Communist Party in Saudi Arabia

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Communist Party in Saudi Arabia
الحزب الشيوعي في السعودية
FoundedAugust 31, 1975 (1975-08-31)
NewspaperTareeq al-Kadiḥeen
Far-left

The Communist Party in Saudi Arabia (

Arabic: الحزب الشيوعي في السعودية, al-Hizb al-Shuyu'i fi al-Sa'udiyah) was a political party in Saudi Arabia.[1]

History

The Communist Party in Saudi Arabia (CPSA) was formed on August 31, 1975.

King Abdulaziz.[4] Mustafa Wahba used the alias Mahdi Habib in the post.[4] He held the title until 1991 when the party was dissolved.[4]

Declining popularity caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise in popularity of political Islamism caused the party to rename itself as Democratic Assembly of Saudi Arabia (التجمع الديموقراطي في السعودية) and take up the cause of democratic reform in the early 1990s.[3][5] Soon thereafter, the government released the political prisoners of the party in exchange that the party promised to disband.

Structure

UDYS symbol

The CPSA had a youth organization, the Union of Democratic Youth - Saudi Arabia (Ittihad ash-Shabab ad-Dimuqrati fi al-Sa'udiyah), with office in Damascus, Syria. Other organizations close to the CPSA were the Workers' Federation of Saudi Arabia, the National Union of Students of Saudi Arabia (NUSSA) and the Democratic Women's League of Saudi Arabia.

Its central organ was Tareeq al-Kadiḥeen ("Way of the Toilers").

The party was always illegal and persecuted by the regime.

Shiites were attracted to Saudi opposition groups, including the Communist Party, due to resentment at discrimination against them on religious grounds by the Saudi Government. As a result, the bulk of the members of the Communist Party were members of Saudi Arabia's Shiite community.[6]

Ideology

Saudi Communist Party literature was filled with critiques of the Saudi economy, discrimination against women, and of the pro-Western foreign policy of the Saudi ruling family. The Communist Party also criticized the Saudi ruling family as being corrupt.[6]

The CPSA had close relations with other Arab communist parties and was a pro-Soviet party.[6] In its previous inception as the National Liberation Front, the group had pursued closer ties with the National Liberation Front – Bahrain.[3]

As part of the restructuring of the party in the early 1990s, the new Democratic Assembly took up the cause of democratic reform.[3]

See also

References

  1. S2CID 221118100
    .
  2. ^ Mohammed Turki A. Al Sudairi (August 2019). "Marx's Arabian Apostles: The Rise and Fall of the Saudi Communist Movement". The Middle East Journal. 73 (3): 455.
  3. ^
    ISBN 9780585216249
    .
  4. ^ a b c Mohammed Turki A. Al Sudairi (2019). "Marx's Arabian Apostles: The Rise and Fall of the Saudi Communist Movement". Middle East Institute. 73 (3): 456.
  5. ^ حريّة التعبير في العربية السعودية
  6. ^ a b c As'Ad Abukhalil (2011). The Battle for Saudi Arabia: Royalty, Fundamentalism, and Global Power. Seven Stories Press. p. 165.
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