Information on the Communist Party Political Bureau (CPPB), specifically, when it was founded, how it recruits its members and the treatment of those who refuse to become members or leave the party [SYR12908]

The Communist Party Political Bureau (CPPB) was founded in 1973. It broke away from the Syrian Communist Party, whose pro-Soviet position it opposed (IRBDC Jan. 1990, 49). Led by Riad al-Turk, the CPPB opposes various government policies including intervention in Lebanon (Ibid.).

According to the 1989 Yearbook on International Communist Affairs, dozens of members of the proscribed CPPB have been imprisoned without trial since the early 1980s, although many others were released in the mid-1980s (1989, 500).

According to a researcher on the Middle East in Ottawa, the CPPB is a dissident, illegal communist group, and, therefore, operates underground. The organization recruits its members underground by distributing pamphlets and writing on walls and through word of mouth (15 Jan. 1992). According to the same oral source, as the group operates illegally, it does not have much power to mistreat members leaving it or those who refuse to join it. Leaving the party would be a personal choice (Ibid.). According to a professor at McGill University, although the members of the CPPB are true believers in Communism and do not tolerate much dissent, if one of its members decides to leave the party there would be no serious consequences for that person (18 Jan. 1993).

Corroborative or additional information on the requested subject is not currently available to the DIRB in Ottawa.

References


Immigration and Refugee Board Documentation Centre (IRBDC), Ottawa. January 1990. Syria: Country Profile, p. 48.

Professor specializing on the Middle East, McGill University, Montréal. 18 January 1993. Telephone interview.

Researcher on the Middle East, Ottawa. 15 January 1993. Telephone interview.

Staar, Richard F., ed. 1989. Yearbook on International Communist Affairs. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.

Attachments

Staar, Richard F., ed. 1989. Yearbook on International Communist Affairs. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.