Ba'ath Party - Founding and Early Years

Founding and Early Years

The Ba'ath Party was founded in 7 April 1947 by Michel Aflaq (a Christian), Salah al-Din al-Bitar (a Sunni muslim) and Zaki al-Arsuzi (an Alawite). It was a merger of the Arab Ba'ath, founded and led by al-Arsuzi, and the Arab Ba'ath Movement, led by Aflaq and al-Bitar. The party initially worked as a vehicle for the national liberation movement against French rule of Syria and Lebanon. The Ba'ath Party established itself as a critic of what they considered to be the ideological inefficiencies of old Syrian nationalism.

Pan-Arabism became popular among Arabs after World War II. Aflaq, the father of ba'athist ideology and a Christian, drew heavily from Islam and its values. For example, he wrote that the time of Muhammed represented the ideal Arab community, and claimed the Arabs had "fallen" under the rule of the Ottomans and the Europeans. The name Ba'ath and the party's programme called for Arab restoration through modernisation. The most important influence which Alfaq and al-Bitar brought back from Europe was socialism, albeit a unique socialism with Arab characteristics.

The party was formally established at its founding congress under the name Arab Ba'ath Party. According to the congress, the party was "nationalist, populist, socialist, and revolutionary" and believed in the "unity and freedom of the Arab nation within its homeland". The party opposed the theory of class conflict, but supported the nationalisation of major industries, the unionisation of workers, land reform, and supported private inheritance and private property rights to some degree.

At first the party had about a hundred members, but that increased to 4,500 by the early 1950s. The majority of party members were either teachers or students. The Ba'ath Party merged with the Arab Socialist Party (ASP), led by Akram al-Hawrani, to establish the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party in Lebanon following Adib Shishakli's rise to power. The merger gave the ba'ath movement its first peasant constituency; the ASP's stronghold was Hama.

Most ASP members did not adhere to the merger and remained, according to George Alan, "passionately loyal to Hawrani's person". The merger was so weak that the ASP's original infrastructure remained intact. However, with the rise of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt and Arab nationalism, the Ba'ath Party grew rapidly. In 1955, the party decided to support Nasser and his pan-Arab policies.