Rating: 
Summary: War in a wretched place
Review: A few years after the U.S. extricated itself from its Vietnam quagmire, the Soviet Union embraced its own foreign entanglement with the invasion of Afghanistan. Within several years, even though we were still engaged in a Cold War with the USSR, one couldn't help but feel some small degree of sympathy for the poor devils. After all, we'd recently been there and done that, so to speak.In THE HIDDEN WAR, Artyom Borovik, a journalist for the Russian magazine Ogonyok, recollects his experiences during two visits to the Afghan mess in 1987 and early 1989. During the former, Soviet forces were still fighting as if they could win. By the latter, the Kremlin had thrown in the towel and was withdrawing its troops towards the country's northern border and a February 15 exit deadline. And why was the USSR there in the first place? According to Borovik, one of the reasons was Brezhnev's fear that American troops were poised to invade the Union's soft underbelly through Afghanistan. (And is that so wild-eyed a view? After all, hadn't the U.S. been in Vietnam to forestall the "domino effect", whereby the fall of South Vietnam to the Red Menace would eventually lead to jackbooted commie hordes goose-stepping down the center line of Main Street, U.S.A.?) For me, the principal value of THE HIDDEN WAR was to see the conflict from the other side, albeit belatedly. My perceptions of the war at the time were mediated by on-the-spot reports from scruffy American TV-news personalities scrambling around the Afghan badlands with the mujahadin. (However, as Artyom points out, those ragtag fighters had American Stingers.) Unfortunately, because Borovik's book is apparently a series of stitched-together magazine articles, the text lacks seamless continuity, i.e. the author hops around a lot for his interviews - from Afghanistan, to New York, to London, to Afghanistan, to San Francisco, and back to Afghanistan again. The only unifying theme is that the 1979-1989 invasion was a complete boondoggle. The point is well taken, but more continuity of place would have been nice. And there was surprisingly little reporting from actual live-fire engagements between the two sides. Despite my reservations concerning Artyom's style, I'm glad I read his book. He successfully conveys the notion that Afghanistan is a wretched place to fight a war even insofar as the little things: "In Afghanistan, thirst can actually make you stoop to drink from a puddle of camel urine. (Every Soviet solder, in fact, carries a miniature water-purification device for just such an eventuality.)" American forces have recently been, and still are, engaged in Afghanistan against the Taliban. The country has proven to be a graveyard for great empires - the British and the Soviets. We can only hope U.S. military planners learn from history.
Rating: 
Summary: Another example of proSoviet propaganda
Review: A must read book for people,who wish to understand history of Soviet war in Afganistan.This book will give you the best example of how Soviet Union used journalists in propaganda war during the occupation of Afghanistan.Artyom Borovik does it well.
Well written,but untruthfull.I happen to meet Artyom in Afghanistan in 1985, and in Moscow in 1989.After reading this book,I understood how much pressure he had from being a son of general editor of the largest proSoviet magazin during "communist" era.
Sorry Artyom,but you didn,t have to do it!
Rating: 
Summary: LEARN something about an event that saw little coverage
Review: As an avid enthusiast of all things Russian, Soviet, etc. and especially the failed occupation of Afghanistan, I found this book at a book store going out of business. What an incredible find! It was an original first print (Different cover picture) and was written from a Russian point of view, through Russian eyes, but not necessarily a military view. Artyom Borovik was a journalist covering the war. A combat correspondant...sorta. All I can say is READ it since this tells the story of an event that ultimately leads to the fall of the Soviet Union and also leads us to September 11, 2001 and the World Trade Center tragedy. This is where the recent batch of fundamentalism in the Islamic world got it's fire...fighting against an imperialist super-power. The same fire we face today. Just as we fought the Soviets through the Vietnamese, they fought us through the Mujahadin in Afghanistan. Another good book told through Soviet eyes, although fiction and way out of print, is "Red Army" by Ralph Peters. It's a book about a war that never happened. :) If you can find it, it'll be worth it!
Rating:
Summary: Before and After Shots of War Journalism
Review: Borovik died before getting the chance to re-edit the book, so what you'll get is a striking juxtaposition of stances toward the Russian-Afghan war. The first section of the book was written in 1987, when Borovik was working for the Soviet magazine Ogonyok. It's the sort of patriotic, sentimental journalism you'd get a 19th-c. British or 20th-c. American reporter: lots of conversations with goodhearted, homesick grunts, but very little thought about what they're doing or whether it's working. The second part of the book describes the very messy withdrawal of the Soviet Army from Afghanistan. It was written only two years later, but it's a completely different style of journalism. With the Soviet verities crumbling, Borovik can describe the chaos and folly of an Imperial war gone wrong. His account of the Soviet convoys trying to get through the Salang Pass without being ambushed is a weirdly lyrical, beautiful description of military failure as high drama. This isn't an account of the war, nor a carefully-crafted essay on war journalism. It's a collection of articles by a very good journalist describing the collapse of his country, as refracted in the latter stages of the disastrous Soviet Afghan adventure.
Rating:
Summary: Very easy to read, and strikingly similiar to Vietnam War
Review: Colonel Zakharov, Sergeant Dzhabarov, and Defector Peresleni walk with author Artyom Borovik through war-torn Afghanistan. As they travel, the soldiers shoot the breeze and reveal innermost thoughts and feelings with the adept author. `The Hidden War' humanizes many Soviet soldiers, while others are vilified for greed and murderous actions. Always the soldiers come across as real people. Some Soviet Army defectors, Peresleni for example, eventually wound up in America. In Borovik's eyes the defectors are neither happy nor unhappy. They find themselves in a new land dealing with the challenges of a new place and poignant homesickness. The book's many anecdotes offer unique insights into current events. For example, Pereslini's main reason for defecting was not idealism, confusion, or hatred, but that his fellow soldiers, many of whom happened to be Kazakh, would regularly beat him up. They beat him up for being a Muscovite. Borovik also meets with Sayed Ahmad Gailani in London. His account of the meeting left me with much to think about the interactions western leaders have with those in the middle-east. As the former Soviet Union's offspring make their voices heard, the `Hidden War' offers a starkly different view of the Soviet soldier than I've previously come across. But then, I was a little young in th 80s to appreciate informed news coverage. Time to catch up.
Rating:
Summary: Russia's "Vietnam"
Review: First: I am a big fan of Military History. I love first-hand accounts, books that relive strategies/tactics/lives. This book was good, but it was missing something... First hand descriptions of what actually was going on. Borovik references a great deal of events, but never delves into them. This comes about primarily because the book is a collection of articles about the Soviet-Afghan experience. Mainly though, it was a depressing half-hearted diatribe against Soviet authorities who drove the war effort. Being a student of Soviet Studies, it was clear to me that the style was quintessentially Russian. Meaning, it talked about hardships, was vivid in visual details, and rich in melancholia. However, it lacked details on what really happened there, how troops conducted themselves, what the Afghans were like, and how the war was waged. Frankly, the book left me a bit cold. However, if you are looking for a book that gives the somber nature of the Soviet feelings towards the Afghan war, this is a decent book to read.
Rating: 
Summary: A Journalist's Account
Review: I am an avid reader of military history and have a particular interest in the Soviet Army. I must say that I was very disappointed with Artyom Borovik's book. Given the author's vast personal experience and newly acquired literary freedom, the work should have provided priceless insight into the Red Army and combat in Afghanistan. Instead, the book was nothing more than a series of interviews with officers, soldiers, statesmen, and deserters. Keeping in mind that Borovik was a writer for a Soviet magazine at the time, it shouldn't be too hard understand how he could have dropped the ball. The book reads like a long magazine article. There were only descriptions of two brief actions in the entire book. One was in the opening chapters and the other was at the end of the story. To make matters worse, Borovik rails on about bloodshed, nightmares, and the countless horrors of war he's witnessed, but never gives any details. It is very frustrating for the reader. One should also keep in mind that this book was written originally in Russian, intended for people who had been living in a society without freedom of the press. More ground breaking than anything else to them is the mere fact that Borovik was able to write a story stating that Moscow possibly wasn't telling the truth about the war, or that her soldiers may not believe in the communist cause, or that corruption was rampant in the Red Army.
That's all old hat to American readers and makes for dull reading.
Rating:
Summary: A reference tool for coming conflict?
Review: I purchased this book a few years ago and read it at the time. Then after the events of 09.11.01, i had to pull it back out and give it another read. This work shows how a war in Afghanistan was fought in the 1980's. It shows the fears and fraility of soldiers at the fore frontof a war without front lines. It gives graphic accounts of the difficulties found in fighting the Afghanis. It is a book the leaders of the world who will be deciding on whether to put ground troops into Afghanistan should take heed of and take copious notes.
Mr. Borovik does the fighting men of the then Soviet Army a proud service by showing the war as it was, not as the Soviet propaganda portrayed it.
His insights are invaluable to todays fighting men and women who may be going into harms way in the near future.
Rating:
Summary: Barracks Stories
Review: Is what this book's main feature is. That, and interviews with three Soviet deserters. Most of the highlights (soldier killed 3 times, cheating wives, going back home) are the same kind of things soldiers trade over chow. The only military application you could get out of it is: Always bring sappers. The complaints of corruption, brown noses advancing over hard workers, unclear mission and directives, are in every army that has ever been. Overall, it did not live up to the hype, but I did learn allot of slang off it.
Rating:
Summary: Very easy to read, and strikingly similiar to Vietnam War
Review: Very interesting book, it was amazing how similiar the experience sounded to America in Vietnam.
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