History of Yemen-South Yemen

n 1838, Sultan Muhsin bin Fadl of the nearby state of Lahej ceded 194 km² (75 sq. miles) including Aden to the British. On 19 January 1839, the British East India Company landed Royal Marines at Aden to occupy the territory and stop attacks by pirates against British shipping to India. It then became an important trading hub between British India and the Red Sea, and following the opening of the Suez canal in 1869, it became a coaling station for ships en route to India. Aden was ruled as part of British India until 1937, when the city of Aden became the Colony of Aden. The Aden hinterland and Hadhramaut to the east formed the remainder of what would become South Yemen and was not administered directly by Aden but were tied to Britain by treaties of protection with local rulers of traditional polities that, together, became known as the Aden Protectorate. Economic development was largely centred in Aden, and while the city flourished, the states of the Aden Protectorate stagnated.
In 1963, Aden and much of the Protectorate were joined to form the Federation of South Arabia with the remaining states that declined to join, mainly in Hadhramaut, forming the Protectorate of South Arabia. Both of these polities were still tied to Britain with promises of total independence in 1968.
Two nationalist groups, the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) and the National Liberation Front (NLF), began an armed struggle on 14 October 1963 against British control and, with the temporary closure of the Suez Canal in 1967, the British began to withdraw. Southern Yemen became independent as the People's Republic of South Yemen on 30 November 1967, and the NF consolidated its control in the country.
In June 1969, a radical Marxist wing of NF gained power and changed the country's name on 1 December 1970, to the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. In the PDRY, all political parties were amalgamated into the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP), which became the only legal party. The PDRY established close ties with the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, Cuba, East Germany, and Palestinians.
The major communist powers assisted in the building of the PDRY's armed forces. Strong support from Moscow resulted in Soviet naval forces gaining access to naval facilities in South Yemen.