Socialist organizers endured much in the twentieth century, but few fared worse than the cadre of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP). Founded in 1934, the ICP has survived fierce repression under both the monarchy and the Ba‘athist dictatorship.

At one time, Iraq’s communists were bound together in one of the Arab world’s largest formations. By the late 1950s, they had the best-organized party in Iraq, with a strong popular base, and looked to be on the verge of state power. Yet within two decades, their members had been killed, tortured, or co-opted by a regime that claimed the mantle of Arab socialism.

A germ of Iraqi communism still survives today, albeit as a much weaker presence on the political scene. The ICP website still proudly carries the slogan that adorned the party press in its heyday: “A free nation and a happy people.” Positioning itself now at the fulcrum of an alliance of new political parties emerging from the Tishreen movement, the popular uprising that erupted in October 2019, the party aspires to a leading role in what it calls the “civil movement” opposing the “ethno-sectarian state.”