Soviets Seek to Remold Afghan Society, Culture : Permeate Government, Education and Economy, While Armed Forces Try to Crush Insurgency

A group of Afghan children, none older than 9, spotted a foreigner on the streets of this hot, dusty capital.

“Zdravstvyete, tovarishch,” they shouted in chorus, using the Russian words for “Hello, comrade.”

The encounter points up both their assumption that any foreigner would speak Russian and the Soviet Union’s fast-growing influence in Afghanistan, the country that Soviet forces have occupied for seven years.

Moscow has not only stationed 120,000 troops here to deal with the continuing guerrilla war; it is also trying to remold Afghan society in the Soviet image--down to Russian language instruction at the elementary school level.

“It’s beginning to be more like Moscow here in Kabul,” a Western diplomat who has served in both capitals told a reporter.

Advisers From Moscow

Thousands of Soviet technicians are working in every part of Afghanistan, offering both technical and managerial assistance. Advisers from Moscow permeate the government and the armed forces, down to the battalion level.

Officers from the Soviet security police force, the KGB, advise their Afghan counterparts. Many of the teachers at the Kabul Polytechnical Institute are Soviet citizens. At the nation’s only olive factory, half a dozen Soviet scientists work in the laboratory to ensure that proper sterilization methods are used. The work force is directed by an Afghan who was trained in a Soviet institute in the Crimea.

A factory that produces prefabricated housing has 40 Soviet advisers on its staff, but the factory president, Abdul Hamid Raufi, said, “The Afghans run things and the Soviets only give advice.”

Tens of thousands of Afghans have been sent to the Soviet Union for training, including young children who, authorities say, will spend a decade or more in Soviet schools. Equally large numbers have attended Russian language courses at the Kabul Polytechnical Institute, a gift from Moscow.

West’s Influence Wanes

Western influence has all but disappeared. The U.S.-sponsored American Center, which once offered classes in English, closed its doors years ago. Also shuttered were the long-established German and French schools. Bakhtar Airlines, which was started with the help of Pan American World Airways, recently exchanged its Western aircraft for Soviet airliners. Even the Italian restaurant here, the only one in Kabul, has closed.

Despite all of the Soviet aid, however, Soviet-Afghan relations are not without tension. Soviet bombing of Afghan territory in the war against the anti-government resistance fighters, the moujahedeen, has caused resentment, according to Western diplomats, and the Soviets appear to fear that they will be targets of Afghan insurgents even in areas officially proclaimed to be safe.

Soldiers Take Precautions

In Kabul’s bazaar, for example, it is dangerous to speak Russian, a Soviet journalist warned. In the olive cannery on the outskirts of Jalalabad, 45 miles from the Pakistan border and the rebels’ base camps, Soviet technicians were seen wearing pistols, although there was no perceptible danger in the city.

Soviet soldiers are rarely visible in Kabul, apparently out of concern that they might antagonize the Afghans. Even Soviet women, when they venture out shopping, travel in curtained buses with armed escorts.

Close personal relationships between Afghans and Soviet citizens are uncommon. An official of the Afghan government said his brother caused consternation in the family when he defied tradition by marrying a Soviet woman in Odessa, where he was studying. The family is still not reconciled to the marriage, he said.

The Soviet attitude toward Afghanistan can be patronizing. An article in Pravda last January said there had been opposition to some revolutionary decrees handed down by the government of President Babrak Karmal, and added: “This is not surprising for a backward country . . . where the majority of inhabitants are illiterate and captives of centuries-old traditions.”

Economically Dependent

The Sovietization campaign has had to overcome other major obstacles as well, including deep tribal loyalties and the pervasive influence of the Muslim religion, but it has succeeded on many fronts.

Kabul is not only following the Kremlin’s political lead, it has become economically dependent on its giant neighbor to the north. The Soviet Union is the only customer for Afghanistan’s chief resource, natural gas, and the Soviet Union subsidizes sugar, cooking oil and rice here. It also pays a large part of the cost of bringing in European- and Japanese-made goods by road.

Dealing with Islam, the faith of nearly 98% of the Afghan people, the Soviets have moved with caution despite their official policy of atheism. The Afghan leaders, for their part, make a point of taking part in religious rites; both Karmal and Najib, the new general secretary of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, were recently pictured on the front pages of the Kabul newspapers praying in a mosque on Id-ul-Fitr, the holiday celebrating the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

A potentially significant move, however, is the establishment of a Ministry of Islamic Affairs, an agency for “guiding the activity of religious institutions.” It makes the mosques and the mullahs--the spiritual leaders--dependent on the government for funds. The new ministry is comparable to the Soviet Council for Religious Affairs.

In the same way, the Afghan regime seems committed to a Soviet-inspired agricultural policy based on large state farms rather than the small peasant holdings that are now the main producers of food. Two state farms will be started under the next five-year plan, and the government is encouraging collectivization. Already, the government has moved to set up central machinery stations for farmers, and most Soviet aid is directed to farming cooperatives rather than to individual farmers.

Party Similarities

The Soviets also have put their stamp on mass organizations. Trade unions, women’s organizations and so-called pioneer groups for children ages 10 to 15 are a carbon copy of their counterparts in the Soviet Union.

The People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, the only political organization allowed, is clearly modeled on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In both instances, the party general secretary, the Politburo and the Central Committee make the essential decisions, and the decisions are carried out by ministries that are almost copies of those in Moscow.

The same kind of red banners exhorting everyone to work harder and defend the revolution are seen here that are seen in Moscow.

Najib, who uses no first name, underscored the nature of the official relationship in outlining his party’s goals when he took office, with Moscow’s blessing, on May 4.

“Efforts to strengthen further and enrich friendship with the great Soviet people, the party of the great Lenin, the heroic, responsive and generous Soviet people, will underlie the entire work,” Najib said.

The Soviets use several methods, both subtle and not so subtle, to make known their wishes. According to Western diplomats, when Najib replaced Karmal as general secretary of the party, Soviet tanks were positioned outside key government buildings. Afghan troops were disarmed while the changeover was taking place.

History of Interest

Najib, as head of the Khad, the Afghan secret police, during the last several years was reportedly advised by three officials of the Soviet KGB. He is said to have made at least 10 trips to Moscow.

Even before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Russian czars in the early 19th Century took an interest in Afghanistan, vying for influence with the British from their base in India.

Official Soviet ties to Afghanistan go back 65 years, to the days when the Bolshevik state recognized Afghan independence in 1921. In the 1960s, when there was strong competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for influence in this strategically located country, the Soviets built factories and schools here; U.S. aid was concentrated on irrigation systems.

The Soviet effort increased sharply after the revolution of 1978 that put the pro-Moscow People’s Democratic Party in power.

One of the new leaders, Hafizullah Amin, ruled with an iron fist. His successors say he executed thousands of people and sent hundreds of thousands to prison.

“People slowly found out we had a fascist regime,” said Amandoddin Salyed Amin, a deputy vice chairman of the Council of Ministers and no relation to the former leader.

Hafizullah Amin was killed in a coup carried out with the help of Soviet paratroopers in the closing days of 1979. Karmal, who arrived in a Soviet plane from Moscow, was installed as the new leader. Millions of Afghans fled the country and took refuge in neighboring Pakistan or Iran.

Seven Years of Fighting

Guerrilla bands--the moujahedeen, or holy warriors--attacked the Karmal regime, and the Soviet Union sent in troops to help put down the insurgency. The United States, along with Pakistan, China and Iran, has secretly supplied the guerrillas with weapons and funds. As much as $250 million a year comes from the United States.

The Soviet Union has fought the guerrillas with troops, helicopter gunships, fighters and bombers, but after seven years of fighting there is no sign that the resistance has been stamped out.

Najib predicted recently that years will go by before the Afghan government and its Soviet ally win.

Sultan Mohammed, a peasant who was named recently to the Revolutionary Council--the legislature--expressed the party’s attitude about Soviet domination. He said: “When the imperialists”--meaning the United States--”stop their outside interference, the Soviets will go back home in a very short time.”

But hundreds of Soviet advisers are expected to stay on indefinitely.

An American reporter asked an Afghan official if his country is tied too closely to the Soviet Union for its own good. The official replied: “They say we are too close to the Soviet Union, but where could we go if you (Americans) don’t want to help us?”