Ba'athism in the context of "Syria"

The 1963 Syrian coup d'état, labelled in Ba'athist historiography as the March 8 Revolution (Arabic: ثورة الثامن من آذار), was the seizure of power in Syria by the military committee of the Syrian Regional Branch of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. The planning and the unfolding conspiracy of the Syrian Ba'athist operatives were prompted by the Ba'ath party's seizure of power in Iraq in February 1963.

The coup was planned by the military committee, rather than the Ba'ath Party's civilian leadership, but Michel Aflaq, the leader of the party, consented to the conspiracy. The leading members of the military committee throughout the planning process and in the immediate aftermath of taking power were Muhammad Umran, Salah Jadid and Hafez al-Assad, who belonged to the minority Alawite community. The committee enlisted the support of two Nasserists, Rashid al-Qutayni and Muhammad al-Sufi, and the independent Ziad al-Hariri. The coup was originally planned for 7 March, but was postponed one day after the government discovered where the conspirators were planning to assemble. After the coup, the Ba'athist Military committee initiated a series of purges that altered the structure of the Syrian armed forces by replacing 90% of its officer corps with Alawites.

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region (Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي – قطر سوريا Ḥizb al-Ba'th al-'Arabī al-Ishtirākī – Quṭr Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Regional Branch (Arabic: الفرع القطري السوري), was a neo-Ba'athist organisation founded on 7 April 1947 by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar and followers of Zaki al-Arsuzi. The party ruled Syria from the 1963 coup d'état, which brought the Ba'athists to power, until 8 December 2024, when Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus in the face of a rebel offensive during the Syrian civil war. It was formally disbanded in January 2025.

The party was founded on 7 April 1947 as the Arab Ba'ath Party through the merger of the Arab Ba'ath Movement led by Michel ʿAflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar and the Arab Ba'ath, led by Zaki al-Arsuzi. The party espoused Ba'athism, an ideology mixing Arab nationalist, pan-Arab, Arab socialist, and anti-imperialist interests. Ba'athism calls for the unification of the Arab world into a single state. It quickly established branches in other Arab countries, although it would only hold power in Syria and in Iraq. Following their ascent to power in 1963, neo-Ba'athist officers proceeded to stamp out the traditional civilian elites in order to construct a military dictatorship operating on totalitarianlines; wherein all state agencies, party organisations, public institutions, civil entities, media and health infrastructure were tightly dominated by the military establishment and the Mukhabarat (intelligence services).

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.

This is a list of non-communist states that self-identify as socialist states. That means this list includes African socialist states, Arab socialist states, Ba'athist states, and other unique socialist state formations.

Nasserism (Arabic: التَّيَّار النَّاصِرِيّ, romanized: at-Tayyār an-Nāṣiriyy) is an Arab nationalist and Arab socialist political ideology based on the thinking of Gamal Abdel Nasser, one of the two principal leaders of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and Egypt's second president. Spanning the domestic and international spheres, it combines elements of Arab socialism, republicanism, secularism, nationalism, anti-imperialism, developing world solidarity, Pan-Arabism, and international non-alignment. According to Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Nasserism symbolised "the direction of liberation, socialist transformation, the people’s control of their own resources, and the democracy of the peoples working forces."

Many other Arab countries have adopted Nasserist forms of government during the 20th century, most being formed during the 1960s, including Algeria under the FLN and the Libyan Arab Republic under Muammar Gaddafi. The Nasserist ideology is also similar in theory to the Ba'athist ideology which was also notably practiced under Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist Iraq (1968–2003) and under the Assad family's Ba'athist Syria (1963–2024).

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي Ḥizb al-Baʿth al-ʿArabī al-Ishtirākī [ˈħɪzb alˈbaʕθ alˈʕarabiː alɪʃtɪˈraːkiː]), also known simply as the Baʽth Party (Arabic: حزب البعث, lit. 'resurrection party'), was a political party founded in Syria by Michel Aflaq, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and associates of Zaki al-Arsuzi. The party espoused Ba'athism, which is an ideology mixing Arab nationalist, pan-Arab, Arab socialist, and anti-imperialist interests. Ba'athism calls for the unification of the Arab world into a single state. Its motto, "Unity, Freedom, Socialism", refers to Arab unity and freedom from non-Arab control and interference as well as supporting socialism.

The party was founded by the merger of the Arab Ba'ath Movement, led by Aflaq and al-Bitar, and the Arab Ba'ath, led by al-ʾArsūzī, on 7 April 1947 as the Arab Ba'ath Party. The party quickly established branches in other Arab countries - although it would only hold power in Iraq and Syria. In 1953, the Arab Ba'ath Party merged with the Arab Socialist Movement, led by Akram al-Hourani, to form the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. The newly formed party was a relative success, and it became the second-largest party in the Syrian parliament in the 1954 election. This, coupled with the increasing strength of the Syrian Communist Party, led to the establishment of the United Arab Republic (UAR), a union of Egypt and Syria, in 1958. The UAR would prove unsuccessful, and was dissolved following the 1961 Syrian coup d'état.

Michel Aflaq (Arabic: ميشيل عفلق, romanized: Mīšīl ʿAflaq‎, Arabic pronunciation: [miˈʃel ˈʕaflaq]; 9 January 1910 – 23 June 1989) was a Syrian philosopher, sociologist and Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement; he is considered by several Ba'athists to be the principal founder of Ba'athist thought. Aflaq published various books during his lifetime, such as The Road to Renaissance (1940), The Battle for One Destiny (1958) and The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution (1975).

Born into a middle-class family in Damascus, Syria, he studied at the Sorbonne, where he met his future political companion Salah al-Din al-Bitar. Aflaq returned to Syria (at that time part of the French-ruled Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon) in 1932, beginning his political career in communist politics. He became a communist activist, but broke his ties with the communist movement when the Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party supported colonial policies through the Popular Front under the French Mandate of Syria. In 1940, Aflaq and al-Bitar established the Arab Ihya Movement (later renaming itself the Arab Ba'ath Movement, taking the name from Zaki al-Arsuzi's group by the same name). The movement proved successful, and in 1947 the Arab Ba'ath Movement merged with al-Arsuzi's Arab Ba'ath organisation to establish the Arab Ba'ath Party. Aflaq was elected to the party's executive committee and was elected "'Amid" (meaning the party's leader).