Sultan Ali Keshtmand torture and long imprisonment. He remained in prison and was sentenced to death, but this decision was revoked and he was resentenced to 15 years in prison. On December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, bringing Babrak Karmal and the Parcham faction to power. Keshtmand was released from jail, and was once again joined the Politburo. 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. Keshtmand, a Parchami, soon became one of the most important leaders
Babrak Karmal too communist, and believed that its leadership should have hidden its Marxist orientation instead of promoting it. According to the official version of events, the majority of the PDPA Central Committee rejected Karmal's criticism. The vote was a close one, and it is reported that Taraki expanded the Central Committee to win the vote; this plan resulted in eight of the new members becoming politically unaligned with and one switching to the Parchamite side. Karmal and half the PDPA Central Committee left the PDPA to establish a Parchamite-led PDPA. Officially the split was caused by ideological differences, but the party