What is Baathism?

[Sudsy]

Recently, I`ve been reading about Iraq and Syria, and have been confused on a lot of topics. I mean, Iraq and Syria have socialist aspects, but in theory are they really socialism?

Also, what do you think about the leaders of Syria and Baathist Iraq? Personally, I think Saddham is a tyrannical, racist bastard, and the U.S invasion was more of a power struggle instead of a fight for liberation, which is unfortunate because everyone here knows the U.S`s imperialist war has done nothing for Iraq. But I don`t really know what to think about Syria and the Assads.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Baathism is many things, of which socialist is not one. There is a strong appeal to nationalism, class collaboration and some kind of welfare state. It's also an ideology which has morphed since its conception, and from what I understand used to be something more diverse.

[Tim Cornelis]

Ba'athism is really proto-fascist in a sense, and in no way socialist (even by Marxist-Leninist standard). It's based on palingenetic nationalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palingenetic_ultranationalism), a revitalisation of Arab society. In Iraq it was more right-wing oriented, and in Syria more left-wing oriented. Nevertheless, being based on Arab nationalism, Syria's regime declared Syria an "all Arab" nation, and denied many ethnic minorities statehood and reduced them to second class citizens. Kurds (and Armenians I believe as well) are poorer than Arabs. As such, Syrian ba'athism could be considered racist as well.

[Sudsy]

In the time between my first comment and this one I read that Baathism`s definition of ``Arab Socialism`` is actually not socialism but just modernization. Obviously, it is convenient for the right-wing lunatics to call Baathists socialists just like they call Hitler a socialist.

[melvin]

Ba'athism is really proto-fascist in a sense, and in no way socialist (even by Marxist-Leninist standard). It's based on palingenetic nationalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palingenetic_ultranationalism), a revitalisation of Arab society. In Iraq it was more right-wing oriented, and in Syria more left-wing oriented. Nevertheless, being based on Arab nationalism, Syria's regime declared Syria an "all Arab" nation, and denied many ethnic minorities statehood and reduced them to second class citizens. Kurds (and Armenians I believe as well) are poorer than Arabs. As such, Syrian ba'athism could be considered racist as well."Proto-fascist"? Baathism developed after fascism emerged.

[Rafiq]

Ba'athism is really proto-fascist in a sense, and in no way socialist (even by Marxist-Leninist standard). It's based on palingenetic nationalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palingenetic_ultranationalism), a revitalisation of Arab society. In Iraq it was more right-wing oriented, and in Syria more left-wing oriented. Nevertheless, being based on Arab nationalism, Syria's regime declared Syria an "all Arab" nation, and denied many ethnic minorities statehood and reduced them to second class citizens. Kurds (and Armenians I believe as well) are poorer than Arabs. As such, Syrian ba'athism could be considered racist as well.

well its a bit more complicated than that. yes baathism has fascist origins but specifically in syria, before hafiz al assad it was not reactionary. it was not socialist in the ml sense but was bourgeois-romantic, nationalist etc. it would be foolish to call syrian baathism in the 1960s fascist. but in the 30's, 40's etc. the baathists and communists were bitter rivals, naturally, and continued to be in iraq where they were heavily persecuted.

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[Rafiq]

In the time between my first comment and this one I read that Baathism`s definition of ``Arab Socialism`` is actually not socialism but just modernization. Obviously, it is convenient for the right-wing lunatics to call Baathists socialists just like they call Hitler a socialist.

no, baathists call themselves socialist. in the 60's, in syria, there were major land reforms and major social reforms, etc. all of the 'progress' you see in syria today is what is left from that, hafiz al assad was actually a reactionary who built ties with conservative arab states and saw to undoing the economic reforms of jadid. but baathism was never revolutionary or socialist in character but was bourgeois-romantic by marxist leninist standards.

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[DROSL]

Based upon Arab ultra-nationalism.

[Comrade Nasser]

Ba'athism is really proto-fascist in a sense, and in no way socialist (even by Marxist-Leninist standard). It's based on palingenetic nationalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palingenetic_ultranationalism), a revitalisation of Arab society. In Iraq it was more right-wing oriented, and in Syria more left-wing oriented. Nevertheless, being based on Arab nationalism, Syria's regime declared Syria an "all Arab" nation, and denied many ethnic minorities statehood and reduced them to second class citizens. Kurds (and Armenians I believe as well) are poorer than Arabs. As such, Syrian ba'athism could be considered racist as well.

Yes for a while, Egypt and Syria joined together and were one Arab ultra-nationalist state known as "The United Arab republic" from this front they were able to collaborate with other Arab countries and attack Israel which they did many times in the late 60's and early 70's. Basically the U.A.R (although short-lived) basically treated non-Arabs and religious minorities like shit. Should the far left support Baathism? My opinion, no. The only reason I know about this is that many of my relatives and friends of family were in the military at this time (my family has a LONG line of serving in the Egyptian military) and one of my uncles who ended up being a colonel has the craziest stories ever lol.

[Paul Pott]

It was basically a subset of the "Arab Socialist" fad among the national ruling classes of the Arab world during the Cold War. That also includes Nasserism, Gaddafi's state, and the Algerian government at one point.

[Rafiq]

good info:


http://angryarab.blogspot.fr/search?q=ba'th








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........
afflaq,alrsuzy,al bittar ,were communists, 'founders of the ba'athparty- jadid wa ml

aflaq and al bitar were engaged in communist activity in the late 30's and early 40's. after their dissatisfaction with frances popular front govt, they completely broke with the communists. by the 60's they represented the right wing of the baath party

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[Sudsy]

no, baathists call themselves socialist. in the 60's, in syria, there were major land reforms and major social reforms, etc. all of the 'progress' you see in syria today is what is left from that, hafiz al assad was actually a reactionary who built ties with conservative arab states and saw to undoing the economic reforms of jadid. but baathism was never revolutionary or socialist in character but was bourgeois-romantic by marxist leninist standards.

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I completely agree about Hafez Al-Assad, however Jadid wasn`t really a baathist which i think gave way to the reaction nationalist coup and return to Baathism, Jadid was resented by both Iraqi and Syrian baathists. So Jadid`s progressive reforms were in the name of socialism but not Baathism, so for true Baathists he is a leftist traitor, but I think Syria`s best leader.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Jadid was part of the left wing of the Syrian Ba'ath; it seems odd to deny that he was a baathist unless you claim that Aflaq and the right wing of the Ba'ath were the "true" baathists.

Anyway, baathism is, I think, a fairly standard nationalist movement with some socialist rhetoric that has been emphasised or de-emphasised depending on Soviet support. Even the most extensive baathist reforms have only resulted in a somewhat planned capitalism.

That said, Arab nationalism corresponded to certain progressive tasks of the Arab masses, such as opposition to colonialism and fighting against the semifeudal classes, the effendis and so on. But as all bourgeois movements, the Ba'ath can not carry this struggle out to its end.

[Turinbaar]

Baathism's first major political landmarks are as follows.

In the 40's Michel Aflaq's Baath party in Syria sponsored a coup in Iraq consisting of various Pan-Arab officers and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who declared war on the UK and support for the Nazis.

In 1963, the Iraqi Baath made a coup attempt, targeting communists with the aid of information given to them by the CIA. The coup failed.

In 1968, the Iraqi party made another coup (again with CIA help), took advantage of the results of the 1967 war, and made an ingenious synthesis of stalinism and nazism, by declaring that the whole of the middle east armies fighting Israel were defeated by a secret zionist fifth column within iraq. Show trails were put up where scores of arabs would all be found guilty of conspiracy and treason because there would be one or two jews among them. Despite the fact that iraqi jews had little if any contact with israel, especially after the expulsion, the existence of a jew was axiomatic guilt of zionist espionage.

The important contrasts between syrian and Iraqi baathism is their positions, especially in the early years of their development, towards the military. Syrian baathism came to power through the officer class and expelled Aflaq and the civilian leadership, whereas Iraqi baathism took measure to avoid this outcome by putting full weight into the various party militias and secret police organizations, targeting the army officers, especially the baathist ones, and putting restrictions on recruitment to reserve them exclusively to party members.

A final note is its attitude to Islam. Baathism holds it as the crown jewel of arab culture, and see's non arab forms as degenerate. Syrias heterodox leadership and rejection of aflaq makes it slightly different than Iraq which instated a baathist version of sharia, focusing on the rights and obligations of women, by transferring the traditional control over their life away from their family and into the hands of the state. Upon his death, the Christian Michel Aflaq was declared to have converted to Islam.