Word: taraki
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...replace him was a Marxist intellectual little known in the West (see box). Karmal thus became the third Afghan leader to seize control of the government in the 20 months since the Communists first came to power in April 1978. As the new strongman, following the April coup, Taraki at first denied there had been a Communist takeover. But in the months that followed, internal struggles dangerously narrowed the government's base. As he attempted to keep the revolution on course, Taraki turned increasingly to Russian advisers to fill a shortage of trained manpower. The number of Soviets soon...
...People's Democratic Party, he helped to plot the overthrow of King Mohammed Zahir Shah by Mohammed Daoud. Five years later, he blithely joined in the subsequent plot that ousted Daoud's regime. For that purpose, Karmal had aligned himself with his bitter political rival, Noor Mohammed Taraki, leader of the more radical Khalq faction of the P.D.P., who set himself up as President. But the alliance between the two Marxists soon broke down. After only two months as Deputy Prime Minister under Taraki, Karmal was sent into virtual exile as Ambassador to Czechoslovakia. When Taraki stripped...
Ominously for Taraki and the Soviets, however, there were already rumblings of revolt among conservative Muslim tribesmen unhappy at the prospect of radical social and economic reforms. As the Marxists in Kabul pressed their case, the opposition gradually developed into a full-scale religious insurgency. In March, thousands of Afghans in Herat (pop. 150,000), a provincial capital 400 miles west of Kabul, rose in a revolt that lasted for several days. An estimated 20,000 civilians lost their lives; so did at least 20 Soviet advisers and their families in a series of brutal rebel attacks...
...last fall, some 22 of the country's 28 provinces were said to be in rebel hands. Amin, by now Taraki's Prime Minister, cracked down with repressive measures, including the execution of some 2,000 political detainees and the imprisonment of some 30,000 others. By the time Amin toppled Taraki and took over completely, the Afghan armed forces themselves were demoralized by purges and defections to the rebels, and clearly were hard put to contain the rebellion...
Instead, Karmal, a 50-year-old bachelor, went into hiding with other members of the Parcham group. Among them was his longtime mistress, Anahita Ratebzad, who had been packed off as Ambassador to Yugoslavia. When Taraki was overthrown-and killed-by Hafizullah Amin last September, Karmal was still underground. Diplomats speculated that the Soviets stashed him away in an Eastern European capital as a sort of strongman-in-reserve. As one expert puts it, "The Russians were keeping [him] on ice until [he was] needed...