Saur Revolution in the context of "People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan"

The Republic of Afghanistan (Pashto: د افغانستان جمهوریت, Dǝ Afġānistān Jumhūriyat; Dari: جمهوری افغانستان, Jumhūrī-yi Afğānistān) was the first republic in Afghanistan. It is often called the Daoud Republic, as it was established in July 1973 by General Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan of the Barakzai dynasty (alongside senior Barakzai princes) who deposed his cousin, King Mohammad Zahir Shah, in a coup d'état. The occasion for the coup was the 1964 Constitution of Afghanistan which took power from most members of the royal family in favour of centralization under Zahir Shah and his offspring under the tenet of democracy. Daoud Khan was known for his autocracy and attempts to modernize the country with help from both the Soviet Union and the United States, among others.

In 1978, a military coup known as the Saur Revolution took place, instigated by the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, in which Daoud and his family were killed. The "Daoud Republic" was subsequently succeeded by the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

Ai-Khanoum (/aɪ ˈhɑːnjuːm/, meaning 'Lady Moon'; Uzbek: Oyxonim) is the archaeological site of a Hellenistic city in Takhar Province, Afghanistan. The city, whose original name is unknown, was likely founded by an early ruler of the Seleucid Empire and served as a military and economic centre for the rulers of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom until its destruction c. 145 BC. Rediscovered in 1961, the ruins of the city were excavated by a French team of archaeologists until the outbreak of conflict in Afghanistan in the late 1970s.

The city was probably founded between 300 and 285 BC by an official acting on the orders of Seleucus I Nicator or his son Antiochus I Soter, the first two rulers of the Seleucid dynasty. There is a possibility that the site was known to the earlier Achaemenid Empire, who established a small fort nearby. Ai-Khanoum was originally thought to have been a foundation of Alexander the Great, perhaps as Alexandria Oxiana, but this theory is now considered unlikely. Located at the confluence of the Amu Darya (a.k.a. Oxus) and Kokcha rivers, surrounded by well-irrigated farmland, the city itself was divided between a lower town and a 60-metre-high (200 ft) acropolis. Although not situated on a major trade route, Ai-Khanoum controlled access to both mining in the Hindu Kush and strategically important choke points. Extensive fortifications, which were continually maintained and improved, surrounded the city.

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.

The Afghan conflict (Pashto: دافغانستان جنګونه; Dari: درگیری افغانستان) is the series of events that have kept Afghanistan in a near-continuous state of armed conflict since the 1970s. Early instability followed the collapse of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in the largely non-violent 1973 coup d'état, which deposed Afghan monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah in absentia, ending his 40-year-long reign. With the concurrent establishment of the Republic of Afghanistan, headed by Mohammad Daoud Khan, the country's relatively peaceful and stable period in modern history came to an end. However, all-out fighting did not erupt until after 1978, when the Saur Revolution violently overthrew Khan's government and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Subsequent unrest over the radical reforms that were being pushed by the then-ruling People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) led to unprecedented violence, prompting a large-scale pro-PDPA military intervention by the Soviet Union in 1979. In the ensuing Soviet–Afghan War, the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen received extensive support from Pakistan, the United States, and Saudi Arabia in a joint covert effort that was dubbed Operation Cyclone.

Although the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the various mujahideen factions continued to fight against the PDPA government, which collapsed in the face of the Peshawar Accord in 1992. However, the Peshawar Accord failed to remain intact in light of the mujahideen's representatives' inability to reach an agreement on a power-sharing coalition for the new government, triggering a multi-sided civil war between them. By 1996, the Taliban, supported by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, had seized the capital city of Kabul in addition to approximately 90% of the country, while northern Afghanistan remained under the authority of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. During this time, the Northern Alliance's Islamic State of Afghanistan enjoyed widespread international recognition and was represented at the United Nations, as opposed to the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which only received diplomatic recognition from three nations. Despite the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, the Northern Alliance continued to resist in another civil war for the next five years.

Afghan refugees are citizens of Afghanistan who were forced to flee from their country as a result the continuous wars that the country has suffered since the Afghan-Soviet war, the Afghan civil war, the Afghanistan war (2001–2021) or either political or religious persecution. As of 2023, there were 3.2 million internally displaced Afghans, and 6.4 million Afghan refugees living in other countries which is one of largest refugee populations in the world.

The 1978 Saur Revolution, followed by the 1979 Soviet invasion, marked the first major wave of internal displacement and international migration to neighboring Iran and Pakistan; smaller numbers also went to India or to countries of the former Soviet Union. Nearly 90% of the world’s 6.1 million Afghan refugees reside in neighboring Iran and Pakistan, with Iran hosting the largest share as of 2024. Between 1979 and 1992, more than 20% of Afghanistan's population fled the country as refugees. Following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, many returned to Afghanistan, however many Afghans were again forced to flee during the civil war in the 90s. A total of 6.3 million Afghan refugees were living in Pakistan and Iran in 1990.

Mohammadzai (Pashto: محمدزی), also spelled Moḥammadzay (meaning "descendants of Mohammad"), is a Pashtun sub-tribe or clan of the Barakzai which is part of the Durrani confederacy of tribes. They are primarily centered on Kandahar, Kabul and Ghazni in Afghanistan as well as in the city of Charsadda in neighbouring Pakistan. The Mohammadzai ruled Afghanistan from 1823 to 1978, for a total of 155 years. Their rule ended under Daoud Khan when the Communists took power via a Soviet-backed coup.

Mohammad Daoud Khan, (18 July 1909 – 28 April 1978), also romanized as Daud Khan or Dawood 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 he himself was deposed in a coup and killed in the Saur Revolution.

Born into the Afghan royal family and addressed by the prefix "Sardar", Khan started as a provincial governor and later a military officer before being appointed as prime minister by his cousin, King Mohammad Zahir Shah, serving for a decade. Having failed to persuade the King to implement a one-party system, Khan overthrew the monarchy in a virtually bloodless coup with the backing of Afghan Army officers, and proclaimed himself the first president of the Republic of Afghanistan, establishing an autocratic one-party system under his National Revolutionary Party.

Colonel General Abdul Qadir Dagarwal (Pashto: عبدالقادر ډگروال Dari: عبد القادر دگروال, 1944 – April 22 2014), commonly known as Abdul Qadir, was an Afghan military officer and politician. He was a participant of the 1973 Afghan coup d'état that created the Republic of Afghanistan under President Mohammad Daoud Khan, and later directed the Afghan Air Force and Army Air Corps squadrons that attacked the Radio-TV station during the Saur Revolution.

He served as the acting head of state for three days when the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) took power and declared the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, before handing over power to PDPA leader Noor Mohammad Taraki. He later served two terms as Minister of Defense, the first as part of the Taraki government from April to August 1978, and the latter as part of the Babrak Karmal government from 1982 to 1986.