Communist Party in Saudi Arabia الحزب الشيوعي في السعودية | |
|---|---|
| Founded | August 31, 1975 (1975-08-31) |
| Dissolved | 1991 |
| Newspaper | Tareeq al-Kadiḥeen |
| Youth wing | Union of Democratic Youth – Saudi Arabia |
| Ideology | Communism Marxism-Leninism |
| Political position | Far-left |
TheCommunist Party in Saudi Arabia (Arabic:الحزب الشيوعي في السعودية,al-Hizb ash-Shuyu'i fi as-Sa'udiyah) was apolitical party inSaudi Arabia.[1]
The Communist Party in Saudi Arabia (CPSA) was formed on August 31, 1975.[2] It had its origins in the National Renewal Front which was founded on September 23, 1954 and transformed in theNational Liberation Front on October 17, 1958. The NLF was part of theArab National Liberation Front since 1963. The communists inside the NLF had a separate organization called theOrganization of Saudi Communists (OSC). The groups were targeted by a wave of arrests between 1968 and 1969.[3] The remainder of the NLF founded the CPSA in 1975. The party membership in 1975 was however very small, and is thought to have numbered as few as 30 members.[3] The first secretary general of the CPSA wasMustafa Wahba, a son ofHafiz Wahba, who was one of the advisors ofKing Abdulaziz.[4] Mustafa Wahba used the alias Mahdi Habib in the post.[4] He held the title until 1991 when the party was dissolved.[4]
Declining popularity caused by the collapse of theSoviet Union and the rise in popularity of politicalIslamism caused the party to rename itself asDemocratic Assembly of Saudi Arabia (Arabic:التجمع الديموقراطي في السعودية) and take up the cause of democratic reform in the early 1990s.[3][5] Soon thereafter, the government released the political prisoners of the party in exchange that the party promised to disband.
The CPSA had a youth organization, the Union of Democratic Youth – Saudi Arabia (Ittihad ash-Shabab ad-Dimuqrati fi as-Sa'udiyah), with office inDamascus,Syria. Other organizations close to the CPSA were the Workers' Federation of Saudi Arabia, theNational Union of Students of Saudi Arabia (NUSSA) and the Democratic Women's League of Saudi Arabia.
Its central organ wasTareeq al-Kadiḥeen ("Way of the Toilers").
The party was always illegal and persecuted by the regime.
Shiites were attracted to Saudi opposition groups, including the Communist Party, due to resentment at discrimination against them on religious grounds by the Saudi Government. As a result, the bulk of the members of the Communist Party were members of Saudi Arabia's Shiite community.[6]
Saudi Communist Party literature was filled with critiques of the Saudi economy, discrimination against women, and of the pro-Western foreign policy of the Saudi ruling family. The Communist Party also criticized the Saudi ruling family as being corrupt.[6]
The CPSA had close relations with other Arab communist parties and was a pro-Soviet party.[6] In its previous inception as the National Liberation Front, the group had pursued closer ties with theNational Liberation Front – Bahrain.[3]
As part of the restructuring of the party in the early 1990s, the new Democratic Assembly took up the cause of democratic reform.[3]
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