Nur Muhammad Taraki
Nur Muhammad Taraki was born on the 14th of July 1917 to a peasant family in the Nawa District of Ghazni Province, in what was then the Emirate of Afghanistan. By his mid-thirties, Soviet officials were calling him "Afghanistan's Maxim Gorky". By the time he was sixty, his portrait hung across the country and the state press called him the "Great Leader" and the "Great Teacher". Less than a year later, he was dead, suffocated with pillows on orders from the man who had built that very cult around him.
His story raises unsettling questions. How does a peasant boy from Ghazni become both a celebrated literary figure and the head of a revolutionary government? How does the closest political partnership in that government become its most lethal rivalry? And why did his death, the death of a man the Soviets had pledged to protect, push Moscow toward one of the defining military interventions of the twentieth century?
At fifteen years old, Taraki left Afghanistan. The year was 1932, and the country had recently become the Kingdom of Afghanistan. He made his way to Bombay, the port city on India's western coast, where a Kandahari merchant family took him on as a clerk at the Pashtun Trading Company.
The encounter that would shape his political life came during evening classes. Communist Party of India members impressed him with their discussions about social justice and what he described as communist values. A second, equally formative encounter came through Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Pashtun nationalist who led the Red Shirt Movement and who was himself an admirer of Vladimir Lenin.
Back in Afghanistan in 1937, Taraki began working for Abdul Majid Zabuli, the Minister of Economics, through whom he met several Russians. He later rose to Deputy Head of the Bakhtar News Agency. His first and best-known novel, De Bang Mosaferi, published in 1957, examined the socio-economic difficulties facing Afghan workers and peasants. The Soviet government read it as a work of scientific socialism, and his books were translated into Russian. His pen had opened a door to Moscow that his politics would later try to walk through.
On the 1st of January 1965, at Taraki's own home in Kabul's Karte Char district, the founding congress of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was held. Taraki won a competitive election against Babrak Karmal for the post of general secretary. Karmal became second secretary.
That September, Taraki ran for a seat in the Afghan parliamentary election. He did not win one. But shortly after the election, he launched Khalq, the first significant left-wing newspaper in Afghanistan. The government banned it within one month of its first printing.
Less than two years after the party's founding, the PDPA fractured. The two largest factions were Khalq, meaning Masses, led by Taraki, and Parcham, meaning Banner, led by Karmal. Their differences were ideological. Taraki backed the creation of a Leninist-style state; Karmal wanted what he called a "broad democratic front". The split would never fully heal, and managing the rivalry between these two factions would eventually define and destabilize Taraki's entire time in power.
Taraki's own path to that power accelerated on the 17th of April 1978, when a prominent leftist named Mir Akbar Khyber was assassinated. The killing was blamed on President Daoud's government and became a rallying point for pro-communist Afghans.
Fearing a communist takeover, Daoud ordered the arrest of PDPA leaders including Taraki and Karmal. Hafizullah Amin was placed under house arrest. On the 27th of April 1978, the Saur Revolution began, reportedly initiated by Amin while still confined to his home. Daoud was killed the following day along with most of his family.
By the 1st of May, Taraki was Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, a position that combined the functions of head of state and head of government. The country was renamed the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, a regime that would last until April 1992.
The new government's first act toward its rivals was not violence but displacement. Prominent Parchamites were assigned abroad as ambassadors, a form of de facto exile. Karmal went to Czechoslovakia. Mohammad Najibullah was sent to Iran. When Karmal was recalled, he refused to return to Afghanistan, fearing execution, and went into hiding with Anahita Ratebzad, who had served as Afghan ambassador to Yugoslavia. Taraki stripped both men of all titles and authority.
The prison at Pul-e-Charkhi became the emblem of what followed. Estimates for the number executed there between April 1978 and December 1979 run as high as 27,000.
Land reform launched on the 1st of January 1979. Taraki's government capped how much land a family could own and requisitioned anything above that limit without compensation. Officials declared the reform complete by mid-1979 and announced that 665,000 hectares had been redistributed. They also claimed only 40,000 families, roughly four percent of the population, had been negatively affected.
Neither claim convinced the rural population. Agricultural harvests fell. Discontent rose. Taraki abandoned the policy when he recognized the scale of the backlash, though it was later partially resumed under the Karmal government.
Other reforms moved faster and cut deeper into daily life. Forced marriage was outlawed. The minimum age of marriage was raised. Traditional practices classified as feudal, including usury and bride price, were banned. Women were brought into political life. A literacy campaign was launched with an ambitious target: the previous UNESCO programme had aimed to eliminate illiteracy within twenty years; Taraki wanted it done in four.
On the 19th of August 1978, Afghan Independence Day, Taraki launched Afghanistan National Television, the first television channel in the country. The UNESCO programme's cultural emphasis was declared "rubbish" by Taraki personally. He replaced the curriculum with PDPA leaflets and left-wing pamphlets. Popular resentment of these changes reduced effective government control to a limited area of the country and helped ignite the rebellion that would ultimately feed the Afghan civil war.
Taraki signed a Twenty-Year Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union on the 5th of December 1978, bringing expanded Soviet aid to his government. After the Herat uprising, he contacted Alexei Kosygin, chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, and asked for "practical and technical assistance with men and armament". Kosygin refused, citing the political damage such action would cause the Soviet Union.
Taraki then appealed to Leonid Brezhnev, the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Brezhnev told him that full intervention "would only play into the hands of our enemies, both yours and ours". Brezhnev also urged Taraki to slow down the social reforms and seek wider support.
In 1979, Taraki attended the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Havana. On the 20th of March, on his way home, he stopped in Moscow and met with Brezhnev alongside foreign minister Andrei Gromyko. The meeting yielded some concessions: two Soviet armed divisions repositioned at the Soviet-Afghan border, 500 military and civilian specialists, and Soviet equipment sold at twenty-five percent below standard price. It was also rumoured that Karmal was present at this meeting in an attempt to reconcile the Khalq and Parcham factions against Amin. Despite this partial agreement, the Soviets continued to refuse direct military intervention inside Afghanistan throughout the remainder of Taraki's rule.
Hafizullah Amin had built Taraki's personality cult deliberately. In party meetings and government sessions, Amin referred to Taraki as "The Great Leader", "The Star of the East", and "The Great Thinker". Amin himself accepted the title "The True Disciple and Student". Taraki reportedly described their partnership this way: "Amin and I are like nail and flesh, not separable."
The cult Amin constructed had unintended consequences. Taraki grew overly confident, began dismissing Amin's suggestions, and ceased treating him as a partner. Amin's resentment deepened. A power struggle opened around control of the Afghan Army. The rupture sharpened when Taraki accused Amin of nepotism after Amin placed family members in senior positions.
On the 3rd of August 1978, a KGB delegation arrived in Afghanistan. General Oleg Kalugin's first impression was that Taraki "did not have the physical strength or the backing to continue to lead the country for long", and that Amin was "a far more impressive figure".
Taraki had four senior army officers on his side: Aslam Watanjar, Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy, Sherjan Mazdoryar, and Assadullah Sarwari. Their loyalty was not ideological; they had joined the PDPA for political ambition. They also had a close relationship with Soviet ambassador Alexander Puzanov, who was himself eager to use them against Amin. This faction became known as the Gang of Four, and it was Sarwari who selected his nephew Aziz Akbari to carry out an assassination of Amin. Akbari, not knowing the true purpose of the mission, told contacts at the Soviet embassy. The embassy warned Amin.
On the 11th of September 1979, Taraki returned to Kabul from Moscow. Amin forced his flight to delay landing by an hour, a deliberate demonstration of who controlled the government. Taraki, instead of briefing the cabinet on the Havana summit as expected, moved to have Amin dismissed by offering him an ambassadorship abroad. Amin refused, telling Taraki: "You are the one who should quit! Because of drink and old age you have taken leave of your senses."
The following day, Taraki invited Amin to the Arg, the Presidential palace, for lunch with him and the Gang of Four. Amin declined. Soviet ambassador Puzanov eventually persuaded Amin to come, accompanied by Sayed Daoud Tarun, the Chief of Police, and an intelligence officer named Nawab Ali. Inside the palace on the 14th of September, bodyguards opened fire. Tarun was killed; Amin was wounded but escaped to his car and drove to the Ministry of Defence. That evening at 6:30, tanks from the 4th Armoured Corps entered the city. Amin returned to the Arg with Army officers and placed Taraki under arrest. The Gang of Four had vanished into the Soviet embassy.
On the 16th of September, Radio Kabul announced that Taraki had informed the Politburo he could no longer continue. Amin was elected the new General Secretary. After the arrest, Amin reportedly asked Brezhnev what to do with Taraki; Brezhnev said it was his choice. Taraki was suffocated with pillows by three men on Amin's orders on the 9th of October 1979. He did not resist. His body was buried secretly that night. Afghan media reported two days later that he had died of a "serious illness".
The news shocked Brezhnev, who had pledged to protect Taraki. On the day of Taraki's killing, twenty-eight members of his extended family, including his wife and brother, were imprisoned at Pul-e-Charkhi. Taraki's murder was among the factors that led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan two months later, in December 1979. In the 2nd of January 1980 edition of the Kabul New Times, education minister Anahita Ratebzad called Taraki "the martyred son of the country" and denounced Amin as a "savage despot".
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Common questions
Who was Nur Muhammad Taraki?
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.
How did Nur Muhammad Taraki die?
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.
What was the Saur Revolution and what role did Taraki play in it?
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.
What land reforms did Taraki introduce in 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.
Why did the Soviet Union intervene in Afghanistan after Taraki's death?
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.
What was the relationship between Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin?
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.
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