Account of a recent exhibition in Kabul, including a Tajik publication in Arabic script and a conversation with a refugee from Samarkand.

Ivanov informs Kim Il Sung about Khrushchev’s and Bulganin’s visit to India, Burma, and Afghanistan.

Gromyko and Dost discuss the situation in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and foreign relations between Afghanistan and Western countries.

The following CPSU Central Committee document, dated 1 April 1979 and signed by Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, Defense Minister Dmitrii Ustinov, KGB chief Yurii Andropov, and CC International Department head Boris Ponomarev, provides a strikingly candid assessment of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan that the Soviet Politburo confronted in spring 1979. The report attributes the increasing success of the Islamic opposition (i.e., the Afghan Mujaheddin) to the “miscalculations and mistakes” of the PDPA (People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan) regime that seized power following the April 1978 “revolution.”

The memo concerns Soviet steps on ties with the development of the situation around Afghanistan.

After the more general meeting of the same day, Brezhnev and Taraki meet to further discuss the situation in Afghanistan. Brezhnev advises Taraki to widen the base of the government's support among the people through political and economic means. Taraki reaffirms his current position, which includes open borders with Iran and Pakistan as well as the policy of persecution within Afghanistan.

This document provides information for the leaders of the progressive Afghan political parties; and results of the CC elections.

CPSU CC Politburo approves a draft telegram to be sent to the Soviet ambassador in Afghanistan, instructing him to inform the Afghani leadership on the nature of Soviet assistance to the Afghan armed forces.

Meeting of Kosygin, Gromyko, Ustinov, and Ponomarev with Taraki in Moscow to discuss the deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan and expressing Soviet support for Afghanistan.

The decree is on the situation in Afghanistan.