The U.S. empire is headed for a cliff. Maybe it will even collapse within our lifetimes. But that collapse likely won't be the end of capitalism as a system; it has survived the collapse/diminishing of other hegemonic powers before. But what would the next hegemonic power even be? The EU? Russia? Japan?
I want to believe that the U.S. is the last stop on Mr. Capital's Wild Ride, but that seems naive.
It literally was able to sustain itself, and had popular support, at least in the cities. The Afghan socialist government lasted longer than the Soviet Union did, and the only reason they fell in the end was because the US told Yeltsin to cut off their oil and he obliged.
Until it wasn't.
Popular support of a minority of the population.
By 6 months. They literally didn't last a year on their own. For all of that time, they held only small slivers of land.
And that was all years after having renounced socialism.
Ok you're right, cities are dependent on energy so that means they had NO support. Though they did stop being Marxist-Leninists, they never renounced socialism, and the Watan party is still active in Afghan politics to this day. Saying that the PDPA never had a chance or real support is active rewriting of history, and frankly, I think it plays into an imperialist narrative of Afghanistan as some hopelessly backwards primitive hellhole. Afghanistan had a real revolution, and a real chance to be something different than it is now.
They had the support of small social classes, but not the ones needed to control the country. So yes. Nothing.
No. It really isn't.
It's the reality. It's also the Marxist position. Afghanistan was not ready for Revolution, which is why the Soviets were so reluctant to go in and so eager to water down the government's radicalism.
The Imperialist position is "we can save Afghanistan if we just occupy it for one more year," repeated year after year. It's the same one you hold. That enough Soviet aid would have held the country together.
IT. HAD. ONE. Clearly it was ready for Revolution because it fucking happened. Is your Marxist theory from 1855 or something?
The Soviets weren't the imperialists here! America was. They supported reactionary elements, who were themselves deeply fractured, and even still are to this day. The Soviets withdrew their forces years before the PDPA government fell, the only thing they still needed was oil.
Afghanistan had an uprising. Overthrowing a government doesn't constitute a successful Revolution.
America is now supporting the "progressive" elements of Afghanistan, with the same base of support as the Afghan Democratic Republic, and losing to the same forces. Same situation. Same methods. Same actors.
Call it what you will. I'm not interested in your semantics or who's the more "progressive" foreign occupier.
And the PDPA spent that time losing what little land they still held.
Way to show that you don't know what the Northern Alliance is.
The Northern Alliance doesn't exist anymore. The US is supporting a new Kabul-based government, supported by educated urban middle class, while the countryside is controlled by the Taliban. How is than different other than "America isn't the USSR"?
But what does it tell you that the Northern Alliance was able to control the country better than your communists?
I never denied that the countryside was full of reactionary elements. I don't think that's in doubt. Saying that means Afghanistan didn't have a real revolution or that the PDPA didn't have real support or a real chance, or that the whole thing amounts to a one dimensional narrative of "the Soviets forced Socialism on Afghanistan" is the thing I have a problem with. You may as well say that France didn't have a revolution in 1789 if religious reaction in the countryside disqualifies a revolution.
One of them supported a socialist revolution that already happened, and the other is an imperialist power that kicked off its invasion by installing the grandson of a minister of the old British-backed monarchy.
For one thing, it says that America is imperialist and the Soviets weren't, because they supported warlords who practiced ritual pedophilia and the Soviets didn't.