Abstract:

The Baath regime of Syria had a close relationship with Moscow and received its diplomatic and military assistance during the Cold War. As an Arab nationalist regime and a non-member of the Eastern Bloc, the Baath intention can be considered as pragmatic in terms of approaching to Moscow just to strengthen Syrian military and economic capabilities and gaining diplomatic protection against the Western Bloc. Nevertheless, such material perspectives ignore the whole picture in which non-material factors also played a key role in Soviet-Baath relations. In this context, this article questions to what extent Soviet-Baath relationship can be considered as pragmatic between the 1940s and 1980s and aims to evaluate this relationship with neo-Gramscian hegemony. This theoretical preference is significant, because the nature of neo-Gramscian hegemony enables to see both material and non-material aspects of consensual Soviet-Baath relationship with a necessary focus on material capabilities, institutions, and ideas. In order to answer its question, the article analyzes several primary and secondary resources to form this qualitative research and concludes that the Soviet and Baath regimes enjoyed hegemonic relations that cannot be viewed as a purely pragmatic, rather, the ideational, institutional, and material dimensions of their relationship need to be considered as a whole.

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