1963 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 Intervention in Lebanon Syrian occupation of Lebanon Syrian 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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Modern Syria was first established in 1920 as the Arab Kingdom of Syria under King Faisal I. This state was planned to be a new Arab kingdom, and not just Syrian, and the state espoused Arab nationalism and pan-Islamic policies. However the British, who had helped establish the state after World War I, made a secret agreement (Sykes-Picot Agreement) with France and established the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. The area thereby functioned as one of France's colonies, and the newly established state was viewed unfavorably by most Syrians, with many of them regarding it as a vassal of European imperialism.[3] At this stage, some movements tried to establish a Syrian identity, most notably the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, or became advocates of communism and Islamism. The majority of Syrians continued to see themselves as Arabs rather than Syrians.[4]

The mandate was feudal in character, and it rested on a semi-liberal oligarchic social base. This system remained unchanged until the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR). This system created a class society reflecting urban-rural living patterns. An estimated three thousand families owned half of the land in Syria. The middle class owned the majority of small to medium properties. Some two-thirds of peasants were landless.[5] Agricultural revenues were highly skewed – the top two percent of the population received 50 percent of the income, while the middle class (merchants or middle landowning groups), which was 18 percent of the population, earned 25 percent of agricultural revenues. The bottom 80 percent received the remainder.[6] The landowner–peasant alliance was based on class differences, and social antagonism between each other – this would lead to the landowner's downfall.[7]

The mandate was dissolved in 1946 because of a British ultimatum to France, and Syria became an independent country on 17 April 1946.[8] The same elite that had governed Syria during the mandate continued in power, and they ruled in the same manner.[9] The failure in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War led to the downfall of the traditional elite and the rise of the military in politics. Husni al-Za'im became the first military dictator of Syria in 1949, but in 1950, military officer Adib Shishakli gained power behind the scenes, and by 1953 had established another military dictatorship. The military's introduction to the Syrian political scene destroyed the oligarchy enabling the middle class to participate in Syrian politics. However, while their powers were weakened, the traditional elite retained the majority of the wealth produced.[10]

It was in this environment that the ideology of Ba'athism came into being. The Arab Ba'ath Movement was established by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar in the 1940s, others who played a notable role in the early stages of the Ba'athist movement were Zaki al-Arsuzi, Wahib al-Ghanim and Jallal al-Sayyid. Akram al-Hawrani founded the Arab Socialist Party (ASP) in 1953 – the Ba'ath Party was established through a merger of the ASP and the Arab Ba'ath Party.[11] Of the 150 delegates to the founding congress of the Arab Ba'ath Party in 1947, the majority were either middle-class professionals or intellectuals. By the 1950s the party had managed to acquire an urban middle-class base.[12] However, the Ba'ath Party was not a purely middle-class party, and from the very beginning, it sent party cadres to rural areas to recruit new members and form new party organisations.[13] In 1956, the Ba'ath Party organized the first labour protest in Syrian history.[14] While the Ba'ath Party was strong, its decision to recruit members from across society led to tribalism and clientelism within the party. Party leaders then opted to overlook democratic norms and procedures.[14]

The Ba'ath Party faced a significant dilemma: take power through competitive elections or forceful takeover. Even the liberal and democratic-inclined founding leaders were partial to forceful takeover, citing the corrupt electoral process. Before taking control, the Ba'ath Party gambled that it would be allowed to share power with Gamal Abdel Nasser in the United Arab Republic (UAR).[15] The UAR would prove to be Egypt-dominated, and the Ba'ath Party was forced to dissolve itself, but in 1961 the UAR collapsed because of a military coup in Syria.[16] The establishment and the dissolution of the UAR was a catastrophe for the Ba'ath Party as it divided among those who supported the UAR, those who opposed it and those who opposed or supported the traditional leaders of the party. In 1962, Aflaq convened a Ba'ath Party congress and re-established the party. Several branches had not followed orders and had not dissolved during the UAR years. Instead, they had become deeply hostile to pan-Arabist thought and had become radical socialists instead. The military committee, which would launch the 8 March Revolution, shared most of their views.[17]

Syrian society was feudal in nature, and was dominated by landlords and peasants

The 8 March Revolution has often been viewed as a mere military coup, but it had many of the ingredients of national revolts from below. The revolution was led by an anti-oligarchical alliance of a radicalised lower middle class, strategic members of the officer corps, marginalised minorities and a significant number of peasants who were mobilised for agrarian conflict.[18] In an international context, the revolution took place because the state boundaries established by France were artificial and the hostility within the newly established Syria to the creation of Israel. The traditional elite that took power in Syria when the country gained independence had come to power during the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon. The external imposition of arbitrary state boundaries on Syria with no corresponding popular acceptance led to discontent. The national struggle was shaped by ideologies such as Arab nationalism, pan-Islamism and Greater Syrianism. The plebeian character of the struggle and the radical ideologies spawned radical solutions to the agrarian problem.[19]

The growth of the new middle class in Syria fueled discontent since the traditional elite dominated the agrarian sector – the largest sector of the economy – and created most of the wealth. The new middle class consisted of capitalists and entrepreneurs who opposed the traditional elite – the monopolisation of power by the traditional elite led to the radicalisation of the new middle-class.[19] The military, which in many countries is conservative and elitist, became radicalised in Syria because the military wanted greater power, believing that the traditional elite was unable to defend the country. A significant group of military personnel were recruited from the new middle class or the hinterlands.[19]

In Syria, religious minorities were often underprivileged, and a specific ethnicity usually belonged to a specific social class. The Alawites, the Druzes and the Isma'ilis for instance, were religious groups with low social class who began to embrace a radical form of Arab nationalism, e.g. Ba'athism.[20] Without the peasantry there could not have been a Ba'athist revolution in Syria.[20] The new middle class alone could only produce instability, but together with the peasantry, the revolution became possible. The inequality between urban and rural dwellers, together with capitalist penetration of the agrarian sector and the traditional elites' monopolisation of most large revenue sources, led to the establishment of peasant movements who fought for change or opposed the system. The Syrian branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was able to recruit youth from radical peasant movements and thus was able to mobilise large sectors of the population.[20]

Tripartite unity talks among Iraqi Prime Minister Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr (left), Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (center) and Syrian President Lu'ay al-Atassi (right), 16 April 1963. Relations between Nasser and the Syrian Ba'athists deteriorated weeks later after the purge of Nasserists from the officer corps and Alwan's failed coup. Atassi resigned following the events.

Pressure from consistent pro-Nasser demonstrations in northern Syria and Damascus and from pro-union Ba'athist leaders like Jamal al-Atassi, the Nasserists and the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), coupled with the weakness of the Ba'athists at the popular level in Syria, led to unification efforts between the new government and the governments of Egypt and Iraq. The latter's anti-UAR government had also been overthrown by pro-UAR officers in 1963. On 17 April a new stage-based unity agreement was reached that would include the three states in a federal union with Nasser as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.[32][33]

However, between 28 April-2 May, the Ba'athist-dominated Military Committee virtually renounced the agreement when it purged over 50 Nasserist officers from their high-ranking positions in the armed forces, leading to a wide-scale propaganda campaign by Egypt via radio denouncing the Ba'ath (Nasserist-leaning newspapers had been previously shut down.) Mass pro-union rioting in Aleppo, Damascus, Hama and other parts of the country followed. The purges prompted the protest resignations of Nasserist officials, including Defense Minister al-Sufi, Deputy Chief of Staff al-Qutayni, and four other Nasserist cabinet members.[34][note 2] The purges resulted in the culmination of neo-Ba'athist transformation of Syrian military, which became mostly stripped of Sunni officers and packed with loyalist Alawite officers. This became a source of outcry across Syria and numerous intellectuals began highlighting the new regime's sectarian character through media outlets and publications.[lower-alpha 4]

Jassem Alwan being tried in a Damascus military court for his failed coup attempt against the Syrian Ba'ath, 1963

Later, on 19 June, Chief of Staff al-Hariri led a high-ranking delegation that included Prime Minister al-Bitar, Aflaq and Education Minister Sami Droubi to Algeria for a state visit.[37] While al-Hariri was away, the Committee used the opportunity to undertake a purge of about 30 elite officers—mostly political independents—under al-Hariri's command.[38][39] Al-Hariri was ordered to take a direct flight to the Syrian embassy in the United States, where he was reassigned as the embassy's military attache. Instead, he returned to Syria via a flight to Beirut on 23 June to protest the Committee's move against him.[40] Unsuccessful, he left the country for France in a self-imposed exile on 8 July. The Committee's virtual ousting of al-Hariri was to the chagrin of al-Bitar, who viewed al-Hariri as the last military counterweight able to check the Committee's domination over his government.[38]

The Nasserists still maintained a relatively high level of strength in the military, despite the purges, and on 18 July, under the leadership of Jassem Alwan and the help of Egyptian intelligence, they attempted to launch a daytime coup against the new government.[41][42] The Army Headquarters, personally defended by al-Hafiz, and the broadcast station were attacked, and the ensuing battle left hundreds of people dead, including several civilian bystanders.[41] The coup attempt failed and 27 participating officers were arrested and executed. The executions were a rare punitive action used to deal with the participants of a failed coup in Syria, with the typical punishment being exile, imprisonment or reassignment to a foreign diplomatic post.[42] President Lu'ay al-Atassi subsequently resigned, signalling his disapproval of the executions.[43] After evading the authorities for a short period, Alwan and his chief co-conspirators Raef al-Maarri and Muhammad Nabhan were apprehended and brought to military trial, where they were found guilty of treason and sentenced to death.[44] They were released exactly a year later and exiled,[45] after lobbying by Nasser and Iraqi President Abdul Salam Arif.[46]

The failure of Alwan's revolt marked the end of significant Nasserist influence in Syria's military and civilian institutions, and with the pro-Nasser forces largely defeated, the Ba'athist Military Committee became the sole power center of the country.[42] Relations with Egypt immediately soured, with Nasser, still popular with the Syrian masses, issuing broadcasts denouncing the Ba'athists as "murderers" and "fascists",[41] and representing the forces of heresy and atheism, a derogatory reference to the party's embrace of strict secularism and the numerous leadership positions held by non-Sunni Muslims, particularly Alawites.[43] Nasser also announced his withdrawal from the 17 April unity agreement.[41][43] One of the crucial outcomes of the coup and subsequent purges was the dominance of Alawite commanders in the neo-Ba'athist officer corps, who assumed control of the Syrian military. The younger neo-Ba'athist officers would subsequently rebel against the Old Guard of the Ba'ath party, resulting in the 1966 coup.[48]