In October 1964, King Zahir of Afghanistan and his queen Khomeira visited China and were immediately received by Chairman Mao, the great leader of the Chinese People's Republic of China.
In the face of the eastern giant who led the Chinese people to defeat the Kuomintang reactionaries and repel the invading coalition forces of the Sixteen Powers in Korea, King Zahir said in a humble tone: "China is a great country, and Afghanistan is a small neighbor of China." ”
But Chairman Mao, the supreme leader of the 700 million Chinese people at that time, used a "no" word to negate King Zahir's words.
Chairman Mao solemnly said to King Zahir: "Afghanistan is a great country, and China is a great friend of Afghanistan. ”
In 1964, Chairman Mao met with King Zahir of Afghanistan
Chairman Mao's words deeply shocked King Zahir, who was both touched by Chairman Mao's equal treatment of small and weak countries and excited that his country was so highly valued.
In the second half of his 43-year life, King Zahir repeatedly told his children and grandchildren the exact words of Chairman Mao, proud that their homeland was so highly regarded by a historical giant.
You know, Chairman Mao was the world's most famous politician in the second half of the 20th century, some Western politicians called him "the dominant figure of our time", some heads of state even called him "world leader", and Prime Minister Bhutto of Pakistan, a neighboring Afghanistan, even declared: "A figure like Mao Zedong can only produce one in a century, maybe a thousand years." ”
Why did Chairman Mao call Afghanistan a great country?
On September 1, 2021, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in response to a reporter's question: "Chairman Mao once said: 'Afghanistan is a heroic country and has never yielded in history.'" ’”
From Wang Wenbin's words, it can be seen that Chairman Mao called Afghanistan a great country because it has never yielded to foreign enemies.
Wang Wenbin
Geographically, Afghanistan is located at the "crossroads" of Asia, from which it can go east out of East Asia, north into Central Asia, south to South Asia, west to West Asia, and if any empire wants to control Asia, it must first control Afghanistan.
As the largest empire ever built, the British Empire invaded Afghanistan three times between 1839 and 1919, all of which ended in vain.
The first British invasion took place in April 1839, when the British Governor-General of India sent tens of thousands of British troops to invade in two ways, occupying Kabul, the center of Afghan rule, and propping up a puppet regime.
But the Afghan people immediately launched a large-scale anti-British struggle, and the tribal guerrillas relied on the dangerous mountains to carry out operations flexibly and flexibly, attacking British posts everywhere, cutting off British supply lines, and recovering many important towns.
On November 2, 1841, Kabul also staged a large-scale anti-British uprising, and soldiers and citizens rushed into the streets with weapons in hand, occupying the whole city of Kabul that night. The next day, they took advantage of the victory to attack the British stronghold outside the city.
The British exclaimed: "The whole population of Afghanistan has taken up arms against us." ”
On 11 November, Prince Akbar led anti-British guerrillas into Kabul. He was brave and courageous, and was elected as the leader of the national anti-British armed forces, and the British minister to Afghanistan, McNaughton, wanted to delay the negotiations and wait for British reinforcements to arrive from India.
He also attempted to bribe Abak with a large sum of money, and Akbar, in a calculated manner, invited the minister to a meeting of rebel leaders, where he personally shot and killed McNaughton.
On 6 January 1942, desperate British forces were forced to retreat to India. It was freezing cold, and there were constant guerrilla attacks along the way, which, combined with a lack of food and medicine, turned the retreat into a journey of death.
The British army, along with its entourage and family members, totaled 15,000 people, and only one medic escaped back to India. Marx ridiculed in the Annals of the History of India:
On 13 January 1842, soldiers on the walls of Jalalabad (an important town in eastern Afghanistan bordering Pakistan) saw a man in British uniform, ragged and riding on a skinny horse, with both the horse and the rider seriously injured. This man is Dr. Brighton, the only survivor of the 15,000 people who withdrew from Kabul three weeks ago. He was on the verge of death from starvation. ”
The first invasion of Afghanistan by the British army ended in almost total annihilation.
In September of that year, the British cobbled together two more armies to capture Kabul, frantically burning and looting. The Afghan military and civilians rose up again to resist. Fearing the fate of the last time, the British retreated back to India. He did not dare to invade Afghanistan again for the next 30 years.
The first British invasion took place in November 1878. In June of that year, Russia demanded an alliance treaty with Afghanistan. By this time Akbar had become king of Afghanistan, and he weighed the difference in strength between the two countries so much that he was forced to form an alliance with Russia in August.
Unable to tolerate Afghanistan falling under Russian control, the British sent 35,000 troops to attack Afghanistan in three ways, under the pretext that Akbar refused to visit the British mission.
King Akbar asked the Russians for help, but the polar bear confessed in front of John Bull and refused to send troops to help Afghanistan.
King Akbar died in grief and was succeeded by his son Rahman. In May of the following year, Rahman signed the Treaty of Gandamack with the British, and Afghanistan became a British vassal state.
Signing of the Treaty of Gandamack
The signing of the Gandamack Treaty once again aroused the anti-British anger of the Afghan people. On September 8 of that year, an anti-British uprising broke out in Kabul that shook the country, and angry rebels killed the British governor.
Then, anti-British flames flared up all over Afghanistan, and although the British army retook Kabul again, it was surrounded by 100,000 rebel troops.
On July 27, 1980, near Kandahar, an important town in southern Afghanistan, 25,000 anti-British forces encountered a brigade of the British army, and the famous Battle of Mewande in Afghan history was launched, in which the British army was defeated.
Although the British mobilized a large number of troops from India and managed to suppress the uprising, they knew that it could not rule the country and was forced to agree to the autonomy of Afghanistan's internal affairs, but the diplomacy was controlled by the British. In April 1881, all British troops withdrew from Afghanistan.
After that, King Rahman ruled Afghanistan for 21 years, he leveled the local separatist forces, established a central and local management system, and introduced foreign technology to establish a military industry, making Afghanistan initially a modern nation-state.
The third British invasion took place in May 1919. In February of that year, Ammanura ascended the throne as King of Afghanistan. Unwilling to accept British rule, he declared Afghanistan an independent and free country in a coronation proclamation.
This move is tantamount to touching the british tiger's ass. The British were furious and once again sent troops to invade Afghanistan, and Afghanistan also sent 40,000 troops to resist in separate ways.
This time, the anti-aggression war in Afghanistan, unlike previous ones, was supported by Soviet Russia, a powerful neighbor in the north. Lenin's Soviet government was the first to recognize Afghan independence and established diplomatic relations with Afghanistan.
Britain, which had been a little wary of fighting this mountain country, now saw that the other side had a strong backer and had to abandon the plan to conquer Afghanistan. On 22 November 1921, Britain signed a treaty with Afghanistan formally recognizing its independence.
After Afghanistan won national independence, an independence monument was built in Kabul, and on the pedestal was a lion chained to it, meaning that the lion of the British Empire had been chained and could no longer open its teeth and claws to Afghanistan.
From 1839 to 1921, it was the heyday of the British Empire, which occupied not only a large number of colonies in Africa and the Americas, but also occupied today's India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Brunei, democratic Yemen and other countries in Asia, and also used force to force the Chinese Qing Dynasty to sign various humiliating treaties.
In the war against the world's great powers, the British Empire was also almost always a victor: in the first decade of the nineteenth century, it united with Russia, Austria, Prussia and other countries on the European continent to defeat the invincible Napoleonic Empire.
In the middle of the nineteenth century, it joined forces with France to fight the Crimean Peninsula and defeated Tsarist Russia, the so-called "gendarme of Europe", causing Tsar Nicholas II to commit suicide in shame.
In world war I from 1914 to 1918, it fought alongside the Great Powers of France, the United States, and Russia, and crushed the three empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and The Ottoman Empire.
However, in Afghanistan, a small and humble mountainous country, the Three British invasions were bloodied, and finally had to withdraw their troops in ashes and recognize Afghanistan as a sovereign and independent country.
The victory of the Afghan people in the war of aggression and the independence of national sovereignty will certainly arouse the great concern and great interest of Chairman Mao, who is exploring the road to national salvation.
On July 14, 1919, Chairman Mao published his article "Afghanistan Rises up" in the inaugural issue of the Xiangjiang Review magazine:
Xiangjiang Review
"There must be a major reason for a fierce (very) small Afghanistan, and a very large sea king, Britain. But according to British telex on the one hand, it is unreliable. The soldiers (earth) ears are about to be swallowed up by some tigers.
India sacrificed its life to help the British, earning a red scarf to give people an ugly representative. The Indians' demands were not allowed. The political movement of the Indian people is to level the forces and suppress them (suspected to be wrong). Afghanistan is a Muslim country, the fox is dead rabbit sad, then do not insist on rising? ”
Between the lines, he reveals his deep sympathy for the Afghan people's struggle against the British.
Chairman Mao, 1919
A month after Chairman Mao wrote these words, Britain was forced to sign a peace treaty with Afghanistan. On November 22, 1921, Britain recognized the independence of Afghanistan, and the anti-British struggle in Afghanistan was completely victorious.
The fact that Afghanistan, a small country of only 647,000 square kilometers, was able to resist the British Empire, which had 33 million square kilometers, and gain national independence and freedom, was bound to have a great shock to Chairman Mao, and established that "small countries can defeat big countries." The idea that the weak can defeat the strong" undoubtedly plays an important role.
Chairman Mao's greatest hobby was to read books, and he never released his books throughout his life. He not only deeply studied the history of China's dynasties and dynasties, but also extensively involved in the history of all countries in the world, naturally had some understanding of the process of the Afghan people's struggle against Britain, and knew the characteristics of this nation's fierceness, tenacity, bravery and indomitable, so he would make such a high evaluation of this country when he met the Afghan king.
Interestingly, in the nearly half-century since Chairman Mao's death, history has verified his words again and again.
On December 27, 1979, the Soviet Union concentrated 8 divisions and 5 regiments of invading forces, including 125,000 officers and men, 350 aircraft and helicopters, more than 2,000 tanks, more than 1,000 infantry fighting vehicles and more than 2,000 artillery pieces, and launched a lightning surprise attack on Afghanistan.
Soviet paratroopers occupied Kabul and killed Amin, the ruler of Afghanistan. Within a week, the Soviets had captured all of Afghanistan and installed the puppet Karl Meyle to power.
While the Kremlin masters thought the overall situation was over, the Afghan people set off a storm of resistance to aggression, and guerrillas sprung up everywhere.
The strategies and tactics adopted by these guerrillas to counter the Soviet army were exactly the same set that the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army used to deal with the Japanese and The Koso, such as ambush warfare, sabotage warfare, mine warfare, tunnel warfare, sparrow warfare, and so on.
Guerrillas often took the initiative to attack Soviet strongholds, such as airfields, arsenals, radar stations, barracks, and logistics warehouses. These attacks were usually used as a cover at night, and the tactic of running away after fighting was very headache for the Soviet army.
When the Soviets attacked the guerrillas' territory, the guerrillas adopted the tactic of breaking up and attacking the west: when the Soviets attacked to the west, the guerrillas attacked the enemy in the east.
When the Soviets turned around and pounced to the east, the guerrillas in the east immediately moved. The guerrillas in the west were engaged in a lot of activities, making it difficult for the Soviet army to take care of each other, exhausted but gained nothing.
Compared with the Japanese invading army of that year, the Soviet army had more advanced weapons and equipment. From the end of World War II onwards, the Soviet artillery and armored forces have dominated the world.
Soviet troops in Afghanistan
But Afghanistan is a rugged mountain country where heavy artillery and armored forces struggle to function. However, the Soviets had a large number of Mi-24 gunships, a special weapon against the guerrillas. But the guerrillas also had a way of dealing with it.
They held the valley positions with a small number of troops, lured Soviet helicopters to attack; set up ambush positions 2300 meters higher than the valley positions, deployed large-caliber machine guns and RPG rocket launchers, and destroyed Soviet helicopters from the side and above.
Afghanistan is a highland mountainous country with almost no railways and is mainly transported by road and air. Soviet troops in Afghanistan needed a lot of supplies every day and had to be transported from the country by long roads.
The Afghan guerrillas took a look at this dead end of the Soviets and made the sabotage of road transport their main combat objective. They used favorable terrain on both sides of the road to ambush, set up roadblocks on the road, planted mines, blew up culverts, and destroyed bridges, causing heavy losses to the Soviet logistics transport convoy.
The Soviets were forced to escort convoys with great force, paying a high cost in order to maintain logistical supplies.
In this war against Soviet aggression, the most outstanding performance was the "Panjhir Lion" Masood.
"Panjhir Lion" Masood
He was an active member of the study of Chairman Mao's writings, and he actively studied and applied Chairman Mao's strategy and tactics on the battlefield, and repeatedly suffered heavy casualties and embarrassment to the Soviet army.
Massoud once said: "I have learned a lot from Chairman Mao, and Che Guevara is a little superficial compared to Chairman Mao." ”
Compared with the leaders of other anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan, Massoud paid more attention to the construction of base areas, the discipline of the troops and the relationship between the military and the civilian.
Relying on the steep Panjshir Valley, he built a powerful guerrilla base and repeatedly inflicted heavy damage on the invading Soviet army. Lieutenant General Grimov, commander-in-chief of the Soviet army in Afghanistan, lamented that perhaps only nuclear weapons could eliminate Masood.
Massoud also stressed the need for preferential treatment of prisoners, which was almost unique among the guerrilla factions. Masood's move was clearly to learn from Chairman Mao.
Under the influence of chairman Mao's captivity policy, many of the captured Japanese soldiers in those years were transformed and actively participated in the propaganda work of the Eighth Route Army and the New Fourth Army against the enemy.
Massoud was reading a book
Massoud's captive policy also influenced many Soviet prisoners, and two Soviet paratroopers volunteered to serve as Masood's bodyguards.
With his impressive achievements, Massoud became a symbol of the Afghan resistance, and even the Soviet army regarded him as a respectable enemy. In 2009, a Soviet officer came to Masood's grave to mourn his famous opponent who had fought with him and uttered heartfelt words: "You are one of my greatest friends, no one else!" ”
Massoud was not only a brilliant military figure, but also a very good politician. He believed in Islam. However, it is deeply influenced by Chairman Mao's thought, protecting the interests of the people and respecting the social status of women, which is very rare among the warring sides in Afghanistan.
At that time, both the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan' armies, the many warlords in the Afghan civil war, and the U.S. troops who later entered Afghanistan, regarded human life as grass and wantonly slaughtered civilians.
When the Soviet army fought against the Afghan guerrillas, it often adopted a cruel "three-light policy" and used chemical weapons inhumanely. The troops stationed in the Soviet Union were also very corrupt, and some even smuggled arms to the guerrillas.
This also proves Chairman Mao's thesis in the 1960s: "After Khrushchev came to power in the Soviet Union, the Party, the state and the army gradually degenerated and became a social-imperialist country. ”
Chairman Mao and Khrushchev
The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan was a war of injustice and was internationally helpless; while the resistance of the guerrillas was a just war, and naturally there was much help. Countries around the world have supported Afghanistan in various ways.
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in a speech: "The bravery and independence of the Afghan people is legendary, and Britain has learned this lesson through three bloody wars in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the Soviets will certainly recognize what the British have recognized, and the Afghan people will never succumb to foreign tyranny, and they will fight to the end until they drive the invaders out of Afghanistan." ”
Countries such as the United States and Britain have provided a large number of weapons to the Afghan guerrillas. The guerrillas originally used mainly old British-made rifles, while the Soviets used the new AK series of fully automatic assault rifles. As a result of combat captures and foreign aid, the guerrillas were also quickly equipped with fully automatic assault rifles.
Western countries have also provided various mines to the guerrillas, because landmines are one of the most effective weapons for the guerrillas. The "poisoned" shoulder-fired missiles provided by the United States have played an important role in speeding up the victory of the war.
Faced with the mysterious Afghan guerrillas, the Soviet army with tanks and infantry fighting vehicles was helpless. Soviet tanks were unable to move in the deep valleys of the plateau, while infantry fighting vehicles were prone to falling into the mines of the other side.
However, the Soviet helicopter gunships played a large role and posed a great threat to the guerrillas operating on the ground, who could only set up ambushes in the valley to strike it.
The Afghans fought guerrilla warfare
After the source of the US "poison" missiles entered Afghanistan, it quickly changed the situation on the battlefield, so that the Soviet army lost the last trump card to suppress the guerrillas.
The Soviet army fought in Afghanistan for ten years, with countless casualties and huge material costs, but it was never able to subdue the guerrillas. In the end, the Soviet Union had to admit that it was wrong to start the war and withdrew all its troops from Afghanistan in a daze.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan suffered a shameful defeat, but the United States still failed to learn from it.
After the "911" incident in 2001, under the pretext of eliminating terrorism, the United States led a group of NATO friends to form a coalition and launched a new war of aggression against Afghanistan.
After the war began, the United States, with its powerful air force, launched an offensive in support of the forces of the warlords in northern Afghanistan, and soon drove the Liban forces out of the Afghan cities, forcing them to disappear into remote mountainous areas, and the cost of casualties paid by the US army was almost insignificant.
U.S. troops invade Afghanistan
But after a few years of dormancy, the Taliban soon regained power and launched a fierce blow against the U.S. military everywhere. Although the U.S. military has the most modern weapons, it cannot do anything about the mysterious Taliban.
The commanders of the Taliban gave full play to the advantages of guerrilla warfare, coming and going without a trace, and bombs and mines bloomed everywhere, making the US military invincible and bitter.
After the American army, like the Soviet army, learned the power of guerrilla warfare, it also began to study the tactics of guerrilla warfare, but they did not learn from the opponent Taliban, but from the Chinese army, the ancestor of guerrilla warfare.
Thus, such a strange scene appeared on the battlefield in Afghanistan: both sides of the war conscientiously studied Chairman Mao's "On Protracted War."
When a Chinese journalist visited Afghanistan in 2010, shah, the commander of the Taliban in Ghazni province, said:
"Let's watch On Protracted War! Our tactics are 'just run when we fight,' 'conceal the enemy,' 'meticulous ambushes,' 'the enemy advances and retreats, the enemy garrisons us to disturb, the enemy is tired and we fight,' and so on. As soon as the coalition forces came, they beat him for a while when they had the opportunity. If it seems that the people are not good, we immediately hide the weapons and welcome them as collaborators. As soon as they turn around, we can the gun twice! ”
Afghan Taliban armed forces
Lieutenant Babercock, a deputy company commander of the US army, said:
"U.S. officers deployed to Afghanistan read at least 12 books, including is about Islam, the characteristics of the local Pashtun nation, The history and traditions of Afghanistan, Chairman Mao's On Protracted War, and related theories of people's war and guerrilla warfare."
In order to deal with the Taliban guerrilla mine warfare, the US troops stationed in Afghanistan have watched the old Chinese movie Tunnel Warfare, and I really don't know how the US military feels when they see the Japanese army being blown up and.
Anyway, what they encountered in reality was the same. Despite the various precautions taken by the U.S. military, the Taliban's mine array remains at a loss.
The other side planted countless mines, and the US military was often blown up. According to statistics, 65% of the U.S. military's fallen soldiers in Afghanistan have been killed by landmines.
U.S. military vehicles detonate mines
The Taliban were able to resist the U.S. military for 20 years because of the various perverse actions of the U.S. military in Afghanistan, which aroused great anger among the Afghan people.
Even former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was propped up by the United States, said: "The military operations [of NATO forces led by the United States] are not directed against extremism or terrorism, but more against Afghan villages and hopes; [they] put Afghans in jail and set up prisons in our own country... Bomb all the villages. ”
Compared to the Soviets, the U.S. army had a more powerful air transport capability and did not have to rely on a long land supply line. But the cost of airlift is very high, and if the U.S. military cannot eliminate the resistance as soon as possible, it will not be able to stay in Afghanistan for a long time.
Despite racking its brains, the U.S. military was never able to deal with the Taliban guerrillas. The war in Afghanistan has become a huge bottomless pit, consuming a lot of financial and material resources of the United States, and making the AL-S ECONOMy worse.
In the end, the U.S. military could only follow in the footsteps of the British and Soviets and withdraw their troops from Afghanistan in a disgraceful manner.
Chairman Mao
The victories of the Afghan people in these two wars of anti-aggression once again prove Chairman Mao's wise conclusion: "Afghanistan is a heroic country that has never yielded in history. ”