The Communist Party in Saudi Arabia ( ar, الحزب الشيوعي في السعودية, ''al-Hizb al-Shuyu'i fi al-Sa'udiyah'') was a

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

. It existed officially between 1975 and 1991.

History

The Communist Party in Saudi Arabia (CPSA) was formed on August 31, 1975. It had its origins in the National Renewal Front which was founded on September 23, 1954 and transformed in the National Liberation Front on October 17, 1958. The NLF was part of the Arab National Liberation Front since 1963. The communists inside the NLF had a separate organization called the Organization of Saudi Communists (OSC). The groups were targeted by a wave of arrests between 1968 and 1969. The remainder of the NLF founded the CPSA in 1975. The party membership in 1975 was however very small, and is thought to have numbered as few as 30 members. The first secretary general of the CPSA was

Mustafa Wahba Mustafa Wahba was a Saudi Arabian economist who served as deputy finance minister from 1960 to 1962. In addition, he was the first and long-term secretary general of the Communist Party in Saudi Arabia between 1975 and 1991. Biography Mustafa Wa ...

, a son of

Hafiz Wahba Hafiz Wahba (15 July 1889 – 1967) was an Egyptian diplomat who was then naturalised in Saudi Arabia. Fuad Hamza and he were the first ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, the former in France and the latter in the United Kingdom. In addition, they were ...

who was one of the advisors of

King Abdulaziz Abdulaziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud ( ar, عبد العزيز بن عبد الرحمن آل سعود, ʿAbd al ʿAzīz bin ʿAbd ar Raḥman Āl Suʿūd; 15 January 1875Ibn Saud's birth year has been a source of debate. It is generally accepted ...

. Mustafa Wahba used the alias Mahdi Habib in the post. He held the title until 1991 when the party was dissolved. Declining popularity caused by the collapse of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

and the rise in popularity of political

Islamism Islamism (also often called political Islam or Islamic fundamentalism) is a political ideology which posits that modern states and regions should be reconstituted in constitutional, economic and judicial terms, in accordance with what is ...

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.حريّة التعبير في العربية السعودية
/ref> Soon thereafter, the government released the political prisoners of the party in exchange that the party promised to disband.

Structure

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 )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. Other organizations close to the CPSA were the Workers' Federation of Saudi Arabia, the

National Union of Students of Saudi Arabia The National Union of Students of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1977. The organization was banned in Saudi Arabia, and functioned in exile in Syria. NUSSA held consultative membership in the International Union of Students The International Union o ...

(NUSSA) and the Democratic Women's League of Saudi Arabia. Its central organ was ''Tariq al-Qadyhin'' ("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.

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

National Liberation Front – Bahrain The National Liberation Front—Bahrain ( ar, جبهة التحرير الوطني—البحرين) is a communist party in Bahrain. It was founded on 15 February 1955, the first leftist party in the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Among the ...

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

References

{{Middle East communist parties 1954 establishments in Saudi Arabia 1991 disestablishments in Saudi Arabia Banned communist parties Communist parties in Saudi Arabia Republicanism in Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabian opposition groups Political parties established in 1954 Political parties disestablished in 1991