Down with Big Brother (5 page)

The last visitor to Zareche that day, Konstantin Chernenko, had little to do with the formulation of foreign policy. He was there by courtesy of his relationship with Brezhnev, whom he had known for more than three decades. He was the Kremlin’s chief paper shuffler, responsible for drafting Politburo minutes. He performed a series of indispensable chores for the general secretary, such as compiling laudatory press clippings, doling out cigarettes, and swapping old war stories. Chernenko was such a dullard that aides and bodyguards laughed at him behind his back.

Chernenko had a favorite catchphrase—“everything’s fine, everything’s fine”—which he repeated endlessly. Occasionally this got him in trouble with his patron. One day, as he sat in his office, Brezhnev complained that he had been unable to sleep at all the previous night. Chernenko, who also suffered from insomnia, was barely awake at the time. “
Vsyo khorosho,
” he murmured, scarcely aware of what was happening around him. “Everything’s fine.”

“What’s fine about that?” roared Brezhnev. “I can’t sleep, and you go on with your ‘Everything’s fine.’ ”

“Ohhh,” sputtered Chernenko, by now wide-awake, “that’s not fine.”
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T
HE
G
ENERAL
S
TAFF
had serious doubts about the proposed invasion. Afghanistan’s rugged terrain and warrior traditions had created enormous problems for both tsarist Russia and the British Empire. The generals’ concerns were shared by Foreign Ministry officials, who feared the international repercussions of a Soviet move into Afghanistan. But Ustinov and Andropov were convinced that a massive show of force would intimidate the opposition and restore order in the country. What they had in mind was a short, sharp operation, somewhat like the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Protected and encouraged by the Soviet army, “healthy forces” would regain control of the Afghan party from the usurper, Amin. The presence of Soviet troops in the capital, Kabul, and other garrison towns would permit the Afghan army to suppress the antigovernment insurgency. Under no circumstances would Soviet soldiers be allowed to take part in combat operations against the mujahedin. The actual fighting would be done by Afghans.
³²

When the chiefs of the General Staff expressed skepticism about this plan, Ustinov summoned the dissenters to his office. He had two marsnals and a general stand at attention in front of his desk, beneath the portrait of Lenin. “Are generals now making policy in the Soviet Union?” he demanded angrily. “Your task is to plan specific operations and to carry out your orders.”
³³
The implied accusation of Bonapartism—regarded as a mortal sin by Soviet Communists—was enough to bring the dissenters into line. The generals saluted smartly and got to work.

Once the foreign policy troika had taken a decision to use force in Afghanistan, the only man capable of blocking the invasion was the
gensek
himself. But Brezhnev was distressed by the gruesome fate that had befallen Taraki, just a few days after their public embrace, and regarded Amin’s refusal
to accept Soviet advice as a personal affront. “What will they say in other countries?” he had asked his aides, in a characteristic fit of emotion. “Is it possible to believe the word of Brezhnev if all his assurances of support and protection remain mere words?”
³⁴

The decision to invade had been endorsed by the Politburo on the evening of December 12. One by one, the twelve senior members of the leadership had joined Brezhnev in scrawling their names across the Central Committee resolution NR 176/125, approving a series of “measures” to be taken in country “A.”
³⁵
The measures were so secret that they could not be committed to paper. To prevent a possible leak via the Politburo typist, Chernenko wrote out the resolution by hand.

There were two stages to the operation. With Amin’s agreement, three divisions of Soviet troops would be dispatched to Afghanistan with the ostensible purpose of “saving the revolution.” They would then proceed to the second stage, the forcible removal of Amin and the installation of a more compliant Afghan leader. Soviet military planners envisaged Operation Storm as a gesture of “fraternal assistance” and invasion rolled into one.
³⁶

While the inner Politburo met at Brezhnev’s dacha on December 26, a fleet of four hundred Soviet transport planes was already pouring into Kabul’s Bagram Airport. A plane landed every three or four minutes, discharge troops and armored vehicles, and fly away for more without turning off its engines.
³⁷
The operation was supervised by Ustinov, Andropov, and Gromyko, who reported the results to Brezhnev.

Convinced it was his duty to preserve the empire that had been put together with so much blood, the general secretary gave the order for Operation Storm to proceed. The following day Chernenko dictated a memorandum recording that the general secretary “approved the plan of action for the immediate future, as outlined by the comrades.”
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Shortly afterward Brezhnev was heard to boast that “it will all be over in three to four weeks.”
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Many years later, when a search was made of the archives for the political decision that led to the bloody events of December 27, these two notes drafted by Chernenko were all that could be found. By that time the men who had taken the fateful decision to invade Afghanistan were long dead, and the Soviet Union itself was no more.

KABUL
December 27, 1979

H
AFIZULLAH
A
MIN WAS CONVINCED
that the Red Army was coming to his rescue. His personal envoy had just returned from Moscow with news that the Soviet Union was at last ready to provide Afghanistan with “fraternal assistance.” The Kremlin had accepted his explanation for the overthrow and murder of Taraki, the original “Great Leader” of the Afghan revolution. Soon Amin’s hold on power would be secure.

There had been some difficult moments. Over the past few weeks Communists loyal to Taraki had begun a campaign to assassinate members of the new regime. At the beginning of December they had succeeded in lightly wounding Amin and killing his nephew. Anti-Communist rebels had advanced to within a few miles of the capital, cutting the main north-south highway. For security reasons Amin had moved out of the House of the People in downtown Kabul a week earlier. His new residence was a monstrous three-story fortress, the Dār-ol-Amān Palace, built by a former Afghan king. Located at the base of the Hindu Kush mountains, seven miles southwest of Kabul, the palace was defended by an Afghan infantry brigade. Tanks guarded the only approach road, a winding serpentine.

Amin had some doubts about the loyalty of his own troops but trusted his Soviet advisers completely. He knew the Soviet leaders were angry with
him for killing Taraki but reasoned that they would support the winning side. Confident that he was the victor in the Afghan fratricide, Amin gratefully accepted Soviet offers of “protection.” He allowed a battalion of elite troops from Soviet Central Asia—the so-called Muslim battalion—to take up positions near his palace.
⁴⁰
Soviet advisers had intimate knowledge of his security arrangements. Frightened that Afghan cooks might try to poison him, Amin had even gone to the length of employing two cooks from the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan.

On December 27 Amin entertained government ministers at lunch. He wanted to show them his new residence and boast about his Soviet connections. “The Soviet divisions are already on their way. Everything is going fine,” he assured his guests, referring to the thousands of Soviet troops already pouring into Bagram Airport. “I am in constant contact with Comrade Gromyko. We are discussing how to inform the world about the decision to grant us Soviet assistance.”
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At the end of the lunch everybody at the table fell violently ill. Amin, together with many of his guests, lost consciousness. Soviet and Afghan doctors were summoned. Although this was obviously a case of mass food poisoning, it did not occur to anyone to suspect the Soviet kitchen staff.

The doctors were greeted by a tableau of wretchedness. All over the palace—in the hallways, on the staircases, in waiting rooms—prominent Afghans were lying in unnatural poses. Some were still unconscious. Some were doubled up, clutching their stomachs. Some were screaming with pain. The Soviet military doctors, who were not informed about the plot to overthrow the Afghan leader, were ushered into an upstairs room where Amin was lying on a bed, dressed only in a pair of shorts. His pulse was weak. His jaw was hanging down, and his eyes were rolling. The doctors pumped his stomach, injected him with antidotes for food poisoning, and attached drips to his veins. Suddenly his eyelids began fluttering. The “Brave Commander” was pulling through.

As he regained consciousness, Amin began asking questions. “What’s happening in my house?” he demanded. “Who did this? Is this an accident—or some kind of diversion?”
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But it still did not occur to him to suspect his Soviet comrades. “Believe it or not, this is the work of the Taraki group,” he told his wife, who had not attended the luncheon.
⁴³

T
HE CRUMBLING AVENUES
and twisting alleyways of Kabul were practically deserted as Grigori Boyarinov embarked on the mission that would
mark the start of the Soviet Union’s last great colonial adventure. The evening curfew came into force at 7:00 p.m., and only security personnel were allowed on the streets. The sprawling mud slums on the outskirts of the city seemed peaceful. Confined to their homes, many Afghan families were preparing to sit down for dinner. Radios and television sets were blaring out from countless courtyards. The aroma of shashlik—a pungent mixture of oil, wood fires, and sizzling meat—filled the crisp winter air.

A plan to poison the Afghan leader and take him into custody had already gone awry. Amin had only nibbled at his food and had been able to make a premature recovery. His aides had resisted Soviet offers to transfer him to the Soviet military hospital in Kabul. Alarmed by the mass food poisoning, the Afghan authorities had begun to strengthen the guard around the palace. The Soviet attack, originally planned for eleven that night, would now have to be brought forward.

Crouching in an armored personnel carrier a couple of miles from the Dār-ol-Amān Palace, Boyarinov waited for the signal to launch the attack. The fifty-seven-year-old colonel was easily the most experienced member of the sixty-member assault team. Indeed he could probably claim to be the Soviet Union’s leading expert on partisan warfare. As a young lieutenant in World War II he had earned numerous medals for bravery by parachuting behind German lines and causing havoc in the enemy’s rear. He had gone on to write a dissertation on the subject, and he had also run a school for KGB snipers. For the last eighteen years he had served as head of the guerrilla warfare department at the KGB staff college, training the young men who would soon be going into battle beside him. Earlier that year Boyarinov had spent three months in Afghanistan, advising the Afghan Army and analyzing the military situation.

If there was going to be action in Afghanistan, Boyarinov wanted to be part of it. This handsome, well-built man, known to everyone as Grisha, felt an obligation to his “boys” in the Alpha and Zenith squads of the KGB. At the same time, like many professional officers, he had some reservations about the whole Afghan business. Before returning to Afghanistan, he had tried to cheer up a KGB colleague who had failed to win a place in the assault team. “Don’t worry, we will get our fill of Afghanistan. It sounds bitter, I know, but I am afraid that this is going to last a long time.”
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After his superiors outlined the operation to him, he commented dryly to a friend, “Let’s hope that the people who prepared this attack know what they are doing.”
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Shortly before 7:30 p.m. Soviet commandos blew up the Kabul post office with 115 pounds of plastic explosive. The bomb knocked out the
telecommunications system of the Afghan capital. Echoing off the mountains that ring Kabul, the explosion served as a signal to groups of Soviet commandos scattered in different parts of the city to move into action. Within minutes Soviet and Afghan troops were battling for control of key buildings in the capital: the Interior Ministry; the headquarters of the General Staff; the central prison. Red tracer bullets and puffs of artillery smoke flashed across the nighttime sky. The Muslim battalion began firing on the Dār-ol-Amān Palace, and a column of armored cars moved up the serpentine approach road.

The assault plan went wrong from the start. The shelling began too early, depriving the attackers of the advantage of surprise. The shells seemed to bounce off the thick walls of the palace as if they were made of rubber. A burned-out Afghan bus blocked the palace driveway, forcing the Soviet commandos to make a dash for it on foot. Under heavy fire from the upper floors of the palace, they blasted their way into the ground floor with portable grenade launchers. Within the first few minutes of fighting at the palace, half the Soviet assault force lay sprawled on the ground, either dead or injured.