Nur Muhammad Taraki, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Nur Muhammad Taraki

Prime Minister of Afghanistan

Date of Birth: 15-Jul-1917

Place of Birth: Kabul, Afghanistan

Date of Death: 08-Oct-1979

Profession: writer, poet, politician, journalist

Nationality: Afghanistan

Zodiac Sign: Cancer


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About Nur Muhammad Taraki

  • Nur Muhammad Taraki (15 July 1917 – 8 October 1979) was an Afghan communist statesman during the Cold War who served as President of Afghanistan from 1978 to 1979.
  • Taraki was born near Kabul and graduated from Kabul University, after which he started his political career as a journalist.
  • He later became one of the founding members of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and was elected as the party's general secretary at its first congress.
  • He ran as a candidate in the 1965 Afghan parliamentary election but failed to secure himself a seat.
  • In 1966 he published the first issue of Khalq, a party newspaper, but it was closed down shortly afterwards by the government.
  • He led the Khalq wing of the PDPA.
  • In 1978 Taraki, along with Hafizullah Amin and Babrak Karmal initiated the Saur Revolution and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The presidency of Taraki, albeit short-lived, was always marked by controversies.
  • The government was divided between two PDPA factions: the Khalqists (which Taraki was the leader of), the majority, and the Parchamites, the minority.
  • He started a purge of the government and party that led to several high-ranking Parchamite members being sent into de facto exile by being assigned to serve overseas as ambassadors.
  • Taraki launched a land reform on 1 January 1979 which proved to be highly unpopular.
  • His regime also brutally locked up dissidents and oversaw massacres of villagers.
  • These factors, among others, led to a popular backlash that initiated a rebellion.
  • Despite repeated attempts throughout his reign, Taraki proved unable to persuade the Soviet Union to intervene in support of the restoration of civil order. His reign was marked by a dictator-like cult of personality centered around himself that had been cultivated by Amin.
  • The state press and subsequent propaganda started to refer to him as the "Great Leader" and "Great Teacher".
  • His relationship with Amin turned sour during his rule, ultimately resulting in Taraki's overthrow on 14 September 1979 and subsequent murder on 8 October, upon Amin's orders.
  • His death was a factor that led to the Soviet intervention in December 1979. Outside politics, from the 1940s onwards he also wrote some novels and short-stories in the socialist realism style.

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