The Corrective Movement (al-Haraka al-Tashihiyya) was the name given by Hafez al-Assad to his bloodless coup of 13 November 1970, which removed his rival Salah Jadid from power and established Assad’s own presidency. The term “Corrective” was deliberately chosen to signal continuity with the Ba’ath revolution of 1963 rather than a break with it: Assad was presenting himself not as a coup-maker but as a Ba’athist leader correcting the errors of the Jadid period. The political differences between Assad and Jadid were real. Jadid was an austere ideological Ba’athist who had subordinated the military to civilian party control and pursued a radical socialist programme that alienated Syria’s private sector and merchant classes. Assad, as Defence Minister, had spent the Jadid years methodically reversing that subordination and building a power base that, by November 1970, left him in control of the armed forces, the air force, and the key security services. When he moved against Jadid, there was effectively no resistance. Jadid was arrested and spent the remaining twenty-three years of his life in Mezze prison without trial. Assad’s Corrective Movement inaugurated the three-decade rule that shaped modern Syria, establishing the security state, the praetorian military formations, and the system of managed patronage and surveillance that would endure until 2024.