The Great Game for Central Asian Oil -The Imperialist Ring from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan
Taimur Rahman, Communist Workers and Peasants Party Pakistan
4
October 2001
The recent attacks on the United States have generated an intense debate and a search for answers not only in the US but also in the communist movement. The alleged involvement of Ossama bin Ladin and the Taliban have created a new curiosity about Afghanistan and its neighbour Pakistan. People are asking, "what is the nature of this regime?" "Are we to believe the bourgeois media about the barbaric nature of the Taliban?" "Is this new ‘Islamic’ movement, anti-imperialist?" "If not, what is the position of the anti-imperialist movement in Afghanistan and Pakistan?" and the most important question of all "What is to be done?"
The Principle Contradiction
The point of view of the Communist Workers and Peasants Party Pakistan is that the current world historical epoch, in relation to imperialism, can not be understood without grasping that an imperialist armed ring--stretching from Yugoslavia to Afghanistan--is being formed around the Central Asian Oil republics. This ring is part of the new ‘Great Game’ for the oil resources of the former Soviet Union.
Historically, formations of such military/political/economic blocks are inevitable given the nature of monopoly capitalism. The capture of new markets and sources of raw material is a life and death struggle for imperialism: The system must expand or it will die. Lenin called this propensity the law of combined and uneven development of capitalism. Fierce competition for resources inevitably creates war.
The break-up of socialism in the land of Lenin and Stalin in 1991 created new markets and sources of raw materials and therefore, a scramble to capture them. Imperialism has fallen on these resources like a wolf, tearing every fibre of the old society apart with its military fangs. The most aggressive, U.S. imperialists have been setting up a military ring around the former Soviet oil republics. They have disguised each step as a different campaign. The "war against terror", the war against "greater Serbia", Chechynia, Daghestan, Syria and so on are all part of the same campaign to consolidate the global empire of U.S. imperialism. But the people are not fooled by the glib talk of the biggest terrorist machine in the world (the U.S. government).
In order to dispel the brainwashing from the cold hard facts, the lying from the reality, the hypocrisy from the truth, it is important to delve briefly into the history of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A Short History of Afghanistan and Pakistan
During the colonial era, Afghanistan was a buffer state between British India and Tsarist Russia. The colonialists were not interested in remoulding the class structure of Afghanistan to create capitalism. They were more interested in maintaining this region (including Baluchistan and North-West Frontier Province in Pakistan) as a military outpost of the British Empire. The British colonialists only reached this region of the sub-continent by the late 19th century and by this time the War of Independence 1857 had changed many of their ideas about governance. They argued that one of the main reasons for the so-called "Mutiny" was that the British had gone too far too quickly in changing the political and economic system of the sub-continent. Henceforth, they advised caution and began to support many of the tribal and feudal leaders, customs, traditions and ownership patterns as long as these areas remained loyal to the British Empire. This was called the "Forward Policy". The result was that capitalism developed far slower in these regions (Afghanistan, Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province in Pakistan) and the mode of production remained tribal and/or feudal.
After the Colonial era, the mode of production did not fundamentally change. Internally, capitalist development was limited to trade and small-scale production. Foreign investment, that could have altered the class contradictions of Afghanistan, was insignificant. The primary external source of modernisation was the influence of the Soviet Union. Generous Soviet assistance helped to create prosperous and modern cities. Most of the infrastructure, including airports, roads, universities, hospitals so on, were built with the assistance of the Soviet Union. However, politically Afghanistan was still ruled by a Constitutional Monarchy.
The assistance given by the Soviet Union did not create a bourgeoisie but it did create a progressive pro-Soviet intellegentsia that desired democratic reform. On the other hand, most of the peasants continued to live in feudal and tribal servitude. This imbalance was inevitable given the tribal/feudal mode of production in Afghanistan.
When the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan overthrew King Daud 1978 the feudal and tribal leaders were frightened at the prospect of loosing their bloody rule. The revolutionary section of the PDPA was led by Noor Muhammad Taraki and Hafeezullah Amin. They were referred to as Khalq (people) after the name of their paper and stood for agrarian reform and modernisation. The revisionist and opportunist section of the PDPA was led by Babrak Karmal and were called Parcham (flag) after the name of their paper and stood for a moderate policy towards the feudals. Almost immediately the PDPA found itself in the midst of a super-power conflict. The U.S. began to arm and equip the Mujahideen through Pakistan. They backed a brutal military Islamic dictatorship under General Zia ul Haq in Pakistan and used brute force in the name of Islam to destroy the popular democratic and socialist movements in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ossama bin Ladin along with all the other Islamic fundamentalists (including the so-called northern alliance) were trained by the imperialists and their puppet the government of Saudi Arabia. In December 1979 Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan and installed the opportunist Babrak Karmal and the Parcham group to power. The Soviet revisionists destroyed the revolutionaries in Afghanistan. With the dissemination of the revolutionary leadership of Khalq and the invasion by the Soviet Union, the PDPA lost its ideological bearing and revolutionary moral authority.
In 1989, the revisionist Gorbachev withdrew the Soviet troops. After the break-up of the Soviet Union owing to modern revisionism the Mujahideen were able to take power in Afghanistan in 1992. The rapacious nature of the Mujahideen was revealed to all when they fell out with each other and began to fight for power. However, none of these plundering groups was strong enough to completely destroy the other. This instability was no longer conducive to foreign investment. At this time oil companies (for example UNICOL from the U.S.) began to talk to the Pakistani government and different Mujahideen groups about the prospect of building a pipeline from Central Asia, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, ending at the Makran coast in Pakistan. But the precondition for such a billion-dollar project was a stable Afghanistan.
Oil Companies Need a United and Stable Afghanistan
It was in light of these objective that the Pakistan army and intelligence agencies (in particular the ISI Inter Services Intelligence) assembled the Taliban and equipped them with more arms and funds in comparison to the other Mujahideen groups. Additional funds came from heroin grown in Afghanistan and sold in Pakistan or exported through supply routes in Iran and Central Asia to Europe and Russia. In 1996, the Taliban took power in Kabul. Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, worried by this Pakistani/Taliban influence gave critical support to the Northern Alliance to bog down the Taliban. India was also worried that a complete victory for the Taliban would mean that those forces would now be free to operate in Kashmir (a disputed territory between India and Pakistan where Mujahideen also operate). Therefore, India also backed the Northern Alliance.
After many years of fighting the Taliban have not been able to consolidate power. Their fundamentalist practices and internationalist brand of militant Islam has worried India, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Iran, which is a Shia country (a section of Islam), is against Taliban Wahabi-ism and Saudi/Pakistani backed expansionism. Therefore, the Taliban have not been able to amass enough strength to unite the country. A situation exists where different warlords are allied to different countries and all are seeking to unite Afghanistan on terms that benefit their country.
It is indeed sad to see that even amidst all this destitution, poverty, and depravation these warlords backed by different countries are fighting for oil, drugs and power. In a society where women lack fundamental democratic freedoms groups are thinking of capturing markets. Contrary to media images of irrational Maulvi’s and mad Islamic clergymen there is a sad logic to the entire system of barbarity that is not too different from the logic of capitalist primitive accumulation. Nothing happens without logic. This should also help to explain the logic behind the impending U.S. attacks on Afghanistan. This attack is expected to create another 1.5 to 2 million homeless people. A fine retribution 2 million homeless for 6,000 lives. The imperialists know that the terms of trade must always be in their favour.
Why is the U.S. Interested in Attacking Afghanistan Now?
Only simpletons would believe that the real intentions are "retribution" for NYC. No, the two million homeless people are being created only to unite Afghanistan under U.S. control to lay the foundation for an oil pipeline. The Taliban have proved to be too "rowdy". They have their own ambitions of Saudi/Pakistani/Talibani global Islamic expansionism. Their tribal brand of Islamic Fundamentalism has isolated them and attracts too much attention. Therefore, the U.S. prefers to play ball with another group of Mujaideen and Monarchists: enter the Northern Alliance and King Zahir Shah. Some people believe that we should choose the "lesser of the two evils". On the other hand, people believe that we should support the Taliban. We propose that both solutions are incorrect.
What is to be Done?
It is clear that outside powers have meddled with Afghanistan’s affairs too long. Outside powers have brought ruin to the country. Therefore, the CMKP feels that all communists must work concertedly to destroy, first and foremost, the influence on Afghanistan of the ruling classes of their own respective countries. This must be united strategy of all communists in the world with respect to Afghanistan. Let us look at the alliances.
Therefore, it is the foremost (but by no means the sole) duty of Pakistani communists to expose the role of the Pakistani ruling class in relation to its support of the Taliban. In a word, the Pakistani communists must cut the hand that feeds the Taliban. We would become apologists of the Pakistani ruling class if we did not oppose the Taliban. However, we can not let our opposition of the Taliban merge, under any circumstances, with the rhetoric of the U.S. imperialists or their stooges in Pakistan. Therefore, in the current historical setting, we must play the tricky role of opposing the U.S. imperialists and their stooges in Pakistan, in such a manner that we simultaneously educate people about the history of fundamentalism. We have to show the connection between Fundamentalism and the ruling class of Pakistan. We must uphold that a genuine anti-imperialist struggle has to be a struggle against the ruling classes of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
At the same time, we feel that it is the duty of comrades in India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan to expose the role that their governments have played in backing fundamentalist Mujahideen such as the Northern Alliance. They would become apologists of their ruling classes if they did not do so, or attempted to paint these fundamentalists in more "liberal" colours. The tendency to paint the Northern Alliance in "liberal" colours must be fought tooth and nail. This plays into the hands of the imperialists at this point in time when they wish to create legitimacy for the Northern Alliance and King Zahir Shah.
We also feel that communists in Europe and America must mobilise domestic support against war in any country under the guise of fighting terrorism. The biggest terrorist machines on Earth, the imperialist armies, can only create terror to put up oil pipelines. If European or U.S. parties were to accept the notion that their governments could play a "progressive role in Afghanistan" today, they would be guilty of the worst kind of social chauvinism. It would reveal that they understand nothing about the Northern Alliance or the history of involvement of imperialism in Afghanistan.
We advocate that all communists, everywhere in the world, must stand shoulder to shoulder and resist any attack on any third world country by any imperialist country. This does not mean that we support the Taliban. But that we support the people of Afghanistan against an imperialist terrorist machine a million times the size of the Taliban and a hundred million times more vicious.
The Anti-imperialist Movement in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Many people with good intentioned think that they should support the lesser of two evils because there is no other option. This is completely wrong. In Afghanistan and in Pakistan there is a communist movement working towards an anti-imperialist revolution. These movements have been suppressed by the ruling classes and fundamentalists backed by imperialists but they have not been eliminated. Because of these difficult circumstances, the communist parties have been forced to take a low profile. In the case of Afghanistan, communists have to remain totally underground. But do you really think the heirs of the Long March are that easy to beat? In Pakistan the largest Marxist–Leninist Party is the Communist Workers and Peasants Party (CMKP), there is also the Workers Front (a Hoxaist party), National Students Federation (Maoist student movement), Labour Party (Trotskyite), Peoples Party Shaheed Bhutto Group (popular democratic) and many other anti-imperialist parties. In Afghanistan it is far harder to organise openly. But communists have set up base in Pakistan and operate secretly in Afghanistan. There is the Afghanistan Liberation Organisation (Maoist), PDPA Khalq, and other secular democratic parties. Movements in other countries can help these anti-imperialist forces by pulling back and destroying imperialist intervention that shores up anti-communist fundamentalism. They would NOT help the communists of Pakistan and Afghanistan by passively allowing imperialist intervention to strengthen one fundamentalist group over another. Rest assured that even in war-ridden Afghanistan, there is a third way. Lenin liked to say that proletariat movements in oppressed countries must be supported even if they are in their "embryonic form". How can we win, if we are not aiming to? The genuine anti-imperialist and Marxist-Leninist forces will become stronger in the measure that imperialism is stopped from intervention in any third world country.
We must also avoid the tendency to paint the Taliban and the fundamentalist parties as "anti-imperialists". The imperialist system does not only exist in the United States alone; it is a global system of production. Therefore, anti-U.S. sentiment is not necessarily anti-imperialism. Imperialism is a system of monopoly capitalism. It has its roots in the class structure of third world countries. In Pakistan, for example, the ruling class is composed of the civil military bureaucracy (the strongest component of the ruling class), the feudals, and the twenty-two big capitalist families (that monopolise 60-70 percent of industrial production). In Afghanistan the ruling class does not exist in a national stable sense but consists as changing alliances between feudals and tribals that have organised themselves as Islamic Fundamentalists. The ruling class in both these countries is not a "revolutionary national bourgeoisie" that can play an "anti-imperialist role" such as Lenin wrote about Sun Yat Sen in China. This ruling class is a part and parcel of the imperialist system. Therefore, an anti-imperialist movement, regardless of whether it is Marxist-Leninist or democratic or Islamic, can be only a movement that seeks to destroy the ruling class. In other words, only a movement against the ruling class in Pakistan and Afghanistan can be considered an anti-imperialist movement. Such is certainly not the nature of the Taliban or the Fundamentalists. They are merely paramilitary forces, recruited mostly from the lower middle class (petty bourgeois), of the civil military bureaucracy and feudal mafia in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The current conflict is not too different than the conflict between U.S. imperialists and Noriega in Panama. Did Noriega represent an anti-imperialist movement? The answer is self-evident.
Conclusion
Only the Afghan people can decide their own destiny. Fundamentalism can not be destroyed by imperialist intervention. It can only be destroyed by a popular struggle by Pakistani and Afghani people. Millions of people have suffered because of them and are resisting. If the anti-imperialist movement in the West is able to destroy the intervention in Afghanistan, it will have performed a great service to the anti-imperialist movement in Pakistan and Afghanistan. All the bloody tentacles have to withdrawn from the body of Afghan society. Every comrade in their respective country must work to destroy the tentacle that feeds reaction from their own country. We feel that this is the correct Marxist-Leninist position to take in the current historical epoch.