The book is devoted to the study of the origins of the Afghan tragedy and especially the role played in it by the erroneous theory of the non-capitalist path of development, also called the theory of the socialist orientation of the Third World countries, freed from colonial and semi-colonial dependence. Based on the foreign policy doctrine of the USSR in the last decades of its existence, this theory played not only a fatal role in the fate of a number of developing countries and revolutionary democratic parties, as well as their leaders, but also adversely affected the fate of the Soviet Union itself.