275. Telegram From the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State1
8285. Subject. Soviet Concern About Spill-Over of Islamic Fundamentalism From Afghanistan.
1. (C—Noforn—Entire text)
2. During a May 14 reception for members of the Incidents at Sea (INCSEA) Delegations, Acting Political Counselor engaged a Soviet Navy Captain 1/R Valentin Alekseyevich Serkov in a conversation on Afghanistan. After remarking that it was heartening to learn that the INCSEA talks were proceeding well, A/PolCouns referred to the overall state of bilateral relations and commented that the Soviet action in Afghanistan had undermined détente.
3. Serkov responded along the following lines: “You Americans must understand Soviet history in order to understand our actions in Afghanistan. It took the Soviet Government twenty years to suppress the Muslim resistance in Central Asia and to establish the Soviet Republics there. It was a bloody and costly struggle. Accordingly, we were not going to just stand by and see a Soviet-supported government on the borders of the Soviet Union overthrown by the same forces of Muslim fundamentalism which we had conquered in the Soviet Union earlier. This is the major reason we sent our troops into Afghanistan.”
4. Comment: Serkov is the Deputy Head of the Soviet INCSEA Delegation. He has been involved in INCSEA matters since before the agreement was signed in 1972, and is familiar to U.S. members as an extremely serious, dedicated party member. He is thought to be the controlling member of the Soviet delegation, often cowing higher ranking members. His influence appears to far outstrip the rank he wears. Serkov is not given to thoughtless, emotional or inadvertent remarks.
5. It is unusual to hear an official Soviet make so explicit his concern about the possible spill-over of Islamic militancy into Central Asia should the anti-regime forces in Afghanistan not be checked. Periodically Soviet media try to “sell” the intervention in Afghanistan by drawing a parallel between these forces and the “Basmachi” movement which carried on guerrilla war against the Soviet authorities in Central Asia until well into the 1930’s. Pravda on March 7, for example, pub [Page 737] lished a letter from a Frunze resident (probably a Kirghiz) citing his own upbringing in an atmosphere of “Basmachi” violence and his support for Soviet aid to Afghanistan, a “victim of outside aggression” like the Soviet Union in the interwar years.2 More recently, during a television broadcast, Literaturnaya Gazeta editor Aleksandr Chakovskiy, recalled to viewers the Basmachi movement and, in the next breath, stated that the USSR cannot permit its Afghani border to become a springboard for attacks against the USSR.
End comment.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Foreign Policy File, D800259–0354. Confidential; Noforn. Sent for information to USICA, DIA, CNO, COMNAVINTCOM, Warsaw, Beijing, Belgrade, Bucharest, Budapest, Hong Kong, Islamabad, Kabul, Leningrad, London, New Delhi, Munich, Paris, Prague, Sofia, and USNATO.↩
- The Basmachi movement refers to the Muslim insurrection against Soviet domination in Central Asia, particularly Turkistan, approximately 1917–1926.↩