The party ruled Syria from the 1963 coup d'état, which brought the Ba'athists to power, until 8 December 2024, when Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus in the face of a rebel offensive during the Syrian Civil War.

The official ideology preached by the Syrian Ba'ath is known as neo-Ba'athism, a school of Ba'athist thought that denounces Aflaq and Bitar and eulogizes Alawite philosopher Arsuzi as the leading theoretician.

The Ba'ath Party, and indirectly the Syrian Regional Branch, was established on 7 April 1947 by Michel Aflaq (a Christian), Salah al-Din al-Bitar (a Sunni Muslim) and Zaki al-Arsuzi (an Alawite).

[61] The division in the original Ba'ath Party between the National Command led by Michel Aflaq and the "regionalists" in the Syrian Regional Branch stemmed from the break-up of the UAR.

[67][68] The first period of Ba'ath rule was put to an end with the 1966 Syrian coup d'état, which overthrew the traditional Ba'athists led by Aflaq and Bitar and brought Salah Jadid, the head of the Military Committee, to power (though not formally).

[72] Assad significantly modified his predecessor's radical socialist economic policies, encouraged several wealthy urban families to increase their activities in the private sector, and allowed limited foreign investment from Arab countries in the Persian Gulf region States.

[84][85][86] A brief period of political and cultural opening known as Damascus Spring was stamped out during 2001–2002, when numerous intellectuals, activists and dissidents, were arrested or exiled, under the guise of "national unity".

Image of Assad as a moderniser also vanished; when economic measures resulted in the concentration of wealth under loyalist oligarchs, heightened systematic corruption and increased poverty levels amongst the urban middle classes and villagers.

[89] It is generally believed that the plays a minor role in the conflict, having been reduced to a mass organization, and real decision-making taking place either in the military, the Assad family or Bashar al-Assad's inner circle.

In September 2015; Vladimir Putin ordered a direct Russian military operation in Syria on behalf of Assad; providing the regime with training, volunteers, supplies and weaponry; and has since engaged in extensive aerial bombardment campaigns throughout the country targeting anti-Assad rebels.

On other hand; the younger Neo-Ba'athists who came from minority communities like Alawites were highly influenced by communist ideals and incorporated Marxist anti-religious, economic ideas and downplayed efforts for pan-Arab unity.

[122][123] Neo-Ba'athism advocates the creation of a "vanguard" of leftist revolutionaries committed to build an egalitarian, socialist state in Syria and other Arab countries before making steps to achieve pan-Arab unity.

The vanguard organisation is the Ba'th party; which advocates class-struggle against the traditional Syrian economic elite classes; the big agriculturalists, industrialists, bourgeousie and feudal landlords.

The neo-Ba'athists led by Salah Jadid who came to power in 1966 concentrated on improving the Syrian economy and exporting the doctrines of class-conflict and militant socialist revolution to the neighbouring countries.

This view was challenged by General Hafez al-Assad and his neo-Ba'ath faction; who were proponents of a military-centric approach and focused on a strategy of strengthening the Syrian military to defend the socialist government against imperialist forces and their alleged internal collaborators.

Although majority of the party members favoured Salah, Hafez was able to gain the upperhand following the events of the 1970 coup dubbed the "Corrective Movement" in official Syrian Ba'ath history.

Ceremonies and slogans of loyalty, praise and adulation of Assads were a daily part of schools, party centres, government offices, public spaces and the military.

Official state propaganda attributed Assad with supernatural abilities combined by repetitive usage of symbolism that discouraged wider society from arenas for political activism.

Another important shift was the end of the Ba'th party's practical significance; with it being reduced to a formal structure for affirming fealty to Bashar and support for his revamped crackdowns on the newly established independent civil society groups, political activists and reformist voices that arose during the Damascus Spring in the 2000s.

It produces guidelines for acceptable; it defines and generalizes a specific type of national membership; it occasions the enforcement of obedience; it induces complicity by creating practices in which citizens are themselves "accomplices", upholding the norms constitutive of Asad's domination; it isolates Syrians from one another; and it clutters public space with monotonous slogans and empty gestures, which tire the minds and bodies of producers and consumers alike ... Asad is powerful because his regime can compel people to say the ridiculous and to avow the absurd.

"[135][134] Like Marxists, Syrian Ba'athist ideologues viewed religion as a tool used by traditional elites to oppress the weaker sections of the society and reinforce their conservative social order.

[136] The manifesto also stated that this envisaged Ba'athist generation would be "committed to scientific thought freed from the shackles of superstition and backward customs" and replace religion with Arab nationalism as their belief system.

During Salah Jadid's reign in power, the Ba'ath postured itself as a strongly anti-religious political entity; adhering to the Marxist–Leninist approach of top-down regimentation of the society through liquidation of what it regarded as "reactionary" classes such as the traditional ulema.

[136] Following popular revulsion at Jadid's blatant anti-religious policies, Hafez al-Assad began to tone down the secularisation programme during the 1970s, by co-opting some pro-government clerics like Ramadan al-Bouti to counter the Islamic opposition and granted them a degree of autonomy from the regime.

[141] The state-sponsored religious discourse during the rule of Hafez al-Assad promoted a left-wing nationalist worldview that sought to anathematize Islamists and re-inforce loyalty towards the Alawite president.

By the onset of Arab Spring in late 2010, relationship between the ulema and the Assad regime had sunk to its lowest level, with even staunch Assad-loyalists like the Grand Mufti Ramadan al-Bouti expressing public discontent.

[144][145][146] Describing Assadism as a quasi-religion fostered by the Ba'athist state for mobilising the fealty and adulation of Syrian citizens, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Bonn International Centre Dr. Esther Meininghaus wrote: "by drawing on religion, the Assad regime successfully sought to promote a value system ultimately rooted in the Baʿthist vision for Syrian society .... To this, we can indeed add the cult surrounding Presidents Hafiz and Bashar al-Asad, whose pictures are displayed not only in public buildings and schools but taxis and shops, or ceremonies such as mass parades and/or the playing of the national anthem during official celebrations.

The recent slogan of 'Bashar, Allah, Suriyya wa-bas' (Bashar, God, and Syria – that's it) possibly best epitomises how close the regime has come to creating a Syrian public religion in its own right.

"[148] Hanna Batatu wrote, "Under Assad the character of the Ba'ath changed ... Whatever independence of opinion its members enjoyed in the past was now curtailed, a premium being placed on conformity and internal discipline.

We are farmers, workers and persistent youth, We are soldiers, we are the voice of labourers, We came from roots of this land and pain from hearts, We weren't misers in giving sacrifice nobly.