People's Vanguard Party (Yemen)

People's Vanguard Party
HeadquartersAden, South Yemen
IdeologyBa'athism
International affiliationSyrian-led Ba'ath Party

The People's Vanguard Party was a Ba'athist political party in Yemen.[1][2] The party was established in the late 1950s.[3] It was the Yemeni branch of the Baath Party. When the Baath Party was divided between Syrian and Iraqi factions, the Yemeni branch overwhelmingly sided with the Syrian-led Ba'ath Party.[4][3][5] After the split, the Syrian-aligned Ba'athists 'Yemenized' their party and took the name People's Vanguard Party.[4]

The members of the party were largely recruited from teachers, students and intellectuals.[3] The party was based in Aden, and had limited presence outside the city.[3] It had some presence in Hadhramaut for a brief period.[3] The party was banned in North Yemen, where is was part of the National Democratic Front and took part in armed insurgency.[4]

The party was one of two non-National Front (NF) parties tolerated during the early 1970s. In October 1975 it joined the NF-dominated United Political Organization of the National Front[6] (which evolved into the Yemeni Socialist Party in 1978).[1] The merger was ratified by the third PVP congress held in August 1975.[7]

  1. ^ a b Ismael, Tareq Y., Jacqueline S. Ismael, and Kamel Abu Jaber. Politics and Government in the Middle East and North Africa. Miami: Florida International University Press, 1991. p. 441
  2. ^ Mark N. Katz. Russia & Arabia: Soviet Foreign Policy Toward the Arabian Peninsula. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. p. 73
  3. ^ a b c d e Noel Brehony. Yemen Divided: The Story of a Failed State in South Arabia. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2011
  4. ^ a b c Charles Schmitz, Robert D. Burrowes. Historical Dictionary of Yemen. Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. pp. 73-74
  5. ^ Halliday, Fred. Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen, 1967-1987. Cambridge Middle East library, 21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. p. 121
  6. ^ Hobday, Charles (1986). Communist and Marxist Parties of the World. Essex: Longman. p. 223. ISBN 0-582-90264-9.
  7. ^ Halliday, Fred. Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen, 1967-1987. Cambridge Middle East library, 21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. p. 28