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Syria Neo-Baath Dominance, 1963-66
During the period of union with Egypt, the first stimulus for
revival of the Syrian Baath Party came from a group of Syrian
officers stationed in Egypt who styled themselves the Military
Committee. This committee at one time or another included a
Sunni, Amin al Hafiz; a Druze, Hamad Ubayd; and two Alawis,
Muhammad Umran and Jadid. After the secession from the UAR in
1961, the Syrian Baath Party was formally reestablished at a
party congress in May 1962. At this time, Hawrani was dismissed
from the party on doctrinal grounds for opposing Arab unity.
After the coup, these Baathist associates progressively moved to
displace the coup leaders from the senior positions in the army
and the newly formed, self-appointed, and largely anonymous
National Council of the Revolutionary Command. It was with this
latter body that effective power rested and not with Bitar's
cabinet, as was clearly demonstrated in the provisional
constitution decreed on March 24, 1963, and in its replacement
promulgated on April 25, 1964.
The coming to power of the Baath Party in 1963 is sometimes
referred to as "the revolution," although the March 8 coup was
not executed by the Baathists and did not actually initiate the
great social revolution postulated in Baathist ideology. In any
case the party was supreme, but factionalism continued within the
Baathist regime.
Five major centers of power existed in Syria. The National
Council of the Revolutionary Command, preeminent in 1963, was
changed by the Constitution of 1964 into the NCR, was enlarged in
membership, and became an appointed legislative body. Highest
authority was vested in a five-man presidency council elected
from its membership. Other power centers included the Ministry of
Defense and the top army command echelon, the government
structure of prime minister and cabinet, the Regional Command,
and the National Command. The dominant clique at any time had
representation in all of them; many officials held multiple
offices with positions in two or more power centers; and top
level coordination of the centers was accomplished, in effect, by
an interlocking directorate.
Broad factional differences developed between pan-Arab
nationalist adherents to the old-guard Baath leadership of Aflaq
and Bitar on the one hand and those who became known as
regionalists, emphasizing Syria first, on the other. A principal
area of contention was their attitudes toward Arab unity,
specifically toward some kind of reunion with Egypt or union with
Iraq or both.
Aflaq's nationalists varied from strong to moderate in their
support of union, although they wanted it on their own terms and
at a rapid rate, with a high priority. In contrast, the
regionalists, while giving lip service to unity, varied from weak
moderates favoring a go-slow approach with low priority to
opponents of union. In the regionalist camp were the rising Alawi
Baath officers Jadid, Assad, and Umran.
The neo-Baathists as a whole believed that the
nationalization and land-reform measures started under Nasser but
reversed during the conservative interregnum of September 1961 to
March 1963 should be restored. The question centered on the rate
of movement to socialization. Aflaq's adherents favored a
moderate, slow approach, whereas the regionalists tended to favor
extensive measures quickly carried out. The regionalists became
known as radicals, the radical wing, or "the extremists." They
also inclined to the establishment of closer, more exclusive ties
with the Soviet Union than the old guard, which viewed an
exclusive Soviet position of influence as nothing but a new form
of imperialism.
Discussions with President Nasser in Cairo resulted on April
17, 1963, in a statement of intent to form a union of Syria,
Egypt, and Iraq. This venture, however, collapsed by July 22. In
Syria a major pro-Nasserite military coup attempt in early July
was put down with severity by Hafiz, the minister of interior and
military governor. This coup attempt served thereafter to justify
Baathist monopolization of power; it confirmed the change in
style from the pre-1963 pattern of relatively bloodless coups and
marked the advent to the top power position of Hafiz, who was to
become a virtual dictator for the lext two and one-half years.
On July 27, 1963, Hafiz acquired the additional titles of
president of the National Council of the Revolutionary Command,
president of the republic, commander in chief, and minister of
defense. He was also a member of both the regional and national
commands of the Baath Party. In November he became prime
minister, although from time to time he called on civilians, such
as Bitar and Yusuf Zuayyin, to hold this post.
From the outset Hafiz aligned himself with Aflaq's old-guard
civilian wing of the party, which was dominant in the National
Command. This was to their mutual benefit, and the civilian
leadership allowed the military Baathists a free hand in purging
and structuring the forces into an "ideological army"
(see Historical Background
, ch. 5). Coordination between military and
civilian party functions was restricted to the top level. This
free-hand policy proved to be a mistake for the civilian
leadership. Ties of party discipline with the military wing were
dissolved and an intensifying military-civilian split developed.
In a reversal of positions, the military Baathists became
sponsors of the civilian old guard, which then found itself in
the role of junior partner.
During party congresses from 1962 to 1964, strong bids for
power were made by a new Marxist faction of the party, which,
although finally overcome in party maneuvering, exerted influence
and precipitated events having lasting effects. At the congress
of October 1963, propositions evincing a new ideological tone
were adopted. Identity with "oppressed peoples everywhere" was
declared, in contrast to the old Baathist limitation to the Arab
nation, and terms such as class struggle, scientific socialism,
and popular struggle were injected. These generic Marxist phrases
were not, in fact, employed in the sense commonly understood in
Marxian dialectic but were considerably altered by an Arab
nationalist context. Their use, nevertheless, indicated a leftwing drift in the Baath Party. In particular, the notion of
popular struggle was used to support the Maoist doctrine of the
"people's war of liberation," which became a tenet of neoBaathist ideology in its endorsement of the Palestinian guerrilla
movements against Israel.
The regionalist side of the political spectrum welcomed the
aspects of the leftward drift in ideology that both mitigated the
intense Arab unity theme of the old guard and called for a more
intense commitment to nationalization and socialism. The military
Baathists welcomed the leftist doctrinal rationale for
subordinating individual liberties to the society as a whole. The
military, however, took strong exception to the left-wing's
demand for exclusion of the military from politics and to
personal assaults on the "rightist character" of many Baathist
officers.
Hafiz and the inner core of the Military Committee, along
with Aflaq and Bitar's old guard, successfully engineered the
expulsion of the Marxist wing from the party's Regional Command
at a conference early in February 1964 and from the National
Command later the same month. A new 15-member Regional Command
was then formed and included seven officers of the Military
Committee.
Hafiz sought to balance his position by developing support
among different factions, even including the politically
excommunicated Hawrani, and he made considerable use of both
Alawi and Druze officers. In November 1963, he installed the
Alawi Baathist Jadid in the key post of army chief of staff.
Jadid emerged as a staunch regionalist.
Hafiz's right-hand man in the Baath military-political
structure was Umran, another Alawi but of a different tribe from
that of Jadid and the latter's quietly rising associate, Hafiz al
Assad. By the end of 1964 Umran had reversed his stance on
several issues, including the matter of Hawrani and union, and
was then at odds with Hafiz. He was removed from party position
but allowed to take the post of ambassador to Spain.
At the party convention of April 1965, the military and
civilian branches of the regional party were constitutionally
merged, and the top post of secretary general of the Regional
Command passed to Jadid. The contention between the older AflaqBitar Baathists and the regionalists had long been
organizationally reflected in contention between the National
Command and the Syrian Regional Command over the location of
principal party power. Assumption of control of the Regional
Command by Jadid brought to that post an Alawi who was a senior
military officer, the strong man of the shadowy Military
Committee, and the staunchest proponent of regionalist Baathism.
Data as of April 1987
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