Party Leader Under Ba'thist Rule
On 8 March 1963 a coup by supporters of reunification with Egypt, essentially Baathists, Nasserists and the Arab Nationalist Movement put an end to the separatist regime, although in the event reunification never took place. From then until the 1970s, the Communist Party would be repressed to one degree or another.
In 1966, the Syrian Ba'th's secret military committee took power, and implemented a far-left line. Bakdash was allowed to return from Moscow, but forbidden from engaging in public political activity. After Hafiz al-Asad took power in Syria in 1970, he announced his intention of reintroducing political pluralism in the context of popular democracy. This took the form of the National Progressive Front, a coalition of parties who supported the Arab nationalist and socialist orientation of the government and accepted the leadership of the Baath Party. Faced with the choice between joining the front and illegal operation, Bakdash opted to join; Riyad al-Turk would later lead a small radical faction of the party into opposition.
In 1986, a difference of opinion between Bakdash and deputy general secretary Yusuf Faisal led to a split in the party. Faisal was supportive of the new policies of perestroika and glasnost being pursued by Soviet party secretary Mikhail Gorbachev; Bakdash was opposed. Many of the intellectuals in the party left with Faisal, while Bakdash retained the support of the party's considerable Kurdish base.
Khalid Bakdash died in Damascus in 1995 at the age of 83. His widow, Wisal Farha Bakdash, succeeded him as party secretary.
Read more about this topic: Khalid Bakdash
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