If the USA was facing trouble around the world trying to keep pro-American governments in power, then the Soviet Union was faring little better. In 1978, a pro-Soviet regime took power in Afghanistan and, as in Iran, implemented reforms resented by the Muslim Mujahideen who, funded and supported by the Ayatollah Khomeini, fought against the ‘Godless’ government. The Soviets sent advisers and aid to help prop up the new regime but in 1979 the Mujahideen, in an attempted coup, killed hundreds of government supporters and several Soviet advisers. The government survived but its president, Nur Mohammad Taraki, sensing the end was near, appealed to the Kremlin for assistance, while his prime minister, Hafizullah Amin, led the reprisals against the rebels, killing thousands, including women and children. The Politburo declined to send help, fearful of the reaction of Soviet Muslims and believing that intervention would only commit the Soviet Union to a ‘Soviet Vietnam’. They advised Taraki to get rid of his prime minister, Hafizullah Amin, with whom splits were emerging. After Taraki returned from Moscow, in September he summoned Amin to the People’s Palace. Amin, aware that he was likely to be assassinated, came prepared. A shoot-out ensued; Amin escaped but returned and arrested Taraki, who was later suffocated by a pillow. Amin took power but was distrusted by both the Americans and the Soviets.
The new situation in Afghanistan demanded a rethink within the Kremlin, which concluded that the toppling of a pro-Soviet regime set a bad example which could be repeated elsewhere and that a show of force was needed. They also feared that this new anti-Soviet regime might invite the Americans in, thereby compromising the Afghanistan buffer zone on the Soviet border. On Christmas Eve 1979, Soviet tanks for the first time invaded the territory of a neutral country. Soviet troops stormed the capital, Kabul, and killed Amin. Carter, in his last days as US president, led the worldwide condemnation of the Soviet invasion. The USA shipped arms to the Muslim rebels, brought a halt to the ratification of the SALT II Treaty, increased military spending and, as a final gesture, announced its boycott of the coming summer Olympics in Moscow, the first to be held within the Eastern Bloc. The British Olympic team, in defiance of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, still attended.
The Soviet Union’s war against Afghanistan dragged on for nine years and proved to be, exactly as feared by the Politburo, the Soviet Vietnam.