The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), renamed the Republic of Afghanistan in 1987, was the Afghan state during the one-party rule of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) from 1978 to 1992. It relied heavily on assistance from the Soviet Union for most of its existence, especially during the Soviet–Afghan War.

The PDPA came to power through the Saur Revolution, which ousted the regime of the unelected autocrat Mohammed Daoud Khan; he was succeeded by Nur Muhammad Taraki as the head of state and government on 30 April 1978. Taraki and Hafizullah Amin, the organizer of the Saur Revolution, introduced several contentious reforms during their rule, such as land and marriage reforms and an enforced policy of de-Islamization alongside the promotion of socialism. Amin also added on the reforms introduced by Khan, such as universal education and equal rights for women. Soon after taking power, a power struggle began between the hardline Khalq faction led by Taraki and Amin, and the moderate Parcham faction led by Babrak Karmal. The Khalqists emerged victorious and the bulk of the Parchamites were subsequently purged from the PDPA, while the most prominent Parcham leaders were exiled to the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union.

After the Khalq–Parcham struggle, another power struggle arose between Taraki and Amin within the Khalq faction, in which Amin gained the upper hand and later had Taraki killed on his orders. Due to earlier reforms, Amin's rule proved unpopular within both Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. A Soviet intervention supported by the Afghan government had begun in December 1979, and on 27 December, Amin was assassinated by Soviet military forces; Karmal became the leader of Afghanistan in his place. The Karmal era, which lasted from 1979 to 1986, was marked by the height of the Soviet–Afghan War, in which Soviet and Afghan government forces fought against the Afghan mujahideen in order to consolidate control over Afghanistan. The war resulted in a large number of civilian casualties as well as the creation of millions of refugees who fled into Pakistan and Iran. The Fundamental Principles, a constitution, was introduced by the government in April 1980, and several non-PDPA members were allowed into government as part of its policy of broadening its support base. However, Karmal's policies failed to bring peace to the war-ravaged country, and in 1986, he was succeeded as PDPA General Secretary by Mohammad Najibullah.

Najibullah pursued a policy of National Reconciliation with the opposition: a new Afghan constitution was introduced in 1987 and democratic elections were held in 1988 (which were boycotted by the mujahideen). After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988–1989, the government faced increasing resistance. 1990 proved to be a year of change in Afghan politics as another constitution was introduced that stated Afghanistan's nature as an Islamic republic, and the PDPA was transformed into the Watan Party, which continues to exist. On the military front, the government proved capable of defeating the armed opposition in open battle, as demonstrated in the Battle of Jalalabad. However, with an aggressive armed opposition and internal difficulties such as a failed coup attempt by the Khalq faction in 1990 coupled with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Najibullah government collapsed in April 1992. The collapse of Najibullah's government triggered another civil war that led to the rise of the Taliban and their eventual takeover of most of Afghanistan by 1996.

Geographically, the Democratic Republic was bordered by the Soviet Union (through Tajik, Turkmen and Uzbek SSRs) to the north, China (through Xinjiang) to the east, Pakistan to the south and Iran to the west.

History

Geographically, the DRA was bordered by Pakistan in the south and east; Iran in the west; the Soviet Union (via the Turkmen, Uzbek, and Tajik SSRs) in the north; and China in the far northeast covering  of its territory.

Saur Revolution and Taraki: 1978–1979
Mohammad Daoud Khan, the President of the Republic of Afghanistan from 1973 to 1978, was ousted during the Saur Revolution (April Revolution) following the death of Mir Akbar Khyber, a Parchamite politician from the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), who died under mysterious circumstances. Hafizullah Amin, a Khalqist, was the coup's chief architect. Nur Muhammad Taraki, the leader of the Khalqists, was elected Chairman of the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council, Chairman of the Council of Ministers and retained his post as General Secretary of the PDPA Central Committee. 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. The appointment of Karmal, Amin and Watanjar as Council of Ministers deputy chairmen proved 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.

The first conflict between the Khalqists and Parchamites arose when the Khalqists wanted to give PDPA Central Committee membership to military officers who participated in the Saur Revolution. Amin, who previously opposed the appointment of military officers to the PDPA leadership, altered his position; he now supported their elevation. The PDPA Politburo voted in favour of giving membership to the military officers; the victors (the Khalqists) portrayed the Parchamites as opportunists (they implied that the Parchamites had ridden the revolutionary wave, but not actually participated in the revolution). To make matters worse for the Parchamites, the term Parcham was, according to Taraki, a word synonymous with factionalism. On 27 June, three months after the revolution, Amin managed to outmaneuver the Parchamites at a Central Committee meeting. The meeting decided that the Khalqists had the exclusive right to formulate and decide policy, which left the Parchamites impotent. Karmal was exiled. Later, a coup planned by the Parchamites and led by Karmal was discovered by the Khalqist leadership, prompting a swift reaction; a purge of Parchamites began. Parchamite ambassadors were recalled, but few returned; for instance, Karmal and Mohammad Najibullah stayed in their respective countries.

During Taraki's rule, an unpopular land reform was introduced, leading to the requisitioning of land by the government without compensation; it disrupted lines of credit and led to some crop buyers boycotting beneficiaries of the reform, causing agricultural harvests to plummet and rising discontent amongst Afghans. When Taraki realized the degree of popular dissatisfaction with the reform he began to curtail the policy. Afghanistan's long history of resistance to any type of strong centralized governmental control further undermined his authority. Consequently, much of the land reform did not get implemented nationwide. In the months following the coup, Taraki and other party leaders initiated other policies that challenged both traditional Afghan values and well-established traditional power structures in rural areas. Taraki introduced women to political life and legislated an end to forced marriage. The strength of the anti-reform backlash would ultimately lead to the Afghan Civil War.

Amin and the Soviet intervention: 1979

While Amin and Taraki had a very close relationship at the beginning, the relationship soon deteriorated. Amin, who had helped to create a personality cult centered on Taraki, soon became disgusted with the shape it took and with Taraki, who had begun to believe in his own brilliance. Taraki began dismissing Amin's suggestions, fostering in Amin a deep sense of resentment. As their relationship turned increasingly sour, a power struggle developed between them for control of the Afghan Army. Following the 1979 Herat uprising, the Revolutionary Council and the PDPA Politburo established the Homeland Higher Defence Council. Taraki was elected its chairman, while Amin became its deputy. Amin's appointment, and the acquisition of the premiership (as Chairman of the Council of Ministers), was not a step further up the ladder as one might assume; due to constitutional reforms, Amin's new offices were more or less powerless. There was a failed assassination attempt led by the Gang of Four, which consisted of Watanjar, Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy, Sherjan Mazdoryar and Assadullah Sarwari. This assassination attempt prompted Amin to conspire against Taraki, and when Taraki returned from a trip to Havana, he was ousted, and later suffocated on Amin's orders.

During his 104 days in power, Amin became committed to establishing a collective leadership. When Taraki was ousted, Amin promised "from now on there will be no one-man government...". Prior to the Soviet intervention, the PDPA executed between 1,000 and 27,000 people, mostly at Pul-e-Charkhi prison. Between 17,000 and 25,000 people were arrested during Taraki's and Amin's rules combined. Amin was not liked by the Afghan people. During his rule, opposition to the communist regime increased, and the government lost control of the countryside. The state of the Afghan Armed Forces deteriorated under Amin; due to desertions the number of military personnel in the Afghan Army decreased from 100,000, in the immediate aftermath of the Saur Revolution, to somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000. Another problem was that the KGB had penetrated the PDPA, the military and the government bureaucracy. While his position in Afghanistan was becoming more perilous by the day, his enemies who were exiled in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc were agitating for his removal. 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.

Meantime in the Soviet Union, the Special Commission of the Politburo on Afghanistan, which consisted of Yuri Andropov, Andrei Gromyko, Dmitriy Ustinov and Boris Ponomarev, wanted to end the impression that the Soviet government supported Amin's leadership and policies. Andropov fought hard for Soviet intervention, telling Leonid Brezhnev that Amin's policies had destroyed the military and the government's capability to handle the crisis by use of mass repression. The plan, according to Andropov, was to assemble a small force to intervene and remove Amin from power and replace him with Karmal. The Soviet Union declared its plan to intervene in Afghanistan on 12 December 1979, and the Soviet leadership initiated Operation Storm-333 (the first phase of the intervention) on 27 December 1979.

Amin remained trustful of the Soviet Union until the very end, despite the deterioration of official relations with the Soviet Union. When the Afghan intelligence service handed Amin a report that the Soviet Union would invade the country and topple him, Amin claimed the report was a product of imperialism. His view can be explained by the fact that the Soviet Union, after several months, decided to send troops into Afghanistan. Contrary to normal Western beliefs, Amin was informed of the Soviet decision to send troops into Afghanistan. Amin was killed by Soviet forces on 27 December 1979.

Karmal era: 1979–1986
Karmal ascended to power following Amin's assassination. 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.

When he came to power, Karmal promised an end to executions, the establishment of democratic institutions and free elections, the creation of a constitution, the legalisation of parties other than the PDPA, and respect for individual and personal property. Prisoners incarcerated under the two previous governments would be freed in a general amnesty. He even promised that a coalition government was going to be established that was not going to espouse socialism. At the same time, he told the Afghan people that he had negotiated with the Soviet Union to give economic, military and political assistance. Even if Karmal indeed wanted all this, it would be impossible to put it into practice in the presence of the Soviet Union. Most Afghans mistrusted the government at this time. Many still remembered that Karmal had said he would protect private capital in 1978, a promise later proven to be a lie.
When a political solution failed, the Afghan government and the Soviet military decided to solve the conflict militarily. The change from a political to a military solution came gradually. It began in January 1981: Karmal doubled wages for military personnel, issued several promotions, and one general and thirteen colonels were decorated. The draft age was lowered, the obligatory length of military duty was extended, and the age for reservists was increased to thirty-five years of age. In June, Assadullah Sarwari lost his seat in the PDPA Politburo, and in his place were appointed Mohammad Aslam Watanjar, a former tank commander and the then Minister of Communications, Major General Mohammad Rafi, the Minister of Defence and KHAD Chairman Mohammad Najibullah. These measures were introduced due to the collapse of the army; before the invasion the army could field 100,000 troops, after the invasion only 25,000. Desertion was pandemic, and the recruitment campaigns for young people often led them to flee to the opposition. To better organise the military, seven military zones were established, each with its own Defence Council. The Defence Council was established at the national, provincial and district level to devolve powers to the local PDPA. It is estimated that the Afghan government spent as much as 40 percent of government revenue on defence.

Karmal was forced to resign from his post as PDPA General Secretary in May 1986, due to increasing pressure from the Soviet leadership, and was succeeded by Najibullah, the former Minister of State Security. He continued to have influence in the upper echelons of the party and state until he was forced to resign from his post of Revolutionary Council Chairman in November 1986, being succeeded by Haji Mohammad Chamkani, who was not a PDPA member.

Najibullah and Soviet withdrawal: 1986–1989
In September 1986 the National Compromise Commission (NCC) was established on the orders of Najibullah. The NCC's goal was to contact counter-revolutionaries "in order to complete the Saur Revolution in its new phase." An estimated 40,000 rebels were contacted by the government. At the end of 1986, Najibullah called for a six-month ceasefire and talks between the various opposition forces, as part of his policy of National Reconciliation. The discussions, if fruitful, would have led to the establishment of a coalition government and be the end of the PDPA's monopoly on power. The programme failed, but the government was able to recruit disillusioned mujahideen fighters as government militias. The National Reconciliation did lead an increasing number of urban dwellers to support his rule, and to the stabilisation of the Afghan defence forces.

While Najibullah may have been the de jure leader of Afghanistan, Soviet advisers still did most of the work after Najibullah took power. As Gorbachev remarked "We're still doing everything ourselves... That's all our people know how to do. They've tied Najibullah hand and foot." Fikryat Tabeev, the Soviet ambassador to Afghanistan, was accused of acting like a Governor General by Gorbachev, and he was recalled from Afghanistan in July 1986. But while Gorbachev called for the end of Soviet management of Afghanistan, he could not resist doing some managing himself. At a Soviet Politburo meeting, Gorbachev said, "It's difficult to build a new building out of old material... I hope to God that we haven't made a mistake with Najibullah." As time would prove, Najibullah's aims were the opposite of the Soviet Union's; Najibullah was opposed to a Soviet withdrawal, the Soviet Union wanted a withdrawal. This was understandable, since it was thought that the Afghan military was on the brink of dissolution. Najibullah thought his only means of survival was to retain the Soviet presence. In July 1986 six Soviet regiments, up to 15,000 troops, were withdrawn from Afghanistan. The aim of this early withdrawal was, according to Gorbachev, to show the world that the Soviet leadership was serious about leaving Afghanistan. The Soviets told the United States Government that they were planning to withdraw, but the United States Government didn't believe it. When Gorbachev met with Ronald Reagan during his visit the United States, Reagan called, bizarrely, for the dissolution of the Afghan Military.

On 14 April the Afghan and Pakistani governments signed the 1988 Geneva Accords, and the Soviet Union and the United States signed as guarantors; the treaty specifically stated that the Soviet military had to withdraw from Afghanistan by 15 February 1989. During a Politburo meeting Eduard Shevardnadze said "We will leave the country in a deplorable situation", and talked further about economic collapse, and the need to keep at least 10,000 to 15,000 troops in Afghanistan. Vladimir Kryuchkov, the KGB Chairman, supported this position. This stance, if implemented, would be a betrayal of the Geneva Accords just signed. Najibullah was against any type of Soviet withdrawal. A few Soviet troops remained after the Soviet withdrawal; for instance, parachutists who protected the Soviet embassy staff, military advisors and special forces and reconnaissance troops still operated in the "outlying provinces", especially along the Afghan–Soviet border.

Fall: 1989–1992

Pakistan, under Zia ul-Haq, continued to support the Afghan mujahideen even though it was a contravention of the Geneva Accords. At the beginning most observers expected the Najibullah government to collapse immediately, and to be replaced with an Islamic fundamentalist government. Following the Soviet withdrawal the morale of the Afghan Military was said to have actually increased. The Central Intelligence Agency stated in a report, that the new government would be ambivalent, or even worse hostile, towards the United States. Almost immediately after the Soviet withdrawal, the Battle of Jalalabad was fought between Afghan government forces and the mujahideen; the government forces, to the surprise of many, repulsed the attack and won the battle. This trend would not continue, and by the summer of 1990, the Afghan government forces were on the defensive again. By the beginning of 1991, the government controlled only 10 percent of Afghanistan, the eleven-year Siege of Khost had ended in a mujahideen victory and the morale of the Afghan military slumped. In 1991 a coup led by members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to remove Gorbachev failed resulting in the removal of many Soviet politicians and military officers that favored continuing aid to the Homeland Party government in Kabul. The last Soviet aid came in October, with all Russian aid being cut by the new President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin in January of 1992. Correctly fearing that a Mujahedeen victory could lead to the new government backing Islamists against the former Soviet Central Asian republics, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan provided food aid to the Najibullah government. The end of weapon exports however led to a inability to equip the estimated 170 thousand strong militias Najibullah set up through his reconciliation policies.

In March 1992, Najibullah offered his government's immediate resignation, and following an agreement with the United Nations (UN), his government was replaced by an interim government. In mid-April Najibullah accepted a UN plan to hand power to a seven-man council. A few days later, on 14 April, Najibullah was forced to resign by 4 of his generals, because of the loss of Bagram airbase and the town of Charikar. Abdul Rahim Hatef became acting head of state following Najibullah's resignation. Najibullah, not long before Kabul's fall, appealed to the UN for amnesty, which he was granted. But Najibullah was hindered by Abdul Rashid Dostum from escaping; instead, Najibullah sought haven in the local UN headquarters in Kabul. The war in Afghanistan did not end with Najibullah's ouster, and continued until the final fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021. Kabul would suffer destruction following Najibullah's resignation as many factions fought for control.

Politics

Political system
The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan described the Saur Revolution as a democratic revolution signifying "a victory of the honourable working people of Afghanistan" and the "manifestation of the real will and interests of workers, peasants and toilers." While the idea of moving Afghanistan toward socialism was proclaimed, completing the task was seen as an arduous road. Thus, Afghanistan's foreign minister commented that Afghanistan was a democratic but not yet socialist republic, while a member of the Politburo of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan predicted that "Afghanistan will not see socialism in my lifetime" in an interview with a British journalist in 1981.

Afghanistan was considered by the Soviet Union as a state with a socialist orientation. The Soviets, in mid-1979, initially proclaimed Afghanistan as not merely a progressive ally, but a fully fledged member of the socialist community of nations. In contrast, later Soviet rhetoric invariably referred to the Saur Revolution as a democratic turn, but stopped short of recognizing a socialist society.

Under Hafizullah Amin, a commission working on a new constitution was established. There were 65 members of this commission, and they came from all walks of life. Due to his death, his constitution was never finished. In April 1980, under Babrak Karmal, the Fundamental Principles of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan were made law. The constitution was devoid of any references to socialism or communism, and instead laid emphasis on independence, Islam and liberal democracy. Religion was to be respected, the exception being when religion threatened the security of society. The Fundamental Principles were, in many ways, similar to Mohammad Daoud Khan's 1977 constitution. While official ideology was de-emphasized, the PDPA did not lose its monopoly on power, and the Revolutionary Council continued to be ruled through its Presidium, the majority of Presidium members were from the PDPA Politburo. The Karmal government was "a new evolutionary phase of the great Saur Revolution." The Fundamental Principles was not implemented in practice, and it was replaced by the 1987 constitution in a loya jirga under Muhammad Najibullah but did not have support of opposition parties. Islamic principles were embedded in the 1987 constitution. For instance, Article 2 of the constitution stated that Islam was the state religion, and Article 73 stated that the head of state had to be born into a Muslim Afghan family. In 1990, the 1987 constitution was amended to state that Afghanistan was an Islamic republic, and the last references to communism were removed. Article 1 of the amended constitution said that Afghanistan was an "independent, unitary and Islamic state."

The 1987 constitution liberalized the political landscape in areas under government control. Political parties could be established as long as they opposed colonialism, imperialism, neo-colonialism, Zionism, racial discrimination, apartheid and fascism. The Revolutionary Council was abolished, and replaced by the National Assembly of Afghanistan, a democratically elected parliament. The government announced its willingness to share power, and form a coalition government. The new parliament was bicameral, and consisted of a Senate (Sena) and a House of Representatives (Wolesi Jirga). The president was to be indirectly elected to a 7-year term. A parliamentary election was held in 1988. The PDPA won 46 seats in the House of Representatives and controlled the government with support from the National Front, which won 45 seats, and from various newly recognized left-wing parties, which had won a total of 24 seats. Although the election was boycotted by the Mujahideen, the government left 50 of the 234 seats in the House of Representatives, as well as a small number of seats in the Senate, vacant in the hope that the guerillas would end their armed struggle and participate in the government. The only armed opposition party to make peace with the government was Hizbollah, a small Shi'a party not to be confused with the bigger party in Iran.

The Council of Ministers was the Afghan cabinet, and its chairman was the head of government. It was the most important government body in PDPA Afghanistan, and it ran the governmental ministries. The Council of Ministers was responsible to the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council, and after the adoption of the 1987 constitution, to the President and House of Representatives. There seems to have been a deliberate power-sharing between the two bodies; few Presidium members were ministers. It was the PDPA (perhaps with the involvement of the Soviets) which appointed and decided the membership of the Council of Ministers. An Afghan dissident who had previously worked in the office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers reported that all topics up for discussion in the Council of Ministers had to be approved by the Soviets. Under Karmal, the Khalqist's were purged and replaced by the Parcham majority in the Council of Ministers. Of the 24 members of the Council of Ministers under Karmal's chairmanship, only four were Khalqists.

People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan

The PDPA constitution was written during the party's First Congress in 1965. The constitution regulated all party activities and modelled itself after the Leninist party model; the party was based on the principles of democratic centralism and Marxism–Leninism was the party's official ideology. In theory, the Central Committee of the PDPA ruled Afghanistan by electing the members to the Revolutionary Council, Secretariat, and the Politburo of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, the key decision-making bodies of state and party. After the Soviet intervention, the powers of the PDPA decreased because of the government's increased unpopularity amongst the masses. Soviet advisers took over nearly all aspects of Afghan administration; according to critics, the Afghans became the advisors and the Soviet became the advised. The Soviet intervention had forced Karmal upon the party and state. While trying to portray the new government as a Khalq–Parcham coalition, most members (the majority of whom were Khalqists), saw through the lies. At the time of the Parchamite takeover of the state and party, an estimated 80 percent of military officers were Khalqists.

In the party's history, only two congresses were held; the founding congress in 1965 and the Second Congress in June 1990, which transformed the PDPA into the Watan Party, which has survived to this today in the shape of the Democratic Watan Party. The Second Congress renamed the party and tried to revitalise it by admitting to past mistakes and evolving ideologically. The policy of national reconciliation was given a major ideologically role, since the party now looked for a peaceful solution to the conflict; class struggle was still emphasised. The party also decided to support and further develop the market economy in Afghanistan.

Factions
 The Khalq faction was the more militant of the two. It was more revolutionary and believed in a purer form of Marxism–Leninism than did the Parcham. Following the Soviet intervention, the Khalqi leadership of Taraki and Amin had been all but driven out. Several low and middle level functionaries were still present in the PDPA, and they still formed a majority within the armed forces; the Khalq faction still managed to create a sense of cohesion. While still believing in Marxism–Leninism, many of them were infuriated at the Soviet intervention, and the Soviets' pro-Parchamite policies. Taraki, in a speech, said "We will defend our non-aligned policy and independence with all valour. We will not give even an inch of soil to anyone and we will not be dictated in our foreign policy [nor] will we accept anybody's orders in this regard." While it was not clear, who Taraki was pointing at, the Soviet Union was the only country which Afghanistan neighbored which had the strength to occupy the country.

 The Parcham faction was the more moderate of the two and was steadfastly pro-Soviet. This position would hurt its popularity when it came to power following the Soviet intervention. Before the Saur Revolution, the Parcham faction had been the Soviets' favored faction. Following the Parchamites' seizure of power with Soviet assistance, party discipline was breaking down because of the Khalq–Parcham feud. After the PDPA government had ordered the replacement of seven Khalqist officers with Parchamites, the seven officers sent the intended replacements back. While the Parchamite government gave up trying to take over the armed forces, it did announce the execution of 13 officials who had worked for Amin. These executions led to three failed Khalqist coups in June, July and October 1980. The Western press, during the anti-Parchamite purge of 1979, referred to the Parcham faction as "moderate socialist intellectuals".

Throughout PDPA history there were also other factions, such as the Kar faction led by Dastagir Panjsheri, who later became a Khalqist, and Settam-e-Melli formed and led by Tahir Badakhshi. The Settam-e-Melli was a part of the insurgency against the PDPA government. In 1979, a Settam-e-Melli group killed Adolph Dubs, the United States Ambassador to Afghanistan. Ideologically Settam-e-Melli was very close to the Khalqist faction, but Settam-e-Melli opposed what they saw as the Khalq faction's "Pashtun chauvinism." Settam-e-Melli followed the ideology of Maoism. 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. In 1983, Bashir Baghlani, a Settam-e-Melli member, was appointed Minister of Justice.

National Front

Karmal had first mentioned the possibility of establishing a "broad national front" in March 1980, but given the situation the country was in, the campaign for the establishment of such an organisation began only in January 1981. A "spontaneous" demonstration in support of establishing such an organisation was held that month. The first pre-front institution to be established was a tribal jirga in May 1981 by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. This jirga later became a member of the front. The National Fatherland Front (NFF) held its founding congress in June 1981, after being postponed on several occasions. The founding congress, which was planned to last four days, lasted only one. Within one month of its founding, 27 senior members had been assassinated by the mujahideen. Due to this, the organisation took time to establish itself; its first Provincial Committee was established in November, and its first jirga in December. It was not until 1983 that the NFF became an active, and important organisation. The aim of the NFF was to establish a pro-PDPA organisation for those who did not support the PDPA ideologically.

Its first leader was Salah Mohammad Zeary, a prominent politician within the PDPA. Zeary's selection had wider implications: the PDPA dominated all NFF activities. Officially, the NFF had amassed 700,000 members after its founding, which later increased to one million. The majority of its members were already members of affiliated organisations, such as the Women's Council, the Democratic Youth Organisation and the trade unions, all of which were controlled by the PDPA. The membership numbers were in any case inflated: actually in 1984 the NFF had 67,000 members, and in 1986 its membership peaked at 112,209. In 1985 Zeary stepped down as NFF leader, and was succeeded by Abdul Rahim Hatef, who was not a member of the PDPA. The ascension of Hatef proved more successful, and in 1985–86 the NFF succeeded in recruiting several "good Muslims". The NFF was renamed the National Front in 1987.

Symbols: flag and emblem

On 19 October 1978 the PDPA government introduced a new flag, a red flag with a yellow seal, and it was similar to the flags of the Soviet Central Asian republics. The new flag stirred popular resentment, as many Afghans saw it as proof of the PDPA government's attempt to introduce state atheism. It was shown to the public for the first time in an official rally in Kabul. The red flag introduced under Taraki was replaced in 1980, shortly after the Soviet intervention, to the more traditional colours black, red and green. The PDPA flag, which was red with a yellow seal, was retained to emphasise the difference between the party and state to the Afghan people. The red star, the book and communist symbols in general, were removed from the flag in 1987 under Najibullah.

The new emblem, which replaced Daoud's eagle emblem, was introduced together with the flag in 1978. When Karmal introduced a new emblem in 1980, he said "it is from the pulpit that thousands of the faithful are led to the right path." The book depicted in the emblem (and the flag) was generally considered to be Das Kapital, a work by Karl Marx, and not the Quran, the central Islamic text. The last emblem was introduced in 1987 by the Najibullah government. This emblem was, in contrast to the previous ones, influenced by Islam. The Red Star and Das Kapital were removed from the emblem (and the flag). The emblem depicted the mihrab, the minbar and the shahada, an Islamic creed.

Economy

Taraki's Government initiated a land reform on 1 January 1979, which attempted to limit the amount of land a family could own. Those whose landholdings exceeded the limit saw their property requisitioned by the government without compensation. The Afghan leadership believed the reform would meet with popular approval among the rural population while weakening the power of the bourgeoisie. The reform was declared complete in mid-1979 and the government proclaimed that 665,000 hectares (approximately 1,632,500 acres) had been redistributed. The government also declared that only 40,000 families, or 4 percent of the population, had been negatively affected by the land reform.

Contrary to government expectations the reform was neither popular nor productive. Agricultural harvests plummeted and the reform itself led to rising discontent amongst Afghans. When Taraki realized the degree of popular dissatisfaction with the reform he quickly abandoned the policy. However, the land reform was gradually implemented under the later Karmal administration, although the proportion of land area affected by the reform is unclear.

During the civil war, and the ensuing Soviet–Afghan War, most of the country's infrastructure was destroyed, and normal patterns of economic activity were disrupted. The gross national product (GNP) fell substantially during Karmal's rule because of the conflict; trade and transport were disrupted along with the loss of labor and capital. In 1981 the Afghan GDP stood at 154.3 billion Afghan afghanis, a drop from 159,7 billion in 1978. GNP per capita decreased from 7,370 in 1978 to 6,852 in 1981. The most dominant form of economic activity was the agricultural sector. Agriculture accounted for 63 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1981; 56 percent of the labour force worked in agriculture in 1982. Industry accounted for 21 percent of GDP in 1982, and employed 10 percent of the labour force. All industrial enterprises were government-owned. The service sector, the smallest of the three, accounted for 10 percent of GDP in 1981, and employed an estimated one-third of the labour force. The balance of payments, which had improved in the pre-communist administration of Mohammed Daoud Khan; the surplus decreased and became a deficit by 1982, which reached minus $US70.3 million. The only economic activity that grew substantially during Karmal's rule was export and import.

Najibullah continued Karmal's economic policies. The augmenting of links with the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union continued, as did bilateral trade. He also encouraged the development of the private sector in industry. The Five-Year Economic and Social Development Plan, which was introduced in January 1986, continued until March 1991, one year before the government's fall. According to the plan, the economy, which had grown less than 2 percent annually until 1985, would grow 25 percent under the plan. Industry would grow 28 percent, agriculture 14–16 percent, domestic trade by 150 percent and foreign trade by 15 percent. None of these predictions were successful, and economic growth continued at 2%.  The 1990 constitution gave attention to the private sector. Article 20 covered the establishment of private firms, and Article 25 encouraged foreign investment in the private sector.

Military

Command and officer corps
The military's chain of command began with the Supreme Commander, who also held the posts of PDPA General Secretary and head of state. The order of precedence continued with the Minister of National Defense, the Deputy Minister of National Defence, Chief of General Staff, Chief of Army Operations, Air and Air Defence Commander and ended with the Chief of Intelligence.

Of the 8,000 strong officer corps in 1978, between 600 and 800 were communists. An estimated 40 to 45 percent of these officers were educated in the Soviet Union, and of them, between 5 and 10 percent were members of the PDPA or communists. By the time of the Soviet intervention, the officer corps had decreased to 1,100 members. This decrease can be explained by the number of purges centered on the armed forces. The purge of the military began immediately after the PDPA took power. According to Mohammad Ayub Osmani, an officer who defected to the enemy, of the 282 Afghan officers who attended the Malinovsky Military Armored Forces Academy in Moscow, an estimated 126 were executed by the authorities. Most of the officer corps, during the Soviet war and the ensuing civil war, were new recruits. The majority of officers were Khalqists, but after the Parchamites' ascension to power, Khalqists held no position of significance. The Parchamites, who were the minority, held the positions of power. Of the 1,100 large officer corps, only an estimated 200 were party members. According to Abdul Qadir, one-fifth of military personnel were party members, which meant that, if the military stood at 47,000, 9,000 were members of the PDPA. This number was, according to J. Bruce Amtstutz, an exaggeration.

Branches

Army

The strength of the Afghan Army was greatly weakened during the early stages of PDPA rule. One of the main reasons for the small size was that the Soviet military were afraid the Afghan army would defect en masse to the enemy if total personnel increased. There were several sympathisers of the mujahideen within the Afghan Armed Forces. Even so, there were several elite units under the command of the Afghan army, for instance, the 26th Airborne Battalion, 444th, 37th and 38th Commando Brigades. The 26th Airborne Battalion proved politically unreliable, and in 1980 they initiated a rebellion against the PDPA government. The Commando Brigades were, in contrast, considered reliable and were used as mobile strike forces until they sustained excessive casualties. After sustaining these casualties the Commando Brigades were turned into battalions.

Most soldiers were recruited for a three-year term, later extended to four-year terms in 1984. Each year, the Afghan army lost an estimated 15,000 soldiers, 10,000 from desertion and 5,000 from casualties sustained in battle. Everyone between 19 and 39 was eligible for conscription, the only exceptions were certain party members, or party members in certain tasks, Afghans who studied abroad, mostly in the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union, and one-child families or low earners. Unfortunately for the government, most people tried to evade conscription. So the government was forced to send army or police gangs to recruit civilians to service. Even so, some people carried fake papers so they could evade conscription. A side effect of the lack of recruits was that veterans were forced into longer service, or re-recruited. Of the 60 people who graduated from Kabul University in 1982, (few male Afghans attended Kabul University between 1980 and 1983), 15 of them fled to Pakistan or began working for the mujahideen. The army's approach to conscription was carrot-and-stick. This policy was partially successful, and each year the government managed to induce 10,000 to 18,000 into the army. A general amnesty was announced in 1980 to army draft deserters from previous administrations. In 1982, students who served in the military, and graduated 10th grade in high school, would pass 11th and 12th grade and be given a scholarship. People who were conscripted after the 12th grade, could, after military service, attend whichever higher education facility they wanted. To stop army desertions, soldiers were quickly promoted to higher ranks.

The army consisted of 14 divisions, of these 11 were infantry and another three were armored, which were part of three military corps. While an infantry division was supposed to be composed of 4,000 to 8,000 men, between 1980 and 1983 a division normally mustered between 2,000 and 2,500. The strength of armored divisions in contrast were maintained, and stood at 4,000. During the Soviet war, the Afghan army used light weapons, and used neglected equipment. During the counter-insurgency, heavy equipment, tanks and artillery were most of the time, but not always, used and fired by Soviet soldiers. A problem faced the Afghan government, and the Soviet military—the degeneration of training for new military recruits; new recruits were being rushed into service, because the Afghan government and the Soviet military feared a total collapse of the government. The Afghan Army was expected to fall during the Battle of Jalalabad but managed to repel the Mujahedeen and Pakistani forces and maintain control of the city.

Air Force
As with the army, the majority of officers in the Afghan Air Force were Khalqists, but Parchamites held all the senior positions. Many in the Air Force were given education and training in the Soviet Union. The Air Force had throughout its history always been smaller than the Army. The Afghan Air Force was considered the most loyal element of the Communist regime.Following the Soviet intervention, the Soviets grounded the Air Force. Afghans were not allowed in security zones at Afghan airports by the Soviets. Afghans were generally not allowed to fly the airplanes of the Afghan Air Force, but the Soviets could. Afghan helicopters were assigned to tasks considered non-sensitive by the Soviets, and the majority of Air Force personnel were not told about missions beforehand, because the Soviets were afraid that they would contact the enemy. In Afghan helicopter flights a Soviet adviser was always present, and commanded the Afghan pilot who flew the helicopter.

Among the fixed-wing aircraft in use were MiG-17 and MiG-21 fighters, Su-7, Su-17, and Su-22 fighter-bombers, IL-28 bombers and An-2, An-24 and An-26 transport aircraft. MI-2, MI-4, MI-8, MI-24 and MI-35 helicopters were used by the Air Force. Other Soviet equipment and weapons were used by the government. The Czech L-39 jet trainers were the only non-Soviet equipment. The IL-28 bombers remained in very limited service, with their roles mostly being replaced by the Su-17 and Su-22 MiG-17s remained grounded by the end of the 1980s with the more modern MiG-21s taking on the mantle.

Paramilitary and Militia forces
The Ministry of Interior Affairs, a Khalqist stronghold, controlled the Sarandoy, or officially, the "Defenders of the Revolution", which was a militarized Gendarmerie force. The Ministry of Tribes and Frontiers controlled, until 1983 under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defence, the frontier troops and the tribal militia. According to the Afghan government, the Sarandoy mustered an estimated 115,000 males at its peak. Those who worked in the Sarandoy were paid 162 dollars a month, a wage which was higher than that of Deputy Minister of National Defence before the Saur Revolution. However, the militia was less disciplined than the regular Afghan Army and were sometimes described as ruthless thugs. KhAD also had their own paramilitary forces and elite units. KhAD ran a program of creating tribal militias. Notable militias include that of General Abdul Jabar Qahraman's Helmand and Paktia militia, General Ismatullah Muslim Achakzai Kandahar Militia and General Abdul Rashid Dostum's Junbish Militia.

Demographics

Education

During communist rule, the PDPA government reformed the education system; education was stressed for both sexes, and widespread literacy programmes were set up. By 1988, women made up 40 percent of the doctors and 60 percent of the teachers at Kabul University; 440,000 female students were enrolled in different educational institutions and 80,000 more in literacy programs.  In addition to introducing mass literacy campaigns for women and men, the PDPA agenda included: massive land reform program; the abolition of bride price; and raising the marriage age to 16 for girls and to 18 for boys.

However, the mullahs and tribal chiefs in the interiors viewed compulsory education, especially for women, as going against the grain of tradition, as anti-religious, and as a challenge to male authority. This resulted in an increase in shootings of women in Western clothes, killing of PDPA reformers in rural areas, and general harassment of women social workers.
Despite improvements, large percentage of the population remained illiterate.  Beginning with the Soviet intervention in 1979, successive wars virtually destroyed the nation's education system. Most teachers fled during the wars to neighboring countries.

Refugees

Afghan refugees are Afghan nationals who have fled their country as a result of the ongoing Afghan conflict. An estimated 6 million people have fled the country, most to neighbouring Pakistan and Iran, making it the largest producer of refugees in the world. Many of these refugees would later be the basis for the Taliban movement.

See also
 "Soviet Empire", a political term used to describe Soviet influence during the Cold War
 People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, the Ruling party of the DRA
 Khalq, the Stalinist faction of the PDPA
 Parcham, the Islamic Socialist faction of the PDPA

Fundamental Principals of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, The Constitution of the DRA as of April 20th, 1980
 Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan
 Afghan Civil War (1989-1992)

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links
 Soviet Air Power: Tactics and Weapons Used in Afghanistan by Lieutenant Colonel Denny R. Nelson
 Video on Afghan-Soviet War from the Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives
 Library of Congress Country Study — Afghanistan
 Soviet Documents
 Online Afghan Calendar with Historical dates

Former political entities in Afghanistan
Modern history of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Communism in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of
Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of
Afghanistan
Afghanistan
1970s in Afghanistan
1980s in Afghanistan
1990s in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan
1978 establishments in Afghanistan
1992 disestablishments in Afghanistan
Soviet–Afghan War
Afghanistan conflict (1978–present)
20th century in Afghanistan
Afghanistan

Democratic Republic of Afghanistan


Sir Thomas Charles Scanlen   (9 July 1834 – 15 December 1912) was a politician and administrator of the Cape Colony.

He was briefly Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, from 1881 to 1884, during an especially turbulent period in the Cape's history, dominated by conflicts such as the Basuto Gun War. He was also the Cape's first locally-born Prime Minister.

Early life
Scanlen was born 9 July 1834 on Longford Farm in the district of Albany in the Cape Colony. His family were of Irish ancestry, and had arrived in the eastern Cape among the 1820 Settlers. In 1845 his family moved from Grahamstown to Cradock, Cape Colony. Here he married Emma Thackwray on 1855, and the couple had several children.

Early political career
Scanlen's father Charles was elected as parliamentary representative for Cradock in 1856.
Thomas succeeded his father as representative of Cradock in 1870, and was to serve in the Cape Parliament for a total of 26 years.

At the time he first entered parliament, the nation was split between the supporters of John Molteno's movement for "responsible government" (local democracy) and supporters of the British Imperial Governor Wodehouse. Scanlen's first move was to declare official neutrality in this conflict, claiming that he was as yet far too ignorant of the issues. He eventually gave his cautious support to the responsible government movement, which triumphed in 1872. He turned down the new Prime Minister's unofficial offer of a government position, but gave the Molteno government his support for its various infrastructure and development projects.
When the Molteno government was overthrown by an imperial intervention, Scanlen moved into opposition against the new aggressively pro-imperialist government of Gordon Sprigg, dubbed "The Settler Ministry", as it was composed entirely of 1820 settlers from Sprigg's own frontier region of the Cape.

The Scanlen Ministry (1881-1884)

The Scanlen government acquired the nickname "The Humdrum Ministry", as it was primarily concerned with damage-control and restoring normality to the country, after the disastrous Sprigg government. It was also dominated by the concern to undo the extravagant military expansions of the Sprigg government, by shedding the conquered territories in Basutoland and the Transkei, and by the need to appease the newly inflamed tension between British and Boer citizens of the Cape.

Background

In 1881, the unpopular and unelected government of Prime Minister John Gordon Sprigg fell, amidst the widespread unrest and frontier wars resulting from the British Colonial Office's disastrous attempt to enforce a confederation system on southern Africa. The British Governor Henry Bartle Frere had just been recalled to London in 1880 to face charges of misconduct and, deprived of its principle backer, the Sprigg ministry collapsed.
In the political vacuum, the Cape's first Prime Minister John Molteno was invited to come out of retirement to take over government, however he declined, and instead suggested Scanlen as a sufficiently qualified leader to form a government. Saul Solomon, John X. Merriman and Jan Hendrik Hofmeyr (Onze Jan) were also offered the position, but it was to Scanlen that the invitation was given in the end.

In the charged atmosphere of the time, powerful political factions were squaring off, however none could command an absolute majority alone. Scanlen was therefore quickly accepted as a "safe" compromise candidate who was politically neutral and could be accepted by all. He was also prudent and astute by nature, and in the context of the ruinous military and economic situation, all factions accepted the need for a technocrat government.

Consequently, on 9 May 1881, Thomas Scanlen was appointed as the 3rd Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, and the first locally-born person to hold this position.

Specific challenges
At its accession, Scanlen's new government confronted two full-blown wars and a string of smaller conflicts, all caused by Frere's recently failed confederation scheme. Nearby, the first Anglo-Boer war had just seen the British lose control of the Transvaal, while the Anglo-Zulu war had seen disasters such as Isandlwana.

Public debt
Serious financial problems also faced the Scanlen government from its onset, and at the time this issue dwarfed all others in urgency and importance. The massive confederation wars had sapped the Colony's resources, accruing a debt of over 16 million (mostly from military spending) and seeing the Cape's exports peter off. In addition, the subsequent withdrawal of the Imperial garrisons reduced local demand for goods and infrastructure.

In spite of these challenges, Scanlen's government began gradually to make headway. He led a movement to return to the highly successful and locally oriented development policies of the Cape's first ministry. For this purpose, he re-appointed John X. Merriman as his Commissioner of Public Works, and Molteno himself briefly came out of retirement to assist Scanlen in forming his cabinet and to advise him as Colonial Secretary.

The country's economy slowly began to revive and the diamond industry started to recover. Although the effects were only gradually felt in the years to come, economic recovery had begun.

Basuto Gun War
The Cape itself was still heavily involved in the Basuto Gun War, an expensive and ongoing legacy of Prime Minister Sprigg's policies. Scanlen's government sent envoys such as JW Sauer and General CG Gordon to the Basuto leaders, and made several attempts to renounce its authority from Basutoland entirely.
The war began to die down after Scanlen's government negotiated a peace treaty in 1881, and succeeded in peacefully withdrawing all authority over the territory.
After Scanlen's government dis-annexed it, the British assumed responsibility for Basutoland and took it over as a protectorate. Basutoland was never more to be a part of the Cape Colony and, because of this move, in years to come, it was eventually to become the independent state of Lesotho, separate from the rest of South Africa.

Another legacy issue was the German invasion of neighbouring South West Africa.

Transkei disannexation
Similar to Basutoland, Scanlen's government wished to dis-annex the Transkei (another costly and turbulent territory which Sprigg had conquered). However Scanlen faced the problem of British opposition to this move. The British government has permitted him to withdraw from Basutoland, but saw itself having to take responsibility for the Transkei too. The powerful Afrikaner Bond party also opposed disannexation of Transkei and Tembuland, and the move was blocked.

Stellaland and Goshen
Boer settlers and mercenaries from the Transvaal had recently invaded neighbouring Bechuanaland and established settlements that later became the miniature Boer republics of Stellaland and Goshen.

Scanlen's government wished to protect the Bechuana people's independence and evict the Boer settlers from the Tswana lands. However he once again was opposed by the powerful Afrikaner Bond party, which saw Bechuanaland as being in the Boer sphere of influence, and Scanlen's moves were blocked.

Caught between his liberal cabinet members, and the conservative Afrikaner Bond party, Scanlen travelled alone to London (Oct 1883 - Jan 1884) to negotiate with the British and Transvaal governments. In his absence, the Bond lobbies against him using its press outlets such as De Zuid-Afrikaan and branding Scanlen a British imperialist. Scanlen's parliamentary support also fell to a new low.

Rise of Afrikaner nationalism

By the time of Scanlen's ministry, the earlier grievances between the eastern and western halves of the Cape Colony had mostly been laid to rest. However, Frere's failed Confederation scheme and the First Boer War had led to these tensions merely being replaced by friction between the English and Afrikaans speaking populations of the Cape.

The newly founded Afrikaner Bond had held its first congress in 1882 at Graaf Reinet, and went on to secure a significant degree of parliamentary control. Scanlen's was the first Cape government to be forced into uneasy cooperation with this powerful new group, and all of his government's issues were coloured by the need to deal with the Bond. In addition, signs of the increasing cultural assertiveness of the Cape Afrikaners swiftly followed during Scanlen's tenure, included the first introduction of the Dutch language into the House of Assembly.

Scanlen had come under intense pressure from the Afrikaner Bond on the issues of de-annexing Basutoland and Transkei (which the Bond saw as land that should be opened for white settlement). This pressure reached a new level when Scanlen opposed the Stellaland & Goshen Boer settlers in Bechuanaland.

Without the support of the Bond, Scanlen could barely command an effective majority in parliament. Scanlen was compelled to resign in May 1884. He was replaced as Premier by Thomas Upington - a political ally of the Bond. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in the 1884 Birthday Honours.

Later life

In describing him, the Dictionary of National Biography states:

Scanlen was not an outstanding politician. He had a good legal brain, was a conscientious worker and a good back bencher, but he was neither a good orator nor a leader. It was his misfortune that, in assuming the Premiership, he also inherited Sprigg's legacy of intractable problems. In private life, Scanlen was modest and retiring. He was a difficult conversationalist, having virtually no small talk, but he possessed a dry sense of humour and was a shrewd judge of character.

Scanlen continued to serve as leader of the parliamentary opposition until 1889 but his personal life suffered. He underwent considerable financial losses due to a series of bad investments. His first wife had died in 1856. The couple had only had two surviving children: a libertine, Charles (whom Scanlen dubbed "the prodigal Charlie") and an invalid, Kate). In 1888 his second wife, his cousin Sarah Ann Dennison, left him and moved to England with their child. Of the ten children he fathered in both his marriages, only four survived to adulthood.

In 1895, he moved to Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe) where he started a legal practice. He went on to become legal adviser to Cecil Rhodes's Chartered Company, for which he acted as Administrator on several occasions, and acting Public Prosecutor. In 1896 he became senior member of the Rhodesian Executive Council, and in 1899 he became a member of the Rhodesian Legislative Council (of which he became the Chairman in 1902).

Scanlen retired on pension in 1908 and died on 15 December 1912 in Salisbury, Rhodesia.

References

Further reading
 Basil T. Hone: The First Son of South Africa to be Premier: Thomas Charles Scanlen. Oldwick, New Jersey: Longford Press, 1993.
 R. Kent Rasmussen:Dictionary of African historical biography. University of California Press, 1989.
 Dictionary of National Biography

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1834 births
1912 deaths
Prime Ministers of the Cape Colony
Scanlen
People of the Basuto Gun War
South African people of Irish descent
19th-century South African people
Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George
South African knights

Thomas Charles Scanlen


Electra Battery Materials Corporation (EBMC, formerly First Cobalt Corp.) is a Canadian multinational corporation engaged in mining and refining raw materials for electric batteries. Electra owns and operates the first fully permitted metallurgical refinery in North America for producing battery-grade cobalt and nickel sulfate. The company also owns the Iron Creek cobalt-copper deposit in Lemhi County, Idaho, US.

History
Cobalt has historically been obtained as a byproduct of copper and nickel mining. The electric vehicle boom in the 2010s created an increased demand for cobalt as a component of electric batteries. In response to that, Electra (First Cobalt Corporation at the time) emerged as a pure-play cobalt exploration and mining company in 2017. The company completed a three way merger with CobalTech Mining Inc. and Cobalt One Ltd to consolidate its ownership of cobalt assets in the Ontario cobalt camp.

First Cobalt acquired junior explorer US Cobalt in 2018 and took ownership of its Iron Creek cobalt-copper project. The Iron Creek deposit is located in the Idaho Cobalt Belt, which is the second largest known source of cobalt in the United States. In a 2019 estimate, First Cobalt defined an indicated resource of 6000 tons of cobalt and 13,000 tons of copper contained in this deposit. By 2021, the company doubled its land position surrounding the Iron Creek project.

In late 2021, the company announced the creation of Electra Battery Materials Park at its Ontario refinery site, with the addition of a recycling plant for expired Lithium-ion batteries. Soon after, the company changed its name to Electra Battery Materials to reflect the strategic shift from being a pure-play cobalt miner toward refining and recycling a wider variety of battery materials. In June 2022, Electra started preliminary discussions with the Quebec government to build a second cobalt refinery in the Bécancour Industrial Park.

In December 2022, Electra launched a black mass (shredded remains of Li-ion batteries) recycling trial and demonstrated capability to extract lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, copper, and graphite at scale.

See also

 Battery recycling
 Redwood Materials inc.

References

Companies established in 2017
Companies based in Ontario
Mineral exploration
Battery recycling
Mining
Multinational companies

Electra Battery Materials


Tivadar Farkasházy (nickname "Teddy") (born 15 December 1945 in Budapest, Hungary) is a Hungarian humorist, author,  and journalist.

Biography

He graduated at Corvinus University of Budapest majoring in economical planning/mathematics in 1969, and earned his doctoral title. He was one of the Hungarian investment bank's economists from 1969 to 1972, after that he was a journalist at a university magazine, titled "Közgazdász" ("Economist"). From 1973 he was the director of the "Vidám Színpad", later the director of the "Mikroszkóp Színpad". In 1974 he was the winner of Magyar Rádió's first humourfestival. From 1975 he was the editor of the Rádiókabaré. From 1989 he is owner, editor,  and frequent contributor to the satirical political biweekly Hócipő (Overshoe). 14 of his books have been published.

He was jailed for one night (26/27 March 2007), rather than paying a traffic fine.

Personal life

His hobbies are soccer and chess.  He owns a holiday house in Balatonszárszó. His favorite composer is Richard Wagner. He is an avid fan of the races. His favourite horse is the Hungarian horse Overdose. Farkasházy wrote a book about this horse. His two favourite paintings were painted by Frans Hals. He likes to drink Hungarian red wine and especially the palinka.

Family

He is married. His wife, Noémi Benedek (nickname "Mimi", after the La bohème's Mimi) is a master violin-maker (as is her father). He has children and twin grandchildren. He is famous because of his big family (based on his stories, which he says in the Heti Hetes, he has many family members). His family members are Lippo Hertzka, Móric Farkasházi Fischer and many others.

Appearances in Heti Hetes
He is one of the permanent members of the weekly show "Heti Hetes" (Hungarian version of 7 Tage, 7 Köpfe). He sits on the seventh place. He was in the first Heti Hetes in 1999. He's best known for his long stories. He is one of the most popular members in this show. The other members often joke about his stories, because (based on his stories) he was in so many places and many different events.

Awards
 Winner of the Magyar Rádió's first humourfestival (1974)
 Karinthy-ring (1986)
 Opus-prize (1991)
 Hungarian Pulitzer Prize (1992)
 Maecenas-prize (1993)
 Collective (Hungarian) Pulitzer Prize (2000)

Books
 Overdose - a veretlen 11 (2008) – The book's website
 Bobby visszatér avagy a Fischer-rejtély (2008) – The book's website
 32 figura - a sakk regénye (2007) – The book's website
 Zsokékrul – a lóverseny regénye (2006) – The book's website
 Ír Úr – avagy búcsú a kabarétól (2004) – The book's website
 A kék mauritius (2002) – The book's website
 Fülig Jimmy kiadott és kiadatlan levelei (2002)
 Hét és fél (2001)
 Hetedik (2000)
 Fülig Jimmy kiadatlan levelei (1998)
 Atlasszal Hócipőben (1995)
 Nem Értem (1994)
 Tévések végjátéka (1989)
 Mitisír a hogyishívják (1988)
 22 Bolond a Rádiókabaréból (1987)

External links
 YouTube videos about his appearances in Heti Hetes.
 YouTube videos about his appearances in Heti Hetes (this isn't the same link as the one above!).
 Farkasházy's website

Sources and notes

This page is (partly) translated from the Hungarian Wikipedia article.

1945 births
Living people
Hungarian journalists
Hungarian comedians
Hungarian television personalities
Corvinus University of Budapest alumni
Writers from Budapest
Hungarian people of Jewish descent

Tivadar Farkasházy


[[File:Bessie Clayton03.JPG|thumb|right|200px|The dancer Bessie Clayton was, like  many of the girls, quite small by modern standards (5' 1)]]

The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931, with renewals in 1934 and 1936. The Ziegfeld Follies were inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. They were conceived and mounted by Florenz Ziegfeld. The show producers were Klaw & Erlanger, the top turn-of-the-twentieth-century showmen.

 History
The Follies were lavish variety shows, something like music hall or high class Vaudeville. Many of the top entertainers of the era appeared in the shows. The list includes W. C. Fields, Eddie Cantor, Josephine Baker, Fanny Brice, Ann Pennington, Bert Williams, Eva Tanguay, Bob Hope, Will Rogers, Ruth Etting, Ray Bolger, Helen Morgan, Louise Brooks, Marilyn Miller, Ed Wynn, Gilda Gray, Nora Bayes, Sophie Tucker. The Ziegfeld Follies also were famous for many, beautiful chorus girls commonly known as Ziegfeld girls, usually wearing elaborate costumes by designers such as Erté, Lady Duff Gordon or Ben Ali Haggin. The first Follies was produced in 1907 at the roof theatre Jardin de Paris.

The Ziegfeld girls "paraded up and down flights of stairs as anything from birds to battleships."  The "Tableau vivants" were designed by Ben Ali Haggin from 1917 to 1925. Joseph Urban was the scenic designer for the Follies shows starting in 1915.

After Ziegfeld's death, his widow Billie Burke, authorized use of his name for Ziegfeld Follies in 1934 and 1936 to Jake Shubert, who then produced the Follies. When later it toured, the 1934 edition was recorded in its entirety, from the Overture to Play-out music. First issued as a series of 78 rpm discs, the recording was later released as a compact disc (1997).

 Media
They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air. The 1936 Academy Award Best Picture winner was M-G-M's The Great Ziegfeld'', starring William Powell as the master showman and co-starring Myrna Loy (as Ziegfeld's second wife Billie Burke),

References

Broadway musicals

Ziegfeld Follies


Randall Miller (born July 24, 1962) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, editor, and occasional actor.

At the American Film Institute (AFI), Miller received acclaim for his 1990 short film Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School. This led to a career directing films in Hollywood in the 1990s, including the comedies Class Act (1992), Houseguest (1995), and The 6th Man (1997).

In his 40s, Miller ventured into independent film, taking money out of his house to direct and produce Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School (2005), an expansion of his 1990 short into a full-length feature. Miller followed this with the indie films Nobel Son (2007), Bottle Shock (2008), and CBGB (2013), all starring Alan Rickman in the lead role. Miller self-distributed and raised the money for Bottle Shock, his greatest critical success.

Miller has closely collaborated with his wife Jody Savin on many of his projects, writing and producing multiple films together.

In 2015, Miller pled guilty in the train crash death of film crew member Sarah Jones to keep his wife out of jail. The film was Midnight Rider, which he was directing and producing. Miller served one year in jail and is completing nine years of probation. Miller is the first filmmaker to be imprisoned for a film-related death.

Early life and education
Miller grew up in Pasadena, California. His mother, Leona Miller, was an internist and professor at USC County Medical Center and President of the Diabetes Association. His father, Alexander Miller, was a professor of microbiology at UCLA after completing his graduate studies at Cal Tech in Pasadena.

Miller attended UC Davis, where he played football and studied biochemistry, inspired by his own parents' careers in medicine. After getting interested in acting, he transferred to UCLA, but dropped out to pursue his acting career, landing television roles in Cheers, Highway to Heaven, and in commercials. During that time, Miller met director Bob Zemeckis of Back to The Future fame while acting in a play with Zemeckis' wife. At Zemeckis' encouragement, Miller completed his undergraduate degree at the USC film school. He then received a master's degree in film from the American Film Institute (AFI). Miller met his future wife Jody Savin at AFI, where he was a director fellow and she was a writing fellow.

Career

Early
In 1990, Miller directed an award-winning 35-minute thesis film at AFI, Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School. Set in 1962, the short featured a cast of children attending a cotillion. The film was based on Miller's own experience going to cotillion as a child in Pasadena. Miller was nominated for CableACE Awards for his writing and direction of Marilyn Hotchkiss.

1990s
Miller made his Hollywood directorial debut in 1992 with Class Act, is a modern-day comedic take on The Prince and the Pauper about a pair of teenagers with switched identities.

In 1995, Miller helmed Houseguest, another movie about mistaken identities. The Los Angeles Times said "Houseguest, a rowdy fish-out-of-water comedy, is as good-natured as its big, beefy star, comedian Sinbad." The film debuted at No.3 and went on to gross $26 million in North America, making it a modest commercial success considering its $10.5 million budget.

Miller then directed the 1997 American sports comedy film The 6th Man, starring Marlon Wayans and Kadeem Hardison. A film review in Variety said Miller "gets so much out of his cast and screenplay."

Miller directed the 1999 Wonderful World of Disney made-for-television comedy film H-E Double Hockey Sticks, for which he was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Children's Programs.

2005–2013: Indie films
In 2005, Miller expanded his 1990 short Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School into a full-length feature, incorporating material from the short in the form of flashbacks. The film starred Marisa Tomei, John Goodman, and Robert Carlyle.

It was Miller's first foray into independent film. Following the death of Miller's father and Savin's mother, the couple risked pursuing their dream of making serious films by taking money out of their Pasadena home to finance the movie. The film premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

Miller then directed three indie films starring Alan Rickman in the lead role. Rickman said, "This is the Randy and Jody part of my life... It's a unique thing that Randy and Jody have -- a totally unique and independent energy."

The first was the 2007 American black comedy Nobel Son about a dysfunctional family dealing with the kidnapping of their son for ransom following the father's winning of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In addition to Rickman, the film starred Bill Pullman, Eliza Dushku, and Danny DeVito. In Rickman's character of an egomaniacal genius, Miller was writing about his own professor father. Nobel Son premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

In 2008 Alan Rickman returned in a leading role in Miller's movie Bottle Shock, a dramedy based on the 1976 "Judgement of Paris" wine competition in which a California wine shockingly defeats a French one in a blind taste test. Miller and his wife, Jody, were introduced to Marc and Brenda Lhormer, the founders of the Sonoma Valley Film Festival, in 2006 at the opening night of Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School. In 2008, the Lhormers presented a screenplay on the "Judgement of Paris" to Miller and his wife. The story interested Miller and Jody and they took it on board. They ended up writing, directing and producing Bottle Shock. The film also starred Chris Pine and Bill Pullman.

Bottle Shock premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Without much interest from major distribution houses, Miller opted for the "maverick route" of self-distribution. While the upsides included retaining the DVD and other rights to the film and controlling how the film was rolled out and marketed, Miller said the downsides were "an enormous amount of work, an enormous amount of stress, no sleep". Miller managed to raise some $10 million from private investors for the film and associated costs.

In his third film with Miller, Rickman played Hilly Kristal in CBGB, a 2013 historical film about the former New York music venue of the same name. Miller wrote the screenplay, produced and directed the film revolving around the life of Kristal, musician and owner of the CBGB club. The film also starred Malin Akerman, Justin Bartha, Richard de Klerk, and Johnny Galecki.

Midnight Rider manslaughter conviction

In 2014, on the first day of production of Midnight Rider, camera assistant Sarah Jones was killed during the filming of a scene. The film was never completed. A police investigation in the town of Jesup, Georgia, concluded that Miller and his crew were trespassing on an operating railway line and that the train was unscheduled. Charges for criminal trespassing and involuntary manslaughter were eventually brought against Miller, his wife, producer Jody Savin, producer/UPM Jay Sedrish, and 1st assistant director Hillary Schwartz for Jones's death.

On March 9, 2015, Miller agreed to a plea deal in exchange for having charges dropped against his wife. He was sentenced to ten years, the first two to be served in jail, followed by probation, along with a $20,000 fine and 360 hours of community service. Sedrish and Schwartz were sentenced to 10 years' probation with no jail time and ordered to pay fines. The terms of Miller's probation stipulated that he would be "prohibited from serving as director, first assistant director or supervisor" with responsibility for safety on any film production until his sentence was completed. Sedrish's and Schwartz's sentences contained similar provisions. Miller's conviction marked the first time a director was sent to prison for the death of a cast or crew member.

Miller was released from jail on March 23, 2016, after serving slightly more than one year owing to a two-for-one deal made during negotiations for the original plea agreement with Georgia Assistant District Attorney John Johnson requiring the court to revise the original sentence, as it was deemed improper. Sarah Jones's father Richard Jones said in his statement to the court, "When [Sarah's mother] Elizabeth and I agreed to this plea, it was our understanding that he would be serving two years in jail. If had we [sic] understood that it would have been one year, we would not have agreed" and stated, "I want to be clear that we don't want to inflict—we don't mean to inflict more pain to Mr. Miller's family. We understand that... it's been quite a lot of pain for their family, but this is, in our view, about a bigger purpose. It's about making the film industry a better, safer place. And in order to do so, we feel very strongly that this is an important element that Mr. Miller be held fully accountable for what he did."

In July 2017, Sarah Jones's family was awarded $11.2 million in civil damages. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, "[T]he jury found that CSX (the train's operator) was primarily liable for the accident and should pay 35% of the total judgment... Miller was found responsible for 28% of the amount of the latest ruling. Rayonier Performance Fibers, owners of the land where the accident occurred, are responsible for 18% and the rest of the liability is divided between individual members of the film's production company."

Higher Grounds controversy
In 2019, Miller directed a film entitled Higher Grounds in Serbia, London, and Colombia, during his probation. After being made aware of this early in 2020, the Jones family alerted Georgia's district attorney's office that Miller was directing a film, in apparent violation of his probation. Former Georgia Assistant District Attorney John Johnson said that Miller had violated the terms of his probation and requested a warrant for his arrest.

Miller and his attorneys have said that they believed that he was allowed to direct a film, so long as he was not responsible for safety. Miller said that the first assistant director, Jason Allen, was designated as the person in charge of safety.
At the hearing, the defense called several witnesses, including Miller's California parole officer, his sister, and his father-in-law, who each testified that was also their understanding. Miller also testified that that was how he understood the term.  Attorney Mike Smith had told the film crew of Higher Grounds that Miller was able to direct as long as he did not oversee safety, with the film's first assistant director reportedly tasked with safety compliance; however, Johnson noted that Smith likely has a conflict of interest as he is also the movie's executive producer.

A hearing was held on February 17, 2021, in which Miller said that he "misunderstood" the wording of the probation agreement, in particular claiming ambiguity over whether the phrase "responsibility for safety in any film production" allowed him to work as a director provided he did not have authority in safety compliance. At the close of the hearing, Judge Anthony L. Harrison ruled that Miller had not knowingly broken his probation, but said that the agreement should be understood to forbid him from directing any more films for the duration of his sentence.

Personal life
Miller has been married to Jody Savin since March 13, 1999. They have two children together.

Actress Rhea Perlman is Miller's cousin.

Filmography

References

External links

1962 births
Living people
20th-century American male actors
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American screenwriters
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American screenwriters
AFI Conservatory alumni
American male film actors
American male screenwriters
American male television actors
American people convicted of manslaughter
Film directors from California
Film producers from California
Male actors from Pasadena, California
Screenwriters from California
University of Southern California alumni
Writers from Pasadena, California

Randall Miller