Comrades, in Sorrow

The Soviet Union’s military incursion into Afghanistan continued for more than 9 years (1979-1989). Estimates suggest 500,000 to 2 million Afghani civilians may have been killed by the invading force. Millions more fled to Iran and Pakistan. When the end of this misadventure came for the Soviet army, they had suffered 14,000 deaths and more than 53,000 wounded.

Communist party leader Leonid Brezhnev, who ordered the 40^th Army into Afghanistan, died in 1982.

What does one say?

Of course, there still must be Russian mothers and fathers who mourn the loss of their sons in that Afghanistan campaign. Weighed down by memories, like favorite meals shared so many times. Perhaps pelmeni. And brothers and sisters going forward with their lives, in sorrow over siblings killed, too, no doubt.

One may easily ask whether they question the value of their sons’ and brothers’ sacrifice. Or whether the country was a united front supporting Russian goals in the war. But, decisions were made from on high by a handful of the leadership. How it went is now a topic for historians to toil over.

Mikhail Gorbachev, final head of the Communist Party and the USSR, ordered the withdrawal of the Soviet forces in 1988 and then oversaw the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991.

And, one cannot forget the wives and children left behind who grieve their personal losses from the Soviet-Afghan War. Haunted, they may be, by remembrances, birthdays, a wedding anniversary, or a last picnic, maybe on the bank of the Kasplya River.

But what do fellow citizens say to those who were left behind with their sorrow? What do soldiers who made it back safely say to those families now?

In 2009, the Russian Duma (parliament) recognized the split in opinion over the war, but those divergent views they argued “mustn’t erode the Russian people’s respect for the soldiers who honestly fulfilled their duty in implementing tasks to combat international terrorism and religious extremists”.

Yet, in the final human analysis, what does one say?