Efforts to use centralized government to compel social change tended to provoke resistance, as it did under the reign of the modernizing king Amanullah Khan ( 1919-1929 ), who was overthrown by a coalition of rural tribes and conservative mullahs; the communizing efforts of the People s Democratic Party of Afghanistan ( 1978-1989 ); and the Islamizing efforts to the Taliban ( 1994-2001 ), the two most recent of which sparked civil war.
32.
:: : : : : The thing about Afghanistan was that at the time the U . S . clearly recognized that Afghanistan was in the Soviet " sphere of influence ", and would not have too greatly objected to the Soviets taking a hand in a discreet way in the common ordinary confusions and reversals of Afghan politics-- but the Soviets went over the line when they seemed to be trying to make Afghanistan over into a fully communized " satellite " state ( like Mongolia ) instead of just a " sphere of influence " state, and towards this goal heavy-handedly backed a " bezbozhniki " regime which had no respect for any of the cultural traditions of Afghanistan, and so created endless pointless turbulence.
