The Corrective Move was a political shift that took place in South Yemen on 22 June 1969, resulting in the overthrow and purge of the ruling right-wing faction of the National Front (NF) by the party's left-wing faction. The change in leadership was followed by the adoption of a series of socialist policies and reforms, and marked South Yemen's transition into a communist state.
The shift occurred following internal disagreements among various NF factions, leading the party to convene its 4th Congress in an attempt to resolve the disputes. The congress adopted several pro-left-wing measures. The right-wing faction, dissatisfied with the outcomes, initially attempted to sideline the left through purges. When that effort failed, the left attempted a counter-purge, which was also unsuccessful. The eventual transfer of power came amid the growing unpopularity of then-president Qahtan al-Shaabi, who was also the informal leader of the right-wing faction. Leadership was assumed by Abdul Fattah Ismail and Salim Rubaya Ali, who removed Qahtan, along with Prime Minister Faysal al-Shaabi and his cabinet.
Social and political reforms followed the leftist takeover; the state was transformed into a Communist state, institutions were nationalised, schools and universities were built, education became freely accessible to everyone, and a new Family Law was enacted, ensuring equality between men and women.
Background
Following South Yemen's independence from the British on 30 November 1967 after 128 years of colonial rule, the National Front (NF) was split into two factions; The Aden-based ruling right-wing faction, which supported a capitalist system, faced off against the Hadhramaut-based socialist left-wing faction. The left-wing faction drew inspiration from Vladimir Lenin's book, The State and Revolution, which emphasised the need for a revolution to dismantle existing structures and establish popular state institutions.
Economically, the withdrawal of the British left more than 20,000 Yemenis unemployed, and 100,000 educated people linked to the colonial state had left alongside the British. The closure of the Suez Canal deprived the capital city of Aden of 75% of its shipping and trade income; the income per capita was £40. Furthermore, the British failure to fulfill their aid commitments led to the state losing 60 per cent of its revenue. The lack of experience of the new leaders worsened the economic decline and led to significant administrative disorganisation.
On 1 December 1967, Qahtan al-Shaabi was appointed as president for a two-year term. After taking the post, he appointed himself as prime minister and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, and announced the state's first cabinet, with his cousin, Faysal al-Shaabi, as Secretary-General of the NF. On 11 December 1967, the sultans, traditional elites, and individuals linked to British rule were stripped of their positions and had their property seized.
On 30 January 1968, Abdullah al-Khamri, a member of the general board of directors of the National Front's newspaper, al-Thawri, published an article titled "Are the Revolutionaries or the Opportunists in Power?" In it, he questioned the leadership's commitment to revolutionary ideals, suggesting that they might be motivated by opportunism and a desire to climb to the seats of power rather than pursue genuine revolutionary goals. The other members of the board, Faysal al-Shaabi and Abdul Fattah Ismail, did not review the published article, and both of them condemned it. The incident created a feeling of distrust among members of the NF, leading to more internal divisions.
Fourth General Congress of the National Front
The disagreements between the factions were planned to be resolved at the upcoming Fourth General Congress of the National Front. The General Committee of the National Front announced a Preparatory Committee headed by Faysal al-Shaabi, Abdul Fattah Ismail, Ali Saleh Abad, and Abdullah al-Khamri. They were tasked with preparing the congress. The committee never fulfilled its work, and Ali Nasir described the preparations for the congress as "Arabic: عشوائية, lit. 'chaotic'". During the preparation period, Abdul Fattah Ismail announced that he would leave Yemen for Cairo, citing health issues. Ismail's announcement effectively disbanded the preparatory committee. A new informal committee, chaired by Nayef Hawatmeh, was formed to prepare the congress, without consulting the party leadership. The congress was held 2–8 March 1968, in the city of Zinjibar of the Third Governorate, and was attended by 167 delegates. Soldiers from the Armed Forces, who were not members of the NF, attended the congress, despite protests from the left-wing faction. According to Ali Nasir, the congress was held in a general atmosphere of toxicity.
The left-wing position was most clearly outlined in Abdul Fattah Ismail's programmatic speech, titled "The Noncapitalist Path of Development". In this speech, Ismail argued that South Yemen's future could either be shaped by the "petty bourgeoisie" or the "revolutionary forces"; the workers, poor peasants, and "partisans". He criticised the bourgeoisie for its inability to combat imperialism and promote the necessary economic and social changes, such as agrarian reform and industrialisation. He cited historical failures of petty-bourgeois leadership, such as during the European revolutions of 1848 and 1870, and attributed the collapse of the Second International in 1914 to the same cause. He also criticised the overthrown regimes of Kwame Nkrumah and Sukarno for being dominated by petty-bourgeois elements, which he viewed as a key factor in their downfall. Additionally, Ismail denounced the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Syria, and Iraq, arguing that the petty-bourgeois leadership in these countries was more harmful to national revolutions than open counter-revolutionary forces. He specifically accused the Egyptian government of masking its dictatorship as "socialism." Ismail presented the "Programme of National Democratic Popular Liberation", which called for the continuation of a national democratic revolution. The programme advocated for nationalisation of foreign banks and foreign trade, as well as putting an end to Aden's free port status except for in tourism and the transit of goods, in order to consolidate the revolution's gains. The goal was to ensure that South Yemen did not devolve into a neo-colonial state, but became a truly independent national state.
The left proposed transforming the state into a people's democratic state, adopting scientific socialism and anti-capitalism as the NF's main ideology, the establishment of a 100,000 to 150,000-personnel People's Militia, and the restriction of party membership for workers, peasants, soldiers, and revolutionary intellectuals. It also proposed establishing a supreme state organ of power in the form of a Supreme People's Council and establishing a nationwide network of lower-level state organs of power, which they called popular councils. These proposals resonated well with most congress delegates. In tandem with these policy changes, the congress delegates went on to elect a 41-member strong General Command, the highest leadership organ of the front, in which the left-wingers had a majority. At the congress, the left secured majority support for resolutions aimed at launching a new phase of "popular democratic liberation" in South Yemen. These resolutions called for collective decision-making at all levels; a purge of the civil service, army, and police to remove "counter-revolutionary elements"; land reform involving the confiscation without compensation of land owned by religious endowments, "kulaks", or "feudalists"; nationalisation of residential property in urban areas; and the extension of state control over all sectors of the economy. Politically, the congress emphasised the creation of popular organisations over existing institutions, mandating the rapid formation of local popular councils, with the Supreme People's Council serving as the highest body within this new structure. In terms of security, the congress reflected leftist distrust of the British-created army by calling for the strengthening of the National Front's Popular Guard and the creation of a popular militia composed of trade unionists, peasant and student unions, and other revolutionary bodies. In exchange, they agreed to a "compromise leadership" for the country under al-Shaabi's presidency.
After the congress, the Qahtan-led right-wing faction released an official statement criticising their opponents' "infantile leftism". They singled out what they saw as the key mistake: the belief in class conflict and the imposition of a dictatorship of one class, rather than striving for harmony between classes. This critique reflected one of the central tenets of Nasserism: the rejection of class conflict as a defining characteristic of Arab Socialism. Qahtan's faction also condemned the left for its criticism of the "brother" Arab countries, arguing that such ideas were out of touch with the realities of South Yemeni society. They accused the left of overlooking local conditions and dismissing the NLF as a coalition of labouring forces, instead of viewing it as a party for a single class, as the left suggested. Additionally, they argued that the left mistakenly compared South Yemeni society to 19th-century European societies, ignoring the significant differences in religion, tradition, history, economics, and customs.
Conflict in the National Front
The Fourth Congress was a victory for the left. The congress defined the NF as "a revolutionary organization that represents the interests of the workers, peasants, soldiers, and revolutionary intellectuals and adopts scientific socialism as its method of analysis and practice." Party membership was restricted to the aforementioned groups. Following the end of the congress, the party initiated the immediate creation of popular councils, implemented agrarian reform, nationalised foreign capital, conducted a purge of the army and its administration, and introduced a program of mass education. Consequently, the army did not agree with the outcomes of the congress, as it was facing a purge. During the congress, leading army officials had been carrying out propaganda campaigns within the army in which they denounced "communist influence", and following the end of the congress, they decided to stage a coup. The army decided to take action when NF cadres in Aden held a meeting on 19 March 1968, in support of the Fourth Congress's outcomes. On 20 March 1968, a group of officers, led by army commander Colonel Hussein Osman Aschal, arrested eight leaders of the left-wing General Command, surrounded the presidential residence, and demanded that a new government be formed to "liberate the country from the communist threat." However, the officers lacked sufficient support, and al-Shaabi himself, for whom the coup was intended, distanced himself from the rebels as a series of demonstrations against the coup broke out in Aden, Ja'ar, Yafa, and Hadhramaut against the insurgents. The rebellion ultimately failed.
Qahtan ordered the release of imprisoned cadres as a gesture of support for leftist leaders, describing the army's actions as "sincere, but in error." He also took steps to arrest those involved in the army's conspiracy. To strengthen his radical image, he quickly passed a land reform act that confiscated lands and redistributed them to National Front supporters. Opposition was already spreading from below: the Organization of True Partisans demanded an end to the "riot of the communists". The student newspaper Al-Unf al-Thawri advocated for extreme measures, suggesting that "ashtrays be made from the skulls of the bourgeoisie, and fertilizer from their bones." The army dealt a significant setback to the left, pushing them out of key positions within both the Aden party and the government. Additional arrests followed, causing many cadres to flee from Aden and seek refuge in the hinterlands or North Yemen.
On 30 March 1968, the right-wing faction, unhappy with the results of the congress, staged a violent purge of left-wingers to reverse the policies adopted at the congress. It led to their temporary dominance in the party, but the purge ultimately failed. Protests took place in Aden on 1 May 1968, where the participants were barely kept from clashing. Two days later, fighting broke out in the Madinat Asha'ab district between left-wing students and soldiers following an incident involving the distribution of socialist leaflets. The uprising was suppressed, but on 14 May, the left-wing staged a counter-coup, led by Abdul Fattah Ismail and Salim Rubaya Ali. 14 out of the 21 members of the General Committee gathered in Zinjibar and demanded that the president implement the decisions adopted at the Fourth Congress. The situation escalated into a military confrontation, but the left's rebellion ultimately failed due to a combination of political immaturity and the prevalence of extremist ideas within its ranks, which undermined its effectiveness. Negotiations with Ali Antar took place, where al-Shaabi agreed to a compromise which resulted in the participants involved in the uprising not only avoiding repression but also regaining their previous high-ranking positions.