In response to your request, there is attached herewith a paper analyzing
the extent of Syrian collaboration with the Soviet bloc. The
accompanying chronology was prepared in OIR.2
[Attachment]
SYRIAN COLLABORATION WITH THE SOVIET BLOC3
There are attached hereto: (A) a chronology of Syrian collaboration
with the Soviet bloc starting with 1954 (most of these items are
unclassified) and (B) an unclassified paper on Syria’s voting record
in the UN for the past ten years,
with a confidential annex on Syrian attitudes and policies in the
UN.
General Observations
There are 60 individual items in the chronology though they are of
course uneven in significance. There are 5 items for 1954, 18 for
1955 and 37 for the first half of 1956.
The items indicate a substantial and unchecked increase in Syrian
collaboration with the Soviet bloc and a UN voting record which, like the Syrian Government
itself, is not Communist but which increasingly, under various
pressures, reflects anti-Western stands.
Syria may be described as neutralist with an anti-Western tendency,
opportunistic, and chronically unstable, but not as a Soviet
satellite. In contrast to the European satellites, it does not have
a Communist or Communist-dominated regime put in power directly or
indirectly through the agency of the Soviet army, maintained against
the wishes of its people and controlled in its actions by the USSR. The country is suffering from
nearly chronic governmental weakness, but it has not lost its
freedom of action in the sense that Soviet bloc countries have lost
theirs. To the extent that it has lost political freedom as a result
of outside intervention in the past two years, this has been due
primarily to Egyptian-Saudi pressures.
The Syrian Communist Party—aided by the USSR—has become a respectable supporter of the
resultant Syrian anti-Western and anti-Israeli sentiment. It has an
estimated membership of 10,000 and is headed by Khalid Bakdash, a
Kurd who is the only Syrian Communist Deputy in Parliament and who
is generally conceded to be the shrewdest and most intelligent and
influential Communist in any of the Arab countries. Bakdash, who is
known throughout the area as a Communist, runs for Parliament as an
independent, since the Communist Party is outlawed in Syria.
How many Communists are in the Syrian Army which numbers some 40,000,
is not known, but they are well organized and influential [Page 576] They work closely with the
“little RCC”4 (a clique of ambitious pro-Egyptian
officers) and also with the leftist Arab Social Resurrectionist
Party (ASRP) which holds 18 of the
143 seats in Parliament and two posts in the present cabinet—Foreign
Affairs and National Economy. This combination of young Communists,
“little RCC” and ASRP officers, virtually controls the
Syrian Army. Syrian conservative political leaders—a fragmented
group—are quick to respond to the Army’s wishes, fearing still
another military coup d’état.
In general, Syrians are not so much pro-Communist as they are
anti-West. For them, Moscow is not the home of international
communism, but the seat of the only great power which supports the
Arab cause. The form of government of that power is not germane to
the Arab argument. Thus Syrian propaganda condemns the West as the
friend of Israel and lauds the Soviet Union as the friend of the
Arab. Soviet imperialism, with which the Arabs never have had direct
experience, is ignored while Syrians imply that UK and French imperialism is as alive
and active as it was in 1900 and that the US meanwhile has joined
the ranks of the imperialist powers.
This state of affairs has increased the popularity of the USSR in Syria and incidentally has
furthered the interests of the Syrian Communist Party. If a free
election were held today, it is likely that the leftist party would
gain seats in the Chamber of Deputies at conservative expense. The
prospects are for increased Communist influence both politically and
militarily, but so far not for Communist control. There is some
argument that the USSR does not
want Syria to become a satellite, since it can achieve many of its
aims without setting up the alarm that this might raise elsewhere in
the area and without assuming the responsibilities it would
entail.
The Chronology
The chronology attached as Tab A can be broken down according to
subject and commented upon as follows:
Arms: The first Syro-Soviet arms transaction
(Item 7) was negotiated two months after the Turco-Iraqi Pact of
February 1955. It was a “strictly commercial deal”, through which
Syria received 45 German Mark IV tanks from the bloc for only £8,500
($2,408) each. In February 1956, further Syro-Czech commercial
transactions were initiated which led to the purchase of 15,000
Czech submachine guns (Items 28, 29 and 30). In March 1956, a $23
million Syro-Czech Government arms agreement was signed for heavy
arms, trucks and surgical and sanitary equipment (Item 36). The
Syrian Chief of [Page 577] Staff5 later said that Syria would
receive 20 MIGs from Egypt, that 60 T–34 Russian tanks had arrived
from Egypt, that 85mm antiaircraft guns equipped with radar had been
received from Czechoslovakia under the agreement, and that three
Syrian officers were in training in Czechoslovakia (Item 43). In
May, following the French sale of Mysteres to Israel, our Army
Attaché in Damascus6 learned that
more equipment and more technicians would be required from
Czechoslovakia (Item 46).
Trade Agreements: The popular Czech-Egyptian
arms agreement was followed by a spate of trade and payments
agreements between Syria and the bloc (most of them for the first
time) (Items 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 42 and 56). These were obviously
political moves. Syrian trade with the seven Soviet states concerned
was negligible. In each case signature of the agreement was preceded
by a conspicuous visit of a trade delegation from the bloc country
concerned.
Economic Offers: The principal Soviet economic
aid offers have been: the offers made by the Czech and Russian
Ministers in Damascus to construct Syria’s first oil refinery at
prices well below what US firms can offer (Item 26), the Czech offer
to construct a new international airport at Damascus (Item 26) and
the Polish bid for a survey of Hejaz railroad reconstruction
accepted by Syria in January 1956 (Item 24). Numerous Soviet and
Communist China trade missions have made other offers (Items 27, 32,
33 and 45).
Damascus Fair: Communist country participation
has been the most striking political aspect of the Damascus
International Trade Fairs of the past two years. The USSR had the best location and largest
exhibit in 1954 and the Communist Chinese exhibit was the largest
and most elaborate of any in 1955. The Chinese and Bulgarians were
given space reserved for official Government pavilions despite the
fact that their Governments had not been recognized by Syria (Items
4 and 14).
Exchange of People: Official visits of Syrians
to Soviet countries have increased substantially in the field of
labor (Items 1, 8, 15, 39 and 41); religion (Items 3 and 31);
education (Item 5); legislation—18 Syrian deputies visited Moscow
(Items 10, 37 and 40); “peace conventions” including 250 Syrians to
a World Youth Festival in Warsaw (Items 9 and 11); military (Items
43 and 51); trade (Item 12); and law (Item 58). Syria’s Communist
Deputy, Khalid Bakdash was welcomed by the largest demonstration
ever assembled in Syria on his return from Moscow on April 1, 1956
(Item 37). The welcome was organized and paid for by the Communists.
The Ministry of Interior did nothing to check it. Meanwhile, there
have been numerous [Page 578] Soviet
trade missions to Syria as well as cultural and artistic missions
(Items 16, 18, 48 and 57) and also “peace” missions—the Syrian Prime
Minister gave a luncheon for the Soviet delegation which came to
Damascus to present the Stalin Peace Prize to a Syrian religious
leader and Partisan of Peace (Item 35). Soviet Foreign Minister
Shepilov is expected to visit Syria during his current tour of the
Near East (Item 60).
Diplomatic Recognition: Syria added Rumania to
the list of five Soviet countries with whom it already exchanged
diplomatic missions (Item 13), agreed with the USSR to raise the legations of the two
countries to Embassies (Item 21), and considered a parliamentary
resolution and numerous editorials calling for recognition of Red
China (Item 47).
Press: The press has prominently featured
statements by Soviet officials as well as pro-Soviet statements by
high Syrian officials (Items 6, 38, 44, 47, 50 and 54). We are
informed that the President of Syria had made commitments to Col.
Nasser and King
Saud that he would take
steps to check pro-Soviet propaganda. He has not, however, done so
effectively. Statements that Syria would choose communism over
Zionism if forced to the choice appear frequently (Item 44).
United Nations
For ten years Syria’s voting record in the UN has demonstrated a pronounced “neutralist” tendency
and in many instances has been parallel to that of the Soviet bloc.
The basic pattern was substantially identical with that of such
“uncommitted” Asian States as India, Burma, and Afghanistan, and
such Arab States as Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Egypt. Syrian voting has
stood in sharp contrast at times to the record of two Arab States,
Lebanon and Iraq, on the critical “East-West” issues, but it has not
been far from that of most other neutral uncommitted countries and
it is difficult to pin a more definite or extreme label on Syria in
the light of its votes in the General Assembly. (See Tab B for
details.)7
