Syrian Democratic People's Party

The Syrian Democratic People's Party (until 2005 the Syrian Communist Party (Political Bureau), also known as the Syrian Communist Party (Riyad al-Turk)) is a left-wing, democratic opposition party in Syria that is banned by the Syrian government.

The party was formed from a split in the Syrian Communist Party in 1973, when radicals around Riyad al-Turk objected to the leadership's decision to join the pro-government National Progressive Front. Essentially the choice facing the Communists was to submit to the leadership of the Ba'th Party in the Front and to a variety of other restrictions, or attempt to function outside the law. The bulk of the party chose the former option; the more left-wing elements followed Riad al-Turk into opposition.

The party was able to operate reasonably effectively at first, although it was never very large. However, growing opposition towards the end of the 1970s led the regime to engage in a harsh campaign of political repression, and in 1980 al-Turk was jailed as were numerous other party members. He was to remain in prison for some eighteen years. The party's political position began to evolve during this period towards support for democracy, and along with the Arab Socialist Democratic Ba'th Party and two other small parties it established the National Democratic Grouping, which remained a focus of democratic opposition in Syria for many years although able to accomplish little more than the production of an underground magazine.

The party benefitted from the decreased political repression of the last two years of Hafiz al-Asad's rule and after his death, its members were extremely active in the Damascus Spring, a brief period of intense political and social debate that flourished in the second half of 2000 and in 2001. Riyad al-Turk himself provided something of a pretext for the repression that stamped out most of this activity in the autumn of 2001, when he outraged the regime's sensibilities by remarking on television that "the dictator has died". Al-Turk was imprisoned shortly afterwards.

In 2005, the party held a clandestine conference at which it adopted new rules and changed its name to the Syrian Democratic People's Party. It is not thought to have much support now, and has only limited membership, although it benefits from the considerable prestige of Riyad al-Turk.