Babrak Karmal (, born Sultan Hussein ; 6 January 1929 – 1 or 3 December 1996 ) was an Afghan politician and statesman during the Cold War.

Karmal was born in Kamari and educated at Kabul University, after which he started his career as a bureaucrat.

Before, during and after his career as a bureaucrat Karmal was a leading member of the Afghan movement.

When the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan ( PDPA ) was formed, Karmal became one of its leading members, and eventually became the leader of the Parcham faction.

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

Karmal survived this purge, probably due to his contacts with the Soviets, and was sent to exile in Prague.

Under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union was able to depose Karmal and replace him with Mohammad Najibullah.

Karmal was born Sultan Hussein

In 1967, the PDPA split into two major rival factions: the Khalq ( Masses ) was headed by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin who were supported by elements within the military, and the Parcham ( Banner ) led by Babrak Karmal.

On 27 April 1978, the PDPA, led by Nur Mohammad Taraki, Babrak Karmal and Amin Taha overthrew the government of Mohammad Daoud, who was assassinated along with all his family members in a bloody military coup.

In the meantime, Hafizullah Amin was killed and replaced by Babrak Karmal.

He was a member of the Parcham faction led by Babrak Karmal.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, was able to get Karmal to step down as PDPA General Secretary in 1986, and replace him with Najibullah.

For a number of months Najibullah was locked in a power struggle against Karmal, who still retained his post of Chairman of the Revolutionary Council.

During his ascension to power, several Afghan politician did not want Najibullah to succeed Babrak Karmal because of the fact that Najibullah was known for exploiting his powers for his own benefit.

The question of who was to succeed Karmal was hotly debated, but Gorbachev supported Najibullah.

On 15 May Najibullah announced that a collective leadership had been established, which was led by himself consisted of himself as head of party, Karmal as head of state and Sultan Ali Keshtmand as Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

Karmal went as far as to spread rumours that Najibullah's rule was little more than an interregnum, and that he would soon be reappointed to the general secretaryship.

The Soviet leadership wanted to ease Karmal out of politics, but when Najibullah began to complain that he was hampering his plans of National Reconciliation, the Soviet Politburo decided to remove Karmal ; this motion was supported by Andrei Gromyko, Yuli Vorontsov, Eduard Shevardnadze, Anatoly Dobrynin and Viktor Chebrikov.

A meeting in the PDPA in November relieved Karmal of his Revolutionary Council chairmanship, and he was exiled to Moscow where he was given a state-owned apartment and a dacha.

In April 1980, under Babrak Karmal, the Fundamental Principles of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan were made law.

Karmal announces a new set of proposals for negotiations with Pakistan and Iran, either separately or together ; this is a slight departure from proposals he made in May and in December 1980.

Najibullah succeeded Karmal as PDPA General Secretary on 4 May 1986 at the 18th PDPA meeting, but Karmal still retained his post as Chairman of the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council.

Under him was Babrak Karmal, the leader of the Parcham faction, as Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Council and Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Amin as Council of Ministers deputy chairman and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Mohammad Aslam Watanjar as Council of Ministers deputy chairman.

On 27 December Radio Kabul broadcast Karmal's pre-recorded speech, which stated " Today the torture machine of Amin has been smashed, his accomplices – the primitive executioners, usurpers and murderers of tens of thousand of our fellow countrymen – fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters, children and old people ..." On 1 January Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and Alexei Kosygin, the Soviet Chairman of the Council of Ministers, congratulated Karmal on his " election " as leader, before any Afghan state or party organ had elected him to anything.

Friction among the People's Party members rose in 1980 when Karmal removed Assadullah Sarwari from his position as First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and replaced him with Sultan Ali Keshtmand.

In his position as Revolutionary Council chairman Karmal was succeeded by Haji Mohammad Chamkani, who was not a member of the PDPA.

Karmal resigns as general secretary of the PDPA, retaining the less important position of president of the Revolutionary Council.

Karmal resigns from the largely ceremonial post of president of the Revolutionary Council.

The appointment of Karmal, Amin and Watanjar as Council of Ministers deputy chairmen proved highly unstable, and it led to three different governments being established within the government ; the Khalq faction was answerable to Amin, the Parchamites were answerable to Karmal and the military officers ( who were Parchamites ) were answerable to Watanjar.

Under Karmal, Khalqist dominance within the Council of Ministers was destroyed, and replaced with Parcham dominance.

In June 1981, Karmal retained his other offices, but resigned as Council of Ministers chairman and was succeeded by Keshtmand.

Babrak Karmal, the Parchamite leader, met several leading Eastern Bloc figures during this period, and Mohammad Aslam Watanjar, Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy and Assadullah Sarwari wanted to exact revenge on Amin.

President Karmal gives up the post of prime minister ; he is succeeded in that position on June 11 by Sultan Ali Keshtmand, another trusted member of the Parcham faction of the PDPA.

At the founding congress of the PDPA, held in Taraki's own home, Taraki won a competitive election against Babrak Karmal to the post of general secretary on 1 January 1965.

Especially on the ideological level, Karmal and Taraki differed in their perceptions of Afghanistan's revolutionary potential:

Karmal would remain in exile until December 1979, when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan ( with the consent of the Afghan government ) to stabilise the situation in the country, they killed Amin, the leader of the PDPA and the Afghan government.

* December 3 – Babrak Karmal, President of Afghanistan ( b. 1929 )

On December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, bringing Babrak Karmal and the Parcham faction to power.

The Karmal era, lasting from 1979 to 1986, is best known for the Soviet war effort in Afghanistan.

When Karmal ascended to power, the Settamites relationship with the government improved, mostly due to Karmal's former good relationship with Badakhshi, who was killed by government forces in 1979.