The
Syrian Communist Party (
ArabicArabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and the Neo-Aramaic languages. In terms of speakers, the Arabic macrolanguage is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as...
: الحزب الشيوعي السوري,
transliteratedDifferent approaches and methods for the romanization of Arabic exist. They vary in the way that they address the inherent problems of rendering written and spoken Arabic in the Latin alphabet; they also use different symbols for Arabic phonemes that do not exist in English or other European...
as
Al-hizb ash-shuyū'ī as-sūrī) has been the name of a
political partyA political party is a political organization that seeks to attain and maintain political power within government, usually by participating in electoral campaigns...
in
SyriaSyria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south and Israel to the southwest....
since 1944. Since a split in 1986, the name has been used by two competing parties. The party is part of the world communist movement, and historically had a pro-Soviet orientation. Since 1972, it has been a member of the
National Progressive FrontThe National Progressive Front , established in 1972, is a coalition of political parties in Syria that support the socialist and Arab nationalist orientation of the government and accept the leading role in society of the Arab Socialist Ba’th Party.The Front was established by Syrian president...
, which provides a legal framework for activity by parties supporting the Syrian government's socialist and
Arab nationalistArab nationalism is a nationalist ideology which rose to prominence amongst Arabs from the early 20th century onwards. Its central premise is that the peoples and countries of the Arab World, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, constitute one nation and are bound together by their common...
orientation and accepting the leadership of the Ba'th Party.
Beginnings
The party evolved out of the
Communist Party of Syria and LebanonSyrian-Lebanese Communist Party , a communist political party operating in Syria and Lebanon founded in 1924 by the Lebanese Egyptian Fu'ad al-Shimali, the Lebanese Yusuf Yazbek and the Armenian Artin Madoyan...
, founded in
BeirutBeirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon with a population of over 2.1 million as of 2007. Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's coastline with the Mediterranean sea, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan Area, which...
in 1924. It was suppressed shortly afterwards, but was revived after an interlude of several years. In 1936,
Khalid BakdashKhalid Bakdash was the leader of the Syrian Communist Party from 1936 until his death. In 1954 Bakdash became the first member of a communist party to be elected to an Arab parliament. He has since been called the "dean of Arab communism."-Early life:Bakdash was a Damascus native of Kurdish origin...
, a
DamasceneDamascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world and its current population is estimated at about 1,669,000...
who had been recruited to the party in 1930 and later studied at the
Communist University of the Toilers of the EastThe Communist University of the Toilers of the East or KUTV was established April 21, 1921, in Moscow by the Communist International as a training college for communist cadres in the colonial world. The school officially opened on October 21, 1921...
in
MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
, took control as secretary of the party, and set about building up its organisation.
Bakdash's leadership and organisational growth
The party was involved in opposition to the
Vichy FrenchVichy France, or the Vichy regime are the common terms used to describe the government of France from July 1940 to August 1944. This government, which succeeded the Third Republic, officially called itself the French State , in contrast with the previous designation, "French Republic." Marshal...
presence in Syria, and when the Free French took control of the country it was legalised. In 1944, the Syrian and Lebanese parties became separate organisations. Bakdash sought to present the Syrian Communist Party as an essential part of the national movement, in the context of Syria's struggle against the French
mandateA League of Nations mandate refers to a legal status for certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that contained the terms for administering the territory on behalf of the League...
. The party adopted a moderate programme and opened its ranks to all those accepting it, rather than functioning as a restricted Leninist vanguard organisation. It built up a significant support base among the working class, Kurds and intellectuals.
In 1954, after a series of military dictatorships that had lasted since 1949, Syria became a democracy, and in the elections held that year, Khalid Bakdash won a seat in parliament for the Damascus area, becoming the first communist elected to an Arab parliament. The party was cautious about proposals to unify Syria with Gamal Abdal Nasser's Egypt, the main political question of the 1950s in Syria. The Egyptian Communist Party was banned under Nasser, and communists and other leftists had been jailed in large numbers. However, popular desire for unity was such that the party felt it could not afford to oppose it outright.
Suppression under Nasser and the Ba'th, 1958-1970
The
United Arab Republic (UAR)The United Arab Republic , often abbreviated as the U.A.R., was a union between Egypt, and Syria. The union began in 1958 and existed until 1961 when Syria seceded from the union...
was formed in February 1958. Toward the end of 1958, a savage campaign of repression against the party began. Nasser was provoked to action by a harshly critical statement made by Bakdash, who called for transformation of the UAR into a loose federation. Communists were imprisoned and in some cases killed.
The union ended in 1961 when a coup led to Syria's secession. The Communist Party was strongly identified with the secessionist tendency and suffered a loss of popular support and membership as a result. Worse was to follow, when the pro-unification coup of 1963 brought a military-based government consisting largely of Ba'thists and
NasseristsNasserism is an Arab nationalist political ideology based on the thinking of the former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. It was a major influence on pan-Arab politics in the 1950s and 1960s, and continues to have significant resonance throughout the Arab World to this day. It also...
to power and the party was once again repressed.
Legal operation in the National Progressive Front from 1972
In 1970, Hafiz al-Asad came to power in Syria and announced his intention of allowing limited political pluralism in the context of
popular democracyDo not mistake with Irish or Marxist-Leninist People's DemocracyPopular democracy is a notion of direct democracy based on referendums and other devices of empowerment and concretization of popular will...
. This took the form of the
National Progressive FrontThe National Progressive Front , established in 1972, is a coalition of political parties in Syria that support the socialist and Arab nationalist orientation of the government and accept the leading role in society of the Arab Socialist Ba’th Party.The Front was established by Syrian president...
, established in 1972. Only parties participating in the Front would be allowed to operate: to join, they were required to accept the socialist and Arab nationalist orientation of the government. The Ba'th Party was guaranteed leadership of the Front and the new constitution, promulgated the same year, provided that it would "lead society and the state". Furthermore, only the Ba'th would be allowed operate in the armed forces and among university students.
Faced with the choice between accepting these restrictions and the prospect of illegal operation, Bakdash and the majority of the party chose to join the Front. The more radical elements in the party were unhappy about participation in the Front. However, the breaking point did not come until 1976 and the Syrian intervention in the
Lebanese Civil WarThe Lebanese Civil War was a multifaceted civil war in the nation of Lebanon in the Middle East. The war lasted from 1975 to 1990 and resulted in an estimated 130,000 to 250,000 civilian fatalities...
on the side of rightist, Maronite-led elements against the nationalist bloc and its allies in the
Palestine Liberation OrganizationThe Palestine Liberation Organization is a political and paramilitary organization founded in 1964. It is recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," by over 100 states with which it holds diplomatic relations, and has enjoyed observer status at the United...
. This was too much for the radicals, and
Riyad al-TurkRiyad al-Turk is a prominent Syrian opposition leader, former political prisoner, and supporter of democracy. He was secretary general of the radical Syrian Communist Party since its foundation in 1973 until 2005...
led them into opposition. His faction was termed the Syrian Communist Party (Political Bureau) or Syrian Communist Party (Riyad al-Turk).
The 1980s: repression and split
During the early 1980s, the Syrian government clamped down on political activity and the Communist Party was subject to severe restrictions, despite its participation in the NPF. It was prevented from publishing its newspapers
Nidhal ash-Sha'b ("The People's Struggle") and
An-Nour ("The Light"), and its activities were closely monitored by the security services. It effectively operated underground throughout most of the 1980s, with membership lists a closely guarded secret.
In 1986, Bakdash and deputy secretary Yusuf Faisal differed over the policies of
perestroikais the Russian term for the political and economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
and
glasnostwas the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of 1980s....
adopted by
Soviet Communist PartyThe Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the ruling and only legal political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the...
general secretary
Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was the second-to-last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until 1991, and the last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1988 until its collapse in 1991...
. Faisal was supportive of Gorbachev's reforms, while Bakdash was opposed. This led to another split in the party, with many of the party's intellectuals leaving with Faisal while much of its Kurdish base remained supportive of Bakdash. Both factions retained the name "Syrian Communist Party" and continued to participate in the NPF.
The collapse of the
Soviet UnionThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the , tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated СССР, SSSR. The common short name is Soviet Union, from , Sovetskiy Soyuz...
and of so-called "really existing socialism" led to a considerable loss of support for the party. Apart from the obvious ideological problems that this posed, much of the attraction of communism had derived from the prestige of the Soviet Union as a major power which many in the Arab world saw as opposing
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
imperialism and
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
i aggression in the Middle East.
Participation in current politics
Khalid Bakdash died in 1995 and was succeeded as secretary of his party faction by his widow, Wisal Farha Bakdash. A separate faction later formed around Bakdash's son-in-law, Qadri Jamil, and his SCP newspaper,
al-Qassioun. This group, called the National Committee for the Unity of the Syrian Communists, has no NPF participation, and does not portray itself as an independent political party.
Communists, especially of the banned SCP-Politbureau faction, played a prominent part in the
Damascus SpringThe Damascus Spring was a period of intense political and social debate in Syria which started after the death of President Hafiz al-Asad in June 2000 and continued to some degree until autumn 2001, when most of the activities associated with it were suppressed by the government.- Background...
of 2000, and the Faysal and Bakdash parties were able to resume publishing the party newspapers
Sawt al-Shaab (Bakdash) and
al-Nour (Faisal). The two legal parties now follow a similar political line, harshly critical of United States policy in the Middle East and supportive of the government's foreign policy (this latter is effectively a requirement of NPF membership). At the same time, the Faisal faction in particular has called for democratic reforms and has strongly criticized maladministration and corruption as well as the liberal economic reforms implemented or proposed by the government in recent years. In the
People's Council of SyriaThe Parliament of Syria is Syria's legislative authority. It has 250 members elected for a four year term in 15 multi-seat constituencies, in which 167 seats are guaranteed for the National Progressive Front. Syria is a single-party state...
electionParliamentary elections were held in Syria on 22 April 2007. The number of seats reserved for the parties in the National Progressive Front was increased to 170 from 167, decreasing the seats for independents to 80 from 83...
on 22 April 2007, the two factions together were awarded 8 out of 250 seats in the parliament. (The elections are non-competitive, and the NPF allots seats on uncontested lists according to pre-election negotiations within the Front; in practice, the Baath Party has the final say over which parties will get which seats, since it has a constitutionally permanent majority within the NPF.)
In 2005, Riyad al-Turk's party, the SCP-Politbureau, changed its name to the
Syrian Democratic People's PartyThe Syrian Democratic People's Party is a left-wing, democratic opposition party in Syria that is banned by the Syrian government....
(SDPP), marking its transition to democratic socialism rather than its previous old-line marxism-leninism; Turk also resigned as secretary-general, but remains the most well-known face of the party. The SDPP remains illegal, with members subject to monitoring and harassment, and sporadic arrests. It is active within the framework of the
National Democratic RallyThe National Democratic Rally or National Democratic Gathering is a banned opposition alliance in Syria, comprising five political parties of a secularist, pan-Arabist, Arab nationalist and socialist bent....
and the Damascus Declaration, two banned opposition coalitions.
Timeline
- 1924Communist Party of Syria and Lebanon formed
- 1954Khalid Bakdash
Khalid Bakdash was the leader of the Syrian Communist Party from 1936 until his death. In 1954 Bakdash became the first member of a communist party to be elected to an Arab parliament. He has since been called the "dean of Arab communism."-Early life:Bakdash was a Damascus native of Kurdish origin...
is the first communist to be elected to an Arab parliament.
- 1973"Political Bureau" group splits and forms separate party
- 1986Split led by Yusuf Faisal, forming third communist party
- 1987The CPS (Bagdash) is the second-largest legal political party in Syria http://countrystudies.us/syria/55.htm.
- 2004The 80th anniversary of the foundation of the original CPS http://www.mltoday.com/Pages/CPs/SyrianCP-CC.html.
External links