1966 Syrian coup d'état

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Ba'athism
Organisations Arab Ba'ath 1940–1947 Arab Ba'ath Movement 1940–1947 Ba'ath Party 1947–1966 Baath Party (pro-Iraqi) 1968–2003 Baath Party (pro-Syrian) 1966–present
People Zaki al-Arsuzi Michel Aflaq Salah al-Din al-Bitar Abdullah Rimawi Wahib al-Ghanim Fuad al-Rikabi Salah Jadid Hafez al-Assad Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr Saddam Hussein Bashar al-Assad Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri
Literature On the Way of Resurrection The Battle for One Destiny The Genius of Arabic in Its Tongue
History Ba'athist Iraq Ramadan Revolution November 1963 coup d'état 17 July Revolution Iran–Iraq War Gulf War UN sanctions Iraq War De-Ba'athification Baathist Syria Syrian Committee to Help Iraq 1963 / 1966 coup d'états Corrective Revolution Civil War
Regional organisations Algeria pro-Iraq pro-Syria Bahrain pro-Iraq pro-Syria Egypt pro-Iraq pro-Syria Iraq pro-Iraq pro-Syria Jordan pro-Iraq pro-Syria Kuwait pro-Iraq Lebanon pro-Iraq pro-Syria Libya pro-Iraq Mauritania pro-Iraq pro-Syria Palestine pro-Iraq pro-Syria Sudan pro-Iraq pro-Syria Syria pro-Iraq pro-Syria Tunisia pro-Iraq pro-Syria Yemen pro-Iraq pro-Syria
Splinter groups Arab Socialist Revolutionary Ba'ath Party 1960–1962/63 Socialist Lebanon 1965–1970 Arab Revolutionary Workers Party 1966–present Democratic Socialist Arab Ba'ath Party 1970–present Sudanese Ba'ath Party 2002–present
Related topics Arab nationalism Arab socialism Nasserism Pan-Arabism
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After taking power in the 1963 Syrian coup d'état, officially the 8th of March Revolution, a power struggle erupted between the Nasserites in the National Council for the Revolutionary Command and the Ba'ath Party.[3] The Nasserites sought to reestablish the United Arab Republic, the former federation encompassing Egypt and Syria from 1958 to 1961, on Gamal Abdel Nasser's terms, but the Ba'athists were skeptical of a new union with Nasser and wanted a loose federation where the Ba'ath Party could rule Syria alone without interference.[3] The Nasserites mobilised large street demonstrations in favour of a union.[4] It took time before the Ba'ath Party knew how to respond to the issue, since the majority of Syrian Arab Nationalists were not adherents to Ba'athism, but of Nasserism and Nasser in general.[4]

Instead of trying to win the support of the populace, the Ba'athists moved to consolidate their control over the Syrian military.[4] Several hundred Nasserites and conservatives were purged from the military, and Ba'athists were recruited to fill senior positions.[5] Most of the newly recruited Ba'athist officers came from the countryside or from a low social class.[5] These Ba'athist officers replaced the chiefly "urban Sunni upper-middle and middle class" officer corps, and replaced it with an officer corps with a rural background who more often the "kinsmen of the leading minority officer".[5] These changes led to the decimation of Sunni control over the military establishment.[5]

The cost of clamping down on the protests was a loss of legitimacy, and the emergence of Amin al-Hafiz as the first Ba'athist military strongman.[5] The traditional elite, consisting of the upper classes, who had been overthrown from political power by the Ba'athists, felt threatened by the Ba'ath Party's socialist policies.[5] The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria was a historical rival of the Syrian Regional Branch, and it felt threatened by the party's secular nature.[5] Akram al-Hawrani and his supporters and the Syrian Communist Party opposed the one-party system which the Ba'ath Party was establishing.[5]

The majority of Sunni Muslims were Arab nationalists, but not Ba'athist, making them feel alienated.[5] The party was chiefly dominated by minority groups such as Alawites, Druzes, and Isma'ilis, and people from the countryside in general; this created an urban–rural conflict based predominantly on ethnic differences.[6] With its coming to power, the Ba'ath Party was threatened by the predominantly anti-Ba'athist sentiment in urban politics—probably the only reason why the Ba'athists managed to stay in power was the rather weakly organised and fragmented opposition it faced.[6]

Cohesive internal unity had all but collapsed after the 1963 seizure of power; Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and their followers wanted to implement "classic" Ba'athism in the sense that they wanted to establish a loose union with Nasser's Egypt, implement a moderate form of socialism, and to have a one-party state which respected the rights of the individual, tolerating freedom of speech and freedom of thought.[6] However, the Aflaqites (or Aflaqists) were quickly forced into the background, and at the 6th National Ba'ath Party Congress, the Military Committee and their supporters succeeding in creating a new form of Ba'athism – a Ba'athism strongly influenced by Marxism–Leninism.[6] This new form of Ba'athism laid emphasis on "revolution in one country" rather than to unifying the Arab world.[6] At the same time, the 6th National Congress implemented a resolution which stressed the implementation of a socialist revolution in Syria.[6] Under this form of socialism, the economy as a whole would adhere to state planning and the commanding heights of the economy and foreign trade were to be nationalised.[6] They believed these policies would end exploitation of labour, that capitalism would disappear, and in agriculture they envisioned a plan were land was given "to he who works it".[6] However, private enterprise would still exist in retail trade, construction, tourism, and small industry in general.[7] These changes and more would refashion the Ba'ath Party into a Leninist party.[8]

In the aftermath of the 1964 riot in Hama and other cities, the radicals were on the retreat and the Aflaqites regained control for a brief period.[8] Bitar formed a new government which halted the nationalisation process, reaffirm respect for civil liberties and private property.[8] However, these policy changes did not win sufficient support, and the population at large still opposed Ba'ath Party rule.[8] The upper classes continued to disinvest capital and smuggle capital out of the country, and the only foreseeable solution to this loss of capital was continuing with nationalisation.[8] The party's left-wing argued that the bourgeoisie would never be won over unless they were given total control over the economy as they had before.[8] It was this power struggle between the moderate Aflaqites who dominated the National Command of the Ba'ath Party and the radicals who dominated the Syrian Regional Command of the Ba'ath Party which led to the 1966 coup d'état.[9]

From left to right: Interior Minister Muhammad Rabah al-Tawil, Chief of Staff Mustafa Tlass, Commander of the Golan Front Ahmad al-Meer, and Salah Jadid

Immediately after the coup, officers loyal to Umran and the Aflaqites were purged from the armed forces, being imprisoned alongside Umran at Mezze prison.[18] One of the first acts of Jadid's government was to appoint Assad Minister of Defence.[19] Assad however, did not support the coup, and told Mansur al-Atrash, Jubran Majdalani, and other Aflaqites that he did not support Jadid's actions.[19] Later, in an interview with Le Monde, Assad claimed that the military's intervention was regrettable because the Ba'ath Party was democratic, and that the disputes should have been resolved in a democratic manner.[19] However, Assad did view the actions as necessary, as it put an end, in his view, to the dictatorship of the National Command.[19]

Jadid's government has been referred to as Syria's most radical government in history.[20] He initiated rash and radical policies internally and externally, and tried to overturn Syrian society from the top to the bottom.[20] While Assad and Jadid agreed ideologically, they did not agree on how to implement these beliefs in practice.[20] The Military Committee, which had been the officers' key decision-making process during 1963–66, lost its central institutional authority under Jadid because the fight against the Aflaqites was over – the key reason for the committee's existence in the first place.[21] While Jadid never acquired, or took the offices of Prime Minister or President, instead opting to rule through the office of Assistant Secretary of the Regional Command, he was the undisputed ruler of Syria from 1966 to 1970.[22] Before the 1966 coup, Jadid had controlled the Syrian armed forces through his post as Head of the Bureau of Officers' Affairs, but from 1966 onwards Jadid became absorbed with running the country, and in his place, Assad was given the task of controlling the armed forces.[22] This would later prove to be a mistake, and lead to Jadid's downfall in the 1970 Corrective Revolution.[22]

Jadid appointed Nureddin al-Atassi as President, Regional Secretary of the Regional Command and Secretary General of the National Command, Yusuf Zu'ayyin became Prime Minister again, and Brahim Makhous was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs.[23] Other personalities were former Head of Military Intelligence Ahmed Suidani, who was appointed Chief of Staff, Colonel Muhammad Rabah al-Tawil was appointed Minister of Labour and Head of the newly established Popular Resistance Forces, and Colonel Abd al-Karim al-Jundi, a founding member of the Military Committee, was appointed Minister of Agrarian Reform and later, Minister of Interior.[24]

Some believe, Avraham Ben-Tzur being the most prominent writer on the subject, that the Ba'athist ideology preached in Syria after the coup should be referred to as neo-Ba'athism since it has nothing to do with the ideology's classic form espoused by Aflaq, Bitar and the Aflaqites in general.[25] Munif al-Razzaz agreed with the theory, stating that from 1961 onwards, there existed two Ba'ath parties – "the military Ba'ath Party and the Ba'ath Party, and real power lay with the former."[26] He further noted that the military Ba'ath (as "paraphrased by Martin Seymour") "was and remains Ba'athist only in name; that it was and remains little more than a military clique with civilian hangers-on; and that from the initial founding of the Military Committee by disgruntled Syrian officers exiled in Cairo in 1959, the chain of events and the total corruption of Ba'athism proceeded with intolerable logic."[26] Bitar agreed, stating that the 1966 coup "marked the end of Ba'athist politics in Syria." Aflaq shared the sentiment, and stated; "I no longer recognise my party!".[26]

The coup caused the 1966 Ba'ath Party split; from 1968 until 2003 there existed two National Commands.
In picture, from left to right Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Michel Aflaq

The ousting of Aflaq, Bitar, and the National Command is the deepest schism in the Ba'ath movement's history.[27] While there had been many schisms and splits in the Ba'ath Party, Aflaq and Bitar always emerged as the victors, and remained party leaders, but the 1966 coup brought a new generation of leaders to power who had different aims to their predecessors.[27] While Aflaq and Bitar still had supporters in Syria and in non-Syrian Regional Branches, they were hampered by the lack of financial means – the Syrian Regional Branch had funded them since 1963.[28] Jadid and his supporters now had the Syrian state at their disposal, and were theoretically able to establish new party organisations or coerce pro-Aflaq opinion, this failed to work since most of the regional branches changed their allegiance to Baghdad.[28] Later in 1966, the first post-Aflaqite National Congress, officially designated the 9th, was held, and a new National Command was elected.[28] Another change was to the ideological orientation of the Syrian Regional Branch and the new National Command; while the Aflaqites believed in an all-Arab Ba'ath Party and the unification of the Arab world, the Syria's new leaders saw this as impractical.[29] Following the coup, the National Command became subservient in all but name to the Syrian Regional Command, and ceased to have an effective role in Arab or Syrian politics.[29]

Following the exile of the National Command, some of its members, including Hafiz, convened the 9th Ba'ath National Congress (to differentiate it from the Syrian "9th National Congress") and elected a new National Command, with Aflaq, who did not attend the congress, as the National Command's Secretary General.[30] For those like Bitar and Razzaz, the exile from Syria was too hard, and they left the party.[30] Aflaq moved to Brazil, remaining there till 1968.[30]

Members of the National Command of the Iraqi-dominated Arab Socialist Ba'th Party: from left to right Secretary General Michel Aflaq, Vice President of Iraq Saddam Hussein (second line), Assistant Secretary General Shibli al-Aysami (mid left) and President of Iraq Bakr (mid right) among others

When the National Command was toppled in 1966, the Iraqi Regional Branch remained, at least verbally, supportive of the "legitimate leadership" of Aflaq.[31] When the Iraqi Regional Branch regained power in 1968 in the 17 July Revolution no attempts were made at a merger, to achieve their supposed goal of Arab unity, or reconciliation with the Syrian Ba'ath.[32] After the establishment of Ba'ath rule in Iraq, many members of the Syrian-dominated Ba'ath movement defected to its Iraqi-counterpart, few if any Iraqi-loyal Ba'athists attempted to change its allegiance to Damascus.[33] The reason for this was that those defecting from Damascus were loyal to the old, Aflaqite National Command.[34] Several older members such as Bitar, Hafiz, Shibli al-Aysami and Elias Farah, either visited Iraq or sent a congratulatory message to Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr, the Regional Secretary of the Iraqi Regional Command.[34] Aflaq did not visit Iraq until 1969, but from late 1970, he would become a leading Iraqi Ba'ath official,[34] although he never acquired any decision-making power.[35]

From the beginning the Damascus government began an overwhelmingly anti-Iraqi Ba'athist propaganda campaign, to which their counterparts in Baghdad responded.[33] However, the Iraqi Ba'athists helped Assad, who at the 4th Regional Congress of the Syrian Regional Branch called for the reunification of the Ba'ath Party, in his attempt to seize power from Jadid.[36] It was reported that Assad promised the Iraqis to recognize Aflaq's historical leadership.[36] Iraq's foreign minister Abdul Karim al-Shaikhly even had his own personal office in the Syrian Ministry of Defence, which Assad headed.[36] However, this should not be misconstrued, the Iraqi Regional Branch was Arab nationalist in name only, and was in fact Iraqi nationalist.[37]

The Syrian Regional Branch began denouncing Aflaq as a "thief". They claimed that he had stolen the Ba'athist ideology from Zaki al-Arsuzi and proclaimed it as his own,[38] with Assad hailing Arsuzi as the principal founder of Ba'athist thought.[39] The Iraqi Regional Branch, however, still proclaimed Aflaq as the founder of Ba'athism.[39] Assad has referred to Arsuzi as the "greatest Syrian of his day" and claimed him to be the "first to conceive of the Ba'ath as a political movement."[40] Aflaq was condemned to death in absentia in 1971 by Assad's government.[41] The Syrian Regional Branch erected a statue in Arsuzi's honour not long after the 1966 coup.[42] Nevertheless, the majority of Ba'ath followers outside Syria still view Aflaq, not Arsuzi, as the principal founder of Ba'athism.[43]

When the Iraqi Regional Branch seized power, the Syrian Regional Branch responded by not mentioning in the press release that a Ba'ath organisation had taken power in Iraq.[44] For instance, it mentioned that Bakr had been appointed president, but did not mention his party's affiliation, and instead referred to the incident as a military coup.[44] While the Syrian Ba'ath denied giving any legitimacy to Iraqi Ba'ath, the Iraqi Ba'ath were more conciliatory.[45] For instance, Bakr stated "They are Ba'athists, we are Ba'athists" shortly after the Iraqi Regional Branch seized power.[45] Foreign Minister Shaykli stated shortly after that "there is nothing preventing co-operation between us [meaning Iraq and Syria]".[45] The anti-Iraq propaganda reached new heights within Syria at the same time that Assad was strengthening his position within the party and state.[45] When Jadid was toppled by Assad during the Corrective Movement in 1970, it did not signal a change in attitudes, and the first joint communique of the Syrian-dominated National Command and the Syrian Regional Command referred to the Iraqi Ba'ath as a "rightist clique".[46]