In 1958, a military coup d'etat began a period of great turmoil in Iraq that changed its political system and social fabric. The kingdom that had been engineered by British occupation forces in 1921, was replaced by a "republic" under the rule of a military junta; the royal family and the ruling class were executed. The head of the military junta, General Qasim, who had led the revolt gained popular support unprecedented in modern Iraqi history, in part because of his policy of dissociating Iraq from Britain, which included withdrawing from the CENTO alliance known as the "Baghdad Pact" and closing British military bases in the country.(3)
With the coup in place, a variety of political groups sought a place in the new regime, and in the process created anarchy. Some, of which the Communist Party was the best organized, were given a voice in the new regime. To increase his power base in the country, Qasim used the Communists to eliminate his colleagues in the ruling junta who were loyal to the Arab nationalist movements. In the bloody street fighting that followed, especially in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk where the nationalist officers attempted a military coup against Qasim, the Communists emerged as the major political force.
The Shi'ia religious establishment, acquiescent since its last revolt against the British in 1920, found itself challenged by atheist political forces who, if left unchecked, might wipe Islam from the lives of the people,
for the nation seemed to be welcoming the secularism and antireligious sentiments of the new regime and to accept Communist propaganda, which denounced the religious establishment as reactionary and religion as an obstacle to modernization and the progress of the people. The Communist forces then began to penetrate the religious establishment itself in the holy cities of Najaf, Karbala, and Kadhimiyah, even recruiting members of religious families, but the religious leadership (marja'iyya) under the Grand Mujtahid Muhsin al-Hakim took steps to overcome these challenges.