III.

The Military Coup in Afghanistan

The assassination of a Parchami leader, on April 17, 1978, led to massive demonstrations in Kābul, the capital of Afghanistan. President Daud responded to the protests by ordering the arrests of the PDPA leaders. In response to these arrests, military officers affiliated with the PDPA launched a coup on April 27, 1978. These officers handed power over to the Revolutionary Council of the PDPA, which proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA).

Conflict soon broke out again between the PDPA’s Parcham and Khalq factions. Khalq proceeded with a program of radical social change and mass repression. The imposition of these measures sparked local revolts and set off mutinies of major army garrisons. In March 1979 the regime lost control of Herāt, a major trading center in western Afghanistan, for an entire week. It regained control only after a massive bombing campaign, reportedly carried out by the Soviet air force from bases in Central Asia.

These developments caused concern in the Soviet Union, which had signed a treaty of “friendship and cooperation” with the PDPA regime in December 1978. In a meeting of the Soviet Politburo on March 17, 1979, during the Herāt uprising, Soviet premier Aleksey Kosygin complained that the Khalq leaders were “concealing from us the true state of affairs” and “have continued to execute people who do not agree with them.”

The Soviet leadership sought to remove Amin in September 1979, but the plan failed. Fearful of the collapse or defection of their Afghan clients, and of the ability of the United States to exploit either outcome, the Politburo decided on December 12, 1979, to intervene militarily in order to install a more pliant government.