It may seem a bit far-reaching that a country like Afghanistan had any bearing on the fall of the Soviet Union. Anthony Arnold, however, compares Soviet Union with a sick old man and Afghanistan as the pebble which this exhausted sick man stumbled on and fell. One could easily dismiss Arnold's argument if he had been the only expert, or at least among the few writers who had articulated this point. But surprisingly, there are quiet a number of authors who suggest Afghanistan as one of the considerable factors in the demise of the USSR. Thus, in this paper I will put forward a number of factors which dealt fatal blows to the invincibility of the Soviet Union.
I would especially like to focus on the effects of the Afghan War in the Soviet Union's domestic dynamics and relate public opinion/opposition to the war, during and after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. But first, I would like to place Russia and Afghanistan in historical perspective. "Of all the burdens Russia has had to bear, the heaviest and most relentless of all has been the weight of her past" Tibor Szamuely, the Russian Tradition" (Arnold 17). Although one may not fully grasp this statement due to one's limited knowledge of Russian history, never the less, one can appreciate the implication in the context of the chapter (2) presented by Arnold on Russian history: Under the heel of the Golden Horde [a division of the Mongols which headed northward in the late 13th century and conquered lands from Central Asia up to Moscow] Russia missed out on the nation building era of Europe. Entering late in the European process (sixteenth century) Russian received the finished product and thus had to deconstruct the progress while playing catch-up. The defeat of Peter the Great in 1700 by the Swedish King, Charles XII, focused Peter's mind on domestic shortcomings. The Petrine reforms that followed covered about all aspects of Russian life. Peter's forceful, ruthless, and willful attitudes dragged the country toward progress. In 1712 Peter decisively defeated Charles; and by the end of his reign, some argue, that Russia won the fear, if not respect, of Europe- especially militarily.
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