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Ba'athism is an Arab nationalist ideology that promotes the development and creation of an Arab nation through the leadership of a vanguard party over a progressive revolutionary state. The ideology is officially based on the theories of Zaki al-Arsuzi (according to the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party), Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. A Ba'athist society seeks enlightenment, renaissance and rebirth of Arab culture, values and society. It supports the creation of single-party states, and rejects political pluralism in an unspecified length of time – the Ba'ath party theoretically uses an unspecified amount of time to develop an enlightened Arabic society. The two Ba'athist states which have been in existence, through a policy of authoritarianism, forbid opposition and criticism of their ideology. Through the policy of democratic centralism, the Ba'ath party is the supreme political institution of a Ba'athist state.
Ba'athism is based on principles of Arab nationalism, pan-Arabism, Arab socialism, as well as social progress. It is a secular ideology. A Ba'athist state supports socialist economics to a varying degree; Syria, a Ba'athist state, uses a centrally-planned state socialist economy while Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, followed a policy of capitalist growth led by the state. A Ba'athist state supports public ownership over parts of the economy but opposes the confiscation of private property. Socialism in Ba'athist ideology does not mean state socialism or economic equality, but modernisation; the only way to develop an Arab society which is truly free and united is by creating a socialist society first.
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The origins of Ba'athism began with the political thought developed by Zaki al-Arsuzi and Michel Aflaq. al-Arsuzi formed the Arab Ba'ath Party in 1940 and his views influenced Aflaq who, alongside junior partner Salah al-Din al-Bitar, founded the Arab Ihya Movement in 1940 that later renamed itself the Arab Ba'ath Movement in 1943.[1] Though Aflaq was influenced by him, al-Arsuzi initially did not cooperate with Aflaq's movement. al-Arsuzi suspected that the existence of the Arab Ihya Movement, which occasionally titled itself "Arab Ba'ath" during 1941, was part of an imperialist plot to prevent his influence over the Arabs by creating a movement of the same name.[2]
al-Arsuzi was an Arab from Alexandretta who had been associated with Arab nationalist politics during the interwar period. He was inspired by the French Revolution, the German and Italian unification movements, and the Japanese economic "miracle".[3] His views were influenced by a number of prominent European philosophical and political figures, among them Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Oswald Spengler.[4] He was also influenced by the racial theories of Houston Stewart Chamberlain and national socialism.[5] al-Arsuzi claimed that historically Islam and the Prophet Muhammad had reinforced the nobility and purity of Arabs, which degenerated in purity because of the adoption of Islam by other people.[5] He had been associated with the League of National Action, a political party strongly influenced by fascism and national socialism with its paramilitary "Ironshirts", that existed in Syria from 1932 to 1940.[6] al-Arsuzi left the party in 1939 after its popular leader died and the party had fallen into disarray, he founded the short-lived Arab National Party in 1939 and dissolved it later that year.[7] On 29 November 1940, al-Arsuzi founded the Arab Ba'ath Party.[1] Despite his pro-national socialist views, al-Arsuzi did not support the Axis Powers, and refused Italy's advances for an alliance.[5]
A significant conflict and turning point in the development of Ba'athism occurred when al-Arsuzi's and Aflaq's movements sparred over the issue of the 1941 coup d'etat by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani and the subsequent Anglo–Iraqi War.[2] Aflaq's movement supported al-Gaylani's government and the Iraqi government's war against the British, and organized volunteers to go to Iraq and fight for the Iraqi government.[2] However, al-Arsuzi opposed al-Gaylani's government, considering the coup to be poorly-planned and a failure.[2] At this point, al-Arsuzi's party lost members and support that transferred to Aflaq's movement.[2] Subsequently, al-Arsuzi's direct influence in Arab politics collapsed after Vichy French authorities expelled him from Syria in 1941.[2] Aflaq's Arab Ba'ath Movement's next major political action was its support of Lebanon's war of independence from France in 1943.[8] The Arab Ba'ath Movement did not solidify for years until it held its first party congress in 1947 when it merged with the Arab Socialist Party led by Akram al-Hawrani to establish the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party.[9] In 1966 the Ba'ath Party split in half, one Syrian-led Ba'ath Party and one Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party. A consequence of the split was that al-Arsuzi took Aflaq's place as the official father of ba'athist thought in the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party, the Iraqi-led Ba'ath Party still considered Aflaq as the de jure father of ba'athist thought.[10]
Aflaq is today considered the founder of the Ba'athist movement, or at least, its most notable contributor.[11] There were other notable ideologues as well, such as al-Arsuzi and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. From the founding of the Arab Ba'ath Movement until the mid-1950s in Syria and the early 1960s in Iraq, the ideology of the Ba'ath Party was largely synonymous with that of Aflaq's. Aflaq's view on Arab nationalism is considered by some, such as historian Paul Salem, as romantic and poetic. In intellectual terms, Aflaq recast the conservative Arab nationalist thoughts and changed them to reflect a strong revolutionary and progressive tendency which developed in harmony alongside the decolonisation and other events which happened in the Arab world at the time of his life. He insisted the overthrow of the old ruling classes, and supported the creation of a secular society by separating Islam from the state. Not all these ideas were his, but it was Aflaq who succeeded in turning these believes into a transnational movement.[11] The core basis of Ba'athism is Arab socialism, a socialism with Arab characteristics which is not associated with international socialist movement, and pan-Arab ideology.[12]
Ba'athism, as developed by Aflaq and Bitar, was a unique left-wing Arab-centric ideology. The ideology presented itself as representing the "Arab spirit against materialistic communism" and "Arab history against dead reaction."[13] It held ideological similarity and a favourable outlook to the Non-Aligned Movement politics of Jawaharlal Nehru, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Josip Broz Tito, and historically opposing affiliation with either the American-led Western Bloc and Soviet-led Eastern Bloc of the Cold War.[14]
Aflaq supported Sati' al-Husri that language was the principal defining unifying factor of the Arab nation because language led to the unity of thought, norms and ideals. History was also another unifying feature, as it was the "fertile ground in which our consciousness took shape." The centre of Aflaq's Ba'athist thought was the feature ba'ath (literally meaning "renaissance").[15] This renaissance could only be reached by uniting the Arab nations, and it would transform the Arab world politically, economically, intellectually and morally. This "future renaissance" would be a "rebirth", the first Arab renaissance, according to Aflaq, was the origins of Islam in the seventh century. The new "renaissance" would bring another Arab message; this view was summed up in the Ba'ath party's slogan "One Nation, Bearing an Eternal Message". The Arab nation could only reach this "renaissance" through a revolutionary process towards the goals of "unity, liberty and socialism".[16] In Aflaq's view, a nation could only "progress" or "decline";[15] Arab nations of his time could only progressively "decline" because of their illnesses – "feudalism, sectarianism, regionalism, intellectual reactionism". These problems, Aflaq believed, could only be resolved through a revolutionary process. A revolution could only succeed if the revolutionaries were pure, and devoted nearly religiously to the task. Aflaq supported the Marxist view of the need of a vanguard party following a successful revolution; a successful revolution was not an "inevitable outcome". The vanguard, in Ba'athist ideology, was the Ba'ath party.[17] Aflaq believed that the youth were the key for a successful revolution, the youth were open to change and enlightenment because they still hadn't been indoctrinated with other views. A major problem, according to Aflaq, was the disillusionment of the Arab youth. Disillusionment led to individualism, and individualism was not a healthy sign in a underdeveloped country, in contrast to developed countries were it was a healthy sign.[18]
The party's main task, before the revolution, was to spread enlightened ideas to the people and to challenge reactionary and conservative elements in society. According to Aflaq, a Ba'ath party would ensue a policy of proselytization; to keep the uneducated masses out of the party until the party leadership was enlightened with the thoughts of enlightenment. However, the party was also a political organisation, and as Aflaq's notes politics was "a means [...] is the most serious of matters at this present stage".[19] Ba'athism was similar to communist thought in that a vanguard party would rule for an unspecified length to construct a new society".[20]
Aflaq supported the idea of democratic centralism and a committed activist revolutionary party based on the Leninist model. The revolutionary party would seize political power and from there on, transform society for the greater good. While the revolutionary party was numerically a minority, it was an all powerful institution, which had the right to initiate a policy even if the majority of the population were against it. As with the Leninist model, the Ba'ath party knew what was right and what was wrong; the population as a whole did not know this yet, they were still influenced by the old value and moral system.[21]
According to Aflaq, the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) against the Ottoman Empire failed to unify the Arab world because it was led by a reactionary class. He believed the ruling class, who supported the monarchy as the leaders of the Arab Revolt did, were synonymous with a reactionary class. In Ba'athist ideology, the ruling class is replaced by a revolutionary progressive class. Aflaq was bitterly opposed to any kind of monarchy, and described the Arab Revolt as "the illusions of kings and feudal lords who understood unity as the gathering of backwardness to backwardness, exploitation to exploitation and numbers to numbers like sheep." It was the reactionary class's view of Arab unity which had left the Arab Revolt "struggle for unity without blood and nerve." Aflaq saw the German unification as proof of this. This view was in stark contrast to other Arab nationalist thoughts, most Arab nationalists were Germanophiles. According to Aflaq, Bismarck's unification of Germany established the most repressive nation the world had ever seen, this could largely be blamed on, according to Aflaq, the existing monarchy and the reactionary class. To copy the German example would be disastrous, according to Aflaq, and would lead to the enslavement of the Arab people.[22]
The only way to combat the reactionary classes laid in "progressive" revolution, central to which is struggle for unity. This struggle could not be separated from the social revolution – to separate these two would be the same as to weaken the movement. The reactionary classes, who are content with the status quo, would oppose the "progressive" revolution. Even if the revolution succeeded in one "region" (country), that region would be unable to develop because of the resource constraints, small populations and the anti-revolution forces held by other Arab leaders. For a revolution to succeed the Arab world would have to evolve into an "organic whole" (literally become one). In short, Arab unity is both the cause of the "progressive" revolution and its effect.[23]
A major obstacle to the success of the revolution is the Arab League. Aflaq believed that the Arab League strengthened both regional interests and the reactionary classes, thus weakening the chance of establishing an Arab nation. Because of the world situation, where the majority of Arab states were under the rule of the reactionary classes, revised his ideology to meet reality. Instead of creating an Arab nation through a Arab wide progressive revolution, the main task of country's were progressive revolutionaries had succeeded was to spread the revolution. These progressive revolutionary countries would then one by one unite until the Arab world had evolved into an Arab nation. The revolution would not succeed if the progressive revolutionary governments did not contribute to spreading the revolution.[23]
| “ | "Liberty is not a luxury in the life of the nation but its basis and its essence and its meaning". | ” |
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— Aflaq in a speech dated to 1959[21] |
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Aflaq saw liberty as one of the defining features of Ba'athism. Articulation of thoughts and the interaction between individuals were a way of building a new society. It was liberty, according to Aflaq, which created new values and thoughts.[24] Aflaq believed that living under imperialism, colonialism, religious or a non-enlightened dictatorship weakened liberty; ideas came from above, not from below through human interaction. One of the Ba'ath party's main priorities according to Aflaq, was to disseminate new ideas and thoughts; to give individuals the liberty they needed to pursue ideas, the party would interpose itself between the Arab people and both their foreign imperialist oppressors and those forms of tyranny that arise within Arab society. While the notion of liberty was an important ideal to Aflaq, he favored the Leninist model of a continuous revolutionary struggle, and he did not develop concepts for a society in which liberty was protected by a set of institutions and rules. His vision of a one-party state ruled by the Ba'ath party, which disseminated information to the public, was in many ways, contrary to his view on individual interactions. The Ba'ath party through its preeminence would establish liberty. According to Aflaq, liberty could not just come from nowhere, it needed an enlightened progressive group to create a truly free society.[21] Fundamentally, Aflaq's had an authoritarian perspective on liberty. In contrast to the liberal democratic concept of liberty, in Aflaq's vision liberty would be ensured by a Ba'ath party which was not elected by the populace, because the party had the common good at heart. Historian Paul Salem has said that the weakness of such a system is "quite obvious".[25]
| “ | "We did not adopt socialism out of books, abstractions, humanism, or pity, but rather out of need [...] for the Arab working class is the mover of history in this period". " | ” |
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— Aflaq's view on the necessity of socialism[26] |
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Aflaq deeply supported some Marxist tenets, and he considered the Marxist concept of the "importance of material economic conditions in life" to be one of modern humanity's greatest discoveries. However, he disagreed with the Marxist view that dialectical materialism was the only truth. Aflaq believed that Marxism had forgotten human's spirituality. While believing that the concept would work for small and weak societies, the concept of dialectical materialism as the only truth in Arab development was wrong. For a people as spiritual as the Arabs, the working class was just a group, albeit the most important group, in a much larger movement to free the Arab nation. Aflaq agreed to Karl Marx's view that the working class was a central force, but not which role it played in history. In contrast to Marx, Aflaq believed in nationalism, and believed that in the Arab world all classes, and not just the working class, were working against "capitalist domination of the foreign powers". What in the west was a struggle between various classes was in the Arab world a fight for political and economic independence.[26]
For Aflaq, socialism was a necessary means to accomplishing the goal of initiating an Arabic renaissance period, in other words, a period of modernisation. While unity brought the Arab world together and liberty provided the Arab people with freedom, socialism was the cornerstone which made unity and liberty successful. No socialism meant no revolution. In Aflaq's view, a constitutional democratic system would not succeed in a country such as Syria that was dominated by a "pseudo-feudalist" economic system in which the repression of the peasant nullified the people's political liberty. Liberty meant little to nothing to the general poverty-stricken populace of Syria; Aflaq saw socialism as the solution to their plight. According to Aflaq, the ultimate goal of socialism's not to answer the question of how much state control was necessary or economic equality, but instead socialism was "a means to satisfy the animal needs of man so he can be free to pursue his duties as a human being". In other words, socialism was a system which freed the population from enslavement and created independent individuals. However, economic equality was a major tenet in Ba'athist ideology; the elimination of inequality would "eliminate all privilege, exploitation, and domination by one group over another". In short, if liberty was to succeed, the Arab people needed socialism.[27] Aflaq labelled this kind of socialism "Arab socialism", to signify that it existed in harmony with, and was in some ways subordinate to, Arab nationalism. According to Aflaq, who was a Christian, the teaching and reforms of the Prophet Muhammed had given socialism an authentic Arab expression. Socialism was viewed by Aflaq as justice, and the reforms of the Prophet Muhammed were both just and wise. The Ba'athist would, in modern times, initiate another way of just and radical forms just as the Prophet had done in the seventh century.[28]
| “ | "Europe is as fearfull of Islam today as she has been in the past. She now knows that the strength of Islam (which in the past expressed that of the Arabs) has been reborn and has appeared in a new form: Arab nationalism". | ” |
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— From one of Aflaq's works dating back to 1943 about Islam's character[29] |
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Aflaq viewed the creation of Islam as proof of "Arab genius", and a testament of Arab culture, values and thought.[30] The essence of Islam, according to Aflaq, was its revolutionary qualities.[31] Aflaq called on all Arabs, both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to admire the role Islam had played in creating an Arab character. But his view on Islam was purely spiritual, and Aflaq emphasised that it "should not be imposed" on state and society. Time and again Aflaq emphasised that the Ba'ath party was against atheism, but also against fundamentalism; the fundamentalists represented a "shallow, false faith." According to Ba'athist ideology, all religions were equal. Despite his anti-atheist stance, Aflaq was a strong supporter of secular government, and stated a Ba'athist state would replace religion with a state "based on a foundation, Arab nationalism, and a moral; freedom."[32] During the Shia riots against the Iraqi Ba'ath regime in the late-1970s, Aflaq warned Saddam Hussein of making any concessions to the rioters, exclaiming that the Ba'ath Party "is with [religious] faith, but is not a religious party, nor should it be one."[33] During his vice presidency, at the time of the Shia riots, Hussein discussed the need to convince large segments of the population to convert to the party line's stance on religion.[34] Hussein's stance on secularisation changed following the Iran–Iraq War, when a law was passed allowing men to kill their sisters, daughters and wives if they were unfaithful. When Aflaq died in 1989, an official announcement by the Iraqi Regional Command stated that Aflaq had converted to Islam before his death, but an unnamed western diplomat in Iraq told William Harris that Aflaq's family was not aware that he had undergone any religious conversion.[35] Prior, during and after the Gulf War, the regime became progressively more Islamic, by the beginning of the 1990s Hussein proclaimed the Ba'ath party to be the party "of Arabism and Islam."[36]