Especially since the American Left is eager to remember that while Reagan armed the Mujaheddin in the Soviet-Afghan war, but forgets how Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and the PLO were all clients of the USSR before that.
The Soviets never considered religiosity of the Third World a big problem as their real enemy was not religion in general but specifically Christianity. As the author rightly notes, Islam was treated as simply a charming folk culture.
On the other hand, Arafat, Nasser, Assad the Dad, and Hussein were not religious man in the Wahhabi mold either.
Communism changed after Lenin, who originally still believed in a universal, stateless world system. Gradually under Stalin, and especially after World War II with the anti-colonial movements, Communism morphed into a many-faceted nationalist platform in which jingoistic nationalism was exalted for "oppressed peoples" and their religions championed against that of the "foreign devils," who were usually chrstians of one sort or another. I suppose this is why today our post-Marxist Gramscian Left exalts the shamans and spiritualities of "de, 'ow you say, indigenous pipples" every bit as often as it slams chrstianity with "science" and rationalism. Then there are some combinations of the two: the American Black church, for instance, worships in a fundamentalist style but its ideology and concerns are those of European naturalism.
At the risk of being misunderstood and causing offense (and it is not my intention to hurt or offend anyone here), there is a certain similarity between historical chrstianity and post-WWII, anti-colonialist, Third World Leftism: a "universal" ideology becomes inculturated to various ethno-cultures all over the world, is blended with the folk-beliefs that preceded it, and exalts a Jew (in this case, Marx) who becomes a universal nationalist symbol for every country and people on the earth except for Jews and rednecks.
Especially since the American Left is eager to remember that while Reagan armed the Mujaheddin in the Soviet-Afghan war, but forgets how Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and the PLO were all clients of the USSR before that.
The Soviets never considered religiosity of the Third World a big problem as their real enemy was not religion in general but specifically Christianity. As the author rightly notes, Islam was treated as simply a charming folk culture.
On the other hand, Arafat, Nasser, Assad the Dad, and Hussein were not religious man in the Wahhabi mold either.
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It’s worth mentioning that Egypt, Syria and Iraq under Russian influence were SECULAR nations. Islamists were jailed and executed there.
As for a Palestinian terrorism it is of British design just like all the political islamism. British idea was to deter Israel as a US client and US itself to keep influence in Middle East. It hasn’t worked for the British and their Frankenstein has broke free. United States made just same mistake in 1980s supporting obvious islamists against Soviets.
Russians HAS considered religiosity of the Trird World a problem and specifically Islam. It was the main reason why an Afghan resistance has gained popularity at the time.
In fact Christianity was a single religion barely recognized by the Soviets. They declared peace with Orthodoxy soon after German invasion in 1941.