Ronald Grigor Suny has written about how Joseph Stalin consolidated his personal control over the Soviet Union through “the naked exercise of unrestrained power.” Simultaneously, Stalin also “…worked to create authority and acceptance, borrowing from and supplementing the repertoire of justifications from Lenin’s day.” Similarly, Saddam Hussein consolidated his power through his relationship to Iraqi president Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, his grip over the security and intelligence services, and his willingness to take ruthless measures. All the while, he maintained that his actions corresponded to al-Bakr’s wishes, the principle of “collective leadership,” and Baʿthist founder Michel ʿAflaq’s philosophies. If “there was a fundamental discontinuity between Bolshevism and Stalinism,” there was also a discontinuity between al-Bakr and ʿAflaq’s Baʿthisms and that of Saddam Hussein. Indeed, a detailed and systematic study of the Iraqi Baʿth Party Regional Command’s internal archive—currently held at the Hoover Institution—shows that the Baʿthism practiced during Hussein’s presidency took on its own character. I call this ideology “Husseini Baʿthism.” What did Hussein Baʿthism consist of? How did it differ from its predecessors? The archives show that while Hussein retained the language, catchphrases, and moral imperative of ʿAflaqian theory, he introduced two new concepts to make Baʿthism his own: his cult of personality and the notion of “applying” (taṭbīq) Baʿthist ideals. These principles went hand-in-hand because each strengthened Hussein’s role within the Baʿthist State. Hussein’s personality cult made him the Baʿth’s chief prophet, giving him exclusive insight into the monopoly on historical truth that underlay the party’s claims to legitimacy. With this power, Hussein’s emphasis on the “application” of Baʿthist ideology allowed him to interpret ʿAflaq’s vague principles as he wished. If ideology was the keystone of the Baʿthist system, by placing himself at the center of party ideology, Hussein sat at the apex of the regime where, to paraphrase Vaclav Havel, the center of power was identical to the center of truth. Husseini Baʿthism did not only give Hussein unquestionable authority, it made the continuance of Hussein’s authority necessary to maintain the Baʿthist regime and to achieve Baʿthist ideology’s utopian goals.