A People's History of Syria--Part 16: 1954 to 1956 Period

Prior to the September 1954 parliamentary election in Syria, the Communist Party of Syria—whose “support came mainly from the professional classes”—had called for “a national front” in Syria “of all `enemies of feudalism, reaction and imperialism,” according to Patrick Seale’s The Struggle for Syria;” and the Communist Party of Syria’s leader, Khalid Bakdash, became the first member of a Communist Party within the Arab world to be elected as a member of an Arab parliament, as a result of the 1954 democratic election in Syria, by polling “the third highest vote total in Damascus,” according to the same book.

The anti-imperialist, socialist but non-communist, pan-Arab nationalist Baath Party candidates in Syria, however, won the support of more Syrian voters in 1954 than did the Communist Party; while the Communist Party gained 1 seat in the Syrian parliament, 22 Baath Party candidates were elected to the Syrian parliament as a result of the September 1954 democratic election. As David Lesch’s Syria and The United States observed, “out of 142 seats, the Baath Party gained an unprecedented 22 seats, increasing its strength from 5 percent in the old parliament to 15 percent in the new.” But the vote received by the Syrian Communist Party, the Syrian Baath Party and most of the other Syrian parties “marked the triumph of neutralism and the rejection of formal ties” with Western imperialist powers like the United States, France and the UK, according to The Struggle for Syria; and on Nov. 3, 1954 an anti-imperialist, neutralist Syrian nationalist government was formed by Faris al-Khoury.

In response, the Republican Eisenhower administration apparently began to provide covert support for the anti-Baath, more right-wing Syrian Social Nationalist Party. And after the pro-Baath Deputy Chief of Staff of the Syrian Army, Adnan al-Malki, indicated that he opposed the U.S. and UK government-promoted Baghdad Pact, which sought to align Arab governments into a military alliance with the U.S. and UK governments, Syria and The United States noted what happened to al-Malki:

“On Apr. 22, 1955 the most influential officer in the Syrian army and a staunch Baathist supporter, Colonel ‘Adnan al-Malki, was assassinated. He was gunned down while attending a soccer match in Damascus by an individual identified as a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party [SSNP]…The SSNP had a history of overt and covert contacts with the West, including the United States…”

So, to prevent a right-wing, pro-U.S. government coup in Syria in the Spring of 1955, the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party [SSNP] was then outlawed by the Syrian government.

On Aug. 18, 1955 a presidential election was then held in Syria which was won by the former Syrian civilian president of the late 1940s--Shukri Quwatli--who was backed by conservative Syrian nationalist civilian politicians. But, in response, on Sept. 6, 1955 the less politically conservative, pan-Arab nationalist Baath members of the Syrian parliament ended their parliamentary support for the non-partisan coalition government that had governed Syria since late 1954; and on Sept. 13, 1955 a new coalition government in Syria was established, with Said al-Ghazzi as its Prime Minister.

Then “from September 1955 to June 1956, Soviet arms started reaching Syria in substantial quantities and teams of Syrian officers began going for training behind the iron curtain,” while within Syria “four daily newspapers” were now allowed to print Syrian “Communist views,” according to The Struggle for Syria.

But on June 3, 1956 the Syrian coalition government of Said al-Ghazzi fell “when Syrian university students stormed and occupied” a government ministry building “to protest against the revision of a ban on wheat shipments to France and Algeria (which had not yet won its independence from France),” according to the same book. And after June 28, 1956 the pan-Arab nationalist, anti-imperialist (but non-communist) Syrian Baath party’s demand for the unification of Syria with an Egypt that was governed by the anti-imperialist (but non-communist) Nasser regime began to gain more popular support within Syria.

So, not surprisingly, in July 1956 the exiled U.S. and UK government-backed former Syrian dictator who had been overthrown by the Feb. 25, 1954 military coup, Adib al-Shishakli “arrived clandestinely” and “presided over a number of meetings attended by the leading conspirators…at which Ghassan Jadid outlined their plans for a coup,” according to The Struggle for Syria. As the same book also recalled:

“Britain and the United States were by this time fully appraised of what was going on. The conspirators are believed to have approached British representatives in Beirut with requests for help as early as March 1956.

“By midsummer an Anglo-American-Iraqi (which still was ruled by a pro-imperialist UK-backed monarchical regime at that time) committee had been set up in Beirut to exchange intelligence, consider the international aspects of the plot, and examine plans and suggestions put up to it by the Syrians…Britain and the United States…also contributed money and arms…”

(end of part 16)

A People's History of Syria--Part 12: 1943 to 1946 Period

Although Syria was formally recognized as independent when it was occupied by UK troops during World War II, “the essential prerogatives of sovereignty—full legislative and administrative powers and control over the armed forces—had” still “to be wrested from the French,” according to Patrick Seale’s The Struggle for Syria. So after its Lebanese members were authorized to form a separate Lebanese Communist Party in Lebanon in 1943, the Syrian Communist Party-- which Khalid Bakdash led—participated in a 1943 election in Syria under European colonial rule and campaigned on a platform which called for: 1. Independence and Freedom for Syria; 2. Unity in the cause of national independence; and 3. The creation of truly representative institutions in Syria.

According to The Struggle for Syria, “…In Syria…France was reluctant to give up her…`special position’ there” after World War II, but because the UK had “guaranteed Syrian…independence” when it occupied Syria militarily in 1941, “decisive support for the Syrian nationalist leaders in the final tussle with the French” (after French troops had returned to Syria) was given by the UK government in 1945.

Yet before people in Syria finally won their political independence from French government rule on Apr. 17, 1946 (when the last contingent of French imperialist troops left Syria), large demonstrations of Syrians demanding the withdrawal of French troops from Syria had to be held in the last week of January 1945 and on May 29 and May 30, 1945; and, in response, French military authorities in Damascus had “bombed the city from the air and shelled the newer quarter in Damascus, killing many people and making thousands homeless,” according to Alan George’s Syria: Neither Bread nor Freedom. As Philip Khoury’s Syria and The French Mandate recalled:

“…Large anti-French demonstrations in Damascus in the last week of January 1945 were countered by a visible display of French military strength in the Syrian capital…By May [1945] the French were reinforcing the garrisons, mainly with the much dreaded and hated Senegalese troops…

“Demonstrations broke out in Damascus…Anti-French activities quickly spread all over Syria…The French military command…shelled and bombed Damascus from the air between the evening of May 29 [1945] and noon on May 30 [1945]…The newer, modern quarters received the brunt of French punishment…The number of Syrian casualties and the amount of physical destruction was heavy. It included 400 dead, countless injured…Renewed anti-French protests in the towns of Syria…brought by spring [1946] a complete withdrawal of French troops and other military personnel from Syrian territory…”

As a political alternative to Syria’s secular nationalist and secular left anti-imperialist groups, during the middle of the 1930s, the anti-imperialist Muslim Brotherhood of Syria had been established in Aleppo “when Syrian students…returning from Egypt began forming branches in different cities under the title Shabab Mohammad (Young Men of Mohammed),” according to Dilip Hiro’s Holy Wars: The Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism; and Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood at this time also “had stood for an end” to French rule in Syria and “for social reform along Islamic lines” in Syria.

But in 1944 the headquarters of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood was moved to Damascus and a friend of Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, named Mustafa al Sibai, was elected as General Supervisor of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood. Then, according to Holy Wars, “once the French departed” from Syria in 1946, Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood “concentrated on socio-economic issues, always stressing its opposition to secularism and Marxism;” and “it drew the bulk of its support from” Syria’s “urban petty traders and craftsmen” who, with their families “composed about one-sixth of the Syrian population.” 

(end of part 12)

A People's History of Syria--Part 11: 1938 to 1943 Period

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)

A People's History of Syria--Part 9: 1927 to 1935 Period

Michael Provence’s The Great Syrian Revolt and The Rise of Arab Nationalism indicated how the crushing of the anti-imperialist Great Revolt of Syrian nationalists by French occupation troops affected the post-Great Revolt political situation within French-ruled Syria after June 1927:

“With the effective elimination of the revolt’s militant leadership, the traditional elite were free to hammer out a working accommodation with the clear and now unchallenged rulers of Syria: the French government…Damascus’ leading politicians and the mandate power was able to ignore the exiled insurgents…for more than a decade…”

Inside French imperialist-controlled Syria and Lebanon, however, an underground Communist Party of Syria and Lebanon, whose “first provisional Central Committee consisted of Yusuf Yazbek, Fu’ad al-Shamali, Artin Madoyan, Hetazon Bayadjian and Elias Abut Nadir,” according to Patrick Seale’s The Struggle For Syria: A Study of Post-War Arab Politics 1945-1958, had been founded in 1925. But “in 1926 the French mandatory authorities…arrested Yusuf Yazbek and Artin Madoyan” and “all party activity” had been “frozen until their release in 1928,” according to the same book.

Under the leadership of Fu’ad al-Shamali after 1928, however, the still legally-banned “party extended its activities to Damascus as well as to some country towns” in Syria, according to The Struggle For Syria. But by 1932, with the support of Artin Madoyan, “a…young…law student from Damascus called Khalid Bakdash,” who had been “expelled from the university for political activity,” replaced Fu’ad al-Shamali as the Communist Party of Syria and Lebanon’s leader; and “for the next 25 years” Khalid Bakdash “was one of the leading Communists of the Arab world,” according to the same book.

According to Philip Khoury’s Syria and The French Mandate, “the scale of Syrian industrialization by the Second World War was” still “not very large.”  But after 1928 “modern industries” had begun “to spring up in Damascus” and “by 1934, there were reportedly 63 modern factories in Damascus and 71 in Aleppo;” and as early as 1925 “the Union of Weavers, the first modern Syrian union,” had already been established, with a membership of 52 workers from 4 different Syrian factories, according to the same book.

So, not surprisingly, when colonized Syria’s economy began to feel the impact of the global economic depression in 1930 and the unemployment rate in Syria increased dramatically at the same time real wages for many Syrian workers fell, Syrian workers began to respond to their increased economic hardship by going out on strikes. As Syria and The French Mandate recalled:

“The Summer of 1930 was marked by strikes…In Hama…the town literally closed down on June 19 [1930] to protest a new bread tax. In Aleppo, workers in the traditional sector of the textile industry struck for higher wages at the very end of July [1930]. Later, in Homs where…wages in the textile industry had been cut 3 times in as many months, 600 recently organized textile workers struck on September 20 [1930]. Meanwhile, Damascus was in the midst of a strike that had begun in mid-July [1930] among thousands of textile workers led by the activist Union of Weavers…”

In a July 30, 1935 speech at the Comintern’s 7^th congress, a leader of the underground Syrian Communist Party also reported:

“…During the general strike that broke out in January 1935 in Zahle, a major agricultural center, against the taxes and the despotism of the administrative authorities, more than 15,000 demonstrators were engaged in street battles for five days and disarmed the police and held the town and the town governor’s residence for an entire day…Among the thirty arrested there were seventeen Communists….

“…Just during the years 1933 and 1934, in the 45 strikes which involved 50,000 strikers, we were able entirely to lead the 15 most important strikes, while participating in all the others through our orators, our militants and our trade-union groups...

“In 1933 we organized and led the typographers’ strike for trade-union rights…For ten days the country was deprived of its largest daily newspapers, and in this way all public attention was concentrated on the strike. The destruction of the printing office of the newspaper L'Orient by the strikers, a newspaper which wanted to break the strike and which was, because of this, unable to operate for 15 days, set a shining example of the revolutionary manner in which the advanced proletariat defends its actions against strike-breakers. The sympathy strikes which broke out among the typographers of several places, the refusal of newspaper hawkers to distribute newspapers of companies that were able to operate because of police protection, the sending by the tobacco workers of cigarettes to the strikers, the telegrams of solidarity from several villages, all this showed popular support which had gathered around this strike…

“During the last strike of the 10,000 taxi drivers in April 1935, which lasted 13 days and took on such a violent character that the country was almost in a state of siege and in which the drivers burned and destroyed dozens of cabs belonging to strikebreakers, we participated very actively in the action…In the course of the struggle against the scabs, we had one death, a Communist taxi driver, to whose funeral drivers from distant places came on foot so as not to violate the strike. The funeral turned into a major demonstration and clashes with the police…The strike continued undiminished for two more days…and did not end until after the reopening of the taxi drivers’ trade-union, closed by the authorities during the strike, and the acceptance of a major part of their demands.”

Yet in 1933, with 150,000 Syrian workers unemployed under French imperialist rule, the official unemployment rate in Syria was still 15 percent. But in that same year, a new generation of anti-imperialist Syrian nationalist youth formed the League of National Action.

(end of part 9)