ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the evolution of the Yemeni Communist Party and its influence on the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP). It explains how the Peoples’ Democratic Union (PDU) influenced the origins of the YSP and how their symbiotic relationship evolved over time. The chapter discusses how the PDU emerged from the milieu of anti-colonial forces in South Yemen in the struggle for independence and how that struggle affected the ideological and organizational development of the YSP. It outlines the evolution of the ideology of the NLF and subsequently YSP under the influence of the PDU via Abd al-Fattah Ismail. The chapter reviews how the YSP attempted to transform material relations in South Yemen, how this led to the 1986 civil war in the country, and the evolution of the YSP after reunification in 1991. It assesses the impact of the experiment in Marxism-Leninism in South Arabia.
