St Petersburg International Conference of Afghan Studies

St Petersburg International Conference of Afghan Studies 75 Panel Five. Political Patterns in Afghanistan and in the Liminal Areas... of progressives who advocated the spreading of knowledge and education, and on the political front went as far as advocating the adoption of a constitution while still preserving the monarchy. But after the murder of Emir Habibullah Khan in February 1919 and coming to power of one of his sons — Amanullah Khan — the Young Afghans did not have any access to power. Sharing the views of theYoungAfghans and even trying to implement them in practice during his reign (1919–1929), Amanullah Khan acted in an authoritarian manner, not caring about creating a new managerial class, although near him there were also reformist politicians —Mahmud-bek Tarzi, M. Wali Khan, the Charkhi brothers, etc. Yet, they only briefly participated in the administrative work on the internal and foreign policy of Afghanistan, as the King’s the desire to monopolise the process of taking and even implementing decisions resulted in arbitrariness and even led to fatal errors. The situation was aggravated by the fact that the influential clan of Musahibs, favoured a more moderate version of modernization, and some of its members found themselves in a personal conflict with the Emir on a family-related basis. Yet, despite these contradictions within the Pashtun elite, it is the “Amani era” that is considered the first, albeit unfortunate, experience in the modernization of the Afghan traditional society and state. The subsequent attempts to modernize “from above”, linked with the role and politics of M. Daud, the Prime Minister (1953–1963), and then the first President of Afghanistan (1973–1978), are critically evaluated in the mainstream historiography. We can agree with this, given his authoritarianism and repressive methods of responding to the actions of opposition, which forced the left radicals of the People’s Democratic Party to fight against him in order to save the party elite in the spring of 1978. Yet, many years later, in the 2000’s, in various circles of theAfghan elite, there was a solid opinion that it was M. Daoud who was the most successful and popular Afghan leader. At the same time, academic and journalistic literature practically ignores the relative successes of Afghanistan in the development of new forms of economy and administration in the 1930’s–1940’s, initiated by A. M. Zabuli and other representatives of the emerging entrepreneurial class. The further development of Afghan history is only connected by foreign authors with the arrival of Soviet troops in December 1979 and their stay in this country until February 1989. All actions of theAfghan authorities until the collapse of the PDPA- Watan regime in the spring of 1992 are considered as the puppet Sovietisation. Yet, such assessments are largely true only for a series of radical leftist reforms in the sphere of politics, education, etc., while some economic projects of that time are still considered by many in Afghanistan as a real contribution to the development of the country.At the request of the currentAfghan authorities, they are subject to renovation and should be carried on within the framework of the privileged partnership between the Russian Federation and the IRA in the 21st century. While analysing Afghan alternatives and the current ongoing conflict one can only talk about discontinuous and sectorial modernization or its regionalised