Salah Jadid (; 1926 – 19 August 1993) was a Syrian military officer and politician who served as the de facto leader of Syria from 1966 to 1970. The leader of the far-left bloc of the Syrian Ba'ath Party, he was ousted in 1970 by Hafez al-Assad's Corrective Revolution.
Jadid came to power after a coup in 1966. Although he did not rule directly, preferring to remain in the shadows, he wielded all real power in Syria through his allies in key positions of power. Salah Jadid had an open passion for Qutriyun (Regionalist Ba'athism), communism and the Soviet model of government: In just four years in power, he built a totalitarian neo-Ba’athist regime, sometimes called "neo-Marxist". His imposition of radical socialist ideology, brutal repression, and anti-religious policies alienated almost all sectors of Syrian society. His foreign policy alienated most of Syria's potential allies in the Arab world and contributed to the start of the Six-Day War. Salah Jadid was overthrown by his former colleague Hafez al-Assad in 1970 in the so-called "Corrective Revolution".
Early life Jadid was born in 1926 in the village of Dweir Baabda, near the coastal city of Jableh, to an Alawite family of the Haddadin tribe. Another report states his birth year as 1924. He studied at the Homs Military Academy, and entered the Syrian Army in 1946. His brothers, Lieutenant Ghassan and Fouad, volunteered to fight in Palestine. There, Ghassan fought in the Battle of Al-Zira'a (a Jewish settlement) in February 1948, as well as the Battle of Mishmar HaEmek. Fouad had preceded Ghassan to Palestine, where he joined Adib Shishakli's detachment.
Jadid was originally a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), but later became a member of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, led by Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar, in the 1950s through an associate of Akram al-Hawrani. Even so, Jadid remained close to the SSNP; his brother, Ghassan, was one of its most prominent members in Syria. He changed allegiance again in the 1950s, when he became a member of the Arab Nationalist Movement, a party supporting Gamal Abdel Nasser's ideological beliefs. Jadid supported Syria's ascension into the United Arab Republic (UAR), a union republic consisting of Egypt and Syria.
Pre-Ba'athist career
UAR period
During the UAR-era, Jadid was stationed in Cairo, Egypt. Jadid established the Military Committee alongside other Ba'athists in 1959. The chief aim of the Military Committee was to protect the UAR's existence. In the beginning there were only four members of the Military Committee, the others were Hafez al-Assad, Abd al-Karim al-Jundi and Muhammad Umran. The Military Committee also tried to save the Syrian Ba'ath movement from annihilation. Committee members were among those who blamed Aflaq for the Ba'ath Party's failing during the UAR years. The party's Third National Congress in 1959 supported Aflaq's decision to dissolve the party, but a 1960 National Congress, in which Jadid was a delegate representing the then-unknown Military Committee, reversed the decision and called for the Ba'ath Party's reestablishment. The Congress also decided to improve relations with Nasser by democratising the UAR from within. There was also a faction within the Ba’ath party (led by Akram al-Hawrani) that called for the separation of Syria from Egypt.
Post-UAR period The Military Committee did not succeed in its aims, and in September 1961 the UAR was dissolved after the coup d'etat. President Nazim al-Qudsi, who led the first post-UAR government, persecuted Jadid and the others for their Nasserite loyalties, and all of them were forced to retire from the Syrian Army. Following the 1961 coup that ended the UAR, the Committee started planning its own coup against the secessionist government of al-Qudsi.Seale, 1990, p. 80.
Ba'athist coup d'etat
In March 1963, Ba'athist Military Committee staged a coup against the democratically elected president Nazim al-Qudsi, beginning 62 years of uninterrupted totalitarian Ba'athist rule in Syria. In that coup, Jadid bicycled into the city that morning, and captured the Bureau of Officers' Affairs, which later became his personal fiefdom. The Ba'athist Military Committee (which had seized power) declared martial law and formed the National Council for the Revolutionary Command (NCRC) to rule the Syria, which included Jadid as well as non-Ba'athists (such as the Nasserists). However, within the NCRC, the Military Committee, which consisted only of Ba'athists, still remained and held all the real power in the country (which included Jadid, along with Hafez al-Assad, Abdul-Karim Jundi and Ahmad Miration), which became known as the "junta within the junta". Soon, in the same 1963, Jadid was promoted from Lieutenant colonel to Major general and named Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Syria.
Ba'athist consolidation of power Ba'athists took control over all aspects country's of citizen's life: politics, education, culture, religion and surveilled all aspects of civil society through its powerful Mukhabarat (secret police). Ba'athist military officers began initiating purges across Syria as part of the imposition of their ideological programme. Politicians of the Second Syrian Republic who had supported the separation from United Arab Republic (UAR) were purged and liquidated by the Ba'athists: this was in addition to purging of the Syrian military and its subordination to the Ba'ath party. Politicians, military officers and civilians who supported Syria's secession from UAR were also stripped of their social and legal rights, thereby enabling the Ba'athist regime to dismantle the entire political class of the Second Syrian Republic and eliminate its institutions. The Syrian Arab Armed forces and secret police were integrated with the Ba'ath party apparatus; after the purging of traditional civilian and military elites by the new regime. Following the seizure of power in 1963 by the Ba'athist military committee, the Syrian regional branch of the Ba'ath party experienced severe factionalism and splintering, leading to a succession of governments and new constitutions. The influence and power of neo-Ba'athists grew: Neo-Ba'athism was a more radical version of Ba'athism, and Salah Jadid was one of the main Neo-Ba'athists in Syria. Accordint to the Ben-Tzur's “The Neo-Ba’th Party in Syria” journal, The neo-Ba'athist military officers, through their increased political and military influence, began initiating purges across Syrian state political structures and rapidly consolidated control over various organs of the Syrian Ba'ath party. All decisions about the relations between the military and civilian sectors (as well as the fact that a new set of rules had been established for the party organization in the armed forces), were classified as top secret.
Jadid's rising influence
In the first two years each member of the Military Committee gathered around him a group of supporters from among the officers, using personal ties and military authority. General Salah Jadid, the Chief of Staff, had the biggest opportunities, and later came to represent the most radical army group. By September 1965, 40 percent of the delegates were military officers, and the full control over the civilian organization passed into the hands of the strongman from the Military Committee, Jadid, who proceeded to increase its efficiency by military methods. The army's connection with the Ba'ath Party increased greatly, where ideas of military discipline and other aspects of the military were introduced.
Muslim Brotherhood riot
In April 1964, a Muslim Brotherhood uprising broke out in Hama against the ruling Ba'ath Party. The decision to suppress the Hama riot led to a schism in the Military Committee between Muhammad Umran and Jadid. Umran opposed force, instead wanting the Ba'ath Party to create a coalition with other pan-Arab forces. Jadid desired a strong one-party state, similar to those in the communist countries of Europe, also viewing it as a necessary means to protect Ba'athist power against "class enemies."Seale, 1990, pp. 94–95. The uprising was eventually suppressed by military force, and the following month the NCRC implemented a provisional constitution providing for a National Council of the Revolution (NCR), a cabinet, a presidential council, and an appointed legislature composed of "people's organizations."
Seizure of power 1966 Coup
Salah Jadid came to power after a military coup in 1966, in which he was a leading figure. The coup was due to strong ideological differences between the Military Committee and the National Command of the Ba'ath Party, whose unity had almost collapsed shortly after the seizure of power in 1963. A new coup overthrew the National Command and ousted the Aflaqites from power (and sent Michel Aflaq into exile). The new regime entrenched itself with the help of massive military, economic, and political aid from the Soviet Union, while exploiting differences within the communist camp and in the Soviet leadership itself. The instigators of the coup are also sometimes described as a military junta. 1966 coup marked the total ideological transformation of the Ba'ath party's Syrian regional branch into a militarist "neo-Ba'athist" organization which became independent of the National Command of the original Ba'ath party.
Rift of the Ba'athism Jadid's coup also caused the deepest rift in the history of the Ba'ath movement: when the National Command was toppled, the Iraqi Regional Branch of the Ba'ath party remained supportive of what it viewed as the "legitimate leadership" of Michel Aflaq. When the Iraqi Ba'ath party gained power in 1968 in the 17 July Revolution no attempts were made at a merger, to achieve their supposed goal of Arab unity, or reconciliation with the Syrian Ba'ath. After the establishment of Ba'ath rule in Iraq, many members of the Syrian-dominated Ba'ath movement defected to its Iraqi-counterpart, few if any Iraqi-loyal Ba'athists attempted to change its allegiance to Damascus. From the beginning, the neo-Ba'athist regime in Damascus launched an overwhelmingly anti-Iraqi Ba'athist propaganda campaign, to which their counterparts in Baghdad responded. The Syrian Ba'ath party denounced Aflaq as a "thief" and claimed that he had stolen the Ba'athist ideology from Zaki al-Arsuzi and proclaimed it as his own. The Iraqi Regional Branch, however, still proclaimed Aflaq as the founder of Ba'athism. Bitar was sentenced to death "in absentia" in 1969, and Aflaq was condemned to death in absentia in 1971. The Syrian Regional Branch also erected a statue of Arsuzi soon after the 1966 coup. Nevertheless, the majority of Ba'athists outside Syria continued to view Aflaq, not Arsuzi, as the principal founder of Ba'athism.
Leadership of Syria Jadid's regime was the most radical in Syrian history. Whilst Jadid remained away from public view, as the second secretary of the Ba'ath Party, men allied to him filled the top posts in state and army: Nureddin al-Atassi, as party chairman, state president and later prime minister; Yusuf Zuayyin, as prime minister; Ibrahim Makhous as foreign minister, Hafez al-Assad as defense minister; Abd al-Karim al-Jundi, as security chief. A number of ex-army officers now also held key positions; most of them belonged to a clandestine group called "Military Convention" which undermined the position of civil authority within the Ba'ath party. Among those officers were Hafez al-Assad, Ahmad al-Suwaydani, Mustafa Tlass and Salah Jadid himself. The Syrian Communist Party played a very important role in Jadid's government, with some communists holding political posts, and Jadid established close and strong ties with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.