أكرم الحوراني
The early Ba'ath gave little attention to the problems facing the peasants and workers. As Hanna Batatu notes, "Aflaq was basically urban in outlook. The peasants never constituted an object of his special concern. In his writing there is scarcely an expression of concentrated interest in the country's husbandsmen." While peasants and issues facing them are mentioned in some of Aflaq's work, there was scarcely any depth given to them or the issues facing them. To take an example, in one instance Aflaq states "the [national struggle] ... can only be based on the generality of the Arabs and these will not take part in it if they are exploited." Secondly, Aflaq never had any official enmity towards the traditional landlords. Issues such as these would only gain prominence when Akram al-Hawrani became a leading party figure, and when the "transitional Ba'athists" took power. Of the four members in the 1st Executive Committee, Wahib al-Ghanim was the only who paid much attention to the problems of the peasants and workers, because the other members (Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar and Jalil al-Sayyide) had a middle class upbringing and upheld middle class values.