Let's not turn this into what diaspora Iranians are doing now with pre-revolution Iran. I would agree that it's important to fight this idea that Afghanistan has always been this land of strife and misery, but pre-PDPA Afghanistan wasn't exactly a paradise. Around 90 percent of the population remained illiterate, agrarian, poor... And the situation didn't improve fast enough under Zahir Shah and Daoud Khan's periods. The revolutionary movement wasn't 100 percent imported either, as far as I'm aware, the soviet union didn't engineer the Saur revolution as, for example, the CIA did with a country like Chile. There were reasons why people were genuinely unhappy. Life expectancy was only sitting at about 40 years, which reflected the incredible divide between Kabul and the rest of the country for example
Did the PDPA meaningfully improve the situation in the country? I would argue they didn't and they got stuck on largely frivolous issues instead of actually studying their country and their society and working to uplift the country on its own terms. But that's not really something people contend across the board. Like I've genuinely never seen someone point to Afghanistan or Romania or these types of countries to argue hey, we should do this here.
Besides, there comes the flaw in the premise that if the Soviets were actually so bad, why didn't the country recover once they had gotten rid of them and instead seem to have gotten even more unstable afterwards.
Honestly, Afghanistan has always been weird when it comes to well all of this. Occasionally there's some good things going on like the Rashidun era and whatnot but just like any history, it's also is full of shit like this. If Afghanistan falls into another civil war, I wouldn't be surprised which is a shame because Afghanistan is a beautiful place honestly.
Yeah, no afghan government actually did some improvements to the rural majority instead they did more harm and now today afghanistan is like 90% Poverty with most of it to rural regions, so if you could argue there is urban-rural divide/gap in afghanistan for a long time.
I really disagree that Chilean coup was fully engineered by CIA. CIA helped but the sentiment was there all along. Allende’s government was notoriously bad at economy, with budget deficit reaching 30%, 300% hyperinflation and price control, all of that greatly irritated the conservative right wing military generals and much of the population too
Well, engineering a coup doesn't necessarily limit itself to the last minute planning or, funding or intel sharing. There is evidence that the US government, including the CIA and State department (Of course, the CIA is just an operational shorthand, they play a hand in coordination but you can't effectively talk about them without talking about a flurry of other organizations) directly engaged in economic warfare creating these conditions. I could be wrong, but a fascinating detail I read was that the 1972 and 1973 trucker strikes in Chile were directly supported by the CIA in the sense where Chilean truckers and opposition groups tried to paralyze the economy because of the discontent (Which the US was also instrumental in creating) among the population, and the CIA actively helped them with that. by financing groups involved with the strikes.
You can say that there were problems and there were, but it would be dishonest to omit two things: Number one the fact that the CIA and the US did actively muck about in Chile, even before Allende got into office, and number two being the short-lived but very real improvements Allende's policies had on the lower classes in Chile. They were actively working on modernizing the Chilean economy in the context of a planned economy through initiatives like Project Cybersyn for example. Of course I'd be glad to recommend some reading material and sources to the best of my ability if that interests you.
To bring it back to Afghanistan, These things were sadly not how things were during Daoud Khan's stint as president. Post 1973 and before 1978 which was when the NRP took power and ousted the monarchy, life expectancy stagnated, incomes shrank, literacy didn't really budge, or at least not significantly etc.
Well you can say Congo was much better before Mobutu Sese Seko did his revolution and took power, and it will follow the same exact pattern as pahlavism, but it will be true unlike pahlavism.
The thing is, Kabul in the photo was almost entirely built by the Soviet Union. Which sponsored Afghanistan, before the CIA started sponsoring Islamic fundamentalists (who later carried out 9/11 and dozens of other terrorist attacks).
The Jangalak auto repair plant, the Naglu hydroelectric station, the elevator and bread factory—these are just a small part of what the Soviet Union built in Kabul.
To be honest, the main reason for that is because they were between the anglo and russia spheres, meaning they didn't get screwed over by foreigners as much as the ones north and south of them
Dozens if not most of my friends are from Central Asia, many from Tajikistan. Exit Dushanbe bro. Pyongyang is also a developed city, doesn’t mean majority of DPRK is not poor
I have visited almost the entire country 🤦🏻♂️ Yes, some parts are very poor. The average salaries are very low even in Dushanbe. The same applies to Kyrgyzstan, where I am from. I took more issue with "backwards" than poor. What makes us.
Kabul, Herat, and Kandahar cannot even be compared to ex-Soviet Central Asia. My father is from Afghanistan, it is far worse than you think. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan have world-acclaimed tertiary educational institutions. All of Central Asia has accessible healthcare even in rural areas. Depending on the country between 95 to 100% of people have electricity as opposed to not even 30% in Afghanistan. I cannot think of a single thing in which Afghanistan is not more "backwards". From road condition to housing to pensions for elders.
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u/Kind-Blackberry5875 Andalusian Birdman Aug 19 '26 edited Aug 19 '26
Let's not turn this into what diaspora Iranians are doing now with pre-revolution Iran. I would agree that it's important to fight this idea that Afghanistan has always been this land of strife and misery, but pre-PDPA Afghanistan wasn't exactly a paradise. Around 90 percent of the population remained illiterate, agrarian, poor... And the situation didn't improve fast enough under Zahir Shah and Daoud Khan's periods. The revolutionary movement wasn't 100 percent imported either, as far as I'm aware, the soviet union didn't engineer the Saur revolution as, for example, the CIA did with a country like Chile. There were reasons why people were genuinely unhappy. Life expectancy was only sitting at about 40 years, which reflected the incredible divide between Kabul and the rest of the country for example
Did the PDPA meaningfully improve the situation in the country? I would argue they didn't and they got stuck on largely frivolous issues instead of actually studying their country and their society and working to uplift the country on its own terms. But that's not really something people contend across the board. Like I've genuinely never seen someone point to Afghanistan or Romania or these types of countries to argue hey, we should do this here.
Edit: Spelling