RIGHT-WING Muslim rebels have seized parts of the city of Herat Afghanistan reaction has accelerated propaganda campaign against the Taraki government.
Even if they survive Mohammed Noor Taraki and his colleagues will have some crucial decisions to make in the coming months.
Afghanistan did There were no major mass mobilisations leading to a seizure of power by a party committed to fundamental social change.
LOOK place was radical coup which disintegrated important sections of the state apparatus, but did not destroy it.
Socialist Challenge 29 March 1979 page 12 overthrow the dictatorship was a hybrid. The old state was not destroyed, but a pro-Moscow Communist Party total governmentai power. the It instituted a wide-ranging set of social and economic reforms and the basis existed for an al-out orrensive agams! reactionary social forces. pass But this could only have been carried through audacious policy of mobilisations and the formation of mass democratic bodies.
the opposite. He instituted a classic Stalinist-type police state. He purged opponents and the Minister of Defence, Abdul Qadir, was one of many who 'confessed" to Daud their 'crimes'. curious At the same time the press became even more monolithic than under the previous regime CACrOISCU and the cult of Taraki' dominated the media. Mass enthusiasm for regime began to decline and the Hizb-e-Islam [Party of Islam] backed by friends and Saudi launched a counter-offensive. by an Ine only way to resist tnis mass offensive is to full-scale social and political revolution.
exact Moscow Radio appealing to the masses in the name of the Koran.
The problem here is that the genuine believers adept at that particular tactic!
*comrade the in Iran, Arabia embark on a But Taraki and are instead are more NORMAN- CLASS STRUGGLE IN AFRICA E NEW issue of African Study Group bulletin now• out. Available from most socialist ASG, c/0 Housmans Bookshop, Caledonian Road, London N1. 40p + 20p.
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