The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

session so that we might hear his explanations. Amin got angry. “Taraki doesn’t want to talkto anybody. He isn’t answering his telephone. His guards are under orders to kill anyonetrying to approach the residence on sight. If you, Comrade Misak, are so courageous, then goto Taraki and ask him to come here.” I understood Amin’s words correctly: if I decided to go,his people would kill me and Taraki’s security guards would be blamed.The plenary session took place in Delkusha Hall. Tanks and armored vehiclessurrounded the building. There were National Guard and security service agents everywhere.Foreign Minister Shah Wali, who by then had been appointed to be the secretary of theCentral Committee of the PDPA, chaired the plenary session.Eventually, everyone voted to purge Taraki from the party. The formal statement read:“For the organization of an assassination attempt on a secretary of the Central Committeeand member of Politburo, Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin, and for the murder of a member ofthe Central Committee, Sayed Daoud Tarun, among other unprincipled actions.” Additionally,the plenary session labeled the four opposition members as “members of a terrorist group thatacted under Taraki’s leadership.” Naturally, Amin was elected general secretary. Immediatelyafter that, a meeting of the Revolutionary Council took place at which Taraki was removedfrom his position as chairman and replaced by Amin.Lev Nikolayevich Gorelov, Senior Military Adviser:One of the offices of our advisory mission was located in the same building where theplenary session was taking place. I don’t remember exactly how long the meeting took—anhour or more—but I remember well that during that time, loud shouts of “hooray” reachedour office many time. That was how enthusiastically the Politburo greeted their new leader. I568