Short answers, pulled from the story.
Nur Muhammad Taraki was an Afghan communist politician, revolutionary, journalist, and writer born on the 14th of July 1917 in Nawa District, Ghazni Province. He founded the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, led the 1978 Saur Revolution, and served as Chairman of the Revolutionary Council until his overthrow and murder in 1979.
Taraki was suffocated with pillows by three men acting on orders from Hafizullah Amin on the 9th of October 1979. His body was buried secretly at night. Afghan media falsely reported two days later that he had died of a serious illness.
The Saur Revolution of the 27th of April 1978 was a communist coup in Afghanistan that overthrew and killed President Daoud. Taraki, alongside Amin and Karmal, was a central figure; he became Chairman of the Revolutionary Council on the 1st of May 1978, making him head of state and head of government of the newly proclaimed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
Taraki's government launched a land reform on the 1st of January 1979, capping land ownership and redistributing holdings above the limit without compensation. The government claimed 665,000 hectares were redistributed and that only four percent of the population was negatively affected. The reform was deeply unpopular, caused agricultural output to fall, and was abandoned by Taraki after widespread unrest.
Taraki's murder was one of the factors that prompted the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979. Brezhnev had personally pledged to protect Taraki, and his killing by Amin without Soviet consent alarmed Moscow about Amin's reliability and intentions.
Taraki and Amin initially had an extremely close partnership; Taraki reportedly described them as "like nail and flesh, not separable." Amin deliberately constructed a personality cult around Taraki, calling him the "Great Leader" and "Star of the East." Their relationship collapsed as Taraki grew dismissive and accused Amin of nepotism, leading to a power struggle that ended with Amin ordering Taraki's death in October 1979.