[6] Returning in 1936, Bakdash took control of the Communist Party of Syria and Lebanon as secretary, a post he would retain without interruption for the rest of his life.

The party rules and programme which he drew up in 1944 reflected a determination to conform to the political circumstances of the Arab world of the time.

They emphasized the party's attachment to the anti-colonial struggle and sought to establish it as a democratic mass movement rather than the restricted Marxist–Leninist vanguard organisation which a close adherence to Leninist principles might have dictated.

The main difficulty confronting him in this period was the question of Arab unity and in particular of unification with Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt.

Bakdash was extremely critical of Nasser, especially after the latter started a campaign of repression against his political opponents, notably the Communists and Muslim Brothers.

However, Bakdash himself provoked a harsh reaction from the Egyptian leader with his attack on the latter's policies published in December 1958, in which he called for the legalization of political parties and transformation of the UAR into a loose federation.

After Hafez al-Assad took power in Syria in 1970, he announced his intention of reintroducing political pluralism in the context of popular democracy.

Faisal was supportive of the new policies of perestroika and glasnost being pursued by Soviet party secretary Mikhail Gorbachev; Bakdash was opposed.