Ammar Bakdash, General Secretary of the Syrian Communist Party, dies at 71

Bakdash during a KKE antiimperialist event in 2015

Ammar Bakdash, General Secretary of the CC of the Syrian Communist Party, has died aged 71. He was the chairman of the Financial Laws Committee of the People's Assembly of Syria, until the assembly was suspended after the fall of the Assad government and the imposition of the Jihadist regime.

In a statement issued on Sunday 13/7, the Press Office of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) expresses its sincere condolences for the sudden death of the comrade who resided in Athens following persecutions by Al-Sharaa's jihadists. 

Ammar Bakdash was born in Damascus on August 16, 1954. He was organized in the Syrian Communist Party in 1969, studied in Moscow and obtained a Master's degree in economic planning from Plekhanov University and completed his higher studies at the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University (Lomonosov), where he received a doctorate in economic sciences, in 1983.

In 1984, he returned to Syria and developed extensive political activity, taking on serious party duties, including Secretary of the Syrian Democratic Youth Union between 1986 and 1992.

He was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Syrian Communist Party at its 7th Congress in 1990, a member of the Politburo in 1992 and a member of the Central Secretariat in 1993. In 2003, he was elected a member of the Syrian Parliament, to which he was elected until June 2024.

In 2010, at the 11th congress of the party, he was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee and was re-elected General Secretary at the 12th congress, as well as at the 13th convened in the fall of 2023.

When the Jihadists of Al-Sharaa took control of Syria, a campaign of persecution and massacres towarsds political opponents ethnic and religious minorities began. Consequently, Bakdash became the target of the Jihadists and together with his family found themselves in Athens within the framework of the fraternal relations of internationalist solidarity that the Syrian Communist Party maintains with the KKE. On 29/1/2025, the authorities in Damascus announced the dissolution of the Syrian Communist Party, the confiscation of its assets and escalated the persecution.

"Comrade Amar Baghdad was a communist leader, an internationalist, he took part in dozens of meetings of Communist and Workers' Parties, he contributed decisively to the development of the common struggle of the peoples in the Arab countries and internationally and we will always remember him", the KKE statement reads.

IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM ©