Heroes from the frontline

While in Pakistan Alan McCombes was priviliged to meet socialists from the Afghan Revolutionary Labour Organisation. They work under the most oppressive conditions and amongst indescribable poverty, faced daily with kidnap, torture and execution in their fight for socialism. This is their story.

In a secret location in a small town near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, I was taken to meet the central leadership of the Afghan Revolutionary Labour Organisation.
I was told only their code names. Although they allowed me to take some photographs, it was on the strict understanding that they would not be reprinted in any publication.
We sat cross-legged on the floor, the room bare of any furniture in the traditional Afghan style. There are four men and one woman, plus Hassan my translator.
Hassan’s father is the party’s organizer in the besieged northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, which has since fallen to the Northern Alliance.
Hassan and other young, less well-known activists regularly cross the border on horseback by obscure mountain routes, carrying messages back and forward between the cities and villages of Afghanistan and the leadership in exile in Pakistan .
By any standards, the life of a socialist activist in Afghanistan is a perilous existence. One of the men, Adil, shows me the bullet wounds on his chest and stomach, received when he was a commander of a militia fighting the Soviet army in the 1980s.
He has spent six of the last twenty years in jail where he was subjected a range of tortures.
Six of Adil’s brothers are now dead, killed in the struggle against oppression and injustice. Two of his brothers were killed fighting the Soviet occupation. A third was murdered in police custody Another three brothers were abducted in Peshawar in November 1986 by religious fundamentalist groups acting in collusion with the American CIA and Pakistan’s secret intelligence ageny, the ISI.
"They kidnapped 50 of our people," explains Adil. "Most of them were released, but eight of them, including my three brothers disappeared and were never seen again."
Majit is a legendary figure in Afghanistan. With his flowing grey beard he looks older than his 48 years.
He is growing his beard so he can re-enter Afghanistan to work among his people for democracy and socialism
Majit speaks with eloquence and authority. He was once a teacher of history, geography and literature in Afghanistan. When the Taliban came he was forced into exile, and he now he sells vegetables in the markets of Peshawar to feed his family.
Like his friend Adil, Majit took up arms against the Soviet Union and spent many years in jail during the Soviet occupation. But as a committed socialist, Majit was fighting for different goals from the mujaheedin.
So I ask if they now regret fighting the Soviet Union given the subsequent history of Afghanistan.
" The Soviet government was never a socialist government, it was a bureaucratic dictatorship," says Majit. "When they came to Afghanistan, they immediately began to arrest and execute socialists who opposed the Soviet Union.
"So the war was imposed on us. We had to resist. They wanted to kill us, so it was a matter of self defence."
Majit and his comrades believes that the Soviet invasion was disaster for the people of Afghanistan and set back the struggle for socialism in the region by decades.
"After the Soviet invasion, it was impossible to describe yourself as a socialist or a Marxist in Afghanistan. Socilaism and Marxism were associated with the Soviet Union – and the Soviert Union was hated for its oppression of the Afghan people."
It was during the Soviet occupation that Islamic fundamentalism began to emerge for the first time as a political force in Afghanistan.
Adil lays the blame squarely on the shoulders of America for the rise of the fundamentalist monster.
"Afghanistan has always been a strongly Muslim country. Around 99 per cent of the population are Muslims.
"But it was never a political force until America intervened. In the 1970s the Islamic parties were very weak. Then, after the Soviet invasion, America began to channel guns, money and other resources to the religious right.
"These Islamic parties were imported into Afghanistan from other countries, Saudi Arabia, Iran and especially Pakistan.
" The Pakistan government set up refugee camps during the war against the Soviet Union. They allowed the religious parties to organise in them, to set up mujaheedin groups and to provide them with resources and weapons.
Nasser, who lives in a refugee camp, explains that the old Shamashatou camp - which I had visited on my way to the new refugee camp a few miles beyond it - was run by the Pashtoon warlord, Gulbadin Hikmetyar. Vast sums of money were channeled into the camp by the American CIA.
"But the left parties had no outside backing. They were under attack from two sides – on the one side from the Soviet Union, and on the other from the religious parties, backed by the CIA and the Pakistan secret intelligence organization,the ISI."
So how do socialists deal with the question of religion in a strongly Islamic society. According to Hassan, maybe 99 per cent of party members are practicing Muslims.
Majit explains that his party is not anti-Islam: " Our war is not against religion. Our war is a class war. We love our people and we know that Islam is their religion.
"Any party which said, 'we are against Islam’ would never get the support of the people. They would be killed.
"The left is not against religion - it is against the upper classes who use religion to divide people."
So where does the Afghan Revolutionary Labour Organisation stand on the war now raging across the border in their homeland.
"Almost all Aghans oppose this war, because the ordinary people are not fighting this war, but they are being killed in this war.," says Adil.
So do they support the Taliban against America and Britain?
"No, we take an independent position. We support none of them, not the Taliban, not Al Quaeda, not the Northern Alliance and not the Americans.
"All of them are enemies of the Afghan people. Our role is to keep fighting for socialism. Even if America removes the Taliban, they won’t bring democracy. Where have they ever brought democracy?
We will still be organising underground whatever the outcome of this war"
But given the strength of Islamic fundamentalism, the divisions within the country, the total collapse of the economy and all civilized life, is socialism a realistic prospect right now?
"Yes Afghanistan is a very poor country, it is a divided country and the working class is very weak. But we believe that there is great left potential.
"In the 1970s the left was strong. But when the Soviet Union attacked Afghanistaan under the mask of socialism, no-one wanted to know about socialism.
"But it’s more favourable now because that memory has faded. Also, from 1992 till now, Islam has lost influence because of the activities first of the mujaheedin, then of Taliban.
Horrible atrocities were carried out by the mujaheedin (now the Northern Alliance) under the name of Islam. Now we have the Taliba, who believe we still live in the time of Mohammed. People are growing tired of Islamic government."
According to Adil, socialism is especially strong in the jails of Afghanistan. "We have carried out work in the jails and there are a lot of prisoners who have accepted socialism. In Pakistan we have set up courses in refugee camps and exiled communities on Marxism."
Majit points out that although there are only a small number of workers now in Afghanistan, the Afghan working class is still a powerful force.
" In our own country the majority are peasants who live in villages. We work in the villages to gain the support of these peasants.
"But we have to remember that the million of Afghans living in Pakistan and Iran are mainly workers. We have a large working class, but for now it is scattered."
Nonetheless, they acknowledge that the struggle is difficult. The forces of socialism are under siege from all sides- from the CIA, from the Pakistan secret police and from the religious fundamendalist parties.
Some of their activists have also killed in the American bombing campaign
" Also, our financial situation is desperate" says Majif. "We have to work from early morning until late at night just to feed our families.
"We have a magazine in Pashto and Persian (the two main languages of Afghanistan) But we have no computers, phones or printing facilities .
"All our money goes towards feeding our families and taking care of our members and their families when they are ill. In 24 hours our comrades will eat boiled potatoes and nothing else."
"We have nothing - except a strong base among the people, in the villages and towns of Afganistan and in the refugee camps."

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