the practical exigencies of life: Through means considered Islamic, such as charms consisting of Qur'anic verses, people sought not only healing and protection from harm but also success in their social and economic enterprises as well as a general sense of well-being. Islam was also the idiom of public loyalty. Through such Islamic rituals as the Friday prayers and the fast of Ramadan, people expressed their commitment to one another and to their community. But the ritual that most effectively joined Islamic notions of virtue with notions of public obligation was the jihad, the "holy struggle." The jihad is the highest, most honorable quest of the Muslim. It is the struggle for a pure inner life as well as for upright relations in one's social affairs and a just society in the world at large-inner purity, upright relations, and social justice understood, again, in Islamic terms. Because the jihad for purity, uprightness, and social responsibility is the ideal quest of the Muslim, it has normally provided the basis for cooperation in social causes. Contrary to the supposition of some non-Muslims, jihad is not a call to mindless bloodshed in the name of God; rather, it is a call to fulfill sublime ideals. An appeal to jihad is heeded by Muslims as a function of its aptness to particular circumstances; its moral content, in any case, springs from ideals deeply embedded in Islamic notions of virtue and sublimity. 7 These ideal social ties-to kinsmen, neighbors, sect affiliates, and Muslims generally-provided the normative bases for the exercise of authority and power in the societies of Greater Central Asia prior to the advent of European influences. Rulers therefore made their claims to preeminence in terms of family rights supported by Islamic symbols of authority. In other words, rulerships were dynastic. They exerted their

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control by means of cadres of loyal clients and kinsmen, and they relied on certain Islamic authorities for legitimation.

Early Western Influences and the Rise of Progressive Viewpoints As we have seen, Islamic concepts of value and utility provided the preeminent idiom of interpersonal relations and public affairs among the peoples of Central Asia. But imposed upon these "traditional" notions of value in the nineteenth century were secularistic notions of public obligation imported from the West. The introduction of Western influences helped stimulate the formation of new kinds of social alignment as well as new concepts of identity and public obligation. Western technological innovations were introduced to strengthen the administrative control of rulers, but they affected many other aspects of these societies as well. Standing armies were instituted and bureaucracies enlarged. Bureaucrats were put on salaries rather than awarded prebendal land grants. Such institutional changes were imposed by the expanding empires of the Russians in the north and the British in the south. In Iran and Afghanistan, where the Russians and British exercised less direct control, similar changes were introduced by local rulers in emulation of the Russians and British. The result in any case was that the governments in this region began to take on the cultural trappings of European states: Rulers began to preside over new political entities called "nations," and the prominent elements involved in administrative and public affairs were now the middle classes, which identified with national agendas. The persistent problem the leaders of these nations had to address was how to integrate Islamic ideals with Western secular concepts of government and social responsibility. Because national progress was the underlying issue, these leaders might be called "progressives," in contrast to the large mass of locally oriented peoples who were not yet caught up in the national, secularizing trend. But the progressives took varying positions on how Western secularized social models should be incorporated. Some of them could be called "conservative," for although they accepted some technical improvements, they distrusted the Western secularism associated with them and so counseled restraint. Their perspective resembled that of the locally oriented peoples who took no part in these discussions-but they held their positions deliberately, sometimes even stridently, in opposition to Western and other views. Other progressives were "modernists" in that they acknowledged Islam in principle but regarded it, at least as commonly practiced, as an impediment to progress. In between the adherents of these two viewpoints, as always, were the "moderates," who believed that modernization was

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possible within the tenets of Islam; indeed, they argued that it was encouraged by these tenets. Eventually another kind of progressive emerged, a progressive more radical than any of these groups, who claimed not only that Islam was an impediment to progress but also that secularistic models of progress ought to be imposed on the country in the interest of development. This was the attitude of the Russians (and later the Soviets) in Central Asia, and also tacitly that of Reza Shah's government in Iran; but the viewpoint had little influence in Afghanistan until after the Marxist coup of 1978.8 But even as the modernist vision of progressive Muslims predominated in the administration of Islamic nations, Muslims were becoming discontent with progressive agendas and an alternative Muslim response to the problem of modernization was brewing. That response would become an agenda for Islamic reform that in various ways has affected Muslim consciousness in the region of Greater Central Asia. 9

Changes in the Social and Cultural Context of Politics in the 1970s Progressive views of Islamic societies, which were largely secular in orientation, dominated public affairs in Iran and Afghanistan well into the 1970s. But during the same decade a series of developments worked collectively to undermine the influence of the progressives and provided a context for the emergence of another approach to the problem of Western secularism. One development, the one most relevant to our purpose here, was a change in mood: People began to lose hope in Western technological solutions to economic and social problems. This mood has taken hold all over the Third World and has affected certain elements, many of them young people, in both Iran and Afghanistan; how much it has affected Muslim understandings and attitudes in Soviet Central Asia is unclear.10 Aside from the disappointment of the Iranian and Afghanistan populations with development programs, there was in Iran a growing revulsion against the insensitivity and oppressiveness of the shah's government. To this disenchantment with Western notions of progress was added, in the early 1970s, the defeat of the United States in Viet Nam: This preeminent secular, technologically advanced Western power was humiliated by a "traditional," underdeveloped Asian people. At about the same time a new element in the world situation, Middle Eastern oil wealth, began to be channeled into enterprises that enhanced the public image of Islam in the Western world; in many Muslim countries it was used to strengthen Islamic institutions and programs (Pipes 1980, 1983). The net effect was a rise in Muslim self-confidence. The riots and strikes in Iran that eventually drove out the shah were manifestations

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of the new confidence of Iranian Muslims as Muslims. And the success of that movement-which would become known as the Iranian Revolution-exposed the strength of this new Muslim self-assurance. At the same time a similar public sentiment was stirring in Afghanistan, for growing numbers of Afghans were rising up against the secularizing trends in the society. After the Marxist coup of 1978 and the Soviet invasion of 1979, this outlook provided the dominant ideology for resistance against the Marxists and their Soviet sponsors. The ideologies of the Iranian Revolution and of most of the Afghanistan mujahedin resistance groups expressed some new solutions to the problem of how Muslims should relate to Western secularism. The Islamist Ideology. The solutions proposed by the Shi'ite leaders in the Iranian Revolution and the Sunni leaders of the Afghanistan mujahedin resistance arose from frames of reference already in place in the Islamic world view. The Islamists, the leading figures in the recent Islamic renewal, believe that previous attempts to apply Islamic ideas to modern contexts have disregarded the crucial intent of Islam; in fact, some Islamists charge progressive Muslims of being inconsistent in their understanding of Islam and half-hearted in their application of it. The Islamist viewpoint, at least in its Sunni form, has been traced back to Shah Waliullah, an eighteenth-century Delhi theologian (Roy 1985), and to Ibn-Taymiyya, the early fourteenth-century jurist of Damascus. Both of these men drew heavily from the ideas of Ibn-Hanbal (Dekmejian 1985).

The central themes of the teachings of Ibn Taymiyya and Shah Waliullah manifest the thrust of the Islamist critique. Ibn-Taymiyya stressed the comprehensiveness of the Islamic shari'a, which for him encompassed spiritual and rational truth as well as law. He also rejected Sufi mysticism and called for an awakening of civic involvement among the 'ulama (Rahman 1979:111-115; Hodgson 1974, vol. 2:422). Shah Waliullah taught that there should be a complementary relationship between ruler and clergy in order for a proper Islamic society to develop. He believed that hadith (the traditional information about Muhammad's personal sayings and acts) should be a central concern of Muslim scholarly study, and he criticized Islamic scholars for laXity in their application of Islamic law (Metcalf 1982:39-43). What Ibn-Taymiyya and Shah Waliullah as well as other Islamic reformers share is their call for a return to original sources and to the original spirit and intent of the Islamic revelation, especially as it applies to civil and public affairs. The Islamic reformers were also similar in that they rose to prominence in times of cultural confusion (d. Wallace 1956); their insistence on a return to first principles was, in effect, a critique of the inconsistent and half-hearted moral commitment of their

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times. Rahman (1979:111) has said that movements calling for a return to Islamic first principles seem to reawaken in "recreated formations" that "issue from time to time from the very heart of Islam. They are characterized by an indistinguishable blend of reinvigorated fundamentalism and progressivism ... and [it is] this very character [of Islam] . . . that signifies 'orthodoxy.''' The twentieth century Islamist movement is just that-a "reinvigorated blend of fundamentalism and orthodoxy." Its diagnosis and cure for the problems of the modern Muslim world arose at first as a social critique by a small minority of dissenters in various parts of the Muslim world. One of the most influential of this group, at least among the Sunnis, was Moulana Abul A'la Maududi of Pakistan (1903-1979), who pressed for a more genuinely Islamic society based on the Qur'an. It was apparently Maududi who, first among the modem Islamists, insisted on the distinction between a society that faithfully lives up to the standards of Islam (for him, the only proper Islamic society) and a society that does not, which he called jahili society (that is, like the society of the Arabs living in ignorance before Islam). He declared the "modernizing," secularizing societies of the Muslim world, as well as Western society, to be jahili. Maududi's concept of jahili society influenced Sayyed Qutb, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, who believed it was a Muslim duty to revive the Islamic world by applying Islamic rules and principles more carefully to contemporary life. The true jihad to him was the struggle to establish the reign of God's sovereignty on earth, "to end all sin, suffering and repression" (quoted in Dekmejian 1985:91). It was from Sayyed Qutb that the Afghanistan Islamists developed their own understanding of Muslim reformatory obligation. The most provocative Islamist thinker among the Shi'ites is Khomeini, whose ideas on the depraved condition of modem Muslim society scarcely differ from those of the Sunni Islamists. Yet he rose on the crest of a different tradition. The Shi'ite 'ulama to which he belonged were, unlike the Sunni 'ulama, reluctant to grant legitimate authority to Muslim rulers merely on the grounds that such rulers were better than none at all. The Shi'ite 'ulama took upon themselves the weighty responsibility of formally critiquing the rulership and so became bound to stand apart from it. The most learned 'ulama, known in Shi'ism as mujtaheds, had the obligation to critique the rulership and society in terms of the Islamic revelation. It was their public duty to serve as guardians of Shi'ite Islamic dogma in the absence of the Hidden Imam. As guardians of the Islamic revelation in changing circumstances, they were forced to exercise a twosided role-that is, to preserve the original intent of the revelation, but also to show its relevance to contemporary issues. The Shi'ite 'ulama, in contrast to the Sunni 'ulama, after much argumentation, came to

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believe in the fourteenth century that their interpretive role sometimes necessitated the exercise of innovative judgments; new circumstances required new formulations if the essential character of the original revelation was to be kept intact. This separate responsibility of the mujtaheds to apply received Islamic concepts to contemporary situations was formally recognized in the Persian Constitution of 1906, in which a group of mujtaheds chosen by their peers was given the right to evaluate and pass on all laws enacted by the Majlis (Parliament). This regulation was in fact never implemented, but the Iranian 'ulama never doubted that the mujtaheds had such a right; indeed, the mujtaheds felt they were obligated to offer judgments as necessary on the social conditions of their times. In addition, Khomeini insisted that the 'ulama become directly involved in politics (Mortimer 1982:326 ff.; Bromberger 1983). He believed that a true Islamic society could exist only under the rulership of someone who knows the Islamic law and applies it justly. Indeed, only by the impartial, even unmerciful, application of Islamic laws of punishment can there be a truly Islamic society. Unlike the Sunni Islamists, who in important respects were progressives trying to find ways to make Islam relevant to the modern world, Khomeini has been a traditionalist trying to make Islam work by applying it more literally and more strictly. The Islamists, both Shi'ite and Sunni, have in any case carved out for themselves a specific ideological space in the contemporary discussion about the application of Islam to the modern Muslim world. They have differed with modernist progressives who liberally borrowed their social concepts from the West, for the Islamists instead regard the secularism implicit in Western political ideas as inimical to true Islam (or so they say). The Sunni Islamists, and Khomeini among the Shi'ites, have differed from the majority of the 'ulama in both sects who avoided politics and legitimated Muslim rulers; indeed, the Sunni Islamists have called them jahili and Khomeini has described them as "un-Islamic." The Sunni Islamists have differed from "traditional" Muslims in that they have drawn ideas, agendas, and methods from the Western world, even if they have also attempted (or claimed) to incorporate them into an Islamic framework. Although the ideological space taken by the Islamists may appear to the outside observer to lack coherence and consistency, their position, from the viewpoint of the peoples of Iran and Afghanistan, is (in mid-1988) the preeminent answer to the contemporary situation. The Islamists are attempting to respond to modern political circumstances in terms of concepts and principles they believe are entailed in the original Islamic revelation. This combination of modern agendas and ancient ideals has been difficult for Western observers to find the right adjectives for. The movement has been called fundamentalist, reformist,

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revivalist, resurgent, and revolutionary-terms that only vaguely represent its actual character. The word used here, Islamist, derives from the term the leaders use for themselves, the islamiyya; another term they have used for themselves, the asliyya, means the "original or authentic ones," or, perhaps more loosely, "those who go back to first principles." All the descriptive terms used for the Islamists are pertinent, but to a limited extent. The Islamists are fundamentalists in their call for a return to the basic Islamic texts, the Qur' an and hadith, and to the Islamic principles revealed therein. They are reformists in their call for a restructuring of Islamic society in terms of basic Islamic principles. They are revivalists in their search, through a consideration of first principles, for a vitality and spiritual renewal that seems to have been lacking in the contemporary Muslim world. They are revolutionaries in their proposals of a radical application of the ideals and principles of early Islam to modern society, and in their radical social criticism denouncing contemporary Muslim society as imperfectly Islamic-even essentially non-Islamic. Indeed, they have singled out for special criticism the 'ulama, who have legitimized governments that, in their eyes, are essentially jahili. The movement can rightfully be called resurgent because the Islamic moral vision has in many Muslim circles supplanted Western secularist notions as the idiom of discourse about social rights and obligations. At the same time, however, the movement is thoroughly modern. It has in fact been influenced by ideas generated in the West, even if, as with Khomeini, Western secular ideas serve mainly as the essential foil. But Western influence on most Islamist thinkers goes further than that, as evidenced by their use of such Western terms as party and revolution, which have become central to Islamist rhetoric. Indeed, some Sunni Islamists have been accused of taking their first principles from Western political philosophy and of using the Qur'an and hadith only as proof texts for what they want to do (Roy 1985:107). Islamist Institutional Tools. The Islamists in different countries are varied in their methods of implementation. In Pakistan the Islamists have been rather elitist, and so have won only limited popular support. The Afghanistan Islamists, on the other hand, have sought from the beginning to enlist popular support, developing close ties with existing traditional social networks. They have linked up with the tribes predominating in the south; with the kinship blocs common in the north; with the Sufi orders in the north; and with the 'ulama, whose influence among the common people has been crucial to the resistance movement. The Afghanistan Islamists have also been notably successful in making political parties instruments of social and political action. Unlike the secular parties of the 1960s that were organized by middle-class mod-

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ernists in the cities, the political parties formed by the Afghanistan Islamists have attracted rural and urban traditionalists. The Islamist. ideology has thus been turned to very functional use: Through the social medium of the party, it has provided the conceptual framework for the organization of resistance activities against the Afghan government and the Soviets. Even so, the Islamist parties, while bridging some traditional social barriers, still tend to be associated with the established social entities-the ethnic groups, tribes, and sects. The Jamiat-i Islami, for example, are mostly Sunni Tajiks (who are common in the north); the other Sunni parties are mostly Push tun; and the Shi'ite parties are mostly Hazara. ll The Shi'ite Islamist leaders in Iran are different from the Sunni Islamist leaders in that they are themselves 'ulama, whereas the Sunni Islamists in Afghanistan and elsewhere have on the whole been non-'ulama. Indeed, they have carefully distinguished themselves from the 'ulama and, in Afghanistan at least, have allied with the 'ulama only for practical purposes. In Iran the Shi'ite 'ulama themselves have both inspired and organized the Islamist movement. In the uprising against the shah, the Shi'ite 'ulama, along with the urban merchant community, constituted the most prominent and established institution of dissent, and were closely associated with the populace (Thaiss 1973). Even though Khomeini chided them for avoiding political activity, they were essentially untainted by association with the shah's oppressive government-having been excluded from it. Hence, when finally spurred to action, they were in a position to lead the charge against it. The Long-term Possibilities of the Islamist Movement. Whatever the possibilities for the Islamist movement elsewhere, Islamism in Afghanistan and Iran seems likely to hold the ideological high ground for a while. This is so because in both countries the main social instruments of "modernist" and "moderate" progressivism-the middle classes-have effectively disappeared from the scene. In Iran, hundreds of middleclass people were executed and many more have fled (Arani 1980; Naby 1985:67); those who remain appear thoroughly cowed. 12 In Afghanistan, what remains of a progressive middle class is the tiny radical element protected by the Soviet presence. There are scarcely any voices of "modern," secular progressivism among the active leaders of the resistance movement, within either Afghanistan or Pakistan. And there is little likelihood that any leader representing such an agenda will emerge in the foreseeable future (the former king, Zaher Shah, is an unlikely exception). The resistance movement has, of necessity, depended on the "traditionalist" populations of the country, who are ideologically represented by the Islamists.

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The "moderate" and "modernist" progressives who remain in Afghanistan and Iran are offstage for the time being. But the situation of the "modernist" Muslims of Soviet Central Asia has been different. Although they, too, appear to have lacked popular support, they are more securely ensconced in the national bureaucracy (because the government is Soviet and thoroughly secular). The collapse of middle-class secular "modernists" and "moderates" in Iran and Afghanistan, and the apparent unpopularity of the secular "modernists" in the Soviet bureaucracy, augurs well for the prominence of Islamist ideas among the Muslim peoples in Greater Central Asia for some time to come.

Wider Implications of the Islamist Movement The Islamist movement is exerting an influence of its own on the trajectory of events in Greater Central Asia, apparently working against the centralizing tendency stimulated by the construction of modern transport systems. The two variants of Islamism, the Shi'ite in Iran and the Sunni in Afghanistan (that is, excluding the Muslims of the Soviet Union, whose convictions are less clearly known), represent a major contrary force against Soviet imperial expansion in Greater Central Asia. In Afghanistan, Islamism is an ideology of resistance, even revulsion, against the intrusion of Soviet military power, the Soviets being the epitome of jahili society. Through the use of their parties, the Islamists of Afghanistan have fostered (perhaps unintentionally in some cases) ethnic and sectarian as well as nationalistic loyalties, all of which work against the forces of imperial expansion. In Iran, the Shi'ite 'ulama have the advantage of a massive organization that reaches all the way down to the grass roots of the society.13 This network of more or less likeminded 'ulama is a bulwark against the secularizing tendencies involved in the modernization of overland transport systems-at least, so long as such systems are under the control of a secular state. But aside from their restraining effect on Soviet expansion to the south, the Islamist movements in Iran and Afghanistan appear to challenge Soviet interests within the Soviet Union. Of course the agenda of the Islamists contradicts the atheistic cult of the Soviet Union, and the Afghanistan War has brought the Muslims of the Soviet Union into closer contact with the Afghanistan Islamists, and indeed with Muslims outside the Soviet Union generally. This rejoining of ties among Tajik, Uzbek, and Turkmen Muslim populations on both sides of the SovietAfghanistan border constitutes a significant tear in the Iron Curtain. The Afghanistan mujahedin have for some time been making sorties into Soviet Central Asia, and have brought tapes on Islamic subjects to Soviet Muslims-a development acknowledged by the Soviet press. According

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to one report, a commentary on the Qur' an by Maududi, translated into Russian, is being circulated in Central Asia (Research Centre 1985:13). But even before these Islamist influences were brought to bear on Soviet Central Asia, there was evidence of a rising sense of Islamic identity among Soviet Muslims. Muslim young people have become more loyal to Islam than their parents; a growing number of Central Asian peoples do not know Russian and refuse to learn it. The general attitude of these peoples toward the Soviet Russian government has always been, if not openly hostile, at least sullen. Islam seems to have become an important "language of refusal" (Bourdieu 1962:157) against the central cultural idioms of the Soviet system. The Muslims' growing interest in Islam coincides with another important development: Their numbers are growing five times faster than those of the Slavic populations of the empire (Bennigsen and Broxup 1983). Moreover, an increasing number of non-Muslim residents of Central Asia are moving out.1 4 With the narrowing of the social distance between the Muslims of the Soviet Union and their Muslim brethren to the south, another social and cultural development may become an important influence on the trajectory of events in the area: The Muslims of Greater Central Asia could become more interested in each other and support each other's localized interests. The Islamists of Iran and Afghanistan have stressed immediate and localized goals, it is true; but the Islamists have never been nationalists exactly. Their ultimate ideal has included the general union of Muslims into a single polity, following the original Muslim vision of unity. The breach in the Iron Curtain has allowed Muslims on both sides of the Soviet border to develop ties of the sort that transcend national boundaries. The pristine Islamic dream of a single people, the Muslim 'umma, joined into a truly worldwide Islamic societyan idea clearly contrary to any imperial trends in the Soviet Unionmay take on a new luster as a result of the growing interaction of Muslims within and outside the Soviet Union. The Islamist movement could be a similar threat to other nations interested in Greater Central Asia. In particular, the attempts of the Islamists to apply religious ideals to national agendas directly contradicts the national ideologies of Pakistan and India. The sectarian and religious assumptions of the Islamists could be a problem especially for India, which has achieved its national integrity by keeping the Indian state secular, subordinating all the religions of its diverse nation to a central government that carefully eschews any cult. The Islamist ideology, if it were to awaken the political ambitions of India's more than 70 million Muslims, could reinforce similar tendencies among other religious groups and so threaten the integrity of the nation. Because Islamist ideology is essentially a language of dissent, it could become a destabilizing

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influence on the already fragile political structures of South Asia; at the least, it portends instability and conflict among the diverse ethnic and sectarian groups of South Asia, for its political agenda directly challenges established political institutions. IS

The Collision of Power and Ideals in Greater Central Asia This new thrust of Islamic rhetoric in public affairs, expressed in similar but varying ideological terms, derives from impulses different from the effects of modernized transport technologies and works in a contrary direction. Modem transport systems foster the expansion of imperial power, through which diverse nations, peoples, and religious groups are incorporated into a single administrative and economic system. The renewed call to Islamic first principles, in contrast, is coupled with nationalist, ethnic, and sectarian interests that appear to work against the centralizing effects of imperial power. And whereas the technological innovations in Central Asia are preeminently material changes serving practical ends, the Islamist movement represents and fosters a change in social and political consciousness serving, or at least purporting to serve, moral ends. It is the particular contradiction between these two kinds of social force-one arising from material and technical conditions, the other from publicly shared ideals and expectations-that makes prediction of actual social developments (in this case those in Greater Central Asia) problematic. This confrontation between intractable moral images and evolving material conditions turned the Afghanistan War into a kind of ghastly laboratory for the examination of social process. The Soviets and Afghans have played out in blood and flesh a contradiction that social scientists have argued about ever since Marx-put bluntly and simplistically, are societies driven by material mechanisms integrated functionally or by images of virtue integrated ideally? The preeminent advantage of the Soviets was their military strength. The preeminent advantage of the mujahedin has been their commitment to values that people will kill and die for. Granted, the Soviets have used a moral rhetoric, and the Afghanistan peoples have had some material advantages, notably a knowledge of their own territories and the cover afforded by a difficult terrain. But their strength over the long run has been their intransigence, which is a particular manifestation of their moral imagination. In any case, the long-term outcome of this confrontation between brute force and dogged faith should be a matter of more than theoretical interest. In my opinion it will affect the geopolitical alignment of Eurasia.

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Notes 1. For examples of changes in political alignments that have taken place as a national infrastructure developed (in this case in Afghanistan), see Canfield (1971) and Canfield (1973, Chapter 5). For a discussion of the social and economic changes resulting from the opening of the Salang Pass, see Barfield (1981). 2. Dupree (1980), Griffiths (1967), and Gregorian (1969) have extensive discussions on the Russian-British "Great-Game" in Afghanistan. Adamec (1967) is the best source on the diplomatic events of the first quarter of this century. 3. Information on the development of modem Afghanistan is scattered and the publications are uneven. Newell (1972), Fry (1974), Dupree (1980), and Griffiths (1967), as well as the Surveys of Progress (1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1969, 1970) have been useful to me in constructing this statement. Kakar (1979) is good for the period of Abdur Rahman (1880-1901). Regarding the effect of changing transport systems on economic and political conditions, Barfield (1981) is especially interesting; Canfield (1971, 1985b) has some discussions of the social and political effects of changes in the transport system. 4. Sinkiang, the Chinese portion of Central Asia, on the other side of the Tien Shan Mountains from the Muslim republics of the Soviet Union, appears likely to follow a similar trajectory, if belatedly. The Chinese have recently decided to invest in the infrastructure necessary to exploit Sinkiang's rich mineral resources. In the mid-1980s, as a first step, they arranged for a group of German scholars to study the ecology and topography of the area (Betke, Kuchler, and Obenauf 1987). In April 1985, the Chinese started building the final link of the railroad between Urumchi and Druzhba, which will complete the rail connections between Moscow and Beijing, in accordance with an earlier agreement with the Soviet Union (FBIS [Daily Report: China], 30 April 1985:K22). 5. Despite many discussions of "continuity and change," there are few formulations of the mutability of cultural elements (see Fischer 1980:11 for a brief reference to it). Authors tend to treat symbols either as merely reflective of, and therefore epiphenomenal to, economic and political processes, or as monolithic systems that resist change. Shils (1981) has written insightfully although rather discursively, on the process. 6. The proper term for sect as used here is mazhab, literally translated as "school" (Le., a certain tradition of Islamic jurisprudence). But the differences between the various mazhab groups signal important differences in social alignment: Members of different mazhabs do not intermarry, for instance, except in cases where men of a dominant mazhab (as with the Shi'ites in Iran and the Sunnis elsewhere in Central Asia) marry women from other mazhabs. As the social (and often political) implications of mazhab membership are considerable, I have used the word sect. 7. For a recent discussion of jihad as the idiom of opposition to communist rule, see Naby (1986b). 8. The most aggressive modernist reforms in Afghanistan took place under Amanullah (1919-1929). On his reforms, see Poullada (1973); on the conceptualization of Islam by early Afghan modernists, see Schinasi (1979). A useful

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critique of the policies of the Afghanistan government in the twentieth century is provided by Shahrani (1986). And regarding the influence of the government on the rural peoples, see Canfield (1986, 1987). 9. On the Islamist movement generally I have consulted the following works: Braker (1986), Dekrnijian (1985), Jansen (1979), Lapidus (1983), Mortimer (1982), Sivan (1985). 10. Specialists have disagreed on the degree of commitment to Islam by Soviet Muslims and its political implications. Compare Bennigsen (1984), Olcott (1985), and Atkin (1985). According to Alex R. Alexiev (in a personal communication), publications by the Soviets in 1988 have more openly acknowledged the problem. 11. On the structure of the Afghanistan resistance, see Roy (1986) for a crucial discussion. Other useful sources are Puig (1984), Edwards (1986), Naby (1985), Shahrani (1984), and Canfield (1985a). 12. Much has been written on the Iranian Revolution. The works that have been most useful to me are the following: Bromberger (1983), Mottahedeh (1985), Keddie and Hooglund (1982), Kazerni (1980), Arani (1980), and Sheikholeslarni (1986). Ajami's (1986) brief commentary on the work of Ali Shariati is easily accessible. Mutahhari (1985) presents an official image of the revolution. 13. The work of Reinhold Loeffler (1982 and other articles) has provided valuable information on responses to the regime on the local level. Hegland's (1986) discussion is also especially interesting. 14. I am indebted to Alex R. Alexiev for most of the information in this paragraph. His sources are in the Soviet press. See his forthcoming publications. 15. Ahmed (1987) provides an excellent discussion of the contradictions implicit in Pakistan's attempt to merge Islamic and democratic ideals.

References Adamec, Ludwig. 1967. Afghanistan, 1900-1923: A Diplomatic History. Berkeley: University of California. Ahmed, Ishtiaq. 1987. The Concept of an Islamic State: An Analysis of the Ideological Controversy in Pakistan. New York: St. Martin's. Ajami, Fouad. 1986. The Impossible Life of Moslem Liberalism. The New Republic (June 2):26-32. Arani, Sharif. 1980. Iran: From the Shah's Dictatorship to Khomeini's Demagogic Theocracy. Dissent 27 (1) (Winter). Atkin, Muriel. 1985. To the Editor. Problems of Communism 34 (May-June):8788. Barfield, Thomas. 1981. The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan. Austin: University of Texas. Bennigsen, Alexandre. 1984. Mullahs, Mujahidin and Soviet Muslims. Problems of Communism 33 (November-December):28-44. _ _ . 1985. Reply to Alcott and Atkin. Problems of Communism 34 (May]une):90.

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Bennigsen, Alexandre, and Marie Broxup. 1983. The Islamic Threat to the Soviet State. New York: St. Martin's. Betke, Dirk, Johannes Kuchler, and Klaus Peter Obenauf. 1987. Wuding und

Manas: 6kologische und sozio-6konomichesche Aspekte von Boden-und Wasserschutz in den Trockengebieten der VR China. Urbs et Regio. Vol. 43. Kassel:

Kassseler Schriften Zur Geographie und Planung. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1962 [1959]. The Algerians. Boston: Beacon. Braker, Hans. 1986. The Islamic Renewal Movement and the Power Shift in the Near/Middle East and Central Asia. In Passe Turco-Tatar Present Sovietique: Etudes Offertes Ii Alexandre Bennigsen, edited by C. Lemercier-Quelquejay, G. Veinstein, and S. E. Wimbush. Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. Braudel, Ferdinand. 1972 [1949]. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Vol. 1. New York: Harper. Bromberger, Christian. 1983. Le Derangement Iranien. In Essais, Ecrits, et Commentaires sur Ie Phenomene Revolutionaire, edited by Pierre Baptiste. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Canfield, Robert L. 1971. Hazara Integration in the Afghan Nation. Occasional Paper Number 3. New York: Afghanistan Council of the Asia Society. _ _ . 1973. Faction and Conversion in a Plural Society: Religious Alignments in the Hindu Kush. Anthropological Paper No. 50. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropology. _ _ . 1985a. Islamic Sources of the Resistance. Orbis 29 (1) (Spring):57-71. _ _ . 1985b. Western Stakes in the Afghanistan War. Central Asian Survey 4(1):121-135. _ _ . 1986. Ethnic, Regional, and Sectarian Alignments in Afghanistan. In The State, Religion, and Ethnic Politics, edited by Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University. _ _ . 1987. Afghanistan's Social Identities in Crisis. In Le Fait Ethnique en Iran et en Afghanistan, edited by Jean-Paul Digard. Paris: Centre National de la Recherches Scientifique. Cohen, Saul B. 1973. Geography and Politics in a World Divided. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dekmejian, R. Hrair. 1985. Islam in Revolution: Fundamentalism in the Arab World. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University. Dewdney, J. D. 1982. USSR in Maps. New York: Holmes and Meier. Dupree, Louis. 1973. Afghanistan. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. _ _ . 1980 [1973]. Afghanistan, 2nd ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Edwards, David. 1986. The Evolution of Shi'i Political Dissent in Afghanistan. In Shi'ism and Social Protest, edited by Nikki Keddie and Juan R. J. Cole. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Fischer, Michael M. J. 1980. Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University. Fry, Maxwell. 1974. The Afghan Economy: Money, Finance and the Critical Constraints to Economic Development. Leiden: Brill.

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Gregorian, Vartan. 1969. The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan: Politics of Reform and Modernization, 1880-1946. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University. Griffiths, John C. 1967. Afghanistan (With a Historical Note by Sir Olaf Caroe). New York: Praeger Publishers. Hauner, Milan. 1985. Seizing the Third Parallel: Geopolitics and the Soviet Advance into Central Asia. Orbis 29 (1) (Spring):5-31. _ _ . 1987. Soviet Eurasian Empire and the Indo-Persian Corridor. Problems of Communism 36(1):25-35. Hegland, Mary. 1986. Imam Khomeini's Village: Recruitment to Revolution. Ph.D. Dissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton. Hendrikson, K. H. n.d. Afghanistan's Foreign Trade, 1336-1348, and Its Prospects for Development During the Fourth Five-Year Plan (1351-1355). Kabul: German Economic Advisory Group. Hodgson, Marshall. 1974. The Venture of Islam. 3 vols. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Howland, Felix. 1940. Crossing the Hindu Kush. Geographical Review 30:272278. IMF. 1986. Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook. New York: IMF. Jansen, G. H. 1979. Militant Islam. New York: Harper and Row. Kakar, M. Hasan K. 1979. Government and Society in Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir Abd ai-Rahman Khan. Austin: University of Texas. Kazemi, Farhad, ed. 1980. Iranian Revolution in Perspective. Iranian Studies 13(14).

Keddie, Nikki R, and Eric Hooglund. 1982. The Iranian Revolution and the Islamic Republic: Proceedings of a Conference. Washington, D.C.: Middle East Institute. Lapidus, Ira M. 1983. Contemporary Islamic Movements in Perspective. Policy Papers in International Affairs, Number 18. Berkeley: Institute of International Studies. Lattimore, Owen. 1962 (1956). The Frontier in History. In Lattimore, Studies in History. Paris: Mouton, and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lippman, Thomas W. 1982. Islam: Politics and Religion in the Muslim World. Foreign Policy Association Headline Series, Number 258. New York: Foreign Policy Association. Loeffler, Reinhold L. 1982. Economic Changes in Rural Areas Since 1979Supplementary Remarks and Discussion. In The Iranian Revolution and the Islamic Republic: Proceedings of a Conference, edited by Nikki Keddie and Eric Hooglund. Washington, D.C.: Middle East Institute. Magnus, Ralph H. (ed.). 1985. Afghan Alternatives: Issues, Options, and Policies. New Brunswick and Oxford: Transaction. Metcalf, Barbara. 1982. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900. Berkeley: University of California. Mortimer, Edward. 1982. Faith and Power. New York: Vintage. Moshiri, Farrokh. 1985. The State and Social Revolution in Iran: A Theoretical Perspective. American University Series. Series 10 (Political Science), Vol. 5. New York: Peter Lang. Mottahedeh, Roy. 1985. The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran. New York: Simon and Schuster.

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Mutahhari, Ayatullah. 1985. A Discourse on the Islamic Republic. Teheran: Islamic Propagation Organization. Naby, Eden. 1985. The Afghan Resistance Movement. In Afghan Alternatives: Issues, Options, and Policies, edited by Ralph H. Magnus. New Brunswick: Transaction. _ _ . 1986a. The Changing Role of Islam as a Unifying Force in Afghanistan. In The State, Religion, and Ethnic Politics, edited by Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University. _ _ . 1986b. The Concept of Jihad in Opposition to Communist Rule: Turkestan and Afghanistan. Studies in Comparative Communism, 19(3/4) (Autumn/ Winter):287-300. Nalle, David. 1983. Conference on the Study of Central Asia. Washington, D.c.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Newell, Richard S. 1972. The Politics of Afghanistan. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Olcott, Martha Brill. 1985. To the Editor. Problems of Communism 34 (MayJune): 87. Pipes, Daniel. 1980. This World Is Political!: The Islamic Revival of the Seventies.

Orbis 24(1):9-40.

_ _ . 1983. In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power. New York: Basic Books. Poullada, Leon. 1973. Reform and Rebellion in Afghanistan. 1919-1929: King Amanullah's Failure to Modernize a Tribal Society. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Puig, Jean-Jose. 1984. La Resistance Afghan. In Afghanistan: La Colonisation Impossible, edited by M. Centlivres-Demont, P. Centlivres, B. Dupaigne, E. Gille, A. Marigo, J. Mathonnat, J.-J. Puig, G. Rossignol, and 0. Roy. Paris: Cerf. Rahman, Fazlur. 1979 [1966]. Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago. Research Centre for Islamic History, Art, and Culture. 1985. No.9 (August). Roy, Olivier. 1985. L'Afghanistan: Islam et Modernite Politique. Paris: Editions du Seuil. _ _ . 1986. Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (translation of Roy 1985). Schinasi, May. 1979. Afghanistan at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Nationalism and Journalism in Afghanistan: A Study of Seraj ul-akhbar (1911-1918). Naples: Institute Universiterio Orientale, Semivario di Studi Asiatici. Shahrani, M. Nazif. 1984. Introduction: Marxist "Revolution" and Islamic Resistance in Afghanistan. In Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan: Anthropological Perspectives, edited by M. Nazif Shahrani and Robert L. Canfield. Berkeley, Calif.: Institute of International Studies. _ _ . 1986. State Building and Social Fragmentation in Afghanistan. In The State, Religion, and Ethnic Politics, edited by Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University. Sheikholeslarni, Ali Reza. 1986. From Religious Accommodation to ReligiOUS Revolution: The Transformation of Shi'ism in Iran. In The State, Religion, and

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Ethnic Politics, edited by Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner. Syracuse, N.Y.:

Syracuse University. Shils, Edward. 1981. Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago. Sivan, Emmanuel. 1985. Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Statistical Pocketbook of Afghanistan. 1350 [1971]. Kabul: Department of Statistics, Ministry of Planning. Surveys of Progress. 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1969, 1970. Kabul: Department of Statistics and Research, Ministry of Planning. Taaffe, Robert N. 1960. Rail Transportation and the Economic Development of Soviet Central Asia. Chicago: University of Chicago, Department of Geography (Research Paper No. 64). Thaiss, Gustav. 1973. Symbolism and Social Change: The Drama of Hosain. Ph.D. Dissertation, Washington University in St. Louis. Wallace, Anthony. 1956. Revitalization Movements. American Anthropologist 58 (1):264-281.

2 The Mujahedin and the Preservation of Afghan Culture Olivier Roy

The uprooting of traditional Afghan culture by the Soviets consisted of three stages: first, Islam, the core of traditional Afghan culture, was pushed aside; second, Soviet patterns of life, especially among the young, were imported; and, third, the Afghan cultural identity was destroyed by the emphasis on so-called nationalities, with the result that the country was split into different ethnic groups, with no language, religion, or culture in common. The main common literary heritage of all AfghansPersian-was to be considered the literature of the "Tajik nationality." Traditional culture is not perceived as a single entity by the Afghans themselves. The secular trend, for instance, emphasizes oral literature, mainly Pashtun and classical Persian literature, but looks down on the Islamic heritage. Fundamentalist circles tend, of course, to emphasize Islam at the expense of other customs, folklore, and traditions. Before the war, secularists tended to appear as modernists, whereas fundamentalists were split between traditionalist mullahs and young "Islamist" intellectuals. To determine whether the Afghan resistance will be able to preserve Afghan culture, we must look at the trends that constitute the backbone of the resistance. In Afghanistan, there were two educational networks, that of the government and that of the Qur' anic schools. The former has only recently been established (since the 1950s). A state facility in Kabul; training schools for teachers (in Kabul and in some provincial capitals); high schools (called lycees) in Kabul, all provincial capitals, and some other cities; middle schools (from the sixth to ninth grades); and elementary schools in every town, bazaar, and small village-these were the elements of the educational system. In 1968, the state educational budget was 19.1 percent of the entire state budget. The 1960s saw the 40

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first generation of modem students: approximately 4,000 students in the university alone. Government schools taught modem subjects but used old-fashioned educational methods. History, geography, Persian language and literature, Pashtun, physics, mathematics, and even religion were taught by teachers in the government network. The government network was not really secular, however, for religion was a compulsory subject; but most of the manuals (e.g., those in alphabetization, literature, and history) emphasized aspects of modem, rather than traditional, life. In history classes, for example, Afghanistan was portrayed as an age-old nation-state whose past generations went back to the Indo-Europeans; hence most of the impact of the Islamic ancestors was disregarded. Teaching at the university was fully modem. Most faculties were established through foreign assistance and more or less duplicated their Western counterparts. Philosophy, sociology, and political science were introduced without any reference to traditional knowledge. A new intelligentsia, whose members were no longer just the sons of the political establishment, was set up; at the end of the 1960s, most students were from the countryside and lived on Kabul's campuses. The same young students became politicized and formed the core of extremist parties. Among them, of course, were the Communists and members of the Muslim Youth Organization (Sazman-e Jawanan-e Mosalman). The young militants of this latter organization were not traditionalists; most were studying with the scientific faculties. The aim of these students was to develop a modem political ideology based on Islam, which they saw as a method of coming to terms with the modem world and the best means of confronting foreign imperialism. They wanted to retain the

network of government schools and the subjects taught there; not surprisingly, then, when some of these militants became teachers in village schools, traditional local mullahs, more struck by the emphasis on modernity than the reference to Islam, became suspicious of them. In the village schools, it was sometimes difficult to distinguish between a young Muslim and a Maoist, for the latter was obliged to stress his Muslim credentials as well. Those young Muslim militants who survived are now at the head of many resistance fronts in Afghanistan, particularly those of Jamiat-i Islami and the two Hezb-i Islami, which are most influential in the north. All favor the reopening of modem schools, but with a new stress on Islam-not only as a religion but also as a pelitical ideology with references to Western political science. These groups also favor a change in alphabetization handbooks and historical manuals. With regard to scientific subjects, they are eager for expansion. The reopening of such schools poses many problems having to do with the lack of manuals, teachers, and safety. In the first years of the

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war, it was still possible to establish schools in places outside Soviet reach; but now, due to the escalation of fighting, no safe place exists. The resistance has very few cadres, and most of the former students who remained in Afghanistan are soldiers who have no time to devote to teaching; thus few modern schools operate inside Afghanistan. In Hazarajat, where there is no actual fighting, one remaining school is run by former students who belong to the Nasr and Nehzat parties. Some attempts have also been made to settle schools that belong to nonfundamentalist groups, such as Ittihadia, in the same area and in Wardak. The problem is that such schools, supported mostly by foreigners who provide salaries for the teachers, are often different from the local schools established without foreign money, especially in terms of educational objectives. In addition, salaried teachers, trained outside the country, may have purely financial (rather than political) motives for teaching. Traditional Education It is in the village Qur'anic schools, or maktabs, headed by the local mullah, that young children are taught basic literacy and religion. This network of schools was pervasive throughout Afghanistan but faded in the big cities where the government network of primary schools was well established. In the countryside, though, many future pupils of the government schools began their studies in the local mosques. Another religious network, which has often been overlooked, is the private madrasa. The alim (singular of 'ulama) is called mawlawi in Afghanistan. After leaving the village Koranic school the religious student (taleb) spends several years with a local mawlawi and eleven other students in an ordinary mosque that serves as an "upper" religious school (madrasa), the prestige of which depends upon the personality of the master. Studies are carried out at a pace suited to each individual, who learns a certain number of didactic books in a fixed order. After receiving their diplomas (ijaza), from the master, the graduates can open their own madrasas or leave to continue their studies in a school of higher standing. Despite attempts by the amirs, there has never been a madrasa capable of offering a first-rate education (including the royal madrasa set up by Abdurrahman at the Dar Ol-Olum-e Arabiyya in Puli Charkhi in 1940). The most gifted Afghan 'ulama used to go to Indiain particular, to the great madrasa of Deoband; after partition in 1947, Peshawar became the center for the traditionalist 'ulama to pursue advanced studies. Until 1917, the 'ulama from the north used to go to Bukhara, home of the madrasa Diwan Begi.

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The 'ulama, who are scholars and not intellectuals, follow the ageold curriculum common to the whole Islamic world-classical Arabic; kalam, or theology; tarsir, or interpretation of the Qur' an; hadith, or the traditions of the Prophet; and fiqh, or Islamic law. The 'ulama feel that they belong to the Islamic community, or umma, rather than to a particular nation. Although it is true that what is being transmitted is a culture based on commentaries inculcated by repetition, it is a culture that escapes the confines of parochialism but is ill-equipped to provide an ideology capable of making sense of the modem secular world. As in all Islamic countries, the 'ulama seem incapable of adapting to the modem world and have allowed power to slip into the hands of new elites. The culture of the mawlawi, which remains vivid in Afghanistan, considers matters beside religion. For example, the library of Mawlawi Mirajuddin in Astana, Panjshir Valley, contained 400 books, mainly lithographs and manuscripts, such as the opus of Galien (or Jalinos, in Arabo-Persian), the Greek doctor; Mawlawi Mirajuddin used this work to prepare medicines. There was also an Arabic manuscript by Euclid, which the mawlawi used to teach geometry to his pupils in the maktab. The library also housed more modem manuals, especially books on astronomy; the mawlawi built an astrolabe and celestial sphere, calculated the latitude of his village, and wrote to the government, whose official map was inaccurate. Of course, there were also all the best known books of hadith and commentaries on the Qur' an and religious law. The mawlawi's house was destroyed during the massive Soviet bombing of the Panjshir Valley in the spring of 1984, but most of the books had been previously sheltered in caves. In August 1985, Mawlawi Mirajuddin left Afghanistan following the last Soviet attack against Panjshir, when he was trapped in the valley of Mukini by Soviet commandos for one week; he had nothing with him except a small booklet in which he wrote the best prescriptions of Jalinos. Generally, mawlawi specialize only in religious law, theology, or philosophy, but many escape the narrow confines of their specialization through sufism, which is widespread among the high clergy. Still others use classical Persian literature (e.g., the works of Saadi and Hafez) to teach classical Persian morality and history to young children. Although very few new works have been written (Afghan cultural traditions and history are more often passed on orally), the aim of the Afghan Islamic culture is not so much to improve critical thought as to give access to literature, knowledge, and a weltanschauung. Afghan culture is a collective memory, a sense of identity, and a set of ethical principles embedded in a collection of literary and theological works. Few westernized intellectuals, be they liberals or Marxists, can feel at ease in this culture-hence the sometimes condescending and estranged

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attitudes of the westernized aristocracy and Communist elite toward the mullahs. Most mawlawi remained at ease in this traditional culture, but at least some became aware of the challenge of the new westernized educational network and did their best to learn from it. This was certainly the aim of the professors who staffed the government-based Faculty of Religious Law. Most of them had both a traditional background (Qur'anic schools) and a modern education (studies in the government network). The Faculty of Religious Law was at the crossroads of both trends; it was fully integrated within the modern university, for its members were in contact with other professors who taught Western philosophy and political science. Yet orthodox fiqh and theology were widespread, as the highestranking teachers had studied at Cairo University in AI-Azhar. Few in number, these professors initiated the Islamist political parties, and some of its survivors, such as Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani, still head part of the resistance, thereby bridging the gap between traditionalist 'ulama and young intellectuals.

Inside Afghanistan Inside Afghanistan today, the network of village Koranic schools remains intact in those villages that have not yet been destroyed. Without madrasas, however, these schools are unable to perpetuate traditional Islamic culture. Kabul's Faculty of Islamic Law is now under Communist control but remains partially open; other state madrasas have been closed. Private urban madrasas have closed, for many of their teachers were killed under Taraki and Amin. The Communist government understandsl that it cannot fight openly against Islam; therefore, as the Soviets did' with Christianity in the 1920s, it is setting up an "official" Islam, confine« to private life and some public rites but deprived of all political ana. culture influence. In short, tradition (in the narrowest sense of the word) is being used to legitimize a Communist regime. Outside Kabul, most of the rural madrasas have either closed or turned into /abha-ye Talebas; each madrasa, under the leadership of the local mawlawi, has become a military front, the teachers have become military officers, and the pupils (taleba) have become soldiers. This situation is reminiscent of the rabat in Morocco at the time of the Spanish crusades. Basic teaching still goes on, but the main activity is warfare. These fronts, primarily affiliated with Harakat-e Enqelab, are found in the Pashtun areas, from Kandahar to Badghis province. They are generally linked to a sufi order, usually Naqshbandi, and the local mawlawi is generally a murid (disciple). Very few madrasas still carryon the full range of traditional teaching inside Afghanistan.

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The two networks of young intellectuals and traditional clerics are not opposed to one another. Most young teachers spent some time in Qur' anic schools, either before entering government schools or during the very long winter vacations. In Hazarajat and Nuristan, where winter is particularly harsh, Mawlawi Afzal, now head of an Islamic government in Nuristan and educated in the traditional madrasas of Pakistan, used to teach young students from the government schools, which were closed in winter. One such ex-pupil is Wazir Shah, a former civil servant and now minister of culture of the Islamic government. Most mawlawi retain high prestige in rural areas, and levels of cooperation between this group and young intellectuals is generally high. In sum, both networks-traditional clerics and modern Muslim intellectuals-are still alive inside Afghanistan but are meeting with increased difficulties in perpetuating themselves, for most of the cadres are directly involved in waging war.

Afghan Culture in Exile In order to maintain the Afghan culture in Peshawar, the two networks of schools operating in Afghanistan before the war have been established; both are more or less altered, however. In Peshawar, there are many young people, educated by the modem government network, who have flown directly from Kabul to Peshawar without having sojourned among the mujahedin. They seek jobs in modem education programs sponsored by Western humanitarian organizations. In fact, most Western-backed schools have recruited teachers among the urban educated in an effort to train new instructors to be sent back into Afghanistan with a salary. But this is a threefold mistake: First, young Kabulis who have never been involved in fighting do not adapt well in the free areas; second, a purely secular education increases the suspicion that most fighters harbor toward these newcomers, who are often suspected of belonging to leftist organizations; and, third, the mujahedin have begun to seek payment for their part in the war. Some modem schools, too, are committed to preserving Afghan culture among the refugees; such schools may create a small elite of westernized Afghan refugees, who will find neither jobs nor positions in Pakistan and will do their best to get American visas. These Western-sponsored educational networks must disappear or else be linked with more traditional networks if they are to help maintain Afghan culture. Prospects concerning the traditional clerics are also dim. Most of the new madrasas built in Peshawar are under Wahhabi sponsorship, subsidized either by Saudi private funds or by other organizations (e.g., the Muslim Brothers, or Ahl-i Hadith). Wahhabis generally despise

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traditional Afghan Islamic culture, which they regard as both ignorant and superstitious. For example, in Arab News (September 14, 1985, p. 9): "The Muslim scholars in the world have a great role to play in enlightening the ignorant Afghans. Unislamic customs and traditions have found their way into their lives." The lack of reference to Afghan clerics implies that the latter are also ignorant; the targets are sufism and traditional Persian literature. For Wahhabis, all that is not directly related to the scriptures (Qur'an and hadith) is un-Islamic, but Persian literature is the medium through which Afghan Islam expresses itself. Furthermore, Wahhabis are strongly opposed to sufism, which they perceive as heresy, polytheism, and wizardry. In Afghanistan, it is precisely through one kind of sufism, Naqshbandiyya, that militant Islam has survived for centuries; and it is in the great sufi centers such as Herat that a synthesis has been formed between political Islam, traditional Persian literature, and moderate fundamentalism. To fight against sufism is to destroy one of the strongest frameworks of the Afghan jihad. Inside Afghanistan, Wahhabis have had little impact (except in Nuristan, where there has never been any sufi influence, and in West Badakhshan); elsewhere, even fundamentalist Afghans stick strongly to the traditional culture. Outside Peshawar, on the road to Islamabad, there is an orphanage managed by Mawlawi Qazi Ghaleb with the support of an anonymous businessman from Kuwait. The approximately two hundred boys and one hundred girls are taught through the eighth grade (medium school) under a threefold program: classical education (religion, Persian, and Pashtun), taught by a small number of mawlawi; modem courses (e.g., mathematics, physics, history, geography, and English), taught by former university students; and professional training (e.g., tailoring and carpentry) designed to help students find local jobs. This orphanage, under the auspices of the alliance, is still isolated, perhaps because it is not sponsored by a well-known former university professor or simply because its initiators acted before presenting a one-hundred page, long-range training program before the consulting commission. Before trying to establish any educational network in Peshawar or inside Afghanistan, an administrator must consider the variety of resources already in existence in order to avoid making the same mistake as the king had made in placing side by side two unconnected networks, one traditional and one Western. Such an action will produce exactly the same type of dual society that generated the Afghan Communist movement and sent most of the educated emigres to the West. The highest priority is support of the existing educational facilities inside Afghanistan and aid for the political parties that establish schools there. Only when such priorities are met will such schools continue to

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be linked with the local resistance. Any educational facilities established outside the political framework of the resistance cannot last, as evidenced by the fate of the dispensaries established by foreign and even local doctors. In Peshawar, the top priority is the building of a network of primary schools offering instruction in Persian and Pushtu in order to maintain the cultural identity of the young Mghans; again, the best way to meet this priority is to work inside the framework of the alliance. The danger, as far as the university is concerned, is that Western training, alone, will induce the graduates to emigrate to Western countries, for job opportunities are very poor in Pakistan. Another priority is the establishment of a "high" madrasa, staffed and managed by Afghans, that will maintain the Islamic culture of Afghanistan. At a time when Kabul's government is trying to split the country through various and arbitrary linguistic divisions and to alter Islam through the Ministry for Islamic Affairs, linguistic and religious issues are almost as important to preserving Afghan culture as winning the war.

3 The Sovietization of Afghanistan Olivier Roy

Whatever the causes of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, there is no doubt that the chief Soviet aim has been to have a "friendly" Afghanistan-that is, to include the country in the USSR's sphere of influence. Even if the Soviets do not officially recognize Afghanistan as a member of the socialist community, they have believed that the only way of integrating a country in their sphere of influence is to sovietize it. Finland is the exception; the rule is Ethiopia, South Yemen, and Afghanistan. Syria and Egypt remind us that the USSR cannot truly rely on countries whose political institutions and economic structures differ from those of the Soviet model. But what is sovietization? It is a process by which Afghanistan should be made to look like the Soviet Muslim republics, whatever the official status of the country is to be (i.e., independent, a member of the socialist bloc, divided, or annexed to the Soviet Union). Sovietization has been carried on along three lines: through institutions, education, and ideology. In other words, it has entailed the exportation of Soviet institutions to Afghanistan, the creation of a new generation educated by Soviet curricula, and, finally, the establishment of the monopoly of a strong Communist party, whose ideology would, of course, be Marxism. "Pacification" is not "sovietization." The Soviets' efforts to attract traditional leaders in the countryside or to play the game of classical tribal feuds, in order to eradicate support for the mujahedin, are not part of sovietization. On the contrary, sovietization reinforces the traditional society. It is a long-term policy, applied to urban society and especially to the youth. The Soviets have had a two-sided policy, which This chapter (written in 1987) is included despite some dated material because of the importance of Dr. Roy's information and perspective on the situation in Afghanistan.

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has enabled them to stress alternatively one or the other side. One side has been the National Reconciliation-that is, pacification. The other side has been the strengthening of the "national-democratic stage of the revolution," under the leadership of the People's Democratic party of Afghanistan-that is, sovietization.

Political Institutions Although at the end of 1985 a special commission was appointed in Kabul to draw up a new constitution, nothing had been produced by the spring of 1987. In any case, political institutions of the Kabul regime are of the same type as those of any strict Marxist-Leninist regime. 1 The real power is exercised by the Communist party (here the People's Democratic party of Afghanistan, or PDPA), which has the "leading role." The state apparatus, on the other hand, like that in the Soviet Union, is confined to a purely administrative and technocratic function. This is the reason why we find so many "nonparty members" in the Revolutionary Council or in the Council of Ministers: These are not the institutions of power. The third institutional pillar consists of "mass organizations," or "social organizations," which are in charge of supervising the whole society-that is, the unions, the youths', womens', and artists' organizations, and the like-all of which, like the state apparatus, are closely controlled by the party. The Communist party is not officially reckoned as such by the Soviet Union, but its statutes, organization, and ideology are exactly the same as those of the Communist party of the Soviet Union. There is a Central Committee (cq, a Politburo, a general secretary (who is the real head of power), and numerous secretaries. The state apparatus is controlled through several special commissions of the Central Committee: When a minister is not a member of the Central Committee, the real power ~s in the hands of the CC Commissions. For example, Shah Mohammed Dost, the minister of foreign affairs at the time of Babrak, was superseded by Mahmud Baryalay, head of the CC Commission for foreign affairs. The terminology is that of any Communist party ("comrade," "resolution," "plenum," "theses"), as are the historical and ideological references ("the Great October Revolution," "historical materialism," "scientific theory I pf history," etc.).2 From the top to the bottom within the administration and within the social organizations, the local party cells (called "primary organizations" in the official English translation of the regime newspaper, Kabul New Times, or KNT) are the real centers of power. As one local party leader, interviewed by the official Persian-language party newspaper Haqiqat-e Enqelab-e Saur, or HES (8 April 1986) declared: "The leading

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role of the party in the daily life of our village is obvious." As soon as the resistance is wiped out from a specific area, the regime will establish real Communist power. It supports traditional or tribal leaders only in those areas where there is a chance for the resistance to return. In such cases, the establishment of a Communist-type power structure is postponed. At the upper level of the state apparatus, as in the social organizations, party members are a majority and control all important posts.

The Lack of Ideological Formation Officially, the PDPA has 150,000 members, most of whom had to join the party in order to retain their position in the administration. According to Najmuddin Kawiyani, head of the organizational committee of the Central Committee, 80,000 new members joined the party between mid-1983 and the end of 1985 (HES, 16 December 1985). In other words, the majority of party members are recent and probably opportunists; moreover, they do not have any real political or ideological education. The regime is emphasizing the ideological formation of the new party members; but, according to Babrak Karmal himself, party life is rife with "irresponsibility, factionalism, tribalism, corruption and regionalism."3 Here one has to be reminded that the Communist party in Afghanistan was founded only in 1965 and never included any brilliant Marxist intellectuals. In contrast to the Iranian Tudeh party, the understanding of Marxism in the PDPA was always very poor. But according to Soviet beliefs, there can never be a strong Soviet influence in Afghanistan without a strong Communist party. Such a presumption is dubious. The USSR's attempts to sovietize the Afghans have accomplished little. Every party member is supposed to attend an "ideological course" twice a month. Occasional lectures are also set up for party members and cadres of the social organizations. An Institute for Social Science Studies was established in 1986, supposedly meant to be the Party Training School. Most of the teachers are Russians and Soviet Tajiks. Lectures are in Russian with simultaneous translation. The best cadres are sent to the USSR for "training sessions," which last several months. But so far, it has only been in the army that sovietization has made any progress, and then only in the beginning. In fact, although the Soviets have succeeded in producing bureaucrats, they have failed to create committed Communist workers. The "ideological seminaries" intended to convert opportunistic party members into true Marxist militants have failed as well, except in the army. An estimated 60 percent of the party members are in the armyfirst, because party members are encouraged to join the army, and,

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second, because the main effort at "ideologization" is directed toward the servicemen. This policy has actually made the army more effective against the mujahedin, but it has also placed the best elements of the regime on the battlefield-and they are often killed. In short, they can no longer contribute to the construction of a socialist paradise. Mass Organizations

Mass organizations are desperately needed to compensate for the weakness of the Communist party. But we have to distinguish between two different kinds of mass organizations. Some are used for sovietization (the main role for which is played by the Democratic Youth Organization of Afghanistan, or DYOA); others, such as the National Patriotic Front, which is enlisting local notables within the framework of the regime, are instruments of pacification. The DYOA is similar to the Komsomol in the Soviet Union. But it has an even more important role in that it is used to compel reluctant teenagers to join the army. Special camps (ordugah) have been established since 1985 to give military and political training to the DYOA members during school vacations. The National Front has no direct equivalent in the USSR: In Afghanistan it is in charge of relations with a traditional society, which remains very strong and cannot be bypassed. The Soviets put a great emphasis on the adoption of Soviet-like institutions by their allies. In fact, the more centralized an institution has become, the more effectively it is controlled from the top. More important, the Soviets can control such a structure because they have the "know-how." Afghan apparatchiks are trained to operate within a Soviet-designed framework; as their power is directly linked to the totalitarian system, it is in their best interests to keep the institutions going (indeed, bureaucrats have a tremendous capacity for survival). At most, the program of sovietizing Afghanistan's institutions has achieved the elimination of political diversity. The political apparatus of the Kabul regime is fully sovietized. Any political settlement with this regime that does not put into question its actual character and the true nature of its institutions would amount to a de facto recognition of its sovietized structure. But there are limits even for this program of sovietization-limits on how well the Soviets can control Afghan territory and population, and on how effectively it can overcome the resilience of traditional Afghan political structures, such as tribal loyalty, patronage, and nepotism, which can persist even inside the Communist party. The successive crises inside the party, like those in South Yemen, reveal that the formation of institutions that mimic those in the Soviet Union is insufficient; that is, the attitudes, habits, and traditional social ties of

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the people involved are not overcome by membership in the Communist party. Like the Communist parties in Ethiopia and South Yemen-but unlike the Tudeh party in Iran-the Afghan Communist party is nascent and lacks roots in traditional Communist discipline and mythology. The sovietization of institutions, however necessary, is not enough-and this is a new lesson for the Soviets. The sovietization of the institution in Afghanistan may be a technical success, but the effect of this formal transformation on the minds of the Afghans appears to be minimal. The formation of real Communist cadres, with the same weltanschauung as their Soviet or Eastern European counterparts, has yet to take place even among the most pro-Soviet elements. The Soviets know about this minimal effect. Hence they look to the members of the new generation, who, though not as politically minded as their predecessors, are likely more susceptible to in-depth sovietization. But this is a long-term objective. In the meantime, the Soviets can trust only those party members they consider to be sovietized-as evidenced not only by their affirmations of political allegiance but also (and especially) by the kind of training they have received. They prefer people who have spent years in the USSR, who are fluent in Russian, and, if possible, are married to Russians. Most such individuals were recruited earlier by the KGB and, once back in Afghanistan, are directly" connected to the Soviet Embassy and therefore disengaged from the political factions of the PDPA. Among the rising stars in 1987 were Zohur Razmju, a member of the Politburo and party secretary for Kabul, and Haydar Massud, director of ideological affairs at the Central Committee. But not all of these sovietized youth are political activists. Hundreds of returning students from USSR are given good jobs in the administration. Even if they are not committed party members, they have Soviet diplomas and the only foreign language they know is Russian; thus their fates are linked to the existence of a pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan. They cannot emigrate: Which Western country would accept an Afghan surgeon who speaks Russian and has only a Soviet diploma? If the Islamic resistance wins, the situation of these sovietized Afghans will be very uncomfortable. Here we touch upon the most pernicious aspect of sovietization: Individuals are being "won over" not by ideology but by incorporation into the Soviet way of life and professional routines. Aside from the sovietization of professionals, the USSR is attempting to sovietize the Afghan economy. Seventy percent of the trade is now made with COMECON, but Kabul is trying to extend state control of the economic sector, which deals almost exclusively with COMECON. According to official sources, 60 percent of industrial incomes and 75 percent of all the industrial production comes from Soviet-sponsored

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factories (HES, 27 February 1986). Bilateral agreements between the governors of Afghanistan's northern provinces and the officials of the Soviet Muslim Republics (mostly in Tajikistan) are aimed at integrating northern Afghanistan into Soviet Central Asia (HES, 11 November 1985). Peasants and craftsmen are being asked to join cooperatives. But as long as the war continues, the economy remains so weak that these measures are of little consequence; Kabul has been obliged to admit the existence of a huge and thriving private trade, mostly directed toward· Pakistan. The economy, like the educational system, is most resistant to sovietization.

Sovietization of the Way of Life Sovietization does not necessarily entail "marxisation" or "communization," except of course where the Communist party is concerned. The Soviets do not wish to make ordinary Afghans think and act like Communists. What they do want is a break with the past. They are attempting to bring this about by shaping a new generation of people to feel so alien to traditional Afghanistan that they will have to go along with the Soviet way of life, even if they are not politically committed to it. In this respect, sovietization is more a kind of westernization and secularization than a type of direct Marxist indoctrination. Let us not forget that for most Third World countries, especially among the educated middle classes, the United States and the USSR are models of industrialization and development. The location of these two countries in the industrial "north" seems to them more important than their ideological differences. (I have avoided referring to the "northern" nations as "modernized," because such a usage implies that Afghanistan could modernize only by adopting entirely alien social patterns. On the contrary, both the former royalist regime and the young intellectuals who are leading the guerrilla forces have approaches to modernization that are different from those of the "northern" individualized nations; thus they may be said to be both Afghan and Muslim programs for modemization.)4 In fact, the Soviets want to stress to the new generation that there is no other way to become modem than to imitate the Soviet Union. The Soviet way of life is presented not so much as a political or ideological choice but as the only legitimate modernizing achievement. Sovietization thus entails an emphasis on the Soviet way of life in all its aspects, including its more trivial forms. Once again, the aim is to uproot the new Afghan generation rather than to make good Afghan Communists-to acculturate more than to assert political propaganda. In this respect, the Soviet influence is more difficult to oppose openly, because it is insidiously aimed at young urban people who sometimes

Olivier Roy

feel confined in a traditional society, especially in the context of relations between the sexes. The regime has been stressing that it is fashionable to look "Soviet" in dress (which entails Western clothes and the abolishment of the veil for women) and to practice Soviet customs such as dancing and drinking beer and vodka. This emphasis is communicated through television, newspapers, and night-clubs, but also through everyday life in the party and youth organizations. Of course, one could have had the same kind of experience in a Western country, but propaganda (mostly oral in this case) is used to make young people think that it is only through imitation of Soviet life that they could enjoy such pleasant experiences. Short journeys to the USSR are offered to young Afghans to see how life is better there (longer sojourns are not so convincing, at least for the older people). Everything new and pleasurable, from rock music to beer, supposedly comes from the government or its surrogates. The Afghan regime tries to avoid the puritanical tone of most revolutions struggling against traditional societies. In the face of a srongly Muslim and puritanical resistance, the regime is emphasizing the pleasant and sensual aspects of Soviet life. And for many middle-class, educated young boys and girls, who, in any case, would not have had the opportunity of traveling to Europe or the United States, the Soviet way of life might seem an inexpensive way to combine fun and modernization at home. Whether it will work is another question. Sovietization Through Education and Culture The Soviets want an educational system that conforms to their own. They have changed not only the curricula in Afghanistan but also the structure of the educational system and the examinations, which previously had been modeled on the French system. For example, the Russian academic title "Candidate in Philological Sciences" has been introduced into Afghanistan (HES, 19 December 1985). The Russian language is now mandatory from the middle school to the university. New school books have been introduced. The biggest differences between the current educational system and that of the former regime can be seen in the universities, colleges, and middle schools; primary schools have been less affected by the changes. Islamic subjects-such as religion, Islamic arts, and history of the Muslim world-have been withdrawn from middle school and college curricula. New subjects-such as historical materialism, dialectical materialism, history of the working-class movement, and scientific sociology (that is, the interpretation of society based on class struggle)-have been introduced. All Western teachers have been expelled. English is now taught by Afghans, Russians, and Indians,

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and students may be sent for additional training to India, East Germany, and the Soviet Union. Western-sponsored teaching units (such as the American-founded Engineering Faculty, which has now been merged into the Soviet-sponsored Polytechnic School) have been either suppressed or taken over by another Communist country (as in the case of the Faculty of Economics, which is now sponsored by East Germany). The only new foreign language introduced into the curriculum is Spanish, through a Cuban team of teachers. In fact, with the exception of East Germany, the socialist countries contribute little to the edification of socialist Afghanistan. It seems that the primary objective of the Soviets is the russification of Afghanistan. History is being rewritten according to the Soviet view. In February 1986, a symposium among Afghan and Soviet historians was held. Yuri Gankovsky led the Soviet delegation, and Suleyman Laeq headed the Afghan group. Russian and Soviet encroachments across the Afghan borders since the nineteenth century are now forgotten, and the Soviet Union is presented as having always sided with Afghanistan against the only enemy Afghanistan has ever had-namely, Great Britain, which has been replaced by the United States. The Russians also introduced nurseries and kindergartens, which were unknown in the Afghan educational system (in the absence of mother or father, children were previously cared for by the extended family). Officially, kindergartens (kudakestan) are for the children of working women, and nurseries are for orphans. The regime has placed a great emphasis on the latter, called "patriotic nurseries" (watan parwareshgah), which in fact are used not only for the care of orphans but also for the forging of a new sovietized generation ex nihilo. In a very frank interview, a (Muslim) member of the Soviet Union of Writers, Fazu Aliova from Daghestan, compared the Afghan orphanages with those set up in USSR during the 1920s by Felix Dzerzhinski, the founder of the Cheka (HES, 6 October 1985). The Soviet Union is deemed a model for everything. A column that appears almost everyday in the HES, entitled "From the Socialist Countries," features the everyday life and social and economic achievements in the Soviet-bloc countries. In addition, a regular television program called "Our Great Northern Neighbor" features numerous Soviet films. All traditional Soviet public holidays (October Revolution, foundation of the Komsomol, victory against Germany, etc.) are celebrated according to a calendar drawn up by Soviet advisers attached to Afghan television. Daily coverage of the proceedings of the recent 27th Congress of the Soviet Communist party received a whole page (a quarter of the newspaper) in the HES. The 117th anniversary of Lenin's birth filled the whole front page of the HES (22 April 1987). Chapters of the Afghan-

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Soviet Friendship Society have been set up throughout the administration and armed forces (about 200 of these chapters were already established in 1985). The modeling of everyday life along Soviet patterns has been taken to the point where Soviet uniforms are copied for the young "pioneers," Soviet ways of marching and brandishing flowers have been employed, the battle cry "Hurra" has been adopted, and so on. Special events are held in Kabul celebrating Soviet culture, such as "The Day of Soviet Literature," "The Day of Soviet Painting," and "Music from the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR)." Hundreds of exhibitions on Soviet arts, Soviet sciences, and Soviet rural life rotate through all the cities. Erom 9 January 1986 on, the HES carried a serialized Soviet novel, translated into Persian, which was entitled "The Non-Declared War." Many move examples of such sovietization methods could be listed. The entire cultural life of Afghanistan is supposed to be fostered under the auspices of the Soviet model. UNESCO, whose offices in Kabul are manned only by officers from the Eastern-bloc countries, is playing a big role in the sovietization of Afghanistan by sponsoring these activities, by encouraging the learning of Russian and by subsidizing the so-called alphabetization courses, which in fact are indoctrination courses. One HES article, entitled "Extension of the Bases of Education" (26 September 1985) declares that the purpose of school is a full "ideological education" (parwaresh-i ideolojiki). At present, about 10,000 Afghan students are in the USSR for longterm studies; another 15,000 or so youngsters tour the USSR every year or make short-term training visits. Among the students there are at least 3,000 children, who were brought to the Soviet Union between the ages of 8 and 10 years along with their teachers. Apparently the shorter the sojourn, the better (Le., the more successful). Most of the best-motivated military officers have had 6 to 12 months of training in USSR; apparently they were kept in training camps and did not mingle with the Soviet population. In the same way, very young boys (12 to 14 years old) have been trained in the USSR for a short time and then sent back to be used, with some effect, as spies by the Kabul regime. But the long-term students, who are studying at Soviet universities, have a harder time because they must deal with the hostility and racism of the Russians. Most of these students are noncommited party members who joined the educational program in the Soviet Union in order to both avoid military service and gain a college diploma.

The Limits of Sovietization But the traditional society cannot be eradicated in this way. The biggest obstacle to sovietization is the strength of tradition, and this is

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the case in all Muslim societies. This is not to say that tradition is a purely passive and retrogressive way of life. The Afghan culture has a great flexibility and can adapt itself in unexpected ways. Secularization was in progress well before the Soviet invasion. But the invasion obliged even the more secular and nationalist Afghans to emphasize their religious practices, just as Soviet occupation had done in Poland. In Afghanistan, after the failure of purely secularist anti-Soviet movements (e.g., the Maoists), one can see a revival of Islamic zeal among the urban educated young people, who were, nevertheless, almost totally educated under the Soviet system. Young refugees are now coming directly from Kabul to Western countries in order to avoid military service, even though they were brought up under the Communist regime. Most speak no Russian, regularly practice the Islamic rites (which they learned from their parents), and in attitude seem quite un-sovietized. Even among the ranks of the Communist party other Afghan traditions, like tribalism and patronage relations, are more important than ideological affiliation. Long-term students in the Soviet Union, after they return to Afghanistan, do not appear among the high-level cadres of the regime-resumably because they are considered politically unreliable. The important question concerns the Afghan children sent to the Soviet Union; but it is too soon to make any forecast about this group. Another problem is the extent of the media's influence. The media constitute the best method of propaganda, and the Soviets are trying hard to extend the television network. But very few people in Afghanistan read newspapers or watch television. They do listen to Radio Kabul for music (they do not like Western music), and to the BBC for news. The image of a flourishing Soviet Union contrasts too much with the poor behavior and living conditions of the Soviet soldier, who is a daily reminder of Soviet reality for all the Afghans. The schools, too, are not very effective in their efforts at ideological indoctrination. Many teachers do not care about propaganda, and the ones who do care are unable to make propaganda attractive. Moreover, Communist propaganda at school is just as boring for students today as compulsory religion classes used to be under the old regime. Universities are filled with party members because everybody else has fled the country or has been drafted into the army. Meanwhile, the Afghan family, which is very strong and cohesive, provides a good shelter for the perpetuation of traditional and Islamic culture. An empirical survey concerning recently emigrated college students shows that the actual impact of sovietization on young people who retained ties to the resistance through their families is negligible. The orphans are more vulnerable, as are the very poor, because they lack the strength and numbers required for the successful maintenance of a countermodel capable of resisting the Soviet one.

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Sovietization, in my view, is not really endangering Afghanistan at this very moment. As I see it, the more serious problem lies in the growing contrast between the rural and the Kabul way of life, which will make it more difficult for the resistance to integrate the new urban masses. The real sovietization will begin years after the regime's consolidation-when, and if, the resistance is militarily crushed. So far, this has not been the case. Notes 1. Regarding the institutions of the Kabul regime, our analysis is based on reports in the Kabul New Times, and Haqiqat-i Enqelab-i Saur (HES) and some scarce official booklets, such as National Conference of the PDPA, Kabul, 14-15 March 1982. 2. Sovietization of the political terminology is particularly striking. The following are Soviet terms used in an article in the HES: direktit internasionalisti, aprat, plan, tyori, nurm, fraksyoni, prinzip, formulizm (that is, "formalism"), organ, biro, plinum, tiz, biografi, kandidan, supervizor, pruse, and numenklatura. There are also many calques, such as markaziat-i demokratik ("democratic centralism"). Numerous articles on Marx and Lenin have appeared as well. For example, the whole front page of the HES on 22 April 1987, is devoted to Lenin's birthday. According to some journalists who recently defected, most of these articles were written in Moscow and directly sent by telex to the HES offices in Kabul, where they were translated into Persian, either by Soviet Tajiks or by Tudehparty members from Iran. Sovietization is inserted into the Persian language through the imitation of Soviet Tajik. (Tajik is a Persian dialect, understandable by Afghans but heavily russified.) Most of the new books used in schools or distributed through the libraries are in fact written in Soviet Tajik: They are not "translated" but merely adapted from the Cyrillic to the Arabic alphabet. 3. See Babrak's speech in HES, 21 December 1985. 4. See Roy (1985), which is also now available in English (Roy 1986).

References Roy, Olivier. 1985. L'Afghanistan Islam et modernite politique. Paris: Seuil, 1985. _ _ . 1986. Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (translation of Roy 1985).

PART TWO

The Geopolitical Infrastructure

4 Central Asia and the Soviet "Midlands": Regional Position and Economic Integration Leslie Dienes

Introduction

Geographic space is a cardinal factor in economic development. Yet it can be an effective factor only through the diffusion of integrative forces that cement the diverse parts of that geographic expanse into a structurally and functionally cohesive whole. Political and social integration is clearly a necessary, though perhaps not a sufficient, condition for steady, long-run economic advance-a process that then further binds the geographic fragments into an interdependent system. For any country, however, this process of integration is a lengthy one. At any particular time, some regions will have become more integrated into the political, social, economic mainstream than others. Some will be integrated in all three respects, others less than all three (Friedman 1961). Physical obstacles and great distances tend to slow or block the process, as do linguistic, ethnic, or cultural diversity. To a considerable degree, the first can be conquered by technology and capital; but more subtle and subconscious human adjustments are needed to overcome the latter. Progress of integration along all three dimensions can be clearly observed throughout Russian-Soviet history. Equally evident are the strenuous efforts that have been made to overcome the barriers of physical geography and distance, as well as those of ethnocultural and linguistic diversity resulting from expansion and conquest. The process, however, is far from over and may never be fully completed. To this day, the USSR exhibits a strong core-periphery dichotomy, with respect both to sparsely settled hinterlands and to regions populated by substantial non-European nationalities linked to the Slavic core in quasi61

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colonial dependency. In the USSR, economic and political power is concentrated not only among a narrow stratum of the population: It is concentrated geographically more than in most developed countries. This power center (which I have called the metropolis) is found in the European USSR, where 72 percent of the Soviet population and 80 percent of the dominant Slavic population are located (Dienes 1985a). The role and prospects of regions in Soviet Asia depend overwhelmingly on their geographic position with respect to the metropolis. They also depend on the relative importance assigned by the latter to these regions either because of their resource endowment or for politicaljstrategic reasons. In this chapter I analyze the economic role and developmental prospects of the Soviet "Midlands" in the country's regional system, taking due regard of political and strategic factors where they are critical for the relationship. The Midlands constitute that huge central chunk of the Soviet landmass, almost 29 percent of its area, that lies between the Urals and the Caspian Sea on the west and the Yenisei River on the east. From south to north, the Midlands are occupied by the republics of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, and the West Siberian economic region of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR). My analysis will emphasize the role of the Muslim republics. First, Kazakhstan, with its vast area, is split between the oasis realm of Central Asia and the coal-metal-grain belt of the Ural-Altai zone, part of the main economic triangle of USSR. This northern half of Kazakhstan and the adjoining forest-steppe of West Siberia also serve as a critical bridge of transport and communication between the Pacific seaboard (indeed the whole eastern half of Siberia) and the European USSR. This eastwest bridge is becoming supplemented by a north-south one, at least in the strategic sphere, given the Soviet position in Afghanistan and the geopolitical implications of its newfound proximity to the Gulf.1 In the second place, the relative closeness of Central Asia to Northern Kazakhstan-West Siberia and the significant complementarity in their economic profiles-should lead to strong linkages between them. Indeed, such linkages have long been promoted officially and urged by Soviet scholars, although reality has thus far fallen well short of the potential. Finally, the prospects of Central Asia are decisively influenced by the investment priorities of the Soviet leadership. Today, fuel and energy supplies to the metropolis from the northern half of the Midlands have become one of the most urgent tasks of the leadership. The pressing need for these resources at a time of increasing capital shortage is limiting options for Central Asia at a crucial stage of its demographic development.

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Geographic Position and Relation to the Metropolis In simple locational terms, the Midlands are truly that. The geographic center of the Soviet landmass lies near the Middle Ob' River, in the largest sedimentary basin of the world. The mean center of the population, of course, lies further west, influenced by the historical concentration of people in the European USSR. As in the United States, however, this mean center has been moving in response to migration and, more recently, to differential rates of natural increase. In the early 1960s, it was computed to be near Kuibyshev on the Middle Volga (Cole 1967:70). From population projections based on age distribution and fertility trends (Baldwin 1979), I estimate that the mean center will move to somewhere in the triangle between the cities of Uralsk, Aktiubinsk, and Gur' ev by the year 2000 or shortly after. The Soviet population will have its center of gravity on the west-central boundary of the Midlands as defined here. It is important to understand the forces behind this shift. Until the 1960s, the main force behind the geographic shift in the mean center of population was inter-regional migration, both voluntary and involuntary, although war destruction in the western regions was a contributing factor. Differential rates of natural increase played a negligible role. Since 1960, however, these rates have become the chief determinant. The very high fertility in Central Asia-Southern Kazakhstan relative to other areas overwhelms migration differentials. The mean center is shifting southeast, toward the region of most rapid population growth. The Midlands zone, therefore, is augmenting both its share in the Soviet population and its share in the 15-39 age group to an even greater degree. A fifth of all Soviet citizens lived here in 1980; about 26 percent will live here by year 2000. Its share in the 15-39 age group will rise from 19 to about 28 percent. Essentially all of that increase will come from Central Asia and Kazakhstan, which accounted for 16 percent of that age group in the USSR in 1980 but will account for some 26 percent by the turn of the century (Baldwin 1979). Aside from its central location between the western border and the Pacific, and its increasing proximity to the mean center of population, the Midlands zone is distinguished by its relative accessibility to the country's economic core. Such accessibility, of course, is rather recent. It is the result of modern transport technologies such as the river steamer in the north (albeit a highly seasonal transport), the railway, and, more recently, the pipeline. These modern technologies have enabled the Midlands to furnish the metropolis with enormous volumes of bulky

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commodities, discovered, extracted, and produced in response to metropolitan demand. The nature of these commodities, their relative importance for the European USSR, and their modes of production and transport determine the degree of economic integration and type of linkages between the different parts of the Midlands and the metropolis. To a large degree, they also determine the rate of economic growth and the strategy of development. The comparatively modest degree of economic integration within the Midlands and weak linkages with regions further east are likewise explained by the overweaning importance of metropolitan priorities. Although metropolitan influence dominates economic prospects everywhere in the Midlands, it is less overwhelming in Central Asia-Southern Kazakhstan than further north. Thirty-seven million people inhabit the area south of Lake Balkhash and the Aral Sea; the local market and labor force is thus about 60 percent larger than that in all the rest of the Midlands between these two lakes and the Arctic. 2 Given the sociocultural distinctness of this large population, local factors and impulses will be almost as important for future economic prospects as metropolitan priorities. The degree and success of sociocultural integration into the Soviet mainstream will, of course, be determined chiefly by local factors. Among these, the strength of ethnic consciousness and pride, the influence of Islam, linguistic and educational development, and the complex process of modernization (which is taking place via an increasingly articulate but ambivalent native elite) are the most obvious. Economic Integration into the National Mainstream

West Siberia-Northern Kazakhstan The northern two-thirds of this Midlands zone (extending to the Aral Sea and Lake Balkhash in the south) are today fully part of the Russian ethnocultural realm. Native nationalities-including the scattered herdsmen in the desert, mountains, and tundra-make up only a quarter of the population. 3 The nature of integration here is determined almost entirely by economic forces. The mounting demand of the metropolis for fuels, grain, and ores as well as the relative (though varying) transportability of these commodities from such distances have shaped the economic profile of the area over the past few decades. Today, West Siberia-North Kazakhstan has become the primary energy colony of the USSR, producing almost 60 percent of the country's fuel and accounting for virtually all the increment in output. The region is tied to the European USSR by more than a dozen large-diameter gas, petroleum,

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and product pipelines, the most heavily used railway lines in the world, and a unified power grid. Some three-fourths of all its fuel output and more than nine-tenths of its oil and gas are shipped out of the area, mostly westward to the European portion of the country and abroad. In heat content, this huge overland energy flow today approximates all the fuel imports of Western Europe. Other bulk commodities, such as grain, ores, and wood, further raise the share of primary materials in total regional export. Summing all freight by every transport media (including gas pipelines), we find that outshipment exceeds inshipment in tonnage by perhaps ten times. 4 Metropolitan priorities and resource endowment, however, distinguish Tiumen and Tomsk Oblasts in the north from the central parts of these Midlands. In the north, the massive dependence of the Soviet economy on Tiumen oil and gas as well as the relative transportability of these fuels have given rise to development that may be characterized as Raubwirtschaft. Throughout the 1970s, the oilfields of the Middle Ob' were the scene of crash exploitation, leading to premature peaking and admitted damage to some reservoirs. After some hesitation and debate, documented by Gustafson (1983), the peaking of petroleum production led to a massive shift to gas in the last years of Brezhnev. The immensity and haste of the "gas campaign," however, resulted in tremendous distortions, followed soon by an absolute, if temporary, decline in oil output (not only in the USSR as a whole but even in West Siberia itself) requiring a further shift of resources into the Tiumen petroleum province. Such force-feeding and pell-mell growth left infrastructure and social development even further behind, caused much environmental damage, and provided little permanent benefit to either the immediate region or the Midlands as a whole. The surge of investment funneled into the West Siberian oil and gas province is striking. The 50 billion rubles allocated to Tiumen and Tomsk Oblasts during the 1965-1980 period have had to be matched by a similar amount in the single five-year plan of 1981-1985, while a staggering 82 billion ruble allocation is envisaged for the second half of the current decade. s In other words, these two provinces, with less than 1.3 percent of the Soviet population, are slated to receive almost 8.5 percent of all investment. This sum almost equals expected investment in Central Asia-Southern Kazakhstan, where ten times more people reside. A substantial influx of labor accompanied this investment surge. From 1970 to 1983, employment in the Tiumen North alone increased more than four times. In addition, some 90,000 temporary workers were flown in on a rotating basis, mostly from the European USSR (Dienes 1985b). They worked on construction projects, laid pipelines, and drilled two-fifths of all meterage in Tiumen Oblast. The housing and service

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infrastructure could hardly accommodate such an influx. Significantly, the reliance on temporary labor has been severely criticized of late. Yet, with the pressure to raise extraction still further, and with the increasing reliance on a larger number of scattered oilfields, it is difficult to see how a more balanced development could take the place of such Raubwirtschaft (Omel'chuck 1985, 1986a, 1986b; Filimonov 1986; Varshavskii 1987).6 National priorities and especially energy policy also greatly influence the development of the central zone of the Midlands between the Ural and Altai Mountains. Thanks to better climate and agricultural land, this zone between the West Siberian taiga and the Kazakh Desert is more habitable than the wilderness, where Tiumen oil and gas are found. This central zone has been tied to the country's economic core by railways for several decades. It is very rich in coal and metalliferous ores; it has also been a major grain, meat, and dairy producing region since Tsarist days, especially since Khrushchev's Virgin Land Program. It was described long ago as a rather raw counterpart of the American Midwest, but with environmental conditions more like those of the Canadian Prairies (Hooson 1966). Yet none of these riches (with the possible exception of grain) command the priority to the metropolis that Tiumen oil and gas command. In addition, they are much less' transportable by the already overloaded railways than are the hydrocarbons from Tiumen, which are moved through large-diameter pipelines. As a result, the westward shipment of coal, ore, and grain from West Siberia and Kazakhstan, though quite heavy, pales in comparison with the volumes of oil and gas that flow west through pipelines. Nonetheless, in their present state, the east-west railways in West Siberia and most of Kazakhstan are clogged to capacity, especially since they must also handle local freight and transit between the eastern half of Siberia and the European USSR. The transit role of these railways became much more critical during the 1970s, given the huge military buildup in the Far East and the construction activity associated with the Baikal-Amur railway (Dienes 1985a). Together with local freight, the volume of eastwest transit through this zone roughly equals railway shipment in and out of West Siberia and Kazakhstan north of Balkhash and the Aral Sea (Danilov 1977). Given the difficulties and cost of sharply increasing the shipment of fuels, minerals, and other commodities to the European USSR from this central part of the Midlands, a much greater use of the region's resources locally assumes great significance. The expansion of energy-intensive industries east of the Urals, for example, is an indirect way of reducing the burden of fuel transport from east to west. Similarly, the smelting and fabricating of metals reduce the tonnage to be hauled. The advocates

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of a more rapid "eastern" development strategy have always used the growing energy deficit west of the Urals and the increasing value of agricultural land there as the chief economic argument for shifting much more heavy industries to the Midlands and still further east. Though no longer advocating full-scale, multifaceted development, they have continued to press for the expansion of fuel, electrometallurgical, electrochemical, ferrous and nonferrous branches, heavy machinery, basic chemicals, wood processing, and virtually the whole range of petrochemical synthesis. Southwest Siberia-North Kazakhstan does have a large share of heavy resource and energy-using industries and substantial heavy machinebuilding branches as well. Yet much of that is a legacy of World War II, and thus, despite some modernization, is technologically obsolete. Other branches were built during Khrushchev's seven-year plan (19581965), when the organization and management of industry via the economic councils (sovnarkhozy) probably contributed to some dispersion of manufacturing. However, most of that eastward shift petered out by the Brezhnev era, if not before. From the mid-1960s until 1980, West Siberia actually lost ground relative to the rest of the country in machinery and chemicals and barely held its share in ferrous metallurgy and wood products (Baranova 1982; Granberg 1985). Whether because of economic reasons or as a result of its republic status, Kazakhstan until recently has continued to make both absolute and large relative gains not only in the fuel and electric power industries but also in a few other resource-oriented branches that demand huge quantities of energy. As a union republic, this area has more political clout in regional competition over development than that enjoyed by the mere oblasts of Siberia, with the probable exception of Tiumen. On the basis of value of output and capital stock, heavy, resource-oriented branches accounted for more than half of this republic's industry in 1979 and are expected to contribute three-fifths or more by 1990. The energy intensity of the Kazakh economy, therefore, should continue to exceed that in the European USSR; it should also conform to the desire of planners to encourage heavy energy-consuming activities east of the Urals and restrict them west of it. Yet, in aggregate terms, the shift of big fuel- and power-using industries to Kazakhstan has been too modest to make much of a dent on the increasingly huge energy deficit in the European USSR. In addition, very slow retirement of fixed assets characterize most industries in this central Ural-Altai zone. 7 In short, the energy intensity of the economy here is due in part to the obsolescence of equipment constructed two to three decades ago or even earlier. The relief it provides for the European USSR, while real, must be qualified to reflect this adverse factor.

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Central Asia-Southern Kazakhstan In contrast to West Siberia and even Northern Kazakhstan, which are firmly part of the Russian ethnocultural domain, Central AsiaSouthern Kazakhstan has remained overwhelmingly Asian in ethnic composition. In fact, because of a much higher rate of population growth and, since 1980, the virtual cessation of net in-migration, the share of the Slavic colons began to drop after 1970. At that time, Slavs constituted 20.9 percent of the population in Central Asia and in the five oblasts of Kazakhstan south of Lake Balkhash and the Aral Sea; nine years later this share dropped to 18 percent. In Central Asia alone, the proportion of Russians and Ukrainians declined from 16.6 to 14.2 percent during the 1970s and, because of different rates of natural increase, to 12-14 percent today.8 The inclusion of other European populations among the Slavs changes the figures only very slightly. Not only has the region become even more Asian than in previous decades, but the autochthonous and European population continue to remain geographically separate. In Central Asia as a whole, for example, 88 percent of the 628,600 Russian families counted in 1979 were urban, as were 94-98 percent of the families in the Uzbek, Tadzhik, and Turkmen republics. In addition, most of the Slavic families were concentrated in the few large industrial cities and in the new workers' settlements of the region; very few were living in the ancient small towns. By contrast, 74 percent of the indigenous families and, therefore, more than three-quarters of the native population lived in the countryside, where family size is even larger. 9 As a result, contact between the large majority of the autochthonous nationalities on the one hand and the Russians and other Europeans on the other was inevitably limited. The cities of Central Asia can and do serve as instruments and local control points for the political and economic integration between this area and the metropolis. However, they have been much less successful in effecting more than a very partial sociocultural integration of the native countryside into the Soviet mainstream. The structure of social relations and organization in rural Central Asia, of course, has become mostly socialist in form. But the value system of the indigenous population did not change under decades of Soviet rule. Such a cultural transformation is currently under way, however-not through direct "metropolitan" influence but through the influence of an increaSingly sophisticated, culturally complex, and often ambivalent native elite. As Rakowska-Harmstone noted more than a decade ago, this modern elite "must seek sources of legitimacy in their own unique national heritage and in establishing ties with people of their national group"-and in pursuing the latter's interest and objectives. The forces

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of modernization and modem techniques of communication may actually have intensified, thus facilitating indigenous resistance to pressures of being molded to official, Moscow-defined cultural models and social norms (Rakowska-Harmstone 1974:10, 14-15). Even in the strictly economic realm, integration into the Soviet mainstream is narrowly channeled and one-sided. Economic interdependence with the metropolis has grown sharply since early Soviet times: As land in Central Asia was increasingly devoted to industrial crops (especially cotton for the mills of the Moscow region) rather than to food, the widening food deficiency was provided for by West Siberia, the Volga Valley, and, more recently, North Kazakhstan. Although the area's mineral wealth is not outstanding, several key minerals play very significant roles in Soviet economic policy. Central Asia rivals or exceeds the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) as the largest gold-producing region in the USSR, accounting for more than one-sixth of Soviet gas output and probably an even larger share of Soviet copper. The region is the leading producer of antimony, the second largest producer of mercury, and a very important supplier of uranium, tungsten, lead, and nonmetallic minerals as well (Matley 1981; Kaser 1983; Shabad 1985). Yet, for many years now, Central Asia has been piping more than three-fourths of its gas output to the RSFSR and the Ukraine; indeed, until 1978, the region shipped more gas to the European USSR than to Siberia (Mun'ko 1977; Dienes and Shabad 1979; Shabad 1980). The nonferrous metals and gold it produces primarily serve the economy of the metropolis, either directly or, in the latter case, through the earning of hard currency. At the same time, although notable progress has been made in the development of manufacturing, this sector, too, has become strongly dependent on raw and semi-finished materials and capital goods hauled in from the Slavic provinces. The economy of Central Asia remains largely colonial to this day. In contrast to the rest of the Midlands, however, it can be described as a "plantation economy." It has by far the least manufacturing per capita, and its relative level has actually declined in every republic because of burgeoning population growth. Soviet Central Asia-Southern Kazakhstan contributes more than nine-tenths of the nation's cotton fiber output, accounting for 15 percent of all ginned cotton in the world in 1985 (and almost one-fifth in 1980, before the doubling of China's production sharply reduced its world's share).l0 Yet today the region manufactures only 6-7 percent of Soviet cotton textiles (up from 5.2 percent in 1965)11 and a little over 5 pecent of intimate apparel, although Southern Kazakhstan adds another 3 percent. Its contribution to the manufacturing of outerwear, hosiery, and leather footwear is very similar (Koshanov 1983:97).12 These shares are far too small to satisfy even half the demand

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of the region, especially since per capita consumption of textiles is 15 percent above the Soviet average (inasmuch as synthetics are less popular here than elsewhere). Altogether, the value of light industry products shipped into the region is more than twice that of the value of such products shipped out (Pavlenko 1980:69; Abdusaliamov 1982:129). Nor are the four republics of Central Asia self-sufficient in food products; indeed, their per capita output is less than half the Soviet average and less than the mean for every major branch of these industries (Zakumbaev 1977:185). Although private subsidiary agriculture plays proportionately a much greater role in the economy than in the Slavic north (as will be shown), food industry products in 1972 constituted almost a fifth of all interregional imports into Central Asia's most populous republic, Uzbekistan. At the same time, such products represented only a negligible portion of interregional ports (Popadiuk 1979:61; Mirsaidov 1981:162-163). The Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) satisfied over 46 percent of its meat consumption and over 48 percent of its pastry and confectionery demand through in-shipment from other republics. As of 1982, Uzbekistan still consumes only 54 percent as much meat per person as the Soviet average, 59 percent as many dairy products, and two-fifths as many eggs and fish, though understandably more vegetables and melons (Popadiuk 1985:26). In the smaller and weaker Tadzhik SSR, the situation is much worse. In value terms, agricultural "imports" from other republics exceeded such "exports" by 3.1 times. This is a far greater relative deficit than that experienced by the underdeveloped republic in its exchange of industrial products, for which interregional imports surpassed exports by only 1.21 times (Murzoev 1983:66). It is also noteworthy that the downstream stage of the agro-industrial

complex is far more undeveloped than in other regions, although the USSR as a whole is well behind Western countries in this field. The share of Central Asia in such agricultural infrastructure is less than 8 percent. Yet the natural endowment of the region suggests a comparative advantage in the supply of fruits, melons, vegetables, and lamb. Despite heavy investment in irrigation, the ratio of infrastructural investment to total allocation in agriculture has declined in all republics of the region, except Turkmenia (Kotilko 1986:21, 40-41).

Complementarity and Integration Within the Midlands Zone The increasing urgency and cost of furnishing the European USSR with fuels and raw materials have magnified the importance of the Midlands as compared to the Soviet regions further east. The fading

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hopes for much larger foreign investment in the Far East and of export opportunities in the Pacific Basin also act in this direction (Dienes 1985c). Not only is the Midlands region much more accessible to the metropolis than Soviet Asia east of the Yenisei, but it shows significant complementarity among its subzones in natural endowment and human resources. Indeed, this potential complementarity was promoted by the construction of the Turk-Sib railway, for which surveying and technical documentation was completed even before the Soviet era. Since the mid 1970s, when long-term interregional planning models began burgeoning, an integrated "Midlands program" has been proposed as a principal task for the decades that usher in the third millennium. The main building blocks of this program were to be water diversion, development of the "green bridge" (a large-scale interzonal shipment of fruits, vegetables, and other produce), interzonal cooperation in some labor and metal-intensive industries, and integration of the fuel-energy system (Abdusaliamov 1982:48-50). The massive and controversial waterdiversion project from West Siberia to Central Asia has now been indefinitely shelved, though perhaps not quite buried. In addition, a little-known plan to convert the two-string Bukhara-Ural gas pipeline to a pilot water-transport project in the opposite direction without any water loss may still materialize in this century (Kibal'chich 1983:726).13 The other three building blocks of the "Midlands program," however, are still regarded as rational and necessary, although the new Gorbachev leadership has not expressed strong opinions on the issue. Despite the unquestioned complementarity of natural and human endowment, interzonal linkages within the Midlands are still rather weak and are developing slowly. Integration in the fuel-energy field is under way. Coal from the Kuzbas and Ekibastuz is already widely distributed through most of the Midlands, including Southern Kazakhstan-Central Asia. Envisaged for the 1990s are larger flows southward across the Kazakh Desert. The plan requires further expansion at the EkibastuzMaikuiben deposit, construction of the big new Southern Kazakhstan thermal station, and double-tracking of the connecting railway (Shabad 1986:268; Shabad and Sagers 1987:272-273). The Central Asian power grid is to be hooked up with the Unified National Power Grid through Karaganda. Finally, with the construction of the Chimkent refinery and the Omsk-Pavlodar-Chimkent crude oil pipeline, Central Asia is now linked up with the West Siberian oilfields, easing the deficit of petroleum products (CIA 1985; Sagers n.d.; Shabad, personal communication, 1986). Yet these fuel-energy linkages between the north and south zones of the Midlands pale in comparison with the enormous energy flows to the European USSR from each of these zones. As in the past (and

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probably into the future), the primary connections are not within the Midlands but east-west (and diagonally) to the metropolis. A similar conclusion applies to the exchange of agricultural products. For some fifteen years now, Soviet scholars have been advocating the creation of aI/green bridge" between Central Asia and Siberia. The massive shortage of fruits and vegetables in Siberia would be compensated by produce from the Uzbek, Tadzhik, and Turkmen SSRs (and, to a lesser extent, from Kirgizia and Southern Kazakhstan), whereas potatoes, feedgrains, some dairy products, meat and large supplies of wheat (mostly from the Virgin Land) would move in the opposite direction. The savings from such an exchange should be very substantial, given the long growing season in Central Asia (fruits and vegetables here ripen 20-30 days earlier than in Moldavia and the Ukraine) and the region's proximity to the rest of the Asian USSR in comparison to the south of the European Soviet Union. Such a development would also obviate the shipment of large amounts of imported produce into the Siberian interior. Although imports would continue, they could be restricted to the western regions of the country, where significant expansion of fruit and vegetable growing is no longer possible (Abdusaliamov 1982; Bandman 1984). As Table 4.1 shows, Central Asia did indeed sharply raise its contribution to total fruit and vegetable shipment during the 1970s. The share of the region more than doubled, and its rate of growth exceeded that of every other region. Yet even the 18.4 percent (or 22 percent, if Kazakhstan is included) share reached by 1979 remains far from the region's potential, although further expansion has probably taken place since that time. Soviet data also reveal the direction of interregional transport. In absolute terms, the shipment of Central Asian fruits and vegetables to the European USSR as well as to Siberia and Kazakhstan rose substantially, but the increase to the country's European portion was much more rapid. As a result, a larger percentage of Central Asian produce was sent to centers west of the Urals in 1979 than at the beginning of the decade. Conversely, smaller portions but larger absolute quantities were shipped north and northeast to the rest of the Midlands and to East Siberia and the Far East (see Table 4.1). Despite this primary metropolitan orientation, however, the role of Central Asian produce in Siberian fruit and vegetable supplies increased substantially throughout the 1970s. For example, less than 27 percent of all such produce marketed in West Siberia at the beginning of the decade originated in Central Asia; 56 percent originated in the European USSR and the rest originated in Siberia itself. By 1979, Central Asia was shipping somewhat more to West Siberian markets than were the regions west of the Urals and the Caspian Sea. In Siberia, the geographic

100.0 81.6 18.4 0.7 1.8 2.6 4.7 8.6

100.0 71.9 28.1 1.2 1.9 3.0 3.6 18.4

150.2 86.8 350.9 329.2 194.4 206.5 102.6 378.4

of Shipment 1970-1979 (1970=100) 78.4 91.3 21.1 6.1 13.2 0.2 10.9 35.5

74.8 80.2 45.5 25.1* 15.6* 0.9* 23.6* 47.1

European Regions 1970 1979 21.6 8.7 79.9 93.9 86.8 99.8 89.1 64.5

25.2 19.8 54.5 74.9 94.4 99.1 76.4 52.9

Asian Regions 1970 1979

Destination of Shiement

56.1 43.9 8.6 0.5 0.3 8.0 26.5

40.3 59.7 9.0 0.7 0.7 7.3 42.0

32.8 67.2 0.7 27.6 3.9 5.8 29.2

17.7 81.3 1.3 26.6 2.3 5.6 45.5

11.9 88.1 0.2 2.1 56.7 5.9 23.2

4.9 95.1 0.2 1.6 52.1 4.0 37.2

and Vegetable Sueel~ (total = 100%) Far East West Siberia East Siberia 1979 1970 1979 1970 1979 1970

Sources of Siberian Fruit

Source: Adapted from M. A. Abdusaliamov, Problemy ekonomichesko/ integratsii Srednei Azii I Sibiri (Tashkent: "Fan," 1982), p. 117-118.

*Note increase of irrational shipments from Siberia and Kazakhstan to the European USSR, although volumes amount to only a few percentage pOints of the total. Shipments from westernmost Kazakhstan (Ural River valley) to the Ural region are also rational.

USSR European Regions Asian Regions West Siberia East Siberia Far East Kazakhstan Central Asia

Supplying Region

Total Sueel~ 1970 1979

Growth Rate

TABLE 4.1 Distribution of Supplies, Shipment, and Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables, 1970 and 1979 On percentages)

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Leslie Dienes

distribution of supply became more rational. Yet per capita consumption of fruits and vegetables remains less than half of the Soviet average; shipments over huge distances from the European USSR continue to account for a large portion of Siberian supply; and the Far East, in particular, must continue to rely chiefly on its own products, however severely limited they are by the harsh climate and short growing season (see Table 4.1). Further and more vigorous development of the "green bridge" is therefore certainly called for. The perennial problems of the Soviet price system-lack of adequate storage and refrigerated transport capacity and, most recently, severe regulations on "unearned incomes" -hamper the further development of that "green bridge." In particular, they hinder the expansion of all interregional shipments, but their dampening effects on the Central AsiaSiberia link appear even more serious. Given the labor shortage in Siberia, purchase prices on fruits and vegetables shipped through government channels are kept artificially low-especially, it seems, when the produce originates in nearer regions. At the same time, the weaker development of transport and refrigeration facilities on the Central AsiaSiberian link keeps costs relatively high; hence these Muslim republics have suffered increasing losses. Vegetable and fruit growing remains at a fairly primitive level, and there are shortfalls in deliveries to all-Union stocks (Abdusaliamov 1982; Pravda, 20 June 1987:1). Individual shipments from private plots and collectives (through both legal and illegal channels) have increased substantially, but these were severely affected by the 1 July 1986 directives on "unearned incomes," which had a similar impact on shipments to the European USSR (Pravda, 14 July 1986). Constraints in Siberia, even in West Siberia alone, also restrict agricultural exchange within the Midlands by limiting the return flow. In Siberia as a whole there is a serious deficit of food and feed grains as well as of meat and dairy products. Even its "breadbasket," the forest steppe of West Siberia and particularly Altai Krai, has seen its local surplus dwindle to insignificance. Agricultural production in Altai Krai, especially of grain, remained virtually the same for the past ten years (Lifanchiko and Nastenko 1982; Pravda, 5 March 1986:6). Integration and interzonal cooperation in labor (as opposed to materialintensive metal and machine building, plastic, wood-processing and similar industries) has thus far proved even less successful. The lack of coking coal and iron ore makes Central Asia dependent on the Urals, West Siberia, and north-central Kazakhstan; but it is dependent on the European USSR for steel products and heavy machinery. Yet local resources of scrap are not utilized (more than 80 percent of such resources are shipped out of the region) and theoretical opportunities for mini-

Central Asia and the Soviet "Midlands"

75

mills and for more intensive development of simple, labor-intensive metal goods and machines are not taken advantage of (Abdusaliamov 1982:99-102). Almost all plastic articles are imported from the European USSR. Wood is shipped in from West and East Siberia but mostly as round timber rather than as lumber. As a result, more than a fifth of the industrial assets and labor in Central Asia are used in the cutting, sawing, and making of containers-activities that lend themselves to mechanized production in Siberia itself, rather than to the manufacture of furniture, construction articles, and so on, which would employ the region's manpower reserves with greater economic effect (Abdusaliamov 1982:104-109). The modest level of economic integration of Central Asia with the rest of the Midlands-or, for that matter, with the entire Trans-Ural part of the country-is also reflected in the general direction of transport flows. A comparison of the data for the mid-1970s and those of 1960 points to great stability in these transport links. In 1975, 46 percent of all interregional freight shipped out of Central Asia terminated in the European USSR. If Southern Kazakhstan is included with Central Asia, as it properly should be (and if shipment to it is considered intraregional rather than interregional freight), the European USSR was the destination for roughly 60 percent of all goods transported out of Central Asia. The share of the European USSR in the origin of goods entering Central Asia-Southern Kazakhstan was somewhat lower in tonnage (around 45 percent), though most likely not in value (Abdusaliamov 1982:60-61), thus reflecting the fact that North Kazakhstan and Siberia ship mostly low-value bulky commodities (coal, wood, grain) whereas most machinery and finished products originate in the European USSR. The significant expansion of labor-intensive manufacturing in these Muslim republics-in both the large local market and the Midlands as a whole-is linked to cultural and political issues concerning (1) the preferences and lifestyles of the autochthonous population, (2) the industrial investment and location strategies of Moscow planners, and (3) questions of economic efficiency versus job creation and income maintenance in the interests of political stability. These issues, of course, are not new to the Gorbachev era, just as they were not new to the late Brezhnev years or to the brief interregnum that preceded Gorbachev's appointment as general secretary. What is new today is the reduced leeway for attempts to reconcile, control, and cl}annel potentially dangerous forces in this Muslim region. Before these issues can be examined, however, we must consider the critical geographic position of the Midlands as a bridge between the metropolis and its far-flung periphery, and the contribution of Afghan resources, both actual and potential.

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76

The Midlands as a Bridge: Economic and Strategic Factors Among Soviet macro-regions, the Midlands are distinguished by relative proximity to the economic core of the country in the European USSR. This is particularly true of the central forest steppe-steppe zone that forms the eastward extension of the country's main population and economic triangle to the Altai Mountains. The Soviet landmass, however, extends another 2,500 miles eastward and much farther still toward Alaska in the northeast. This huge eastern half (46 percent) of the USSR is much less developed and much less integrated economically with the country's core area than are the regions further west. Yet in terms of key minerals and metals (gold, diamond, tin, nickel, platinum, aluminum, titanium), and to a degree in terms of forest products, it has become indispensable to the state. The state, in turn, is determined to maintain strategic independence; it also relies on some of these commodities for a good portion of its hard-currency earnings. At the same time, the eastern extremity of the Soviet landmass abuts on the Pacific Basin, where some of the largest populations are concentrated and some of the most dynamic economies of the world are found. In addition, some of the most vigorous expansion in world trade has taken place here over the past ten to fifteen years. Moreover, a strong position on the Pacific coast gives the USSR naval access not only to this largest of oceans but to the Indian Ocean as well (Dienes 1985a). Due south from the Midlands, the Indian Ocean (or rather its arm, the Arabian Sea and the Gulf) lies much nearer. From Kushka (Turkmen SSR), only 700 miles separate Soviet territory from these strategic waters, where 57 percent of the world's proved oil reserves are concentrated. If the Soviet air bases and motorized rifle divisions remain in central Afghanistan, "the southernmost forward line of the Soviet defense perimeter" will have advanced some 300 miles closer to the shores of the Indian Ocean, to "within reach of tactical ground attack aircraft."14 The boundaries of the Asian USSR, therefore, project Soviet military power directly into two of the great geopolitical and cultural world regions-East Asia (along the open ocean) and the Middle East (somewhat less directly). The position of the Soviet economic and political heartland, on the other hand, binds the country to Europe and to the North Atlantic realm. As Milan Hauner has remarked, this geostrategic position "gives the Soviet superpower enormous strength-but it is also the source of its considerable weakness and vulnerability. The weakness is twofold: excessive preoccupation with internal security because of continuous social and national upheavals inside Russia proper and in her surrounding buffer and client states. The second is the empire's vulnerability to the

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two front war contingencies located at the extremities of its west-east axis" (Hauner 1985:14-15). Russian interest along the southern extremity, where ethnically and culturally related peoples bestride the frontier, is also a historical fact. Given the increased geopolitical importance of the Middle East and the demographic shift in the USSR toward Central Asia, Soviet concerns along this southern rim have clearly heightened. Afghan Resources: How Important a Factor?

The mix of factors underlying the Soviet presence in Afghanistan is complex. It includes strategic and ethnic considerations in the context of superpower rivalry, Middle East regional politics, and religious upheaval. No one claims that Afghan resources are a specific cause of the invasion, but a few writers emphasize their role in that mix. John F. Shroder, for example, makes the perfectly reasonable claim that "resource factors were most likely considered in Soviet intelligence reports, [which might have also suggested] that at least some of the costs of supporting the invasion could be borne by exploitation of resources." However, he precedes this claim with the unsupportable proposition that resource acquisition by the USSR in Afghanistan is thus "a most important factor in the world mineral situation today" (Shroder 1983:115). From 1955 to 1979, the USSR spent around 500 million rubles on mineral resource exploration and development in Afghanistan, most of which involved extensive geological surveys. IS By contrast, between 1960 and 1980, roughly 115 billion rubles were devoted to such activities in the Soviet domestic fuel industries alone. 16 In other words, from 1955 to 1979, Soviet planners channeled perhaps 400 times more money into their domestic mineral resources than into those of Afghanistan. In 1983, the USSR produced about 9 billion tons of minerals of all types (not counting building materials) and its contribution of several crucial minerals ranged between a fourth and a third of global output (Feitel'man 1985:710). Afghan production remains negligible and deserves mention only in the case of gemstones, hydrocarbons, and, to a very limited extent, coal. Only hydrocarbons bring any direct benefit to the USSR. Soviet surveyors have identified important deposits of metals and nonmetallic minerals as well, but the general blackout of information since the invasion makes the evaluation of these finds difficult. The point I wish to argue here is that these finds will not be of much significance to the Soviet Union in the foreseeable future.

Gemstones Aside from the historically well-known lapis lazuli, significant quantities of fine emeralds, tourmaline, and even some rubies from Afghanistan

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have recently appeared on the world market. These gem materials originate principally from the extremely rugged northeastern parts of the country: The emeralds come chiefly from the Panjshir Valley and the pegmatite gems, such as tourmaline, come from the Nuristan region of Laghman and Konar provinces. The mining areas are accessible only by foot. Emeralds, for example, are found at elevations of 3,000-4,000 meters, on steep slopes lacking horse or mule trails. Following dynamite blasts that identify and expose the host rock, mining is performed with picks and shovels. Rubies come from the Sorobi district south of Kabul; current supplies are small, however. Given the location, inaccessibility, harsh climate, and extreme insecurity of all such areas in which gemstones occur, they provide no real benefit to the USSR; nor are they likely to do so in this century. Mining is entirely in the hands of local tribesmen. The uncut crystals are smuggled into Pakistan, where most of the trade is carried on (Bowersox 1985).

Metals and Strategic Minerals As John Shroder (1983:117-118) details, metal deposits are associated with the Central Mineral District and with the "many indistinct post plate-tectonic events, coupled with the more recent igneous and metamorphic activities." However, the only large deposits located thus far are those of iron ore, copper, and chromium. The high-quality hematites of Hajigak (60-70 miles west of Kabul) are found at an elevation of 3,500 to more than 4,000 meters, in an extremely inaccessible area. The two nearest cart-tracks run 15 miles to the north and the south; the former does link up with the Kabul-Dushanbe paved road halfway to the Soviet border and may be passable to some motor vehicles during part of the year. A cableway designed to transport the iron ore to the nearest road or railhead has been suggested. There are other deposits as well, notably those of Furmarah. Though much smaller, less explored, and poorer in ferrous content than that of Hajigak, the deposit lies in Badakshan province, close to the Soviet border (Afzali 1981; Yashchinin and Giruval' 1981).17 The Aynak copper deposit only 20 miles southeast of Kabul is physically more accessible and is found at an elevation of only 2,500-3,000 meters in less rugged terrain. Its metal content ranges from 0.4 percent to 2.4 percent in the much restricted central portion containing sulfide ores. With estimated copper reserves of 6.1 million tons (but as few as 4.4 million if only those ores with higher than 0.7 percent metal content are considered), the deposit is one of the largest concentrations of copper in Asia. Also noteworthy are the by-product minerals associated with

Central Asia and the Soviet "Midlands"

79

copper, among which cobalt and nickel are the most important. A large, though relatively poor-quality, chrome deposit is located less than 40 miles southwest of Kabul in reasonably low elevation, with estimated reserves of 180,000 tons (Afzali 1981:37).18 Given the very restricted distribution of this ferro-alloy in the world, the find may be considered significant. The mere presence of these ores, however, does not imply that they will be a factor on the world mineral market or even within the Soviet bloc alone. The exploitation of metals requires a much larger labor force and more elaborate processing facilities, transport, and housing infrastructure than the production of oil and gas. In the absence of previously constructed railways, in particular, the mining of metals in interior areas cannot even be considered. In addition, the opening of any mineral frontier by outside effort is always contingent on alternative opportunities elsewhere. Neither iron ore nor copper or even chromium is in short supply in the USSR as far as proved, recoverable reserves are concerned. The problem stems from the large investment requirement at a time of severe capital shortage. During the 12th five-year plan (1986-1990), the energy, food, and machine-building "complexes" will account for almost three-fifths of all planned capital investment. Given Gorbachev's emphasis on retooling and modernizing existing enterprises (which are to receive 50 percent of all investment by 1990),19 the chances of large-scale ferrous and nonferrous mineral development in central Afghanistan in this century would be very low even with peace and political stability. The development of rich mineral concentrations, among them the extremely large Udokan copper deposit, along with new (and now almost functioning) BaykalAmur (BAM) railway have already been postponed or shelved because of the reorientation of investment policy (Dienes 1985a). The Soviets have been using two railroads at Termez and Kushka, and in 1982 they extended the rails from Termez across the Amu Darya bridge to Hairatan into Afghanistan proper. Private sources, however, have denied reports of railway construction further inside the country.20 Nor are reports on full operation of the copper smelter at Aynak likely to be correct. Indeed, given the extraordinary insecurity due to guerrilla activities and the difficult terrain of the central part of the country, combined with Soviet capital requirements during the 12th five-year Plan, any decision to go ahead with such plans would be the height of strategic and economic folly. In addition, Hajigak iron ore would have to be used entirely in Afghanistan, since there are no blast furnaces existing or planned in Soviet Central Asia and the nearest markets at Karaganda and in the Urals are 2,000-2,300 miles away.

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Oil and Gas The situation is different in the case of hydrocarbons because they occur within 60 miles of the Soviet border and their exploitation and transport require a far smaller labor force and much less elaborate infrastructure. The petroliferous province of northern Afghanistan is, in fact, an extension of the Kopet Dag Trough, a basin stretching from central Turkmenia south across the border and eastward into southwest Tadzhikistan (Afzali 1981:33-34; Meyerhoff 1981:335). Although the sedimentary accumulation is deep, the Afghan portion of the basin is quite small in area: 240 miles long, with an average width of 45 miles. As its main portion over the Soviet border, the basin is primarily gasbearing. Oil constitutes a mere 4.5 percent of the hydrocarbons from the Early Cretaceous period and 25 percent from the Late Cretaceous period; they became the principal component only in the Middle Jurassic period, when total reserves were far smaller (Afzali 1981:33). According to a World Bank document, most of the 9.9 million tons of "crude oil" produced in Afghanistan in 1976-1977, up from less than 2 million in 1970 (in Shroder 1983:133), in fact, represent gas condensates and not crude. And for several years much of that condensate was wasted. Total initial reserves of gas may have been near 100 billion cubic meters, but the proved, recoverable portion amounted to only 73 billion cubic meters, according to a former director of the Afghan Geological Survey, now a resident of France. Although some expansion has probably occurred since 1979, the rapid withdrawal of around 3.5 billion cubic

meters per year has now depleted half of these reserves. The aforementioned director reports that because only 7.2 million tons of crude oil are available, only 3.6 million tons of recoverable reserves will be yielded with a 50 percent recovery ratio (Afzali 1981:33). Some further discoveries of gas may yet take place, but oil finds are expected only on the flanks of natural gas reservoirs. Certainly Soviet geologists describe the prospect of oil discoveries across the border as "unlikely" (Afzali 1981:33; Safranov et al. 1983). Most of the natural gas is piped to the USSR. Yet damage to the gas line by guerrillas has interrupted the flow several times, proving that even in a region as strategically secure as the one is for the Soviets, resource exploitation remains a risky business. 21 The gas helps to pay for the Soviet occupation, and the depletion of reserves robs Afghanistan of its patrimony; but the significance of this gas for the Soviet economy should not be exaggerated. This year, Afghan gas represents a mere 0.5 percent of Soviet gas output. . Coal Most coal reserves are found in northern Afghanistan, though not as close to the Soviet border as are the gas and oil. The largest reserves

Central Asia and the Soviet "Midlands"

81

at Samangan and Baghlan provinces total some 100 million tons and produce between 120,000 and 160,000 tons per year. The coal is of high content and is used in industry; the largest consumer is a cement plant. Coal mining, however, is a highly labor-intensive activity. Significant expansion in production would require a much larger labor force, political stability, and sharply increased investment (Afzali 1981:34-35; Shroder 1983:135-136). This resource is likely to retain local significance, with no effect on the economy of the USSR. The foregoing critical assessment disputes neither the claim that Northern Afghanistan has been increasingly integrated into the Soviet economy nor the claim that the Soviet strategic frontier has effectively advanced to the Hindu Kush (although as yet it is far from fully secure). But it most definitively denies the claim that Afghanistan is an economic asset to the USSR, and that Afghan resources are or will be a significant factor in the world mineral situation or in any future resource war. The crucial strategic location of the country is not disputed, however, as such a location with respect to the Middle East may indeed become a factor in future petroleum supplies. Yet if the Soviets stay, Afghanistan will be an economic burden to the USSR and will remain so in this century. As far as possible, the Soviets have tried to pay for their strategic gains by robbing the country of some of its resources, but the economic ledger remains negative for both the Afghans and the Soviets. 22 Transport Links Between Periphery and Metropolis The strengthening of transport links between the extremities of Soviet Asia and between them and the economic heartland has been a longstanding military concern. It has also been considered essential for the integration of the far-flung periphery into the economic mainstream. (Chapter 6 deals with the transport issue in detail.) What must be highlighted here is the simple fact that all transport links between the geostrategic extremities of the USSR as well as those between the two Asian peripheries and the metropolis traverse this Midland region. The sole theoretical exception, the Northern Sea route, does not serve as a throughway even for limited military purposes and deserves this designation only between the Barents Sea and the Taimyr Peninsula. Today, three railways traverse the central forest-steppe and steppe zone of the Midlands in a west-east direction, although the middle line is not yet comparable to the other two in throughput capacity. With the new Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), two railways continue this west-east connection to the Pacific coast. A number of all-weather roads and crude oil and product pipelines strengthen this latitudinal link across the Midlands, but neither roads nor pipelines continue unbroken to the

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eastern shores. From the Arctic outpost of the region, the largest gas pipeline system in the world provides an exclusive one-way resource flow out of the region to the economic heartland of the European USSR. Central Asia and the southern frontiers are joined to the European core area and the Urals by four railways (one, and historically the first, by ferry across the Caspian), by three roads (a fourth is almost finished), and by a number of large-diameter gas pipelines. Only the railways, however, provide transit function between the frontier and the metropolis. Finally, Central Asia is linked to West and East Siberia by the TurkSib railway and a parallel all-weather road, as well as by the northsouth lines leading toward the Urals (Atlas automobil'nykh dorog SSSR (1985); Atlas zheleznykh dorog SSSR 1982). Soviet transport statistics are extremely sketchy, but the available data do allow some conclusion to be drawn about the growing transit role of railways across the Midlands. Because of the intensified construction and military activities in the Far East and East Siberia, these easternmost regions of the USSR sharply increased their dependence on the European economic core during the 1970s. At the beginning of the decade, only about a quarter of all in-shipment to the Far East and a little over half to East Siberia originated in the Urals and regions west of it. By the end of the decade, roughly three-fourths of all freight shipped into both regions originated in the European USSR (including the Urals). The absolute volume of tonnage also rose sharply. In the destination of

shipment out of these regions, the role of the western metropolis increased in similar fashion (Kolesov 1982). All of this freight originating from and destined for the European Soviet Union must traverse the central zone of the Midlands. In the early 1980s, the volume of this transit freight seemed to be on the same order of magnitude as the volume of in- and out-shipment by railways into this central zone. But the total amount of this transit freight may decline again now that (with the exception of two tunnels) BAM is finished and most of the huge resource projects envisaged along or near its route have been postponed. The volume of transit for the Far Eastern military bases, however, is unlikely to diminish significantly. Almost no data on shipments to and from Afghanistan are available. Trade statistics show that between 1975 and the end of 1985, the value of total turnover rose more than eightfold. From the beginning of 1979 alone, turnover increased more than four times. Although we do not know what prices are assigned to the commodities traded, it is noteworthy that, since the mid-1970s, Soviet exports to Afghanistan surpassed imports from that country in every year but one. Since the invasion that imbalance increased dramatically, and in 1984 the volume of exports was twice that of imports. This imbalance lessened somewhat during 1985, but in

Central Asia and the Soviet "Midlands"

83

the first half of 1986 Soviet exports to Afghanistan again surpassed imports from that country by 2.1 times.23 The breakdown by commodities is very sketchy, but we do know that since the late 1970s shipment of Afghan gas to the USSR rose sharply and today totals about 3.5 billion cubic meters per year. It is valued at more than a quarter of a billion rubles in official prices and represented 81 percent of all Soviet imports from Afghanistan in 1985. 24 The pipeline carrying this gas from Shibirgan across the Amu Darya joins the Central Asian network, but the gas is very unlikely to make its way to the RSFSR. It is most likely used in the Tadzhik and Uzbek republics, freeirig up some Central Asian reserves for Slavic regions further north. Afghan gas is clearly important to the border regions, but its contribution pales in comparison with Central Asian gas production, which reached almost 123 billion cubic meters in 1986. Most of the output was shipped to the Russian Republic and the Ukraine (Sagers and Shabad 1987). The importation of most commodities from Afghanistan (other than wool) has declined spectacularly during the 1980s. By contrast, Soviet shipments of equipment, machinery, trucks, and petroleum products have multiplied compared to those during the pre-invasion years. 25 Almost all of this equipment (and probably some of the refinery products as well) originate in the Soviet economic heart of the European USSR and the Urals, inasmuch as the machinery and metalworking industries in Central Asia are very undeveloped and unbalanced. Shipments to Afghanistan must have further boosted the growth of transit freight across the Midlands, particularly Kazakhstan, since the beginning of this decade. Such freight was already rising rapidly between 1965 and 1980. A Soviet source claims that such freight through Kazakhstan by railway rose by more than 3 times in that fifteen-year period, whereas outshipment from Kazakhstan increased by only 2.3 times and in-shipment by only one-third (Gosplan Kazakhskoi SSR 1983:11). Some of that transit, perhaps even the largest portion, takes place in an east-west direction between Siberia and the European USSR. However, part of the growth is undoubtedly associated with shipment to the frontier zone, bordered by Iran, Afghanistan, and China. And part of the transit freight is transported to and from Afghanistan-a component that must have expanded sharply since the invasion. Manpower and Economic Policy in Central Asia As noted earlier, economic development in Central Asia has taken place chiefly under the influence of metropolitan priorities. Throughout

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the Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev eras, investment policy was geared more to resource exports than to the expansion of employment in the area. Since the share of federal outlays in the region's industries has risen through the decades (reaching almost three-fourths of all investment in Kirgizia, for example, during the 10th five-year plan),26 these outlays are inevitably responsible to outside interests, not primarily to those of the Central Asian republics. From January 1959 through January 1979, official employment in Central Asia increased from 5,538,500 to 10,325,800, a yearly average of 3.2 percent. This rate almost exactly matched that of population growth and slightly surpassed the 3.1 percent yearly average increase of the work-age populationP Since 1970, however, the growth of the work-age population has accelerated sharply. During the 1970s the average annual increase was almost double that for the 1959-1970 period, and the problem of expanding employment to match it is looming ever larger (Chernova 1984:39). The geographic distribution of population and employment also assumes critical importance. Fifty-nine percent of all Central Asians are still rural, and at the end of the 1970s 86 percent of all rural families encompassed the indigenous nationalities of Turkestan. 28 In the past thirty years, out-migration has siphoned off no more than 15 percent of the natural increase in the countryside (Tybakovskii and Tarasova 1982:15). This rural mass still depends overwhelmingly on agriculture for its livelihood, but official figures for agricultural employment and its growth are very deceptive. In the socialist sector as a whole, but to an even greater degree on the collective farms, the ratio of nominal employment to actual yearly employment rose sharply throughout the 1970s in all four republics of Central Asia. Even in Kirgizia, where agricultural overpopulation is somewhat less severe, the participation rate of kholkhoznike during the 1970s declined by almost one-third according to official data; the decline affected males and females almost equally (see Tables 4.2 and 4.3). In Kazakhstan, underemployment is strongly concentrated on collective farms; these are located mostly in the southern portion of the republic, where strong native majorities prevail. In addition to the rapid increase in the work-age population, the sharp seasonality of agricultural work and the lack of alternative activities on the farm contribute greatly to this state of affairs. Aside from the workers in administration and animal husbandry, even the permanent farm workers are utilized only 60-65 percent of the time (Umarova 1985). Cotton growing is especially seasonal, despite longtime efforts at mechanization of harvesting, its most labor-intensive phase. More than half the cotton in Uzbekistan and over three-fourths of that in Tadzhikistan today is harvested by hand. This work constitutes 40-50 percent of all

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85

TABLE 4.2 Ratio of Nominal Employment over Actual Average Yearly Employment in the State and Collective Farm Sectors (actual average yearly employment = 1(0)

In Entire Socialist Sector UzbekSSR Kirgiz SSR TadzhikSSR Turkmen SSR Central Asian Republics Kazakh SSR RSFSR USSR

1970*

On Collective Farms

1984 On Collective Farms (estimates)**

124.6 118.4 129.7 115.5

141.4 127.5 156.0 119.2

140 127 166 121

123.3 106.2 106.5 108.5

138.1 112.0 102.6 109.3

146 116 110 115

On Collective Farms

In Entire Socialist Sector

112.5 112.2 117.5 109.4

122.4 117.4 135.6 108.4

112.8 110.9 106.6 107.4

121.8 111.7 101.2 107.1

1979*

*Nominal employment was assessed on the basis of the January censuses of 1970 and 1979, as was average annual employment. **Estimates were made by applying the growth rate of collective farm households from 1979 through 1984 to the 1979 number of collective farmers. The estimated 1984 figures for collective farmers were then divided by the official yearly average employment of kholkhozniki in the socialist sector. Souroes: The numbers of state employees and collective farmers were taken from TsSU, /tog; vsesoiuznoi perepisi ... , Vol. 5 (Moscow: "Statistika," 1973), pp. 26-45; and TsSU, Chis/ennost'i sostav nasa/eniia SSSR (Moscow: "Finansy i statistika," 1984), p. 156. The yearly average employment figures and the number of collective farm households were taken from Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1970 godu, pp. 405 and 514-515; Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1979 godu, pp. 290 and 390; Narodnoe Khoziaistvo SSSR v 1984 godu, pp. 300-301.

labor input in the growing of that crop (Murzoev 1983:177; Kaiumov 1984:16; Sel'skaia zhizn', 27 September 1985:2). Ironically, manpower needs at harvest time are so great that outside labor (made up of schoolage youths, industrial workers, etc.) is regularly commandeered to the countryside for several weeks. The Central Party Committee of the Tadzhik SSR reportedly commandeers to the farms more than 300,000 outsiders each year, usually for a month and a half to two months (Sel'skaia zhizn', 24 September 1985:2). As of now, Kolkhoz and state farm auxiliary activities have been too insignificant to make an impact on that sharp seasonality. They have been even less effective in increasing average yearly employment relative

Leslie Dienes

86 TABLE 4.3

Participation of Kholkhozniki in Socialist Production of Kirgiz Collective Farms Participating in the Socialist Sector (Percentages)

Age Groups and Sex Population of Working Age Males Females

1970

1975

1980

93.2

86.8

66.6 66.9 66.3

93.9

92.5

87.6 85.8

Share of Participants not in Working Age as Percent of Those in Working Age Youngsters Over Retirement Age Youngsters and Retirees Combined

39.9 21.2

37.5

33.1

15.2 26.2

29.0

15.5

35.7

Source: Adapted from V. V. Bushman, Prognozirovaniia i razmeshcheniia sel'skogo khoziastva Kirgizskoi SSR (Frunze: llim, 1982), p. 121.

to nominal employment throughout the Central Asian countryside. A recent monograph, for example, reveals that in the Kirgiz SSR the contribution of such activities to the value of total farm output increased

from a mere 0.5 percent in 1970 to only 1.2 percent a decade later. The

chief reason given for this state of affairs is the lack of local agricultural raw materials. In the interests of the quality of the final product, greater economy in processing, and the avoidance of spoilage (and pilfering), the great bulk of farm output is claimed by state purchasing organizations. The availability of materials, therefore, allows the operation only of small workshops (mills, bakeries, oil presses, and sausage shops) intended to utilize scrap. They are useful for improving the provisioning of the local population but can make little headway toward solving the problem of rural surplus labor (Bushman 1982:127). Clearly, the Soviets' predilection for centralized planning and control over resources appears to be an obstacle to diversification and increased employment in locally managed enterprises in the Central Asian countryside. To make matters worse, intercollective agro-industrial enterprises are also poorly developed. In 1980, they employed only 9,000 persons on the territory of the strongest republic, Uzbekistan, thus representing less than 0.2 percent of the labor force and a mere 0.14 percent of the workage population (Ubaidullaeva 1984:68). Recent Soviet studies, in trying to estimate the size of labor surplus in Central Asia, have arrived at very large absolute numbers. R. A. Ubaidullaeva, deputy director of the Economic Institute of the Uzbek

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Academy of Sciences, claims that about 1 million people are unemployed today in Uzbekistan alone (Sel'skaia zhizn', 24 March 1987:2). For the whole of Central Asia-Southern Kazakhstan, that figure must be twice as large. After 1990, the situation will rapidly worsen, as massive cohorts of youth continue to swell the potential work force. In 1985, the ratio of national income produced in Central Asia per person of working age was 70 percent of the USSR average. A Soviet expert calculates that, in order to hold to this ratio until the year 2000 and to absorb the local increase in manpower (Le., provide employment), national income produced in the region would need to be tripled. To create jobs, investment would have to increase annually by 12 percent, clearly an impossible task. Barring such a development, a labor surplus of 7 million would accumulate. If the economy of Central Asia could grow 2.5 times by the turn of the century, compared to a twofold increase for the country as a whole, "only" a 3.5 million surplus should be expected (Ziuzin 1986). Income Maintenance and Job Creation: Government Posture and Policies

Despite endless discussions about the need to increase the mobility of Central Asians, Soviet authorities have shown no willingness so far to force out-migration by permitting, let alone abetting, a decline of living standards in the kishlak. However, we must distinguish between welfare measures and passive arrangements that result in the safeguarding of living levels, on the one hand, and purposeful policies aimed at employment and job creation at the source of surplus manpower, on the other. Evidence points to the significant role of an economic cushion in blunting the push factor. Such an economic cushion was fostered both by active welfare measures pursued by central planners and by local arrangements. The latter were lawful as well as sub-rosa and either passively supported or merely tolerated by them. At the same time, policy measures aimed at increasing employment within the purview of planning authorities and roughly congruent with their preference scale have thus far had a much more modest success. The undeniable dependency relationship between Central Asia in the Soviet regional system and its quasi-colonial economic structure has been balanced by preferential capital flows and social benefits. On the basis of official ratios of national income produced and used in the Uzbek and Tadzhik SSR since 1955-1965 and estimated by Western researchers, it is possible to conclude tentatively that, since the 1960s at least, a substantial net transfer of resources toward Central Asia has taken place (Popadiuk 1979; Gillula 1979; Crosnier and Kahn 1983;

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Ul'masov 1984). Significantly, this interpretation is openly challenged by an Uzbek scholar whose methodology, however, seems to me somewhat dubious. 29 Nevertheless, it is notable that despite the extremely rapid population increase, the growth of social consumption funds between 1965 and 1979 managed to keep slightly ahead of the Soviet mean even on a per capita basis. In 1980, the average monthly amount of such transfer payment per family in Uzbekistan reached 154.6 rubles, some 13 percent more than in the country as a whole. It reached about 170 rubles in Tadzhikistan, or almost one-quarter more than the Soviet mean (Ubaidullaeva 1984b:128).30 On a per capita basis, however, these payments trailed the Soviet mean by a large margin in each of these republics. More significantly perhaps, since the late 1970s the per capita growth of social consumption expenditures has fallen below the rate of increase for the USSR as a whole and the region has been losing ground. Between 1979 and the end of 1984, Uzbekistan dropped from 71 percent of the Soviet mean with respect to these payments to 67.4 percent; Tadzhikistan dropped from 67 percent to 65 percent in 1981.31 Despite the slow rise of labor productivity in Central Asian agriculture, the growth of collective farm revenues has thus far kept ahead of population increases, resulting in a modest per capita expansion during the second half of the 1970s. The rapid increase of wages in the region's agricultural sector, based largely on rising procurement prices for the region's agricultural products, explains the continued improvement of income from collective and state farm work. The increase in farm wages, in fact, has been way out of line with productivity growth, much more than elsewhere in the USSR. From 1970 through 1982, labor productivity in Soviet agriculture as a whole improved by 28 percent, but wages received per worker increased by 70 percent. In Uzbekistan, however, despite a sharp rise in the level of capitalization, labor productivity improved by a mere 4 percent, while wages received rose by 45 percent. On Uzbek state farms, which today hold 62 percent of all arable land and almost half of all farm employment, productivity declined sharply in recent years (Popadiuk 1984:26-27; Blinder 1985).32 See Table 4.4 for details. The experience in the Kirgiz SSR was equally glaring. Although during the 1970s each 1 percent increase of labor productivity in the republic's economy as a whole corresponded to a 1.2 percent rise in wages and salaries, in the agricultural sector it was matched by a staggering 8.7 percent wage improvement (Bushman 1982:124). In addition to socialized farming, private agriculture provides substantial additional income to rural families, even when only legitimate activities are considered. Data from Kirgizia demonstrate the lucrative nature of that agriculture in Central Asia. From 1969 through 1978, average labor productivity per unit of gross output on Kirgiz private

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TABLE 4.4 Growth of Wages, Labor Productivity, and Capitalization in Uzbek Agriculture, 1965-1983 (rubles per agricultural worker) 1965 State Farms Wages and salaries Labor productivity Capitalization of labor (fondovooru-

zhennost1

QQllective Farms Wages and salaries Labor productivity Capitalization of labor (fondovooru-

zhennost1

1970

1975

1980

1983

817.2 2162.8

1183.2 2610.0 '

1450.1 2835.2

1833.6 3013.3

1854.0 2670.2

2274.4

4220.8

5811.2

6712.7

7546.3

844.9 2211.5

1104.0 2427.6

1156.8 2375.5

1560.0 2659.8

1624.8 2570.1

970.2

1324.3

1828.7

2416.6

2592.1

Source: Adapted from I. B. Blinder, ed., Razvitie material'no-tekhnicheskoi bazy sel'skogo khoziaistva Uzbekistana (Tashkent: "Fan," 1985), p. 123.

plots amounted to only two-thirds of that in socialized agriculture, when weighted by the higher prices for its products. Per value added, however, it rose to 94 percent of that prevailing in the socialized sector due to the lower material intensity of private agriculture. Finally, and most relevant for the topic at hand, personal income per unit of labor input on the private plot exceeded that derived from work on the collective farm by 48 percent, since in private agriculture all value added remained with the farmers (Bushman 1982:78-80). A thriving network of farm markets is responsible for a substantial part of all food sales in the region. In Uzbekistan, with its 464 markets, the volume sold during the 1970s expanded at an 8.1 percent annual rate, 2.3 times as fast as in the government stores. An important sociological study conducted recently came to the conclusion that rural incomes in Central Asia are in fact higher than urban ones (Zhivaev and Ivatov 1981:19; Ziuzin 1983:111112). Legal activities, however, are not the only means of earning income in Central Asia. Nancy Lubin convincingly argues that semilegal and illegal enterprise seem to flourish more in this region that anywhere else in the country apart from Transcaucasia (Lubin 1984). Recent Soviet literature confirms the prevalence of embezzlement in the region. In addition, the spontaneously developed and widely varying institution of gektarshchina (ranging from legitimate cultivation of small plots by

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individuals under lease and sundry contract work to grey and black market activities under a facade of authorized agreement with· the collective farm) provides ample opportunities for such diversion. In Uzbekistan, for example, the quantities of surplus vegetables and fruits sold by individuals to the state range from 72 to almost 100 percent of all state purchases. These shares far exceed aggregate production from private plots, thus indicating that much, and sometimes most, of this produce is diverted from the socialist sector. The institution of gektarshchina itself is a highly controversial legal area: The chief of the agroindustrial complex at the Uzbek Gosplan estimates that two-thirds of all gektarshchiki (those working under that system) operate outside the law (Ekonomika i zhizn' 1985 [5]:66-77). As noted, both active welfare measures and passive arrangements, such as an even greater tolerance of the "second economy" than would be the case in the Slavic republics, have been instrumental in providing a cushion against declining living standards, at least until now. In the longer term, however, they will not be adequate by themselves to cope with the rapid growth of population and labor force and the built-in demographic momentum. In addition, they will probably be much more closely controlled under the Gorbachev leadership, judging from the harsh tone of the Soviet press with respect to widespread sub-rosa activities in Central Asia. Vigorous measures aimed at job creation and increased employment outside the agricultural sector would thus appear imperative. An expansion of labor-intensive industries in the region has long been officially advocated. Central Asia scholars and party functionaries have also lobbied energetically for a shift of emphasis from large integrated mills toward more small specialized plants in the light and food industries, where labor intensity per unit value of fixed assets is the highest (Asanova 1981; Ubaidullaeva 1984a). To bring greater local influence over plant location and management, they have even argued in favor of transferring those enterprises that process Central Asian agricultural and mineral resources from the tutelage of Union Ministries to republican and even local control (Bushman 1982:129-130; Pravda, 5 May 1983). Such pressure, particularly from the vocal and comparatively numerous Uzbek elite, may help to explain the relative progress of branch plant location in that republic in contrast to the weaker ones. During the 10th five-year plan (1976-1980), 290 branch plants and shops were created in the small towns and settlements of Uzbekistan, permitting the employment of almost 30,000 persons. A very ambitious plan called for an additional 400 such plants, with 130,000 new jobs during the first half of the 1980s (Shabad 1979:127-128; Khakimov 1982:118; Ubaidullaeva

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1984:33). Large enterprises (most under Union Ministries) in major urban centers of the republic are being pressed by Uzbek party officials to create "filials" in small towns of overpopulated oases with overwhelming native majorities. Yet resistance to rural and small town location on the part of the Union Ministries remains strong. They continue to prefer the large cities, whereas settlements under 50,000, which in Central Asia account for two-thirds of the growth of manpower, received only 30 percent of capital investment during the 10th five-year plan (Kopanev et al. 1982:2324; Pravda, 18 June 1984). Moreover, in several branches of light industry, plant size is too large to benefit rural and small town inhabitants living in widely separated oases. Half of all footwear in the Uzbek SSR is produced by one factory in Kokand; almost three-fifths of knitted undergarments is produced by another in Andizhan. Five large factories account for 95 percent of all output of the republic's silk industry. About the only branch of the light industry well dispersed among farms and villages is the cotton drying, cleaning, and ginning branch (Ziiadullaev 1984). Although the food industry (which produces for the local population) tends to be much more dispersed, and although it falls under republic and local control, it does not apply to oil mills and the production of conserves. In these latter cases, plant size is large, and control by the Union Ministry and the new State Agro-Industrial Committee prevails. Product specialization also seems excessive, given both the need for small-scale, scattered shops producing for local use and the nature of the labor force. About 60 percent of all conserves in Uzbekistan consist of tomato products (Ziiadullaev 1984:170, 172). Besides a more radical move toward small plants and greater geographic dispersion, successful rural industrialization would require greater adjustment to the rhythm of village life and local cultural factors. Nightshift work, in particular, has little chance for attracting the indigenous population, especially women. Other adaptations to ethnic habits, family requirements, and climatic conditions would also be necessary. Contracted piecework inside the home (e.g., the "putting-out system" in the early days of the Industrial Revolution), is much more attractive than factory labor to most women with families in Central Asia. Currently, however, only 16,000 women work within that system in the whole of Uzbekistan (Ziiadullaev and Ubaidullaeva 1985:103). All in all, the efforts at job creation as yet appear modest compared to the expansion of the labor force. Today, out of every 100 new jobs in the USSR, only 6-7 are created in Central Asia (Kopanev et al. 1982:23). Moderate success in Uzbekistan, the strongest republic, has been more or less balanced by the limited results in the other three Central Asian republics.

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Prospects for Central Asia and the Soviet Midlands The disruptive potential of rapid population growth and growing ethnic assertiveness in Central Asia to date has been checked by both passive and active policies pursued on the national as well as local levels. Income-maintenance through substantial transfer payments, the toleration of a vigorous private economy (both legal and sub-rosa), and more modest achievements in job creation with grossly suboptimal labor use suggest a successful balancing act on the part of the authorities. At the same time, the process of korenizatsiia (nativization), which provides much greater elbow room for the indigenous elite and increases opportunities to run local affairs, has promoted stability up until now. Only time will tell how Gorbachev's attempts to control the second economy and to discipline and streamline the local administration will affect stability and relations with Moscow in the coming years. Recent articles on the shortcomings in Central Asia and Kazakhstan are marked by a particularly harsh tone. The need to resettle a substantial part of the surplus labor out of the region is also frequently discussed in the Soviet press, although the same press is full of official warnings against rising nationalism and ethnic tension. Large-scale out-migration is probably inevitable as well. At the same time, cautionary voices point to the harmful "backwash" effect that the out-migration of better skilled and more adaptable portions of the population would have on the development of Central Asia (Ziuzin 1986:21). In the few labor-deficit areas, where the authorities have experimented with Central Asian "guestworkers," the local leaders complain that the in-migrants bring too many children and too few workers. They cost too much in the way of new housing, which then causes friction with local families, who themselves are severely short on living space (Sotsialisticheskaia industria, 14 August 1987). Even more serious may be the impact of the growing capital constraint at a time of swelling labor surplus south of the Aral Sea. In the new five-year plan (1986-1990), capital allocation for all of Central AsiaSouthern Kazakhstan will barely match that for Tiumen and Tomsk oblasts, which encompass a little more than a tenth of the former's population. In the Soviet context, dispersed industrialization tends to be more expensive than locationally concentrated industrialization. For such a strategy of development, centralized management is not appropriate; nor are the Soviet planners either experienced or skillful. Significantly, however, Gorbachev's campaign for the intensification, streamlining, and restructuring of the economy also presents a rather adverse environment for industrialization and job creation in Central Asia. Given

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the rural milieu, the lack of modern manufacturing skills, and the cultural distaste of the Muslim population for regimented factory life, economic development here can only proceed in an "extensive" fashion, attuned to local preferences and needs. Low labor productivity, obsolete capital equipment, small shops, and local tinkering would have to be accepted during the gradual acquisition of an industrial ethos. To sum up, metropolitan priorities today dominate the development of the entire Midlands even more than in the recent past. Gorbachev's economic policy, with its stress on improving the existing economic potential, promises to strengthen these priorities. From each of its subzones, the Midlands region has increased its transport links with the European USSR much more rapidly than with its own regions, generating massive new exchanges with the metropolis. Despite a strong complementarity in resource endowment between Central Asia-Southern Kazakhstan and much of the rest of the Midlands, the comprehensive development of the whole area has not materialized. Similarly, the rapid growth of transit freight through the Midlands economically ties the remote eastern periphery, the southern border zone, and now Afghanistan to the Soviet metropolis. The growing transport inter-ties also project the latter's military power into two of the great geostrategic world regions through domestic and secure overland routes. With respect to Central Asia, Nancy Lubin has written that as of the beginning of the 1980s, "a balance appears to have been established, where competing currents will seemingly neutralize each other for some years to come" (Lubin 1984:241-242). It is a delicate balance, however, not reinforced by the patriotism and emotional loyalty to a Fatherland embodied in the Slavic heartland. It could be upset by a sudden surge of a powerful current from the outside. Or it could be upset on the inside by sharply deteriorating economic conditions and unexpected political developments that threaten the gains of the new, modernized native elite.

Notes Much of this chapter is based on a larger project on the development of Soviet Asia. The project was supported by a grant from the Erhart Foundation, supplemented by a month of research in the USSR under the IREX-Soviet Academy of Sciences exchange. 1. In 1986, 6,000 to 7,000 of the 120,000 soldiers deployed in Afghanistan were reportedly withdrawn. Some of these were air defense forces whose presence against the Afghan guerrillas lacking air power was superfluous. Part of the withdrawal represented simple troop rotation.

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Very recently, Moscow and Kabul created a new province in northern Afghanistan, bordering the USSR. According to Shevardnadze, "If the resistance does take most of Afghanistan [after Soviet withdrawal] the province can recede under Soviet protection." Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze also warned Pakistan that the Afghan-Pakistan border, drawn by British colonizers and splitting the Pushtu people, was not sacrosanct and that "no Afghan government can agree to it." Moscow would be ready to instigate the creation of "Pushtunistan," putting Pakistan on the slippery slope of disintegration. Clearly, Moscow intends to maintain Soviet power in the region (possibly in the northern third of Afghanistan?), even if Gorbachev withdraws the Soviet troops. See Rosenthal (1988). 2. Computed from Narodnoe khoziaistvo [hereafter Nar. khoz.] SSSR v 1985 g. (1986):12-17. 3. Chislennost'i sostav naseleniia SSSR (1984):90-100, 116-123. 4. Sources and computation are given in Dienes (1985a):150-151. 5. See Dienes (1985d):365; and Sovetskaia Sibir', 8 June 1986, p. 2. The somewhat ambiguous language of that newspaper article (from the daily of the Novosibirsk Obkom) concerning the geographic area of the planned 82 billion rubles of investment was clarified by an interview in a bulletin of the Siberian branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. 6. For earlier sources, see Gustafson (1983):63-68. 7. Even though amortization rates are very low in the USSR, in 1979 a third of all industrial capital stock still in use in Kazakhstan was already written off. In nonferrous metallurgy, this share reached 43 percent. See Ashimbaev (1981):109110, 112. For the branch structure of Kazakh industry see Ashimbaev (1981):169170. 8. See Chislennost' i sostav naseleniia SSSR (1984):110-137. 9. Ibid., pp. 298-319. 10. Nar. khoz. SSSR v 1985 g. (1986):210; and CIA (1986):203. The share of Central Asia in Soviet ginned cotton production is taken to equal the share in raw cotton output, since the crop is always ginned near the place it is harvested. 11. Nar. khoz. SSSR v 1985 g. (1986):285; Nar. khoz. Uzbekskoi SSR v 1984 g. (1985):79, 81; and Nar. khoz. Turkmenskoi SSR v 1980 g. (1981):51. 12. Nar. khoz. SSSR v 1985 g. (1986):162-164. 13. For the most comprehensive and up-to-date assessment of the watertransfer projects, see Micklin (1986):287-329. 14. See Hauner (1985):8-9. However, as Department of State (1986):4-9 makes clear, that forward position south of the Hindu Kush is far from secure. Even in Herat, less than 100 miles from the Soviet border, the regime, while still present, does not exercise control. 15. See Shroder (1983):115. Shroder gives a figure of $652 million in dollars. 16. From 1960 through 1980, the value of fixed assets in the Soviet fuel industries (including petroleum refining) rose from 16.4 billion rubles to more than 70 billion-that is, 54.6 billion rubles; in constant prices. During 19651980, a 1 ruble increase in fixed assets required a 2.08 rubles increase in capital investment. See Smirnov (1984):67-68.

Central Asia and the Soviet "Midlands"

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17. See also the large-scale (1:250,000) maps produced by the U.S. Government. 18. Ibid. 19. See Tyzhkov's speech in Sotsialisticheskaia industria, 19 June 1986, p. 2. 20. See Background Brief (1984) and The Economist's Foreign Report, 16 December 1982 and 2 February 1984. Such railway construction is mentioned explicitly in the former source. According to Professor Mobin Shorish of the University of Illinois, these claims are simply wrong. 21. Imports of natural gas by the USSR declined from 2,733 million cubic meters in 1980 to 2,220 million cubic meters in 1986. All imports in the 1980s originated from Afghanistan. See Nar. khoz. SSSR v 1987 g. (1988). 22. It is my belief that sensational reporting-such as (in Afghanistan) "the Soviet Union has found Aladdin's Cave of mineral wealth which it is exploiting to the maximum" (my emphasis)-paints a completely distorted picture and certainly fails to help the Afghan cause. See Sunday Telegraph, 9 June 1985. 23. See Vneshniaia torgovlia SSSR v 1980 g (1980); Vneshniaia torgovlia SSSR v 1985 (1985); and Supplement to Foreign Trade: USSR (1986). 24. Vneshniaia torgovlia SSSR v 1985 g. (1985):199. 25. Vneshniaia torgovlia SSSR v 1985 g. (1985):198-199; and Vneshniaia torgovlia

SSSR v 1980 g. (1980):196-197.

26. See AN Kirgizskoi SSR (1977):88. 27. See Murtazina (1985):50-54; TsSU (1972):28-69; and Baldwin (1979):128. Baldwin's projection was for January 1980, and the average annual growth rate was computed for the 1959-1980 period. 28. See Nar. khoz. SSSR v 1984 g. (1985):18-19; and Chislennost'i sostav naselenia

SSSR (1984):298-319.

29. The claim that much of the turnover tax collected on the product of light industries elsewhere in the USSR really originates in Central Asian agriculture (which, like Soviet agriculture as a whole, bears no turnover tax) is certainly correct. It is also true that the gold, uranium, and nonferrous metals produced in the region benefit Slavic areas more than these Muslim republics. On the other hand, relative to its productivity and in comparison to other regions, Central Asian farm labor appears overpaid (as discussed later), and the huge capital costs of irrigation projects are paid mostly from the All-Union budget. Therefore, Z. Salokhiddinov's attempt to employ the wage bill to apportion national income created among the major sectors, and to prove that the Uzbek SSR, for example, contributes more to national income created than used, seems questionable. See Salokhiddinov (1985):15-19. 30. Nar. khoz. Tadzhikskoi SSR v 1981 g. (1982):180; and Nar. khoz. SSSR v

1984 g. (1985):427. 31. Nar. khoz. Uzbekskoi SSR v 1984 g. (1985):5, 233; Nar. khoz. Tadzhikskoi SSR v 1981 g. (1982):427; and Nar. khoz. SSSR v 1984 g. (1985):5, 427. 32. Nar. khoz. SSSR v 1984 g. (1985):300, 308.

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Matley, Ian. 1981. Central Asia and Kazakhstan. In Economics of Soviet Regions, edited by 1. S. Koropeckyj and G. E. Schroeder. New York: Praeger Publishers. Meyerhoff, Arthur A. 1983. Soviet Petroleum: History, Technology, Geology, Reserves, Potential and Policy. Soviet Natural Resources in the World Economy, edited by R. G. Jensen, T. Shabad, and A. W. Wright. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Micklin, Philip P. 1986. The Status of the Soviet Union's North-South Water Transfer Projects Before Their Abandonment in 1985-86. Soviet Geography (May):287-329. Mirsaidov, M. S. 1981. Formirovanie i razvitie promyshlennogo proizvodstva predmetov narodnogo potrebleniia v Uzbekistane. Tashkent: Fan. Mun'ko, N. P. 1977. Ekonomicheskaia effektivnost' vyravnivaniia energopotrebleniia v Srednei Azii. Tashkent: Fan. Murtazina, R. 1985. Trudovaia aktivnost' naseleniia. Narodonaselenie 47:50-54. Quoted in Referativnnyi zhurnal: Geografiia. 8:E194. Murzoev, P. K. 1983. Tempy, prportsii i effektivnost'obshchestvennogo proizvodstva v Tadzhikskoi SSR. Dushanbe: Donish. Narodnoe khoziatstvo SSSR v 1984 g. 1985. Moscow: Finansy i Statistika. Narodnoe khoziatstvo SSSR v 1985 g. 1986. Moscow: Finansy i Statistika. Narodnoe khoziatstvo SSSR v 1987 g. 1988. Moscow: Finansy i Statistika. Narodnoe khoziatstvo SSSR za Fo let. 1987. Moscow: Finansy i Statistika. Narodnoe khoziatstvo Tadzhiskoi SSR v. 1981 g. 1982. Tadzhik SSR: Central Statistical Administration. Dushanbe: Tadzhikistan Publishers. Narodnoe khoziatstvo Turkmenskoi SSR v. 1980 g. 1981. Turkmen SSR: Central Statistical Administration. Ashkhabad: Turkmenistan Publishers. Narodnoe khoziatstvo Uzbekskoi SSR v. 1984 g. 1985. Uzbek SSR: Central Statistical Administration. Tashkent: Uzbekistan Publishers. Omel'chuk, A. 1985. Izvestiia (31 May):2. _ _ . 1986a. Pravda (24 December): 1-2. _ _ . 1986b. Tsvetushchaia vetka na fone pugi. Ural 2:139-145. Pavlenko, V. F. 1980. Mezhotraslevye kompleksky Srednei Azii. Moscow: Mys!. Popadiuk, K. 1979. Obshchestvennyi product i effektivnost' ego proizvodstva v period razvitogo sotsializma. Tashkent: Uzbekistan. _ _ . 1985. Potreblenie i nakoplenie v sotsialisticheksom obshchestve. Kommunist Uzbekistana 9:20-28. Rakowska-Harmstone, Teresa. 1974. The Dialectics of Nationalism in the USSR. Problems of Communism 23 (May-June): 1-22. Rosenthal, A. M. 1988. New York Times News Service; reprinted in Lawrence Journal World (5 April):4A. Safranov, T. A., A. V. Gotgil'f, and E. S. Deimontovich. 1983. Prognoz neftegazonosnosti osadochnykh tolshch Afgano-Tadzhikskoi vpadiny po dokhimicheskim kriteriiam. Geologiia nefti i gaza 8:28-34. Sagers, M. J. n.d. Refinery Throughput in the USSR. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce. CIR Staff Paper, No.2.

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Sagers, M., and T. Shabad. 1987. News Notes. Soviet Geography 28(4) (April):259281. Salokhiddinov, Z. 1985. Otsenka effektivnosti kapital'nykh vlozhenii. Ekonomika

i zhizn' (10):15-19.

Shabad, Theodore. 1979. Some Aspects of Central Asia Manpower and Urbanization. Soviet Geography 20(2) (February): 113-123. _ _ . 1980. News Notes. Soviet Geography 21(4) (April):241-256. _ _ . 1985. News Notes. Soviet Geography 26(4) (April):287-311. _ _ . 1986. News Notes. Soviet Geography 27(4) (April):248-279. Shabad, T., and M. Sagers. 1987. News Notes. Soviet Geography 28(4) (April):259281. Shroder, John F, Jr. 1983. The USSR and Afghan Mineral Resources. In International Minerals: A National Perspective, edited by Allen F. Agnew. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Smimov, V. S. 1984. Ekonomicheskie aspeckty razvitiia mineral'nosyr' evogo kompleksa SSSR. In Mezhdunarodnyi tsentr nauchnoi i tekhnicheskoi informatsii i Komitet po sistemnomu analizu pri Prezidiume AN SSSR, Dostizheniia i perspektivy. Prirodnye resursy i okruzhaiushchaia sreda (No. 11). Supplement to Foreign Trade: USSR. 1986. No.9. TsSU. 1972. Itogi vsesoiuznoi perepsis naseleniia 1970 goda, Tom II. Moscow: Statistika. Tybakoskii, L. L., and N. V. Tarasova. 1982. Vzaimodeistvie migratsionnykh i etnicheskikh processov. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 4. Ubaidullaeva, R. A. 1984a. Intensifikatsiia obshchestvennogo proizvodstva v Uzbekskoi SSR. Tashkent: Fan. Ubaidullaeva, R. A. (ed.). 1984b. Regional'nyi aspekt osushchestvleniia ekonomicheskikh zakonov v usloviiakh razvitogo sotsializmo. Tashkent: Fan. Ul'masov, A. U. 1984. Rost blagosostoianiia truzhenikov Uzbekistana. Obshchest-

vennye nauki v Uzbekistane 6:3-11.

Umarov, Z. Kh. 1985. K voprosu 0 povyshenii trudovoi zaniatostii sel'skogo naseleniia Uzbekistana. In Sredneaziatskii nauchno-issledovatel'skii institut ekonomiki sel'skogo Khoziaistva. Tashkent: Trudy. Varshavskii, I. P. 1987. Dolgovremennye vakl1tovye poselki. Ekonomika i Organ-

izatsiia Promyshlennogo Proizvodstva 2:161-174. Vneshniaia torgovlia SSSR v 1980 g. 1980. Moscow: Ministry of Foreign Trade, Finances and Statistics.

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Finances and Statistics. Yashchinin, S. B., and T. Giruval'. 1981. Ainakskoi mestorozhdenie medi (Afghanistan). Sovietskaia geologiia 7:78-82. Zakumbaev, A. K. 1977. Ekonomicheskoe razvitie soiunykh respublik i raionov. Alma-Ata: Nauk. Zhivaev, V. K., and I. Ivatov. 1981. Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskaia Sushchnost' Kolkhozono-rynochnoi torgovli. Obshchestvennye nauki v Uzbekistane 5:16-20. Ziiadullaev, S. K. 1984. Industriia Sovetskogo Uzbekistana. Tashkent: Fan.

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Ziiadullaev, 5., and R. Ubaidullaeva. 1985. Aktual'nye problemy ratsional'nogo ispol'zovaniia trudovykh resursov. Planovoe khoziastvo 5:99-104. Ziuzin, D. I. 1983. Prichiny-nizkoi mobil'nosti korennogo naseleniia respublik Srednei Azii. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia 1: 109-117. ___ . 1986. Varianty sotsial'no-chonomicheskogo razvitiia Srednediaziatskogo regiona. Sotsialisticheskogo isseldovaniia 6(4):17-25.

5 Afghanistan Resources and Soviet Policy in Central and South Asia John F. Shrader, Jr.

Introduction

Many scholars agree that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 primarily to achieve the short-term goal of preventing the collapse of the Marxist government in Kabul and protecting against diminished Soviet influence there (Amstutz 1986); less clear are long-term Soviet geostrategic motivations to extend their power toward the Indian Ocean and the Gulf. Long-range economic motives based on control of natural resources and transportation nets have received less direct attention, in part because of the paucity of information (Shroder 1987; Shroder and Assifi 1988). To assess the motives behind the Soviet invasion and occupation, forced economic integration, and potential partition of Afghanistan, we must consider long-term economic and strategic goals as well as short-term political goals. This chapter discusses Soviet interest in improved access to and utilization of resources as a contributory cause for the invasion and possible continued occupation of Afghanistan. These long-term goals are best understood with reference to Soviet resource policy and the relationship between Afghanistan and the contiguous portions of Soviet Central Asia. Soviet policy, in general, is motivated by a desire to control resources, both as part of a strategic plan for resource war, resource confrontation, or economic imperialism, and because of the Soviets' long-standing fears of shortage. The invasion of Afghanistan should be seen in this light. The minerals policy of the USSR is known to reflect (1) an awareness that the Soviet Union and South Africa conduct much of the world 101

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trade in chrome ore, manganese ore, platinum group metals, asbestos, and gold; (2) a limited regard for environmental concerns; (3) consumption that is tightly limited by production in the centrally planned economy; (4) self-sufficiency or economic autonomy (autarky) as a primary objective and economic cost as only secondary; and (5) little encouragement of minerals trade with developing nations (Strauss 1979; Agnew 1983). This policy is part of the background to the development of the relationship between Afghanistan and the USSR.

Central Asia and the Soviet Midlands Soviet means and motives in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan are best understood in relation to the economic attachment of Afghanistan to Soviet Central Asia. In Chapter 4 of this volume, Leslie Dienes details the regional position and economic integration of the Soviet Midlands of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, and West Siberian economic region, thus permitting a fuller understanding of the importance of Afghanistan's resources to the USSR. West Siberia and northern Kazakhstan have been integrated into the national mainstream as the primary energy colony wherein a "robber economy" (Raubwirtschaft) has been practiced for benefit elsewhere. Furthermore, also according to Dienes, the southern part of Soviet Central Asia has been set up as a "plantation economy" to produce agricultural and mineral products that are used elsewhere. Moreover, in Central Asia and southern Kazakhstan the proportion of Slavic colonists to native Asians has dropped, and the relationship between the two groups has apparently not improved significantly. The Soviet Midlands development program represents an increase in all prior projects of water diversion, out-shipment of agricultural products, interzonal cooperation in some industries, and integration into the national fuel-energy systems. Shelving of the Arctic water diversion projects may shift attention south to the waters of the Hindu Kush. The lack of iron ore and coking coal in Central Asia could make Afghanistan's rich Hajigak iron deposits attractive to the Soviets. Dienes' idea of the Midlands as a bridge between the widely separated parts of the Soviet empire is also important. All west-east transport links pass through this Midlands region, and its southernmost spurs touch upon Afghanistan, which cannot be left out of future development schemes. Dienes has also shown that the geographic mean center of Soviet population is moving southeast toward Afghanistan due to high birth rates, high soil fertility, and relative accessibility to the economic core of the USSR. The contrast between the large labor surplus projected for Soviet Central Asia and the population of Afghanistan-originally

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low and now catastrophically reduced as a result of the war-may be a factor in Soviet interest in Afghanistan. Postwar resettlement of Afghanistan by surplus Muslims from Soviet Central Asia is conceivable. As Dienes points out, population pressure and ethnic assertiveness within southern Central Asia have been successfully checked-to dateby income maintenance, the vigorous if often corrupt private economy, and suboptimal labor use. A delicate balance seems to exist that could be disturbed by a number of internal or external factors. The seeds of some of these factors may in fact germinate in Afghanistan. Resource Confrontation

The possibility of resource war as an element of Soviet foreign policy has been hotly debated. The group of scholars who deny the feasibility of resource war, or the real capability of the Soviets to wage it, is best represented by Shafer's (1982) exposition l and by the massive documentation put together by Jensen, Shabad, and Wright (1983); the proresource war ideas, on the other hand, are represented most clearly by Eckes (1979, 1983) and most forcefully by Miller, Fine, and McMichael (1980), and others (Anonymous 1980b). As long as the USSR had plentiful resources under its own autarkic control and remained largely out of world markets, the Soviets appeared nonthreatening, at least from an economic point of view. Some scholars, especially geoscientists (Bullis 1981), formed a new opinion of the Soviets' intentions based on the following factors: (1) increased imports of some materials of which the USSR seemed to have a surplus (natural gas, chromium, lead copper, zinc, aluminum, molybdenum, and cobalt); (2) exports of these and other natural resources (manganese, chromium, lead titanium, iron, vanadium, nickel, diamonds, and precious metals); (3) increased fears of massive export of some materials and cut-off of others as a threat potential of the Soviets; (4) diplomatic and military maneuvers to disrupt or control other resource-rich areas (Afghanistan, Angola, South Africa, the Gulf). The Soviets are now seeking to enter the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) (Yemma 1986), thereby increasing their ability to influence world commerce in materials. The desire and ability of the Soviets to pursue resource acquisition and denial strategies should not be discounted given the reality of their expansionist policy for more than two centuries; today, in fact, they constitute the largest imperial power on Earth. The Soviets are well aware of the important role that access to raw materials played in both world wars. Some geologists and economists (Smith 1919; Spurr 1920, 1921; Wright 1939; Pehrson 1942; Leith et al.

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1944; Fischer 1967; Ike 1967) claim that basic resource insecurity was

the underlying cause that prompted the Central and Axis Powers to initiate both world wars. Both powers were driven to achieve a greater measure of material self-sufficiency through autarkic economic measures and later conquest. Western analysts have subsequently obscured this idea by trying to absorb it into a more complex argument about world wars caused by geopolitics, economic determinism, militarism, nationalism, imperialism, or racism. But secure access to varied and plentiful natural resources is among the key determinants of power, and the uneven global distribution of raw materials makes resource control an important aspect of foreign policy. The Soviets themselves experienced at least one episode of resource imperialism from the West when, during the Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939-1941), both Britain and France developed plans for bombing the Baku oilfields in order to stop the flow of oil to Nazi Germany, then Soviet Russia's partner. This form of resource imperialism has been attempted by almost all major powers in the past. Although some in the West downplay the hostile or aggressive intentions associated with the USSR's resource imperialism, Meyerhoff (1983), a foremost specialist on Soviet resources, has cautioned that we should note two crescent-shaped areas that can be defined in the Eastern Hemisphere. The inner crescent of North Africa, the Middle East, and the Central USSR contains 74 percent of the world's proven oil and gas reserves, whereas the second crescent, which encompasses central and southern Africa, Afghanistan, and the Kazakhstan and Yakutia mineral belts, contains 61 percent of the world's other proved minerals, except coal. Recent Soviet and Cuban activities abroad have occurred mainly in these two crescents. Finally, the longterm planners in the Kremlin are certainly aware that explosive modern population growth is already placing extreme demands upon the world resource base. In support of those against the concept of resource wars, however, there is indeed little evidence for the extreme viewpoint that the USSR would actually be capable of controlling world prices to its advantage by market manipulation. A more balanced approach in the arguments about resource wars thus would incorporate both sides of the issue. It should be recognized that, although the Soviets may indeed be seeking to seize or influence the control of valuable minerals, there is a danger of overemphasizing economics in Soviet behavior, just as there is a danger of overemphasizing politics or strategy (Goldman 1983). Bullis (1981) has therefore stepped between the horns of the issue and downgraded the idea of resource war to one of "resource confrontation." Idealized Western perceptions of Soviet foreign policy can be broken down into the "fundamentalist" ideas of relentless expansion, the in-

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security interpretation, and the opportunistic approach (Bialer 1986). But whether the Soviet moves are planned, defensive, or just a case of "taking whatever they can get" (Dienes, personal communication, 1986), the result is a multidimensional conflict in which Soviet foreign policy is neither war nor peace, and Soviet fears and hopes seem directly dependent upon the resources available to further their influence and power (Bialer 1986). The idea of the Soviets as opportunists seeking to acquire resources for their own use or merely to deny them to others is supported by this comment from a defector from Moscow's Institute of United States Studies: "The Soviet government behaves like an ordinary Soviet consumer. He grabs anything which happens to be on the counter, even if he doesn't need it, knowing that tomorrow it may no longer be available" (Orinova 1981). The ever-present situation of defitsitnye materialy (commodities in short supply) in the USSR (Bialer 1986) is likely to lead the Soviets to see world commodities in a way somewhat different from that of well-fed Americans with a high standard of living. An important dimension of relations with the USSR is the ongoing contentious situation in which access to the resources of the weaker parts of the Third World is perceived by some as one of the chief prizes. The hydrocarbons of the Middle East. and the minerals of South Africa are only the most obvious resources in Soviet maneuvers toward acquisition and control. Therefore, a careful analysis of the resource factors inside the USSR compared with other resource factors outside the country is the best way to understand this important aspect of Soviet domination of Afghanistan. Whether by design or accident, Afghanistan is thus seen by the Soviets as pivotal. Afghanistan could provide one of the best crossroads through which to move toward the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Hormuz to fulfill their presumed strategic interests. This, of course, would be the continuation of classic Russian expansion from "heartland to rimland" in the combined theoretical constructs of Mackinder (1919), Spykman (1944), and Hooson (1962, 1966). Afghanistan can provide additional resources for development of Central Asia. As Professor Y. V. Gankovsky, head of the Near East and Mideast Department of the Institute of Oriental Studies, USSR Academy of Sciences, indicated to me (personal communication, 15 April 1988), the USSR expects to maintain strong economic and cultural ties following troop withdrawal. To further this end, he related, 20 new treaties for improvement of cultural and economic relations had been signed recently, as well as 2,500 common orders or economic agreements. Thus, unless the government of Afghanistan is overturned completely following departure of the Soviet troops, the resources of Afghanistan are expected to continue to be important to the USSR.

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Afghanistan Resources The issues of natural resources and Soviet control in Afghanistan have undergone important developments in both historical and recent times (Shroder 1981a, 1987; Shroder and Assifi 1988). During the nineteenth century, Russia vied with Britain over Afghanistan but never succeeded in placing a permanent diplomatic and trade representative in Kabul. Apparently it was not until after 1927 that Soviet interest in mineral resources first emerged, as conveyed by their most famous geologist of the time (Obruchev 1927). Since the Afghans were most directly threatened by Russia and Britain, they sought outside assistance from neutral countries. In spite of several previous diplomatic rebuffs, the Afghans pressed for U.S. assistance in resource exploration and development. Inland Exploration Oil Company was then granted exclusive oil and mineral concessions in 1937. After a season of successful exploration, however, the company precipitously abandoned the project in 1938 because of concerns over transport distances and impending major European war (Petroleum Times, 17 July 1937; Clapp 1939; Fox 1943). The Afghans were shocked by the abrupt withdrawal of the American company and attributed Inland's withdrawal to devious political motives. U.S. assistance to Afghanistan continued in other ways during and after the war, but problems developed when the Soviets began pressing the government of Afghanistan for permission to search for and develop mineral resources there. The reasons for the American failure to respond to the increased problems were complex but basically included the following: (1) indifference to the strategic importance of Afghanistan; (2) ignorance about the language, culture, and land of Afghanistan; and (3) appeasement of the Soviets in the hopes that they would restrain themselves voluntarily (Poullada 1981). In 1952, however, the United States offered Afghanistan an $18.5 million loan to resume the Helmand Valley irrigation project. The Soviets strongly objected to oil exploration in northern Afghanistan by France, a NATO country, which was invited in 1950 by the Kabul government. In 1954 the French were replaced by a neutral Swedish group, in spite of continued Soviet requests to take over the exploration. Drilling began in 1956, but the Swedes were replaced in 1957, first by the Czechs and then by the Russians, who made the first successful hydrocarbon discovery in 1958 (World Oil 1958). At this time, American and Russian aerial photography also made possible topographic mapping and further exploration by German and French geologists. The Soviets, however, were actively penetrating the Afghan economy, and were especially involved in the Ministry of Mines

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and Industries; they also gained an important grip on the military through training and arms provisions. For example, foreign aid was provided by the United States through the free-market petroleum leasing law in 1958 (Cerkel and Miller 1958), but much of it was bypassed shortly thereafter because in 1957 Afghanistan had accepted a loan of $15 million from the Soviets to support petroleum exploration. Also, in the late 1950s the USSR made several attempts to take over the entire Helmand Valley project from the United States, but its overtures were refused. In 1960 the USSR successfully applied pressure to take over construction of a power plant begun by West Germany on the Kabul River. Also in that year the Soviets reported rich hydrocarbon finds in the north of Afghanistan, and in 1961 they provided an additional $200 million credit for gas and oil exploration and development. In April 1963 a final agreement was signed with the USSR for survey and exploration of other mineral resources. It was during this period that Dr. Muhammad Yousuf, minister of mines and industries, became prime minister; he took over from M. Daoud on 9 March 1963. Several attempts were made in the "New Democracy" to institute a new free-enterprise system and to reduce the degree of dependency on economic aid from the USSR. The Yousuf government, however, was overthrown two years later as the result of leftist student riots that were led by Babrak Karmal. The Daoud coup in 1973 tilted Afghanistan further to the left and resulted later in the progressive removal of Western experts from resourcedevelopment projects and the assignment of resource deposits to Easternbloc groups. Resource maps, major resource syntheses, and economic analyses also were suppressed, presumably because the Soviets did not wish others to have this information. Recent Afghan defectors from the Ministry of Mines have complained that during this time the numerous Russian geologists filed two field reports for each project, one for use in USSR and another pessimistic one for Afghan consumption; this event cannot yet be substantiated through other sources, however. In many cases the results of the Russian geologic reports were not communicated to the Afghan government at all, not even to the director of the Afghanistan Geologic Survey (Afzali 1981). Throughout the latter half of the 1970s, when I served as director of the Kabul University jUniversity of Nebraska joint project to produce a trilingual development atlas of Afghanistan, our binational team in Kabul was denied access to all resource data despite our knowledge that extensive Soviet exploration had resulted in many first-rate reports and maps by this time. It was not until after the 1978 coup and the 1979 Soviet invasion that a copy of the detailed and optimistic resource

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inventory of 1977 was finally obtained from Afghanistan (Shareq et al. 1977; see Map 6). The report listed more than 1,400 mineral showings or occurrences that could be useful guides to future exploration, as well as 70-odd directly commercial deposits. A World Bank report (Kavalsky et al. 1978a, 1978b) on the favorable economics of future Afghan resource development was ready to be released in 1978, but this, too, was held back after the coup. As a result of the Soviets' extensive knowledge of the resource base of Afghanistan, more than $652 million in Soviet aid had been committed to further resource exploration and development, including a .5-millionton oil refinery, a 1.5-million-ton/year copper smelter for the Ainak deposit, and other projects. The World Bank report (Kavalsky et al. 1978a, 1978b) indicated that the Ainak copper should capture 2 percent of the world market, and that the vast coal deposits, together with many other resources, should have spurred major development. The reality was quite different, of course. In an interesting recent development, the following confidential letter by M. E. Danesh, minister of mines and industry, was found among the documents captured by the Afghan resistance. It shows the importance the Soviets attach to these deposits (Anonymous 1985): To Comrade Mirsahib Karval from 19.07.81 in charge of the Central Zone of the City of Kabul and Kabul Province, Copy to Major-General Comrade Boyarov 1M. Workers, State employees and techno-engineering workers of the Aynak [Ainak] Group, comprising about 400 persons in all, inspired by the decision of the PDRA [People's Democratic Republic of Afghanistan], have, during the course of the year following the April Revolution, in spite of the complicated situation in the Province, been prospecting for copper ore in the Aynak deposits. Thanks to the selfless work carried out by the collective, as directed by the Group, deposits of some 11.5 million tons of copper have been discovered as part of the mineral wealth in Aynak. In size, richness and copper content the deposits appear to be the largest in the world. Prospecting for the deposit continues. At present work around the clock with boring installations has permitted bore holes up to 1,000 meters to be drilled. With the aim of keeping the drilling installations working non-stop, it is essential twice a month to introduce hot lubrication materials (ICM) into the drilling pipes, provide spare parts and provisions and at the same time send drilling brigades away for a rest and at the appropriate time arrange for their relief. The Department of Geological Prospecting at the Ministry for Mines and Industry is preparing to deliver to Aynak essential materials and move drilling brigades there. A column of eight motor vehicles will be ready to leave Kabul for Aynak on Monday, 20 July at 9:00 A.M.

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The Ministry requests you to provide the necessary protection for the column en route to Aynak and facilitate the unloading of the materials brought there and transfer of the IeM to the containers which the Group possesses. It is necessary to allow some two to two and a half hours to perform this operation and escort the column returning to Kabul with the relieved drilling brigade. With respect, Ministry of Mines and Industry, 18 July, 1981. M. E. Danesh No. 2155 27.04.13607

Regardless of whether Danesh was attempting by exaggeration to impress the Soviet military, the Ainak deposit appears twice as large as originally described (Shroder 1981a, 1983) and is indeed one of the largest such deposits in the world. For example, the Bingham copper deposit, the largest open-pit mine in the world, produced only 9 million tons of copper in its lifetime; and the front-ranked Soviet Dzhekkazgan deposits are only one-quarter to one-third as large as those at Ainak. The Ainak deposit is thus quite large enough to warrant considerable interest by the Soviets, even though copper is not strategic (Rupert 1986). Professor Gankovsky (personal communication, 15 April 1988) indicated that from the Soviet point of view, the Ainak deposit was indeed very rich and an important deposit worthy of continued attention. However, the Afghan resistance has brought such force against the Soviets at Ainak that development activity seems to have stopped. Furthermore, although an additional 200 Russian geologists were brought into Afghanistan in 1979, their value to the progressive Soviet takeover was recognized early on by the mujahedin, who captured and killed the senior Soviet geologist, E. R. Okhrimyuk (Anonymous 1981; Moritz 1981; Anonymous 1982). The Hajigak iron deposit, judged by the French (Gentelle 1980) to be one of the world's largest such high-grade ore bodies, may have become of increasing interest to the Soviets because conditions for their own iron-ore development have deteriorated in recent years (Shabad 1983). High-grade direct shipping ores have been gradually depleted, necessitating costly development and enrichment of lower-grade ores, which are often further from the industrial cores. Furthermore, as Professor Gankovsky noted (personal communication, 15 April 1988), the Pakistanis import iron ore all the way from Australia for their Sovietbuilt steel mill in Karachi, but ore from Hajigak would be far more sensible in some future arrangement. Natural gas production in Afghanistan, more than 80 percent of which had long been piped to the USSR at well below world prices, has been an exploitive and contentious situation for some time now (Shroder 1981a, 1983; Shabad 1983). Production was increased 65 percent after

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the Soviet invasion (Anonymous 1980a). Importation of natural gas into the Soviet Union may seem an anomaly for a country that possesses the largest gas reserves in the world. These imports, however, are important to the gas-supply logistics system in the USSR in that they enter the southern part of the Central Asian region, which is hardest for the Soviets to supply from their own trunkline systems. For this reason, exports from Afghanistan could even increase slightly in the next ten years and remain logistically important in the south of the USSR (Stem 1983). Other important deposits of possible future interest include oil, chrome, lead, zinc, molybdenum, tin, rare earths, gold, barite, celestite, "fluorite, sulphur, asbestos, talc, magnesite, muscovite, and precious stones (Shroder 1981a, 1983; Shareq et al. 1977). The list is lengthy and the details complex; suffice it to say that, on the basis of geological recognition of necessarily long lead times for resource exploitation, Afghanistan can be seen as an area in which the Russians certainly exhibited a high interest through their exploration efforts over the years. At the present time, there appears to be a high probability of some resolution of the war. In the final analysis, therefore, whether the Soviets are ultimately forced to withdraw from Afghanistan entirely, whether Afghanistan is partitioned, or whether the resistance is finally worn down, the realities of backward and war-tom Afghanistan are such that its resources will figure prominently in the future. When the Soviets withdraw, an increasingly likely scenario (according to some analysts) would be the formation of a consortium of Western businesses and governments organized to reconstruct a postwar Afghanistan by means of a program of integrated resource extraction and economic development.

Borders of Afghanistan It is also clear that the Soviets should have considerable interest in maintaining their access to the resources in Afghanistan even as they are forced to withdraw troops as a negotiated condition of peace. They also clearly believe, however, that they will maintain an economic presence in spite of troop withdrawal (Gankovsky, personal communication, 15 April 1988). Perhaps this would indeed be a sensible approach to some of the reconstruction costs. Another possible solution could entail partition of Afghanistan. It has been persistently rumored that the Soviets might seek to renegotiate parts of their border with Afghanistan. From a historical and even technical perspective, the current boundary along the Amu Darya River and Kara Kum Desert has been, and remains, problematic. Negotiated in 1885 by the British and Russian governments, this boundary was viewed by Lord Curzon as a purely artificial and

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temporary frontier, possessing no elements of stability or duration. During the delimitation process, Russia claimed sections of territory belonging to Afghanistan on the basis that these lands were occupied by members of the Turkoman tribes, the majority of whom resided in the Russiancontrolled territory. On many occasions military representatives from both Russia and Britain pointed out that only a boundary running through the mountains of the Hindu Kush would serve properly. Robert Lytton, viceroy of India during the Second Anglo-Afghan war of 1878-1879, which resulted in Afghanistan falling under the British sphere of influence, even drew up an intricate plan to create a northern border for Afghanistan through the Hindu Kush. Not only would such a geographical border be more defensible; it would also provide a much more reasonable division of ethnic groups in the area. When the Russian commander was unable to obtain rapid agreement, however, he simply attacked the Afghan contingent at Panjdeh in 1885 and seized some of the territory in question in order to gain ground while the border negotiations were in progress. The British tried to contain this evident act of Russian expansionism by cultivating their client, Amir Abdul Rahman, and encouraged him to get control of a large and, hence, more viable territory that would serve as a buffer. They ultimately attained a geographical boundary formed by the Amu Darya River and an extension southwest across the Kara Kum Desert, but this was neither militarily defensible nor ethnically propitious. As far as the Soviets were concerned, excellent economic, political, and cultural reasons existed for the weakening of that border. One of the Russian generals at the original border delimitation is reported to have said that lithe Oxus is a river, and rivers are bad boundaries; therefore, we want the Hindu Kush as a real wall to divide our possessions from yours in Central Asia" (Curzon 1889). This idea was repeated several times in the negotiations. The northern plains are peopled by Turkomen, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kirghiz. South of the Hindu Kush, the Pushtuns (Pathans in Pakistan) dominate. Between the people of the northern plains and the Push tuns are the mountain-dwelling Nuristanis of the east, the Hazaras of the central highlands, and the Aimaq and Farsiwan to the west. A plethora of smaller groups are scattered throughout the country, producing a complex and sometimes divisive ethnic mosaic. In the original border agreement, inclusion of much of the territory directly south of the Amu Darya meant that significant numbers of Turkomen, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kirghiz were separated from their people living to the north of the river. During the upheavals of the Russian Revolution and the renewed fighting of the Basmachis in Soviet Central Asia between the two world wars,

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many from the same ethnic groups fled from Communist suppression, taking refuge in northern Afghanistan. In fact, the hostility toward the Soviets engendered by long repression in Soviet Central Asia has created a fertile environment for the mujahedin in northern Afghanistan. Fighting there was reported to have been more extensive than in the south, and the resistance fighters are said to be much better organized than previously supposed; but the difficulty of reporting from such a remote front makes confirmation of this assessment difficult. In order to counter the Afghan resistance, the Soviets have attempted to improve the physical infrastructure of Afghanistan in order to secure logistical supply as well. as political means necessary either for longterm control of the country or for a beneficial negotiated settlement. The Soviet-Afghan regime in Kabul, for example, has attempted to give the appearance of even-handed and beneficial treatment of the diverse population groups in the country, while simultaneously ensuring that its own best interests are maintained in the best imperialist style; in other words, it has adopted a divide-and-rule strategy. The Soviets have tailored their initiatives to specific conditions in different regions. For the most part they have ignored the mountainous central region of Hazarajat, whereas in the west and southwest they have established major military installations. Their major military initiatives so far have been in the south and east, largely because the greatest resistance activity has been concentrated in this area-notably, in the Panshir Valley and the mountainous areas of Nuristan and Paktia. The northern region has received complex attention, apparently geared toward economic and cultural integration with the USSR; the Wakhan Corridor has already been annexed (Amstutz 1986). Most of the important transport, irrigation, and energy-extraction projects are on the northern side of the Hindu Kush mountain range. The northern one-third of the country has the vast coal deposits mentioned earlier, considerable oil, and plentiful natural gas that is piped into the USSR. Several rivers are being dammed to provide hydroelectric power for the Russian grid, as well as to augment and control irrigation waters of maximum benefit to the USSR. The Kelagay Dam on the Kunduz tributary to the Amu Darya will produce 60 megawatts per second and irrigate more than 225,000 acres (90,000 hectares). The Yugoslavs are also planning dams on the Mughab, the Kaisar, and the Sar-i-Pul that will permit irrigation of 625,000 acres (250,000 hectares). The lack of such extensive development projects south of the Hindu Kush, except for military airfields and the Ainak copper lode, is especially noteworthy. The Amu Darya, with a flow similar to the Nile and more than onequarter of its water originating in Afghanistan, is the main water source

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of the Kara-Kum Canal in Soviet Turkestan. Control of the Afghan headwaters is vital for this canal, the longest (900 miles) in the world (Willis 1979). The Amu Darya is navigable throughout much of its extent across the northern plains, and hovercraft and two new ports are being built to further utilize the river (Temko 1981). A combined road and rail bridge carrying fuel pipelines south was completed across the river in 1982, and the first railroad in Afghanistan is actually being constructed south to the coal mines in the northern foothills of the Hindu Kush (Shareq et al. 1977). A new town of Hairatan with extensive warehousing is also under construction at this northern railhead. A second railroad extension is being planned from the other railhead at Kushka, north of Herat. Other bridges have now been built or are planned across the upper Amu Darya (Piandzh) in Badakshan: one between Shignan and Khoroq and another, perhaps, at Qadzi Deh or Khandud, to connect with the improved Soviet road network across the border (Khan 1984). In addition, Afghan Tajiks have been permitted to travel to the USSR in order to obtain medical treatment, and Soviet Tajik doctors are traveling through Badkshan (Khan 1984). The rich loessic soils of northern Afghanistan and the high rate of solar radiation received throughout this bo~der region-the highest rate in the USSR-means that, with proper irrigation, the agricultural potential there is large. Because Soviet Central Asia needs food support, it is likely that this potential is an important element in Soviet considerations. The strong physical infrastructure now being built in the north may also be a sign for the actual absorption of northern Afghanistan into Soviet Central Asia. Whether this economic absorption follows the model of Tannu Tuwa (1944) and leads eventually to partition of the country along the axis of the Hindu Kush remains to be seen. These outcomes would provide the Soviets with complete control of the rich energy resources as well as the vital north watershed. But they would also leave Kabul and the Ainak copper out of the picture. Another possible step in the partition procedure was the announcement by the Kabul regime in March 1988 of the appointment of Najibullah Masir, minister of mines and industries, as a deputy prime minister and head of northern Afghanistan, the only provincial grouping so set up. The extensively Sovietized city of Mazir-i-Sharif is the de facto capital, ostensibly responsible for coordinating development programs. At the same time, the new Sar-i-pol Province was created by splitting off a more easily controllable Hazara political entity and the oil- and gasrich parts of southern Balkh and Jawzjan provinces (Anonymous 1988). These actions, and other efforts to bind the towns and provinces north of the Hindu Kush to Soviet Central Asia, economically, socially, and

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politically indicate that the Soviets intend to deal differently with the northern provinces than with the rest of the country (Giardet 1988). Gankovsky (personal communication, 15 April 1988) has professed to have no understanding of the reasons for this process. He did, however, express a fear that troop withdrawal would lead to instability and a "Lebanon-style" situation. Pipes (1988) has expressed the idea that this sort of anarchy would irreparably sully the high reputation that the mujahedin have sustained in the past and would create an opening for Soviet forces to return. If the Afghans did indeed show themselves incapable of self-government, a failure of the Soviets to fully withdraw from the north or a reinvasion could then win grudging acceptance internationally-and such acceptance would certainly facilitate a later permanent partition. Gankovsky did say that the USSR preferred an "integral" Afghanistan, but this may mean little in light of apparent events. Northern Afghanistan abuts directly on Soviet Turkestan, Uzbekistan, and Tadzhikistan, and the populations are contiguous across the border; therefore, an eventual partition would improve political control over fractious groups. Such a boundary would also cut off the Pushtuns and largely negate the exceptional porosity of the southern sections of the Durand line separating Afghanistan from the headquarters of the mujahedin in Pakistan. The high mountain border would form a natural frontier, which in turn would be easier to defend than the present boundary of Afghanistan. The concept of partition of Afghanistan has been used by a variety of Afghanistan-watchers and media people. 2 In 1986 the partition idea was presented to the people of Pakistan as a solution to many ethnic and other problems endemic to Pakistan and to the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) (Meer 1986). In this model the Pushtuns of the NWFP would join with southern Afghanistan to make a new buffer state (Pashtunistan)-a solution clearly unpalatable to the Pakistanis. Yet partition of Afghanistan obviously was not intended by the Soviets when they invaded Afghanistan. Several years of reasonably successful resistance by the mujahedin, a gradually emergent coalition among the seven largest resistance groups, and continued pressure on the Soviets by foreign governments to withdraw from Afghanistan have undoubtedly led Moscow to consider alternative plans. Although a partial withdrawal is possible, such an action would differ from past Russian behavior. Rather, partition of Afghanistan into a Communist-controlled north and a tribal south could be forced upon the Afghan people, in part as the price to be paid for permanent departure of Soviet troops and in part as a global trade-off arrangement following the signing of the INF treaty between Moscow and Washington.

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Conclusion This chapter has stressed the importance of Afghanistan's resources and long-term integration of the Afghan economy into the Soviet Union. When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, they apparently were seeking to replace a fatally incompetent Marxist regime and to improve the strategic position on their southern flank. In the post mortem analyses of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, natural resources have been the subject of debate. The perspectives are varied; some observers argue that the only relevant issue is the Sovit!t move toward Gulf hydrocarbons and a warm-water port, while others of the more excitable media have absurdly touted an "Aladdin's cave" of mineral and petroleum wealth, including diamonds and Kuwait-sized oil reserves. This hyperbole may be part of the reason why some scholars have downplayed the role of resources in the Soviet scheme in Afghanistan. Some, including Dienes, have noted that current Afghan mineral resources are relatively small in comparison to the mineral wealth of the Soviet Union. The point, however, is not currently exploitable resources, or even verifiable future resources, but the Soviets' perception of potential resources and the Soviets' assessment of their interests in access to and monopoly of these resources. Indeed, the Soviets have made a significant effort to demonstrate their long-term interest by sending large numbers of resource specialists into Afghanistan. To the community of geoscientists who provide the basic knowledge and perspectives about long lead times necessary for exploration and exploitation of the world resource base, Afghanistan remains an important factor in the world mineral situation (Shroder 1987; Shroder and Assifi 1988). The country is of considerable interest for several reasons: (1) Afghanistan provides an example of a geological guise by which the Soviets can gain extensive topographic and economic information of a developing country prior to military occupation; (2) for so small a nation, the variety of fuel and mineral resources in Afghanistan is impressive; (3) some of Afghanistan's resources are large or important enough to be of interest to non-Communist nations; (4) integration of the Afghanistan resource base into a mutual transport and economic development network for either South Asia or Central Asia would make good sense and could serve as a postwar rationale for reconstruction; (5) world attention is focused upon the role that resources will play in the future of Afghanistan, however the war turns out; (6) the increased press coverage of this issue enables the Western public to better understand the critical political and military maneuvering around such other resource bonanzas as Gulf hydrocarbons and southern African metals; and (7) the woefully inad-

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equate domestic supply of mineral and fuel resources in the United States is greatly underscored now by the increased access to resources that the USSR will enjoy as a result of future control of those of Afghanistan or elsewhere. As long as the war drags on, Afghanistan is an economic liability to the USSR and, as such, is not likely to provide much in the way of resource support except for the relatively minor natural gas. As geologists advise their governments for long-term resource strategies, however, any proper assessment of Soviet activities in Afghanistan must take better account of long-term resource issues central to the development of Central and South Asia. Greater synthesis and cross-border comparisons will greatly increase our understanding of this issue. Afghanistan has plentiful deposits of low-grade minerals and natural gas, and a few ore bodies of great size. In fact, its resources are sufficient for considerable development. Yet since the early 1960s, when the Soviet resource specialists first began assuming control of the Ministry of Mines and Mineral Industries in Kabul, little significant progress has been made. Nevertheless, it is clear that the USSR has been most interested in controlling resource discovery and development in Afghanistan for many years, and that it had considerable progress when this activity was overtaken by the war. Evidence exists to indicate that the Soviets intend to assimilate northern Afghanistan into Central Asia while continuing to foment unrest in Pakistan. The resources in Afghanistan and the developing infrastructure directed toward the USSR will make an economic absorption-whatever the short-term political arrangements-an even more likely possibility unless strong diplomatic and military pressure by Western governments is maintained.

Notes 1. See also Finlayson and Hoglund (1987). 2. See Shroder (1981b).

References

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Amstutz, J. B. 1986. Afghanistan, the First Five Years of Soviet Occupation. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press. Anonymous. 1980a. Afghanistan Gas Production Rises 65%. Oil and Gas Journal 78(7):66. Anonymous. 1980b. "Resource War" Against U.S. Is Charged. Geotimes (December):22. Anonymous. 1981. Afghans Identify Captured Russian. Omaha World Herald, 25 October 1981:8-A Anonymous. 1982. Soviet Adviser Shot by Afghan Rebels. Christian Science Monitor, 21 April 1982. Anonymous. 1985. Rich Spoils of Russia's War. Sunday Telegraph (London), 9 June 1985. Anonymous. 1988. Soviets Turning North Afghanistan into Buffer Zone. Sunday World Herald (Omaha, Nebraska), 1 May 1988:1. Assifi, A T. 1982. The Russian Rope: Soviet Economic Motives and the Subversion of Afghanistan. World Affairs 145:253-266. Bialer, S. 1986. The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline. New York: Knopf. Bullis, L. H. 1981. A Congressional Handbook on U.S. Materials Import Dependency/Vulnerability. Report to House Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization. U.S. Congress, 97th 1st Session Committee, Print 97-6, September. Cerkel, D., and R. L. Miller. 1958. Petroleum Law for Afghanistan. Prepared under the auspices of the Ministry of Mines and Industries of Afghanistan and the International Cooperation Administration of the U.S.A, U.S. Geological Survey, Kabul, Afghanistan, 49 pp. Clapp, F. G. 1939. Explorations in Iran and Afghanistan. Oil Weekly 27 February 1939:71-72. Curzon, G. N. 1889. The Fluctuating Frontier of Russia in Asia. The Nineteenth Century 25(144) (February 18):267-283. Eckes, A E., Jr. 1979. The United States and the Global Struggle for Minerals. Austin: University of Texas Press. Eckes, A E., Jr. 1983. The Global Struggle for Minerals: A Historian's Perspective. In International Minerals: A National Perspective, edited by A F. Agnew. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. Finlayson, Jock A, and David G. Hoglund. 1987. "Whatever Happened to Resource War?" Survival (October-November):403-415. Fischer, F. 1967. Germany's Aims in the First World War. New York: Norton. Fox, E. F. 1943. Travels in Afghanistan 1937-1938. New York: Macmillan. Gentelle, P. 1980. Du non-development et sous-development. Les Temps Modernes (July-August), Nos. 408-409:281-307. Giardet, E. 1988. Afghan Guerillas Vow to Resist any Soviet Hold on Northern Region. Christian Science Monitor, 4 April 1988:1, 11. Goldman, M. I. 1983. The Changing Role of Raw-Material Exports and Soviet Foreign Trade. In Soviet Natural Resources in the World Economy, edited by R. G. Jensen, T. Shabad, and A W. Wright. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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6 Afghanistan and the Transport Infrastructures of Turkestan Victor L. Mote

A railway train, lit by electric light and speeding through the sand-deserts of Central Asia, would add one more of the startling contrasts in which this extraordinary region abounds . ... This railway [the Transcaspianj is a ... potent weapon. It marks a complete and bloodless absorption. -Lord Curzon (1892:73, 79)

For years Westerners have alleged that Russian interest in Southwest Asia dates from the reign of Peter the Great. It seems that Peter, who had a famous fetish for boats and, as early as 1717, built a navy of sorts, "stressed the necessity of gaining access to this region-entering into the so-called 'warm waters' of the Indian Ocean" (Khan 1986:130). Peter's troops successfully fought the Persians, obtaining a temporary foothold on the western and southern shores of the Caspian in 17221723. This foothold was relinquished in 1732, seven years after Peter's death; nevertheless, the forged legend insists that a dying Peterundoubtedly through teeth clenched by the pain of strangury-coerced his bedside advisers to promise not to forget the goal of a warm-water port as a final testament to a life tormented by an insatiable thirst for salt water (Morrison 1952). What is certain is that, whatever their ultimate goals, once they had dispensed with their march to the Pacific, the Russians throughout the nineteenth century pushed inexorably southward into "Turkestan." There the Russian Drang stopped, at least temporarily, as a result of a compromise with its important rival, Great Britain, which guarded the northern approaches to India. The compromise created Afghanistan as a buffer 120

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state sandwiched between two imperialist spheres of influence (Caroe 1967:72-74). The Soviet Union found itself in Afghanistan not so much by insidious grand strategy as by a historical tendency to perfuse across boundaries of least resistance (Hauner 1985:6), involving itself only minimally (Chaliand 1982:73-74). Its classic preoccupation with internal security, its vulnerability to a two-front war, and its physical entrapment, whether by ice or by strategic "choke points" (again noted by Hauner 1985:14) are also primary motivating forces. Should the Soviets ever push their way to the Gulf region, hostilities could arise on as many as three fronts (Karp 1986). This study examines the actual and potential infrastructural linkages between the traditional heartland of Turkestan and points south, most particularly Afghanistan. Since the 1979 invasion of that country, a number of developments have taken place that may shed some light on possible continued Soviet interest in Afghanistan, despite the military withdrawal. Important to this issue is the development of the transport infrastructure in the neighboring territories of the Soviet Union.

The Geography of the Region: Southern Kazakhstan and Central Asia The territory examined here is a region of around 3.4 million square kilometers (1.3 million square miles)-an area slightly larger than India or about a third the size of the United States. If Saskatchewan-sized Afghanistan (650,000 square kilometers or 250,000 square miles) were added, the area would exceed the size of South America south of Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru. In January 1985, the Soviet provinces claimed 41 million residents of all national types (including Europeans), whereas Afghanistan was presumed to have 14 million with more than 3 million more as refugees in Pakistan and Iran (Sen Gupta 1985:xv). If grouped together separately as a contiguous nation, the 55 to 58 million Soviet "Turkestanis" and Afghans would rank as one of the world's twenty largest populations, on a par with the individual populations of Italy, Great Britain, or France. Turkestan excludes the six $lain-growing provinces (oblasts) of the "New Lands" of Kazakhstan, or what Soviet geographers now call North Kazakhstan; it includes the thirteen remaining Kazakh oblasts and all of the Central Asian Major Economic Region-namely, Kirgizia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenia, and Tadzhikistan (Pistun 1984:327). As far as it goes, the regionalization makes modest sense: Roughly coincident with the 50th parallel, the territory lies predominantly south of the "fertile triangle" in an area too dry for non-irrigated fields. The driest of the

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Soviet steppes and desert, it is a region where the "cowboy" and the nomad once reigned and the Sart dwelled in oases. It is a region of the horse, sheep, and camel; a region of Turks and Persians; and of Islam. This is the area that used to be called Turkestan. North Kazakhstanwith its east-west oriented Trans-Siberian, Central Siberian, and South Siberian railroads, its "amber waves of grain," its rural Russians, Ukrainians, and Germans (the last group was deported here by Stalin from the Volga region in World War H)-is obviously tied to the Russian Republic and not to Turkestan. If the regional scheme fails, it will do so because it is not inclusive enough; it would leave out Azerbaydzhan, Dagestan, and Kalmykia, each of which, to some degree or another, reflects ties to Turkestan. It does include the Caspian Sea, which today is linked economically to both Transcaucasia and Turkestan. Geographical Constraints to Development

Climate Like the great majority of the Soviet Union (and Southwest Asia), Soviet Turkestan and Afghanistan suffer from a location that is vast distances away from the sea. Except for the Caspian, which is an inland saltwater lake, the moderating influences of the ocean (on the SeistanBaluchistan border) are still more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) away. The republic of Tadzhikistan is minimally 750 kilometers (455 miles) away from the Aral Sea, even farther away from the Caspian coast (1,150 kilometers or 715 miles), and at least 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) distant from the Gulf of Oman (Kalesnik 1968:210). The climate is known as "continental" because the principal storms of the polar front move from west to east across a gauntlet of vast plains and/or high mountains for thousands of miles. In fact, Southwest Asia is shielded from the influences of the Indian Ocean wet monsoon not only by a ring of mountains but also by the semipermanent high-pressure cells of inland Asia. All in all, Turkestan is truly leeward and must endure severe droughts for most of the year. Continentality and drought mean that Turkestan exhibits wide daily and annual ranges of temperature. Average annual temperature ranges are widest in the north and narrowest in the south: Irgiz north of the Aral Sea records a 41-degree Centigrade (73-degree Fahrenheit) range, and Samarqand and Kabul report 25- and 27-degree Centigrade (45and 49-degree Fahrenheit) ranges, respectively. Continentality alone usually encourages low annual amounts of precipitation, with few regions receiving more than 250 millimeters (10 inches) except where the windward sides of mountains are a factor (as in Kabul, Samarqand, Frunze,

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and Tashkent). However, some areas on the leeward slopes of the high Pamir (Murgab) and Hindu Kush receive very little precipitation (less than 100 millimeters or 4 inches). Such meager quantities obviously compare favorably with the annual precipitation obtained in the KyzylKum and Kara-Kum (Turtkul'). That the Caspian Sea provides little, if any, moisture to passing air masses can be seen in the fact that Krasnovodsk at sea level receives barely 100 millimeters (about 4 inches) from its otherwise favored situation. The port is "otherwise favored" because the sea does yield some moderation of the annual march of temperatures compared to those of other places at the same latitude deeper inland (for example, Turtkul').

The Water Deficit Turkestan is characterized by a long, relatively warm growing season that for alfalfa, orchards, and grapes can be year-round. In the Kazakh steppes, a thin snow cover may persist for up to 130 days (Semipalatinsk), but everywhere else it is gone in less time. Most of the region suffers from extreme summer droughts, obtaining winter or springtime peaks of snow or rain but, again, in scant amounts. In general, the duration of the growing season, which ranges from 140 days in the north (Aktyubinsk Oblast) to more than 250 days in the south (Turkmenia), is less of a problem than is the deficiency of water resources. The availability of water, in fact, is the chief environmental constraint to the human use of Turkestan. In most of the area, the grazing of sheep and cattle on natural pastures is the only form of extensive land use (CIA 1974:18). However, as in most semi-arid or desert areas of the world, the lands, when properly irrigated, can yield abundant, even multiple, harvests. Water controls the settlement pattern of most of the towns and cities, which spring up wherever water is reliably available. For millennia in Turkestan, people have clustered around or have been attracted to irrigated oases, where specialty crops such as cotton, rice, tobacco, fruit, melons, and sugar beets are grown today. In the moist foothills, dry-farming of wheat and barley is practiced. But such pursuits are sharply limited by the absence of surface water sources. In Turkmenia and Uzbekistan, the locals frankly claim that water is dearer than gold. (Ironically, "yellow" gold fairly recently has been discovered in the sere depths of the Kyzyl-Kum, where the price of water is most dear.) For generations, Krasnovodsk (literally, "red water"), though it lies on the shores of the salty Caspian, has relied on the arrival of sea tankers full of potable water. Drinking water is, in fact, still a cargo destined for some Caspian seaports, although Krasnovodsk now relies on a newly discovered "sea of groundwater" not far from the coast. North of

124

Victor L. Mote

Krasnovodsk, near the oilfields of Mangyshlak Oblast, the new town of Shevchenko relies on the Soviet Union's only salt-water electrolytic desalinization plant powered by electricity from the USSR's only liquidmetal fast-breeder reactor. Dryland mining centers built in the Soviet (post-1917) period have been forced to rely, at least temporarily, on water brought in by truck or rail. Only in the last twenty years, for example, have Dzhezkazgan and Karaganda been linked to a reliable source of drinking and industrial water via the Irtysh-Karaganda Canal. The need for water is clearly expressed in the patterns of population densities. In the well-watered, long-irrigated Fergana Basin, there are rural densities of 200 to 250 persons per square kilometer. In the backwaters of the Kara-Kum, Kyzyl-Kum, and Ustyurt Plateau, however, where water is at a premium, densities plunge to almost zero. Flanked by both the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya, Uzbekistan is the most densely populated republic (38.1 persons per square kilometer), whereas the "sun's anvils" of Turkmenistan and the Kazakh Republic are as a whole sparsely populated (5 to 6 per square kilometer) (Pistun 1984:291, 323). Thus, expansion of Turkestani irrigation networks has been explosive since the Russian occupation began in the last century. Using the cultivated area devoted to cotton as our lodestar, we find that the region served by irrigation increased from 45,000 hectares (112,500 acres) in 1885 to~, 591,000 hectares (1,477,500 acres) in 1915 to 3 million or more hectares of irrigated cotton fields in 1985. Total irrigation in the region has

expanded by two-fifths since 1970 (2.4 million hectares or 6 million acres) up from 6.2 million hectares (15.5 million acres) (Narkhoz 1985:272; Taafe 1962:84). Despite this phenomenal increase, the Turkestani share of Soviet irrigated acreage has dropped from 56 percent in 1970 to 44 percent in 1984, primarily because of an upsurge of irrigation in the Russian Republic. Expanded irrigated land has taken its toll on the rivers, lakes, and water tables of the region. Few to begin with, streams such as the AmuDarya and Syr-Darya empty their much-diminished volumes into the Aral Sea. Other rivers, such as the Chu, Sarysu, and Zeravshan, merely spill their precious fluids into desert salt pans. Indeed, the Aral Sea itself may be destined for salt-pan status: "The level of this saline lake, 4th largest in the world, has fallen more than 10 meters [33 feet], its area shrunk by 30 percent, volume . . . by 50 percent, and salinity doubled since 1961" (Micklin 1986b:23; see also Tonyayev 1984:201). Similar ebbs by the Caspian Sea have been the primary fillips behind the long-proposed, but now abeyant, north-south water-transfer plans (Micklin 1986a:291). Continued expansion of irrigation in Turkestan, although it is transpiring more slowly than in the past, in 1974 was expected to require more water than was then available. The CIA predicted

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Index Abdul Rahman, 15, 111 Abdurrahman, 42 Abode of Islam, 186 Academy of Sciences, Institute of Oriental Studies (USSR), 105 Afghanistan. See Democratic Republic of Afghanistan Afghanistan Geologic Survey, 80, 107 Afghan-Soviet Friendship Society, 55-56 Afghan-Soviet War, 20, 31, 33 impact on education, 41-42, 44-45 Soviet invasion (1978), 18, 48, 57, 8283, 101, 151, 164-165, 178 Soviet Muslim troops, 185-186 Afzal (Mawlawi), 45 Age of Discovery, 127 Agricultural resources cotton production, 130-131, 137, 141, 149 Midlands, 69-70, 72, 73(table), 74, 84-

Autarky, Soviet economic policy, 102-104, 175, 188 Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), 69, 130 Aviation. See Air transport systems Baghdad railway, 151 Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), 79, 81-82, 125-126, 167 Baltic Sea, 177-178 Baluchistan, 20, 174, 179 BAM. See Baikal-Amur Mainline Baryalay, Mahmud, 49 Basmachi Revolt, 130 Bennigsen, Alexander, 186 Bialer, Seweryn, 160 Black Sea, 176-178 Bolshevik Revolution, 186 Brezhnev, Leonid, 75, 84 Buddhism, 161 Bullis, L. H., 104

88, 89(tabJe), 102

semilegal and illegal enterprises, 89-90 state and collective farm sector employment, 85-86(tables) Ainak copper, 78, 108-109, 146, 153 Air transport systems Afghanistan, 207(map) Central Asia, 16-20 Turkestan, 143-144 Alexiev, Alexander, 185 Aliova, Fazu, 55 Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1879), 111 Angola, 171 Anti-Aircraft Troops (VPO), 184 Aral Sea, 64, 122-125, 139 Arc of Crisis, 161 Asia. See Central Asia; Soviet Central Asia; individual countries ASSR. See Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

Cairo University, 44 Cam Ranh Bay, 178 Cape of Good Hope, 128, 176 Caroe, Olaf, 128, 182 Carrere d'Encausse, Helene, 186 Carter, Jimmy, 165 Carter Doctrine, 162 Caspian Sea, 120, 122-125, 129-130, 140141 Central Asia geopolitical significance, 13-21, 161-165 Islamic culture, 21-24, 31-33 southern tier, 165-171 transportation systems, 14-21, 127-128, 203(map) See also Soviet Central Asia Central Asian Fleet Authority, 139 Central Asian Major Economic Region, 121

211

212 Central Siberian railway, 122 China. See People's Republic of China Christianity, 161 Climate, constraints on development, 122123, 126-128 Coal, 80-81. See also Energy resources Collins, Joseph, 178 COMECON. See Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Committee for the Liberation of Eastern Turkestan, 163 Commodities, 64-70, 83, 105, 147-151 Communications systems, Far East links, 167 Communist party in Afghanistan. See People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan Copper, 78, 108-109, 146, 153 Correlation of Forces, 160, 173, 175, 177, 179 Cotton, 130-131, 137, 141, 149 Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), 52 Crimean War, 129 Cuba, 55, 104, 171 Culture Central Asian diversity, 61-62, 75, 161162 education, 40-47, 50, 52, 54-57 and Soviet integration, 54-58, 61-62, 68-69 See also Islam Curzon, George Nathaniel, 110 Czechoslovakia, Afghan oil exploration, 106 Danesh, M. E., 108-109 Daoud, M., 107, 146, 152

Dar ul-Harb, 186 Dar ul-Islam, 186-187 Decline of an Empire (Carrere d'Encausse),

186 Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) and the Arc of Crisis, 161 border issues, 110-114, 129-130, 152 climate, 122 culture and education, 40-47, 50-58, 61-62, 68-69, 75, 161-162 economy, 16, 52-53, 81 energy resources, 17, 80-81, 104, 106110, 142-143, 146, 153, 206(map)

Index future prospects, 13 gemstones, 77-78 infrastructure development, 15-21, 139140, 144-146, 149-153, 155-156, 172-174, 179 mapping projects, 106-108, 153 Marxist government, 25-26, 101 mineral resources, 77-79, 104, 106-110, 115-116, 153, 208(map) politics, 25-26, 41, 51-52, 61-62, 101, 111-112 population characteristics, 121 Soviet integration, 48-58, 68-69, 101103, 155-156 Soviet invasion (1978), 18, 48, 57, 8283, 101, 151, 164-165, 178 trade, 18, 52-53, 82-83, 131, 139-140, 145-146, 149-150 transportation systems, 15-21, 33, 126, 172-174, 207(map), 209(map) tribal and ethnic divisions, 111-112 war with the Soviets, 20, 31, 33, 41-42, 44-45, 185-186 Democratic Youth Organization of Afghanistan (DYOA), 51 Demography Afghanistan, 121 Muslim populations, 31-32, 62, 75, 102-103, 179-180, 182-189 Soviet Union, 31-32, 62-64, 68, 75, 92, 101-103, 124, 132(table), 179-180, 182-189 Turkestan, 121 Diego Garcia, 162 Directory of Soviet Officials (CIA), 186 Dmowski, Roman, 167 Dost, Shah Mohammed, 49 DRA. See Democratic Republic of Afghanistan DYOA. See Democratic Youth Organization of Afghanistan Dzerzhinski, Felix, 55 Earthquakes, 127 East Germany, 55 Eckes, A. E., Jr., 103 Economics Afghanistan, 16, 52-53, 81 and geopolitical considerations, 61-62 Midlands, 63-70 Soviet autonomy policy, 102-104, 175, 188

213

Index Soviet investment policy, 62, 70-75, 79, 84, 108, 125-126, 146, 153, 180, 183 and transportation technologies, 16-17, 63-64 Education, Afghanistan, 40-47, 50, 52, 54-57 Egypt, 171 Electric power resources, 136, 144-147, 153 Employment and labor income maintenance, 87-91 job creation, 87-91 Midlands, 65-66, 83-87, 126, 183 Soviet armed forces, 183-184 Soviet Muslim populations, 102-103, 180-184 welfare programs, 87, 90 Energy resources Afghanistan, 17, SO-81, 104, 106-110, 142-143, 146, 153, 206(map) and the Arc of Crisis, 161 electric power, 136, 144-147, 153 Midlands, 64-67, 71-72, 144-148, 205206(maps) Soviet reserves and policy, 17, 103-105, 109-110, 115-116, 175-176, 180 strengthening of Islamic influence, 25 See also Pipeline transport systems Ethiopia, 48, 52, 171, 177

Ethnic Factor in the Soviet Armed Forces

(Wimbush and Alexiev), 185 Eurasia. See Soviet Eurasian Empire Europe, Soviet theater of military operations, 168-171 European USSR Central Asian policy, 64-70, 161-165, 180-181 fuel and raw material flows, 74 geographic area defined, 62-64 industry and manufacturing, 74-75 mineral resources, 76 transportation systems, 63-64, 75, 8183 See also Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Faculty of Economics (Afghanistan), 55 Faculty of Engineering (Afghanistan), 55 Faculty of Islamic Law. See Kabul University Faculty of Religious Law (Afghanistan), 44

Far East Soviet theater of military operations, 168, 170-171 superpower competition, 165-166, 187 trade links, 71, 74, 82, 167, 176

See also individual countries

Farm sector. See Agricultural resources Federal Republic of Germany, 107 Fertilizers, 148-149 Fine, D. I., 103 Finland,48 France, Afghan oil exploration, 106-107, 109 Free-market petroleum leasing law (1958), 107 Gankovsky, Yuri, 55, 105, 109, 114 Gas, 80. See also Energy resources GATT. See General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Gemstones, Afghan resources, 77-78 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 103 Geopolitics, 61-62, 151, 160 German Democratic Republic, 55 Germany, 55, 106-107, 151, 172 Ghaleb, Qazi (Mawlawi), 46 GOELRO plan, 146 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 79, 90, 92, 164, 188 Gorshkov, Sergei, 176 Great Britain Afghanistan policy, 16, 106, 110-111, 120-121, 129-130, 151-152, 166 Central Asian development, 15-16, 172 the "Great Game," 16 and Islamic society, 24-25 "Great Game," 16 Great Siberian Tract, 129 Gulf of Aden, 177 Gulf of Oman, 122

Hadith, 26, 29, 43 Hafez,43 Hairatan, 113

Haqiqat-e Enqelab-e Saur (HES), 49, 55-56 Harakat-e Enqelab, 44 Helmand Valley irrigation project, 106107

HES. See Haqiqat-e Enqelab-e Saur

Hezb-i Islami, 41 Hinduism, 161

Index

214 Homo Islamicus, 186 Homo Sovieticus, 186-187 Hooson, D., 105 Hom of Africa, 177 Hydrocarbons, 80, 105, 107. See also Energy resources Hydroelectric dams. See Electric power resources

educational system, 41-44 Islamist ideology, 26-33, 42-44 progressive movements, 24-25, 28-31 as a threat to the Soviet system, 186187 Islamic Threat to the Soviet State (Bennigsen and Broxup), 186 Ittihadia, 42

Ibn-Hanbal, 26 Ihn-Taymiyya, 26 IMF. See International Monetary Fund Income maintenance, Soviet policy, 87-91 India education of Afghans, 42, 55 and Islamist ideology, 32-33 Soviet relations, 171 transportation development, 16, 20, 151 Indian Ocean, Soviet interests, 76, 101, 105, 120-121, 150 and superpower competition, 162, 164, 171, 173-174, 176-178 Indo-Persian Corridor, 168, 173, 178-179 Indo-Soviet Friendship Treaty (1971), 171 Industry and manufacturing European USSR, 74-75, 84, 180-181 Midlands, 66-70, 74-75, 90-91 Inland Exploration Oil Company, 106 Institute for Social Science Studies (Afghanistan), 50 Institute of Oriental Studies, Academy of Sciences (USSR), 105 Institute of United States Studies (USSR), 105 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 103 Iran and the Arc of Crisis, 161 Communist party, 50, 52 future prospects, 13 Islamic ideology, 24-33, 186 Majlis (Parliament), 28 trade, 140, 151 transportation systems, 140, 172-174 Iranian Revolution, 26, 161 Iraq, 161, 174 Iron, 109 Irrigation networks. See Water resources Islam in Afghanistan, 29-30, 43-46, 57 and the Arc of Crisis, 161 in Central Asian culture, 22-24

Jahili society, 27-29, 31 Japan, 165-167, 170, 187-188 Jensen, R. G., 103 Jihad society, 23, 185 Job creation, Soviet policy, 87-91 Jones, Ellen, 185 Julfa-Tabriz railway, 173-174 Kabul New Times (KNT), 49 Kabul University, 44, 107 Kampuchea, 164 Karma!, Babrak, 49-50, 107 Kasumbekov, Hamid, 186 Kawiyani, Najmuddin, 50 Kazakh Railway, 133 Kazakhstan economy, 64-67 employment and labor, 84, 86-87 energy resources, 71-72, 104, 144-147, 205-206(tables) geography, 121-127 industry and manufacturing, 74-75, 9293 mainstream integration, 62-70, 102 mineral resources, 104 population characteristics, 64, 182 trade, 132-133, 149-151 transportation systems, 129, 133, 137139, 203(table), 204(table) Kazalinsk Railway, 130-131, 137, 149 KGB,52 Khomeini, Ruhollah, 27-30 Khrushchev, Nikita, 66-67, 84, 174 KNT. See Kabul New Times Komsomol, 51 Koranic schools. See Qur' anic schools Korea, 170 Kublai Khan, 128 Kurdistan, 174 Laeq, Suleyman, 55 Lapis lazuli, 77

Index Lattimore, Owen, 161 Lizichev, A. D., 184 Lubin, Nancy, 89, 93, 186 Lytton, Robert, 111 MccGwire, Michael, 178 Mackinder, Halford J., 105, 161, 166, 181 McMichael, R. D., 103 Madrasa (religious schools), 42, 44-46 Manufacturing. See Industry and manufacturing Mapping projects, 106-108, 153 Masir, Najibullah, 113 Massell, Gregory, 186 Massud, Haydar, 52 Maududi, Abul A'la (Moulana), 27, 32 Mawlawi (religious teachers), 42-44 Mazir-i-Shafif, 113 MD. See Military districts Medicine and health care, 113 Mendeleev, D. I., 179-180 Metropolis, 62-64. See also European USSR Meyerhoff, A. A., 104 Middle East, 105, 174 Midlands agricultural resources, 69-70, 72, 73(table), 74 economy, 64-77, 92-93, 146 energy resources, 64-67, 71-72, 144148, 205-206(maps) future prospects, 92-93 geographic area defined, 62-64 mainstream integration, 63-64, 69-70, 102 mineral resources, 69 oil fields and pipelines, 205(map) population characteristics, 63, 75 Soviet investment policy, 66-75, 92-93, 146 transportation systems, 63-64, 82, 131, 204(map) See also Kazakhstan; Siberia; Soviet Central Asia; Turkestan Military districts (USSR), 168 Miller, J. A., 103 Mineral resources Afghanistan, 77-79, 104, 106-110, 115116, 153, 208(map) European USSR, 76 Midlands, 69

215 Soviet interests and policy, 76, 101-105, 115-116, 153, 180 and transportation, 17, 129 Ministry of Mines and Industries (Afghanistan), 106-107 Mirajuddin (Mawlawi), 43 Mongol invasions, 127-128 Moscow!; Muslim Challenge (Rywkin), 186 Mujahedin (Islarnist leadership), 31-33, 51, 109, 112, 114, 143 Mujtahed (Islamic leadership), 27-28 Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, 27 Muslim peoples ideology, 21-33 language usage, 185-186 population characteristics, 31-32, 62, 75, 102-103, 179-180, 182-189 resistance to sovietization, 31-32, 56-58 unemployment, 126 Muslim 'umma, 32 Muslim Youth Organization, 41 Napoleonic Wars, 129 National Patriotic Front (Afghanistan), 51 NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty Organization Natural gas, 109-110. See also Energy resources Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939-1941), 104 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Soviet theater of military operation, 168, 170-171 North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), 114 NWFP. See North-West Frontier Province Oil, 80. See also Energy resources Okhrimyuk, E. R., 109 OPEC. See Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), 103 Orient Express, 151 Orphans and orphanages, 46, 55· vulnerability to sovietization, 57 Pacification, 48-49, 51 Pakistan Afghan culture in exile, 45-47 border partitioning, 114 Islamist ideology, 29, 32-33

216 trade, 53, 109 transportation systems, 20, 171-173 Pashtunistan, 114 People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), 41, 46 ideological formation, 52-53, 57 and mass organizations, 51-53 organization, 49-50 People's Republic of China historical trade routes, 127-128 Soviet relations, 161-164, 167-168, 170171, 177-179, 187 transportation development, 172, 174 Persian Constitution (1906), 28 Persian Gulf oil interests, 175-176 Persian literature, 40-41, 43, 46 Peter the Great, 120, 151 Pilsudski, Josef, 167 Pipeline transport systems Afghanistan, 80, 83, 113, 142-143, 206207(maps) Middle East links, 176 Midlands, 64-67, 71, 81-82, 141-143, 205-206(maps) Turkestan, 134-135(table), 141-143 Pipes, D., 114 Pivot of Asia (Lattimore), 161 Poland, 57, 164-165, 167 Polytechnic School (Afghanistan), 55 Port Arthur, 166, 174 Port Said, 177 Qur'an, 27, 29, 32, 43 Qur'anic schools, 42, 44-45 Qutb, Sayyed, 27 Rabbani, Burhanuddin, 44 Radio Kabul, 57 Railway systems Afghanistan, 20, 113, 140, 150, 174, 209(map) Far East links, 167 Greater Central Asia, 15-16, 203(map) Midlands, 66, 79-82, 122, 133, 136-137, 172-173, 204(map) Turkestan, 126, 129-131, 133, 134135(tables), 136-140 Rakowska-Harmstone, Teresa, 68-69 Rashidov, Sharaf, 181 Raubwirtschaft, 65-66 Razmju, Zohur, 52

Index Red Sea, 163, 176-177 Refugees (Afghan culture in exile), 45-47 Reza Shah Pahlavi, 25, 30 Riga Conference (1982), 184-185 Roadway systems Afghanistan, 16, 20, 113, 152, 207(map), 209(map) Midlands, 81-82, 137, 172-173 Tur~estan, 126, 134-135(table), 137-139 RSFSR. See Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic Russia, tsarist Afghanistan policy, 16, 55, 106, 110111, 120-121, 129-130, 151-152 Central Asian policy, 15-16, 61-62, 105, 128-131, 165-167 the "Great Game," 16 "heartland to rimland" policy, 105 and Islamic society, 24-25 population characteristics, 179 See also Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Russianization, 55, 182, 186 Russian Revolution, 111 Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR), 62 Russo-Japanese War, 166 Rywkin, Michael, 182 Saadi,43 SAF. See Soviet Armed Forces Saudi Arabia, 175 Saur Revolution (1978), 155 Sazonov, Sergei, 152 Sea Line of Communications (SLOC), 176-177. See also Southern Sea Route SEE. See Soviet Eurasian Empire Shabad, T., 103 Shah, Wazir, 45 Shevchenko, 124 Shibarghan, 142-143 Shi'ite Islam, 22, 26-30 Shindand (Soviet air base), 150 Siberia agricultural resources, 72, 73(table), 74 economy, 64-67 energy resources, 64-67, 71, 142, 181 industry and manufacturing, 74-75, 180 mainstream integration, 64-67, 102 transportation systems, 15, 82, 122, 128-129, 133, 137, 151, 166-167

217

Index water resources, 71, 181 western Midland regions, 62, 64-67, 71, 102, 142 Silk Routes, 127, 131 SLOe. See Sea Line of Communications South Africa, 105, 171 South China Sea, 178 Southern Sea Route (SSR), 151, 178-179 South Siberian railway, 122, 133 South Yemen, 48, 51-52 Soviet Armed Forces (SAF) and Afghanistan sovietization, 50-51, 56 geostrategic positioning, 76-77 machinery and equipment transports, 150 manpower crisis, 183 military districts (MD), 168 Muslim recruits, 184-186 naval forces, 176-179 theaters of military operation (TVD), 165-168, 169(table), 170-171, 177-178 Soviet Central Asia agricultural resources, 69, 72, 73(table), 74, 84-88, 89(table),' 102, 130, 137, 141, 149 cultural identity, 31-33, 111-112, 186187 employment and labor, 83-91, 126, 180, 183 energy resources, 17, 71-72, 141-148, 153 future prospects, 92-93 geography, 62, 121-127 industry and manufacturing, 74-75, 9093 mainstream integration, 53, 63, 68-70, 102-103, 111-114, 186-187 mineral resources, 17 population characteristics, 64, 68, 92, 182-189 Soviet investment policy, 92-93, 101 transportation systems, 17, 82, 132-133, 136-139, 141-143, 153, 172-174 water resources, 71, 125-126, 139, 181 wood and timber resources, 148 Soviet Embassy in Afghanistan, 52 Soviet Eurasian Empire (SEE), 180, 187188 major transport arteries, 210(map)

See also Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979) geopolitical strategies, 101, 151, 164165, 178 Islamic revival, 26, 57 and sovietization, 48 and trade relations, 82-83 transport systems, 18 Sovietization, 48-58, 182

Soviet Military Power, 183

Soviet Navy, 176-179 Soviet Union. See Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Soviet Union of Writers, 55 Spykman, N., 105 SSR. See Southern Sea Route Stalin, Joseph, 84 Strait of Hormuz, 105, 162, 174, 176 Strait of Malacca, 163, 178 Strategic Rocket Forces, 184 Suez Canal, 176 Sufism, 26, 29, 43-44, 46 Sunni Islam, 22, 26-30 Sweden, Afghan oil exploration, 106 Syria, 174 Taaffe, Robert, 136 Tadzhikistan, 114 Tamerlane, 128 Television, as an instrument of sovietization, 55, 57 Theaters of military operation (TVD), 177-178 Theroux, Paul, 152 TIR. See Trans-Iranian railway

Toward the Understanding of Russia

(Mendeleev), 179 Trans-Aral railway, 137, 141, 148-149 Transcaspia, 165. See also Central Asia, southern tier Transcaspian railway, 15, 129-131, 137, 140, 142, 148-149 Trans-Iranian railway (TIR), 173-174 Trans-Kazakhstan railway, 148-149 Trans-Persian railway, 151

Transport and Communications, 136

Transportation systems Afghanistan, 15-21, 33, 126, 172-174, 207(map), 209(map) European USSR, 63-64, 75, 81-83

Index

218 Far East links, 167 geographical constraints, 122-127 historical development, 14-21, 127-132 Indian Ocean links, 172-174 and Islamic ideology, 22, 31, 33 major arteries of Eurasia, 21O(map) See also Air transport systems; Pipeline transport systems; Railway systems; Roadway systems; Waterway transport systems Trans-Siberian Land Bridge (TSLB), 151 Trans-Siberian railway (TSR), 15, 122, 128-129, 166-167 TSLB. See Trans-Siberian Land Bridge TSR. See Trans-Siberian railway Turkestan Afghanistan integration, 114 agricultural resources, 130-131 aviation, 143-144 climate, 122-123, 126-127 commodity flows, 147-151 development constraints, 122-127 energy resources, 134-135(table), 141147 geography, 121-122, 126 history, 120-121, 127-132 Soviet-backed liberation forces, 163 Soviet military districts, 168 transportation systems, 127-133, 134135(tables), 136-141 water resources, 123-126, 139-141 See also Central Asia, southern tier Turkey, 174 Turk-Sib railway, 71, 82, 131, 137, 141, 149 TVD. See Theaters of military operation Ubaidullaeva, R. A., 86 'Ulama (Islamic leadership), 27-31, 42-44 UMR. See Urumchi Military Region UNESCO. See United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization Unified National Power Grid, 71 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) Afghanistan invasion (1978), 18, 48, 57, 82-83, 101, 151, 164-165, 178 Afghanistan relations, 77-81, 106-114 agricultural resources, 73(table), 8586(tables)

China relations, 161-164, 167-168, 179 correlation of forces, 160, 173, 175, 177, 179 economic autonomy policy, 102-104, 175, 188 employment and labor, 85-86(tables), 87-91 energy resources, 17, 103-105, 109-110, 115-116, 175-176, 180 geography, 132(table) geopolitical integration, 61-62, 160 imperial expansion, 31, 103-104, 172174, 176-179 Indian Ocean links, 76, 101, 105, 120121, 150, 162, 164, 171-174, 176-178 industry and manufacturing, 132(table) investment policy, 62, 70-75, 79, 84, 108, 125-126, 146, 153, 180, 183 Iranian relations, 140, 151 mineral resources, 76, 101-105, 115116, 153, 180 Muslim republics, 13, 53 natural resources, 132(table) population characteristics, 31-32, 62-63, 68, 75, 102-103, 126, 132(table), 179189 resource wars, 103-104, 175 trade flows, 64-72, 73(table), 74, 140 transportation systems, 76-77, 81-83, 210(map) two front war vulnerability, 76-77, 164 168, 170 U.S. relations, 106, 161-162, 164-165, 171 See also European USSR; Midlands; Russia; Soviet Central Asia United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 56 United States Afghanistan reSources development, 106 superpower competition in Central Asia, 106, 161-162, 164-165, 171, 176-177, 179 Viet Nam defeat, 25 University of Nebraska, 107 Urumchi Military Region (UMR), 163 Vietnam, 25, 164, 178

Volkerwanderungen (people's migrations), 127

Index VPo. See Anti-Aircraft Troops Wakhan Corridor, 112, 130 Waliullah, Shah, 26 Warsaw Pact, 168 Water resources Afghanistan, 112-113 Midlands, 71, 123-126, 181 and the rise and fall of civilizations, 128 Waterway transport systems, 134135(table), 139-141, 147 Welfare policy of the Soviet Union, 87, 90 West Germany, 107 West Siberia. See Siberia, western Midland regions

219 Wimbush, S. Enders, 185 Witte, Sergei, 130 Women, 54, 91, 184 Wood and timber resources, 148 World Bank, 103, 108 Wright, A. w., 103 "Yellowing of the Red Army," 184-186 Yousuf, Muhammad, 107 Youth, Islamic zeal and sovietization, 5354,57 Yugoslavia, 112 Zaher Shah, 30 Zand, Michael, 186 Zia ul-Haq, Mohammad, 14 Zone of Peace scheme, 164