For most of its existence, the party was split between the hardline Khalq and moderate Parcham factions, each of which claimed to represent the "true" PDPA.

[8][9] While PDPA's internal documents incorporated explicitly Marxist terminology,[10][7] the party refrained from formally branding itself as "communist" in public, instead using labels such as "national democratic" and "socialist".

[11] PDPA's public platform document published in April 1966 asserted that its political objectives involved the creation of a "democratic national government" as well as the long-term goal of establishing a socialist state.

[13] In July 1977, Khalq and Parcham factions re-merged into the PDPA after Soviet mediation, with the objective of preparing a coup against Daoud Khan's regime.

After the ouster and killing of Hafizullah Amin in a palace coup launched by Soviet military forces in December 1979, a Parchamite-dominated PDPA claimed that its government was facilitating what it described as the "national-democratic stage" of Marxist transformation.

In 1978, the PDPA, with help from members of the Afghan National Army, seized power from Daoud Khan in what became known as the Saur Revolution.

[23] Taraki was invited to Moscow by the International Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) later that year.

[26] In 1967 the party divided into several political sects, the biggest being the Khalqs and the Parchams,[27][page needed] as well as the Setami Milli[28] and Grohi Kar.

After the coup, the Loya jirga approved Daoud's new constitution, establishing a presidential one-party system of government in January 1977.

[37] In 1978 a prominent member of the PDPA on the Parcham side of the party, Mir Akbar Khyber, is claimed to have been assassinated by the government and its associates.

While the government rejected any claims of having assassinated him, the PDPA members apparently feared that Mohammad Daoud Khan was planning to exterminate them all.

With a number of Afghan military officers supporting the Khalq faction of the PDPA wing, Hafizullah Amin stayed out of prison long enough to organize an uprising with the group.

[40] With the help of the Afghan air force led by Colonel Abdul Qadir, the insurgent troops overcame the resistance of the Presidential Guard, assassinated Daoud, and killed most members of his family.

[43][44] Once in power, the PDP embarked upon a program of rapid modernization centered on separation of Mosque and State, eradication of illiteracy (which at the time stood at 90%), land reform, emancipation of women, and abolition of feudal practices.

[55][56] The death of Amin led to Babrak Karmal becoming the new Afghan leader and General Secretary of the PDPA, and marked the beginning of the Soviet-Afghan War.

[58] After the Soviet Union had leveled most of the villages south and east of Kabul, creating a massive humanitarian disaster, the demise of the PDPA continued with the rise of the Mujahideen guerrillas, who were trained in Pakistani camps with US support.

Between 1982 and 1992, the number of people recruited by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to join the insurgency topped 100,000.

The Soviet troop withdrawal in late 1989 changed the political structure that had enabled the PDPA to stay in power all those years.

Later in March 1990 Defense Minister and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Shahnawaz Tanai tried to seize power in a military coup.

In April 1992, the PDPA regime in Afghanistan collapsed after the sudden change of allegiance of General Abdul Rashid Dostum following President Najibullah's resignation.

Hafizullah Amin, the second PDPA General Secretary, had seen his leftist beliefs strengthened during his studies in the United States in the late 1950s.

[63] The party also publicly asserted that their desired changes could be achieved peacefully, however their ultimate goal was a revolution, and they were aware that it could only be accomplished through violence.

[67] Once in power, however, it became clear that the PDPA was dominated by an urban intelligentsia and lacked any real social base in the overwhelmingly rural and Islamic communities of Afghanistan.

The party launched a programme ranging from land redistribution to emancipation and education of women, which violated traditional customs, religious laws, and the balance of power between Kabul and the rural localities.

[66] The radical reform program, class-struggle, anti-imperialistic rhetoric, the signing of a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union, increased presence of Soviet advisers in the country, and support of countries like Cuba and North Korea led to the international media and domestic opponents giving the label of "communist" to the PDPA.

[69] In the period April 1978 – September 1979 the Central Committee contained 38 individuals, of these, 12 were either purged, imprisoned or executed on the orders of Taraki after the Saur Revolution.

[70] Of these 52 members, only three had held offices continuously through Taraki's, Amin's and Karmal's rule; they were Abdur Rashid Arian, Mohammed Ismail Danesh and Saleh Mohammad Zeary (often referred to as a Khalqist).

[78] Another problem, in Faryab province the PDPA was inactive and the majority of the locals believed that Mohammad Daoud Khan, the president which the communists overthrew in 1978, was still ruling the country.

[78] Another case, that of Nangrahar province (in which the government was in complete control) faced a similar problem; the party organization laying dormant.

[83] The main problem was that most of these new recruits were "functional illiterate", which in reality led to an overall decline in the quality of party members.