Discontent with continued French imperialist control of
Syria continue to increase in 1938 after the French government agreed to allow
the government of Turkey to annex the Sanjak region of Syria--whose population
of 230,000 in 1936 included Syrians of ethnic Turkish background (39 percent),
Syrians of Alawite religious background (28 percent), Syrians of Armenian
ethnic background (11 percent), Syrians of Sunni religious background and
non-ethnic Turkish background (8 percent), Syrians of Greek Orthodox religious
background (8 percent) and Syrians of mixed background (6 percent).
But after Turkish troops took control of the Sanjak region
of Syria on July 5, 1938 and Sanjak became a Turkish province, 22,000 Syrians
of Armenian background, 10,000 Syrians of Alawite religious background, 10,000
Syrians of Sunni religious background and 5,000 Syrians of Greek Orthodox
religious background “fled their homes even before French troops had pulled
out,” according to Philip Khoury’s Syria and The French Mandate. Yet the
same book also observed that as late as only a few months before World War II
began, “in July 1939…no one in Syria seriously believed that Syrian
independence was still on the French agenda.”
When the Popular Front coalition of anti-fascist parties
controlled French imperialism’s government between 1936 and 1939, the Syrian
Communist Party was no longer outlawed and “the party organ Sawt
al-Shaab (Voice of the People) was allowed to appear legally” in Syria
in 1937; and “these 3 brief years, 1936-39, gave” Syrian Communist Party
activists their “first opportunity for sustained above-ground activity,” which
enabled them to increase Syrian Communist Party membership “from 200 to about
2,000” between 1936 and 1939, according to Patrick Seale’s The Struggle For Syria. But
after the Popular Front coalition lost control of the government in France and
World War II began in Europe in 1939, French government authorities in Syria
again outlawed the Syrian Communist Party in September 1939 and arrested this
party’s leaders “soon afterward,” according to the same book. As Syria
and The French Mandate noted:
“The Allied Declaration of War against Germany stiffened
French control in Syria…Martial law was proclaimed…All radios in cafes and
other public places were confiscated to prevent crowds from gathering to listen
to the German-Arabic broadcasts…Meanwhile, the French cracked down on their
list of political `subversives.’ They closed down the Syrian Communist Party…”
Then, after German imperialism’s Nazi Army occupied France
in June 1940 and set up its puppet Vichy regime, the Vichy regime’s French
colonial authorities in Syria apparently arranged for the assassination of the
long-time leader of Syria’s anti-imperialist national party, Dr. Abdal-Rahman
Shahbandar, at the end of June 1940; because the collaborationist pro-German
Vichy regime apparently now saw Shahbandar’s Syrian nationalist party as being
supportive of UK imperialism’s side during the 1939-1941 period of World War
II.
But according to the same book, led by “an Arabized Kurd
from Damascus” named Khalid Bakdash (who had been jailed by French colonial
authorities during the early 1930s), the Syrian Communist Party organized
underground resistance to the French Vichy government authorities in Syria in
1940 and 1941, before UK imperialist troops entered Syria on June 8, 1941 and
established complete UK military control over Syrian territory on July 14,
1941.
The following year, however, widespread strikes of workers
and students broke out in Syria; and, as Syria and The French Mandate observed,
the Syrian Communist Party’s “role in the numerous bread strikes during the war
enhanced its reputation both as a defender of the poor and as a bona fide nationalist organization” in
Syria. So, by late 1943, the Syrian Communist Party now included high school
students, liberal professionals, a small number of railway workshop and textile
factory workers and members of both Syria’s ethnic and religious majorities and
minorities; and it “claimed several thousand members,” according to the same
book.
(end of part 11)
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