The major revolutions of modern history, with the partial exception of the Mexican, involved the revolutionary states in alliance with opposition forces in, and armed conflicts with, their neighbours and other proximate states: France, Russia, Cuba, Vietnam, Iran all underwent this experience. South Yemen too followed this path. Indeed one of the most remarkable aspects of the South Yemeni case was the extent of its revolutionary ‘solidarity’ and embattlement in the post-revolutionary phase, the range and persistence of its conflicts with other states in the Arabian Peninsula and surrounding regions over more than a decade. Given its exposed strategic position, its economic vulnerability and limited resources, the extent of its persistence in such conflict with its neighbours and in a revolutionary foreign policy was striking.

This commitment to revolution in the Arabian Peninsula was not something given great prominence in the official documents of the preindependence period. The 1965 Charter had reiterated radical Arab nationalist themes of that period, calling for freedom from colonial rule and ‘progressive Arab unity’, but its only specific commitment was to support the Palestinians. The shift towards a more socially revolutionary position and to change in the Peninsula was, however, evident from independence itself, and especially when, after some initial optimism on the South Yemen side about establishing relations with Saudi Arabia, it became evident that the two states were in conflict. Speaking at the Fourth Congress, in March 1968, ˓Abd al-Fattāḥ Ismā˓īl stressed the role of the PRSY as a support of revolution throughout the Arabian Peninsula.