Nur Muhammad Taraki
نور محمد ترهکی
Afghan communist founder whose overthrow and murder by his protégé Amin triggered the Soviet invasion
Taraki: 'We ask you to render practical and technical assistance with men and armament.' Kosygin: 'This is a very complicated problem.' Taraki: 'While you are taking counsel Herat will fall.' (telephone conversation, 18 March 1979, during the Herat uprising)
Nur Muhammad Taraki was the founding General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) who became the first Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan after the Saur Revolution of April 1978. Born to a Pashtun peasant family, he encountered Marxism at night school in Bombay and later wrote the first social-realist novel in Pashto, The Journey of Bang, earning the label 'Afghanistan's Maxim Gorky.' Once in power he imposed radical land reform and secularization that ignited armed uprisings across the countryside, and his repeated pleas for Soviet military intervention were rebuffed by Kosygin and Brezhnev. In September 1979 his protégé Hafizullah Amin overthrew and suffocated him, a killing that became the proximate trigger for the Soviet invasion two months later.
Career timeline
- 1932–1937Clerk for Pashtun Trading Company in Bombay; encountered Marxism at night school
- 1940s–1958Writer and journalist; published De Bang Mosaferi, the first Pashto social-realist novel
- 1952–1953Press attaché, Afghan Embassy in Washington DC
- 1965Founded PDPA at his Kabul home; elected General Secretary
- 1967Led Khalq (Masses) faction after PDPA split
- 1978.04–12Saur Revolution: Chairman of Revolutionary Council and PM; signed 20-Year Soviet Friendship Treaty
- 1979.03Herat uprising: appealed for Soviet troops; Kosygin and Brezhnev refused
- 1979.09–10Overthrown by Amin; suffocated with pillows in custody