Khalid Bakdash
Encyclopedia
Khalid Bakdash was the leader of the Syrian Communist Party
(SCP) from 1936 until his death. In 1954 Bakdash became the first member of a communist party to be elected to an Arab
parliament
. He has since been called the "dean of Arab
communism
."
native of Kurdish
origin. He was first recruited to the communist cause at the age of 18, while a student at Damascus University. He was subsequently active in student agitation against the French
occupation of Syria, and came to the attention of the police. In 1933 the party judged it best that he leave the country, and in 1934 he enrolled in the Communist University of the Toilers of the East
in Moscow
.
as secretary, a post he would retain without interruption for the rest of his life. He led the Syrian underground against Vichy France
during that regime's control of Syria. When Syria came under allied control in 1942, the French government promised it independence and legalised the Communist Party, until then banned.
Bakdash took a moderate approach as secretary of the Syrian Communist Party. The party rules and programme which he drew up in 1944 reflected a determination to conform to the political circumstances of the Arab world of the time. They emphasized the party's attachment to the anti-colonial struggle and sought to establish it as a democratic mass movement rather than the restricted Marxist-Leninist vanguard organisation which a close adherence to Leninist principles might have dictated.
Although Bakdash is often referred to as the doyen or elder statesman of Arab communism, his actual influence on other Arab communist parties was not as great as this phrase might suggest. He had, in particular, a stormy relationship with Fahd
, leader of the Iraqi Communist Party
from 1941 until 1949. In the early to mid-1940s Bakdash supported the Iraqi People's Party led by Aziz Sharif, which followed the example of the Syrian Communist Party in seeking to build a broad party emphasizing the national question, contrary to the more orthodox Leninist approach adopted by Fahd's party. Fahd also appears to have suspected him of suborning Iraqi communists resident in Damascus.
's Egypt. Bakdash was extremely critical of Nasser, especially after the latter started a campaign of repression against his political opponents, notably the Communists and Muslim Brothers. Nasser did not approve of political pluralism and parties were banned under his rule.
However, popular support for unity with Egypt forced Bakdash to accommodate to circumstances. Hanna Batatu
, a notable historian of modern Arab politics, speculates that he must have been aware, and perhaps approved of, the participation of a Communist general in the Syrian delegation which persuaded Gamal Abdel Nasser
to proceed to the creation of the United Arab Republic
which combined Syria and Egypt
in 1958. However, Bakdash himself provoked a harsh reaction from the Egyptian leader with his attack on the latter's policies published in December 1958, in which he called for legalization of political parties and transformation of the UAR into a loose federation. This resulted in a fierce campaign of repression against the party. Bakdash himself left Syria for Moscow, where he would stay until 1966.
Syria seceded from the UAR in 1961, a decision supported by important elements in the army and the bourgeoisie
as well as by the Communists, but the separation was intensely controversial and the parties that had supported it found their popular backing greatly reduced: the Syrian party was reduced to some hundreds of members.
, Nasserists
and the Arab Nationalist Movement
put an end to the separatist regime, although in the event reunification never took place. From then until the 1970s, the Communist Party would be repressed to one degree or another.
In 1966, the Syrian Ba'th's secret military committee took power, and implemented a far-left line. Bakdash was allowed to return from Moscow, but forbidden from engaging in public political activity. After Hafiz al-Asad took power in Syria in 1970, he announced his intention of reintroducing political pluralism in the context of popular democracy
. This took the form of the National Progressive Front
, a coalition of parties who supported the Arab nationalist
and socialist orientation of the government and accepted the leadership of the Baath Party. Faced with the choice between joining the front and illegal operation, Bakdash opted to join; Riyad al-Turk
would later lead a small radical faction of the party into opposition.
In 1986, a difference of opinion between Bakdash and deputy general secretary Yusuf Faisal led to a split in the party. Faisal was supportive of the new policies of perestroika
and glasnost
being pursued by Soviet party secretary Mikhail Gorbachev
; Bakdash was opposed. Many of the intellectuals in the party left with Faisal, while Bakdash retained the support of the party's considerable Kurdish base.
Khalid Bakdash died in Damascus in 1995 at the age of 83. His widow, Wisal Farha Bakdash, succeeded him as party secretary.
Syrian Communist Party
The Syrian Communist Party was a political party in Syria, founded in 1944. It became a member of the National Progressive Front in 1972...
(SCP) from 1936 until his death. In 1954 Bakdash became the first member of a communist party to be elected to an Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
. He has since been called the "dean of Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
."
Early life
Bakdash was a DamascusDamascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
native of Kurdish
Kurdish people
The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...
origin. He was first recruited to the communist cause at the age of 18, while a student at Damascus University. He was subsequently active in student agitation against the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
occupation of Syria, and came to the attention of the police. In 1933 the party judged it best that he leave the country, and in 1934 he enrolled in the Communist University of the Toilers of the East
Communist University of the Toilers of the East
The Communist University of the Toilers of the East or KUTV was established April 21, 1921, in Moscow by the Communist International as a training college for communist cadres in the colonial world. The school officially opened on October 21, 1921...
in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.
Secretary of the Syrian Communist Party
Returning in 1936, Bakdash took control of the Communist Party of Syria and LebanonSyrian-Lebanese Communist Party
Syrian-Lebanese Communist Party , a communist political party operating in Syria and Lebanon founded in 1924 by the Lebanese Egyptian Fu'ad al-Shimali, the Lebanese Yusuf Yazbek and the Armenian Artin Madoyan. Its general secretary was Khalid Bakdash....
as secretary, a post he would retain without interruption for the rest of his life. He led the Syrian underground against Vichy France
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
during that regime's control of Syria. When Syria came under allied control in 1942, the French government promised it independence and legalised the Communist Party, until then banned.
Bakdash took a moderate approach as secretary of the Syrian Communist Party. The party rules and programme which he drew up in 1944 reflected a determination to conform to the political circumstances of the Arab world of the time. They emphasized the party's attachment to the anti-colonial struggle and sought to establish it as a democratic mass movement rather than the restricted Marxist-Leninist vanguard organisation which a close adherence to Leninist principles might have dictated.
Although Bakdash is often referred to as the doyen or elder statesman of Arab communism, his actual influence on other Arab communist parties was not as great as this phrase might suggest. He had, in particular, a stormy relationship with Fahd
Yusuf Salman Yusuf
Fahd , the nom de guerre of Yusuf Salman Yusuf , an ethnic Assyrian and Christian was one of the first Iraqi communist activists and was first secretary of the Iraqi Communist Party from 1941 until his death on the gallows in 1949. He is generally credited with a vital role in the party’s rapid...
, leader of the Iraqi Communist Party
Iraqi Communist Party
Since its foundation in 1934, the Iraqi Communist Party has dominated the left in Iraqi politics. It played a fundamental role in shaping the political history of Iraq between its foundation and the 1970s. The Party was involved in many of the most important national uprisings and demonstrations...
from 1941 until 1949. In the early to mid-1940s Bakdash supported the Iraqi People's Party led by Aziz Sharif, which followed the example of the Syrian Communist Party in seeking to build a broad party emphasizing the national question, contrary to the more orthodox Leninist approach adopted by Fahd's party. Fahd also appears to have suspected him of suborning Iraqi communists resident in Damascus.
The Arab world's first communist deputy
Bakdash won a seat in Parliament in 1954, and during Syria's turbulent democratic period from 1954 to 1958 steered a cautious course. The main difficulty confronting him in this period was the question of Arab unity and in particular of unification with Gamal Abdel NasserGamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...
's Egypt. Bakdash was extremely critical of Nasser, especially after the latter started a campaign of repression against his political opponents, notably the Communists and Muslim Brothers. Nasser did not approve of political pluralism and parties were banned under his rule.
However, popular support for unity with Egypt forced Bakdash to accommodate to circumstances. Hanna Batatu
Hanna Batatu
Hanna Batatu was a Palestinian American Marxist historian specialising in the history of Iraq and the modern Arab east. His work on Iraq is widely considered the pre-eminent study of modern Iraqi history.Born in Jerusalem in 1926, Hanna Batatu emigrated to the United States in 1948, the year of...
, a notable historian of modern Arab politics, speculates that he must have been aware, and perhaps approved of, the participation of a Communist general in the Syrian delegation which persuaded Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...
to proceed to the creation of the United Arab Republic
United Arab Republic
The United Arab Republic , often abbreviated as the U.A.R., was a sovereign union between Egypt and Syria. The union began in 1958 and existed until 1961, when Syria seceded from the union. Egypt continued to be known officially as the "United Arab Republic" until 1971. The President was Gamal...
which combined Syria and Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
in 1958. However, Bakdash himself provoked a harsh reaction from the Egyptian leader with his attack on the latter's policies published in December 1958, in which he called for legalization of political parties and transformation of the UAR into a loose federation. This resulted in a fierce campaign of repression against the party. Bakdash himself left Syria for Moscow, where he would stay until 1966.
Syria seceded from the UAR in 1961, a decision supported by important elements in the army and the bourgeoisie
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
as well as by the Communists, but the separation was intensely controversial and the parties that had supported it found their popular backing greatly reduced: the Syrian party was reduced to some hundreds of members.
Party leader under Ba'thist rule
On 8 March 1963 a coup by supporters of reunification with Egypt, essentially BaathistsBaath Party
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was a political party mixing Arab nationalist and Arab socialist interests, opposed to Western imperialism, and calling for the renaissance or resurrection and unification of the Arab world into a single state. Ba'ath is also spelled Ba'th or Baath and means...
, Nasserists
Nasserism
Nasserism is an Arab nationalist political ideology based on the thinking of the former Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. It was a major influence on pan-Arab politics in the 1950s and 1960s, and continues to have significant resonance throughout the Arab World to this day. It also...
and the Arab Nationalist Movement
Arab Nationalist Movement
The Arab Nationalist Movement , also known as the Movement of Arab Nationalists and the Harakiyyin, was a pan-Arab nationalist organization influential in much of the Arab world, most famously so within the Palestinian movement.-Origins & Ideology:The Arab Nationalist Movement had its origins in a...
put an end to the separatist regime, although in the event reunification never took place. From then until the 1970s, the Communist Party would be repressed to one degree or another.
In 1966, the Syrian Ba'th's secret military committee took power, and implemented a far-left line. Bakdash was allowed to return from Moscow, but forbidden from engaging in public political activity. After Hafiz al-Asad took power in Syria in 1970, he announced his intention of reintroducing political pluralism in the context of popular democracy
Popular democracy
Popular democracy is a notion of direct democracy based on referendums and other devices of empowerment and concretization of popular will. The concept evolved out of the political philosophy of Populism, as a fully democratic version of this popular empowerment ideology, but since it has become...
. This took the form of the National Progressive Front
National Progressive Front
The National Progressive Front , established in 1972, is a coalition of political parties in Syria that support the socialist and Arab nationalist orientation of the government and accept the "leading role in society" of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, .The Front was established by Syrian...
, a coalition of parties who supported the Arab nationalist
Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism is a nationalist ideology celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language and literature of the Arabs, calling for rejuvenation and political union in the Arab world...
and socialist orientation of the government and accepted the leadership of the Baath Party. Faced with the choice between joining the front and illegal operation, Bakdash opted to join; Riyad al-Turk
Riyad al-Turk
Riyad al-Turk is a prominent Syrian opposition leader, former political prisoner for about 20 years in Syria, and supporter of democracy, who has been called "the Old Man of Syrian opposition." He was secretary general of the Syrian Communist Party since its foundation in 1973 until 2005...
would later lead a small radical faction of the party into opposition.
In 1986, a difference of opinion between Bakdash and deputy general secretary Yusuf Faisal led to a split in the party. Faisal was supportive of the new policies of perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
and glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
being pursued by Soviet party secretary Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
; Bakdash was opposed. Many of the intellectuals in the party left with Faisal, while Bakdash retained the support of the party's considerable Kurdish base.
Khalid Bakdash died in Damascus in 1995 at the age of 83. His widow, Wisal Farha Bakdash, succeeded him as party secretary.