The people who say that slanderous shit about Saddam are simply ignorant. They bought into western and iranian propaganda. Saddam Hussein was a baathist. Baathists arent anticommunists, baathism was literally founded by a syrian communist (Michel Aflaq) who believed marxism leninism couldnt be just copied from the Soviet Union and pasted onto the arab world, it needed to be adapted to the material conditions of arab countries. Baathism came out of this. Baathism is basically marxism leninism +panarabism. They believe that the working class must seize power led by a vanguard party and establish socialism, and later on as classes disappear communism will be reached. Basic marxism. Panarabism is the belief that all the arab speaking countries, from Morocco to Iraq, are 1 nation that was divided by colonialist powers. Baathists want to unite all arab countries under one socialist republic. Baathists also believe in multi party democracy along with a vanguard party. This means that 1 party, the Baath Party, will lead the government but other parties will also be allowed as long as they arent reactionary. This includes communists, and in fact coalition governments of baathists and communists were formed both in Syria and Iraq (and in Syria its still like this).

However it is true that there was persecution of communists in Baathist Iraq. Why is this? Well we must understand the history of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP). In its recent history, the ICP has been a very opportunistic party. The earliest example of this is the Ramadan Revolution of 1963 in Iraq. This revolution toppled the military dictatorship of Abdul Karim Qasim, a general who had come to power after the 1958 Revolution which toppled the UK puppet monarchy of Iraq. Qasim wasnt a communist, however he did cooperate with the USSR as a wedge against the british who were angry that he toppled their puppet. For this reason the ICP cooperated with Qasim. Nevertheless, Qasim did no meaningful reforms that were demanded by the iraqi people. No land reform, no nationalizations, nothing. He was just enriching himself. So the Ramadan Revolution happened and he was toppled by the baathists and nasserists (another strand of arab socialism). But instead of supporting this popular revolution, the ICP chose to side with Qasim against the iraqi workers. All of this just so they could use Qasim as a wedge to weaken the baathists and nasserists and also to please Khrushchev. This is a clear example of ICP being opportunistic.

The Ramadan Revolution is also important because the myth of “Saddam being a US puppet” comes from here. And yet, the source of this myth is a literal CIA puppet. King Hussein of Jordan, a UK and US puppet, claimed that the Ramadan Revolution was orchestrated by the US. This was cheap slander against the baathists who rightfully denounced him as a reactionary. So, the leaders of this revolution were Ahmed Hassan al Bakr and Saddam Hussein (baathists) and the Arif brothers (nasserists). As further evidence of baathists not being anticommunists, Bakr said in front of the international reporters covering the events that “Despite the brutal fighting between us and communists, we are not anticommunist, we oppose anticommunism. We just fought them because they took up arms in counterrevolution. We hope for cooperation with the communists”.

So in the end the Arif brothers took over and persecuted the baathists, becoming a bureoucratic reactionary government like the Qasim regime themselves. For this reason in 1968 another revolution occured. This one finally brought the baathists to full power, allowing them to start their ambitious socialist program. They began land reform, nationalization and creation of mass organizations. They sought help from the USSR to do this and became one of their closest allies in the Middle East. In 1972 they signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the USSR. This treaty allowed soviet troops to be stationed in Iraq. They were there until the USSR ceased to exist in 1991. Most of iraqs weapons were soviet and east bloc, supplied by the USSR. Also in 1972 an agreement was reached and the ICP and kurdish political parties were invited into the government by the baathists. Autonomy was also granted to Iraqi Kurdistan (this debunks another myth that Saddam genocided kurds). In the 1970s relations between the baath party and the ICP were good.

However in 1980 the Iran Iraq War, caused by Iran trying to topple the “infidel secularist baathist regime” (as Khomeini called them) for no reason, began. At this time, the ICP again showed their extreme opportunism. They began organizing antigovernment protests and calling for regime change. They hoped to use the war to overthrow the baath party and seize power for themselves. So ofc they were expelled from the government and rightfully repressed. But again, as proof that Saddam wasnt anticommunist, a minor proSaddam faction of the ICP was again invited into the government in the early 90s and allowed to operate. During the 1991 Gulf War the ICP tried again, together with kurdish and shia islamist political parties, to do regime change. How is that okay? You are being invaded by the imperialist US and instead of defending your socialist government you try to do a revolution? Very opportunistic. It got even worse during the 2003 Iraq Invasion when the ICP actively collaborated with US forces and refused to participate in or endorse the resistance. Indeed, the ICP was very happy to collaborate with the invaders in exchange for minor government posts and the legalization of the party. This is exactly why noone in Iraq likes the ICP, they are opportunists. The real opposition to the US in Iraq nowadays comes from proIran shia militias like Hezbollah who actually do something. I think this explains well why the ICP was repressed by Saddam.

Now on sources, ill link a good introductory video on baathism and a couple good books that go more in depth:

Introductory video on baathism:

https://youtu.be/ufJzwzdM8sE

In depth analysis of the material conditions of Iraq and the 3 main leftist movements that sprang out of it (communists, nasserists and baathists) by a palestinian communist:

https://it.es1lib.org/book/5878025/b0ce15

More general book on the different strands of arab leftism:

https://it.es1lib.org/book/5830888/a9c87d

Also to debunk another common myth, no the US didnt “support Saddam against Iran” in the Iran Iraq War, thats iranian propaganda. The truth is the US supported both sides in that war, which makes sense since both sides were antiimperialist and antizionist, thus US enemies, so them killing and weakening each other benefitted the US greatly. The US sold chemical weapons and also gave satellite intelligence to Iraq while they also secretly sold many weapons to Iran (Iran Contra scandal). Israel also sold weapons and spare parts to Iran (Iran was fully stocked with israeli weaponry from the shah so they needed spare parts) and trained the special forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Also contrary to this myth, Iraqs biggest supporter in the Iran Iraq War wasnt the US, but the USSR and its allies. Pretty much all socialist and antiimperialist countries supported Iraq in that war (except a few who were neutral like Romania, Yugoslavia, Albania and China). East Germany, USSR, Czeckoslovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, Cuba, they all supported Iraq. The exceptions were North Korea, South Yemen, Libya and Syria, who supported Iran for different reasons. I think this clearly debunks this myth.