Nur Muhammad Taraki in the context of "Saur Revolution"

The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, later known as the Republic of Afghanistan, was the Afghan state from 1978 to 1992. It was bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, by Iran to the west, by the Soviet Union to the north, and by China to the northeast. Established by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) following the Saur Revolution in April 1978, it came to rely heavily on the Soviet Union for financial and military assistance and was therefore widely considered to be a Soviet satellite state. The PDPA's rise to power is seen as the beginning of the ongoing Afghan conflict, and the majority of the country's years in existence were marked by the Soviet–Afghan War. It collapsed by the end of the First Afghan Civil War in April 1992, having lasted only four months after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The PDPA began ruling Afghanistan after ousting the unelected autocrat Mohammad Daoud Khan, who had become president by leading the 1973 Afghan coup d'état; he was succeeded by Nur Muhammad Taraki as the head of state and government on 30 April 1978. Both Taraki and his successor Hafizullah Amin, who had organized the Saur Revolution as the General Secretary of the PDPA, introduced several contentious reforms during their time in office, such as land and marriage reforms and an enforced policy of de-Islamization vis-à-vis the promotion of socialism. Amin, in particular, built upon Khan's reforms with even more radical legislation for Afghanistan's conservative Muslim society, such as universal education and equal rights for women. Soon afterwards, a power struggle began between two PDPA factions: the hardline Khalq, led by Taraki and Amin; and the moderate Parcham, led by Babrak Karmal. The Khalqists eventually emerged victorious and subsequently purged the bulk of the Parchamite ranks, while also exiling most of the prominent Parcham leaders to the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.

Hafizullah Amin (Dari/Pashto: حفيظ الله امين;‎ 1 August 1929 – 27 December 1979) 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.

Born in the town of Paghman in Kabul Province, Amin studied at Kabul University and started his career as a teacher before he twice went to the United States to study. During this time, Amin became attracted to Marxism and became involved in radical student movements at the University of Wisconsin. Upon his return to Afghanistan, he used his teaching position to spread socialist ideologies to students, and he later joined the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a new far-left organization co-founded by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Babrak Karmal. He ran as a candidate in the 1965 parliamentary election but failed to secure a seat, but in 1969 became the only Khalqist elected to parliament, increasing his standing within the party.

The Khalq (Dari/Pashto: خلق, lit. 'masses' or 'people') 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) 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.

It was made up primarily of Pashtuns from rural backgrounds. Its leaders preferred a mass organization approach and advocated class struggle to overthrow the system to bring about political, economic and social changes. They would rule the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan that was formed as a result of the Saur Revolution in 1978. The Khalqists introduced radical reforms and carried out brutal crackdowns on dissent turning Afghanistan into a police state run by the AGSA (and later KAM). The Khalqist crackdowns encouraged the rebellion of the religious and ethnic minority segments present in the Afghan society, which led more people joining exiled Islamist parties in Pakistan, however these rebellions did not pose an existential threat to their rule due to Khalq's large support base within the Armed Forces. Khalqist rule would be ended following Soviet military intervention in December 1979 overthrowing Hafizullah Amin.