58 Facts About 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.

Babrak Karmal 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.

Babrak Karmal was elected to the Lower House after the 1965 parliamentary election, serving in parliament until losing his seat in the 1969 parliamentary election.

Babrak Karmal was appointed Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, synonymous with vice head of state, in the communist government.

Babrak Karmal survived this purge but was exiled to Prague and eventually dismissed from his post.

Babrak Karmal was promoted to Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and Chairman of the Council of Ministers in December 1979.

Babrak Karmal remained in the latter office until 1981, when he was succeeded by Sultan Ali Keshtmand.

Babrak Karmal replaced the red Khalqist flag with a more traditional one.

Babrak Karmal was born Sultan Hussein on 6 January 1929 in Kamari, a village in Kabul.

Babrak Karmal was the son of Muhammad Hussein, a dagar jenral in the Afghan Army and former governor of the province of Paktia and Herat provinces, and was the first of six siblings.

Babrak Karmal's family was one of the wealthier families in Kabul.

Babrak Karmal'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.

Babrak Karmal 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.

Babrak Karmal's application was initially denied admission to Kabul University because of his student political activist and his openly leftist views.

Babrak Karmal studied at the College of Law and Political Science at Kabul University from 1951 to 1953.

In 1953 Babrak 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, Babrak Karmal found work as an English and German translator, before quitting and leaving for military training.

Babrak 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.

When his mother died, Babrak Karmal left with his maternal aunt to live somewhere else.

Babrak Karmal's father disowned him because of his leftist views.

Babrak Karmal was involved in much debauchery, which was controversial in the mostly conservative Afghan society.

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.

Babrak 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 Babrak Karmal.

Babrak 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, Babrak Karmal was physically assaulted by an Islamist MP, Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi.

Babrak Karmal criticised the Khalq for being too communist, and believed that its leadership should have hidden its Marxist orientation instead of promoting it.

Taraki wanted to model the party after Leninist norms while Babrak Karmal wanted to establish a democratic front.

Mohammad lost his position as interior minister, Abdul Qadir was demoted, and Babrak Karmal was put under government surveillance.

Babrak Karmal, when taking power in 1979, accused Amin of ordering the assassination of Khyber.

Taraki initially formed a government which consisted of both Khalqists and Parchamites; Babrak Karmal became Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Council, while Amin became Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

The first conflict arose when the Khalqists wanted to give PDPA Central Committee membership to military officers who had participated in the Saur Revolution; Babrak Karmal opposed such a move but was overruled.

Babrak Karmal, fearing for his safety, went into hiding in one of his Soviet friends' homes.

Babrak Karmal tried to contact Alexander Puzanov, the Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan, to talk about the situation.

In exile, Babrak Karmal established a network with the remaining Parchamites in government.

Under the command of the Soviets, Babrak Karmal ascended to power.

Babrak Karmal's ascension was quickly troubled as he was effectively installed by the invading Soviet Union, delegitimizing him.

Alamyar remained in jail for a decade, even after Babrak Karmal was removed from his post as president.

When he came to power, Babrak Karmal promised an end to executions, the establishment of democratic institutions and free elections, the creation of a constitution, and legalization of alternative political parties.

Babrak Karmal promised the creation of a coalition government which would not espouse socialism.

Babrak Karmal's government granted concessions to religious leaders and the restoration of confiscated property.

When Babrak Karmal took power, leading posts in the Party and Government bureaucracy were taken over by Parchamites.

When Babrak Karmal took power, he began expanding the support base of the PDPA.

Babrak Karmal tried to persuade certain groups, which had been referred to class enemies of the revolution during Taraki and Amin's rule, to support the PDPA.

Babrak Karmal reintroduced the old Afghan custom of having an Islamic invocation every time the government issued a proclamation.

Babrak Karmal refused to recognize the rebels as genuine, saying in an interview:.

The only economic activity which grew substantially during Babrak Karmal's rule was export and import.

Babrak Karmal was widely viewed as a puppet leader of the Soviet Union by Afghans and the Western press.

Babrak Karmal asked to return home to Kabul, and said that he understood and would listen to the Soviet recommendations.

At a meeting in Kabul, Babrak Karmal confessed his undying love for the Soviet Union, comparing his ardor to his Muslim faith.

Kryuchkov, concluding that he could not persuade Babrak Karmal to resign, left the meeting.

Understanding that his Soviet support had been eliminated, Babrak Karmal resigned from the office of the General Secretary at the 18th PDPA Central Committee plenum.

Babrak Karmal still had support within the party, and used his base to curb Najibullah's powers.

Babrak Karmal began spreading rumors that he would be reappointed General Secretary.

Najibullah complained to the Soviet leadership that Babrak Karmal used most of his spare time looking for errors and "speaking against the National Reconciliation programme".

Babrak Karmal was succeeded as Revolutionary Council chairman by Haji Mohammad Tsamkani, who was not a member of the PDPA.

Babrak Karmal was invited back to Kabul by Najibullah, and "for equally obscure reasons Babrak Karmal accepted", returning on 20 June 1991.

When Najibullah was toppled in 1992, Babrak Karmal became the most powerful politician in Kabul through leadership of the Parcham.

In early December 1996, Babrak Karmal died in Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital from liver cancer.