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The 1970 Syrian Corrective Revolution, better known as the Syrian Corrective Movement, was a military-pragmatist faction's takeover within the Ba'ath party regime of Syria on November 13, 1970, bringing Hafez al-Assad to power.[1]
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Politics was Assad's life-long interest. As a schoolboy, he joined the pan-Arab socialist Ba'ath Party, and rose to be a student leader. He joined the air force and became a conspirator, plotting with a small group of officers to overthrow the government, a task accomplished in 1963.[1]
In 1966, another military coup resulted in internal power change within the Ba'ath party. Regardless of the 1966 dismissal of the "old guard", personal ambition and sectarian factionalism as well as ideology differences led to continuous infighting.[2] Many of the Baath Military Committee members left or were ousted, leaving two main factions - one of Salah Jadid and another by Hafez al-Assad.[2]
As a young and inexperienced defense minister in the 1967 war, Hafez al-Assad presided over the loss of the Golan Heights.[1] In 1970, he sent tanks into Jordan to help the Palestinians against King Hussein, but had to beat a humiliating retreat when Israel threatened to intervene.[1]
The 1970 Revolution was directed against a dominant ultra left-wing faction of the party and, to some extent, provoked by what Assad and his supporters saw as adventurous and irresponsible foreign policies (notably the Syrian intervention in the Black September conflict in Jordan, after which the Black September Palestinian faction was named). As a result of the coup, de facto leader Salah Jadid was ousted and the party was purged. This revolution turned Syria's social and political structures upside down. The Alawites, Assad's tribe, although no more than 12% of the population, came to occupy plum positions in every sector of life in Syria.[1]