Talk:Saur Revolution

"Coup"
There is considerable evidence that what developed in Afghanistan was a genuine revolution. For example, see Emine Engin's, "The revolution in Afghanistan"

"At this time, the party member and trade union leader, Ahbar Hayber, was murdered. His funeral turned into a huge mass demonstration. Thousands of people poured into the streets. The demonstration was marked by speeches by leading members of the PDPA. Due to these speeches, the decision was taken to arrest six PDPA leaders, including Tarakki, Amin and Karmal. The government lived in fear. Tarakki was arrested on April 25 1978. Immediately afterwards, Amin was arrested. There existed a strong party organisation within the army under the direction of Amin. Before being taken to prison, Amin issued an order to this party organisation. The next morning, on April 27, the insurrection began. After 10 hours of fighting, the revolution ended in victory."

"In January, 1978, another uprising broke out as thousands of Afghans demanded the release of the jailed PDPA members. The police were unable to put down the rebellion, and the army was called in to smash it instead.

"PDPA members in the military, with the support of tens of thousands of others, began an uprising against the Daoud government on April 27, 1978.

"Two days later, hundreds of thousands of Afghans marched through the streets waving red flags and celebrating the victory of the Saur Revolution."

RZimmerwald (talk) 21:21, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Dubious
We just don't make statements like "it is said..." without some sort of attribution; otherwise it appears to be original research. - CobaltBlueTony™ talk 18:36, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Soviet Involvement
I came to this article in hope of clearing up a discrepancy between two of my regular sources. Chomsky asserts that the Saur Coup (It wasn't a revolution, that much is immediately clear) was entirely organized by the USSR in the hope of turning Afghanistan into a satellite-state, while Zizek states the exact opposite, that the coup was a purely Afghani movement, independent of any Soviet influence. Maybe there is some confusion or disagreement amongst historians, but I wouldn't learn that from reading this article. Is this subject so unimportant historically that it deserves such a tiny article? Wasn't this coup the catalyst for the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, the rise of the Taliban and Northern Alliance, the September 11th attacks and current NATO occupation of Afghanistan? 90.196.36.175 (talk) 21:05, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

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Alleged 'suppression' of Islam by PDPA
Under the heading, 'Communist Rule' is is stated that the PDPA 'moved to promote state atheism and suppress the Islamic faith.' William Blum (in Chapter 53 of 'Killing Hope' ) on the other hand asserts that there's no evidence of the suppression of religion, and talks of the separation of church and state rather than 'state atheism.' The cited webpage doesn't doesn't really present any detailed evidence; just makes assertions without references to any text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zatarra86 (talk • contribs) 11:32, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

B-class assessment
I've gone through the article and passed it for B-class assessment on all but B1 - referencing. There's a few points that still need in-line cites (mostly moved from the end of paragraphs), and a couple of footnotes that are somewhat ambiguous (either referring to multiple sources in the same note, or to a similarly-named (but not same-named) book as another note). I'm aiming to go through those later tomorrow. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 23:55, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Fortieth anniversary
The 40th anniversary of the revolution is coming up soon, so it would be good to get the article to at least Good Article status by then. — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 23:56, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Citation style
I was looking at changing the citation style to use page numbers in a bibliography, but there's a couple of reasons I hadn't thus far (aside from the work): So, in order to provide the context from Google Books, I left it as-is. If anyone has any suggestions that would at least deal with the second point, I'm more than open to hearing them. ,, do you mind weighing in? — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 14:41, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
 * 1) At least one or two of the books cited seem to only have a couple of pages that cover the subject, and;
 * 2) The Google Books URLs link to passages cited with text highlighted, so readers get the quotes in context with the rest of the page.

(Disruptive?) style of editing by Toddy1
I strongly object to the (easy/lazy, disruptive?) style of editing by Toddy1 on this page. Especially his reverting edit 17March,17:11, reverting a list of six edits of mine, with motivation: "revert POV edits and MOS:EGG" which does not seem to apply (for example) for my edit of 17Mrch13:57. I had to repeat that edit today, after it had been deleted there for nine days as result of Toddy's (disruptive, quick-and-easy?) reverting. He should 'assume good faith' in colleagues, which he seems not to do: if he encounters one wrong edit of a person, he suspects that all their edits will be ("POV" or otherwise) worthless. Please remind: Wiki is a project of collaboration. (Whether edits can be "POV" at all, what that expression means, and how a colleague should react on (what Toddy1 seems to label as) a 'POV edit' of someone else, is now being discussed on User talk:Toddy1.) --Corriebertus (talk) 12:58, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Looking at the reverted wording, it came across as suggesting that the revolution was an act of self-defence by the PDPA against the government, which would need sourcing and qualifying if included. It also names Daoud Khan as "PDPA President Daoud Khan", which I don't believe he was; his article mentions that he instead formed the National Revolutionary Party of Afghanistan, and then banned all other parties (which would logically include the PDPA). With regards to the MOS:EGG claim; that seems to be with regards to the wikilink of "the PDPA regime signed a treaty of friendship with the Soviet Union": a reader following a link about the PDPA and the Soviet Union might be surprised to find themselves on a page about the CIA in Afghanistan. Typically, best practice with that sort of thing would be to reword the wikilink so that the page would be less of a surprise (e.g. wikilink a mention of the Soviet's suspicions of Amin as a CIA agent on account of his brutality, rather than the treaty of friendship). — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 13:39, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Sasuke Sarutobi comments on (presumed) mistakes in my edits, but that is not the issue in this Talk section. (Most people make mistakes now and then, ofcourse mistaken edits may be reverted, and it's not hard to find out which edit of mine seemed to violate the guideline MOS:EGG). The issue here, the point I'm making in this section is: Toddy1 shouldn't revert six edits with a motivation that applies only to one of those six—that seems to me an obstructive or disruptive working style. If you give a motivation for reverting just one edit, then just revert that one edit and not six. Toddy1, just like everyone, ought to give correct, meaningful motivations directly for every (reverting) edit. That's the only way to get a real discussion about any disagreement, mistake, misunderstanding, or whatever seems the matter, directly started in a constructive way. Omitting to give good motivations therefore is at least obstructive. ("POV edits", in the meaning Toddy gives to that term (on 19 March), is a nonsense term, therefore a meaningless edit motivation, as I've explained here (29 March).) --Corriebertus (talk) 15:30, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

"Democratic republic"
With regards to North Korea: its constitution explicitly considers itself a "dictatorship of people's democracy" (i.e. a dictatorship). The Marxist land reforms and secularisation of 1978-79 may have been disastrous and gave licence to wanton cruelty, but by accounts these were done with the intention of improving the conditions of the peasant class of Afghanistan (regardless of how ill-informed and badly implemented they were), and under the explicit request of Brezhnev to "ensure the inviolability of the rights and democratic freedoms of citizens". — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 18:50, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Lots of dictatorships call themselves "Democratic Republics"-- but both "democracies" and "republics" require the participation and consent (usually through elections) of the people who are governed.  Afghanistan under the PDPA had no veneer of being either a democracy or a republic -- whatever the government may have called itself.  There was no representative assembly and the leadership was not elected. The PDPA government came to power through a coup d'etat.


 * The fact that the PDPA government initiated a land reform program may be admirable in theory -- but it was a top-down, dictated land reform program with little or no consultation or consent by the people impacted -- neither peasants nor landlords. Government by fiat is not a "democratic republic" whatever the country may choose to call itself.


 * North Korea calls itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- but it is neither. East Germany called itself the German Democratic Republic -- but it was neither.  The same standard applies to the PDPA of Afghanistan.  It was neither a democracy nor a republic -- and it is misleading to the reader to characterize is as such.


 * The wikipedia article on Democratic republic identifies several countries identifying themselves as "democratic republics" who were neither. PDPA Afghanistan falls into that category.Smallchief  (talk)


 * I accept your point about their entire lack of democratic participation, but if they described themselves as a "democratic republic" and never held elections, that surely deserves coverage in the article? Is there any mention of them ever convening a loya jirga? — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 10:26, 27 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I think the PDPA called several loya jirgas in the late 1980s to try desperately to gain some sort of credibility with Afghan tribal leaders....but that was just a ploy. I'm not aware of any democratic tendencies of the PDPA government in the early years of its rule. I think it's fair to mention that the official name of the PDPA government was the "Democratic Republic of Afghanistan" -- but not to imply in any way that the name means they were democratic or a republic.  What the PDPA attempted to establish was a clone of the Soviet system.Smallchief  (talk) 15:08, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Communist/non-Communist regime
I see some edit warring going on regarding whether new government was "Communist" or not... I found some reference in Britannica encyclopedia which I believe might be helpful in this case. It refers to whole period of 1978-1992 as a "Communist phase", has phrases such as "The Taraki regime announced its programs, which included eliminating usury, ensuring equal rights for women, instituting land reforms, and making administrative decrees in classic Marxist-Leninist rhetoric" and the article ends up with direct quote about government being "communist". There are also similar references in sources from BBC and others (including some books), which can be quickly found in few minutes by Googling. So I believe it is safe to leave the mention of the government being "communist" after this revolution.Omgwtfbbqsomethingrandom (talk) 19:28, 19 April 2018 (UTC)