Thinking Changes with the Times

Thinking Changes with the Times

1990 7 July 8 Thinking Changes with the Times (314) A most unexpected news item appeared in the national dailies on December 25 (UNI report with Moscow date line):

“The Soviet Parliament today declared that the decision to send troops to Afghanistan in 1979 should be condemned “morally and politically” because it was unconstitutional.

The decision was taken on the final day of the second session after a parliamentary panel headed by the acting chairman of the Supreme Soviet Committee, Mr. Alexander Dzasokhov, submitted its report on its investigations into the dispatch of troops, report Tass.

The panel had also been asked by the first session to draft proposals on the political assessment of the move.

Mr. Dzaskhov said ‘extreme ideologisation of Soviet foreign policy and strong political confrontation in the world at that time’ influenced the move, but they did not ‘justify the decision to dispatch troops.’

The international affairs committee stated that the decision was violative of the Soviet constitution and was made by a ‘limited number of people’. (The Times of India, December 25, 1989)

Just a few years go, no one could have imagined this kind of moral condemnation of a military decision being voiced in the Moscow Parliament. Throughout the whole period of Stalin’s rule, the thinking of the Soviet Union (and indeed of the whole world) was that political and military power was supreme and that those who possessed, this power were bound to succeed in international politics. But during the last few years, the international situation has undergone so many changes in rapid succession that the Soviet Union, albeit one of the super powers, has had to recall its, forces from Afghanistan. What is even more important is that it has acknowledged that its policy was wrong in parliament, the greatest public forum of the country.

This extraordinary event should act as the greatest stimulus to total re-thinking on the subject of solving problems by violent methods.