From an Intended Socialist Republic to Saddam's Dictatorship (1968 - 1979)

With the 17 July Revolution coup d'état, the Iraqi Socialist Party took power with Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr as the president. The new constitution called for a socialist approach. Even though it was a falsification of history, the Baath Party used TV and radio to call Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and other minorities to see them as 'descendants of the Semitic kingdoms of Mesopotamia', thus as one country. In the aftermath of the First Iraqi-Kurdish War, the Iraqi government and the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Mustafa Barzani signed the Iraqi-Kurdish Autonomy Agreement on 11 March 1970. On 21 May 1970, the Agrarian Reform Act was passed. A maximum of 2,000 dunams of unirrigated land and a maximum of 600 dunams of irrigated land may be privately owned, everything else was nationalised and distributed to farmers. By the mid-1970s, 72% of state land was distributed to around 250,000 farmers. On 4 March 1969, the state-funded General Federation of Iraqi Women (GFIW) was established. New school books were written, films were produced, and cultural festivals initiated such as the Mosul Spring Festival (1969) and Al Wasiti Fine Arts Festival (1972). In 1974, the First Arab Biennale was held in Baghdad. The Baath Party implemented an extensive social program: subsidised food, affordable energy and water supplies, and expansion of the education and health system.

Due to its initially socialist approach, the Baath Party established closed ties to the socialist community, especially China and the Soviet Union. In May 1969, the agreement on Soviet armament supply was signed, on 4 July 1969 the Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement and on 23 July 1969 the protocol of cooperation to jointly develop the North Rumaila Oil Field and canal constructions in south of Iraq. With law No. 61 dated 1 June 1972 the Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC) was nationalised. While the state received USD 600 million in royalties from the IPC in 1968, oil revenues in the mid-1970s amounted to USD 8.5 billion. 

The increase in oil revenues and the enormous enrichment of top officials, was at the same time a turning point. The enthusiasm of the government for the socialist economic and social model waned. Furthermore, the Baath Party's claim to omnipotence led to two fundamental conflicts, one in the north and one in the south. In consultation with the United States and with massive military, economic and financial support from the Iranian Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Barzani declared war against the central government in April 1974, to establish Kurdistan's autonomy by force. At the same time, armed cross-border clashes between Iran and Iraq escalated over Shatt al-Arab. However, Barzani had to capitulate in the summer of 1975, after Shah Pahlavi and Vice President Saddam Hussein signed the Algiers Declaration on 13 June 1975. The agreement settled the territorial disputes along Iran-Iraq border in Shatt al-Arab and Iran's Khuzestan Province. Iraq ceded around half of the border area containing the waterway in Shatt al-Arab in exchange for Iran's cessation of support for the Iraqi Kurdish rebellion.

The majority of Iraq's population was Shia, with main settlement areas south of Baghdad, regions with the lowest government investment. Although represented in almost all organs in the early days of the national movement, by the mid-1970s only 5.7% were represented in higher leadership ranks. Positions in power were mostly filled with Sunni Arabs, and people from Saddam (clan or tribe). Therefore, Shia sought for another political leading authority, which was Muqtada Baqr al-Sadr with his Islamic Dawa Party (hizb al da'wa al islamiyya). In 1974, the first Shia unrest started with a peak in 1977, especially in Najaf and Karbala. The unrest was bloodily oppressed and eight Shia clerics executed. Muqtada Baqr Al Sadr was not among them, but was later executed by Saddam on 13 April 1980, five months before the Iran-Iraq War.

Saddam used the Shiite uprising to change his leadership team. He declared the Baath Party to be the leading force not only in the state but in society, which should be thoroughly baathified. Parties were banned. Leaving the Baath Party was punishable by death. On 31 May 1978, 31 communists were executed. At that time, Saddam held every conceivable second management position. Only one person stood between him and his 'Solo-Leader' position. He forced President Ahmed Hassan Al Bakr to publicly announce his withdrawal from all public offices for "health reasons'' on 16 July 1979. Bakr died in 1982 of unreported causes. Saddam Hussein would become the President of the Iraqi Republic, Regional Secretary of the party and Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council. With the 1979 Baath Party Purge or Comrade Massacre he sent a clear message, who is in power. On 22 July 1979 Saddam organised a Baath Conference in Al Khuld Hall in Baghdad. Publicly broadcasted on TV, names of more than 60 senior members of the Baath Party were called. They had to leave the hall and were either executed or arrested. Saddam's horrific supreme dictatorship began.

This article was written by Hella Mewis and is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.