Syrian Communist Party

The Syrian Communist Party (Arabic: الحزب الشيوعي السوري, romanized: al-Ḥizb aš-Šuyūʿī as-Sūrī) was a political party in Syria founded in 1944 as a division of the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party, which later split into the Syrian Communist Party and the Lebanese Communist Party.

In 1972, it became a member of the National Progressive Front, the coalition of parties sanctioned by the Ba'athist regime. The party split in two in 1986 with two separate parties claiming to represent the original Syrian Communist Party; the Syrian Communist Party (Unified) and the Syrian Communist Party (Bakdash).

The party evolved out of the Communist Party of Syria and Lebanon, founded in Beirut in 1924. It was suppressed shortly afterwards, but was revived after an interlude of several years. In 1936, Khalid Bakdash, a Damascene who had been recruited to the party in 1930 and later studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East in Moscow, took control as secretary of the party, and set about building up its organisation.

The party was involved in opposition to the Vichy French 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 mandate. 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.

The United Arab Republic (UAR) was formed in February 1958. Toward the end of 1958, a 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 Nasserists to power and the party was once again repressed.

In 1966, the Syrian Ba'ath's secret military committee took power, and implemented a far-left line. Bakdash was allowed to return from Moscow, but forbidden from engaging in public political activity.