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| See also: | Other events of 1978 List of years in Afghanistan | ||||
The following lists events that happened during 1978 in Afghanistan .
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| Decades: | |||||
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| See also: | Other events of 1978 List of years in Afghanistan | ||||
The following lists events that happened during 1978 in Afghanistan .
A bloody coup devised Hafizullah Amin, a U.S.-educated Khalq leader who, before his impending arrest, contacted party members in the armed forces - the PDPA overthrows Daud Khan's government. Daud Khan and most of his family are killed. Daud dies in Kabul together with the country's vice-president, leading ministers, and the commander of the armed forces, all of whom reportedly tried to resist the takeover. The fighting continues into the following day. On April 30 a Revolutionary Council headed by Taraki assumes control of the government. Amin becomes Foreign Minister. The country is renamed the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Although Taraki professes a non-aligned policy, there are signs that he is leaning heavily on the Soviet Union for economic aid and advice.
Taraki attempts to purge the ruling PDPA of prominent leaders of the Parcham wing of the party. Some are sent abroad as ambassadors, including Deputy Prime Minister Babrak Karmal, who is appointed ambassador to Czechoslovakia.
Taraki's reform program - which threatened to undermine basic Afghan cultural patterns - and political repression having antagonized large segments of the population, the first major uprising occurs in Nurestan. Other revolts, largely uncoordinated, spread throughout all of Afghanistan's provinces, and periodic explosions rock Kabul and other major cities.
It is announced that the Defense Minister, Gen. Abdul Qadir, one of the coup leaders, has been arrested after the discovery of an alleged plot to overthrow the government. Qadir also belonged to the Parcham faction.
After two days of talks in Moscow, Taraki and Brezhnev sign a treaty called the Soviet-Afghan Friendship treaty, which commits their countries to a 20-year treaty of friendship and cooperation. Among other things, both nations pledge to continue "to develop cooperation in the military field on the basis of appropriate agreements." Article 4 of the treaty justified Soviet intervention in the case of outside armed invasion, and this article was used by Soviets in 1979 to justify their invasion of the country. Taraki says Afghanistan will remain officially non-aligned. However, most political observers believe that Taraki's favourable view of Marxism signifies much more than a mere continuation of Afghanistan's traditional economic ties with its powerful Soviet neighbour to the north.
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Babrak Karmal was an Afghan communist revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Afghanistan, serving in the post of general secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1986.
Hafizullah Amin was an Afghan communist head of state, who served in that position for a little over three months, from September 1979 until his assassination. He organized the Saur Revolution of 1978 and co-founded the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), ruling Afghanistan as General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party.
The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), renamed the Republic of Afghanistan in 1987, was the Afghan state during the one-party rule of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) from 1978 to 1992. It relied heavily on assistance from the Soviet Union for most of its existence, especially during the Soviet–Afghan War.
Mohammad Daoud Khan was an Afghan military officer and politician who served as prime minister of Afghanistan from 1953 to 1963 and, as leader of the 1973 Afghan coup d'état which overthrew the monarchy, served as the first president of Afghanistan from 1973 until his assassination in the Saur Revolution.
The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was a Marxist–Leninist political party in Afghanistan established on 1 January 1965. Four members of the party won seats in the 1965 Afghan parliamentary election, reduced to two seats in 1969, albeit both before the party was fully legal. For most of its existence, the party was split between the hardline Khalq and moderate Parcham factions, each of which claimed to represent the "true" PDPA.
Nur Muhammad Taraki was an Afghan revolutionary communist politician, journalist and writer. He was a founding member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) who served as its General Secretary from 1965 to 1979 and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council from 1978 to 1979.
Sultan Ali Keshtmand, sometimes transliterated Kishtmand, was an Afghan communist politician, belonging to the Parcham faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). He served twice as Chairman of the Council of Ministers during the 1980s, from 1981 to 1988 and from 1989 to 1990 in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
Parcham was the more moderate socialist faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) led by Afghan communist politician Babrak Karmal. It was later turned into the Watan (Homeland) Party with a more Islamic outlook under Mohammed Najibullah. The faction was formed directly after the founding of the Party in 1965 following ideological splits in the PDPA. While the Parchamites stressed the need for swift social-economic reforms to achieve revolution, this was in direct contrast with their PDPA rivals, the Khalqists, who sought an immediate and violent overthrow of the government. Karmal believed that Afghanistan was not developed enough for a Leninist revolutionary approach and instead sought a patriotic and anti-imperialist united front to take the next steps toward revolution.
Khalq was a faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). Its historical de facto leaders were Nur Muhammad Taraki (1967–1979), Hafizullah Amin (1979) and Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy (1979–1990). It was also the name of the leftist newspaper produced by the same movement. The Khalq wing was formed in 1967 after the split of the party due to bitter resentment with the rival Parcham faction which had a differing revolutionary strategy.
Sulaiman Layeq was an Afghan communist politician, ideologue and poet who held the positions of President of the Academy of Sciences, full member of the Afghan Politburo, and Minister of Nationalities and Tribal Affairs.
Colonel General Abdul Kadir Dagarwal was an Afghan politician, diplomat, and a military officer in the Afghan Air Force who participated in the coup d'état that created the Republic of Afghanistan under the President Dawood Khan, and later directed the Afghan Air Force and Army Air Corps squadrons that attacked the Radio-TV station during the Saur Revolution.
Mohammad Aslam Watanjar was an Afghan military officer and politician. He played a significant role in the coup in 1978 that killed the Afghan President Mohammad Daoud Khan, starting the Saur Revolution. Watanjar later became a member of the politburo in the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
The Saur Revolution or Sowr Revolution, also known as the April Revolution or the April Coup, was staged on 27–28 April 1978 by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and overthrew Afghan president Mohammad Daoud Khan, who had himself taken power in the 1973 Afghan coup d'état and established an autocratic one-party system in the country. Daoud and most of his family were executed at the Arg in the capital city of Kabul by Khalqi military officers, after which his supporters were also purged and killed. The successful PDPA uprising resulted in the creation of a socialist Afghan government that was closely aligned with the Soviet Union, with Nur Muhammad Taraki serving as the PDPA's General Secretary of the Revolutionary Council. Saur or Sowr is the Dari-language name for the second month of the Solar Hijri calendar, during which the events took place.
The following lists events that happened during 1977 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 1979 in Afghanistan.
The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was the government of Afghanistan between 1978 and 1992. It was recognised diplomatically by only eight countries which were allies of the Soviet Union. It was ideologically close to and economically and militarily dependent on the Soviet Union, and was a major belligerent of the Afghan Civil War.
Mir Akbar Khyber was an Afghan left-wing intellectual and a leader of the Parcham faction of People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). His assassination by an unidentified person or people led to the overthrow of Mohammed Daoud Khan's republic, and to the advent of a socialist regime in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
The Revolutionary Council of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) ruled the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1978 until its collapse in 1992. The council was the supreme state power under the communist regime and was a carbon copy of the Supreme Soviet in the Soviet Union. The point with the council was to convene on a semiannual basis to approve decisions made by the presidium.
Anahita Ratebzad was an Afghan socialist and Marxist-Leninist politician and a member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and vice-president of the Revolutionary Council under the leadership of Babrak Karmal. One of the first women elected to the Afghan parliament, Ratebzad was deputy head of state from 1980 to 1986.
Nazar Muhammad (1935–1998) was a Colonel General in the Afghan Armed Forces, the Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan Air Force, the former Minister of Defense as well as the Chief of General Staff before 1988, being replaced by Shahnawaz Tanai. He was born in 1935 in Shindand District, Herat in the Kingdom of Afghanistan and died in 1998, Quetta, Pakistan. He was the former ambassador to West Germany.
