IB History Saur Revolution and Establishment of a Pro-soviet Communist Government Notes

The Saur Revolution: Communist Government and Its Consequences

From Daoud's republic to the Saur Revolution

1. Mohammed Daoud Khan overthrew the Afghan monarchy in 1973 and initially worked with leftist military officers, but he later removed communists from government and arrested PDPA leaders, appearing ready to destroy the party altogether.
2. The murder of communist activist Mir Akbar Khyber in April 1978 prompted mass demonstrations that Daoud's government moved to suppress, triggering the crisis that brought down his regime.
3. PDPA-linked military units seized Kabul on 27 and 28 April 1978 in the Saur Revolution, killing Daoud and much of his family in the presidential palace. A small revolutionary party had taken power without any mass uprising behind it.

PDPA rule and radical reform

1. The PDPA was itself divided between the Khalq faction, drawing strength from radical military officers and rural Pashtun networks, and the Parcham faction, whose support was more urban, gradualist and ethnically mixed.
2. Under Nur Muhammad Taraki as head of state and party leader, the regime proclaimed sweeping land, marriage and literacy reforms. The speed and coercion of implementation widened opposition before any institutions existed capable of carrying the changes through peacefully.
3. Security agencies detained, tortured and executed suspected opponents, targeting religious leaders, tribal figures, intellectuals and rival communists alike. This state violence transformed what had been limited resistance into a broader rebellion.

Factional collapse and Soviet intervention

1. A major revolt erupted in Herat in March 1979, where rebels killed officials and Soviet advisers before government forces retook the city. The scale of the uprising revealed the depth of rural and religious opposition to the regime.
2. Khalq leaders marginalised Parcham officials and sent many abroad, and Taraki and Amin then struggled for control within Khalq itself. This internal conflict weakened the regime precisely as uprisings continued to spread across the country.
3. Hafizullah Amin removed and killed Taraki in September 1979, transmitting orders through sympathetic military officers. His authoritarian centralisation of power created enemies across the political spectrum.
4. Soviet forces entered Afghanistan in December 1979, killed Amin and installed Babrak Karmal of Parcham as leader. Soviet leaders had come to distrust Amin and feared losing Afghanistan altogether, and their intervention converted a domestic revolution into an international war.