People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA)

Founding and Early Years

On 1 January 1965, 27 men gathered at Nur Muhammad Taraki's house in Kabul's Sher Shah Mena neighbourhood and founded the PDPA. Taraki was elected its first Secretary General, with Babrak Karmal as Deputy. The party's secret constitution defined it as 'the vanguard of the working class and all labourers in Afghanistan' and its ideology as 'the practical experience of Marxism-Leninism.' Publicly, however, it avoided the communist label, instead using terms like 'national democratic' and 'socialist.'

In the 1965 parliamentary election, four PDPA members won seats. Taraki launched the party newspaper Khalq (The People), which was banned by the government in 1966.

The Khalq-Parcham Split (1967)

The party split in 1967 into the Khalq (People) faction led by Taraki and the Parcham (Banner) faction led by Karmal. Khalq drew support mainly from rural Pashtuns and adhered to a militant revolutionary line. Parcham drew from urban, often non-Pashtun constituencies and advocated a 'common front' with other leftist forces. The split reduced PDPA's parliamentary representation from four seats to two in the 1969 election.

Reunification and the Saur Revolution (1977–1978)

Under Soviet mediation, the Khalq and Parcham factions formally agreed to reunify in March 1977, holding their first joint meeting in July. The trigger for the coup came with the assassination of prominent Parchami Mir Akbar Khyber in April 1978. On 27 April, PDPA-aligned military officers stormed the presidential palace, killed President Mohammad Daoud Khan and his family, and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan with Taraki as head of state.

Khalq Rule (1978–1979)

Once in power, the PDPA launched a rapid modernisation programme: separation of mosque and state, land reform, a mass literacy campaign, women's emancipation, and bans on bride price, forced marriage, and usury. The minimum marriage age was raised. These reforms clashed violently with rural religious and traditional norms, sparking armed uprisings by mid-1978. The regime responded with large-scale repression; an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people disappeared during the Taraki-Amin period, with mass executions at Pul-e-Charkhi prison.

Internal factional struggle resumed almost immediately: by July 1978 Karmal and other Parchamis had been sidelined and sent abroad as ambassadors. In September 1979, Hafizullah Amin prevailed in an internal power struggle and had Taraki killed, but his radical rule alarmed the Soviet Union.

Parcham Rule and the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–1989)

On 27 December 1979, Soviet special forces killed Amin and installed Karmal as the new Secretary General, beginning the Soviet military intervention and the decade-long Soviet-Afghan War. Karmal's regime claimed to be pursuing a 'national-democratic stage' of Marxist transformation but failed to consolidate control against the growing mujahideen insurgency.

The Najibullah Era and Homeland Party (1986–1992)

In May 1986, Mohammad Najibullah replaced Karmal as party leader and launched a 'national reconciliation' policy. The country's name was restored to the Republic of Afghanistan in 1987. After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the regime held on, but in June 1990 the party renamed itself Hezb-e Watan (Homeland Party) and formally abandoned Marxism-Leninism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, aid dried up; in April 1992, mujahideen forces entered Kabul, and the party dissolved.