In the era of the Soviet‒Afghan confrontation, the Islamic theme turned out to be a bargaining chip in geopolitical games, a means of conducting an information war between the two superpowers. As rightly pointed out by V.S. Khristoforov, one of the reasons for the appearance of Soviet troops in Afghanistan, according to Russian historiography, was the threat to the security of the Central Asian republics, associated with the growth of fundamentalist sentiments not only in Iran and Afghanistan but also within the Soviet Union, in its “Muslim” regions. This idea, which essentially justified the Soviet policy, was voiced in the early 1980s in the writings of some foreign Sovietologists who proposed to consider “Soviet” Muslims as a “fifth column” ready to overthrow the ruling system. Did it have any grounds, and how did it influence the perception of Islam by the leadership of the Soviet Union and the course of the Afghan events? As a rule, the literature does not consider such questions.

The main goal of this article is to understand the potential influence of Soviet and foreign Islamic studies on the assessment of the situation in the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union and in Afghanistan during the war of 1979‒1989. To this end, I will consistently analyze what the “Islamic” agenda looked like in the plans of the United States and the Soviet Union and outline the main subjects and ideas of foreign Islamology‒Sovietology and their connection with the topics of Soviet Islamic studies.

Modern Russian and European historiography offer “fresh” assessments of Soviet Oriental studies and Orientalism as a set of scientific and practical efforts aimed at supporting the policy of the Soviet Union in Islamic countries and in relation to their own “Muslim” areas.Footnote 1 The ideas proposed in these works can be relied upon in discussions about the possibilities of the influence of Islamic studies on the situation inside the Soviet Union and in Afghanistan. In addition, I consider foreign—American and European—studies that were published in 1979‒1989.

The “For-official-use-only” (FOUO) fundFootnote 2 of the Russian State Library has preserved an array of published but poorly studied materialsFootnote 3 related to Islamic studies, which makes it possible to track which ideas, topics, and research areas were taken out of scientific and public discussion and did not become public. For example, materials of the coordination meeting devoted to the role of Islam in modern political realities, held in March 1980 in Tashkent, were published under the heading “FOUO.”Footnote 4 They give a fairly complete picture of the structures responsible for various areas of Oriental studies, of the academic and practical tasks scheduled for implementation within the framework of the so-called advance plan, which was developed by the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The plan was to coordinate research work nationwide.

Among such editions, the information bulletins on the problems of Islam, published since 1985 by the Interrepublican Branch of the Institute of Scientific Atheism of the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee in Tashkent, stand out. The circulation of each bulletin was 2000 copies, each of which had the heading “FOUO” and an individual number and was sent to the Central Committee of the party bodies of the Union and Autonomous Republics and the territories of the “traditional spread of Islam” (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan).Footnote 5 The purpose of the publication was “informing on a systematic basis the ideological core group about trends in the activities of Muslim organizations in the Soviet Union and abroad, generalizing experience, providing methodological assistance to party committees, and organizing atheistic work.”Footnote 6 The bulletins discussed issues of the anthropology and sociology of “Soviet” Islam and published historiographic reviews and methodological developments in the field of atheistic education.

For a general understanding of the political and ideological attitudes of the parties, official documents published on the website of the American National Security Archive (section “Afghanistan. 1979‒1989”) were used.Footnote 7

ISLAM IN THE US STRATEGY: “CRUSADING JIHAD?”

Islamic countries predictably perceived the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan as an attempt to crush tradition, to replace Islamic norms with a new secular ideology hostile to any form of religious life. However, the Islamic world had not resorted to organized jihad against the Christian world for many centuries. Modern political scientists are unanimous: the decisive role in the revival of jihad as a tool for mobilizing the efforts of Islamic countries was played by the position of the United States and the activities of the CIA. The latter viewed political Islam as an alternative to secular nationalism.Footnote 8

It was the CIA who initiated the fight against the “Evil Empire” by expanding the influence of the Afghan opposition on the territory of the Central Asian republics, as well as by mobilizing radical Muslims around the world and training them in Pakistani camps. A new “Crusade” was announced, but not a jihad, as the Afghan opposition and its allies in Muslim countries insisted. The main task of the American side in relation to the “recruits” was not just to supply them with weapons and train them but to equip them with Islamic knowledge, forming ideologically savvy “Islamic rebels.”Footnote 9

Analyzing the historiographic tradition of “Islamic” Sovietology, I note that the European and American approaches lay, in the first place, in the assumption that an alliance between Islam and the West might be formed in the fight against communism. This setup was formulated long before the Soviet‒Afghan confrontation; for example, British intelligence officers put it forward back in the late 1910s.Footnote 10 For this, the ideas of pan-Turkism (a political association of the countries of the Turkic-speaking world) and pan-Islamism (an alliance of Muslim powers) were used, well known to European and Russian/Soviet historians and special services, and historical arguments in favor of the idea of discrimination against Muslims of the Soviet Union were sought in the policy of the times of the Russian Empire.Footnote 11

Foreign analysts focused on studying the realities of life in Central Asia, the relations of the Soviet Union and Soviet Muslims with other countries of the Islamic worldFootnote 12 and diligently dissected the experience of conducting guerrilla military operations in the Soviet “Muslim” territories, finding something in common with the Afghan events.Footnote 13 “Moslem Troops: The Red Army’s Achilles Heel”Footnote 14 is a typical title of their publications, which explicitly or implicitly expressed the idea of a real internal “Islamic threat” to the Soviet state. The most famous exponent of this thesis was the French Islamic scholar A. Bennigsen, who put forward the idea that a fundamentalist “parallel Islam” existed in the Soviet Union, immanently opposing the regime.Footnote 15

Some authors argued that the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran and Afghanistan posed a threat to the internal security of the multiethnic Soviet Union and could “awaken” the “silent” religious identity of Soviet Muslims.Footnote 16 There were, of course, other opinions. Thus, M.B. Olcott argued with Bennigsen, emphasizing that the Islamic sense of self is only one of the identities inscribed in the secular identity of peoples who profess Islam.Footnote 17 However, Bennigsen himself admitted that the available sources on the political life of Central Asia and the Caucasus, except for the Soviet official ones, were limited and one-sided, and local samizdat—except for materials about the life of the Crimean Tatars and Meskhetian Turks—rarely found its way to the West.Footnote 18 Thus, the Sovietologists, on very slippery grounds, formulated an idea that caressed the ears of politicians—about the growth of fundamentalism among Soviet Muslims, who were ready to become a “fifth column.” Nevertheless, the challenge to the Soviet political establishment and academic Islamic studies was thrown. How could they respond?

ISLAMIC THREAT THROUGH THE EYES OF THE SOVIET POLITICAL ELITE

The basic setting of the Kremlin ideologists was the idea of supporting the “Iron Curtain,” protecting “own” Muslim territories from ideological “pollution,” and searching for allies among the Afghan clergy. Classified documents of the CPSU Central Committee formulated this as follows: “Actively prevent Washington’s course towards forging a united front of the West and some Muslim countries, towards reorienting Islamic fanaticism into an anti-Soviet direction”; “development of a long-term plan for cooperation with the Muslim clergy, providing for the involvement of moderate Muslim authorities in cooperation with the government and the isolation of representatives of reactionary circles.”Footnote 19

It becomes clear why the practical activities of the Soviet side were ambivalent: the new round of anti-Islamic work (scientific research and propaganda) was accompanied by the use of the religious component in propaganda efforts.Footnote 20 In connection with the latter setting, contacts were being developed with the moderate Afghan clergy: the Soviet Union began to show interest in attracting the Muslim elite to pro-Soviet propaganda at home and abroad. All possible channels of “Muslim” diplomacy were involved, especially along the Shiite line, in the region closest to Iran—Azerbaijan.Footnote 21

In terms of antireligious propaganda, a sharp increase in the number of books devoted to the Islamic topic began: while in 1976 they accounted for 11.3% of the total array of antireligious literature, in 1982 their share reached 22.6%.Footnote 22 Note that the titles of the publications—Militant Islam, Problems of Overcoming Religious Extremism, Organization of Preemptive Counterpropaganda Measures to Counter Hostile Propaganda—referred to the style of the 1930s, the time of rampant struggle against “religious survivals.” Therefore, one should not be surprised at the appearance of the term “Islamic fanaticism” in the materials of the Central Committee: the authorities saw a threat in any uncontrolled forms of cultural and sociopolitical activity of Muslims.Footnote 23

SOVIET ISLAMIC STUDIES ACCEPT THE CHALLENGE

As experts note, in the early Soviet period (1920s–1930s), there was a reduction in the actual scientific functions of Oriental studies in favor of popularizing the Soviet model of development among the countries of the East, strengthening the propagandistic role of scientific knowledge.Footnote 24 It was assumed that the Soviet East (the Volga region, the Caucasus, Crimea, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Siberia) “provides an example of how the oppressed peoples of the former colonies of tsarism, in alliance with the revolutionary proletariat of Russia, having thrown off colonial slavery, are moving towards socialism, bypassing the steps of capitalist development.”Footnote 25 The Bolsheviks initially did not have a theoretical understanding of Islam, and the discussions about its origin and history that unfolded in the academic environment in the 1920s were not of a purely scientific nature. Their main goal was to find out whether Muslims and Islamic countries could follow the path of socialist transformation, or, due to cultural backwardness, they would need specific strategies. The remark that in fact we are talking about “anti-Islamic Islamic studies,” with an increasing degree of aggression from author to author, from year to yearFootnote 26 seems just. Note that internal Russian Islam for Soviet scientists was a de facto closed topic, dispersed between various scientific centers (the eastern “outskirts” were studied by republican institutes and academies of sciences; antiquity and the Middle Ages, in Leningrad, and the political and economic situation in the countries of Asia and Africa, in Moscow).Footnote 27

According to modern experts, subordinating themselves to the interests of the totalitarian state, Soviet Islamic studies actually lost face, becoming an ultimatum form of Orientalism. Because of this, in the postcolonial period, the Soviet Union missed the emergence of political Islam as a global phenomenon. As a consequence, events like the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 and the mass opposition of Afghan Muslims to the Soviet invasion came as a surprise to it.Footnote 28

In this state, Soviet Islamic studies met a new political reality. If we trace the themes of Soviet studies of Islam in the period under review, we will see that they mirrored the themes of foreign Islamologists—“bourgeois falsifiers.”Footnote 29 This allows us to conclude about their secondary, reciprocal nature and origin. Topics and formulations became a simple response to foreign opponents. However, there were some pluses: for example, in scientific research, the previously tabooed topic of the Basmachi movement appeared, which was presented through the prism of Anglo‒American ideological and financial nourishment and the setup “we beat you before, we will win now.”Footnote 30

In the works under consideration, “militant Islam,” which had become more active on the eastern borders of the Soviet Union, was opposed to “our” Islam, which in general terms did not contradict the way of life of the Soviet people. Despite the persisting “nonsystemic” phenomena, it was presented as a model, an option of the development of the countries of Muslim culture, to which, according to Soviet ideologists, they should strive in opposition to Western values. However, the main question was the following: What is this “our,” “Soviet” Islam like?

When studying the content of the information bulletins, attention is attracted not only to ideologization, which did not weaken even at the end of the 1980s, but also to a very limited amount of information about the Muslim regions of the country. Anthropological, sociological analysis of the life of believers left much to be desired. Characteristic is the remark of one of the authors of the collection Militant Islam and Measures to Counteract Its Influence. Speaking about the preservation of illegal mosques and imams in Uzbekistan, the mahalla parish system, he pointed out, “Unfortunately, this is a reality, and no matter how actively they try to deny it, it does not change its essence.”Footnote 31 The voices of the Muslims themselves were hard to hear for outside observers: the Iron Curtain closed the real picture not only from foreign Sovietologists, but also from a narrow layer of our own specialists.

An attempt to overcome the crisis of Soviet Islamic studies, an example of joining the efforts of practitioners (representatives of the authorities) and scientists and attracting specialists from related disciplines was the coordination meeting held in March 1980 in Tashkent. Many speakers noted with regret the “neglect” of the topic in academic and practical terms, which stemmed from “numerous reasons,” the leading among which was called the shortage of personnel. “Since the time of E.A. Belyaev,Footnote 32 the course of Islamic studies has not been taught in Oriental universities,” noted the speaker M.V. Malyukovskii (by the way, the only one of the authors of the collection who did not indicate his affiliation, which is suggestive).Footnote 33 Personnel shortage was also a consequence of the lack of interest and systemic expert assessment, especially in relation to the “Soviet” Muslims.

The reasoning of many participants was characterized by a call for the maximum convergence of the results of desk work with practice.Footnote 34 This was reminiscent of the practical orientation of Western Sovietology, the research of which was usually correlated with the solution of a certain sociopolitical, geostrategic task. Another methodological innovation was interdisciplinarity (attracting specialists from related disciplines).

FOUO publications demonstrate the interest of the parties (authorities and the expert community) in solving academic and applied problems. The ways to achieve them seemed similar; there was a certain backlog in fundamental issues, coming from the traditions of imperial Orientalism and the subsequent works of Soviet orientalists. However, the methodological tools for collecting and analyzing data on modern religiosity, observations of the life of the inhabitants of Muslim cultural areas turned out to be a failure. The general ideological environment was also not linked to the new tasks facing domestic Oriental studies: it was unified, grown up in the images of war and for war, into which new research should supposedly “fit in.”

Soviet Islamic studies, which found themselves in the role of catching up, were in a difficult position. Research did not support knowledge at the level necessary for making political decisions. Politicians did not listen to experts; on the contrary, scientists tried to guess what the government wanted to hear from them.Footnote 35 Figuratively speaking, the slightly dimmed but still attractive picture of the spiritual life of “own” Muslim peoples and neighboring Islamic countries was illuminated by Soviet scientists and then politicians with a wax candle, while a powerful searchlight was required. This doomed impotence can be blamed on the Soviet Orientalist world if we forget that the reason was the too close connection of academic research with Marxist ideology and state political goals and objectives.

Modern attempts of Russian historians to revive the explanations of the reasons for the entry of Soviet troops into Afghanistan bring us back to the concepts of the Cold War era, forcing us to turn to the ideas of foreign Sovietologists who nurtured the idea of an “internal Islamic threat.” At the same time, they did not provide obvious evidence of the growth of fundamentalism within the Soviet Union and the disloyalty of “Soviet” Muslims. Soviet Orientalists, in turn, could not prove otherwise.

It is necessary to realize that it was the lack of an objective and comprehensive expert analysis of the “Islamic factor” that became one of the important causes of the failure of the Afghan campaign.