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Since its foundation in 1934, the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) has dominated the left in Iraqi politics. It has played a fundamental role in shaping the modern political history of Iraq since independence. The Party was involved in and generally led all the most important national uprisings and demonstrations. Communism had thus become a powerful passion in Iraq by the mid-1950s.
In 1949, after the suppression of the revolutionary upsurge expressed in al-Wathbah (The Leap) of 1948, the leader and founder of the Party, Fahad (Yusuf Salman Yusuf), and two prominent Political Bureau members, were executed. After the Bathist coup of 8 February 1963, the ICP suffered an unprecedented campaign of mass physical liquidation. Leading figures and cadres of the Party were tortured to death, including its First Secretary Salam Adil (Hussain Al-Radhi). But despite numerous losses, the Party remained a leading force in the fight against the Bathist rule, and joined in the armed struggle waged by the Kurdish national movement in Iraqi Kurdistan.
In 1967 Aziz al-Hajj split from ICP and started Iraqi Communist Party - Central Command and initiated armed struggle (which ICP at the time opposed).
During the period 1973-1979 ICP joined the National Front together with the Ba'ath Party. Thus ICP lived through a short period of legality. The Ba'athist government took advantage of the fact that the communists had gone overground, and after the break it launched a major purge against the party.
In 1993 the Kurdish branch of the party was transformed into a semi-autonomous party, the Kurdistan Communist Party.
The party newspaper is at-Tariq ash-Shaab (Path of the People). It also publishes the magazine Taufiq al-Jedida (New Culture).
The youth wing of the party is Iraqi Democratic Youth Federation.
The motto of the party is Watan Hur wa Shaab Said.
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