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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Iraq
Index
The pre-revolutionary political system, with its parliament
of landlords and hand-picked government supporters, was
increasingly incompatible with the changing social reality marked
by the quickening pace of urban-based economic activity fueled by
the oil revenues. The faction of the elite investing in
manufacturing, the petty bourgeoisie, and the working classes
pressured the state to represent their interests. As the armed
forces came to reflect this shifting balance of social forces, a
radical political change became inevitable. The social origins
and political inclinations of the
Free Officers (see Glossary)
who carried out the 1958 overthrow of the monarchy and the
various ideological parties that supported and succeeded them
clearly reflect the middle-class character of the Iraqi
Revolution. Both the agrarian reform program and the protracted
campaign against the foreign oil monopoly were aimed at
restructuring political and eonomic power in favor of the urbanbased middle and lower classes. The political struggle between
the self-styled radicals and moderates in the 1960s mainly
concerned the role of the state and the public sector in the
economy: the radicals promoted a larger role for the state, and
the moderates wanted to restrict it to the provision of basic
services and physical infrastructure.
There was a shift in the distribution of income after 1958 at
the expense of the large landowners and businessmen and in favor
of the salaried middle class and, to a lesser degree, the wage
earners and small farmers. The Baath Party, in power since July
1968, represented the lower stratum of the middle class: sons of
small shopkeepers, petty officials, and graduates of training
schools, law schools, and military academies. In the 1980s, the
ruling class tended to be composed of high and middle echelon
bureaucrats who either had risen through the ranks of the party
or had been coopted into the party because of their technical
competence, i.e., technocrats. The elite also consisted of army
officers, whose wartime loyalty the government has striven to
retain by dispensing material rewards and gifts.
The government's practice of lavishing rewards on the
military has also affected the lower classes. Martyrs' benefits
under the Baath have been extremely generous. Thus, the families
of youths killed in battle could expect to receive at least an
automobile and more likely a generous pension for life.
Data as of May 1988
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