The End of Monarchy in Afghanistan came after the 1973 overthrow. In 1973 Muhammad Daud overthrew the king in a coup. He declared Afghanistan a republic with himself as president. Daud announced ambitious plans for economic development and tried to play the USSR against Western donors, but his dictatorial government was opposed both by radical left-wing intellectuals and soldiers and by traditionalist ethnic leaders. The leading leftist organization was the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which had been founded in 1965 and in 1967 split into a pro-Soviet Parcham faction and a much more radical Khalq faction. The two groups joined forces in 1976 to oppose Daud. The End of Monarchy in Afghanistan was one incidence that finally cumulated in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on December 25, 1979 with the Soviets capitalizing on the instability in the government at the time of the invasion.
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