page_title: Ba'athism
section_title: Neo-Baathism
hierarchical_section_title: Ba'athism / Neo-Baathism
caption_attribution_description: English: This is a very rare photograph of Jadid, who launched a coup d'etat in Syria on February 23, 1966 and seized power from President Amin al-Hafez
context_page_description: Baathism is an Arab nationalist ideology that promotes the development and creation of a unified Arab state through the leadership of a vanguard party over a progressive revolutionary government. The ideology is officially based on the theories of the Syrian intellectuals Michel Aflaq, Zaki al-Arsuzi, and Salah al-Din al-Bitar.
  A Baathist society seeks enlightenment, renaissance of Arab culture, values and society. It supports the creation of one-party states and rejects political pluralism in an unspecified length of time – the Baath party theoretically uses an unspecified amount of time to develop an enlightened Arabic society. Baathism is based on principles of Arab nationalism, pan-Arabism, and Arab socialism, as well as social progress. It is a secular ideology. A Baathist state supports socialist economics to a varying degree and supports public ownership over the commanding heights of the economy, but opposes confiscatory policies with regard to private property. In Baathist ideology, socialism does not mean state-socialism or economic equality; rather, it has a strong current of modernization to it.
context_section_description: Abraham Ben-Tzur labeled the Baath Party which took power in the 8th of March Revolution in Syria and had taken power in Iraq as the "Neo-Baath" for the reason that the Baath Party had gone beyond their pan-Arab ideological basis and stressed preeminence of the military apparatus. The key party document Some Theoretical Propositions states that "[s]ocialism is the true goal of Arab unity... Arab unity is the obligatory basis for constructing a socialist society". In short, pan-Arabism became the means to reach the end of both economic and social transformation. John F. Devlin agrees on the matter and states that the "Baath Party, which started with unity as its overwhelming top priority, which was prepared to work within a variety of Middle Eastern political systems, which wanted social justice in society, had pretty much disappeared by the early 1960s. In its place rose Baath organisations which focused primarily on their own region, which advocated, and created where possible, authoritarian centralised governments, which rested heavily on military power and which were very close to other socialist movements and were less distinctively Baathist". Munif al-Razzaz, the former Secretary General of the National Command of the unitary Baath Party, agreed with the theory and stated that from 1961 onwards there existed two Baath parties – "the military Baath Party and the Baath Party, and real power lay with the former". He further stated that the military Baath (as paraphrased by Martin Seymour) "was and remains Baathist only in name; that it was and remains little more than a military clique with civilian hangers-on; and that from the initial founding of the Military Committee by disgruntled Syrian officers exiled in Cairo in 1959, the chain of events and the total corruption of Baathism proceeded with intolerable logic". Salah al-Din al-Bitar agreed, stating that the 1966 Syrian coup d'état "marked the end of Baathist politics in Syria". Aflaq shared the sentiment by stating: "I no longer recognise my party!".
  Salah Jadid's government abandoned the traditional goal of pan-Arab unity and replaced it with a radical form of Western socialism. This emerged in the terminology of the government; terms such as "people's war" (itself a Maoist term, as the Six-Day War was proclaimed as a "people's war" against Israel) and class struggle were used often. The Syrian Communist Party played an important role in Jadid's government as some communists held ministerial posts and Jadid established "fairly close relations" with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The government supported a more radical economic program, state ownership over industry and foreign trade while at the same time trying to restructure agrarian relations and production. In 1968, al-Bitar left the Baath movement, claiming that "these parties had ceased to be what they set up to be, retaining only their names and acting as the organs of power and the instruments of regional and dictatorial governments". Contrary to expectations, Aflaq remained with the Baath movement and became the ideologue of the Iraqi-dominated Baath movement. His ideological views remained more or less the same, but in Iraq he was sidelined politically.
caption: Salah Jadid (pictured) is commonly considered to be the first neo-Baathist leader.
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