In April 1978, a Marxist-Leninist party  overthrew the government of Afghanistan.

They then established a new  country: the Democratic Republic  

of Afghanistan. The news shocked the world.

Over history, conquerors from Alexander the Great  to Genghis Khan to Babur of the Mughal Empire to  

Nadir Shah of Iran have all carved their ways  through Afghanistan - inflicting untold damage.

But in the 1950s and 1960s,  

the country - led by several strongmen  - seemed to be on a modernizing path.

So how did the Communists pull off such  a shocking takeover? In this video,  

we look at how the Communists took Afghanistan.

## Beginnings

Afghanistan is a landlocked  country in Central Asia.

It is between the sizes of European France and the  

US state of Texas. And about  18 times the size of Taiwan.

To the east borders what is now  Pakistan. To the west is Iran. And  

to the north are Tajikistan,  Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

The People's Republic of China also has  a very minor border in the northeast.

So as you can see, Afghanistan is right in the  mix of things - a crosspoint between Indian,  

Chinese, Turkish and Persian worlds.

Nearly 80% of Afghanistan is covered by  mountains including the massive Hindu  

Kush. These mountains divide the country  into the north, south, and central regions.

To the north, we have the plains. With  ample rainfall, agriculture of cotton,  

grains and fruits is relatively  plentiful. There are also some  

mineral and natural gas deposits. The area  is predominantly populated by Turkic peoples.

Afghanistan's central region has about 160,000  square miles of valleys and mountains. The  

predominant people living there are Hazaras,  reflecting Afghanistan's Persian influences.

Then in the south, there are 50,000 square miles  

of vast deserts interspersed with high  plateaus. There is little rain here.

The Pashtuns dominate here. They have long  been the country's largest and most powerful  

ethnic group, though it is important to note  that they make up just 40% of the population.

The Afghan economy is dependent on low-quality  agricultural activities like nomadic grazing.  

Large irrigation networks supposedly once  existed, but were razed by the Mongols in  

the 1200s. Subsequent war and turmoil  have prevented them from returning.

## Centralization and Decentralization

Afghanistan's sordid history and  extensive mountain landscape have  

encouraged a decentralized state structure.

Tribes in the rural valleys have little trust in  

the central government - which they often  correctly see as transitory and despotic.

So instead, they practice an  egalitarian power structure  

that deals with its own issues  through informal institutions  

like tribes or clans. They are basically  self-functional and difficult to tax.

Even who we might call Afghanistan's "King"  is less of a William the Conqueror type,  

and more like an arrangement  amongst the various tribal heads.

Lacking rich mineral resources, good  infrastructure, and the capacity to extract taxes  

from their domestic populations, Afghan central  governments often struggle to build up capital.

For instance, the Durrani Empire that  founded the modern state of Afghanistan  

in the 1700s drew less than a quarter of its  revenues from its heartland. The vast majority  

came from tributes extorted from richer  outlying areas like Punjab and Kashmir.

## Russia and Afghanistan

Starting in the 1700s, the Russian  Empire began conquering Central Asia.

This was tied to their general  interest in accessing warmer water  

trade routes in the Indian Ocean and  enhancing overall imperial prestige.

This conquest would bring them to  Afghanistan. And Afghanistan probably  

would have been absorbed too were it not for  the alarm of the British Empire - which saw  

Afghanistan as the key route allowing  a Russian invasion of British India.

So the British sought to maintain  Afghanistan as a neutral buffer state,  

leading to three wars throughout the years.

With up and down results.

After the second Anglo-Afghan War  in 1879, the British pay an annual  

subsidy to the Afghan ruler Abdur Rahman Khan  in exchange for control over foreign affairs.

Abdur Rahman used the money to  modernize his army and impose a  

brutal military rule over the rest of  the country. His success in defeating  

the dozens of rebellions eventually  grant him the nickname, the Iron Emir.

Despite this glazing, Abdur recognizes that his  own rule is tenuous. Having spent time in exile  

in Russian Central Asia, he maintains neutrality  - keeping out both of his powerful neighbors.

In a constant search for money, he  sets up new trade routes and taxed  

monopolies over certain sectors of the economy.  

Even so, his regime struggles to fund new  infrastructure let alone industrialization.

Abdur Rahman Khan dies in 1901.  His final words are reported to be:

> "Though my soul will go to God, my spirit  will remain in Afghanistan. My last words  

to you my sons and successors,  are: Never trust the Russians"

Abdur Rahman's first son, Habibullah, takes  the throne but is assassinated in 1919.  

Rahman's second and third sons  struggle for power before the  

third son, Amanullah Khan, ascends to the throne.

Amanullah then launches the Third  Anglo-Afghan War. The war does not  

last very long, but grants Afghanistan full  independence. The British end their subsidy,  

leaving the door open for another source of funds.

## Good and Bad Times with the Soviets

In 1921, the Russian Empire is  replaced by the Soviet Union.

The Soviets proclaim a kinship with the Afghans  for their struggle against the British. Amanullah  

reaches out to Lenin, striking one of the  Soviet Union's first international agreements.

The 1921 Afghan-Soviet Treaty established  mutual recognition, some trade rights,  

and a 1 million ruble subsidy. Though  the Soviets - then dealing with their own  

economic issues - were never really  diligent in paying this subsidy.

There are good times. The Soviets  gift the Afghanis 11 aircraft to  

help seed the first Afghan Air  Force. The planes are used to  

fight rebels in an 1924 uprising against  Amanullah's rule - the Khost Rebellion.

But there are bad times too. In the early 1920s,  

the Basmachi movement in the former Russian  Turkestan rises up against imperial rule. The  

movement soon gathers the sympathy and  support of Afghans and other Muslims.

The Soviets send the Red Army to crush this  resistance, killing their leader Enver Pasha.  

The remnants flee to Afghanistan. In  December 1925 the Soviets cross into  

what is now the Afghan district of Darqad to  clean them out - damaging Afghan relations.

## The Civil War

Throughout the 1920s, Amanullah's  government tried to modernize the country.

Economically, this meant creating a  modern banking system and its first  

financial institution. Prior to  the 1920s, almost all monetary  

transactions and import-export trade were  controlled by foreigners, mostly Indians.

To bring business back into Afghani hands,  

Amanullah introduced joint-stock companies or  Shirkats and granted them preferential treatment.  

The first Shirkat was founded in 1924, an  import-export business for Soviet trade.

But it is socially where the King seems to go  too far. After a trip to Europe and Turkiye,  

Amanullah announced sweeping  changes to establish civil rights,  

end slavery and polygamy, and integrate women.

These were heavy changes for conservatives to  swallow. Then in 1928, civil war breaks out.

One of Amanullah's Tajik military commanders  Habibullah Kalakani seizes power - rolling  

back all of his predecessor's  economic and social reforms.

But less than a year later, a Pashtun from  the south named Mohammed Nadir Khan raises a  

military force - mostly from the British side of  the border - and invades. Kalakani is deposed and  

executed. The Soviets acknowledge Nadir Khan  as Nadir Shah, founding a new ruling dynasty.

## Economic Development

Nadir Shah carefully pledges political  stability and continued economic reform,  

but at a slower pace to satisfy the conservatives.

Nevertheless, he is assassinated  early in his rule in 1933.

He is succeeded by his 19-year old  son, Zahir Shah. Zahir Shah reigns  

over Afghanistan for the next forty  years, bringing a bit of stability.

Economic reforms are implemented to build up  a base of domestic business and trade that  

the government can tax. To provide finance, the  government restarted the Bank-e-Millie Afghan or  

BMA and authorized a gold and silver reserve and  forex monopoly to shore up the Afghani currency.

The old Shrikats from the  Amanullah era were all closed,  

so a new generation were founded.  To help them compete, the government  

granted them monopolies over the import  and export of items like sugar and petrol.

This was naturally quite unpopular with  the Indian and Jewish traders who once  

dominated the space. But native  Afghans weren’t so hot on it too.

For example, one of Afghanistan's few big  exports are the pelts of Karakul, a sheep breed.

The Karakul breeders complained  about the lower prices paid by  

Afghanis and threatened to  take their flocks to Iran.

Despite these modernization efforts,  

the economy struggles in the 1930s.  Partly due to the Great Depression.

Falling silver prices hurt the Afghani currency,  

making imports of equipment more expensive.  Indian buyers of exports curtailed their buying.

But more seriously, the Zahir government  struggles to grow domestic agriculture.  

Irrigation projects can create more arable  land but farming methods are out-of-date,  

nomads don’t want to settle, and large estate  holders are unwilling to adopt new techniques.

There is one area of growth: trade with  the Soviet Union. After resuming in 1925,  

both imports and exports grew at a  good pace though excessive imports  

eventually led to import/export controls in 1932.

Yet it is critical to note that  Afghanistan's long-running inability  

to build up a strong agricultural economy,  industrialize, and build a domestic tax base  

would mean a continued dependence on  resource extraction and foreign aid.

## A Turn to the Soviets

Back when Stalin ruled the Soviet  Union in the 1930s and 1940s,  

the Soviets gave little aid to  developing countries unless it seemed  

possible that one of their associated  Communist parties can take power.

But after Khrushchev became leader in the  1950s, the Soviets saw a chance to engage  

with developing, newly decolonized  countries in Africa and Asia. They  

might not have Communist parties in power, but  there were plenty of anti-Western sentiments.

Afghanistan was a textbook example. The Partition  

of India created a new Muslim  majority neighbor, Pakistan.

Relations between the two quickly deteriorated.  The most prominent reason was the cause of  

Pashtunistan - a proposal to merge into a  single nation the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and  

British India - now divided by yet another  British-drawn border, the Durand Line.

For their part, the Pakistanis have  always firmly rejected a Pashtunistan,  

seeing it as a disguised attempt at annexation.

Due to these tensions, in 1950, the Pakistanis  shut their borders and cut off energy imports  

into Afghanistan. This forces a turn  north to the Soviets. A four-year trade  

agreement is signed in 1950 - exchanging  Soviet oil for Afghan wool and cotton.

The Pashtunistan issue continues to corrode  relations with Pakistan and by extension,  

the United States. In 1954, the Americans  strike a defensive military alliance with  

the Pakistanis but decline one with the  Afghans - concerned that American weapons  

might be used against the Pakistanis.  The door is opened for the Soviets.

## Entering the Soviet Sphere

In 1955, another clash between  Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In December 1955, Khrushchev visits  Afghanistan for the first time. There,  

the two countries reaffirm their relationship. The  Soviets voice their support for Pashtunistan and  

offers a $100 million loan for equipment, to  be paid back with export goods over 30 years.

In 1956, loans are granted to Afghanistan  to buy cheap Soviet-made weapons. By 1960,  

over $100 million of Soviet weapons were sold  via loan to the Afghans. Soviet military advisors  

join soon afterwards, cementing strong  influence within Afghanistan’s military.

Afghanistan would eventually receive more Soviet  aid than any non-Communist country - $1.2 billion.  

It spanned from irrigation systems to 1,500 miles  of paved roads to industrial equipment to the  

establishment of educational institutions  like the Kabul Polytechnic Institute.

This aid lifted the economy. By the mid-1960s,  

Afghanistan's GDP per head grew to as high as  it ever had in relation to the world average.

Unfortunately, most of those benefits  accrued to the political and economic  

elite living in the capital  of Kabul. In the rural areas,  

things were not as nice. People  there remained profoundly poor.

The Soviets soon realized that  Afghanistan's economy was not  

moving towards financial independence.  Most government revenues still came from  

foreign aid or taxes on foreign trade,  and they were still turning a deficit.

So in the mid-1960s, the Soviets  shifted to encouraging export growth,  

and developed Afghanistan's natural resources  for export back to the Soviet Union.  

It was the Soviets who discovered and developed  Afghanistan's natural gas field - Sheberghan,  

in the north - as well as  iron and copper deposits.

To be clear, Afghanistan did not fully shut out  the United States and the West. Before 1978,  

the United States provided $532 million of aid,  

including a critical irrigation project  and what is now the Kandahar Airport.

That American aid rapidly declined after  1966, but the West remained a significant  

destination for Afghanistan's export  goods until the eve of the revolution.

## Daoud and Zahir

These societal and economic changes  in the 1950s and 1960s were overseen  

by Zahir's prime minister, cousin and  brother-in-law Mohammad Daoud Khan.

Daoud was a Pashtun nationalist.  Powerful but impatient, he pushed  

for faster social and economic reform to  unify Afghanistan’s multi-ethnic society.

On the other hand Zahir - undoubtedly thinking  about his predecessor Amanullah - advocated for  

slower reform. The two clashed, eventually  leading to the latter's resignation in 1963.

A year later, Zahir passed a new  constitution to modernize governance  

and experiment in democracy. This new  constitution has two major impacts.

First, its ban on political activities  by Zahir's family members shuts the door  

on the ambitious Daoud’s return  to power. At least, for a time.

And second, political parties can now contest for  seats in an elected legislature. This allowed for  

the emergence of a Marxist-Leninist party: the  People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan or PDPA.

## The Party Rises

Unlike with many other countries,  Communism reached Afghanistan rather late.

Founded by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Babrak Karmal,  

the PDPA began in January 1965 with  a meeting of 27-30 people in Kabul.

Most of its membership were urban, middle-class  people - doctors, teachers, students, civil  

servants and military officers. Taraki and Karmal  themselves were from wealthy or royal families.

The PDPA soon split into factions along  ideological and ethnic lines. On one side,  

Taraki's hardline Khalq faction. Khalq means  "masses". They wanted a party made up of just  

the working classes, promote class struggle,  and also pushed the Pashtunistan issue.

Babrak's Parcham on the other hand was more  moderate, wanting a broader ethnic and class  

coalition as well as a slower transition  to socialism. Parcham means "banner".

To be honest, the factions have  more they agree than disagree,  

but their disagreements seemed  serious enough to fight for. And  

two years after the Party’s founding,  the Parchem faction is thrown out.

Meanwhile, Zahir’s experiment with  democracy fails to solve the country’s  

problems. Corruption remains endemic.  Its various factions remain divided.  

The imposition of secular norms onto the  traditional rural areas creates backlash.

## Daoud Returns

Then in 1970, a major drought hits  Afghanistan's central and northwest rural areas.

Lasting for at least two years, the drought  leaves half of the country's livestock dead.  

Maybe 100,000 to 500,000 people die from  hunger, though estimates remain sketchy.

People flood into the cities, exacerbating  inequality and crowdedness. Kabul in the  

mid-1970s had a population of about  750,000 people. The bottom 56% of  

those people earned just 15% of total  income, while the top 6% earned over 40%.

The former Prime Minister Daoud Khan seeks a way  back to power. With the backing of the PDPA's  

Parcham faction and 1,000 Soviet-trained officers  in the Afghan Army, he plans to depose his cousin.

Or the alternate take on what happened  was that the PDPA and its Army officers  

plan the coup first. Then they bring  in Daoud at the very end as a unifying  

figurehead. This is what Zahir later says  happened. Your interpretation may vary.

In any case, the coup is successful.  In 1973, Zahir Shah is bloodlessly  

removed while he is traveling abroad for  medical treatment and is sent into exile.

Daoud declares a Republic of Afghanistan,  

with himself as President. The  Soviets immediately recognize it.

## Daoud's Republic People had high expectations for Daoud's republic.

The small commercial sector  hoped Daoud can revitalize  

the weak economy and continue  modernization. The Communists,  

including those in the military, hoped that  he would deepen relations with the Soviets.

The PDPA quickly moves to sideline him,  trying to place more members of Parcham  

into positions of power. But Daoud  goes off-script and instead purges  

them from government. In 1975, he creates  his own party and bans all other parties.

At the same time, he kicks out his  Soviet military advisors. There is  

also a purge of the military, though  it notably did not include younger  

officers. Many of whom were trained in  the Soviet Union or were PDPA members.

New opponents arise out of the woodwork. Islamic  fundamentalist parties emerge in the mid-1970s,  

charging that Afghan society had become too  decadent. Daoud cracks down on them too,  

and they flee to either Pakistan or the  countryside where they rapidly gain followers.

By now, Daoud is in his mid-sixties  and growing senile. He was also getting  

increasingly paranoid. For good reason too as his  regime faced seven separate overthrow attempts.

A major one being the 1975 Panjshir Valley  uprising, sparked by Pakistan-aligned guerrilla  

groups. This particular uprising combined with  an increasing desire to diversify away from the  

Soviet Union led Daoud to make overtures to  Iran, Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states.

Iran rapidly becomes a major source of foreign  aid with a $2 billion aid package. The Iranians  

then help mediate a step-down in tensions  with Pakistan over the Pashtunistan issue.

## Takeover

In 1977, the PDPA's two warring factions  set aside their differences and make a  

united front against Daoud. But  the alliance remains fragile.

On April 17th 1978, someone - likely the  government - sponsors the assassination  

of a respected leftist leader named Mir Akbar  Khyber. His funeral two days later spirals into  

major protests against the Daoud regime and  the United States with over 15,000 attending.

Daoud is slow to respond. They decide to  arrest the PDPA leaders. But did it slowly,  

one by one rather than all at once.

One of Taraki’s top deputies Hafizullah Amin  is arrested yet is somehow first allowed to  

send written messages to the rest of the party.

On April 27th 1978 at around 8  AM, military officers loyal to  

the PDPA cut the phone lines and  attack the Presidential Palace.  

The PDPA also launches smaller attacks  in Kabul to distract loyalist forces.

Daoud and his family refuse to surrender  and he is not captured until the following  

day at 4 PM. Daoud and thirty of  his family members are executed.

More people are killed in fighting in the rest of  

the city. How many? Estimates  range from 400 to 10,000.

Radio Kabul is seized and a broadcast goes  out in the Dari and Pushtu languages saying:

> [Daoud] has been eliminated forever by the  will of the people of Afghanistan ... from  

now on the national sovereignty belongs  to you, the noble people of Afghanistan.

The "Great Saur Revolution" as they called  it marks the beginning of the DRA. The PDPA,  

a Communist Party that scarcely anybody had heard  of, took power with Taraki as its first president.

## The World Reaction

Most people agree the Soviets had  expected something like this to happen,  

but they didn't outright plan or start it.

Brezhnev told Jimmy Carter that he first heard  about it on the radio. A KGB defector later said  

that the Afghan Communists had had a plan  for a while. But upon realizing that they  

were all about to be executed, they quickly  consulted the Soviet embassy in Kabul to see  

if they had their support. That was all the  involvement the Soviets had in the matter.

Fighting continued over the next few weeks  as the DRA consolidated its position over  

Afghanistan. Outside observers waited  to see what might emerge from the dust.

Many questions remained. Would the country  remain unaligned and neutral? Would it  

remain Muslim? Will this mark the start  of "another Cuba", a new Soviet satellite  

state in what was called the "cockpit of  Asia"? In those early days, nobody knew.

## Conclusion

Because of his paranoia and difficult  nature, Daoud had become isolated,  

with no significant power  base other than his clan.

So the people of Afghanistan did not cry  too many tears when he left. But that did  

not mean that the PDPA had a sweeping  mandate. Yet they believed that came to  

power because of a social revolution  instead of a simple military coup.

The reality? The PDPA was a small  party of 4,000 - all of whom were  

urban, well-educated intellectuals and  Soviet-trained army officers. They had  

little in common with those in the rural areas.

And had elections been held as Daoud in  1978 vaguely said they would eventually be,  

then the Communists would have likely  had a very poor showing. But the PDPA  

moved forward like as if they had all  the power and credibility in the world.  

But they didn't and what  happened next would be a fiasco.