German-trained police.)
But Daoud's government was in crisis too. His great modernisation programme had come to nothing. Seeking to break monopoly of Soviet assistance to the country, he had opened the door to Western aid. One part of his new programme was the signing of a treaty with the Shah of Iran sharing the waters of the Helmand river. Karmal prominence at the head of mass demonstrations opposing the scheme. Decaying In April (Saur) 1978, Daoud's decaying regime was overthrown by a lightning coup. Neither faction of the PDPA expected it so soon. The coup was in fact an armed preventive strike against a wave of repression that Daoud was expected to unleash. But further. Daoud was killed in his palace and the PDPA took power in a 'ten hour revolution'.
Taraki was the new regime's number one, Karmal number crumbled as orientation of the new 'Democratic Republic of Afghanistan'. remains a matter for conjecture.
The PDPA was strongly Stalinist in its origins aad traditions.
Calle
matters went much But the alliance soon the government divided on the What these differences were Debare on democratic lines was Differencts mere traditionally settled virtual lack of pril 1978 coup up in she was bei supporters and the masses. Reportedly Karmal was put bodily on his plane to Prague by the military. Soon they were summoned back to Kabul to face charges of high treason. Few, if any, responded. Most sought political asylum in Eastern Europe.
The Khalq enjoyed a brief period of stability. A five year plan was devised, number of popular reforms (such as the abolition of debts to absentee landlords), and the party felt strong after the purging of the Parcham leaders. Taraki was confident that Soviet aid would soon the quality Afghanistan.
But from February 1979 the internal situation began to deteriorate rapidly. Delicate reforms on women's rights, the land reform, the campaign against illiteracy (espocially Hard-line Taraki decreed a tribal, feudal had to go.
•affected women), were often rammed through by Khala cadres and Soviet advisers in brutal, ruthless ways. Many of the rural areas began to resent these intrusions on traditional values, and the Khalq regime rapidly found itself confronted by a series of Jihads (holy wars).
• The Iranian revolution did play an important triggering role in this. A new course was clearly needed. Taraki, in collaboration with the Soviet Union, decided that his hard-line deputy Amin But unfortunately for the Soviet Union the coup backfired. . After a shoot-out at the presidential palace, Moscow confronted with Amin as head of state.
The Soviet bureaucracy only resumed its aid the reforms prepared never intervene.
largely Afghanistan, faltering Amin regime.
found itself above after it had received assurances from Amin thi Taraki would t Dy implemented. While rumours of friction-betwe the Soviet Union and Amin were rife, _ W cannot . control countryside. The Russians know that.
The fact that the Soviet Union did interves does not demonstrate their concern for the peasant population but rather their feat that t reactionary pro-islamic and monarchist querit would win big military victories against The stability of the Soviet Union's bor and therefore of the position of the M bureaucracy, has always been a guiding P beyond thoughts of pr
Socialist