CPSU CC Protocol #152/159, 24 May 1979, and Instructions to Soviet Ambassador in Afghanistan

Communist Party of the Soviet Union. CENTRAL COMMITTEE

TOP SECRET

No.P152/159

To Comrades Brezhnev, Kosygin, Andro-pov, Gromyko, Suslov, Ustinov, Ponomarev, Baibakov, Patolichev, Skachkov, Serbin, Smirtiukov
Extract from protocol No. 152 of the CC CPSU Politburo session of 24 May 1979

About Providing Supplementary Military Assistance to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
1. Approve the draft instruction of the USSR Council of Ministers on this issue (attached).
2. Assign Gosplan USSR and the Ministry of Foreign Trade to review within weeks the request for the delivery to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan of 1500 automobiles and to submit a proposal on this issue.
3. Affirm the text of the instruction to the Soviet Ambassador in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan on this issue (attached)

CC SECRETARY

[attachment:]

Re: Point 159 Prot. No. 152
Top Secret
SPECIAL FILE

To KABUL
TO THE SOVIET AMBASSADOR

Visit N.M. Taraki and, referring to the instruction, inform him that the Afghan leadership's request about the provision of supplementary military assistance to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan have been attentively reviewed.

Say that in Moscow they share the concern of the Afghan leadership in relation to the activation of counter-revolutionary activity by the reactionary forces in Afghanistan. The Soviet leadership, guided by a strong desire to provide further internationalist assistance in order to stabilize the situation in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, has taken a decision to deliver to Afghanistan in the period 1979-1981, free-of-charge, special property in the sum of 53 million rubles, including 140 guns and mortars, 90 armored personnel carriers (of which 50 will represent an expedited delivery), 48 thousand machine guns, around 1000 grenade throwers, 680 aviation bombs, and also to send in the form of an expedited delivery in June-July 1979 medicines and medical equipment in the sum of 50 thousand rubles. In terms of immediate assistance in May of this year, 100 incendiary tanks and 160 single-use bomb cassettes. The delivery of gas bombs with a non-toxic poison gas is not considered possible.

As far as the request of the Afghan side for the dispatch to the DRA of helicopters and transport planes with Soviet crews and a possible landing of our parachute troops in Kabul is concerned, the question of using Soviet military units was considered in much detail and from all points of view during Comrade M. Taraki's visit to Moscow in March of this year. Such actions, we are deeply convinced, are fraught with great complexities not only in the domestic political, but also in the foreign policy sphere, which no doubt would be used by hostile forces first of all to the detriment of the interests of the DRA and the consolidation of the victory of the April revolution.

Telegraph upon execution.