The History of South Yemen

[the last donut of the night]

I know that South Yemen was a socialist republic. However, that's where my knowledge ends. Does anybody have more info on it?

[Joe_Germinal]

I know that South Yemen was a socialist republic. However, that's where my knowledge ends. Does anybody have more info on it?

As far as I can tell, very few people know much about South Yemen. According to one of the few books on South Yemen I've ever found, even specialists in Arab politics and government know little about South Yemen. Nevertheless, I will tell you what I know.

South Yemen, like most of the little protectorates on the Arabian Peninsula, was a creation of imperialism. The British used South Yemen to ensure their control of shipping lanes to India, similarly to how the Portuguese used Oman.

South Yemen gained its independence under the leadership of National Front, a broad anti-imperialist coalition which included Marxists. The NF began armed struggle in 1963. The Marxist Left gained the upper hand in the National Front and, after independence in 1967, formed the Yemeni Socialist Party.

Internally, the YSP instituted some socialist reforms. As is true with practically all socialist states, the Yemeni education system quickly became the envy of the region. There was no homelessness and little unemployment. Unfortunately, the government did not undertake a much needed industrialization program, so Yemen's economy remained largely agrarian.

This was probably a result of Yemen's external policy which was to support revolution via armed struggle in North Yemen and Oman (the struggle in Oman gained a great deal of support and, as I understand, there were a lot of guerrilla bases there). The Yemeni's also gave a lot of support to the Palestinian struggle. This was all for the better; however, the focus on making external revolution meant that a great deal of attention and resources were focused externally instead of towards socialist construction internally. Nevertheless, the socialist reforms which had gone through made Yemen a much better place to live than almost any other in the Arab world.

Unfortunately, a power struggle between the left and right in the YSP broke out in the 80s. The right wing supported unification with North Yemen at almost any cost as well as better relations with Oman. Unfortunately, instead of using the money saved from scaling back armed struggle abroad to develop Yemeni socialism and industrial production, the right wanted to use it to exploit Yemen's new found oil resources for the benefit of corrupt Rightists, not the Yemeni people. The left took a more or less conservative position, wanting to continue armed struggle but more or less satisfied with the socialist reforms of the 1970s. Unfortunately, no faction of the YSP had a progressive program for developing Yemeni socialism further.

It was a bloodbath in South Yemen in the mid to late 80s, with fighting between left and right. In the end, South Yemen unified with the North. The modest gains of socialism have largely been rolled back, and the former Northern elite exploit the resources of the former South in a semi-colonial matter. As in most post-socialist states, there is much popular support and many demonstrations for re-founding socialist south Yemen, but a politically savvy Yemeni socialist leadership has not emerged.

A sad story which, because of the dearth of scholarly resources on the subject, I may have gotten totally wrong. That's the history as I understand it, hopefully other comrades will be able to contribute and fix any mistakes I've made.