The PDPA was a communist party that came into power in April 1978 during the Saur Revolution with popular support after overthrowing the Daud dictatorship, which itself came into power in a coup in 1973 and became widely unpopular due to widespread food shortages and hoarding by the ruling elites. The PDPA then undertook progressive economic and social reforms to break up the previous semi feudal system, redistribute land from the countryside warlords to the peasants, pass gender equality laws, and abolish religious fundamentalist laws. While these were popular among their constituency especially in the cities, it was hard to grow their membership in the countryside where conservative and reactionary forces made it hard to implement reforms and immediately started an insurrection against them, which the US swiftly backed starting in late 1978 in Operation Cyclone.

The Soviets only intervened at the request of the PDPA afterwards in December 1979 once it was clear the US was funding the counterrevolutionary and reactionary Mujahideen opposition in the countryside which was opposed to the progressive social and economic reforms the PDPA introduced, and after serious internal conflict and factionalism within the PDPA led to the assassination of their leader Taraki in September 1979 by one of his generals Amin, who had ties with the US and tried after couping Taraki to reverse foreign policy and restore relations with the US. Amin was part of the same faction as Taraki but was primarily a nationalist who did not agree with what the PDPA was doing and tried to unsuccessfully appease the Mujahideen while in power. The Soviets entered Afghanistan at the request of the couped government and overthrew Amin and put back into power Karmal of the more moderate wing of the PDPA that had been previously purged by Amin who had managed to plunge the party membership during his brief stay in power.

The PDPA then continued to try and reform the country and fight with Soviet support the insurgent US aided Mujahideen. This went on for 10 years with not a whole lot of success for the PDPA which never managed to defeat the insurgency or establish wide support in the rural countryside, though its important to note their many successes during the time in trying to create a progressive and modernized Afghanistan and made huge leaps in literacy, housing, infrastructure, healthcare, etc. The Soviets had all left by 1989 and the PDPA continued fighting the insurgents until 1992 when after the USSR collapsed the PDPA lost their economic support and everything unraveled from there. A new government was formed by the Mujahideen which also quickly unraveled due to infighting, which led to the uprising of the Taliban in 1994 formed from previous Mujahideen fighters who then seized power in 1996, and governed the country until 2001 when the US invaded.

The Soviets did not do what the Americans did in 2001, this much is clear, though they tried to sustain a government that just never managed to foment popular support among the rural constituency or overcome the reactionary elements of society, but its important to understand the USSR did not create this government, only assisted it, the PDPA came into power through its own struggle and revolution. This is one of the main misunderstandings ive seen.

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