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Syria The Baath Party Apparatus
The Baath Party has never been a mass party. Although party
membership has expanded considerably beyond the several hundred
activists of the 1963 revolution, regime policy has kept
membership relatively small. Although Aflaq and Bitar rejected
communism, they intentionally emulated the Leninist
organizational model of a vanguard elite. Party admission has
been highly selective, particularly at higher echelons. Recruits
must be nominated by a member and pass through a rigorous
initiation period of at least two years before becoming members.
The Baath Party has attempted to limit membership to the
ideologically committed, believing that indiscriminate
recruitment would dilute the party's effectiveness. In the late
1960s, for example, class origin was a determining criterion, and
anyone from a class judged hostile to the party's goals,
regardless of his or her personal political beliefs, was
excluded.
In the Assad era, however, membership criteria were relaxed.
In 1987 the Baath Party had approximately 50,000 full members and
a further 200,000 candidate members in probationary status. The
Baath Party administered a panoply of "popular organizations"
whose membership was not exclusively, or even primarily,
Baathist. Thus the party incorporated many Syrian citizens while
restricting full-fleged membership.
Nominally, the highest body within the Baath Party was the
National Command, whose status dated from before the party split
in 1966. This twenty-one-member body was composed of about half
Syrians and half Arabs from other countries, such as Lebanon,
Jordan, and Iraq, as well as Palestinians. Theoretically, the
National Command was the embryonic government of a future unified
Arab nation, and it embodied the fiction that Syria continued to
place priority on pan-Arabism. Although Syria in 1987 still paid
lip service to the pan-Arab slogans that were a driving force in
the party in the 1940s and 1950s, the National Command's power
was more symbolic than real. Although the National Command
potentially could play an evangelical role in creating new Baath
Party branches in Arab countries and could support existing
branches, Syrian policymakers have de-emphasized such a role. In
actuality, the National Command, headed by Assad in 1987,
provided honorary posts for some figures who had been retired
from active Syrian political life and for others waiting in the
wings to assume greater responsibility.
The actual executive core of the Baath Party was the twentyone -member Regional Command, also headed by Assad, which directed
Baath activities in Syria. Its name referred to the Baath
consideration of Syria as one region within the larger Arab
nation. In 1987 Syria's three vice presidents, prime minister,
minister of defense, armed forces chief of staff, and speaker of
the People's Council held positions on the Regional Command. The
other Regional Command members were solely Baath Party
functionaries, including the party secretaries of Aleppo and
Hamah, and the party representatives who headed the party bureaus
of higher education, trade unions, and economy.
Below the Regional Command was the Central Committee, created
in January 1980 at the seventh Baath Party regional congress as a
conduit for consultation and communication between the Regional
Command and its subordinate local branches. At the eighth Baath
Party regional congress in January 1985, the Central Committee's
membership was increased from seventy-five to ninety-five. Its
most important task was to elect the Regional Command, a task
that had previously been the responsibility of the delegates to
the regional congress meeting in plenary session. The Central
Committee was also intended to represent the regional congress
when the latter was not in session.
Subordinate to the Regional Command was a layer of nineteen
branch commands: one in each of the thirteen provinces, one each
in Damascus and Aleppo, and one in each of the country's four
universities. Typically, the provincial governor, chief of
police, mayor, and other local officials were members of the
Branch Command, but the branch secretary and other executive
posts were held by full-time party functionaries. Farther down
the organizational chart, each provincial district or quarter of
a city had a party organization commensurate with its size. At
the grass-roots level, the party was organized into circles or
cells of three to seven members, a remnant from the party's past
as a secret organization. Three to seven circles in turn
comprised a division, and several divisions formed a section.
Each section represented a village or neighborhood.
The Regional Command and the Central Committee were elected
every four years at the regional congress. Delegates of the
branch organizations elected the Central Committee, which in turn
elected the Regional Command. Although Assad and his intimates
set the agenda and controlled results of the regional congresses,
the rank and file nevertheless had an opportunity to complain and
voice opinions about important national issues. During the eighth
regional congress in January 1985, the 771 branch delegates
expressed remarkably candid criticism of corruption and economic
stagnation.
Baath Party presence in the armed forces was separate but
parallel to that in the civilian apparatus. The two wings of the
Baath Party joined only at the Regional Command, where both
military and civilian members belonged to the Regional Command
and where delegates from party organizations in military units
met at regional congresses. The military wing of the Baath Party
has established branches down to the battalion level. The leader
of such a branch was called a tawjihi (political guide).
Not all military officers were party members, but it was almost a
prerequisite for advancement to flag rank
(see Manpower, Recruitment, and Conscription
, ch. 5).
Baath Party appointees included a five-member Inspection and
Control Committee, elected in 1980 and charged with enforcing the
statutes of the Baath Party and monitoring internal affairs,
discipline, and deviation from party norms. "Deviation" was
defined in the Party Security Law, passed in 1979, which imposed
a prison term of between five and ten years for any party member
joining another political organization or anyone infiltrating the
Baath Party to work for the interests of another party. Prison
terms were also set for such offenses as attacking party offices,
obstructing party activities, and attempting to obtain classified
party documents or confidential information. If carried out at
the instigation of foreign interests, such infractions carried
the death penalty.
Through its People's Organizations Bureau, the Baath Party
administered a number of organizations, including its own
militia, the People's Army. Other organizations were the
Revolutionary Youth Organization, Union of Students, Women's
Organization, Peasants' Federation, and General Federation of
Trade Unions. Each organization was supervised by a member of the
Regional Command; a popular organization with a large membership
in a given province might have a provincial branch command
responsible for its activities. These organizations inculcated
Baath values in their members, provided new recruits, and
extended services to various social groups.
The coming generation was carefully cultivated by the party.
Indoctrination began with membership in the Vanguards, an
organization for grade-school boys and girls. Vanguard members
attended summer paramilitary training camps operated by the armed
forces. Later, youth joined the Revolutionary Youth Organization,
Union of Students, or General Federation of Trade Unions.
As befitted a party founded by teachers and that for many
years recruited its members from secondary schools and
universities, the Baath Party still catered to the intellectual
and educated elite. The organizational parity of party branches
in universities, having student bodies of only several thousands,
with party branches in provinces, having populations of hundreds
of thousands, testified to this partiality. Furthermore, the
Baath Party operated its own school system, the apex of which was
the Higher Political Institute, which was the graduate department
of political science at the University of Damascus.
Nevertheless, the party has been working assiduously for
years to increase the number of peasants and workers in its
ranks. In the mid-1970s, the Baath Party instituted a special
mobilization campaign throughout rural agricultural areas of
Syria to swell enlistment in the Peasants' Federation. It was
claimed that union membership was growing by 30,000 people per
year.
Data as of April 1987
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