This reminded me of one of my Pashto instructors. Many of the instructors at the Defense Language Institute in Pashto are refugees from the 80s and 90s who fled the Communists and warlords that followed. One of my favorite instructors was Basheer Laiq. He was the head speechwriter for Nur Muhammad Taraki who was the Chairman of the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council, Chairman of the Council of Ministers and General Secretary of the PDPA Central Committee.

He wrote speeches which welcomed the Soviet presence and invited them to protect Afghanistan from Capitalists who 'would exploit the workers for profit.' He had been sent to Russia in his late teens to learn Russian for the Communist Part of Afghanistan and was a total party loyalist. Then when the Communist Party in Afghanistan split into two and they killed each other over different paths forward, he decided that Afghanistan was not the best place to be a Communist. He fled to Russia to friends there and eventually came to the US when Communism fell there. By the time I met him he had decided the Socialism was not function outside of a vacuum. He was super chill and loved cognac.