Babrak Karmal
Babrak Karmal was an Afghan communist revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Afghanistan, serving in the post of general secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1986.
Kārmal attended Kabul University and developed openly leftist views there, having been introduced to Marxism by Mir Akbar Khyber during his imprisonment for activities deemed too radical by the government. He became a founding member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and eventually became the leader of the Parcham faction when the PDPA split in 1967, with their ideological nemesis being the Khalq faction. Kārmal was elected to the Lower House after the 1965 parliamentary election, serving in parliament until losing his seat in the 1969 parliamentary election.
Under Kārmal's leadership, the Parchamite PDPA participated in Mohammad Daoud Khan's rise to power in 1973, and his subsequent regime. While relations were good at the beginning, Daoud began a major purge of leftist influence in the mid-1970s. This in turn led to the reformation of the PDPA in 1977, and Kārmal played a role in the 1978 Saur Revolution when the PDPA took power. Kārmal was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, synonymous with vice head of state, in the communist government. The Parchamite faction found itself under significant pressure by the Khalqists soon after taking power. In June 1978, a PDPA Central Committee meeting voted in favor of giving the Khalqist faction exclusive control over PDPA policy. This decision was followed by a failed Parchamite coup, after which Hafizullah Amin, a Khalqist, initiated a purge against the Parchamites. Kārmal survived this purge but was exiled to Prague and eventually dismissed from his post. Instead of returning to Kabul, he feared for his life and lived with his family in the forests protected by the Czechoslovak secret police StB. The Afghan secret police KHAD had allegedly sent members to Czechoslovakia to assassinate Kārmal. In late 1979 he was brought to Moscow by the KGB and eventually, in December 1979, the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan to stabilize the country. The Soviet troops staged a coup and assassinated Amin, replacing him with Kārmal.
Kārmal was promoted to Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and Chairman of the Council of Ministers in December 1979. He remained in the latter office until 1981, when he was succeeded by Sultan Ali Keshtmand. Throughout his term, Kārmal worked to establish a support base for the PDPA by introducing several reforms. Among these were the "Fundamental Principles of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan", introducing a general amnesty for those people imprisoned during Nur Mohammad Taraki's and Amin's rule. He also replaced the red Khalqist flag with a more traditional one. These policies failed to increase the PDPA's legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghan people and the Afghan mujahidin rebels, and he was widely seen as a Soviet puppet amongst the populace. These policy failures, and the stalemate that ensued after the Soviet intervention, led the Soviet leadership to become highly critical of Kārmal's leadership. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union deposed Kārmal in 1986 and replaced him with Mohammad Najibullah. After losing power, he was exiled to Moscow. It was Anahita Ratebzad who persuaded Najibullah to allow Babrak Kārmal to return to Afghanistan in 1991, where Kārmal became an associate of Abdul Rashid Dostum and possibly helped remove the Najibullah government from power in 1992. He eventually left Afghanistan again for Moscow. In 1996, Kārmal died from liver cancer.
Early life and career
Kārmal was born Sultan Hussein on 6 January 1929 in Kamari, a village in Kabul. He was the son of Muhammad Hussein, a dagar jenral in the Royal Afghan Army and former governor of Paktia and Herat provinces, and was the first of six siblings. His family was one of the wealthier families in Kabul. His ethnic background was publicly disputed, with some sources claiming he was Pashtun and that he was Tajik while some other sources claim that he was of Kashmiri origin. Throughout his tenure in the Afghan Parliament, Karmal strategically sowed confusion by alternately identifying himself as Pashtun and Tajik, demonstrating a deliberate avoidance of strict ethnic categorization. Kārmal's ethnicity was a subject of persistent dispute, with conflicting claims made by Pashtun sympathizers and affiliates asserting that he belonged to the Mullahkhel Kakar or Khilji tribe of Khost and Paktia as a Pashtun, while Tajik sympathizers and affiliates insisted that he was a Tajik. Although Karmal was only Pashtun Mullahkhel by maternal lineage which itself was Persianised, it is important to note that during and after the Cold War, many English language sources tended to categorize him as a Tajik, often with the intention of discrediting him and providing a rationale for the Russians' decision to oust him from power for not being Pashtun.He attended Nejat High School, a German-speaking school, and graduated from it in 1948, and applied to enter the Faculty of Law and Political Science of Kabul University. Karmal's application was initially denied admission to Kabul University because of his student political activist and his openly leftist views. He was always a charismatic speaker and became involved in the student union and the Wikh-i-Zalmayan, a progressive and leftist organization. He studied at the College of Law and Political Science at Kabul University from 1951 to 1953. In 1953 Karmal was arrested because of his student union activities, but was released three years later in 1956 in an amnesty by Muhammad Daoud Khan. Shortly after, in 1957, Karmal found work as an English and German translator, before quitting and leaving for military training. Karmal graduated from the College of Law and Political Science in 1960, and in 1961, he found work as an employee in the Compilation and Translation Department of the Ministry of Education. From 1961 to 1963 he worked in the Ministry of Planning. When his mother died, Karmal left with his maternal aunt to live somewhere else. His father disowned him because of his leftist views. Karmal was involved in much debauchery, which was controversial in the mostly conservative Afghan society.
Communist politics
Imprisoned from 1953 to 1956, Karmal befriended fellow inmate Mir Akbar Khyber, who introduced Karmal to Marxism. Karmal changed his name from Sultan Hussein to Babrak Karmal, which means "Comrade of the Workers'" in Pashto, to disassociate himself from his bourgeois background. When he was released from prison, he continued his activities in the student union, and began to promote Marxism. Karmal spent the rest of the 1950s and the early 1960s becoming involved with Marxist organizations, of which there were at least four in Afghanistan at the time; two of the four were established by Karmal. When the 1964 Afghan Provisional Constitution, which legalised the establishment of new political entities, was introduced several prominent Marxists agreed to establish a communist political party. The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan was established in January 1965 in Nur Muhammad Taraki's home. Factionalism within the PDPA quickly became a problem; the party split into the Khalq led by Taraki alongside Hafizullah Amin, and the Parcham led by Karmal.During the 1965 parliamentary election Karmal was one of four PDPA members elected to the lower house of parliament; the three others were Anahita Ratebzad, Nur Ahmed Nur and Fezanul Haq Fezan. No Khalqists were elected; however, Amin was 50 votes short of being elected. The Parchamite victory may be explained by the simple fact that Karmal could contribute financially to the PDPA electoral campaign. Karmal became a leading figure within the student movement in the 1960s, electing Mohammad Hashim Maiwandwal as Prime Minister after a student demonstration concluded with three deaths under the former leadership. In 1966 inside parliament, Karmal was physically assaulted by an Islamist MP, Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi.
In 1967, the PDPA unofficially split into two formal parties, one Khalqist and one Parchamist. The dissolution of the PDPA was initiated by the closing down of the Khalqist newspaper, Khalq. Karmal criticised the Khalq for being too communist, and believed that its leadership should have hidden its Marxist orientation instead of promoting it. According to the official version of events, the majority of the PDPA Central Committee rejected Karmal's criticism. The vote was a close one, and it is reported that Taraki expanded the Central Committee to win the vote; this plan resulted in eight of the new members becoming politically unaligned with and one switching to the Parchamite side. Karmal and half the PDPA Central Committee left the PDPA to establish a Parchamite-led PDPA. Officially the split was caused by ideological differences, but the party may have divided between the different leadership styles and plans of Taraki versus Karmal. Taraki wanted to model the party after Leninist norms while Karmal wanted to establish a democratic front. Other differences were socioeconomic. The majority of Khalqists came from rural areas; hence they were poorer, and were of Pashtun origin. The Parchamites were urban, richer, and spoke Dari more often than not. The Khalqists accused the Parchamites of having a connection with the monarchy, and because of it, referred to the Parchamite PDPA as the "Royal Communist Party". Both Karmal and Amin retained their seats in the lower house of parliament in the 1969 parliamentary election.
The Daoud era
, in collaboration with the Parchamite PDPA and radical military officers, overthrew the monarchy and instituted the Republic of Afghanistan in 1973. After Daoud's seizure of power, an American embassy cable stated that the new government had established a Soviet-style Central Committee, in which Karmal and Mir Akbar Khyber were given leading positions. Most ministries were given to Parchamites; Hassan Sharq became Deputy Prime Minister, Major Faiz Mohammad became Minister of Internal Affairs and Niamatullah Pazhwak became Minister of Education. The Parchamites took control over the ministries of finance, agriculture, communications and border affairs. The new government quickly suppressed the opposition, and secured their power base. At first, the National Front government between Daoud and the Parchamites seemed to work. By 1975, Daoud had strengthened his position by enhancing the executive, legislative and judicial powers of the Presidency. To the dismay of the Parchamites, all parties other than the National Revolutionary Party were made illegal.Shortly after the ban on opposition to the NRP, Daoud began a massive purge of Parchamites in government. Mohammad lost his position as interior minister, Abdul Qadir was demoted, and Karmal was put under government surveillance. To mitigate Daoud's suddenly anti-communist directives, the Soviet Union reestablished the PDPA; Taraki was elected its General Secretary and Karmal, Second Secretary. While the Saur Revolution was planned for August, the assassination of Khyber led to a chain of events which ended with the communists seizing power. Karmal, when taking power in 1979, accused Amin of ordering the assassination of Khyber.