Ba'athism البعثية | |
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 The flag of theBa'ath Party, based on theflag of the Arab Revolt | |
| Founder | Michel Aflaq |
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| Political position | Left-wing[18] |
| Colors | Red, green, black, white (Pan-Arab colors) |
| Slogan | "Unity, Freedom, Socialism" "A single Arab nation with an eternal mission"[19] |
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Ba'athism, also spelledBaathism,[a] is anArab nationalistideology which advocates the establishment of aunified Arab state through the rule of a Ba'athistvanguard party operating under arevolutionary socialist framework. The ideology is officially based on the theories of theSyrian intellectualsMichel Aflaq (per theIraqi-led Ba'ath Party),Zaki al-Arsuzi (per theSyrian-led Ba'ath Party), andSalah al-Din al-Bitar. Ba'athist leaders of the modern era include the formerpresident of IraqSaddam Hussein, and formerpresidents of SyriaHafez al-Assad and his sonBashar al-Assad.
The Ba'athist ideology advocates the "enlightenment of theArabs" as well as therenaissance oftheir culture, values and society. It also advocates the creation ofone-party states and rejectspolitical pluralism in an unspecified length of time—the Ba'ath party theoretically uses an unspecified amount of time to develop an "enlightened" Arab society. Ba'athism is founded on the principles ofArab nationalism,pan-Arabism, andArab socialism, as exemplified by its slogan "Unity, Freedom, Socialism".[b][21]
Ba'athism advocatessocialist economic policies such asstate ownership of natural resources,protectionism,distribution of lands to peasants, andplanned economies. Although inspired byWestern socialist thinkers, early Ba'athist theoreticians rejected theMarxistclass-struggle concept, arguing that it hampers Arab unity. Ba'athists contend that socialism is the only way to develop modern Arab society and unite it.[22]
The two Ba'athist states which existed—Iraq andSyria—attempted to prevent criticism of their ideology throughauthoritarian means of governance.[23] Ba'athist Syria's state ideology wasneo-Ba'athism, afar-left form of Ba'athist ideology developed by theAssadist leadership of theSyrian Ba'ath party, which was quite distinct from the Ba'athism which Aflaq and Bitar wrote about. TheIraqi Ba'ath Party, meanwhile, was dominated bySaddamism, which had a moreright-wing political orientation, culminating in aninter-Ba'athist conflict between the two Ba'athist states.[24] Both Ba'athist regimes were ousted from power as a result of theU.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and therenewed rebel offensive in Syria in 2024 amid theSyrian civil war.
Ba'athism originated in the political thought of Syrian philosophersMichel Aflaq,Salah al-Din al-Bitar, andZaki Arsuzi.[25] They are considered the founders of the ideology, despite forming different organizations. In the 1940s, Bitar and Aflaq co-founded theBa'ath Party, while Arsuzi founded theArab National Party and later theArab Ba'ath.[25] The closest they ever came to being members of the same organization was in 1939, when, together with Michel Quzman, Shakir al-As and Ilyas Qandalaft, they briefly tried to establish a party.[25] The party likely failed due to personal animosity between Arsuzi and Aflaq.[25]
Arsuzi formed the Arab Ba'ath in 1940 and his views influenced Aflaq, who alongside the more junior Bitar founded theArab Ihya Movement in 1940, later renamed the Arab Ba'ath Movement in 1943.[26] Though Aflaq was influenced by him, Arsuzi initially did not cooperate with Aflaq's movement. Arsuzi suspected that the existence of the Arab Ihya Movement, which occasionally titled itself "Arab Ba'ath" during 1941, was part of an imperialist plot to prevent his influence over the Arabs by creating a movement of the same name.[27]
Arsuzi was an Arab fromAlexandretta who had been associated withArab nationalist politics during theinterwar period. He was inspired by theFrench Revolution, theGerman andItalian unification movements, and theJapanese economic "miracle".[28] His views were influenced by a number of prominent European philosophical and political figures, among themGeorg Hegel,Karl Marx,Friedrich Nietzsche andOswald Spengler.[29]
Arsuzi left theLeague of Nationalist Action (LNA) in 1939 after its popular leader died and the party fell into disarray, founding the short-lived Arab National Party. It dissolved later that year.[30] On 29 November 1940, Arsuzi founded theArab Ba'ath.[26] A significant conflict and turning point in the development of Ba'athism occurred when Arsuzi's and Aflaq's movements sparred over the1941 Iraqi coup d'etat byRashid Ali Al-Gaylani and the subsequentAnglo-Iraqi War. Aflaq's movement supported Gaylani's government and the Iraqi government's war against the British and organized volunteers to go to Iraq and fight for the Iraqi government. However, Arsuzi opposed Gaylani's government, considering the coup to be poorly planned and a failure. Because of this, Arsuzi's party lost members and support that transferred to Aflaq's movement.[27] Arsuzi's direct influence in Arab politics collapsed afterVichy French authorities expelled him from Syria in 1941.[27]
Aflaq's Arab Ba'ath Movement's next major political action was its support ofLebanon's war of independence from France in 1943.[31] Still, the movement did not solidify for years until it held its first party congress in 1947 and formally merged with Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath Party.[32] Although socialist values existed in the two Ba'ath movements from their inception, they weren't emphasized until the party merged withAkram Al-Hawrani'sArab Socialist Movement in 1953.
Taking advantage of the chaotic years of the 1950s and 1960s, theMilitary Committee of the Syrian Ba'ath party, led by its civilian leadership, launched acoup in 1963 that established aone-party state in Syria.[33] In 1966, the military wing of the Syrian Ba'ath initiatedanother coup which overthrew the Old Guard led by Aflaq and Bitar, resulting in a schism within theBa'athist movement: oneSyrian-dominated and oneIraqi-dominated. Scholar Ofra Bengio claims that as a consequence of the split, Arsuzi took Aflaq's place as the official father of Ba'athist thought in the pro-Syrian Ba'ath movement, while in the pro-Iraqi Ba'ath movement Aflaq was still considered thede jure father of Ba'athist thought.[34][35] The Iraqi Ba'ath wing granted asylum to Aflaq after seizing power through thecoup of 1968.
TheAl-Assad family andSaddam Hussein emerged dominant in the Syrian and Iraqi Ba'ath parties, respectively, eventually buildingpersonalist dictatorships in the two countries. Hostilities between the two Ba'ath movements lasted until the death ofHafez al-Assad in 2000, after which his successorBashar al-Assad pursued reconciliation with Iraq.[36]
Throughout their reigns, the two Ba'athistautocracies builtpolice states that enforcedmass surveillance and ideological indoctrination and subordinated allstudent organisations,trade unions, and othercivil society institutions to the party and the state. Both regimes pursuedArabization of ethnic minorities and legitimized theirauthoritarian rule by implanting conspiratorialanti-Zionist,anti-Western sentiments upon the citizens.[37]
In Iraq, Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003 during theUnited States invasion, and theIraqi Ba'ath party was subsequently banned under the newDe-Ba'athification policy. In Syria, adeadly civil war began after Bashar al-Assad's brutal crackdown of the2011 Syrian revolution.[38] It culminated in thefall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024, signaling the end of Ba'athist rule in Syria. Assad’s downfall also signals the likely demise of the SyrianBa’ath Party’s presence in Lebanon where it once wielded significant power during Syria’s occupation of Lebanon, but currently derives its influence fromHezbollah.[39] The fall of the Ba'athist regimes in Syria and Iraq also marked the end of its ideological influence.[23][40]
Michel Aflaq is today considered the founder of the Ba'athist movement, or at least its most notable contributor.[41] Other notable ideologues includeZaki Arsuzi, who influenced Aflaq, andSalah al-Din al-Bitar, who worked directly with Aflaq. From the founding of theArab Ba'ath Movement until the mid-1950s inSyria and the early 1960s inIraq, the ideology of theBa'ath Party was largely synonymous with that of Aflaq's. For more than 2 decades, Michel Aflaq's 1940 essay compilation, titled, "Fi Sabil al-Ba’ath" (trans: "The Road to Renaissance") was the primary ideological book of theBa'ath party.[42] Additionally, Aflaq's views onArab nationalism are considered by some, such as historian Paul Salem of theMiddle East Institute, as romantic and poetic.[41]
Aflaq's ideology was developed in the context ofdecolonisation and other events in theArab world during his life. It recast conservative Arab nationalist thought to reflect strong revolutionary and progressive themes. For example, Aflaq insisted on the overthrow of the old ruling classes and supported the creation of asecular society by separatingIslam from the state. Not all these ideas were his, but it was Aflaq who succeeded in turning these beliefs into a transnational movement.[41]
The core basis of Ba'athism isArab socialism,socialism with Arab characteristics which is separate from the international socialist movement andpan-Arab ideology.[43] Ba'athism as developed by Aflaq and Bitar is a uniqueleft-wing, Arab-centric ideology. It claims to represent the "Arab spirit againstmaterialisticcommunism" and "Arab history against deadreaction".[18] It holds ideological similarity and a favourable outlook to theNon-Aligned Movement politics of Indian leaderJawaharlal Nehru, Egyptian leaderGamal Abdel Nasser, and Yugoslavian leaderJosip Broz Tito and historically opposed affiliation with either theAmerican-ledWestern Bloc or theSoviet-ledEastern Bloc during theCold War.[44]
Michel Aflaq supported theArab nationalistSati' al-Husri's view that language was the principal defining and unifying factor of the "Arab nation" because language led to the unity of thought, norms and ideals. History was another unifying feature for them, as it was the "fertile ground in which our consciousness took shape".[45] The centre of Aflaq's Ba'athist thought was the featurebaʽth (literally meaning "renaissance").[45]
This renaissance, according to Aflaq, could only be reached by uniting the Arab nation, and it would transform the Arab world politically, economically, intellectually, and morally. This "future renaissance" would be a "rebirth", while the first Arab renaissance had been the seventh-century emergence ofIslam, according to Aflaq. The new renaissance would bring another Arab message, summed up in the Ba'ath party's slogan, "One Nation, Bearing an Eternal Message".[46]
Aflaq thought that the Arab nation could only reach this renaissance through a revolutionary process towards the goals of "unity, liberty, and socialism".[46] In Aflaq's view, a nation could only "progress" or "decline",[45] and Arab states of his time were consistently declining because of their "illnesses"—"feudalism,sectarianism,regionalism, intellectualreactionism". These problems, Aflaq believed, could only be resolved through a revolutionary process, and a revolution could only succeed if the revolutionaries were pure and devoted nearly religiously to the task. Aflaq supported theLeninist view of the need for avanguard party following a successful revolution, which was not an "inevitable outcome".[47] In Ba'athist ideology, the vanguard was the Ba'ath party.[47]
Aflaq believed that the youth were the key for a successful revolution. The youth were open to change and enlightenment because they still had not been indoctrinated with other views. According to Aflaq, a major problem was the disillusionment of the Arab youth. Disillusionment led toindividualism and individualism was not a healthy sign in anunderdeveloped country, in contrast todeveloped countries, where it was seen as a healthy sign.[48]
The party's main task before the revolution was to spread enlightened ideas to the people and to challenge reactionary and conservative elements in society. According to Aflaq, a Ba'ath party would ensure a policy of proselytization to keep the uneducated masses out of the party until the party leadership was imbued with the thoughts of enlightenment. However, the party was also a political organisation, and, as Aflaq notes, politics was "a means [... and] is the most serious of matters at this present stage".[49] Ba'athism was similar to Leninist thought in that a vanguard party would rule for an unspecified length to construct a "new society".[50]
Aflaq supported the idea of a committed activist revolutionary party based on the Leninist model,[51] which in practice was based ondemocratic centralism.[52][53][54] The revolutionary party would seize political power and from there on transform society for the greater good. While the revolutionary party was numerically a minority, it was an all-powerful institution which had the right to initiate a policy, even if the majority of the population were against it. As with the Leninist model, the Ba'ath party would dictate what was right and what was wrong, since the general population were still influenced by the old value and moral system.[51]
According to Aflaq, theArab Revolt (1916–1918) against theOttoman Empire failed to unify theArab world because it was led by areactionary class. He believed the ruling class, who supported the monarchy as the leaders of the Arab Revolt did, were synonymous with a reactionary class. In Ba'athist ideology, the ruling class is replaced by a revolutionary progressive class. Aflaq was bitterly opposed to any kind of monarchy and described the Arab Revolt as "the illusions of kings and feudal lords who understood unity as the gathering of backwardness to backwardness, exploitation to exploitation and numbers to numbers like sheep".[55]
According to Aflaq, it was the reactionary class's view of Arab unity which had left the Arab Revolt "struggling for unity without blood and nerve".[55] He saw theGerman unification as proof of this, putting him at odds with some Arab nationalists who wereGermanophiles. In Aflaq's view,Bismarck's unification of Germany established the most repressive nation the world had ever seen, a development which could largely be blamed on the existing monarchy and the reactionary class. To copy the German example, he thought, would be disastrous and would lead to the enslavement of the Arab people.[55]
The only way to combat the reactionary classes lay in "progressive" revolution, Aflaq claimed, central to which is the struggle for unity. This struggle could not be separated from the social revolution, for to separate these two would be to weaken the movement. The reactionary classes, who are content with thestatus quo, would oppose the "progressive" revolution. Even if the revolution succeeded in one "region" (country), that region would be unable to develop because of the resource constraints, small populations and anti-revolution forces held by other Arab leaders. For a revolution to succeed, the Arab world would have to evolve into an "organic whole" (literally become one). In short, Aflaq though that Arab unity would be both the cause of the progressive revolution and its effect.[56]
A major obstacle to the success of the revolution in Aflaq's mind was theArab League. He believed that the Arab League strengthened both regional interests and the reactionary classes, thus weakening the chance of establishing an Arab nation. Because the majority of Arab states were under the rule of the reactionary classes, Aflaq revised his ideology to meet reality. Instead of creating an Arab nation through an Arab-wide progressive revolution, the main task would be of progressive revolutionaries spreading the revolution from one Arab country to the next. Once successfully transformed, the created progressive revolutionary countries would then one by one unite until the Arab world had evolved into a single Arab nation. The revolution would not succeed if the progressive revolutionary governments did not contribute to spreading the revolution.[56]
Liberty is not a luxury in the life of the nation but its basis and its essence and its meaning.
— Aflaq in a speech dated to 1959[51]
Fundamentally, Aflaq had anauthoritarian perspective onliberty. In contrast to theliberal democratic concept of liberty, in Aflaq's vision, liberty would be ensured by a Ba'ath party which was not elected by the populace because the party had the common good at heart. Historian Paul Salem considered the weakness of such a system "quite obvious".[57]
Aflaq saw liberty as one of the defining features of Ba'athism. Articulation of thoughts and the interaction between individuals were a way of building a new society. According to Aflaq, it was liberty which created new values and thoughts.[58] Aflaq believed that living underimperialism,colonialism, or a religious or non-enlightened dictatorship weakened liberty as ideas came from above, not from below through human interaction. One of the Ba'ath party's main priorities, according to Aflaq, was to disseminate new ideas and thoughts and to give individuals the liberty they needed to pursue ideas. To do this, the party would interpose itself between the Arab people and both their foreign imperialist oppressors and those forms of tyranny that arise within Arab society.[51]
While the notion of liberty was an important ideal to Aflaq, he favored the Leninist model of a continuous revolutionary struggle and he did not develop concepts for a society in which liberty was protected by a set of institutions and rules. His vision of aone-party state ruled by the Ba'ath party, which disseminated information to the public, was in many ways contrary to his view on individual interactions. The Ba'ath party through its preeminence would establish "liberty". According to Aflaq, liberty could not just come from nowhere as it needed an enlightened progressive group to create a truly free society.[51]
We did not adopt socialism out of books, abstractions, humanism, or pity, but rather out of need ... for the Arab working class is the mover of history in this period.
— Aflaq's view on the necessity of socialism[59]
Socialism is an important pillar of the Ba'athist programme. Although influenced by Western socialists andMarxist parties, the Ba'ath party founders constructed a socialist vision which they believed to be more adaptable toArab historical context. Articles 26–37 of the 1947Ba'ath Party Charter outlines the key principles of Ba'athist socialism.[60] Some of them are:
"
- Article 26: The Arab Ba'ath Party is socialist, believing that the economic wealth of the homeland belongs to thenation.
- Article 27: The present distribution of wealth in the Arab homeland is unjust. It will therefore be reviewed and distributed among the citizens in a just manner...
- Article 29: Public utility institutions, major natural resources, the principalmeans of production and transport are the property of the nation and will be administered by the state directly. Companies and foreign concessions will be abolished.
- Article 30: Agricultural property will be fixed in proportion to the owner's ability to exploit it fully without exploiting the effort of others, under the supervision of the state and in accordance with its general economic programme.
- Article 31: Small industrial property will be fixed proportionately to the economic standards enjoyed by other citizens in the state.
- Article 32: Workers will participate in the management of the factory and will be granted, in addition to their wages which will be fixed by the state, a share of the profits of the factory in a proportion to be fixed by the state...
- Article 35:Usury between citizens will be forbidden and asingle government bank will be founded which will issue the currency..
- Article 36: The state will directly supervise internal and foreign trade in order to abolish exploitation between consumer and producer, and in order to protect trade and national production from foreign competition."
— Constitution of Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (1947),[61]
Michel Aflaq was a deep admirer ofMarxist tenets, and he considered the Marxist concept of the importance of material economic conditions in life to be one of modern humanity's greatest discoveries.[59] However, he disagreed with the Marxist view thatdialectical materialism was the only truth, as Aflaq believed that Marxism had forgotten human spirituality. While believing that the concept would work for small and weak societies, he thought that the concept of dialectical materialism as the only truth in Arab development was wrong.[59]
For a people as spiritual as the Arabs, theworking class was just a group, albeit the most important group, in a much larger movement to free the Arab nation. UnlikeKarl Marx, Aflaq was uncertain what place the working class had in history. In contrast to Marx, Aflaq also believed innationalism and believed that in the Arab world, all classes, not just the working class, were working againstcapitalist domination of the foreign powers. What was a struggle between various classes in the West was in the Arab world a fight for political and economic independence.[59]
For Aflaq, socialism was a necessary means to accomplish the goal of initiating an Arabic "renaissance" period, in other words, a period of modernisation. While unity brought the Arab world together and liberty provided the Arab people with freedom, socialism was the cornerstone which made unity and liberty possible as no socialism meant no revolution. In Aflaq's view, aconstitutional democratic system would not succeed in a country such asSyria that was dominated by a "pseudo-feudalist" economic system in which the repression of the peasant nullified the people's political liberty. Liberty meant little to nothing to the general poverty-stricken populace of Syria, and Aflaq saw socialism as the solution to their plight.[62]
According to Aflaq, the ultimate goal of socialism was not to answer the question of how muchstate control was necessary or economic equality, but instead socialism was "a means to satisfy the animal needs of man so he can be free to pursue his duties as a human being". In other words, socialism was a system which freed the population from enslavement and created independent individuals. However, economic equality was a major tenet in Ba'athist ideology, as the elimination of inequality would "eliminate all privilege, exploitation, and domination by one group over another". In short, if liberty was to succeed, the Arab people needed socialism.[62]
Aflaq labeled this form of socialismArab socialism to signify that it existed in harmony with and was in some ways subordinate toArab nationalism. According to Aflaq, who was aChristian, theteaching and reforms of Muhammad had given socialism an authentic Arab expression. Socialism was viewed by Aflaq as justice, and the reforms of Muhammad were both just and wise. According to Aflaq, modern Ba'athists would initiate another way of just and radical forms just as Muhammad had done in the seventh century.[63]
Europe is as fearful of Islam today as she has been in the past. She now knows that the strength of Islam (which in the past expressed that of the Arabs) has been reborn and has appeared in a new form: Arab nationalism.
— From one of Aflaq's works dating back to 1943 about Islam's character[64]
Though a Christian, Aflaq viewed the creation of Islam as proof of "Arab genius" and a testament of Arab culture, values, and thought.[65] According to Aflaq, the essence of Islam was its revolutionary qualities.[66] Aflaq called on all Arabs, both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to admire the role Islam had played in creating an Arab character, but his view on Islam was purely spiritual and Aflaq emphasized that it "should not be imposed" on state and society. Time and again, Aflaq emphasized that the Ba'ath party was againstatheism, but also againstfundamentalism, as the fundamentalists represented a "shallow, false faith".[67]
According to Ba'athist ideology, all religions were equal. Despite his anti-atheist stance, Aflaq was a strong supporter ofsecular government and stated a Ba'athist state would replace religion with a state "based on a foundation, Arab nationalism, and a moral; freedom".[67] During theShiariots against the Iraqi Ba'ath government in the late-1970s, Aflaq warnedSaddam Hussein of making any concessions to the rioters, exclaiming that the Ba'ath Party "is with [religious] faith, but is not a religious party, nor should it be one".[68] During his vice presidency, at the time of the Shia riots, Saddam discussed the need to convince large segments of the population to convert to theparty line's stance on religion.[69]
When Aflaq died in 1989, an official announcement by theIraqi Regional Command stated that Aflaq had converted to Islam before his death, but an unnamed Western diplomat in Iraq told William Harris[clarification needed] that Aflaq's family was not aware that he had undergone any religious conversion.[70] Prior to, during, and after theGulf War of 1990–91, the government became progressively more Islamic, and by the beginning of the 1990s, Saddam proclaimed the Ba'ath party to be the party "of Arabism and Islam".[71]
"Much likeVaclav Havel's description inThe Power of the Powerless of life under atotalitarian regime which 'demands conformity, uniformity and discipline' ...Syrian regime narrated a reality all of its own – far removed from reality itself – derived from its ownideology, creating 'a world of appearances' that perpetuated its power and dominance over its people. Constructing a reality that was 'permeated with hypocrisy and lies' where ... 'the repression of culture is called its development' ... its people were forced to ‘live within a lie’ ... It was not important whether or not a person truly believed these lies; ultimately, it was whether they acted asthough they did."
After the1963 Syrian coup d'état, theBa'ath Party which took power in Syria was dominated by a faction of radical Ba'athist military officers known as the "Neo-Ba'ath" or "new Ba'athists".[73][74][75][76] This faction went beyond thepan-Arab ideological basis of Aflaqite Ba'athists by prioritising the establishment of asocialist state, imposing Marxist policies associated with the "class struggle" doctrine and stressed the domination of Ba'athist military apparatus over society.[77][78][79] This ideological transformation intensified drastically after the1966 Syrian coup d'état, led by radical leftist officers includingSalah Jadid andHafez al-Assad, which transformed the party into amilitarist neo-Ba'ath organization that became independent of theNational Command of theunified Ba'ath party.[80] Following its violent seizure of power, which resulted in the deaths of approximately 400 people,[81] the neo-Ba'athistmilitary committee purged the classical Ba'athist leaders of the old guard, includingMichel Aflaq andSalah al-Din Bitar.[82] The coup led to a permanent schism between the Syrian andIraqi regional branches of the Ba'ath Party, and many Syrian Ba'athist leaders defected to Iraq.[83]
In the original Ba'ath ideology, pan-Arabism was the means to reach the end of both economic and social transformation. As an early party document states, "[s]ocialism is the true goal of Arab unity... Arab unity is the obligatory basis for constructing a socialist society".[84] With the rise of the Syrian neo-Ba'athists, however, this focus shifted. As American scholar John F. Devlin writes, the "Ba'ath Party, which started with unity as its overwhelming top priority, which was prepared to work within a variety of Middle Eastern political systems, which wanted social justice in society, had pretty much disappeared by the early 1960s. In its place rose Ba'ath organisations which focused primarily on their own region, which advocated, and created where possible,authoritarian centralised governments, which rested heavily on military power and which were very close to other socialist movements and were less distinctively Ba'athist".[84]
Munif al-Razzaz, the former Secretary General of the National Command of the unitary Ba'ath Party, agreed with the distinction of "neo-Ba'ath", writing 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".[84] According to Razzaz, 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 inCairo in 1959, the chain of events and the total corruption of Ba'athism proceeded with intolerable logic".[84]Salah al-Din al-Bitar, a member of the Ba'ath old guard, agreed, stating that the1966 Syrian coup d'état "marked the end of Ba'athist politics in Syria". Ba'ath party founderMichel Aflaq shared the sentiment by stating, "I no longer recognise my party!"[84]
The coup left Salah Jadid in power, and under him, the Syrian government abandoned the traditional goal of pan-Arab unity and replaced it with a radical form of Western socialism. Thefar-left shift was reflected strongly in the ideological propaganda of the new government, marked by widespread usage of terminology such as "class struggle" and "people's war" (itself aMaoist term, as theSix-Day War was proclaimed as a "people's war" against Israel).[85] TheSyrian Communist Party played an important role in Jadid's government, with somecommunists holding ministerial posts,[86] and Jadid established "fairly close relations" with theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union.[87] The government supported a more radical economic program including state ownership over industry andforeign trade, while at the same time trying to restructure agrarian relations and production.[88]
During Jadid's rule, neo-Ba'athist ideologues openly denounced religion as a source of what they considered the "backwardness" of the Arabs.[89] The Jadid regime wasanti-religious and imposed severe restrictions on religious freedom, banning religious preaching and persecuting the clergy.[83] Neo-Ba'athists viewed the religious clerics asclass enemies to be liquidated by the Ba'athist state.[90] The party disseminated the doctrine of the "Arab SocialistNew Man", which conceptualised the "new Arab man" as an atheist who campaigned forsocialist revolution and rejectedreligion,feudalism, imperialism,capitalism, and every value of the old social order.[83][89][91]
In 1968, Al-Bitar left the Ba'ath movement, claiming that "these parties had ceased to be what they set up to be, retaining only their names and acting as the organs of power and the instruments of regional anddictatorial governments".[92] Contrary to expectations, Aflaq remained with the Ba'ath movement and became the ideologue of the Iraqi-dominated Ba'ath movement. His ideological views remained more or less the same, but in Iraq he was sidelined politically.[92] In post-1966 Syria, the real centre of power had been vested in the neo-Ba'athist military committee. A tense power rivalry existed between Salah Jadid and Hafez al-Assad, with the former as the leader of civilian Ba'athists while the latter increased his control of the military-wing of the party and various army units.[93] The rivalry culminated in the bloodless 1970Corrective Revolution, a military coup that placed Assad in power.
Assadism is aneo-Ba'athist ideology based on the policies of Hafez al-Assad after his seizure of power in the 1970 coup, described in official Ba'athist history as theCorrective Movement. It enshrines theAssad family's leadership role in Syrian politics and constructed the Assad regime in a highlypersonalist fashion, creating a government based upon and revolving around its leader. Under this socio-political system, the Ba'ath party portrays the wisdom of Assad as "beyond the comprehension of the average citizen".[94] Through this apparatus, also known as the "Ba'atho-Assadist system", the Ba'ath party instrumentalized its control over Syria's political, social, economic, cultural, educational and religious spheres to enforce its neo-Ba'athist ideology in the wider society and preserve the Assad family's grip on power. The goal of General Assad was to consolidate thesocialist state with the Ba'ath party as its vanguard by establishing a "coup-proof" system that eliminated factional rivalries. As soon as he seized power, the armed forces,secret police, security forces, and bureaucracy were purged, subjugating them to party command by installing Ba'athist elites loyal to Assad.[95][96]
The neo-Ba'athist, Assadist system controlled Syrian politics from the 1970 coup to thefall of the Assad regime in December 2024. It was largely built uponnepotism and ethnic favoritism. For example, Hafez al-Assad began the ethnoreligiousAlawitization of the party and the military, and he also built a government based on loyalty to the leader's family.[97]Jamal al-Atassi, co-founder ofZaki al-Arsuzi's earlyArab Ba'ath Party and later Syrian dissident, stated that "Assadism is a falsenationalism. It's the domination of a minority, and I'm not talking just of the Alawites, who control the society's nervous system. I include also the army and themukhabarat. [...] And despite itssocialist slogans, the state is run by a class who has made a fortune without contributing—anouvellebourgeoisie parasitaire".[98] Assadism is less an ideology than acult of personality, but it is the closest thing the government of theSyrian Arab Republic had to an all-encompassing belief system, since both Ba'athist and Arab nationalist beliefs of old were watered down to not hurt the government'spopulist credentials.[99] State propaganda characterised Assadism as a neo-Ba'athist current that evolved Ba'athist ideology with the needs of the modern era.[100]
Saddamism is a political ideology based on the politics related to and pursued bySaddam Hussein.[101][102] It has also been referred to by Iraqi politicians as Saddamist Ba'athism (Al-Baʽthiya Al-Saddamiyya).[103] It is officially described as a distinct variation of Ba'athism.[101] It espousesIraqi nationalism and anIraq-centredArab world that calls upon Arab countries to adopt Saddamist Iraqi political discourse and to reject "theNasserite discourse" that it claims collapsed after 1967.[101] It ismilitarist and views political disputes and conflicts in a military manner as "battles" requiring "fighting", "mobilization", "battlefields", "bastions", and "trenches".[104] Saddamism was officially supported by Saddam's government and promoted by the Iraqi daily newspaperBabil owned by Saddam's sonUday Hussein.[101]
Saddam and his ideologists sought to fuse apseudo-historical connection between ancientBabylonian andAssyrian civilization in Iraq withArab nationalism by claiming that the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians were the ancestors of theArabs. Thus, Saddam and his supporters claimed that there is no conflict betweenMesopotamian heritage and Arab nationalism.[105]
Saddamism ... is a phenomenon rooted in violence, in the manipulation of the tools and means of violence to achieve expressly political ends. Saddamism is not plain thuggery, as many people wrongly think; this is noPapa Doc orIdi Amin on the rampage. Saddamism is too political for that.—Kanan Makiya[106]
Saddam's government was critical ofMarxism and opposed the orthodox Marxist concepts ofclass conflict,dictatorship of the proletariat, andstate atheism, as well as opposingMarxism–Leninism's claim that non-Marxist–Leninist parties are inherentlybourgeois in nature. Rather, the party claimed that it was a popular revolutionary movement, so the people rejectedpetit bourgeois politics.[107] Saddam claimed that the Arab nation did not have the class structure which existed in other nations and that class divisions were more along national lines between Arabs and non-Arabs rather than within the Arab community.[108] However, he spoke fondly ofVladimir Lenin and commended Lenin for giving Russian socialism a uniquely Russian specificity that Marx alone was incapable of doing. He also expressed admiration for other communist leaders such asFidel Castro,Hồ Chí Minh, andJosip Broz Tito due to their spirit of asserting national independence rather than their communism.[109]
"The Ba’athist triumph giftedSyria andIraq decades of tyranny, termed ‘security and stability’ (al-amn wa al-istiqrar). Both countries endured clan-based autocracies wielding ideological absolutism, malignancy of a different order from the standard republican and monarchical authoritarianism of the late twentieth-centuryArab world. Strongmen swiftly emerged in the Ba’athist milieu to establish family firms... Subordination of the party, however, went together with rigorous deployment of the party apparatus and ideology to regiment society."— Prof. William Harris,University of Otago[110]
Cyprian Blamires, a historian offascism, claims that "Ba'athism may have been aMiddle Eastern variant of fascism, even though Aflaq and other Ba'athist leaders criticized particularfascist ideas and practices".[111] According to him, the Ba'ath movement shared several characteristics with theEuropean fascist movements, such as "the attempt to synthesize radical, illiberalnationalism and non-Marxistsocialism, a romantic, mythopoetic, and elitist 'revolutionary' vision, the desire to create a 'new man' and restore past greatness, a centralisedauthoritarian party divided into 'right-wing' and 'left-wing' factions and so forth; several close associates later admitted that Aflaq had been directly inspired by certain fascist andNazi theorists".[111] Others have argued against Aflaq's fascist credentials, based on the fact that he was an active member of theSyrian–Lebanese Communist Party, he participated in the activities of theFrench Communist Party during his stay in France,[112] and that he was influenced by some of the ideas ofKarl Marx.[59]
According toSami al-Jundi, one of the co-founders of theArab Ba'ath Party which was established byZaki Arsuzi, the party's emblem was thetiger because it would "excite the imagination of the youth, in the tradition ofNazism andFascism, but taking into consideration the fact that the Arab is in his nature distant frompagan symbols [like theswastika]".[113] Arsuzi's Ba'ath Party believed in the virtues of "one leader" and Arsuzi himself personally believed in theracial superiority of theArabs. The party's members read Nazi literature, such asThe Foundations of the Nineteenth Century; they were one of the first groups to plan the translation ofMein Kampf intoArabic; and they also actively searched for a copy ofThe Myth of the Twentieth Century—according to Moshe Ma'oz, the only copy of it was inDamascus and it was owned by Aflaq.[113] Arsuzi did not support theAxis powers and refusedItaly's advances for party-to-party relations,[114] but he was also influenced by the racial theories ofracialist philosopherHouston Stewart Chamberlain.[114] Arsuzi claimed that historically,Islam andMuhammad had reinforced the nobility and purity of the Arabs, which had both degenerated because Islam had been adopted by other peoples.[114] He was associated with theLeague of Nationalist Action, a political party which existed in Syria from 1932 to 1939 and was strongly influenced by fascism and Nazism, as evidenced by its paramilitary "Ironshirts".[115]
According to a British journalist who interviewedBarzan Ibrahim Tikriti, the head of the Iraqi intelligence services, Saddam Hussein drew inspiration on how to rule Iraq fromJoseph Stalin andAdolf Hitler, and he had once asked Barzan to procure copies of their works, not forracist orantisemitic purposes, but "as an example of the successful organisation of an entire society by the state for the achievement of national goals".[116] JournalistJonathan Teperman interviewed former Syrian presidentBashar al-Assad in 2015 and described him to be as delusional as "Hitler in his bunker when the Russians were an hour outsideBerlin" for advocating unrealistic objectives and being remorseless about his crimes, despite losing most of his Syrian territories.[117][118]
TheSimon Wiesenthal Center reported thatNazi war-criminalAlois Brunner, the right-hand man ofAdolf Eichman and a key participant in theFinal Solution, had died in Syria in 2010 under the asylum of Bashar al-Assad. Under the alias "Dr. Georg Fischer", Brunner assisted former Syrian rulers Bashar al-Assad and his fatherHafez for over 30 years, serving as an instructor ontorture techniques, combating internal dissent, and purgingSyria's Jewish community. While theAssad regime regularly reject accusations of sheltering Brunner to this day, it had long denied permission to probe his whereabouts.[119][120][121][122]
Bashar al-Assad's Ba'athist regime received support from Westernneo-Nazi andfar-right extremists, who became aware of him during theEuropean refugee crisis that was mostly brought on by theSyrian Civil War.[123] Assad's bombings of Syrian cities were praised in the far-right'sIslamophobic propaganda, which portrayed Muslims as a civilizational enemy to the West.[124][125] Several Western far-right groups also view Bashar al-Assad as an authoritarian,anti-semitic bulwark againstglobalism andZionism. Several pro-Assadist slogans were chanted in theneo-NaziUnite the Right rally held inCharlottesville in 2017.[c][124] Neo-nazi militants from the GreekStrasserist group Black Lily joined the Syrian civil war to fight alongside theSyrian Arab Army.[126]
The Ba'ath regimes have been accused of promoting an aggressive form of Arabultranationalism.[127][128]
TheNational Vanguard Party, which has ties to theIraqi Ba'ath party, was accused of being racist by theMauritanian government and certain political groups.[129]
TheIraqi Regional Branch could either approve or disapprove of marriages between party members, and in a party document, party branches were ordered "to thoroughly check the Arabic origin of not only the prospective wife but also her family, and no approval should be given to members who plan to marry [someone] of non-Arab origin".[130] During thewar with Iran, the party began to confront members who were of non-Arab, especially Iranian origin. One memo which was directly sent from the party Secretariat to Saddam read, "the party suffers from the existence of members who are not originally Arabs as this might constitute a danger to the party in the future".[131] The Secretariat recommended that people who were of Iranian origin not be allowed to become party members. In his reply to the document, Saddam wrote, "1) [I] Agree with the opinion of the Party Secretariat; 2) To be discussed in the [Regional] Command meeting".[131] All of those who were denied membership, and all of those whose memberships were revoked, were loyal Ba'athists. For instance, one Ba'athist of Iranian origin whose membership in the party was revoked had been a member of the party since 1958, had also participated in theRamadan Revolution, and he had even been imprisoned by the authorities in the aftermath of theNovember 1963 Iraqi coup d'état because he supported the Ba'athist cause. Later, the authorities began to specifically look for people of Iraqi origin, and any contact which they had with Iran and/or Iranians functioned as a sufficient reason to forbid them from being party members.[131]
Ba'athism as an expression of Arab nationalist identity had little patience for a political discourse limited by an attachment to a single faith system. For the founders of Ba'athism, the principles of secular, nationalist socialism would unite all Arabs irrespective of religion, nation or class.
Ba'athism is a mixture of pan-Arabism and Arab socialism. Its ideology laid down by the Ba'ath founder, Michel Aflaq, calls on a number of potentially incompatible and conflicting ideas. It is pan-Arabist in its aspirations yet appeals to individual nationalisms. It assumes the existence of an Arab nation and calls for the establishment of a single Arab state, but at the same time is used by its leaders in Syria and Iraq as a powerful mechanism for establishing the power and legitimacy of those states. It appeals to Islamic religious principles and the traditions of Arab history whilst at the same time aspiring to create a secular modernity, which it recognises as the basis of western prosperity and power. The socialist dimension of Ba'athism is reflected in its claim to eliminate the conflict between the different ethnic groups found in Middle Eastern countries, thus denying the monopoly of power to any one group. In practice, particularly under the rule of Saddam Hussein, it has on the contrary resulted in the concentration of power into the hands of a small clique, many of the members of which have family connections. From an international perspective Ba'athism's socialist aspirations entail the rejection of liberal economics based upon capitalistic principles and, at least in Cold War terms, it saw the Soviet Union as its natural major supporter in its stand against what it conceives to be western imperialist influence and intervention in the Middle East.
The Ba'ath ideology was comprised of rigid systems of beliefs, with the idea of Arab unity as the main core. Ba'athists believed that they should use all means, including coercive measures, to achieve this goal.
Ba'athism is a revolutionary philosophy whose technique has been to foster and lead revolution from below—the very fragmentation of many Islamic societies precludes sufficient solidarity at the grass-roots to make a general uprising a viable strategy. The method is to capture power by whatever means possible and institute the revolution from above.
Ba'athism emerged as part of a global efflorescence of populist, socialist, and other anti-systemic movements encompassing the 1917–1973 wave of national revolts which went by various names, including the anticolonial movements or the emergence of the South... Forces of socialism, communism, and left-wing Ba'athism were increasingly setting the agenda within Syria.
The Baath was the most ardently Pan-Arabist movement of all; its program combined a secularist worldview, populism, a vaguely Marxist socioeconomic program, and a visionary dream of a single Arab nation stretching from Morocco to Iraq.
For the Party to succeed in achieving these aims, Aflaq insisted that the Baath had to be nationalist, populist, socialist and revolutionary. The radicalism of the Baath later became more manifest as a result of the Sixth National Congress held in Damascus in October 1963. The Congress declared the peasants and workers to constitute the base not only of the 'Arab revolution' but also, and more significantly, of the Party itself. Accordingly, only peasants, workers and revolutionary intellectuals of civilian or military background could accomplish the socialist revolution. Moreover, the Congress insisted on the need for workers' control of the means of production, and for an agrarian reform where collective farms would be governed by peasants.
The traditional Gulf states now represented by the GCC have accordingly grave concerns for the security of their monarchist regimes from republican radicalism on the left as represented by Iraqi Ba'athism or South Yemeni Marxism or republican radicalism on the right as represented by religious fundamentalism.
Ba'athism is not democracy, but it is indissolubly linked to a republican form of government.
Ba'athism as an expression of Arab nationalist identity had little patience for a political discourse limited by an attachment to a single faith system. For the founders of Ba'athism, the principles of secular, nationalist socialism would unite all Arabs irrespective of religion, nation or class.
Ba'athism and most other Arab nationalist movements drew on the widespread anti-colonial themes as well as on hostility toward Israel, which became associated with colonialism in pan-Arab discourse.
Ba'athism espouses, at least in theory, non-alignment, pan-Arabism and anti-imperialism (in practice, Ba'athists aligned themselves with the Soviet Union during the cold war).
Ba'athism and most other Arab nationalist movements drew on the widespread anti-colonial themes as well as on hostility toward Israel, which became associated with colonialism in pan-Arab discourse.
For the Ba'ath party's founders, Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, a unified Arab nation is akin to a natural fact: "Arab nationalism for us Ba'athists," Aflaq wrote, "is a self-evident reality not in need of special investigation or affirmation." Aflaq subsequently developed a romantic nationalism that placed Arab unity as the first step toward a broader cultural, political, and socio-economic renaissance. Aflaq maintained that, in his present-day reality, Arabs were in a state of slumber, and if they did not rouse from sleep, then the region would continue on its path of decline.
Romantic nationalism was reflected in the leftist ideologies, predominantly in those of the Ba'athists. [...] Michel Aflaq, also of the Ba'ath Party, entertained the 'external Arab idea' and considered Arab nationalism as the embodiment of the Arab spirit in which language, history and tradition were considered its external bonds. In fact, so broad is the scope of Arab nationalism that it was considered to be 'romantic in character rather than realistic'.
Aflaq was an Arab nationalist with a Western education and Western European attitudes. For a moment he was ragged between the doctrines of Marxist materialism and romantic nationalism. This romantic nationalism touches a harmony close to nearly all Arab hearts, harking back to the days of glory and the Islamic Arab Empire.
In practice, the economic doctrine of the Ba'th eschewed private enterprise and called for a state directed economy, much like the USSR. According to the basic documents of the party: the national wealth is the property of the state; the traditional distribution (i.e., the holding of most arable land by absentee landowners who leaded the land out to the peasants) is unjust and therefore it must be corrected; farming land should be allocated according to the capability to husband it; factories will be cooperative; trade will be controlled by the state.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)German far-right and neo-Nazi politicians are taking trips to Syria, claiming it's now safe for refugees to return and praising murderous dictator Bashar al-Assad... neo-Nazis in Greece have bragged that they were training to go and fight alongside Assad's troops.
far-right support for Assad hinges on a number of factors: "Anti-imperialist/anti-globalism sentiment with a strong focus on national states…Islamophobia…Anti-Semitism
Nazis like Assad because he has killed, and is killing, a lot of Muslims. This is essential to their view of the world. Anyone who sets out to murder Muslims and Arabs can be considered a friend. In this sense the far-right love affair with Assad can be considered almost tactical, a means to an end. The far-right seems to genuinely believe part of Assad's rhetoric....In this fanciful telling, Assad is manning the gates of civilisation, holding out against unspecified barbarians... Sunni Muslims are, in Duke's mind, 'demonic forces'. That he conflates Syrians protesting for freedom and an end to dictatorship with jihadists is almost incidental. The far-right and Assad share hatreds.
