Iraq becomes Communist, 1959-1961

If Iraq became Communist by 1961

  • It results in stronger Iraq-USSR relations and Nasser turning to the west

    Votes: 20 37.7%
  • The USSR successfully balances relations with Communist Iraq, and Arab nationalist Egypt

    Votes: 23 43.4%
  • The USSR spurns Iraq to stay aligned with Egypt, thus turning Iraq to China's camp

    Votes: 8 15.1%
  • It butterflies the Saudi-Egyptian conflict in Yemen

    Votes: 10 18.9%
  • Britain holds Kuwait longer

    Votes: 28 52.8%

  • Total voters
    53

raharris1973

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I'm going with a PoD proposed by David Tenner awhile back.

(2) Alternatively, they might have succeeded by getting along better with
Qassem and gradually gaining more and more influence within his regime.
Obviously, the Kirkuk massacre hurt the ICP badly here, but even before
that, Qassem seems to have begun to curb the ICP's influence. So maybe
what we need is a Qassem who underestimates the communist menace and
overestimates the nationalist one, rather than vice versa as in OTL. (In
1963 the ICP appealed to Qassem for arms to help them resist the Ba'athist
coup that they said was imminent, but Qassem, confident that he could
defeat the coup on his own, declined.)

Obviously, communist parties face serious obstacles in Muslim countries.
Still, South Yemen was officially "Marxist-Leninist" for many years, so I
would not rule out the possibility of a Communist Iraq. Admittedly,
though, the IRC had only a brief window of opportunity under Qassem, and
it is questionable whether their leadership had the competence to take
advantage of it.
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/U7F8yOI_fnE/wk9ERyli0OQJ

So, the local upshot in Iraq is that it becomes a Communist one-party-state by early 1961 by building influence from within the Qassem regime.

Is there a civil war in which non-communists can wrest any of the country from control of the Communists and Qassem.

And what are the regional and geopolitical consequences of a Communist regime in Baghdad at this time?

Does Khrushchev find the Communist Iraq an embarrassment in his relationship with Egypt and Syria, and thus keep his distance? Such a course would have Baghdad soon align with China in the Sino-Soviet split.

Or does Khrushchev invest fullest support in the new Baghdad Communist regime? If so, will Nasser break with the Soviet Union and rapproche with the United States? Kennedy would have been receptive to a great extent, as he was in OTL.

Also, Egypt was still united with Syria in the United Arab Republic at this time. Could fear of a Communist takeover supported by Iraq make the Egyptian-Syrian union last longer?

Or, could Khrushchev have his cake and eat it too, building up its relations with both the true People's Democracy of Iraq at the same time keeping a strong patronage relationship with the Egyptian-led United Arab Republic?

If Nasser ends up fixating on Iraq as a major problem, might that discourage him from getting involved in Yemen?

Are plans for the formal independence of Kuwait and reduction of British forces there put on hold?
 
I think this vignette from The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism indicates something of what went wrong for the Iraqi Communists:

"On May Day 1959 two boys were watching crowds throng the streets of Baghdad for the workers day parade. Twelve-year-old Hani Lazim was awed by the size of the demonstration: 'It was just... endless. Whenever we went to see the end of it, we couldn't.' Nine-year old Sami Ramadani, the youngest child in a large family of communist activists living in Al-Waziriyya, saw the march with his mother, sitting on the wall of a mosque in Al-Rashid Street, 'watching endless streams of people' until two or three in the morning.

"Decades later both still recalled the Communist Party's huge presence on the march: echoing in the endlessly repeated slogans calling for communist participation in the government. Lazim remembers that his father, a former party member, was worried by the communists' open call to share power with General Abd-al-Karim Qasim, the first president of the republic which had been established by the overthrow of the monarchy in July 1958.

"'I remember my father didn't like it at all. And I asked him, I said 'why Dad, why not?' He said 'nobody gives you government, you take it. It is a foolish thing to say. You don't say it. If you want it, go and take it, if you can. But don't say it, because you are actually antagonizing them and they could hit you back.' And I remember that very well'..."

https://books.google.com/books?id=5OBMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA268
 

raharris1973

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I think this vignette from The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism indicates something of what went wrong for the Iraqi Communists:

"On May Day 1959 two boys were watching crowds throng the streets of Baghdad for the workers day parade. Twelve-year-old Hani Lazim was awed by the size of the demonstration: 'It was just... endless. Whenever we went to see the end of it, we couldn't.' Nine-year old Sami Ramadani, the youngest child in a large family of communist activists living in Al-Waziriyya, saw the march with his mother, sitting on the wall of a mosque in Al-Rashid Street, 'watching endless streams of people' until two or three in the morning.

"Decades later both still recalled the Communist Party's huge presence on the march: echoing in the endlessly repeated slogans calling for communist participation in the government. Lazim remembers that his father, a former party member, was worried by the communists' open call to share power with General Abd-al-Karim Qasim, the first president of the republic which had been established by the overthrow of the monarchy in July 1958.

"'I remember my father didn't like it at all. And I asked him, I said 'why Dad, why not?' He said 'nobody gives you government, you take it. It is a foolish thing to say. You don't say it. If you want it, go and take it, if you can. But don't say it, because you are actually antagonizing them and they could hit you back.' And I remember that very well'..."

https://books.google.com/books?id=5OBMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA268

That's a great quote, and a good point.

And, they were tolerated enough past 1959 to have some time to rethink their approach. And, they could have walked into 1959 by being more attentive to how political change was being made, and suppressed, in contemporary Egypt and Syria.

Of course the call for power was probably an important part of "mobilizing their base".

And it is not like attempts to get just all the right spots in military and security services could not have been noticed or preempted.

Suffice it to say, the older Mr. Lazim was a wise man. Hopefully his circumspection paid off and he avoided being a casualty of lethal politics in Iraq.
 
That's a great quote, and a good point.

And, they were tolerated enough past 1959 to have some time to rethink their approach. And, they could have walked into 1959 by being more attentive to how political change was being made, and suppressed, in contemporary Egypt and Syria.

Of course the call for power was probably an important part of "mobilizing their base".

And it is not like attempts to get just all the right spots in military and security services could not have been noticed or preempted.

Suffice it to say, the older Mr. Lazim was a wise man. Hopefully his circumspection paid off and he avoided being a casualty of lethal politics in Iraq.

Yeah the Iraqi and Indonesian communist movements both made the mistake of relying on a "leftish" strongman to let them be the junior partner when they were formidable with the masses in their own right. Then once Qasim/Sukarno weren't around to protect them anymore they were defenseless.
 

raharris1973

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Syria and Iraq have tended to be at odds from the early 1950s till the end of Saddam, even when governed by the same party. Could the get along with a pro Soviet Communist Iraq, or would the turn anti communist in reaction, possibly aligning with Turkey, the US or China?
 

raharris1973

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I read this the first as "If Iran became Communist..."

Either would be interesting, although this one is to play out Iraq with a "q" as communist.

I noticed a little evolution in the poll responses - whereas originally "The USSR successfully balances relations with Communist Iraq, and Arab nationalist Egypt" was in the lead in terms of Cold War alignment answers, it has now been overtaken by "It results in stronger Iraq-USSR relations and Nasser turning to the west".

The most solidly endorsed outcome in the poll is Britain sticking around in Kuwait for longer than OTL.

Any of the voters want to become posters, and discuss the thinking behind their votes? Or anyone else?
 
Nasser would be in the middle with a more western or soviet lean, depending on what happens with Syria and Yemen until Israel attacks Egypt, at which point he will go pro-soviet.
 

raharris1973

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Nasser would be in the middle with a more western or soviet lean, depending on what happens with Syria and Yemen until Israel attacks Egypt, at which point he will go pro-soviet.

I guess before we even get to his global alignment we have to ask if Nasser is supporting overthrow of the Iraqi Communist government, and if he feels that regime is a threat to him.

To some extent, he was all about competing with and destabilizing every other regime in the region. So to a limited extent, I would expect that to apply to Iraq as well. But I have no idea of where it would fit in with his rank order and priority of rivalries.

Depending on the severity of it, he may avoid the Yemen imbroglio. Or the Saudis might not show up to uphold their part of the fight in Yemen, being too worried about a large "People's Democratic Republic" of Iraq to their north to really worry much about a mere Arab nationalist republic of Yemen to their south.
 
f Nasser is supporting overthrow of the Iraqi Communist government, and if he feels that regime is a threat to him.
The answer to both is yes. He did try to overthrow Qasim.
But I have no idea of where it would fit in with his rank order and priority of rivalries.
It would be top until Israel attacks or Syria leaves

Depending on the severity of it, he may avoid the Yemen imbroglio
If he loses Syria. He will feel the need to boost his prestige and influence

a large "People's Democratic Republic" of Iraq to their north to really worry much about a mere Arab nationalist republic of Yemen to their south.
Yemen war didn't cost the Saudis much. I don't see way they wouldn't try to stem Nasser's influence. they could also be paranoid about an alliance between the anti-monarchist Arab nationalists and Communists
 
What if this anti communist concern, leads one of the Arab monarchy's to take the Sadat path and recognize Israel twenty years earlier. Perhaps one of the trucial states which will become the UAE, or Yemen even?
 

Marc

Donor
I would argue that Marxist-Leninism (the more accurate term) and Islam are fundamentally incompatible - the latter being a socio-economic and political system as well as a faith. Therefore any triumph of a Soviet-style state in the Middle East would be very fleeting.
 
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Marc

Donor
The twenty-year lifespan of South Yemen says hi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Yemen

Ah, that sad story. I stand corrected, with the defense that like so much in the Middle East, (blame Arabic that most florid of languages), declarations or being either Marxist or an actual Republic were more fanciful than factual. Most, if not all, were just your usual Bonapartist dictatorships working the Cold War to line their Swiss accounts.
 
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It's a really interesting question whether the Soviets would choose Iraq's oil and Communism over Egypt's strategic position and population.

I don't think they'd get to choose though. The Soviets didn't get much choice about any of their other allies in the Middle East - they worked with whoever would work with them. Probably that means the Soviets would get an alliance with Iraq and Egypt would move towards a Western alignment.

I wonder what this will mean for Israel and Syria though?

For example, if the Soviets have lost Egypt to the US before 1967, what happens when tensions between the Arab states and Israel boil over? Could the alt-6 day war shift the US into being hostile to Israel? (As I remember, before 1967 the US was fairly disinterested in Israel - or was the shift in US interest earlier?)

We might see a situation with a Communist Iraq and a democratic Israel being the major Soviet allies in the Middle East.

I could see Syria going either way. Indeed, if Syria turns Ba'athist as OTL, it may actually improve Syrian-Iraqi relations since they won't be arguing over ideology so much. And it may be that anti-Egyptian nationalism could push Syria into an alignment with the Soviets. Equally, Syria could end up being on the side of Capitalism in TTL...

fasquardon
 

raharris1973

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We might see a situation with a Communist Iraq and a democratic Israel being the major Soviet allies in the Middle East.

Interesting. Perhaps the USSR might even encourage Israeli aggression as a way to get more western-aligned regional states trying to besiege Iraq off of Iraq's back?
 
How would an Iraqi Democratic Republic organizes its ethnicities? Would there be separate Kurdish, Assyrian branches of the Iraqi communist party or ethnic ASSRs/autonomous areas. Iraqi Arabs would face the same problem as Serbo-Croatians did creating a more ecumenical, ethnically and/or linguistically focused identity. Any attempt to form a unified, secular Iraqi Arab identity for Sunnis and Shia's would be difficult. The state may need to take an ethnic atheism approach by treating religion as an immutable characteristic based on Sunni/Shia cultural identity, even while enforcing state atheism.
 
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