Ba'athist Syria
Ba'athist Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, was the Syrian state between 1963 and 2024 under the one-party rule of the Syrian regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. From 1970 until its collapse in 2024, it was ruled by the Assad family, and was therefore commonly referred to as the Assad regime. Ba'athist Syria was also, until its downfall, the only state member of the "Axis of Resistance" beside Iran.
The regime emerged in 1963 as a result of a coup d'état led by Alawite Ba'athist military officers. Another coup in 1966 led to Salah Jadid becoming the country's de facto leader while Nureddin al-Atassi assumed the presidency. In 1970, Jadid and al-Atassi were overthrown by Hafez al-Assad in the Corrective Revolution. The next year, Assad became president after winning sham elections.
After assuming power, Assad reorganised the state along sectarian lines. Ba'athist Syria also occupied much of neighboring Lebanon amidst the Lebanese civil war while an Islamist uprising against Assad's rule resulted in the regime committing the 1981 and 1982 Hama massacres. The regime was considered one of the most repressive in modern times, ultimately reaching totalitarian levels, and was consistently ranked as one of the 'worst of the worst' within Freedom House indexes.
Hafez al-Assad died in 2000 and was succeeded by his son Bashar al-Assad, who maintained a similar grip. The assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005 triggered the Cedar Revolution, which ultimately led the regime to withdraw from Lebanon. Major protests against Ba'athist rule in 2011 during the Arab Spring led to the Syrian civil war with opposition forces, and in following years Islamists such as IS and HTS which weakened the Assad regime's territorial control. However, the Ba'athist government maintained presence and a hold over large areas, also being able to regain further ground in later years with the support of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. In December 2024, a series of surprise offensives by various rebel factions culminated in the regime's collapse.
After the fall of Ba'athist Iraq, Syria was the only country governed by neo-Ba'athists. It had a comprehensive cult of personality around the Assad family, and attracted widespread condemnation for its severe domestic repression and war crimes. Prior to the fall of Assad, Syria was ranked fourth-worst in the 2024 Fragile States Index, and it was one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Freedom of the press was extremely limited, and the country was ranked second-worst in the 2024 World Press Freedom Index. It was the most corrupt country in the MENA region and was ranked second-worst globally on the 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index. Syria was also the epicentre of an Assad-sponsored Captagon industry, exporting billions of dollars' worth of the illicit drug annually, making it one of the largest narco-states in the world.
History
1963 coup
After the 1961 coup that terminated the political union between Egypt and Syria, the instability which followed eventually culminated in the 8 March 1963 Ba'athist coup. The takeover was engineered by members of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. The new Syrian cabinet was dominated by Ba'ath members.After the 1963 seizure of power by its Military Committee, the Ba'ath party ruled Syria as a dictatorship which has been described as totalitarian. Ba'athists took control over country's politics, education, culture, religion and surveilled all aspects of civil society through its powerful Mukhabarat. After the purging of traditional civilian and military elites by the new regime, the Syrian Arab Armed forces and secret police were integrated with the Ba'ath party apparatus.
File:Amin al-Hafiz speech.jpg|left|thumb|Amin al-Hafiz, an important political figure and president of Syria in 1963–66, carried out socialist reforms and reoriented the country towards the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc.
The 1963 Ba'athist coup marked a "radical break" in modern Syrian history, after which Ba'ath party monopolised power in the country to establish a one-party state and shaped a new socio-political order by enforcing its state ideology. Soon after seizing power, the neo-Ba'athist military officers began initiating purges across Syria as part of the imposition of their ideological programme. Politicians of the Second Syrian Republic who had supported the separation of Syria from United Arab Republic were purged and liquidated by the Ba'athists. This was in addition to purging of the Syrian military and its subordination to the Ba'ath party. Politicians, military officers and civilians who supported Syria's secession from UAR were also stripped of their social and legal rights by the Ba'athist-controlled National Council for the Revolutionary Command ; thereby enabling the Ba'athist regime to dismantle the entire political class of the Second Syrian Republic and eliminate its institutions.
Neo-Ba'athist domination of Syrian Ba'ath party: 1963–66
Following the seizure of power in 1963 by the neo-Ba'athist military committee, the Syrian regional branch of the Ba'ath party experienced severe factionalism and splintering, leading to a succession of governments and new constitutions. The neo-Ba'athist military officers, through their increased political and military influence, began initiating purges across bureaucratic structures of the Syrian state and rapidly monopolized control over various organs of the Syrian Ba'ath party. Military Ba'athists also took control of the NCRC, which exercised the de-facto power in the new Ba'athist regime. Civilian wing of the Ba'ath party, consisting of classical Ba'athists led by Aflaq and Bitar, had little influence over the ideological direction of the Syrian regional branch. During the sixth national congress of the Ba'ath party, officers of the Ba'athist military committee, in collaboration with radical leftists, formally gained ideological and political control of the Syrian regional branch of the Ba'ath party. The ideological programme and political platform adopted by the Syrian Ba'ath party during the 6th National Congress of the Ba'ath party in September 1963 became the official doctrine of the neo-Ba'ath and the state ideology of Ba'athist Syria. Subsequently, the Ba'athist regime began implementing its social, economic and political policies across Syria, which imposed the neo-Ba'athist agenda.The far-left neo-Ba'athist tendency gained control of the Syrian regional branch at the Ba'ath party's 6th National Congress of 1963, where hardliners from the dominant Syrian and Iraqi regional parties joined forces to impose a radical leftist line, which advocated the imposition of "socialist planning", "collective farms run by peasants", "workers' democratic control of the means of production", a party based on workers and peasants, and other demands reflecting emulation of Soviet-style socialism. In a coded attack on Michel Aflaq, the congress also condemned "ideological notability", criticizing his middle-class background, within the party. Aflaq, angry at this transformation of his party, retained a nominal leadership role, but the National Command as a whole came under the control of the radicals.
The pro-Marxist resolutions and declarations, such as the espousal of class struggle and scientific socialism, adopted by the Ba'ath party during its 6th national congress set the ideological foundation of neo-Ba'athism. Between 1963 and 1966, neo-Ba'athists exercised the de-facto political power in Ba'athist Syria and were able to steer their ideological goals through the 1963 provisional Ba'athist constitution and its 1964 amendment. They also carried out purges within the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, as part of their efforts to subordinate the civilian old guard of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party and create an "ideological army" that was loyal to neo-Ba'athist officers. In foreign policy, neo-Ba'athists favoured the Socialist Bloc and were proponents of establishing a close alliance with the Soviet Union. The Maoist military concept of "people's war of liberation" played a central role in neo-Ba'athist ideology, and this was reflected in Ba'athist Syria's endorsement of socialist and left-wing Palestinian fedayeen groups in their guerrilla war against Israelis. In the economic sphere, neo-Ba'athists favoured the establishment of a socialist command economic system; and advocated the nationalization of private industries and radical land confiscation policies.
The first significant clash between the new Ba'athist regime and the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood took place in the city of Hama in April 1964. Insurgents affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood set up roadblocks, stockpiled food and weapons, and attacked wine shops. The rebels used the local Sultan Mosque as a headquarter and sanctuary, where the imam Shaykh Mahmud al-Hamid encouraged the rebellion. Ismaili militiaman affiliated with the regime, Munzir al-Shimali, was killed and mutilated, while "every vestige" of the Ba'ath Party in Hama was attacked. The government responded by sending tanks and reinforcements to attack the rebels, forcing them to withdraw into the Sultan Mosque after fighting for two days. The mosque was subsequently bombarded and the uprising was suppressed. In 1965, Ba'athist regime passed so-called Revolution Protection Law, that prohibited any activity aimed at undermining the "Ba'athist Revolution."
1966 coup
On 23 February 1966, the neo-Ba'athist Military Committee carried out an intra-party rebellion against the Ba'athist Old Guard, imprisoned President Amin al-Hafiz and designated a regionalist, civilian Ba'ath government on 1 March. Although Nureddin al-Atassi became the formal head of state, Salah Jadid was Syria's effective ruler from 1966 until November 1970, when he was deposed by Hafez al-Assad, who at the time was Minister of Defense.1966 coup marked the total ideological transformation of the Ba'ath party's Syrian regional branch into a militarist "neo-Ba'athist" organization which became independent of the National Command of the original Ba'ath party. The regime that came to power in 1966 was the most radical in Syrian history. Jadid's rule was characterized by an even more radical socialist transformation of the entire state, an aggressive imposition of military Leninism and brutal repression by the Mukhabarat secret services inside the country. Jadid actively promoted the concept of the "Arab Socialist New Man". Outside the country, Jadid's Syria aligned itself with the Soviet bloc and pursued hardline policies towards Israel and "reactionary" Arab states. Jadid promoted the Maoist concept of a People's war against the Zionists, supporting the Palestinian fedayeen, giving them greater autonomy and allowing them to launch attacks on Israel from Syrian territory. The coup led to the schism within the original pan-Arab Ba'ath Party: one Iraqi-led ba'ath movement and one Syrian-led ba'ath movement was established. In the first half of 1967, a low-key state of war existed between Syria and Israel. Conflict over Israeli cultivation of land in the Demilitarized Zone led to 7 April pre-war aerial clashes between Israel and Syria. When the Six-Day War broke out between Egypt and Israel, Syria joined the war and attacked Israel as well. In the final days of the war, Israel turned its attention to Syria, capturing two-thirds of the Golan Heights in under 48 hours. The defeat caused a split between Jadid and Assad over what steps to take next. Disagreement developed between Jadid, who controlled the party apparatus, and Assad, who controlled the military. The 1970 retreat of Syrian forces sent to aid the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat during the Black September hostilities with Jordan reflected this disagreement.
On 20 September 1970, Syria under president Nureddin al-Atassi and strongman Salah Jadid invaded Jordan in support of Palestinian fedayeen forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization, as part of Black September. Syria committed 16,000 troops and more than 170 T-55 tanks to invade Jordan. By 22 September, however, the Syrian invasion attempt had been largely defeated. As Syrian forces attempted to advance toward Irbid, approximately 50 of 200 Syrian tanks became inoperable. Syrian forces withdrew from Jordan on 23 September after sustaining losses of 62 tanks, 58 other armoured vehicles and 1,500 casualties, mainly due to the actions of Jordanian Air Forces. Jordan lost around 75–90 tanks, an armored car, and had around 112 casualties.