People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan - Formation and Early Political Activities

Formation and Early Political Activities

Nur Mohammad Taraki started his political career as an Afghan journalist. On the 1 January 1965 Taraki with Babrak Karmal established the Democratic People's Party of Afghanistan, while at the beginning the party was running under the name People's Democratic Tendency, since there were no officially political party law in Afghanistan at that time. The party held its First Congress meeting on January 1, 1965. Twenty-seven gentlemen gathered at Taraki's house in Kabul, elected Taraki as the first party Secretary General and Karmal as Deputy Secretary General, and chose a five-member Central Committee also called a Politburo. Taraki was later invited by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's International Department in Moscow later that year.

The PDPA was known in Afghan society at that time as having strong ties with the Soviet Union, the party itself was established for winning parliamentary seats in the Afghan Parliament. Eventually the PDPA was able to get four of its members in to parliament. Later on Taraki established the first radical newspaper in Afghan history under the name The Khalq, the newspaper was eventually forced to stop publishing in 1966 by the government.

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