The Soviet‐Afghan War in Fiction

• Date: 01 March 2017
• Author: Tom Secker
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12182
• Published date: 01 March 2017

The Soviet-Afghan War in Fiction

By TOM SECKER

ABSTRACT. Fictionalized accounts, particularly feature f‌ilms, about the

Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s have played a signif‌icant role in

shaping public opinion about the history of the region and issues

related to Islamic militancy. Novels and f‌ilms in the West have

portrayed the Soviet army as brutal and genocidal and the mujahideen

who resisted the invaders as “freedom f‌ighters.” Russian movies have

also portrayed the soldiers in a somewhat negative light and the

mujahideen as evil terrorists. No f‌ictional treatment has provided

enough background to the conf‌lict to reveal that the Russians entered

Afghanistan only to provide support to a communist regime that had

gained power on its own, and none have revealed the extent of aid

from the United States, the United Kingdom, Iran, Pakistan, and China

to the mujahideen.TheCIAsponsoredCharlie Wilson’s War,the

movie that comes closest to capturing the larger context of the war, but

even in that case, crucial elements were removed from early drafts of

the script that presented a more complex and accurate picture of the

war. In particular, movies have failed to explore the possible links

between U.S. support for mujahideen in the 1980s and violent attacks

by Islamic extremists since 2001. The one exception is Charlie Wilson’s

War, where changes to the script had the result of downplaying and

trivializing thoselinks.

Introduction

The Soviet-Afghan War was perhaps the def‌ining war of the second

half of the 20

th

century. The fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Al

Qaeda and Islamism more broadly as a political force both have their

origins in this conf‌lict. However, unlike Vietnam (a similarly inf‌luential

war with global ramif‌ications), there are only a handful of f‌ictional

*Independent researcher and FOIA specialist focusing on government involvement

in the entertainment industry. Runs the website spyculture.com and hosts several

podcasts including ClandesTime and The CIA and Hollywood.

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 76, No. 2 (March, 2017).

DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12182

V

C2017 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

representations of what happened in Afghanistan, making them all the

more important and inf‌luential in shaping public perception of this

conf‌lict.

This f‌iction largely arrived in two periods. The f‌irst was a set of books

and f‌ilms produced in the mid-late 1980s, as the war was coming to an

end and a Soviet withdrawal began to look inevitable. Watchme n

(1986–1987), The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988), The Living Day lights

(1987), Rambo III and The Beast of War (both 1988) make up this f‌irst

group. The only major Soviet-produced f‌ilm about the war was Afghan

Breakdown (1990), marking the end of this f‌irst set. The second major

set of Soviet-Afghan War f‌iction began in the years following the 2001

U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The Kite Runner (2003) became a best-

seller and inspired a f‌ilm adaptation four years later. The 9th Company

(2005), The Afghan (2006), and Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) comprise

the remainder of this set. How these f‌ilms depict the Soviet invasion

and the Afghan resistance, and the contrasts between those assisted by

Western states and those assisted by Russia or the Soviet Union, is the

focus of this article. While this f‌iction varies in political perspective, the

stereotyping of both sides of the war—the Soviets and the mujahid-

een—is remarkably consistent. Meanwhile, the relevance of the covert

support for the mujahideen by NATO countries and their allies is

downplayed or ignored entirely.

State Sponsorship of Soviet-Afghan War Fiction

Almost all of the f‌iction produced about the Soviet-Afghan War was in

some way state sponsored, suggesting that the governments of the

United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel on one side, and of Rus-

sia on the other, saw the importance of assisting f‌iction about this con-

f‌lict. Unlike other major wars, the struggle for Afghanistan in the 1980s

did not draw major media attention. As such, this f‌iction played a criti-

cal role in inf‌luencing public perceptions of what happened and why.

The Afghan (2006) was written by Frederick Forsyth, who worked

for MI6 for over 20 years, from even before he became a novelist.

According to BBC News(2015):

As a kind of pay off for his services, he said MI6 did approve passages

from some of his later novels. Forsyth said he was given a number to

The American Journal of Economics and Sociology436