Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region in the context of "1963 Syrian coup d'état"

Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north and northwest, Iraq to the east and southeast, Jordan to the south, and Israel and Lebanon to the southwest. It is a republic under a provisional government and comprises 14 governorates. Damascus is the capital and largest city. With a population of 26 million across an area of 185,180 square kilometres (71,500 sq mi), it is the 56th-most populous and 87th-largest country.

The name "Syria" historically referred to a wider region. The modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization. Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital under the Mamluk Sultanate. The modern Syrian state was established in the mid-20th century after centuries of Ottoman rule, as a French Mandate. The state represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the formerly Ottoman-ruled Syrian provinces. It gained de jure independence as a parliamentary republic in 1945 when the First Syrian Republic became a founding member of the United Nations, an act which legally ended the French Mandate. French troops withdrew in April 1946, granting the nation de facto independence. The post-independence period was tumultuous, with multiple coups and coup attempts between 1949 and 1971. In 1958, Syria entered a brief pan-Arab union with Egypt, which was terminated following a 1961 coup d'état. The 1963 coup d'état carried out by the military committee of the Ba'ath Party established a one-party state, which ran Syria under martial law from 1963 to 2011. Internal power-struggles within Ba'athist factions caused further coups in 1966 and 1970, the latter of which saw Hafez al-Assad come to power. Under Assad, Syria became a hereditary dictatorship. Assad died in 2000, and he was succeeded by his son, Bashar.

Ba'athist Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic (SAR), was the Syrian state between 1963 and 2024 under the one-party rule of the Syrian regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. From 1971 until its collapse in 2024, it was ruled by the Assad family, and was therefore commonly referred to as Assadist Syria or the Assad regime.

The regime emerged in 1963 as a result of a coup d'état led by Alawite Ba'athist military officers. Another coup in 1966 led to Salah Jadid becoming the country's de facto leader while Nureddin al-Atassi assumed the presidency. In 1970, Jadid and al-Atassi were overthrown by Hafez al-Assad in the Corrective Revolution. The next year, Assad became president after winning sham elections.

The 1966 Syrian coup d'état (also known as the 23 February Movement) refers to events between 21 and 23 February during which the government of the Syrian Arab Republic was overthrown and replaced. The ruling National Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party were removed from power by a union of the party's Military Committee and the Syrian Regional Branch, under the leadership of Salah Jadid.

The coup was precipitated by a heightening in the power struggle between the party's old guard, represented by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and Munif al-Razzaz, and the radical leftist factions adhering to a Neo-Ba'athist position. On 21 February, supporters of the old guard in the army ordered the transfer of their rivals. Two days later, the Military Committee, backing the radical leftist factions, launched a coup that involved violent fighting in Aleppo, Damascus, Deir ez-Zor, and Latakia. As a result of the coup, the party's historical founders fled the country and spent the rest of their lives in exile.

Corrective Movement (Arabic: الحركة التصحيحية, romanized: al-Ḥarakah at-Taṣḥīḥīyya), also known as the Corrective Methods, was a revolutionary political, social and economic reformist program, launched by new leader of Ba'athist Syria, Hafez al-Assad, soon after he came to power in so-called Corrective Revolution in 1970. The Corrective Movement program was also compared to Mikhail Gorbachev's future perestroika program. The main policies of the program were a move away from radicalism in changing Syrian society, a move away from the one-party system, increased recruitment of the population to the Ba'ath Party, and a limited degree of economic and political liberalization.

The Corrective Movement program was the new government's reaction to the results of the extremely radical and aggressive policies of its predecessor, Salah Jadid, and was marked by a number of political and economic relaxations and changes (especially in the first decade). Reforms eventually succeeded in eradicating some of the socialist excesses of the radical Ba'athists who preceded him and improved relations with the Sunni Arab merchant class. Program also led to the huge militarization of Syria and constitutional centralization of power in president's hands.

Hafez al-Assad (6 October 1930 – 10 June 2000) was a Syrian politician and military officer who served as the president of Syria from 1971 until his death in 2000. He was previously the prime minister from 1970 to 1971 as well as the regional secretary of the regional command of the Syrian regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and secretary general of the National Command of the Ba'ath Party from 1970 to 2000. Assad was a key participant in the 1963 Syrian coup d'état, which brought the Syrian regional branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party to power in the country, a power that lasted until the fall of the regime in 2024, then led by his son Bashar.

After the 1963 coup, the new leadership appointed Assad as the commander of the Syrian Air Force. In February 1966 Assad participated in a second coup, which toppled the traditional leaders of the Ba'ath Party. Assad was appointed defence minister by the new government. Four years later Assad initiated a third coup, which ousted Marxist regime of Salah Jadid, and appointed himself as leader of Syria. Assad imposed various changes to the Ba'athist foreign policy after seizing power, such as abandoning Salah Jadid's policy of exporting "socialist revolution" and strengthening Syria's foreign relations with countries that his predecessor had deemed "reactionary". Assad made an alliance with the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War in return for support against Israel, while keeping ties with many Western European & Gulf Arabian countries. While he officially kept the pan-Arab concept of unifying the Arab world into one “Arab nation” as he termed it, such as being part of the Federation of Arab Republics, he sought to paint Syria as the defender of the Palestinians against Israel.

The Second Syrian Republic, officially the Syrian Republic from 1950 to 1958 and the Syrian Arab Republic from 1961 to 1963, succeeded the First Syrian Republic that had become de facto independent in April 1946 from the French Mandate. The Second Republic was founded on the Syrian Constitution of 1950, which was suspended from 1950 to 1954 under Adib Shishakli's strongmanship, and later when Syria joined with the Republic of Egypt in forming the United Arab Republic in 1958. The Second Republic resumed when Syria withdrew from the union in 1961. In 1963, the Syrian Ba'athist Party came to power in a bloodless military coup, which laid the foundations for the political structure in Ba'athist Syria.

The green, white, black and red flag is the first flag of the Syrian Arab Republic and with the shortest usage, that being from 1961 to 1963. It was also the flag of the Syrian opposition during the Syrian civil war, and became the official flag of Syria anew in 2025.