List of Ba'athist movements

The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي Hizb Al-Ba'ath Al-'Arabi Al-Ishtiraki) was a political party mixing Arab nationalist and Arab socialist interests, opposed to imperialism, and calling for the renaissance or resurrection and unification of the Arab world into a single state. Ba'ath is also spelled Ba'th or Baath and means "rebirth," "resurrection," "restoration," or "renaissance" (reddyah). Its motto — "Unity, Liberty, Socialism" (wahda, hurriya, ishtirakiya) — refers to Arab unity, and freedom from non-Arab control and interference. Its ideology of Arab socialism is notably different in origins and practice from classical Marxism and is similar in outlook to 'third-worldism'.

The party was founded in 1940 by the Syrian intellectuals Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar. It has established branches in different Arab countries, although it has only ever held power in Syria and Iraq. In Syria it has had a monopoly on political power since the party's 1963 coup. Ba'athists also seized power in Iraq in 1963, but were deposed some months later. They returned to power in a 1968 coup and remained the sole party of government until the 2003 Iraq invasion. Since the invasion, the party has been banned in Iraq.

In 1966, a coup d'état by the military against the historical leadership of Aflaq and Bitar led the Syrian and Iraqi parties to split into rival organizations — the Qotri (or regionalist) Syria-based party and the Qawmi (or nationalist) Iraq-based party. Both retained the Ba'ath name and parallel structures within the Arab world, but hostilities between them grew to the point that the Syrian Ba'ath government became the only Arab government to support Iran (a non-Arabic nation) against Iraq during the First Persian Gulf War.

Major groups

Party	Founded	Dissolved	Founder(s)	Notes
Arab Ba'ath	1940	1947	Zaki al-Arsuzi	The party merged with the Arab Ba'ath Movement to form the Arab Ba'ath Party in 1947.
Arab Ba'ath Movement	1940	1947	Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar	The direct predecessor to the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, it merged with the Arab Ba'ath to form the Arab Ba'ath Party in 1947.
Ba'ath Party	1947	1966		Founded as the Arab Ba'ath Party, it later merged with the Arab Socialist Party in 1952 and renamed itself the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. The party broke into two in 1966, between rival Baghdad and Damascus-based factions.

Regional branches

Ba'ath Party (Iraqi-dominated faction)
Region		Founded	Leader
Algeria	Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party of Algeria[1]	1988	Ahmed Choutri[1]
Bahrain	Nationalist Democratic Assembly[2]	1991	Rasul al-Jishi
Egypt	Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Egypt Region	1991
Iraq	Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Iraq Region[3]	1951[4]	Salah Al-Mukhtar
Jordan	Jordanian Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party[5]	1948[6]/1951[5]	Founded by a group of teachers.[5]
Kuwait	Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Kuwait Region	1955[6]	Faisal al-Sani
Lebanon	Socialist Arab Lebanon Vanguard Party[7]	1966	Abdel Majid Mohamed Tayeb Rafei[7]
Libya	Libyan Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party[8]	1954[6]
Mauritania	National Vanguard Party[9]	1991[10]	Mohamed Ould Abdellahi Ould Eyye[11]
Palestine	Arab Liberation Front	1969	Mahmoud Ismael
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic	Sahrawi Socialist Baath Party	1994	Najim Oumejjoud
Sudan	Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Region of Sudan[12]	1970	Kamal Bolad
Tunisia	Tunisian Ba'ath Movement	1988	Omar Othman Belhadj
Syria	Arab Socialist Ba'ath	1947
Yemen	National Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Yemen Region	1955–1956[6]	Qassam Salam Said
Ba'ath Party (Syrian-dominated faction)
Region		Founded	Leader
Bahrain	Arab Socialist Ba'ath[13]
Iraq	Arab Socialist Ba'ath[13]	1966	Mahmud al-Shaykh Radhi[14]
Jordan	Arab Ba'ath Progressive Party[13]	1993	Fuad Dabbour
Lebanon	Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Lebanon Region[13]	1949[6]	Fayez Shukr
Mauritania	Socialist Democratic Unionist Party	1994	Mahfouz Weld al-Azizi
Palestine	As-Sa'iqa[15]	1966[16]	Farhan Abu Al-Hayja
Sudan	Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Organization of Sudan[12]	1980[12]	at-Tijani Mustafa Yassin[17]
Syria	Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Syria Region[3]	1943[18]	Bashar al-Assad
Tunisia	Party of the Democratic Arab Vanguard		Kheireddine Souabni
Yemen	Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Yemen Region[13]	1951	Mahmoud Abdul-Wahab Abdul-Hamid
South Yemen	People's Vanguard Party (Yemen)	late 1950s

Splinter-groups

Party	Founded	Dissolved	Founder(s)	Notes
Socialist Lebanon	1965	1970	Ahmed Beydoun	The party was merged into the Communist Action Organization in Lebanon in 1970.
Arab Socialist Revolutionary Ba'ath Party	1960	1962/63[19]	Abdullah Rimawi
Arab Revolutionary Workers Party	1966	–	Yasin al-Hafiz	Still active, as of 2011
Democratic Socialist Arab Ba'ath Party	1980	–	Ibrahim Makhous	Is part of the National Democratic Rally and still active in France
Sudanese Ba'ath Party	2002	–	Mohamed Ali Jadin	Was established by a split inside the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party – Country of Sudan, the pro-Iraqi ba'ath branch.

References

1. Farid, Sonia (9 August 2008). "Algerian Baath Party resumes underground activities". ALFnews. Archived from the original on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
2. "Nationalist Democratic Rally Society" [جمعية التجمع القومي الديمقراطي]. Alwasat (in Arabic). 9 August 2008. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
3. Ali, Tariq (2004). Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation of Iraq. Verso. pp. 106–107. ISBN 978-1-84467-512-8.
4. Polk, William Roe (2006). Understanding Iraq: A Whistlestop Tour from Ancient Babylon to Occupied Baghdad. I.B. Tauris. p. 109. ISBN 978-1845111236.
5. Anderson, Betty Singy (2005). Nationalist Voices in Jordan: The Street and the State. University of Texas Press. p. 136. ISBN 978-0292706255.
6. Seale, Patrick (1990). Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East. University of California Press. p. 98. ISBN 978-0520069763.
7. "Political Programme of the Socialist Arab Lebanon Vanguard Party" (in Arabic). Lebanon Knowledge Development Gateway. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
8. Leslie Simmons, Geoffrey (1993). Libya: The Struggle for Survival. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 166. ISBN 9780312089979.
9. Seddon, David; Seddon-Daines, Daniel (2005). A Political and Economic Dictionary of Africa. Taylor & Francis. p. 52. ISBN 978-1857432138.
10. Lane, Jan-Erik; Redissi, Hamadi; Ṣaydāwī, Riyāḍ (2009). Religion and Politics: Islam and Muslim Civilization. Ashgate Publishing. p. 217. ISBN 978-0-7546-7418-4.
11. Europa Publications (2003). Africa South of the Sahara 2004. Routledge. p. 715. ISBN 978-1-85743-183-4.
12. Lain, Donald Ray (1989). Dictionary of the African Left: Parties, Movements and Groups. Dartmouth. pp. 58–60. ISBN 978-1-85521-014-1.
13. Tucker, Spencer; Mary Roberts, Priscilla (2008). The encyclopedia of the Arab–Israeli conflict: a political, social, and military history: A–F. Vol. 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 185. ISBN 978-1-85109-842-2.
14. "Who's Who in the Iraqi Opposition". US Labor Against the War. 9 September 2004. Archived from the original on 10 March 2016. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
15. Talhami, Ghada Hashem (1989). CJ international. Vol. 5–6. Center for Research in Law and Justice. p. 49.
16. Federal Research Division (2004). Syria: A Country Study. Kessinger Publishing. p. 283. ISBN 978-1-4191-5022-7.
17. "Comrade Dr. Kamal Karrar, member of the National Command of the Sudanese Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party" [الرفيق الدكتور كمال كرار عضو القيادة القطرية السودانية.لحزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي] (in Arabic). Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. Archived from the original on 8 October 2011. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
18. Torrey, Gordon H. (1969). "The Ba'th: Ideology and Practice". Middle East Journal. 23 (4). Middle East Journal, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Autumn, 1969): 445–470. JSTOR 4324510.
19. Anderson, Bette Signe (2005). Nationalist Voices in Jordan: The Street and the State. University of Texas Press. p. 203. ISBN 978-0292706255.