A (Soviet) Soldier’s Guide to Afghanistan

When in Afghanistan, you’ll need to follow a few basic rules: Be sensitive to local customs. Don’t swim or sunbathe near local villages. And never, ever intrude on the women’s quarters of an Afghan household.

Advice for NATO troops in Helmand Province? No, these handy tips are part of a list of do’s and dont’s for Soviet soldiers fulfilling their international socialist duty to Afghanistan in the 1980s. Courtesy of the Russian Navy Blog, we have a marvelous translation of a 1987 handbook prepared for the “internationalist warriors” serving there.

Some of the advice is predictable. Be mindful of operational security; don’t discuss ongoing operations in the presence of strangers; follow military regulations. Others are a bit more interesting: “Prohibited!” the guidelines warn. “Don’t accept gifts, awards or presents from local authorities or other civilians having any value as a good or service.”


It’s worth teasing this point out: Black marketeering was a major problem for the Soviet military in the 1980s, particularly given the chronic shortages of consumer goods back at home. If you read up on the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, you’ll be surprised to learn that it was an opportunity for some officers and men to stock up on contraband that was hard to find in the USSR (VCRs, for instance).

Page three explicitly warns Soviet soldiers from buying any sort of item on the local market, including food, alcohol or narcotics. It may sound like an echo of U.S. Central Command’s General Order No. 1, which forbids consumption of alcoholic beverages and possession of pornography, among other things, to preserve general order and discipline (and avoid offending “host-nation” sensitivities). But it also reflects a major problem the Red Army was dealing with at the time: Rampant alcohol and drug abuse.

As propaganda goes, the cartoons are pretty crude (the insidious-looking Afghan with the dagger behind his back being the worst example). But it’s also an artifact of the pre-PowerPoint era. Whatever you might say about this document, it shows that you can instruct your troops without bad clip art and animated graphics.
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