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The Progress Shall Return After the people’s democratic April Revolution 1978 Afghan women, numbering over 7 million, were considered a major reserve of the great army of builders of a new and prosperous society in Afghanistan. The people's government took great measures aimed at further emancipating and attracting women to socio-political life of the country. Though it was not an easy task to fulfil, not long after the victory of the Revolution, in politics, production, highly specialized fields, arts and crafts, construction and even in repulsing the imperialist undeclared war, the share of Afghan women was persistently growing and became part of the everyday social life in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. However, the path of emancipating women was then and still is an extraordinary difficult one. Before the April Revolution, the majority of Afghan women were still leading the life of an alive commodity, having no rights in social life and being treated as slaves at home. Today, after the defeat of the Revolution and 10 years of triumph of counter-revolution and medieval fascist-like Taliban obscurantism, the situation with Afghan women is apparently even worse than in the pre-Revolutionary times. According to 1964 statistics, the total number of female workers exceeded a little over 800 throughout the country, and on the eve of the revolution this number was 5,000. There existed no regulations ever to protect their rights, specially their right to employment. Today the Afghan women are deprived of any civil rights at all! However, the objective factors of themselves feudal social relations helped the emergence of the women's liberation movement in Afghanistan in past and it is undoubtedly to re-emerge in the nearest future. The first steps towards women's emancipation were taken as early as in the third decade of the 20th century, when the national liberation movement was in full swing in the country. The first reforms of the Amanullah Khan reign included the measures (though immature and inconsistent ones) aimed at putting an end to the century-old alienation and isolation of women and at drawing them to active socio-political life of the society. The first school for girls was founded and women deputies appeared for the first time in the Loya Jirgah (Great Assembly). A special periodical entitled Ershadulnaswan (Women's Guidance) was published for the first time, which dealt thoroughly with problems and prospects of women's life in Afghanistan. However, lack of objective prerequisites coupled with British plots and conspiracies against the independent Afghanistan dealt a telling blow on the early gains of reformists and the women's movement in particular. They were once again forced to stay at home behind high walls, and could appear in public only in veil and that, too, with a male companion. The same thing took place under the recent monstrous Taliban regime too. The women's movement in Afghanistan was revived and gained strong momentum with the foundation of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan in 1965. One year after this historic event the Women's Democratic Organization of Afghanistan (WDOA) was established as a social organization affiliated to the party, as a necessary prerequisite for social changes. Side by side with the party, the WDOA waged a resolute and multi-dimentional struggle against the decadent feudal relations in Afghanistan, and for democratic rights and freedoms. In Parliament, in educational institutions and in demonstrations members of the Organization put forward the demands and aspirations of oppressed women of the country for education, work and equality. The April Revolution 1978 heralded a new life for Afghan women, in the course of the 15 post-revolution years, many possibilities were provided for the women of Afghanistan. For example, the total number of Afghan working women grew fifty times and reached 245,000. By the end of 1980s there were 440,000 female students in the country's educational institutions. The total number of Afghan female professors and teachers reached 190 and 11,000 respectively. About 80,000 women were enrolled in the literacy courses in various institutions and residential areas. Politically, Afghan women became unprecedentedly active. The WDOA (renamed into All-Afghanistan Women's Council in 1986) became one of the strongest mass social organizations in the country with a total membership of over 68,000. Likewise, over 6,000 women of Afghanistan took up arms for defending the revolution. Hundreds of women were also serving in the army and the police forces of Afghanistan. Women's clubs as a post-revolution phenomenon became organizing and cultural centres where hundreds of working women and house-wives gathered and exchanged ideas as well as skills and artistic talents. Sixty-four such clubs were established in Kabul and other provinces of the country by the end of 1980s… All this was lost under “professor”’s Burhanuddin Rabbani and “heroic Panjshir Lion”’s Ahmad-Shah Masood power and fiercely destroyed by damned Islamic Taliban fanatics. But the hope for returning to the progressive way of development of our beloved country is far from being lost! During the years of the counter-revolutionary darkness the progressive forces, which were forced to emigrate from Afghanistan, were able to prepare many thousands of emancipated female specialists in different spheres of social activity and the hour of their return to the Motherland is not far distant. Together with their enlightened fathers, husbands, brothers and sons representatives of the fair shall rebirth the country. By Eshan Azari