ABSTRACT
With the coming to power of the communists, the uncertainty and fragmentation that was already present became exacerbated. The interparty rivalry between the pro-China and pro-Soviet communists on the one hand and the intra-party rivalry between the two pro-Moscow factions on the other exacerbated the ethnic, tribal and religious fragmentation already prevalent. The main reason for this was the communists’ underestimating of the public reaction to their plans for modernisation such as internal reforms and external dependence on the Soviets. The Soviet leaders made the mistake of ignoring both their own scholars’ ethnographic and politico-historic studies of Afghan society and their own past imperial contacts with the Afghans. They rushed into an agreement with the Afghan communists who were a tiny proportion of the country’s population not representing the majority and thus entering into Afghanistan’s affairs in an unprecedented way.
