sales and the dispatch of Soviet military missions. The honeymoon continued in subsequent years as relations between nearly all the Arab governments (except for the doomed regime of Prime Minister Nury al-Said in nearby Iraq) and the West gradually deteriorated.

Nevertheless, Khaled Bagdash remained in exile in Eastern Europe from 1958 until 1966. Although the Baath (Arab Socialist Resurrection) Party carried out a revolution in Syria in 1963, the local Communists got little satisfaction from it-partly because the Baath profoundly distrusted the Communists and partly because the Iraqi wing of the Baath Party had, during its nine months of power in 1963, ruthlessly crushed the Communists and thus made the latter suspicious of all Baathists. Only in February 1966, when a conspiracy of Baathist officers belonging mostly to the minority Alawite sect overthrew President Amin al-Hafez and the Baathist old guard under Premier Salah al-Bitar, did the Syrian Communists obtain the political freedom that they have enjoyed ever since. (In no other Arab country, it should be underscored, have the local Communists operated for so long a period essentially free of political restraints.)

Under the neo-Baathist regime of 1966, the Communists also won their first cabinet post. The decision to allot the Communists this post, however, was clearly connected with an intensification of ties between Damascus and Moscow. In April 1966, Syrian Premier Youssef Zaouyyen visited Moscow and returned with a Soviet commitment to assist in construction of the long-delayed Euphrates Dam, which was of crucial importance to Syria's water- and hydro-power-hungry agricultural economy, by providing an initial loan of $150 million and Soviet technical experts.

After Hafez al-Assad, Minister of Defense, launched his "corrective movement" and took over the presidency in November 1970 in the wake of Syria's unsuccessful military intervention in support of the Palestine guerrillas' civil war against King Hussein of Jordan, the Communists acquired an additional post in his reshuffled cabinet and eight seats in the 173-seat People's Council (parliament). The two Communist ministers were Youssef Faisal, a party Politburo member, who was named Minister of State, and Omar Sebai, a member of the party's Central Committee, who took over the key portfolio of Minister of Communications.

In May 1971, Assad laid the groundwork for a "National Progressive Front," in which the Com

munists would have an assured if subordinate role, by setting up a 13-man preparatory committee to plan for its formation. Just prior to conducting a referendum which confirmed him in the presidency in March 1971, he went so far as to advocate eventual transformation of such a front into a single political party," but the Communists rejected this idea. Communist sources explained to this writer at the time that they feared that such a move would result in the Syrian party's formal dissolution (as in Egypt and the Sudan) and its ultimate disappearance.

The close identification of the Syrian Communists with Moscow's line, however, rendered their domestic position tenuous, although the 1967 Arab-Israeli war had not led to the kind of acute or dramatic problems between Damascus and Moscow that it had generated between Cairo and Moscow. Signs of an emerging détente between the USSR and the United States produced even greater disquiet in Syria than in Egypt. This concern was reflected in the refusal of Syria's neo-Baathist regime to go along with Nasser in endorsing US Secretary of State Rogers' Arab-Israeli peace initiative in 1970 (which also had Moscow's blessing). Moreover, President Assad declared on several occasions that he did not accept UN Resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, as the basis for a Middle East political settlement, although he added that he supported Egypt's right to use every means of recovering its lost territory." Following Assad's visit to Moscow in February 1971, Soviet commentators claimed that Syria had withdrawn its opposition to Resolution 242, but this shift was not clear from Assad's own statements for another year.

25

That the Syrian Communists were beginning to feel the strain of adapting to a Soviet policy line favoring a peaceful political settlement of the ArabIsraeli conflict and recognition of Israel's right to exist was evident in Bagdash's speech at the 24th CPSU Congress in April 1971. He deemed it necessary to reassure his colleagues:

The interests of the USSR are inseparable from those of the world Communist movement and of all peoples. There are no contradictions between their genuine

23 One-party rule had never worked in Syria, and it also bore the stigma of the brief union with Egypt, when Cairo made some efforts to establish the Egyptian ASU in Syria. Assad seems to have broached the idea only once and then dropped it.

24 E.g., Assad statement on March 8, 1971, the anniversary of the Baathist revolution, broadcast by Damascus Radio.

25 Cf. Assad speech of March 8, 1972, broadcast by Damascus Radio.

state, the USSR. That, indeed, is the objective foundation of true internationalism, and we are confident that harmony and identity of genuine patriotic and international interests is fully possible."

Nor was this the sole issue upon which the Syrian Communists found themselves out of step with the Baathist regime. They, in concert with Moscow, only lukewarmly "supported" the tripartite Arab federation of Egypt, Syria, and Libya, formally established in September 1971." (The Russians received this event with something less than enthusiasm because they disliked the visceral anti-communism of Libya's "strong man," Muammar al-Qaddafi.) With respect to the Soviet-Egyptian friendship treaty, however, the Syrian Communists waxed more effusive, calling it a "serious blow" to the United States and Israel "despite the fact that Assad refused to sign a similar pact with Moscow.

Sadat's expulsion of Soviet advisers from Egypt in July 1972 further intensified the friction. Bagdash conveyed his condemnation of the Egyptian action to the Syrian cabinet and warned the Assad government against taking any similar steps, threatening to withdraw the two Communist members from the cabinet and the party from the National Front if Soviet advisers in Syria were asked to depart." (By this juncture, Soviet experts were involved in nearly 50 industrial and agricultural projects in Syria-indeed, some 1,000 were working on the Euphrates Dam project alone. In addition, several hundred Soviet military advisers were busy training the Syrian armed forces.) Although unappreciative of the Communist pressure, Assad soon gave Bagdash public reassurance. In an interview with a Beirut newspaper, he asserted that Syria still needed the Soviet experts."

The expulsion of Soviet advisers from Egypt also brought to a head a simmering conflict within the Syrian Communist Party itself. According to available information, a split in the Central Committee had developed over the political platform submitted to the party's Third Congress in December 1971, and an anti-Bagdash, anti-Moscow faction headed by Daniel Nehme, one of Bagdash's old colleagues, had

26 World Marxist Review (London), June 1971.

27 Verbal statements by Syrian Communist leaders and their

Lebanese supporters.

28 TASS, June 3, 1971.

29 Author's personal conversation with a Syrian cabinet minister.

30 Al-Anwar (Beirut), Aug. 5, 1972.

Khaled Bagdash, Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Syrian Communist Party.

-Camera Press via Pictorial Parade.

In light of the Soviet setback in Egypt, Moscow evidently concluded that it would be wise to try to reconcile the factions for the time being, lest any internecine quarreling within the Syrian party jeopardize the Soviet position in Syria. Toward the end of July 1972, the Russians succeeded in getting Bagdash and his opponents to send a seven-man delegation from both factions to Moscow. The proMoscow, pro-Bagdash members included not only Bagdash himself but also Mourad Malek and Minister of State Youssef Faisal; the supporters of the antiMoscow rebels were Zaher Abdel Samed, Riad Turk, and Wassef Faisal (all members of the party's Central Committee and Politburo). These individuals then engaged in a "dialogue" under the auspices of the CPSU.

Under strong Soviet pressure, the two factions agreed to cool their dispute for the moment. Bagdash withdrew a statement he had made in April 1972 criticizing the dissidents, and the two factions consented to dissolve all the committees that each had formed separately since April 1972. In addition, a four-member committee was set up to study the

causes of the schism. Commenting subsequently on the meetings, Riad Turk acknowledged the "valuable contribution" of the Russians but averred: "We refuse the claim that our Soviet comrades know better about our country's conditions than we do." "

From that time until after the October 1973 war, the party kept its internal split carefully under wraps. Its actions, however, did not by any means eliminate the sources of friction between the Soviet and Syrian governments. For example, the USSR's reluctance to supply offensive, as opposed to defensive, weapons to Syria did not sit well with Damascus. Indeed, it is now clear that the Assad government interpreted the Soviet criticism of the Syrian Communist program in June 1972 as an implied warning that the USSR would refuse, as it had in the case of Egypt, to furnish such weapons under existing circumstances, and the Syrians strongly resented what they regarded as insufficient support from Moscow.

The Syrian authorities were also irritated because Moscow failed to live up to its promise to send either President Nikolai Podgorny or Premier Aleksei Kosygin to take part in the ceremonies marking completion of the first stage of the Euphrates Dam project in July 1973. Instead, it dispatched CPSU Poliburo member Andrei Kirilenko, an individual several notches down on the Soviet leadership ladder. This action rankled all the more in Damascus because Kosygin had visited Iraq in April 1972 to help open the North Rumaila oilfield a project which the USSR had assisted-and Podgorny had presided at ceremonies in Egypt in December 1971 to inaugurate the power stations of the Aswan High Dam.

Indeed, throughout the spring and summer of 1973 a period when Assad, probably without Soviet knowledge, evidently began war preparations in concert with Sadat-there was underlying tension between Moscow and Damascus. It worsened visibly shortly before the outbreak of the October war, although it seems evident today that Western observers at the time exaggerated the degree to which this was true.

The specific occurrence that precipitated the flareup of Syrian anger was Syria's loss of 13 MIG-19 and MIG-21 fighters in a dogfight with Israeli planes near Latakia, in the wake of an Israeli ambush. This vivid demonstration of Israeli air superiority rubbed raw nerves in Damascus, for Assad and his

military commander-in-chief, Lieutenant-General Mustapha Tlass, had apparently been trying to get Moscow to provide Syria with the MIG-23 and train Syrian pilots on it. (Moscow eventually agreed to do so, but not until after the October war.) Soon after the air battle, the Syrian government clamped restrictions on the Soviet advisers in Syria, requiring them to have special travel permits for their every move.

To a certain extent, this step probably resulted from a desire on the part of the Syrian government, then almost ready to join with Sadat in undertaking a war against Israel, to keep the Russians in the dark about its plans, but genuine disgruntlement with the Russians was also a factor. For instance, in a stormy interview with Soviet Ambassador Nuritdin Mukhitdinov, Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel Halim Khaddam accused the Soviet experts of behaving like a "state within a state"the same charge that Egypt had leveled at its Soviet experts before it ordered their departure. It appears that Khaddam was especially unhappy at the refusal of Soviet missile officers to release to Syrian officers the fuses for the latest SAM anti-aircraft missiles installed around naval facilities that both the Syrians and Russians used at the ports of Latakia and Tartous.

In spite of Khaddam's strong words, however, the Syrians stopped there and did not toss the Russians out of the country. In fact, Soviet nationals and property suffered some losses when the October war broke out shortly thereafter. It is not clear whether Soviet missile crews manned the defenses of Latakia, Tartous, Homs, and other Syrian cities, all of which endured severe punishment in the war, but the Soviet cultural center in Damascus did take a direct hit on October 9 during the only Israeli air raid on the city, with at least one Soviet member of the staff killed and others wounded." Moreover, a Soviet merchant ship, the Ilya Mechnikov, which had arrived at Tartous on October 5 just before the war began, was sunk in a bombardment by Israeli missile boats on October 12.

After the October war, there were further complications in Syrian-Soviet relations, accompanied by a revival of feuding within the Syrian Communist Party. After the Bagdash faction endorsed UN Resolution 338, which called for a Middle East

cease-fire and implementation of UN Resolution 242," the anti-Moscow, anti-Bagdash faction in December 1973 convened what it called the "Fourth Party Congress of the Syrian Communist Party." This congress elected its own Central Committee and named Riad Turk "First Secretary"-thus directly challenging Bagdash. Indeed, the declaration issued by the congress was tantamount to an ouster of Bagdash and his followers."

As a result of these developments, Syria now has two separate Communist parties. Bagdash and his group have continued to support the Soviet line and to follow Kremlin instructions. On Israel and Palestine, for example, Bagdash-along with the Russians has come around to favor separate Arab and Jewish states. As he puts it, he refuses to advocate the "destruction" of Israel since this implies genocide against the Jews as a people. Like Moscow, he took a highly skeptical attitude toward Secretary of State Kissinger's efforts to negotiate the SyrianIsraeli disengagement agreement (concluded in May 1974 after tough bargaining). He maintained, as have numerous Soviet commentators, that peace in the Middle East depends on both big powers, not just one, and that no settlement of the situation can be accomplished without the full participation of the USSR in a reconvened peace conference in Geneva.

With regard to the nature of Arab communism, Bagdash-again in concert with the Russians—holds that "differing conditions" throughout the Arab world require separate Arab Communist parties. To arguments that a united Arab Communist party would help pave the way for overall Arab unity, he replies that the formation of such a party is impossible at present: current conditions do not provide the right climate, and past Arab experiments with "organic unity" for instance, the Egypt-Syria union of 1958-61, the abortive efforts to establish a Maghreb union of North African states and parties, and the unsuccessful attempts to unite North and South Yemen have shown that Arab unity cannot be achieved without preconditions."

The anti-Bagdash faction, in contrast, has adopted an independent posture. Like the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), it holds that the eradication of the state of Israel does not imply the wiping out of the Jewish people. It declares:

34 TASS report, Oct. 12, 1973, in USSR and Third World, Vol. 3, No. 7, p. 485.

35 The Arab World Weekly, Jan. 12, 1974, p. 13. 36 Ibid., pp. 13-14. 37 Ibid., p. 14.

The Soviets fought the Nazis in World War II, but they were not fighting to destroy the German people. We are fighting Zionism, not Jews."8

Because of its dedication to the elimination of the state of Israel, however, it was no more enthusiastic than Bagdash and his supporters about Secretary of State Kissinger's endeavors to bring about a disengagement agreement between Syria and Israel, and it has seemed equally prepared to support the contention that peace cannot be achieved in the Middle East without the involvement of the Soviet Union as well as the United States, and that a Middle East settlement cannot be effected without reopening the Geneva peace conference with the USSR as a full participant. With regard to Arab communism, it advocates the establishment of a single Communist Party for the entire Arab world. Like the ideal that the Baath Party espouses (although the Baathists are actually split into quarreling proSyrian and pro-Iraqi factions at the moment), such a party would be divided into "regional" branches but have a central, pan-Arab "Command." The fact that Arab Communists exist and operate within a number of Arab countries, the anti-Bagdash group maintains, is not sufficient justification for keeping separate Communist parties. To the argument that present circumstances do not afford the necessary preconditions for the formation of a unified party, the faction responds in idealistic fashion:

It is not possible to put conditions on the form of Arab unity. If so, why did we support the federation of Egypt, Syria, and Libya without preconditions? 39

It is important to note, however, that this split in the Communist Party has not thus far affected the standing of the Communist members of the government or the nature of Communist representation in the National Progressive Front. Moreover, Bagdash's continued enjoyment of the confidence of the Iraqi leadership was evidenced in March 1975 when he went to Baghdad, with apparent official approval, to make an attempt at mediation after Iraqi-Syrian relations had deteriorated because of ideological quarrels between the rival Baathist factions in Damascus and Baghdad and because of a dispute over the sharing of the waters of the Euphrates River.

38 lbid.

39 Interview with a Lebanese editor close to the Syrian Communist Party.

In these regards, then, the Bagdash faction remains dominant. Probably the explanation of its continued status lies in the undertakings of the USSR since the October 1973 war to ameliorate Soviet relations with the Assad government.

The Case of Iraq

As in Syria, the domestic political fortunes of the Communists in Iraq have risen markedly in recent years. The current Baathist regime of President Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr and Vice-President Saddam Hussein Takriti, who became the regime's real "strong man" in 1971, has coupled an external policy of cultivating closer relations with the Soviet Union with an internal policy of legalizing the Moscow-oriented Iraqi Communist Party. It has, in fact, made the Communists a junior partner of the ruling Baath Socialist Party in a "National Progressive Front" coalition formed in 1973.

Prior to 1971, the Iraqi Communists had experienced the same vicissitudes as their counterparts in the rest of the Arab world. Outlawed by the Britishprotected Iraqi monarchy in 1934, they remained suppressed until the advent of the left-nationalist regime of Abdul Karim Kassem, which overthrew the monarchy and proclaimed a republic in 1958, bringing a shift in policy. During his five-year rule, Kassem launched Iraq on a pro-Soviet course internationally and admitted leftists, including some Communists, to government positions at home. His violent overthrow in 1963, however, was followed by a sharp reaction as the new Baathist regime of Abdel Salem Arif unleashed a ruthless campaign of repression in which some 3,000 Communists were killed and many others imprisoned-an experience the Communists have never forgotten. Repression continued, though on a lesser scale, under the succeeding Baathist regime, which seized power in still another coup in July 1968. During 1968-70, some 35 leading Communists were killed and numerous others jailed in the course of steps taken by the new regime to suppress political opposition.

The turning point came in 1971 when changes in the leadership resulted in the elevation of Saddam Hussein Takriti to the vice-presidency of the Revolutionary Command Council, Iraq's top ruling body. With President Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, the chief of state, serving more as a last remaining link with. the traditional Sunni Muslim chiefs of the army. than as a strong chief executive, Saddam became