Communist Parties in the Middle East - azzachararabaydoun

Communist Parties in the Middle East

Since the Russian Revolution, communist parties have undergone great change,affecting the entire Left and its associated social movements. Communist Parties inthe Middle East: 100 Years of History aims to cover a century in the lives of theseparties, from the moment the communist ideology first reached the region in the earlytwentieth century, right up to the upheaval caused by the dissolution of the USSRand, more recently, the Arab Spring. The book has been designed to offer a unique,updated and comprehensive study of communist parties in the Middle East.

The volume analyses the composition of the communist parties in the MiddleEast, as well as their role as the vanguard in relation to the objectives of libera-tion, emancipation, revolution and system change or reform, and their connectionto mass or popular movements. It also looks back at the level of autonomyexperienced by the region’s communist parties during the Cold War, and the ten-sions that this generated within them, as well as the search for individual con-structions of communism that considered cultural characteristics and the localcontext of the struggle. Finally, the chapters trace the history of the parties,including – for the first time in the literature – the post-Cold War period andcontinuing to the current situation, in which communist parties occupy a residualposition in the political field, sharing space with other groups on the Left, newprogrammes adapted to neoliberal advancement in the region, and the mobilizationssymbolized by the uprisings of 2010–11.

The first section of the book presents the evolution of the communist parties inAlgeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel and Palestine, Lebanon, Morocco, South Yemen,Sudan, Syria and Turkey. The second section explores some cross-cutting issuesthat have affected relations between the communist parties and other politicalsectors: political Islam and the New Left, as well as the arguments around thequestion of gender in the Arab world and in leftist circles.

Laura Feliu is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Faculty of PoliticalScience and Sociology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at theFaculty of Political Science and Sociology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

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Communist Parties in the Middle East100 Years of HistoryLaura Feliu and Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs

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Communist Parties in theMiddle East100 Years of History

Edited byLaura Feliu and Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs

First published 2019by Routledge2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2019 Laura Feliu and Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs

The right of Laura Feliu and Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs to be identified as theauthors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individualchapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Contents

List of tables viiAcknowledgements viiiList of contributors ix

1 Communist parties in the Middle East and North Africa:An overview 1LAURA FELIU, FERRAN IZQUIERDO-BRICHS AND FRANCESC SERRA

PART ICommunist parties: case studies 43

2 Iran’s communist movement: Reform and revolution 45YASSAMINE MATHER

3 The Communist Party of Turkey: An instrument of ‘Sovieteastern policy’? 60BÜLENT GÖKAY

4 The Iraqi Communist Party 74JOHAN FRANZÉN

5 The Lebanese Communist Party: Continuity against all odds 90ROSAVELASCO MUÑOZ

6 The Syrian Communist Party: Patrimonialism and fractures 109ROSAVELASCO MUÑOZ

7 Class and nation: Arab and Jewish communists in Palestine 129MUSA BUDEIRI

8 The communist movement in Egypt 152BÁRBARA AZAOLA-PIAZZA

9 Communism and organizational symbiosis in South Yemen: ThePeople’s Democratic Union, the National Liberation Front andthe Yemeni Socialist Party 168JOHN ISHIYAMA

10 The Sudan Communist Party: Bolshevize it, O God! 184ABDULLAHI A. IBRAHIM

11 The communists in Algeria (1920–93) 199PIERRE-JEAN LE FOLL-LUCIANI

12 The four faces of Morocco’s communists: PCF, MCP, PLSand PPS 216BERNABÉ LÓPEZ GARCÍA

PART IIContext, debates and cross-cutting issues 239

13 Islamists and communists: A history of Arabconvergenze parallele 241LUZ GÓMEZ GARCÍA

14 The New Left in 1960s and 1970s Lebanon and 1917 as modeland foil 258LAURE GUIRGUIS

15 From Marxism to anti-authoritarianism: Egypt’s New Left 268LAURA GALIÁN

16 Women and left in the Middle East: the voice of the protagonists:How feminist change occurs in Lebanon: an interview with AzzaChararah Baydoun 282NATALIA RIBAS-MATEOS

Index 299

vi Contents

Tables

12.1 PPS representation in legislative elections from 1977 to 2016 231

Acknowledgements

This publication has been compiled within the framework of the research pro-jects led by Dr Laura Feliu-Martínez and Dr Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs: ‘Popu-lar Revolts from the Mediterranean to Central Asia: Historical Genealogy,Power Cleavages and Identity Factors’, funded by the Spanish Ministry ofEconomy and Competitivity (HAR2012–34053); and ‘Transnational Dynamicsand Actors in the MENA Region: A Historical Genealogy of Elites and SocialMovements in between the Local and Global Level’, funded by the SpanishMinistry of Economy and Competitivity, Agencia Estatal de Investigación andEuropean Regional Development Fund (HAR2016–77876-P).

Contributors

Laura Feliu is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the Faculty of Poli-tical Science and Sociology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She leads,together with Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs, the research project ‘HAR2016–77876-P Transnational Dynamics and Actors in the MENA Region’,financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. She hasworked and published extensively on international human rights promotion,on international relations of the Middle East and North Africa, and onSpanish foreign policy. Her latest publications in English include: PoliticalIslam in a Time of Revolt (co-authored with Izquierdo-Brichs and Ether-ington, 2017); ‘Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs) and HumanRights Activism’, in The Routledge Handbook of Mediterranean Politics (ed.Gillespie and Volpi, 2017); and ‘The Western Sahara Members of the Mor-occan Parliament: Parliamentary Diplomacy and Identity Perceptions’ (withParejo Fernández) in Global, Regional and Local Dimensions of WesternSahara’s Protracted Decolonization (ed. Ojeda, Veguilla and Fernández-Molina, 2016).

Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs is Senior Lecturer on International Relations at theUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelona. His research is focused on thesociology of power and the Arab world. He has published numerous arti-cles on these issues, and recently the following books: Political Islam in aTime of Revolt (with Etherington and Feliu, 2017); Poder global. Unamirada desde la sociología del poder (with Etherington, 2017); El islampolítico en el Mediterráneo. Radiografía de una evolución (2013); and PoliticalRegimes in the Arab World (2013).

Bárbara Azaola-Piazza is Lecturer in Arab and Islamic Studies at the Uni-versidad de Castilla-La Mancha. She is also a member of the Study Groupon Arab and Muslim Societies. Her research deals with the analysis ofMiddle East and North Africa political systems with a focus on Egypt.Her publications include Historia del Egipto contemporáneo (2008) and‘The Foreign Policy of Post-Mubarak Egypt and the Strengthening ofRelations with Saudi Arabia: Balancing between Economic Vulnerabilityand Regional and Regime Security’ (2018).

Musa Budeiri was born in Jerusalem and taught politics at Birzeit Universityin the Israeli-ruled West Bank. He has written on the history of the com-munist and the labour movements in Palestine during the years of Britishrule, and on the emergence of Palestinian nationalism in the aftermath ofthe war of 1948. Most recently he has published ‘Emil Tuma’s mea culpa,Palestinian Arab Communists and the Partition of Palestine 1948’ in theBeirut-based Arabic journal Bidayat (2017/18).

Azza Chararah Baydoun is a former professor of social psychology at theLebanese (State) University, a founding member of the Lebanese Associa-tion of Women Researchers (known as BAHITHAT) and was a member ofthe National Commission of Lebanese Women (CEDAW committee)through the years 2003–16. She is a researcher in women and gender studies.She was awarded the certificate of scientific research excellence from theCentre National de Recherche Scientifique, Lebanon for the years 2001–11.Most of her publications, lectures, interviews, etc. can be retrieved from herblog at www.azzachararabaydoun.wordpress.com.

Among many other publications, author of the books:Muwatina la 'ountha[A citizen not a female]. Beirut: Dar Al-Saqi; Cases of Femicide BeforeLebanese Courts (Arabic and English), Beirut: KAFA (enough) Violence andExploitation, 2011;Nisa' yuwajihna al-unuf: dirasa maydaniya [Women facingviolence: a field study]. Beirut: KAFA (enough) Violence and Exploitation.

Johan Franzén is a historian of the modern Middle East. He joined the Uni-versity of East Anglia in 2009 after finishing a PhD in modern MiddleEastern history at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University ofLondon, where he also completed an MA in Middle Eastern studies. Beforecoming to England, he read Middle Eastern history and Arabic at LundUniversity in his native Sweden. Franzén is the author of Red Star overIraq: Iraqi Communism before Saddam (2011), which in 2012 was shortlistedfor the Book Prize of the British Association of Middle Eastern Studies.

Laura Galián is a postdoctoral student at the Horizon 2020 project, RETOPEA:Religious Toleration and Peace, funded by the European Commission at theUniversity of Granada. Laura holds a PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studiesfrom the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Her work has focused on thedecolonization theories and movements in the Middle East. She has been amember of the research project Islam 2.0: Cultural and Religious Markers ofthe Mediterranean Societies in Transformation funded by the Spanish Minis-try of Economy and Competitivity and has also coordinated the projectFighting against Islamophobia funded by the FAMI in the MoroccanAssociation for the Integration of Immigrants in Malaga, Spain.

Bülent Gökay is Professor of International Relations at SPIRE, Keele Uni-versity and the founding editor of the Journal of Global Faultlines. He isthe author of A Clash of Empires: Turkey between Russian Bolshevism andBritish Imperialism (1997), Eastern Europe since 1970: Decline of Socialism

x List of contributors

to Post-Communist Transition (2001), Soviet Eastern Policy and Turkey,1920–1991 (2006), Muslims and Communist in Post-Transition States (withBen Fowkes, 2011) and Power Shift: The Disintegration of Euro-Atlanticismand New Authoritarianism (with Vassilis Fouskas, 2018).

Luz Gómez García is Senior Lecturer of Arab Studies at the UniversidadAutónoma de Madrid. She was previously professor of Arabic translationat the Universidad de Alicante. Her latest books are Entre la sharía y layihad. Una historia intelectual del islamismo (2018) and Diccionario deislam e islamismo (2018).

Laure Guirguis is Thyssen Junior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies,Central European University, Budapest. A graduate in philosophy and inChinese, Guirguis achieved a PhD at the School for Advanced Studies inSocial Sciences, Paris. Her PhD on Sectarianism in Egypt has been pub-lished in French (2012) and in English (2016). She is currently researchingradical left-wing trends in the Arab world in the 1960s and 1970s, addres-sing the paradoxical legacy of the revolutionary left. Her latest publica-tions include Copts and the Security State: Violence, Coercion, andSectarianism in Contemporary Egypt (2016) and ‘La référence au Vietnamet l’émergence des gauches radicales au Liban (1956–1975)’ (2018).

Abdullahi A. Ibrahim is Emeritus Professor of African History and Islam atthe University of Missouri-Columbia. He has published extensively, inboth Arabic and English, on the culture and history of Sudan, including TheMahdi-Ulema Conflict (1968); Assaulting with Words: Popular Discourse andthe Bridle of Shari’ah (1994); The Dusk of Marxism: Resistance andRenaissance in the Praxis of the Sudanese Communist Party (in Arabic,2007); and Manichaean Delirium: Decolonization of the Judiciary and Isla-mic Renewal in Sudan, 1898–1985 (2008). He is currently writing a bio-graphy of Abdel Khalig Mahgoub, the secretary of the Sudan CommunistParty (1927–71) tragically hanged by President Nimeiry in 1971.

John Ishiyama is Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at theUniversity of North Texas. He is also the former editor-in-chief for theAmerican Political Science Review (2012–16) and was the founding editorof the Journal of Political Science Education. He is currently the principalinvestigator and director of the National Science Foundation-ResearchExperience for Undergraduates programme on civil conflict managementand peace science. His research interests include democratization andpolitical parties in post-communist Russian, European, Eurasian andAfrican (especially Ethiopian) politics, ethnic conflict and ethnic politicsand the scholarship of teaching and learning. He has published extensivelyon these topics, producing eight books and over 130 journal articles.

Pierre-Jean Le Foll-Luciani is a historian and associate researcher at theUniversité Rennes. His books include Le Camp des oliviers. Parcours d'un

List of contributors xi

communiste algérien (2012) and Les juifs algériens dans la lutteanticoloniale. Trajectoires dissidentes (1934–1965) (2015).

Bernabé López García is Professor of History of the Arab and Islamic Worldat the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He is author, among otherworks, of Marruecos político. Cuarenta años de procesos electorales (1960–2000) (2000, translated into Arabic and updated in 2009) and Orientalismoe ideología colonial en el arabismo español (1840–1917) (2011).

Yassamine Mather is Acting Editor of Critique. She is an Iranian socialistwho joined the Fedayeen Minority. She worked in Kurdistan, becomingeditor of the student monthly journal Jahan. At Glasgow University shewas deputy director of the Centre for the Study of Socialist Theory andMovements. She is currently working at the University of Oxford.

Natalia Ribas-Mateos has been teaching for many years and conductingdiverse fieldworks in different places of the world since the early 1990s,most particularly in Mediterranean Europe. In English she is the author ofthe ‘The Mediterranean in the Age of Globalization’ and ‘Border Shifts:New Mobilities in Europe and Beyond’, and more recently of various col-lections of works related to age, gender and mobilities. She is currently aresearcher at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain and is amember of the Fatema Mernissi Chair, Rabat.

Francesc Serra is currently Associate Lecturer at the Universitat Autònomade Barcelona. Among his published work is the monography Rusia, la otrapotencia europea (Russia, the Other European Power, 2005) and as editorthe books Chechenia, rompamos el silencio (Chechnya, Let’s Break theSilence, 2008) and Poder y regímenes en Asia Central (Power and Regimesin Central Asia, 2018). He has been a visiting researcher at the universitiesof Buenos Aires, Argentina (2006), Bogazici, Turkey (2009), Miami (2010)and Saitama, Japan (2014).

Rosa Velasco Muñoz is a researcher at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.Her main area of interest and research is the study of Palestinian refugeecamps in Lebanon and the modern history of Lebanon which she for-malized in published articles and her PhD (2015) on this subject. Cur-rently, Rosa is collaborating in the research project TransnationalDynamics and Actors in the MENA-Region: A Genealogy of Elites andSocial Movements between the Local and the Global’ sponsored by theSpanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness.

xii List of contributors

1 Communist parties in the Middle Eastand North AfricaAn overview

Laura Feliu, Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs andFrancesc Serra

1 Introduction

Despite the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR),the influence of the Russian Revolution around the world cannot be denied acentury later. The twentieth century was distinguished by the Marxist revo-lutionary force of the revolution and by the occasionally conservative controlof the world Left from Moscow. Along with realpolitik and domination bythe Soviet nomenklatura, revolutionary solidarity and excitement influencedthe activity of communist parties as well as other leftist forces. The entire Lefthad to position itself with respect to the USSR, whether taking their cuesfrom and being influenced by the dogmatic ideological line of the CommunistParty of the Soviet Union (CPSU) or not.

The euphoria of the revolutionary moment and the force of the new Sovietpower were reflected, among other things, in the proliferation of communistparties that adhered to the orthodoxy emanating from Moscow. The growthin the number of communist parties paved the way for the creation of a newCommunist International, the Comintern, in 1919, which in turn provided theimpetus for the organization of new parties. In the Arab world and MiddleEast, this influence arrived more slowly than in Europe,1 and it clashed withother strong ideologies that viewed communism as a threat or as the compe-tition, primarily nationalism and political Islam. However, the organizations,their activists and their ideology all had a strong impact on twentieth-centuryMiddle Eastern societies, and if the modern history of the region is to beunderstood, the role of communism must also be analysed.

Communist parties underwent significant changes and their evolutionaffected the entire Left and social movements. The impact of the communistparties and their development in the Middle East remains largely unexploredand academic literature on the question continues to be lacking.2 Conse-quently, we believe that the centennial of the revolution in Russia and thebicentennial of the birth of Karl Marx provide a good opportunity for acomprehensive, global look at the topic and, indeed, this volume fills thevacuum. Communist Parties in the Middle East: 100 Years of History looks ata century’s worth of experience, from the arrival of communist ideology in the

region in the early twentieth century by minority activists and the creation ofthe first parties and trade unions after the 1917 revolution to the convulsionsproduced by the dissolution of the USSR and, more recently, the ArabSpring. The result is a comprehensive, unique study of these parties in a vastregion that ranges from Morocco to Iran, based both on diverse theoreticalframeworks and on empirical studies and historical archives. The volumeprovides a depiction of the processes undergone by communist parties in theregion through the identification of common characteristics and contexts,completing the overall view of the expansion of communism in the world andthe vicissitudes of communist parties after the creation of the USSR, whilealso evaluating the diversity of experiences and the influence of local settings.

What follows is, first, an analysis of the tensions faced by communist par-ties in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region based on thesociology of the power and their competition with ideologies like nationalismand Islamism, and the constant questioning about whether to act as a van-guard for social mobilization or be co-opted into a secondary position by theregimes in power or by Soviet politics. The legacy left by the communists inthe region is also the product of these competitions and strains. Finally, thechapter looks at the relationship between the USSR and the region, since thisis instrumental in understanding the history of these parties and the men andwomen who were active in them.

2 The communist parties: political and ideological tensionsand debates in the MENA region

Our analytical point of departure, the sociology of power,3 argues that whenhierarchical organizations are established, social, economic and – obviously –political relations between elites are competitive, always becoming relations ofand for power. The primary objective of the elites who control these hier-archies is the ‘differential accumulation of power’,4 of more power than othermembers of the elite, because if they lose this competition, they cease tocontrol the hierarchy. As a relative competition – the actors have no absoluteobjectives, but compare themselves with the other actors – these power rela-tions have no end; they are circular and feed off of themselves. In otherwords, these actors constantly need to use their power to gain a greater powerdifferential with respect to their competitors.

The competition is one and only, for power, in which the actors face off,using various resources, according to their abilities, in different accumulationprocesses. Resources like state control, ideology, capital, coercion, informa-tion and the population itself are used in the competition for the accumula-tion of power. For this reason, an isolated analysis cannot be done for each ofthese areas since the actors involved in the competition all play against eachother in a single game, using each of the power resources at their disposal.This power, of course, is not an abstraction; consequently, the actors involvedin a power relation cannot be abstractions or institutions like the nation,

2 Feliu, Izquierdo-Brichs and Serra

Islam, Christianity, the markets, corporations or the state, but must be indi-viduals or social groups understood as a set of individuals. The circular rela-tions established by the elites fighting over the differential accumulation ofpower are basically conservative, since the main function of the actors is toaccumulate, and therefore conserve, power resources.

In contrast to circular power relations, processes of change are not broughtabout by the competition for power, but by the people’s struggle for better livingconditions – aking into account material, cultural, identity, gender factors aswell as human rights and freedoms. When the people, as an actor, mobilize toachieve specific objectives related to improving their welfare, a power relationis established that can be called linear. These relations are linear because theybegin with raising awareness and creating networks for social mobilizationand end when the objective has been achieved or the mobilization defeated.

It is, thus, necessary to identify when a power relation is linear or circular. Inother words, it is necessary to identify when the actor is the population whoseobjective is to improve living conditions and when the actors are elites whosemain goal is to accumulate power differential. In the former case – the linearrelationship – the people can establish alliances with other actors if theirobjectives and interests coincide or are complementary, or the population itselfcan be a revolutionary political actor. In the latter case – the circular relation-ship – the people must be clear that the main objective of the actors does notcoincide with their own and that the priority behind the decisions taken by theactors is the differential accumulation of power. In this case, the relationshipestablished by the elites with the majority of the population is one of subject toobject, actor to resource, and the population’s position is one of subjugation tothe interests of the elites. Thus, for example, the use of ideology to controlpeople is a key element in elite competition and will be reflected in a very harshcompetition to impose one ideology or another and to mobilize the people as aresource for the benefit of accumulating power.

In this dynamic, social movements confront a permanent tension betweenbeing an actor in a linear relationship that mobilizes and demands its rights orbeing a resource mobilized by elites for their accumulation of power in a cir-cular relationship. Likewise, the leaders of leftist parties and social movementsalso experience the tension between being at the vanguard of social mobiliza-tion (a linear relationship) or letting themselves be co-opted to become sec-ondary elites and compete for the accumulation of more power than the otherelites (circular relationship). The various communist parties could not escapethese tensions, which were reflected both in domestic dynamics and in theirrelationship with Moscow. For this reason, it is necessary to analyse when theymoved in one dimension or another, since their decisions and capacity tomobilize and influence the system would depend on this.

Socialist ideas first entered the Middle East in the late nineteenth century,for example with the Palestinian Jew Joseph Rosenthal, who moved to Egyptand established contacts with trade unions led by Greeks. Some members ofminority groups like Jews and Armenians, many of whom were polyglots,

Communist parties in MENA 3

were more receptive to the influence of European ideas. The first communistsreached the MENA region through contact with revolutionary experiences inEurope (Iranian and Turkish emigrants in revolutionary Russia, Turkishemigrants and the Iraqi Husayn al-Rahal in Germany and the Spartacistuprising), through emigrant contact with communist parties in the metropolis(primarily Algerians and Moroccans in France), or through immigration andcolonization to Arab countries (as in Egypt, the French in Tunisia, Algeriaand Morocco, and Jewish colonists and immigrants in Palestine).

These early communists were influenced by the revolutionary drive andexcitement generated by the Russian Revolution. Like all movements, theyneeded to reach an agreement about a proposal for social change, their ownconceptual ‘frame’, as it is referred to in current theory on social movements.5

They also had to expand their organization and activist base and to createnetworks of alliances6 in addition to doing everything possible to raiseawareness and mobilize the people to fight to improve living conditions.

Nominally, Marxism-Leninism gave them the necessary analytical andconceptual base as well as the organizational orientation to form partieswhich, in general, had to be done underground. However, the reality facingMiddle Eastern societies was quite different from the European and Russiansituations, and they soon had to confront contradictions and problems thatdid not adjust well to the Russian experience and orthodox Marxist analysesthat came from industrialized Europe.

The first objective of any social movement must be to raise awarenessamong the people about the social changes required to improve their livingconditions. This awareness raising was linked to the dissemination of a framebased on class struggle from a Marxist perspective that had the enormousadvantage of the excitement generated by the Russian Revolution, but at thesame time had to deal with very deeply rooted ideological and cultural hege-monies. In many early twentieth-century societies in the Middle East andNorth Africa, especially in the rural world, the main solidarity and identitystructures were still based more on clan and clientelistic ties and on IbnKhaldun’s asabiyyah (Ibn Jaldun, 1987 [1382]) than on class identity andsolidarity. Moreover, as the different chapters in this book discuss, throughoutthe twentieth century, communism in the region had to deal with two com-peting ideological systems that had enormous power: nationalism and reli-gion. Both the ideological and identity structures reinforced systems ofauthority control over the population that ran counter to the awarenessraising and emancipation sought by the communists.

The communists’ analytical and theoretical frame in the less industrializedcountries and colonies necessarily clashed with the reality of agrarian economiestransitioning to capitalism and a proletariat – theoretically the vanguard of therevolution – that was very small. The social base of the communist parties waslargely some trade unions that were generally weak and very localized in the fewindustrialized areas and also students, intellectuals and professionals.7 In manyof these countries, the working class was low in numbers and in some cases, like


Palestine and Egypt, closely tied to immigration. Additionally, it was very diffi-cult for communist ideas to penetrate the peasantry and civil service. The sectorsclosest to Marxism and the communist parties were middle-class intellectualsand students. They were never a majority even in the universities, but theirinfluence over the intelligentsia also gave them influence over many of the poli-ticians and parties on the Left, even if they were nationalist.

Therefore, in the 1920s and 1930s and later during the SecondWorld War, firstcolonial needs and, then, war requirements stimulated the expansion of the pro-letariat slightly, particularly in connection with the extractive industries, portsand railway services. This allowed for greater communist influence in these sec-tors, especially through the trade unions. Other sectors attracted to the movementwere the marginalized minority groups in different countries. In their defence ofsocial equality, the communist parties found some natural allies in these dis-criminated sectors (at least until these minorities developed their own forms ofidentity advocacy, like the Shiite Movement of the Disinherited in Lebanon).

The colonial context and the later construction of new independent statesmade national liberation the primary demand for the immense majority ofpeople, with nationalism being the most mobilizing ideology. With respect tocolonialism, the position of the communists largely focused on the struggleagainst the colonial powers for the liberation of peoples. The fact that a newpower like the USSR took the side of colonized peoples also gave prestige tothe communist parties. The 1921 friendship treaties between the Soviet Rus-sians (the USSR was constituted the following year) with Turkey, Iran andAfghanistan were done in conditions of equality unknown in the region intheir interactions with the great powers and were in and of themselves arejection of the League of Nations’ mandate system (Ismael, 2005: 9). More-over, the communists were organizationally better prepared to battle whilebeing repressed and thus had greater influence and prestige in the anti-colonialstruggle than their low membership would suggest. However, in the Maghreb,where the communists were late in separating themselves from an ambiguousFrench Communist Party (FCP), an initial unclear position regarding thedemand for independence weakened them. In Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia,the difficulty in separating from the FCP took its toll on them. Both BernabéLópez García in his chapter on Morocco and Pierre-Jean Le Foll-Lucianiwriting on Algeria offer examples of this tension. From the mid-1920s to themid-1930s, the dominant watchword was class conflict, which meant that thecommunist parties in colonized countries had to fight not only the colonialpowers, but also against the nationalist bourgeoisies, which debilitated them.One added factor of tension that sapped the strength of the communist par-ties was Soviet support for the partition of Palestine and the creation ofIsrael, which gave rise to major contradictions among Arab communists, inaddition to losing them support and provoking or intensifying conflict andrepression in the nationalist regimes that had already achieved independence.

With respect to nationalism, by associating with the anti-colonial fight, thefacet of the national struggle brought communists closer to the nationalist


movements and parties. However, their discourse was at times ambiguous andit was difficult to reconcile nationalism with class internationalism. Moreover,the communists were often extremely suspicious of alliances with nationalistbourgeois parties and, as noted above, class solidarity clashed with thetraditional social structures that were still very much present.

The communist parties in the south were anti-colonialist and anti-capitalist,but they were incapable of adopting a discourse and analysis from the southabout the specific needs of the south for intellectual reasons rooted in Marxistorthodoxy and political reasons related to the control being exercised fromMoscow. Very early on, because of the pressure from nationalist forces and thecontradictions facing them, the communists were forced to pose the followingquestion: were the ideological premises of Marxist-Soviet orthodoxy adequateto identify, understand and defend the interests of the people in the south?

Ramón Grosfoguel has highlighted the words of Aimé Césaire (Grosfoguel,2008: 209). Despite coming from a region quite far away, this attack on theabstract universalism of Eurocentric Marxist thinking presents problems quitesimilar to those of the communists in the MENA region and especially forthe communists in the Maghreb:

In any case, it is constant that our struggle, the struggle of colonial peo-ples against colonialism, the struggle of peoples of color against racism ismuch more complex – of a completely different nature than the struggleof the French worker against French capitalism and can in no way beconsidered as a part, a fragment of that struggle …

I don’t bury myself in a narrow particularism. But I also don’t want toget lost in an emaciated universalism. There are two ways to get lost: bywalled segregation in the individual or by dilution in the universal.

(Césaire, 18 April 2008 [24 October 1956])

From Iran, Ali Shariati, surely the greatest exponent of progressive Islamism,said in reference to Western and Westernized intellectuals:

As writers and thinkers, we must turn towards those who have concernslike ours; a history, a situation, a fate parallel to ours. Instead of Brecht,we should be familiar with Kateb Yasin; instead of Jean-Paul Sartre,Omar Mowlud … In knowing them, we recognize ourselves, while bymoving towards Western intellectuals, we move away from ourselves andeven more when understanding them … makes the Eastern intellectualultrasensitive – in fact sentimental and not sensitive – to the questionsposed in Europe, to the very progressive doctrines in vogue in the Westand not in the East, they put a distance between the Eastern intellectualand people and their own realities, their specific responsibilities; andfinally, despite sincerely believing in serving and instructing, they becomefactors of decadence and deceit.

(Shariati, 1982: 107–8)


Of course, in Paris during the early 1960s, Shariati had direct contact withEuropean intellectuals that is, in many ways, reflected in his work, to the pointthat he has been spoken of as the Marxist theorist of Islamism, although hisreference points are clearly Islamic. In fact, he accompanied his criticism ofMarxism and his project to renew Islam with some proposals for social changethat were directly inspired by the Marxist debate (Shariati, 1980).

There is one recurrent theme in the history of the communist parties in theArab world and Middle East. The difficulty of dissociating themselves from thefalse universalism denounced by Césaire and the influence and dogmas comingfrom Europe left the field open to the bourgeoisies and the elites created by theindependence movements with their nationalist discourse and to political Islamwith its discourse calling for a retrograde interpretation of identity.

The intensification of the anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggle broughtwith it the emergence of significant non-communist socialist nationalisticgroups such as Nasserism, Ba‘athism, and the Algerian Front de Libera-tion National (FLN). In their conceptions of socialism, such groupsthreatened to co-opt the Arab communists’ political programs, and thelatter’s potential popular constituency. Moreover, with their nationalism,such groups stood in stark contrast to the internationalist, anti-nationalistArab communists – and, as such, had far more popular appeal amongthe fervently nationalist Arab masses.

(Ismael, 2005: 21)

Above all, the contradiction was expressed at the moment of independence,when a model of a progressive society was supposed to be implemented ormechanisms of exploitation perpetuated, although they adopted differentforms. For many activists and intellectuals, Marxism continued to be a basictool for analysis and social transformation, and abandoning it for the sake ofnationalism led to failure. As Maxime Rodinson summarized quite well, itwas possible for nationalism to become a threat to welfare and social progressif left exclusively in the hands of the bourgeois nationalist parties:

The march towards socialism … will be linked to the struggle for the reali-zation, preservation and intensification of national independence … I knowthat many contemporary struggles stem from nationalism. I willingly admitthat this is a necessary stage when the issue is to defend the legitimate rightsof an oppressed, humiliated or threatened nation. But today the world islinked in more ways than ever before. All perpetuation of nationalist ideol-ogy in its pure form, which accepts no alternative values to the good of thenation to which one belongs, is liable to lead to immense danger.

(Rodinson, 2015 [1972]: 114, 13)

Of course, both Shariati and Rodinson were writing at a time when – althoughthe communist parties were weak – ‘Marxism was in the air in the Muslim


world’, something that contradicted the Orientalist view of the Middle East ashijacked by religious fundamentalism (Achcar, 1972: x–xi).

Once independence had been achieved, nationalism turned into an ideologyaimed at all the social groups that could not accept other identities or soli-darities. By negating class struggle, the relationship between nationalism inpower and the communists could only be one of confrontation or co-optation,with the communists abandoning their class objectives. Often, the position ofthe communist parties depended on instructions from Moscow, which pro-duced clashes and more than one rupture in the party, a result of the inco-herent turns that they had to make. Ideological overlaps with the USSR,which stressed the anti-imperialist discourse during the Cold War, facilitatedclose cooperation between the Arab socialist governments and Moscow. TheKremlin’s later turn regarding its initial support for the state of Israel, more-over, converted the Soviet power into the great international advocate for thePalestinian cause, making it hugely popular in the region (Ali, 2009: 91–3).

Additionally, the nationalist political parties that emerged or came topower in the 1950s, whether Nasserites, Ba‘athists or more moderate groupslike the Tunisian Neo-Destour Party, often included a discourse that was easyto assimilate with European socialism, as it stressed anti-imperialism, socialprogress, secularism, the promotion of the rights of women and the struggleagainst traditionally privileged elites, especially if they had links to the pre-vious regime and the colonial power. Rodinson highlights the influence ofcommunists on Arab nationalism in the analysis of imperialism and the needfor social revolution after the national revolution (Rodinson, 1972: 94).

The communist parties in the years after the independences often had toface changes created by strongmen with ‘progressive’ and ‘unifying’ discoursesin situations almost comparable to Caesarism in the Gramscian sense of theterm (Gramsci, 1971: 219–23). The temptation to fall into co-optation andtrasformismo8 – also almost always forced by the threat of the most brutalrepression – was strong and often became a reality, with different results inEgypt, Iraq, Yemen, Algeria, Sudan and so forth. At times, whether becauseof their own analyses or due to pressure from the USSR and the regimes, theparties dissolved and joined the regime party. These approaches to the ‘pro-gressive’ authoritarian regimes were much easier in situations of imperialistthreat as in Egypt in 1956, or proximity to power and agreement with policy(such as nationalist economic reforms and some agrarian reforms) carried outby the government as in Iraq, Yemen and Sudan. However, in each case therewere tensions and ruptures among the communists.9

The alliances with these regimes also corresponded to Soviet foreign policyneeds, and consequently could be imposed from Moscow. This made themeasier, even on a theoretical level, since the Soviets had formulated the theoryof ‘non-capitalist development’ to justify them. This theory argued that thenon-developed economies of the south could, under the influence and with theassistance of the ‘socialist field’, skip the stage of capitalism on its way to asocialist society. ‘Arab socialism’ was presented as an example of this path


(Ismael, 2005: 30 and Franzén in this book). As Alain Gresh noted withregard to this period:

During the 1960s, in line with the conclusions reached at the 20th Con-gress of the Soviet Communist Party, Arab Communists attached con-siderable weight to alliances with Arab nationalists, whose leadershipthey recognized. The Egyptian Communist party went as far as to dis-solve itself, merging with Nasser’s Arab Socialist Union. Even apart fromthis exceptional case, the Arab Communist parties agreed to play secondfiddle to the nationalists – as in Damascus restricting their activities andonly claiming a modest share of power. They contented themselves withstatist economic reforms (in particular, sweeping nationalization mea-sures), limited agrarian reform, and close cooperation with the SovietUnion and other socialist states.

(Gresh, 1989: 393)

‘Arab socialism’ was not a real social transformation project, but had anotherbasic function: to ensure the power of the elites who had managed to stabilizethemselves at the top of the hierarchy. The construction of the independenciesusually occurred in contexts in which the population was mobilized, and the newelites had to respond to popular demands for legitimacy and consolidation inpower. Consequently, the progressive discourse and most egalitarian policieswere responding to demands from the street and not to future socialist projects.These policies made it possible to reach out to communists and other leftistsectors. However, when the people started to demobilize and the new regimessettled into power, the elites inevitably disassociated themselves from popularlegitimacy and demands, redistributive policies weakened and alliances withtrade unions, social movements and leftist parties were no longer necessary. As aresult, the response could become more repressive.10 Then the communists hadto choose between co-optation, abandoning the fight or going underground.

In the Arab world, this process took on a special form. After the con-solidation of the independence regimes, different dynamics occurred thatreinforced each other. Much like Western Europe, after the independences inthe 1950s and 1960s, when the people were mobilized and had bargainingpower, the new governments were forced to respond to their demands forbetter living conditions, creating the base for what was called the welfare statein Europe and in the Arab world entailed the construction of services thathad not hitherto existed for most of the population. This made it easier forthe sectors closest to the Left in the new regimes to come into power andapply ‘Arab socialist’ policies, often based on the nationalization of resources.State control over these would solidify the sovereignty of the independentstates and ensure that they remained under the control of the new politicalelites. These regimes and policies were based on rentierism (Beblawi &Luciani, 1987). However, the economies of the new independent states did notcease to play their role in the capitalist world system, underscoring the


contradiction between theoretical ‘socialism’ and the reality of an economythat was feeding global capitalism, as well as an elite linked to state controland a bourgeoisie dependent on this elite.

Rentier policies, coupled with repression, constituted the response of theelites in the new regimes to the demands of the population and the need toconsolidate power. Aurèlia Mañé and Carmen de la Cámara define oil-rentiereconomies as economies ‘in territories where the management of the hydro-carbon sector is carried out with the – political – objective of obtaining thehighest possible rent from the subsoil for the national citizens’ (Mañé & de laCámara, 2005). Public intervention by the government is based on the incomefrom external rent, meaning that budgetary policies primarily concernexpenditures and are aimed at legitimizing the regime. This dynamic leads tothe development of a non-productive economy based on rent, which sustainsthe service and consumption sectors largely on the basis of imported products.The consequence of all of this is the direct dependence of the economy andthe regime on oil prices or the ability to obtain external aid and foreign loans.

Analyses usually focus on the rents produced by the extraction of resources,but rentier mechanisms can be extended to foreign debt and the assistancereceived by some states.11 According to Gilbert Achcar, the fact that oil is themain source of rent in the Arab region has produced several secondary sour-ces of rent for non-oil-producing Arab states; the leading oil-producing statesare joined by a stratum of second-tier non-oil-producing rentier states(Achcar, 2013b: 56). Debt and assistance allow the Arab regimes in non-oil-producing states to maintain rentier ties with the population, as long as theyhave debt capacity or can receive aid. Most of the Arab states, both those richand poor in oil, entered into this rentier dynamic to some extent. The regimesthat do not have oil took advantage of the strategic importance of theirproximity to the wells to obtain foreign rents, both from countries they wantas allies and from those who are willing to pay to avoid being threatened. Forthis same reason, since oil generates threats and vulnerability, both foreignand domestic, but at the same time makes it possible to increase budgets forthe army, police and Mukhabarat, the regimes militarize and become some ofthe most important clients for the armament industry (Beblawi & Luciani,1987: 18, 52, 59–60). Above all, their repressive capacity increases.

Thus, the state and rent joined together as resources of power in the handsof the elites who could control them. These elites accumulated a power dis-proportionate when compared to other time periods and to contemporaryelites. While foreign rent was copious, the distributive capacity generated wassufficient to control the population and, at the same time, turn groupscompeting for the accumulation of power into clients.

As the regimes became consolidated, the leftist forces and social move-ments, including the communist parties, began to taper off. The 1970s and1980s were a time of weakness and demobilization for the people and socialmovements with links to the Left (the Six-Day War, Black September, AnwarSadat’s rise to power in Egypt, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Saddam Hussein in


Iraq, Chadli Bendjedid in Algeria, Habib Bourguiba’s change of course inTunisia, the Years of Lead in Morocco, etc.).

The elites believed themselves free from the need to respond to the demandsof the people and legitimize their policies and, consequently, redistributive andwelfare programmes weakened. In the Arab world, this gave rise to Infitahpolicies, a sharp increase in corruption and nepotism and the direct appro-priation of resources by the elites when the opportunity arose. This processcoincided with a crisis in oil prices, which debilitated the rentier mechanismsand forced many governments to once again seek credit from internationalinstitutions, which were now focusing on neoliberalism.

Pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and financial insti-tutions deepened the dismantling of part of the public sector, the redis-tributive policies and subsidies for welfare. The priority of the investmentceased to be the creation of jobs and, subsequently, the legitimization ofpower and deactivation of potential protests, and acquired the theoreticalfunction of generating profits and competing on the market, although the realfunction was to enrich and accumulate power in the form of wealth for theelites who could compete. Part of the state capitalism constructed by thenationalist parties that was called for by ‘Arab socialism’ became cronycapitalism, and control of many public companies and resources, export andimport licences and investment was moved from the bureaucratic mechanismswith links to the public sector and their elites to direct appropriation by thesesame elites or their relations. This dynamic always occurred and occurs with alimited part of the resources and wealth, since control of the rent (primarilyoil and gas) continued to belong to the state and, therefore, to the regime. Theconjunction of the two dynamics made it possible to unite the concentrationof power through control of the state and the accumulation of power througheconomic mechanisms. The result, of course, was neopatrimonial dictator-ships with an enormous concentration of power in the hands of the primaryelites (see Achcar, 2013a: 50–67).

Despite the pressure from international financial institutions, neoliberalideology and corruption, the rentier mechanisms could not be completelydismantled, because when living conditions became unbearably strained, thepeople still maintained some capacity for mobilization. Popular discontenterupted in so-called bread protests (Egypt 1977, Morocco 1981, Tunisia 1983,Algeria 1988, Jordan 1989), although these mobilizations and, subsequently,the bargaining power of the social movements and people were smaller thanthe battles for independence and their aftermath. During this period, thecommunist parties and the Left in general – for reasons that will be exploredin the chapters in this book – found themselves in a state of extreme weak-ness, with other groups associated with political Islam becoming the maindriving force and vanguard of the mobilizations.

The Muslim world is often presented as a region that is incapable ofreaching modernity as a consequence of the power of Islam and the traditionat its heart. Particular stress has been placed on the incompatibility of Islam


with modernity, as if this were some original ‘defect’ that justifies con-servatism and takes for granted the idea that Muslim-majority societies musthave authoritarian regimes. However, the falseness of this perspective hasbeen demonstrated both theoretically and historically.12 Islam has producedideological currents associated with the changes of modernity, and theinability to build modern productive systems and economies has not been dueto the religion but to the colonial and post-colonial conditions in these andother societies in the south within the world economic system. In truth, toquote Adam Hanieh, ‘The authoritarian guise of the Middle East state is notanomalous and antagonistic to capitalism, but is rather a particular form ofappearance of capitalism in the Middle East context’ (Hanieh, 2013: 24).Even secular ideologies, from nationalism to the Left, have in some way comecloser to the ideological traditions linked to Islam, and for decades the powerof the religion posed no obstacle to some of these ideologies – most particu-larly nationalism – gaining hegemonic strength in the region. Finally, onmore than one occasion, large transformational social mobilizations andmovements with no ties to the religion have arisen, the most recent beingthe so-called Arab Spring. Some have triumphed, while others have failed inthe face of repression, despite having the significant popular support of apeople who do not cease to be aware of the need for change just because theyare believers.

As in other societies, the relationship between communism and other secu-lar ideologies and religion in the MENA region must also be analysed interms of competition for influence over the people. In this respect, there aretwo main dimensions: 1) from a Marxist perspective, ideology understood asa system of beliefs that hamper awareness about living conditions; and 2) thecapacity for one or another social movement or political group to gainstrength using ideology to establish a mobilizing frame.

In the first case, as seen above, more than Islam, the communist parties hadto deal with nationalism, which had the ability to disseminate an identity-based ideology at the same time that it demanded political changes: inde-pendence and the construction of new states. The communists, as the differentchapters in this book will explore, operated around the weaker identity ofclass and demanded much more radical political, economic and social changes,which hindered their ability to reach large masses of people.

However, when the nationalisms entered a state of crisis in the 1970s after manyhad presented themselves as defenders of secularism and the Left – although theywere quite distant from and often clashed with the Marxist Left – this crisis wasalso felt as a crisis of the Left and other secular ideologies in the Arab and Islamicworld. As a result, both conservative Islam, with re-Islamization supported by theoil countries, and political Islam had more room to exert their influence. ManyIslamist groups took the demands of political Islam and added a frame demand-ing social responses to the economic crisis and the consequences of the policiesimposed by the IMF, and against corruption, which allowed them to lead thesocial and political mobilization of the bread riots. The communist parties once


again found themselves in a position of weakness as they faced the difficulty ofspreading their message and expanding their networks while also dealing withharsh repression and direct competition from the Islamists. This was felt deeply inthe few strongholds where the Left still had influence and the Islamists weregaining a foothold, like the universities, where the confrontations were oftenviolent.

The organization of the communist parties followed the Leninist model, oftenbased on publications that activists could use to raise awareness, win over newmembers and create networks (Lenin, 1961 [1902]: 114). The Leninist revolu-tionary model, which was based on a very dedicated though limited number ofmembers, had the virtue of not requiring a large working class – something thatwas non-existent in most Arab countries – as would have been the case for amass social movement or party. This model was also a necessity given the almostpermanent repression to which the communists were subjected.

When compared to other parties, the organization of the revolutionaryparty strengthened the communists against the waves of repression (Ismael,2005). Furthermore, the fight for social change also gave them influenceamong small sectors of workers and intellectuals, allowing them to createnetworks of alliances and solidarity with trade unions and other organiza-tions. As Le Foll-Luciani discusses in his chapter, the communist partiesserved as a meeting point that broke down some of the religious, identity,class and gender cleavages that divide societies in the MENA region. Peoplefrom different communities were able to come together in communist partycells, while women had much more scope for action than in the rest of society.Some of them saw the party as a space of liberation, although the patriarchalburden was still hard to throw off (Le Foll-Luciani, 2016; see also Chapter 16containing an interview with Azza Chararah Baydoun). However, because oftheir very organizational structure, the communist parties were small and notdeeply rooted; consequently their influence depended on their ability to createand extend networks of alliances with other organizations and associations.

This organizational model favoured hierarchization and party discipline,13

in turn subject to directives from Moscow, which made it difficult to have aframe and a strategy of their own when they might clash with Soviet interests.This twofold dimension – a resource in the hands of the Soviet elites andbeing at the vanguard of social mobilization – was a source of permanenttension within the parties. As a resource, they were subject to both thedynamics of power competition in the USSR and Moscow’s foreign policy,and their leaders acted as secondary elites in the midst of global orthodoxcommunism. As parties of mobilization and resistance, they supported andguided popular grievances. The problem arose when there was some contra-diction between the two dimensions. On these occasions, dependence onMoscow usually prevailed, even if this meant the resignation or expulsion ofleaders and members who did not agree to abide by Soviet orders. Each timethat the directives from the CPSU or Comintern (1919–43) were contrary tothe interests of the struggle in each country, popular support, networks and


influence were all extremely weakened and the parties had to start their workof creating alliances and finding solidarities and trust all over again.

The activist and mobilizing impact of the communist parties in Arab socie-ties was limited and in some cases residual, especially when compared first withnationalism and then with political Islam. One demonstration of this is the factthat in the 1920s, the fears of the British and French secret services magnifiedthe communist presence in the Middle East and North Africa. These fearswere reproduced by regional elites such that, as René Gallissot observes,anti-communism arrived before communism itself (Gallissot, 1978: 22). Thisdoes not mean that the communists and their activity, which was often heroicdue to the constant repression, did not have an impact in their societies; simply,the influence was, above all, intellectual.

However, particularly starting in the 1980s, the growing weakness of theMENA region parties (as in the rest of the world), combined with the dis-solution of the USSR and the crisis of the Left, created five dynamics: 1) alarge number of the members ceased to be politically active; 2) some of theparties evolved towards social democracy, more or less co-opted by theregimes; 3) leaders and members focused their efforts on the associative worldand social movements, especially non-governmental organizations (NGOs), attimes as professionals; 4) others continued to follow the path laid in the 1960sand 1970s towards the New Left; and finally 5) some leaders were co-optedby the regimes. Morocco provides a prime example of the power of co-optation;a long process that began with support for the monarchy regarding theSahara situation led, step by step, to acceptance of the regime and participa-tion in governments. Only in a very few cases did a communist party withlinks to orthodoxy continue to exist, and even then limited to a very marginalspace, as in the case of the Syrian Communist Party (Bakdash).

The NGOization of the political struggle, an option chosen by a number ofleftist activists beginning in the 1970s, but particularly in the late 1980s, is animportant process that merits examination. In this volume, the personal tra-jectory of Azza Chararah Baydoun in Lebanon illustrates this channelling ofactivism through associationism. Generally speaking, the creation of humanrights associations with connections to communist groups and parties and theincorporation into existing associations took place in the midst of a livelyideological debate. In the 1960s and 1970s, leftist activists expressed theirmistrust with respect to pioneering human rights organizations like AmnestyInternational, which sent out communiqués about the situation in the regionand sent observation missions. The activity of these international NGOs,which also criticized the human rights situation in the East, aroused suspicionon a number of accounts. They were seen as instruments of the West to dis-credit the socialism of the USSR and other Eastern countries; they wereallegedly depoliticized, treating quite ideologically diverse activists equally;they ignored structural factors in human rights violations; and they focusedon political and civil rights to the detriment of cultural, social and economicrights. At the same time, however, the human rights networks and work


provided an important resource for activists in repressive contexts. At this time,the language of human rights, as presented in the various decalogues,declarations and pacts primarily promoted by the United Nations, wasadopted as a ‘minimalist solution’ to policy concerns (Eckel & Moyn, 2013:105–6). As in other parts of the world, these doubts dissipated as the 1980sadvanced in an international climate of ideological revision. In these humanrights associations – as in other groups working in defence of various causes –the presence of sectors associated with socialism and/or the New Left differ-entiated them, producing quite diverse NGOs and moving the political fightand divisions to the associative sector. The Moroccan case is a good example.In 1996, Marguerite Rollinde recorded the words of Abderrahmane Yous-soufi, one year before he became prime minister of Morocco. As an importantfigure in national and international human rights organizations, Youssoufiexplained why he believed that the Moroccan Association for Human Rights(AMDH) was not accepted as a member of the International Federation forHuman Rights or the Arab Organization for Human Rights in 1989:

However, the radical tone of their words and their Marxist-Leninist, revo-lutionary references distanced them [the members of the AMDH] from awhole section of new activists who wish to work in the field of human rightswithout necessarily attacking the regime and in the eyes of the NGOs, theylook like political activists instead of defenders of human rights.

(Youssoufi in Rollinde, 2002: 276)

Whether or not the Left in the Arab world today is heir to its communistparties, it has adopted the defence of democracy and freedom and humanrights along with social justice as an essential element of its demands andidentity. There are several reasons for this evolution. For some theoreticians,who began to question Stalinism in the 1950s and the USSR in the 1960s(as in Europe), socialism is only possible with freedom. Others are pragma-tists, associated with the failures of the alliances between some communistparties and authoritarian nationalist regimes, which not only did not lead tosocialism, but became conservative dictatorships that filled their role in theglobal capitalist system and very harshly repressed the communists. The‘democratic way’ was asserted.

One of these groups, the Moroccan Voie Democratique (Democratic Way)defined it thus:

The objective of the Democratic Way is the construction of socialism as asociety that puts an end to capitalism and to the exploitation of man byman. The achievement of this supreme objective, in the present historicalstage, passes through the struggle for the national liberation of the imperi-alist hegemony and the block of dominant classes at its service and for thebuilding of a democratic society … The Democratic Way is strongly presenton the various fronts of struggles: 1) The social struggle …; 2) The struggle


for human rights …; 3) The struggle for democracy by denouncing thecurrent facade democracy, by actively participating in the boycott ofelections, by demanding free and fair elections on the basis of a democraticconstitution drawn up by a constituent assembly.14

After the repression of the ‘bread riots’ of the 1970s and 1980s and theAlgerian Civil War of the 1990s, it seemed like the only way to confront thedictatorial regimes in the MENA region was to defend democratic changes.In this respect, the evolution of the communists was similar to that of themajority currents of political Islam. Indeed, the Left and some Islamistgroups were able to establish alliances in the defence of democratization andsome rights and freedoms, joint actions that took form in various initiativesbeginning in the 1990s and culminating in the 2011 uprisings.

Jamil Hilal summarized the central values of the current Arab Left as follows:

1 Secularism: Many Leftist forces righteously insist on considering secular-ism as a necessary component of the determinants of Leftist positions andvision … However suggesting secularism as against the policy of Islamizingthe state and society makes it necessary for the Left to fully explain thatsecularism is not meant to be against religion, but rather to prevent the statefrom interfering in the religion of individuals and preventing religious lea-derships from imposing their own interpretation of religious texts upon thesociety and state … In this sense, secularism is a condition for democracy.

2 Autonomy: It can be said that the Left is in a weakened and dependentsituation. First, they were dependent on the Soviet Union and its satel-lites both for support and ideology. After the downfall of the SovietUnion, these movements became dependent in a way on the current Arabregimes which has been detrimental to their work. Additionally, one ofthe most important conditions for re-building the Left in our region is itsfull autonomy from the present Arab regimes, even its condemnation oftheir repressive nature and practices.

3 Vision of a Unitary Project: The leftist forces in the Arab world arediscussing a project for Arab unity. The project is based on several fac-tors, the common linguistic, cultural, and historical elements of the Arabworld, its human capacities, and various natural resources. In addition,there is a new connection in the Arab world which is bringing it together,namely the age of globalization.

4 Focus on Intellectual Versus Social Identity: There are two trendswithin the Left: One which focuses on the priority of the social identity inits program, and the other which focuses on intellectual identity. The firstone maintains that the failing of the Left lies in its negligence of thevarious social issues in actuality (not in the texts of its by-laws or socialand political platforms). On the other hand, the second trend argues that


the crisis of the Left consists in the intellectual retreat and theoreticalweakness of the leftist parties and groups, together with alienation fromreality.

(Hilal, 2013: 16–19)

Laura Galián presents the link between the generation of the 1960s and 1970sand the young people involved in the 2011 uprisings in Chapter 15. Sheemphasizes how a part of the Left went further, harbouring sentiments ofdisillusionment towards any structured or organized party politics andadopting anti-authoritarian ideas inspired in part by anarchism.

3 The USSR and communism in the MENA region

The Russian Revolution and the USSR’s new foreign policy marked a sig-nificant development with respect to the traditional colonial powers: therejection of colonialism and the policy of mandates and protectorates beingimposed by France and the United Kingdom. However, during the Stalinperiod, Moscow’s relations with the communist parties was characterized bytwo ground rules: 1) revolutionary action in any part of the world had tobe subordinate to the interests of the USSR; and 2) given the inability of theWestern proletariat to successfully carry out revolutions, rivalries betweenthe imperialist powers were to be exploited (Claudin, 1975: 387). These ruleswere applied in different ways depending on the moment, which meantimportant changes in tactics and relations with the various communist par-ties, since the contradictions between the tactics and the interests in eachregion or country created tensions and dissensions.

The relationship between the Soviets and the region and its communistsevolved in lockstep with the changes occurring in the USSR. According toRodinson and other authors, it is possible to establish different stages in thisrelationship (Rodinson, 1972: 85–111):

1 From the October Revolution to 1920, a revolutionary contagion wasexpected and the main objective was to help the Russian Revolution withnational, proletarian revolutions, which either did not take place or failed.

2 The failure of the revolutionary strikes and changes in the elites control-ling the Bolshevik Party led to a new policy promoted by Joseph Stalinand Nikolai Bukharin: the united national front against imperialism, withalliances between the communist parties and nationalist bourgeoisies tocarry out democratic anti-imperialist revolutions. Despite subordinatingstrategy to the anti-imperialist struggle and the nationalist alliance, thecommunist parties did not abandon the social struggle, which was alsoreflected in the day-to-day activities of the members.

3 In the late 1920s, the stabilization of capitalism and the failure of thepolicy of alliances with the nationalists in China produced a new policyof frontal attack on the bourgeoisie, class against class, including against


the social democrats who were presented as treacherous enemies. InEurope, the policy of dividing the Left was a failure that facilitated theRight’s rise to power and, even, fascism. However, in the Arab countrieswhere the Left was practically non-existent, communist parties were ableto build themselves around a class discourse while simultaneouslydemanding national independence, clashing with the bourgeois national-ist movements like the Wafd Party in Egypt, the National Bloc in Syriaand the Arab Executive Committee in Palestine, although this completelycontradicted the positions argued shortly before.15

4 The disastrous consequences in Europe – above all in Germany – of thepolicy of confrontation with the reformist Left led to a rectification at theSeventh Congress in 1935 and the endorsement of the tactic of the Pop-ular Front. Fighting fascism became the main objective. In the Arabworld, this posed contradictions, primarily in the countries under Frenchinfluence. On the one hand, the FCP recovered the discourse of unity andthe nationalist component. On the other hand, Stalin also supported astrong France. In the Maghreb, Syria and Lebanon, the fight for inde-pendence clashed with these objectives and created intense tensions(Rodinson, 1972: 95–100; see also the chapters by Velasco Muñoz, LeFoll-Luciani and López García). When the Popular Front policy wasinterrupted by the parenthesis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggressionpact between 1939 and the Nazi invasion of the USSR in 1941, this led toa reproduction of the earlier discourse of class against class combinedwith the anti-colonial struggle, especially against Great Britain andFrance. However, in June 1941, after the German army entered theUSSR, the organization adopted an anti-fascist front policy that con-tinued during the war and the immediate post-war period until 1947.Because of the Soviet alliance with the United States and Great Britain,the communists focused their efforts on the anti-fascist front, leaving anti-colonial nationalism in the background, except in Syria and Lebanon,which were under the control of the Vichy regime; there the communistparties combined the struggle for liberation with the anti-fascist fight.Two years after the Second World War ended, and after the period duringwhich Stalin put the brakes on communist party activities to ensure Eur-opean stability and participate in the division of spheres of influence,North American policies and the tension surrounding the nascent ColdWar contradicted the discourse that Stalin had used to justify the earliercollaboration, making a new foreign policy doctrine necessary. Time andagain, European policy and Soviet foreign policy set the course to follow.The result this time was Andrei Zhdanov’s doctrine of ‘two camps’(Claudin, 1975: 387–454).

5 Following Zhdanov’s doctrine, with regard to the colonies, social revolu-tion took a back seat to ensuring that the anti-colonial movements andstates emerging from the independences did not join the American camp,which required the leadership of workers and peasants led by the


communist parties. However, the centrality of the national and anti-colonial discourse conferred an advantage on the nationalist movementsand parties, weakening the communists. Over the next few years, thisweakness, the growth of the anti-colonial movement and the fact thatmany of the new independent states did not fall under the influence ofWashington (as exemplified by the 1955 Bandung Conference) broughtthe states closer to Moscow.

6 After the death of Stalin and the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU in1956 and with the new doctrines of peaceful coexistence and, then, thaw,Moscow began to lose interest in the Arab communist parties and inideological solidarity, setting the stage for even greater pragmatism basedon the needs of Soviet foreign policy; the Soviets even closed their eyes tothe repression exerted by some regimes on the communists. The changesthat occurred in the MENA region during these years (Egypt 1952, Syria1954–6, Iraq 1958, Algeria 1962) facilitated this approach (Ismael, 2005:21–3). It was concluded that in places where the working class was notsufficiently developed, a National Front led by the nationalist bourgeoisieand movements would have to be formed. This paved the way for alli-ances and, indeed, submission, with the nationalists taking power. Thiswas made easier because, as discussed above, the Nasserites and Ba’athistsportrayed themselves as socialists and Moscow was exerting pressure tomaintain alliances with the regimes. In the words of Joel Beinin:

Many assert that communist prospects in the Arab world were fatallyundermined by support for the establishment of the state of Israel.Far more damaging in the long run was the ascendancy of author-itarian populist nationalist regimes favored by the Soviet Union. TheCommunist Party of Algeria dissolved itself in 1956 and directed itsmembers to join the National Liberation Front, which became anally of the Soviet Union after it came to power in 1962. The Egyp-tian communists enthusiastically supported Gamal Abdel Nasser’sArab Nationalism and Arab Socialism, even as they languished in jail.In 1964 the two principal Egyptian communist parties disbanded.The Soviet Union courted Iraq’s Abd al-Karim Qasim even after heturned on his erstwhile communist allies. The CPI was decimated bya CIA-facilitated massacre during the Baath’s brief rule in 1963. Bythe 1970s the Iraqi and Syrian communists became appendages ofregimes allied to the Soviet Union. The failure of the 1971 coup ledby the Communist Party of Sudan and supported by the SovietUnion marked the last serious possibility for communists to achievesignificant power anywhere in the Middle East and North Africa.

(Beinin, 2004: 627)

7 Subsequently, the period of revolutionary exhilaration in the 1960s and early1970s caused significant ruptures in the communist parties that continued tobe bound by theoretical orthodoxy and by their ties to Moscow, although


these had weakened. The difficulty in joining the revolutionary wave endedup alienating some of the students, intellectuals and professionals who con-stituted the most loyal membership base. Some of them formed New Leftgroups that had an anti-authoritarian or more radical Marxist spirit thanthe orthodox communist parties. The break between Moscow and Beijingalso created some ruptures in the Arab communist parties, although theMaoist groups had always been smaller and less influential (Ismael, 2005:26). This New Left soon lost support as a result of internal divisions anddynamics like the Lebanese Civil War, the defeat and dismantling of thePalestinian guerrillas in Jordan and Lebanon, repression and even theory-based challenges inside the parties (Bardawil, 2016; see also the interviewwith Azza Chararah Baydoun in Chapter 16). Nationalism in its differentforms was also a weakening, divisive factor. The dynamic of losing supportwas pronounced in the following years because of a more reactionaryopposition strand that developed as political Islam gained a presence. Thus,in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the USSR broke up, the influence ofthe communist parties was already very limited and the transformation tosocial democracy was not difficult.

8 Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika had a significant impact on the commu-nist parties in the region16 and, as in the rest of the world, ranged fromname changes and nationalist turns (Palestinians) to social democratization(Algerians, Tunisians) to reaffirming the more classic orthodox principles(Syrians, Jordanians), passing through partial reconsiderations (Lebaneseand Iraqis). Generally speaking, all of these changes occurred in the con-text of ruptures and contrary positions. One of the premises of the newviewpoint was the democratization of political systems as a condition fortheir reform. This allowed the communists to rethink opposition to theauthoritarian regimes, including ‘progressive’ ones. At the same time, thedefence of the market economy also helped to reframe collaboration withregimes carrying out neoliberal and privatizing reforms. The path to socialdemocratization and NGOization had opened, with two consequences: inthe future it would be easier to prioritize demands for democratization andrespect for human rights (although in some cases with misgivings, given thepossibility of an Islamist takeover); and, to the contrary, co-optation by theregimes would also become easier.

3.1 The dissemination of communism beyond the West after theRussian Revolution

There is no doubt that communism was created as a liberating ideology witha universal, anti-nationalist vocation whose agenda prioritized the liberationof peoples in the broadest of senses following the theoretical bases of Marx-ism, which advanced a programme to redeem society based on the highestexpression of the oppression of man by man: industrial capitalism rooted inthe West. The known comments made by Marx and other revolutionary


authors regarding slavery, feudalism and ‘Asian’ modes of production providea historical overview that explains the evolution of the oppression againstwhich the proletariat was to fight. It was a given that, as some states had notyet reached the stage of industrial capitalist production, this fight would endwith what survived of the embryos. However, this revolutionary logic had theundesired consequence of prioritizing a view and efforts that concentrated oncombating the primary enemy, oligarchical capitalism, by the people sufferingfrom it, the industrialized societies. Thus, the priorities of non-industrializedpopulations, particularly outside Europe and North America, were set aside,producing a Eurocentric view that would hinder the expansion of communism,especially during the initial phase prior to the Second World War.

In actual fact, this view, which could be called ‘Eurocentric revolution’ – atleast in its modernizing vision – had its logic and seeds in the first greatcommunist revolution. Despite the predictions of Karl Marx and FriedrichEngels, the first revolution did not take place in the highly industrializedGermany or England, but in Russia, a country with a low level of indus-trialization that had only just left the feudal mode of production behind. Evenso, the revolution did not only triumph politically, but also found and createdlarge social sectors that adjusted to the needs of the Marxist model, more orless adapted to the historical circumstances of the time. The 1917 RussianRevolution did not benefit from great masses of the industrial proletariat,which scarcely existed in Russia, but its modernizing project drove that veryindustrialization in the country and spurred immense creativity consistentwith the interests and vision of Marxism.

However, it was in the very space of the newborn Soviet state that therevolution ran up against its first contradictions. One of these was how toadapt a socioeconomic project designed to satisfy the needs of the industrialproletariat to a pre-industrial society. Although this was applied with somesuccess in Russia, which had at least a low level of embryonic industrializa-tion, it would be much more difficult to apply in Asiatic societies where sys-tems of production were rooted in clan-based and patriarchal cultures and theeconomy was not always perceived as a relationship between the oppressorsand the oppressed. In Central Asia, the first consequences of what todaywould come to be called the cultural clash between the revolution and tradi-tional social environments were seen. These were not only traditionalist orreligious elements like the Basmachis, which are loosely comparable to otherrecalcitrant movements in the European societies within the new Soviet state.They also included societies that based their cohesion and culture on systemsof production that were often communal and were threatened by the newregulations of the revolution. The consequences were important for theregion: firstly, thousands of herders on the Kazakh steppes and small farmersin the Fergana Valley fled to China to protect their traditional way of life.Additionally, a division occurred in the societies that would affect the CentralAsian republics from the time of the revolution to the dissolution of theUSSR. The communist parties and, therefore, the administration in these


regions were basically controlled by the European sectors of these societies, whilethe indigenous population developed outside the system or created assimilatedelites cut off from their original societies in a clear model of a colonial society.

This original defect of communism was reflected in the global structure ofthe movement.17 At the First Congress of the Third International in 1919,only one non-Western communist party – the Japanese – participated, alongwith some independent delegates from China and Korea.18 This gatheringfocused its attention on European problems, but did not forget the colonies,although the perspective was still a colonial one, something that would causetensions until the end of the USSR:

To an unprecedented extent the populations of the colonies were drawninto the European war. Indians, Arabs, Madagascans battled on the Eur-opean continent … Liberation of the colonies can come only through lib-eration of the working class of the oppressing nations … Capitalist Europehas drawn the backward countries by force into the capitalist whirlpool,and socialist Europe will come to the aid of the liberated colonies with itstechnique, its organization, its spiritual influence, in order to facilitate theirtransition into the orderly system of socialist economy. Colonial slaves ofAfrica and Asia! The hour of triumph of the Proletarian Dictatorship ofEurope will also be the hour of your liberation!

(Manifesto of the First Congress of the Comintern, March 1919)

This perspective continued the Marxist tradition, which was still profoundlyEurocentric at this time.19 Later, non-European Marxist thinkers and somecontemporary Europeans would pave the way towards a Marxism with lessEurocentric views and, as this book shows, to debates about the relationshipbetween Marxism and nationalism, liberation movements, Islam and so forth.

The Second Congress in 1920 featured some global expansion, with dele-gates from India, Indonesia, Korea and, for the first time, Middle Eastrepresentation from the Communist Party of Persia, in addition to a Chinesedelegation without voting rights. The position at the Second Congress wasalready more nuanced, giving a more important role to the peoples undercolonial control. The influence of Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev20 in the CPSU21 andM. N. Roy, a Bengali living in Mexico at that time, in the Comintern sug-gested that the defence of the USSR and the revolutionary victory in Europewere also related to national liberation and solidarity with all peoplesoppressed by imperialism (Claudin, 1975: 248; Young, 2016: 129–30).

Out of this concern would come the Comintern’s call to hold the FirstCongress of the Peoples of the East in Baku in September 1920. The Turkishand Persian delegations were numerous, but only between three and six Arabdelegates attended (depending on the source).22 This was not only a meetingof communists; anti-colonial fighters also participated, raising the question ofwhether the relationship with anti-colonial nationalist bourgeois partiesshould prevail over creating and promoting communist parties.


The debate over whether the communist parties should collaborate with thenationalist bourgeoisie had already been brought up at the Second CominternCongress and in Baku. Lenin defended collaboration, while Roy argued thatthe goal of the fight should be liberation from all types of exploitation andthat the anti-colonial struggle needed to be led by revolutionary parties whoseobjectives were anti-colonial, social revolutionary and aimed at liberating thepeasantry, taking advantage of the weakness of the national bourgeoisies.This meant that the first task had to be to promote the foundation of com-munist parties. The compromise between the two would be to leave colla-boration with the nationalists in the hands of each country (Comintern,1920a, 1920b; Roy, 1921; White, 1974; Young, 2016: 131–2). However, thetension between the two positions remained and deeply affected the commu-nist parties in the region.23 In the future it would be decisive that a Europeanpower for the first time positioned itself in the anti-colonial, revolutionarycamp, offering alliances to liberation movements and fomenting the creationof communist parties.

Although Moscow prioritized realpolitik and alliances favourable to itsforeign policy, the impact of the creation of the Comintern and the BakuCongress would be significant, since they resulted in greater assistance beinggiven to the organization of communist parties in Arab countries. The Com-munist University of the Toilers of the East, created by the Comintern in1921, also helped to train cadres and extend Soviet influence beyondEurope.24 However, the 21 conditions established at the Second Congress inAugust 1920 for a party to be recognized as a communist party also lay thefoundations for profound sectarianism and control from Moscow. To citeFernando Claudín,

the aim of the ‘21 Conditions’ [was] a model of sectarianism andbureaucratic method in the history of the working-class movement … Alarge number of socialists and trade-unionists who wanted to join theComintern because they were in sympathy with the Russian Revolu-tion … disagreed with it on certain points, especially where structure andmethods or work were concerned … The ‘21 Conditions’ shut the doorsof the Comintern to all these elements … At the same time, numerouselements who had no connection with the masses … were able to standforth as ‘good Communists’ by the mere fact of showing neophytes’ zealin relation to the new catechism. Under the influence of the ‘21 Condi-tions’ … a sectarian and dogmatic spirit began from the very beginningto clear a way for itself in the Communist parties.

(Claudin, 1975: 107–8)

Additionally, since the beginning, the pragmatism of Moscow’s diplomaticrelations influenced its support for groups in the affected countries. For theUSSR, in need of recognition, the establishment of diplomatic relations withother countries was usually accompanied by the requirement not to intervene


and not to support revolutionary groups (White, 1976: 178–80). This tensionbetween revolutionary needs and Soviet foreign affairs would continue untilthe end of the USSR. In many cases, Moscow did not hesitate to establishrelations with political regimes that repressed communists25 (the cases analysedin the book include some examples of this).

Communism propagated quickly in the West, where the example of the Sovietrevolution engendered admiration and aspiration among the working classesand an intelligentsia that saw its hopes materialized, but it had little impactoutside Western cultural circles, at least initially. The new Soviet state, in turn,was in the midst of a phase of consolidation and reconstruction that left littleroom to organize an international expansion. Moreover, the revolutionaryenthusiasm of the Leninist phase gave way to an era of diplomatic pragmatismwith Stalin. Leon Trotsky, the main proponent of expanding the revolution,began to lose power in 1925 until he went into exile in 1929. The concept of‘socialism in one country’ defended by Stalin and Bukharin rapidly translatedinto a renunciation of immediate world revolution, enshrined in the opportunis-tic diplomacy represented by the Treaty of Rapallo (1922) and the Comintern’sdecision to abandon its expansionist strategy after the Fifth Congress in 1925.The communist parties already established in the West entered into a phase ofresistance and, later, participation in various popular fronts. In other parts of theworld, the parties continued in an embryonic phase or waiting for a moreconducive time to expand, but without any real support from Moscow.

Communism in the Middle East and North Africa began in a situationmarked by serious contradictions given the modern, European character ofthe ideology and the colonized nature and low industrialization of the socie-ties where it was expected to spread at first. The earliest communist parties inthe region contained enormous incongruities that are difficult to understand,even with historical perspective (Haslam, 2011: 152–6).

The first phase of existence of the USSR and its influence in the MENAregion allows for only a rather limited assessment. On the one hand, unlikethe West, the few parties that responded to the Soviet call were circumscribedboth geographically and socially, created by groups with little stability inMiddle Eastern societies, although with a notable cosmopolitan, intellectualand – disproportionately – interethnic component. On the other hand, afterthe initial enthusiasm and especially after the death of Lenin and margin-alization of Trotsky, the USSR lost interest in expanding the revolutionaryprocess, particularly outside of Europe. Although Moscow continued to beinterested in the activities of the strong parties in various Western countries,especially through the Comintern, the idea of promoting the communistmovement around the world lost momentum. Almost all of the contactsbetween the communist movements in the MENA region and the CPSU werethrough delegations sent to the USSR by these parties or through oftendemanding instructions from the Comintern.

The contradictions between social mobilization and the requirement toaccept the instructions arriving from Moscow created numerous tensions in


the communist parties. With the exception of the Communist Party of Sudan,the parties in the region had come into existence with very close ties withMoscow. Theoretical debates, such as over the anti-colonial struggle, nation-alism, non-capitalist development, the repertoire of revolutionary action andso forth, were often guided by the pragmatic needs of Soviet foreign policy,which hampered coherence. This had direct consequences that weakened thecommunist parties, in some cases to the point of disappearing. For example,positions that were difficult to accept for most of the population, like therecognition of Israel, had to be defended. Or, as discussed above, changes indiscourse and alliance tactics followed the needs of Moscow and not the localreality. Additionally, as occurred in many other communist parties, the dis-enchantment with Stalinism and some of the Soviet realities that becamepublic, as well as the purges, led to defections and clashes that decreasedmembership in the parties and produced divisions and ruptures.26

3.2 Soviet influence in the Middle East during the Cold War

After the Second World War, the communist movements in China, Indonesia,Vietnam and even India, whose presence was marginal before the conflict,took on leading roles in the resistance to Japanese expansionism and, coher-ently, the European colonial presence in Asia and the traditional oppressivesocial and economic systems. The victory of Mao Zedong in China in 1949,the stabilization of communist regimes in North Korea and North Vietnamand the emergence of strong revolutionary movements in southeast andsouthern Asia created a new scenario that the Soviet Union did not fail totake advantage of.

The framework of the Cold War brought new opportunities for the SovietUnion to expand its influence, facilitated by the presence, activity and, occa-sionally, power of similar political groups around the world. These were stillparties that followed the old pattern of strict obedience to the dictates of theSoviet Union and to the spirit of the Leninist revolution, with a limited, butgrowing social base and a strong intellectual presence (Fontana, 2011: 181–90).

However, the Soviet Union changed its attitude after Stalin’s death and,especially, after the revolution led by Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1952. NowMoscow no longer tried to extend its power through organizations strictlyloyal to and controlled by the CPSU, but opened up to the new indigenousmovements arising from the anti-colonial struggle or autonomously, withoutnecessarily defining themselves as communist forces (Ismael, 2005). The 1955Bandung Conference, one of whose key promoters was Nasser himself,established a setting for what was at that time considered a ‘third way’: con-demning Western imperialism and capitalism, while keeping a distance fromSoviet influence. The Baghdad Pact, which formed a few weeks before Ban-dung, was seen as a direct threat in the Middle East. The old colonialismrepresented by Great Britain joined forces with the new North Americancolonialism, which supported both the former colonial powers and Turkish


influence in the region. For many Arabs, especially the Syrians, this con-stituted a direct threat to Syria and the heart of the nascent pan-Arabism.The neutrality of Bandung was a manifestation of an anti-colonial intentionand the demands for sovereignty in the Third World, but it was also a way tofoster rapprochement with the Soviet Union which, generally speaking andunlike the colonial powers, was not seen as a direct threat in the Middle East.In the words of Rodinson:

the Arab bourgeoisie did not feel threatened by any Soviet menace on theforeign policy level, as perhaps the Iranian and Turkish bourgeoisies did.At home the fact that the communist movements stressed almost exclusivelynational demands reassured it … The many bitter experiences of the pastput Britain and France in the worst possible light, and the same applied tothe USA, to the extent that the latter supported the former. The SovietUnion, on the other hand, generally had backed Arab demands.

(Rodinson, 1972: 64)

Moreover, the Soviet Union made a decisive change in its attitude towardsthe Palestinian conflict. After having supported the United Nations partitionplan in 1948 and begun to reach out tenuously to the state of Israel, Moscowbecame aware that Tel Aviv was clearly and strategically tilting towards theWest. The Arab world reacted with unity and dynamism, while at the sameoffering ideological common ground that could be exploited, particularlyafter Nasser rose to power. The Kremlin backed Nasser in the 1956 SecondArab-Israeli War and from that moment supported the Arab cause overIsrael, without ever completely breaking with Tel Aviv. In 1957, after Nasser’snationalizations and the withdrawal of United States investment, the USSRcooperated in the construction of the Aswan Dam, thus establishing a platformfor collaboration with ‘Arab socialism’ (Alexander, 2005: 43–69).

The other great Soviet alliance in the region that went well back was Syria,specifically under the presidency of Shukri al-Quwatli (1955–8). The threat ofTurkish and other pro-Western countries’ intervention in Syria in 1957 eli-cited a protest from Nikita Khrushchev and the threat of Soviet interventionin the case of conflict. At the same time, Nasser deployed Egyptian forces inSyria to prevent an invasion. This event reaffirmed Arab and especially Syro-Egyptian solidarity to the point that in the following year, the two countrieswere federated into the United Arab Republic (UAR) with Soviet support.1958 also witnessed the 14 July Revolution in Iraq, which brought Nasseriteforces to power and overthrew the monarchy (Kamrava, 2005: 72–80).

The role of the Soviet Union in these movements was crucial. Not only didit support the new ‘progressive’ Arab nationalist leaders diplomatically, but italso provided generous technical and, above all, military support to Egypt,Syria and Iraq. The paradox is that the Nasserite governments fought andeven retaliated against the communist parties in Egypt and Syria, despite thefact that these groups had contributed to the victories of the respective


revolutions. In Iraq, on the other hand, the revolutionary government allowedthe reconstruction of the communist party in the country, but its role in thenew regime was marginal. In any case, historical events enormously favouredthe identification of the Arab world with Soviet leadership, even beyondideology. When the Federal Republic of Germany established diplomaticrelations with Israel in 1965, the new Arab states cut off relations with Bonnand initiated a diplomatic alliance with the German Democratic Republicand, therefore, with the Eastern bloc. Western support for Israel in the warsof 1967 and 1973 led a large number of Arab societies to view the SovietUnion with a mixture of admiration and desire for protection. Given thissituation, the Kremlin acted cautiously, without demanding that its mostzealous supporters be in power and respecting local leadership, but at thesame time offering much appreciated assistance and protection. Later on, thegovernments of Somalia and South Yemen would also identify with the Sovietmodel.

The dissolution of the UAR in 1961 and later takeovers of Iraq and Syriaby Ba’athist factions in 1963 did not alter the strategic presence of the USSRin the area. The skilful Soviet diplomacy did not make many demands duringthe political evolutions of the Middle East and knew how to handle theinternal battles between communists, Nasserites and Ba’athists, offeringnecessary logistical and strategic support to any government that was advan-tageous to Moscow’s foreign policy and advocated an ideological discoursethat did not totally contradict Kremlin policy.

3.3 Beyond ideology: the strategic role of the Middle East for the USSR

Although the ideologies of Arab socialism stressed neutrality and non-alignment with the two great powers, this did not hide the clear political,diplomatic, economic and even military presence of the USSR in these coun-tries. This influence extended to Algeria after the 1965 coup d’état led byHouari Boumédiène, to Yemen after the creation of the People’s Republic ofSouthern Yemen in 1967, to Libya after the 1969 coup led by MuammarGaddafi and to Somalia after the coup there that same year (Primakov, 2009).Soviet military forces had sporadically used the Tunisian bases at Sfaz andBizerta since 1963 and, later, the port of Algiers. Moreover, the Soviet navyestablished a base on the Yemeni island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean in 1971and used the Somali port of Berbera starting in 1972, in addition to the Yemeniport services at Aden and Hodeida. In the eastern Mediterranean, Moscowestablished military bases in Tartus and Latakia, Syria in 1971, used theEgyptian ports in Port Said and Alexandria after 1956 and regularly operatedout of Tripoli in Libya beginning in 1977. After the Six-Day War in 1967, thesearch for military collaboration between Arab countries and the USSRheightened. In 1969, massive military contingents began to arrive in Egypt,somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 before 1972, when Anwar Sadatordered them to leave. Soviet forces continued to use the military installations


at Mersa Matruh in that country between 1974 and 1975, before formalizing atotal withdrawal from Egypt at the time of the pro-Western turn that followedthe death of Nasser (Kober, 2005).

The states that were ideologically most closely aligned with Soviet com-munism, Somalia and Yemen, did not withstand the fall of the USSR. SouthYemen abandoned its socialist ideology to embrace unification with the Northin 1990, while a coup d’état in Somalia in 1991 sent President Mohamed SiadBarre, who had been faithful to Moscow for 22 years, into exile. In somecases, the Russia that emerged from the dissolution of the USSR was able tomaintain a certain influence in the region. The Russian fleet regularly used theLibyan port of Tripoli until Gaddafi’s fall in 2011 and Moscow maintainsbases in Syria to this day.27 However, little or nothing remains of the formerideological influence of Soviet communism in the area.

Soviet opportunism yielded solid returns for the Kremlin’s strategic visionduring the Cold War. Despite the neutrality and anti-imperialism professedby the Arab socialist regimes, all of whom firmly backed the Non-AlignedMovement, the Soviet Union could count on diplomatic support at practi-cally any time. These countries benefitted from heavy economic and militaryinvestments from the USSR and often allowed, as seen above, the establish-ment of Soviet troops on their territory. In exchange, Moscow respected someideologies that had adapted to local societies and permitted strong leadership,the result of the revolutionary processes in each country. Only in marginalcases (Yemen and Somalia, among the least influential countries in theregion) were the governments constituted, at least in part, by forces underthe more or less direct control of the Kremlin, and even then, Soviet inter-ference was minor. In the other cases, following directives from Moscow, localcommunist parties supported the regimes allied with the USSR or limitedthemselves to a marginal and often marginalized existence. The weakness ofthe USSR paralleled the weakness of these types of regimes. At this time,Russian support in the area, which is limited to Syria and, occasionally,Sudan is devoid of ideological reasoning and has very different characteristics.

4 The structure of the volume

Several issues are examined in this work. When the Russian Revolution tookplace, the Middle Eastern region as a whole was under colonial control. Thismeant taking decisions related to the relationship between the class struggleand the national struggle and the need to ‘Arabize’ or indigenize the com-munist movements, whose early membership included a large number ofminorities of European origin. The composition of the communist parties inthe Middle East is also analysed as is their role as the vanguard – understoodin the broad sense of the word – in relation to the objectives of liberation,emancipation, revolution and system change or reform, and their connectionto mass or popular movements. At the same time, the perspective in this workallows for a different outlook regarding the processes of constructing the new


independent states, contrasting the social, political and economic projects ofsome largely conservative nationalist leaders with some minority sectors madeup of the urban working classes and the young intelligentsia proposing radicalstructural change.

Furthermore, the volume looks back at the dependency or autonomy ofcommunist parties during the Cold War and the tensions that this generatedin them, as well as the search for individual constructions of communism thattook into account cultural characteristics and the local context of the strug-gle. In this respect, one of the recurring themes in the work is the relationshipbetween communist activism and the sectors that mobilized in the name ofnationalism or political Islam. Finally, the chapters trace the history of theparties, including –for the first time in the literature – the post-Cold Warperiod and continuing to the current situation, in which communist partiesoccupy a residual position in the political field, sharing space with other smallgroups from the real Left, new programmes adapted to neoliberal advance-ment in the region and the new mobilizations symbolized by the uprisings of2010–11.

The legacy of these communist parties today may seem meagre, but lookingat the history of the Arab world – and particularly its social movements –carefully and applying perspective, it becomes clear that it is richer than itappears at first sight. The progressive intellectual currents of the twentiethcentury were profoundly influenced by Marxism and by the men and womenwho fought in communist organizations and disseminated the philosophy,from the political Islam of the Iranian Ali Shariati to the Moroccans of theDemocratic Way, or to the anti-authoritarianism of the Egyptian Samih SaidAbud. With respect to both what was accepted and what was rejectedregarding the frame, the repertoire of activism, the organizational modeland even current social movements, they cannot deny that, in addition toother influences, they are heirs to the communists that preceded them.

To address all of these elements, this collective work edited by Laura Feliuand Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs brings together historians, sociologists, politicalscientists and experts in the region from other disciplines to analyse both theevolution of some of the main communist parties in the region and also somecross-cutting issues.

The volume is divided into two parts. The first presents several case studiesby country, revealing the diversity of experiences and results and the influenceof local contexts. The different chapters try to answer common questions: Howdid the parties adhere to the Marxist-Leninist Soviet ideological doctrine?What was the relationship between a specific communist party and the USSRlike? Did the party develop its own analysis of the social and political situationin the country, its ‘own path’ that could be considered independent from theCPSU? How did its ideas evolve and what political strategy did it put forth?Was the party a vanguard movement? How did its relation to power evolve?What were its relationships with the popular movements like? How did theparty position itself with respect to specific uprisings (anti-colonial liberation,


anti-imperialist, socioeconomic)? After looking at these questions – more orless applicable according to the case – the different studies offer an evaluationof the impact of each of these parties on their surroundings, highlighting theprimary contributions and weaknesses.

In her chapter, ‘Iran’s communist movement: reform and revolution’, Yas-samine Mather looks at the communist movement in Iran in the early twen-tieth century when the first communist party was established and the TudehParty (‘of the Masses’) in the 1930s and discusses the relationship betweenboth parties and the CPSU from the early twentieth century to the 1980s. Thelong geographical border shared by Russia and Iran and the influence ofRussian communism on Iranian migrant workers gave special meaning toSoviet policy towards Iran. Mather explores Soviet support for the creationand later dismantling of the Communist Party of Iran in favour of a broadfront, the Tudeh Party (Party of the Masses of Iran), Soviet condemnation ofMohammad Mossadegh and the role of the Tudeh Party in the 1953 CIAcoup d’état. She also analyses the rebellion of the communist intellectuals andstudents, especially the fedayeen, against the Tudeh Party and the weaknessesof their failed efforts. Mather’s chapter also explores some dramatic changesthat took place in the party: the shift from uncritical support for Mossadeghto opposition and accusations that he was working with Western securityagencies, for instance, or how the party’s support for Ayatollah Khomeini andthe Islamic Republic as the embodiment of anti-imperialism in the early1980s became opposition, expressed in calls for his overthrow.

In his chapter on ‘The Communist Party of Turkey: an instrument of“Soviet eastern policy”?’, Bülent Gökay analyses the weakness of the Com-munist Party of Turkey, which was totally dependent on political and finan-cial support from Moscow and controlled by elements that responded to itsdirectives. The party’s peculiar existence was subject to the priorities of Sovietforeign policy and its leaders demonstrated little independence. For theauthor, the communist movement inside Turkey had no meaningful organicrelationship with the workers and peasants, at least until the second half ofthe 1970s. Only after the reorganization campaign in 1973 did the party takesignificant steps to influence the trade union movement and the broader Leftagenda in the country. However, even then, the party leadership remainedstrictly within the limits of the requirements of Soviet foreign policy, frus-trating thousands of party members and activists who were trying to provideeffective responses to the increasingly radical demands of the workers, pea-sants and students in the country. Later, changes in Soviet foreign policypriorities deeply affected the activities of the Turkish communists.

In his chapter on ‘The Iraqi Communist Party’ (ICP), Johan Franzénexplains the evolution of the ICP, founded in 1934. This party played an impor-tant political role in the 1940s and 1950s, especially after the revolution thatoverthrew the country’s monarchy in 1958. During most of the monarchicalperiod, the ICP was fiercely repressed by the authorities and many of theircadres ended up behind bars in the late 1940s. However, after the revolution,


the situation improved thanks to the conciliatory policies adopted by the newIraqi leader Abd Al-Karim Qasim. This interlude was brief, as Qasim himselfwas overthrown in 1963 by a constellation of Ba’athists and Arab nationalistarmy officers, and repression once again beat down on the party. After theBa’ath Party’s second period in power began in 1968, relations between theICP and the Ba’athists went back and forth between repression and coopera-tion, briefly culminating in the creation of a National Progressive Frontbetween the two parties in 1973, although the situation once again deterio-rated in the mid-1970s. When Saddam Hussein took power in 1979, repres-sion returned and the ICP went back underground. The party spent the 1980sand 1990s in ‘internal exile’ in Iraqi Kurdistan and was gradually eclipsed bythe Kurdish nationalist movement. Due to its long repression under Saddam,the party decided to support the American invasion in 2003, since which timeit has re-emerged and run in successive elections.

In ‘The Lebanese Communist Party: continuity against all odds’ and ‘TheSyrian Communist Party: patrimonialism and fractures’, Rosa Velasco Muñozstudies the communist parties in Lebanon and Syria from their beginningswhen the visible leaders of Syro-Lebanese communism began to openly involvethemselves in trade unions and strengthen the foundations of the embryoniccommunism that would result in the Syrian-Lebanese Communist Party in1925. Velasco Muñoz then examines the events that led to the creation of twoseparate parties: the Lebanese Communist Party and the Syrian CommunistParty. The history of the former is inevitably the product of the torturous his-tory of Lebanon, with all its tensions, contradictions and struggles. In theSyrian case, the conflicts and ruptures were directly linked to cue taking andloyalty to the USSR, an alliance with the Assad family and, above all, the cultof personality centred around Khalid Bakdash, one of the most influentialfigures in Middle East communism.

Musa Budeiri analyses the communist movements in Palestine and, later,Israel and Jordan in his chapter ‘Class and nation: Arab and Jewish commu-nists in Palestine’. After the Sykes-Picot division of the Ottoman inheritance,the communists pledged to fight against the dominant imperialist powers inthe region, Great Britain and France, and to find a non-nationalist solutionfor the unrest in the region. They held the belief that the peoples sufferingunder the domination of Anglo-Saxon and French colonialism had much incommon and that theirs was a unique struggle against a common enemy.They opposed Zionism, while at the same time detecting a community ofinterests among Arab and Jewish workers. While the nationalists called forthe establishment of an Arab state in Palestine, the communists demanded thecreation of a democratic state for all the inhabitants there, Arabs and Jews.However, Budeiri observes how communism could not overcome the nationaldivision in Palestine, where members were wrapped up in the confines of theirown communities. Communist parties continue to exist in both Palestine/Israel and Jordan; they share little or nothing with their predecessors andtheir political lexicon owes nothing to the vocabulary of class struggle, the


proletarian revolution or the ideals of internationalism, but rather they pre-sent themselves as the legitimate descendants of the attempts by Arab andJewish workers with class consciousness to try to build a more just andegalitarian world in the first half of the twentieth century.

In her chapter, ‘The communist movement in Egypt’, Bárbara Azaolaanalyses the history of the communist movement in that country, its con-tributions and the contradictions faced by the different currents of the Egyp-tian Left. The origins of the communist movement in Egypt are tied to theworkers’ movement of the 1920s, when the first, short-lived Egyptian Com-munist Party (ECP) was created. The successive ECPs were characterized bytheir weakness in circumstances of illegality, their limited influence in thepolitical arena and their proximity to the regime compared with other fac-tions of the Egyptian communist movement. For this reason, Azaola opts toexamine the broader role played by the Egyptian communist movement as awhole instead of limiting her analysis to the particular role played by thecommunist party. In this examination, the author shows how, after the com-munist movement appeared, it progressively distanced itself from the workingclass, with the lack of connection with this social sector constituting one of itsprimary weaknesses. Indeed, the ECP’s difficulty in attracting what was apredominantly peasant, conservative and religious society explains why thegroup found it difficult to become a national political party. This leads to ananalysis of the party’s relations with university, intellectual and working sec-tors as well as important cultural figures. Despite the fact that the slogans anddemands of the 2011 revolution represented the long-standing demands of theEgyptian Left (social justice, dignity, liberty, etc.), the Left has not been ableor known how to play an important role in the latest process of politicaltransformation, primarily due to its fragmentation and lack of connectionwith the rural community.

In ‘Communism and organizational symbiosis in South Yemen: the Peo-ple’s Democratic Union, the National Liberation Front and the YemeniSocialist Party’ (PDU, NLF, YSP), John Ishiyama examines the evolution ofthe PDU and its influence over the NLF and YSP. The YSP was founded in1978, conceived as a vanguard party for the Yemeni revolution and the onlyparty in the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). The PDUmaintained an institutionalized existence within the YSP and controlled alarge part of the ideological education and training. The YSP, one of the twoparties in the Islamic world to embrace Marxism-Leninism and emerge as agoverning party, established a single-party regime. The communist party inYemen, the PDU, was a very small organization that, despite its size, hadenormous influence over the NLF and YSP in the policies of the PDRY. Therelationship between the PDU and YSP was symbiotic for three reasons:firstly, the NLF tried to obtain the support of the Soviet Union, not only inthe anti-colonial struggle, but also to consolidate its hold in South Yemen.The most direct channel to Soviet assistance went through the PDU and itsconnections with Moscow. Secondly, the PDU exercised great influence due to


the personal connections of its leaders, in particular the brothers Ba Dhib andAbd al-Fattah Ismail and Ali Nasir. Finally, the PDU’s control of the partyschool in Aden gave it influence through the YSP cadres. After unification,the YSP abandoned Marxism, although it continued to be the only leftistparty in Yemen and its secular ideology is still attractive to some intellectualsand women. Moreover, it is still a national party in South Yemen, with strongsupport there, something that has bolstered its position in the government ofAbdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

In ‘The Sudan Communist Party: Bolshevize it, O God!’, Abdullahi A.Ibrahim examines the tumultuous and ambivalent politics behind relationsbetween the CPSU and the Communist Party of Sudan (SCP) to explain thelack of Soviet collegiality towards a partner in the fight for socialism.Throughout the chapter, the author highlights the situations where the Suda-nese party made an effort to find a balance between its nationalism and itsinternationalism, and the difficulties this created for its relationship with theCPSU. The author, who was active in the SCP in the 1960s, believes that theparty was destined to be a unique experiment in socialism, if the Soviets hadallowed it. As a living example of the vernacularization of Marxism, theSCP’s roots in history, the nation, culture and class are analysed, as is theparty’s role as a guide for the social and political rebirth of a people duringpost-colonial construction. Ibrahim underscores the legacy of the SCP inupholding the right to imagine the nation.

In ‘The communists in Algeria (1920–93)’, Pierre-Jean Le Foll-Lucianireveals how, as in the rest of the Arab world, the Algerian communists’ fightwas inevitably hard since they first had to deal with the colonial authoritiesand then the Algerian regime. They also clashed with other political move-ments, both French (fascists, colonialists, ‘ultras’) and Algerian (nationalists,Islamists). Out of 73 years of existence, the Algerian communists spent 37years underground, at times during intense repressive waves. These shocksand clashes were inescapably determined by the targets of their battles – anti-colonialists, anti-fascists, trade unionists and, after 1962, socialists, democratsand then anti-Islamists. However, these targets also allowed them to buildmore or less long-lasting alliances. This did not occur without contradictions,mainly because of foreign pressure, first from the FCP and then fromMoscow. In his chapter, Le Foll-Luciani also discusses how the party spacecould be a space of encounter between communities and a space of freedomto escape from social pressure, for example for women.

Finally, Bernabé López García closes the first part of the volume with ‘Thefour faces of Morocco’s communists: PCF, MCP, PLS and PPS’, a chapterthat details the evolution of the communist party in Morocco under differentacronyms. The Moroccan Communist Party (MCP) was marginal in the yearsprior to independence and its ambiguities about the national cause createdconsequential ruptures within the party, as this position gave the initiative toparties like Istiqlal. The MCP was excluded from consultation about the for-mation of the first independent government in the country and the nucleus of


the future national army. The greatest difficulty for the MCP after indepen-dence lay in how to find its niche alongside the other political groups. Theparty became fully legal in November 1958, but this did not last long, as inSeptember 1959 it was suspended. Although the party was able to participatein elections through independent candidates, its influence continued to bemarginal in the political sphere, beyond its moral and ideological influence. InJuly 1968, the party presented the statutes of a new party, the Party of Lib-eration and Socialism (PLS), which later transformed into the current Partyof Progress and Socialism (PPS). The subsequent co-optation and presence ofthe party in the government brought it close to the administration. The partygradually lost its urban roots and began to establish small rural fiefdomscontrolled by influential figures that have nothing in common with the originalideology and project of the PPS to this day.

The second section explores some cross-cutting issues that have affectedrelations between the communist parties and other political sectors: politicalIslam and the New Left. Through the testimony of some leading figures, itpresents the arguments around the question of gender in the Arab world andin leftist circles as well as an example of the evolution of a female leftistactivist, some contradictions and the prominent debates from the mostconvulsive years to the present.

In ‘Islamists and communists: a history of Arab convergenze parallele’, LuzGómez García identifies the main elements of what would become a twistedrelationship between Islamists and socialists/communists during the twentiethcentury in an article by Muhammad Rashid Rida published in 1919 entitled,‘Socialism, Bolshevism and Religion’. Neither the fall of the Berlin Wall in1989 nor the post-Islamist bargaining of young Muslims in the twenty-firstcentury have dismantled the common imaginary that has shown itself to haveperformative solidity, although it has been protested by both parties. Theauthor is reminded of what Aldo Moro in 1960s Italy called ‘parallel con-vergence’: two political projects that advance down different, parallel pathsbut are also fated to meet. The chapter analyses this imaginary of con-vergence between Islamists and communists and their actions during the lastcentury. Drawing on an analytical framework proposed by Maxime Rodin-son, who showed how it is possible to submit Islamism and communism to acommon analytical paradigm (Rodinson, 1972: 130–80), Gómez Garcíaexamines some of the Arab Islamist/communist actions over the course of acentury and reformulates Rodinson’s Hegelian framework, adding to his threetypes of relationship (shock, reconciliation and coexistence) a fourth that goesbeyond the dialectic: the defection of communism to Islamism. Here, theparallels from Aldo Moro’s metaphor converge more clearly than ever.

In ‘The New Left in 1960–1970s Lebanon and 1917 as model and foil’,Laure Guirguis analyses the reframing of meanings and strategies at a time –the 1960s and 1970s – when the decline in pan-Arab political projects and theextended discrediting of Arab communist parties gave rise to a radical Left.The Arab defeat in 1967 and, even earlier, the failure of the first UAR in 1961


had nurtured a deep sense of loss, triggering a turn to the Left amongnationalist movements and strengthening the desire of Arab activists to findalternative models. However, 1917 continued to be a critical year and playeda paradigmatic role, considered the symbol of a historical event, a theoreticalcorpus and an organizational model. The New Left that emerged in Lebanonduring the 1960s defined itself against the pan-Arab movements in theirNasserite and Ba’athist versions, but also against the Arab communist par-ties and the USSR. By situating itself in a transnational frame of reference,alluding to the founding event of 1917, and reinterpreting the Marxist-Leninist corpus, the New Lefts in Lebanon tried to rise to two challenges.Infused with a revolutionary urgency, they wanted to respond to local chal-lenges and strategic questions. However, at the same time, they sought toprovide universally valid analytical tools and to construct universally sharedknowledge and values. In this respect, they accepted the challenge of forginga path between the conception of universalism as a tool of Western dom-ination and demands for cultural relativism. Guirguis’ case study providesan opportunity for in-depth consideration of the construction of specific,historical figures from the universal.

In her chapter, ‘From Marxism to anti-authoritarianism: Egypt’s NewLeft’, Laura Galián looks at the emergence of an Egyptian New Left after theperiod of disillusionment of the 1970s. This disillusion emerged from Arabsocialism and Marxism during the important political events of 1967, thesocial politicization of this generation (Duboc, 2011) and the failure of theArab Left to meet the expectations of the decolonization process. Galiánfocuses her analysis on Samih Said Abud (1956–2018), considered the fatherof leftist anti-authoritarian theories in Egypt and, by extension, the Arab-speaking world. This choice provides the opportunity to examine several keypoints, including the traditional dichotomy between theory and practice, therelationship between the generation of 1970 and political activism and thechanges in attitudes among young Marxists and communists towards anti-authoritarian policies in the 1980s, which resulted in the construction of anEgyptian New Left. Samih’s theoretical and political history sheds light on ageneration that sought a solution to the problems of the Left, on the onehand, and economic, political and social problems, both international andnational, on the other, through anti-authoritarian ideals and, ultimately,anarchism. Samih’s work is a clear example of the need to reformulate apolitical Left that was destroyed by the Nasser regime and later co-opted bySadat, equitable to the ravages suffered by the global Left after the fall of theUSSR and the emergence of the New Left. The figure of Samih Said Abudreveals both the local experience of the Egyptian New Left and the localexperience of anarchism, which was deeply connected to the global events ofthe era.

Finally, the chapter ‘Women and Left in the Middle East: the voice of theprotagonists’ features an interview by Natalia Ribas-Mateos with the Leba-nese academic and activist Azza Chararah Baydoun that presents the life


journey, from among many possibilities, of a feminist woman who was amember of a small communist political party in her youth, the CommunistAction Organization in Lebanon. With the perspective of several decades, theinterviewee looks back at gender relations, the civil war, activism in NGOsand the main challenges facing feminism in Lebanon. Azza Chararah Bay-doun’s biography introduces the perspective of gender into this work andshows one of the possible paths for a communist activist who chose tobecome actively involved in associative movements in the context of theirNGOization.

Notes1 Iran: Justice Party (Ferqa’ye ‘Eda-lat) (1917); Communist Party of Iran (1920);

Tudeh Party of Iran (1941); Palestine: Socialist Workers Party (1919–22); Palesti-nian Communist Party (1922–3)/Communist Party of Palestine (1922–3), bothmerged into the Palestine Communist Party (1923); Communist Party of Turkey(1920); Algerian Communist Party (1920 as an extension of the French Commu-nist Party; became a separate party in 1936); Egyptian Communist Party (1921;1975); Syrian–Lebanese Communist Party (1925), split after Lebanese indepen-dence to Lebanese Communist Party and Syrian Communist Party (1944); IraqiCommunist Party (1934); Tunisian Communist Party (1934, before was the Tuni-sian Federation of the French Communist Party (1920)); Moroccan CommunistParty (1943); Communist Party of Sudan (1946); Jordanian Communist Party(1948); Saudi Arabia: National Renewal Front (1954); National Liberation Front(1958); Communist Party in Saudi Arabia (1975); Bahrain: National LiberationFront (1955); Yemen: People’s Democratic Union (1961).

2 There are very few general studies on the communist parties in the region as agroup. Works by Tareq Y. Ismael (2005) and Karim Mroué and Samir Amin(2006) are among the most important. The book by Fadi A. Bardawil (2010)tracks the personal and intellectual journeys of some of the key figures in themovement.

3 For an in-depth presentation of this analytical perspective, see Izquierdo Brichs, 2008;Izquierdo-Brichs & Lampridi-Kemou, 2013; and Izquierdo-Brichs & Etherington,2017.

4 Michal Kalecki introduced this perspective with his analysis of the role of the‘armament-imperialist’ complex in competition with large corporate capital in theNorth American economy (Kalecki, 1972: 90–4, 109–12. Later Jonathan Nitzanand Shimshon Bichler developed the concept of differential accumulation inNitzan & Bichler, 2002.

5 See Benford & Snow, 2000; Williams, 2004.6 See Lenin, 1961 [1902]; Tarrow, 1998.7 At no time did the communist parties (CPs) in the Arab world have a high mem-

bership. Without citing sources, Laqueur says that the number of CP members inthe mid-1950s never surpassed a few thousand, with the exception of Iran.According to Laqueur, CP membership was approximately as follows: Egypt7,000–8,000; Israel 4,000–5,000; Lebanon 8,000–10,000; Syria 10,000; Jordan1,000–2,000; Iraq 3,000–5,000; Sudan 1,000–1,500; Turkey 3,000 (Laqueur, 1956:276). Based on North American intelligence reports, Halpern provides the follow-ing figures for 1963: in Iran the Tudeh decreased from 40,000–80,000 members in1953 to fewer than 2,000 in 1963; Syria 1,500; Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia and Moroccohad approximately 1,000 each (Halpern, 1963: 169). However, both Halpern and


other authors note that their influence was greater than their membership sizewould suggest (Ismael, 2005).

8 Gramsci, 1971: 58. ‘Trasformismo worked to co-opt potential leaders of subalternsocial groups. By extension trasformismo can serve as a strategy of assimilatingand domesticating potentially dangerous ideas by adjusting them to the policies ofthe dominant coalition’ (Cox, 1983: 166–7).

9 See Beinin, 1987; Gresh, 1989: 393; and Azaola-Piazza, Franzén, Ishiyama,Velasco Muñoz and Ibrahim in this book.

10 This inevitable dynamic is analysed by the sociology of power. See IzquierdoBrichs, 2013; Izquierdo-Brichs & Etherington, 2017; Feliu & Izquierdo Brichs,2016; Lampridi-Kemou, 2012; Farrés Fernández, 2012.

11 An analysis of rentier states from the sociology of power can be seen in IzquierdoBrichs, 2007 and Izquierdo-Brichs & Lampridi-Kemou, 2013.

12 On this debate, see the chapter by Luz Gómez García as well as Rodinson, 1972.13 The structure and discipline of the communist parties were guaranteed by the ‘21

Conditions’ that they had to accept before joining the International. In organiza-tional terms, 12 and 13 were clear: ‘12. The parties belonging to the CommunistInternational must be built on the basis of the principle of democratic centralism. Inthe present epoch of acute civil war the communist party will only be able to fulfil itsduty if it is organised in as centralist a manner as possible, if iron discipline reignswithin it and if the party centre, sustained by the confidence of the party member-ship, is endowed with the fullest rights and authority and the most far-reachingpowers. / 13. The communist parties of those countries in which the communists cancarry out their work legally must from time to time undertake purges (re-registra-tion) of the membership of their party organisations in order to cleanse the partysystematically of the petty-bourgeois elements within it’ (Comintern, 1920c).

14 ‘Présentation d’Annahj Addimocrati’, https://web.archive.org/web/20120419063420/;www.annahjaddimocrati.org/index.php/en/presentation-de-la-voie-democratique(accessed 23 March 2018).

15 In 1928, the Sixth Comintern Congress established distance with respect to thebourgeois nationalist parties: ‘23 … Consequently it is necessary, by means of cor-rect communist tactics, adapted to the conditions of the present stage, to help thetoiling masses in India, Egypt, Indonesia and such colonies to emancipate them-selves from the influence of the bourgeois parties … / Egypt 37. In Egypt, theCommunist Party will be able to play an important role in the national movement,but only if it bases itself on the organised proletariat … The greatest danger to thetrade-union movement in Egypt at the present time lies in the bourgeois nationalistsgetting control of the workers’ trade unions. Without a decisive struggle against theirinfluence, a genuine class organisation of the workers is impossible. One of theessential defects of the Egyptian communists in the past has been that they haveworked exclusively among the urban workers. A correct setting out of the agrarianquestion, the gradual drawing into the revolutionary struggle of the wide massesof agricultural workers and peasants, and the organisation of these masses, con-stitutes one of the most important tasks for the party. / Northern Africa 38. In theFrench colonies of North Africa, the communists must carry on work in all thealready existing national-revolutionary mass organisations in order to unitethrough them the genuine revolutionary elements on a consistent and clear plat-form of a fighting bloc of workers and peasants … it is necessary to guarantee theleading role of the revolutionary proletariat … In the agrarian question, it isnecessary to be able to direct the growing hatred of the village population … Thecommunist organisation in each individual country must attract into its ranks inthe first place native workers, fighting against any negligent attitude towardsthem’. Comintern, Sixth Congress (17 July–1 September 1928), Theses on the


Revolutionary Movement in the Colonies and Semi-Colonies, www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/ColNatQ6.htm

16 See Jaber, 1998.17 An analysis of how the colonial question was handled in the Comintern can be

found in Claudin, 1975: 242–71.18 During the first years of the revolution, the Arab world was not a priority for the

USSR, which had no coherent policy regarding the region (El-Amin, 1996: 39–44).19 On this debate, see (among others): Said, 1979; Turner, 2014 [1978]; Molyneux &

Halliday, 1984; Ahmad, 1994; Achcar, 2013a; Young, 2016.20 As Sultan-Galiev commented after the revolutionary failures in Germany and

Hungary, ‘However grievous this is, one must admit that up to this time all themeasures which we took in the business of the establishment of correct mutualrelations between Soviet Russia and the East were, until recently, too accidentaland palliative in character … [We are compelled] to accept the simple truth thatwithout the participation of the East it is impossible for us to accomplish theinternational social revolution’ (Sultan-Galiev, 1982 [1919]: 5–6).

21 For Sultan-Galiev and the CPSU, the most important relationships were with theMuslim regions that neighboured Russia, which would become republics withinthe USSR, but this inevitably meant looking towards the East.

22 ‘Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East: Composition of the Congress byNationalities’, www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/baku/delegates.htm

23 This debate, which ties in with the debate over evolutionism in the different stagesof Marxism, would be central to the leftist ruptures of the late 1960s. In herchapter, Guirguis cites Socialist Lebanon in this respect: ‘And perhaps the mostsignificant position premised on evolutionism is the one that calls for the supportof the national bourgeoisie because the history of the society in which the com-munist party is militating hasn’t passed through all the required stages … feudal-ism, capitalism, socialism … It is clear that the Manifesto does not adopt this styleof thinking at all’ (Socialist Lebanon (Lubnan Al-Ishtiraki), 1969).

24 For example, Khalid Bakdash, who would become secretary of the Syrian Com-munist Party from 1936 until 1995, the Palestinian Muhammad Najati Sidqi andYusuf Salman Yusuf (‘Fahd’), who would be secretary of the Iraqi CommunistParty from 1941 until his death in jail in 1949.

25 Many examples exist dating quite far back. As early as 1921, relations wereestablished with Reza Pahlavi in Iran (1921), Mustafa Kemal in Turkey (1921) andKing Amanullah in Afghanistan (1921) (El-Amin, 1996: 32–3).

26 For example, Stalinism played an important role in the defections that took placein the Syrian-Lebanese Communist Party, with the expulsion of Fuad Chemali, theleader who had increased the party’s influence among workers.

27 Russia has extensively used its bases in Syria to support the regime of Assad since2015, with great military and strategic success.

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Le Foll-Luciani, P.-J. (2016) ‘“J’aurais aimé être une bombe pour exploser”. Les mili-tantes communistes algériennes entre assignations sexuées et subversions des rôlesde genre (1944–1962)’. Le Mouvement social, 2.

Lenin, V. I. (1961 [1902]) ‘What Is to Be Done?’. In Collected Works, Moscow,Foreign Languages Publishing House.

Mañé, A. & de la Cámara, C. (2005) ‘Rusia: ¿hacia una economía petrolero-rentista?’.Revista de Economía Crítica, 3.

Molyneux, M. & Halliday, F. (1984) ‘Marxism, the Third World and the Middle East’.MERIP Reports, 120.


Mroué, K. and Amin, S. (2006) Communistes dans le monde arabe, Paris, Le Tempsdes Cerises.

Nitzan, J. & Bichler, S. (2002) The Global Political Economy of Israel, London, PlutoPress.

Primakov, Y. (2009) Russia and the Arabs: Behind the Scenes in the Middle East fromthe Cold War to the Present, New York, Basic Books.

Rodinson, M. (1972) Marxisme et monde musulman, Paris, Éditions du Seuil.Rodinson, M. (2015 [1972]) Marxism and the Muslim World, London, Zed Books.Rollinde, M. (2002) Le mouvement marocain des droits de l’Homme: entre consensus

national et engagement citoyen, Paris, Karthala Éditions.Roy, M. N. (1921) ‘Theses on the Eastern Question. July 12, 1921’, www.marxists.

org/archive/roy/1921/roy03.htmSaid, E. (1979) Orientalism, New York, Vintage.Shariati, A. (1980) Marxism and Other Western Fallacies: An Islamic Critique,

Berkeley, CA, Mizan Press.Shariati, A. (1982) Histoire et Destinée, Paris, Sindbad.Socialist Lebanon (Lubnan Al-Ishtiraki) (1969) ‘Madkhal li qira’at al-bayan al-shuyu’i

(Introduction to reading the communist manifest’. Dirasat ‘arabiyya, 5, 7.Sultan-Galiev, M. (1982 [1919]) ‘The Social Revolution and the East’. Review

(Fernand Braudel Center), 6, 1.Tarrow, S. (1998) Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and

Politics, New York, Cambridge University Press.Turner, B. S. (2014 [1978]) Marx and the End of Orientalism, Abingdon, Routledge.White, S. (1974) ‘Communism and the East: The Baku Congress, 1920’. Slavic Review,

33, 3.White, S. (1976) ‘Colonial Revolution and the Communist International, 1919–1924’.

Science and Society, 40, 2.Williams, R. H. (2004) ‘The Cultural Contexts of Collective Action: Constraints,

Opportunities, and the Symbolic Life of Social Movements’. In Snow, D. A., Soule,S. A. & Kriesi, H. (Eds), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, London,Blackwell.

Young, R. (2016) Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, Oxford, Blackwell.


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Part I

Communist parties: case studies

2 Iran’s communist movementReform and revolution

Yassamine Mather

This chapter looks at the communist movement in Iran in the early 1900swhen Iran’s first communist party was established, the formation of Tudeh(Mass) Party in the 1930s as well as the relationship of both parties with theSoviet Communist Party from the early 1900s to the 1980s. Russia’s extensivegeographical border with Iran and the influence of Russian communism onIranian migrant workers gave a special significance to Soviet policy towardsIran. Studying the history of Iran’s communist movement gives an insight intothe role of the Soviet Union in the ‘East’. This chapter will explore Sovietencouragement for the setting up and then dismantling of Iran’s CommunistParty in favour of a broad front (the Tudeh or Mass Party); the Soviet con-demnation of Mossadegh and the Tudeh Party’s role during the CIA’s coup in1953. The chapter also discusses the rebellion of communist students andintellectuals, especially the Fedayeen, against the Tudeh Party and the short-comings of their ultimately unsuccessful efforts.

1 Emergence of the communist movement

In the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century Britishimperialism and tsarist Russia dominated every aspect of political and eco-nomic life in Iran. Although the country was not a colony of the BritishEmpire, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, a British Corporation, controlledone of Iran’s main sources of income, the oil fields in the southwest of thecountry. The corrupt, autocratic Gajar dynasty was being challenged byintellectuals and movements such as the political group formed in 1898 by AliMonsieur in Tabriz. However, it was Iranian immigrants working in the oilfields of Baku and other Russian Asian countries who became influenced bysocial democracy. One of the most prominent activists amongst them wasHeidar Amou Oghlu (who became one of the leaders of the ConstitutionalRevolution in 1905). Iranian workers in Baku set up the first revolutionarysocial democratic group in Iran, Hemmat (Aspiration) in 1904. In the sameyear, leaflets and pamphlets published by the Baku, Tbilisi and Tabriz bran-ches of the Social Democrat Workers’ Party of Russia (Bolsheviks) were dis-tributed by Ali Monsieur not only in Azarbaijan and other areas of Iran, but

also after translation into Arabic, in the Iraqi cities of Baghdad and Kaze-mein. Between 1901 and 1902, the central organ of the Bolshevik Party, Iskra,was sent to Baku from Berlin via Tabriz. The operation was organized byLenin himself.

In 1908, following the discovery of large oil fields in the southwest ofKhuzistan province, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was set up. Between1912 and 1933 alone, the company made profits of 200 million, of which only16 million was paid to the Iranian government in royalties.

Resentment against British intervention played a role in increasing Russiansocial democracy’s popularity amongst Iranian workers and intellectuals. In1912 the socialist Adalat (Justice) party led by an Armenian Iranian calledAvetis Mikaleian, also known as Ahmad Sultanzadeh, was established. Sul-tanzadeh had joined the Bolshevik Party in 1912 while he was studying in StPetersburg. The party had 6,000 members and was the only one in the regionled by a communist belonging to a religious minority. It was renamed theCommunist Party of Iran in 1920.

2 Jangali movement and the Soviet Republic of Gilan

There is considerable controversy about Iran’s Jangali (Forest) movement.According to one point of view, Mirza Kuchak Khan, the leader of the Jan-gali movement, was a nationalist and a democrat rather than a socialist. It istrue that earlier in the twentieth century Kuchak Khan had connections withOttomans who had pan-Islamic tendencies. However, at the time he gotinvolved with the left there were no such connections. Adalat joined an alli-ance with the Jangali movement which led to the establishment of the SovietRepublic of Gilan that lasted from June 1920 until September 1921. Iraniansocialists were convinced that following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia,Iran would witness the next revolution and setting up the Soviet Republic waspart of this plan.

Major disagreements within the republic led to defeat. Kuchak Khan hadtried to get the Russians involved by writing a plea to Lenin, however, inter-national politics was moving on and by 1921 the Soviet Union and Britainhad reached an agreement that marked the end of Russian support for theGilan Republic. Iran’s new ruler Reza Khan crushed the forces of the newrepublic.

The leader of Iran’s communist party Sultanzadeh (Avetis), who was adelegate to the Second World Congress of the Communist International in1920, had been elected to the Council for Action and Propaganda in the East(Riddell, 1993: 208–9). He was considered a leading voice on the left wing ofthe international communist movement and opposed collaboration withnationalist leaders (Chaqueri, 1984: 218). He lost his position as AdalatParty’s general secretary in the organization’s 1923 congress and moved to theSoviet Union as a banking official. He was arrested in January 1938 andjailed for five months before being tried and shot as an alleged spy.

46 Yassamine Mather

The Communist Party of Iran helped to found the Union of the Oil Workersin 1925, when Reza Shah took power and two years later, under increasingpressure from the police, was forced to take the trade union underground.Women’s and youth organizations were established as a result of the activitiesof Iranian communists. In 1923 Peyk-e Saadat-e Nesvan (Messenger ofWomen’s Prosperity) was formed and in 1926 the women’s group Bidarye Ma(Our Awakening) was established. With the intention of ending the growth ofthese movements in the country, Reza Shah stepped up the suppression and in1929 passed a bill through the Iranian parliament, banning all communistactivity in Iran. These years are also marked by the appearance of Dr TaghiArani in the leadership of the Communist Party of Iran. The new party lea-dership, which was endeavouring to unite the ranks of the organization, laun-ched a theoretical journal, called Donya (The World) in early 1932. A yearlater, by the decision of the central committee of the party, Donya became theofficial organ of the Communist Party of Iran.

3 Tudeh Party in the 1930s

There is little information about the plight of party members and activists whowere in the Soviet Union during the purges; however, we learn something oftheir situation in Cosro Shakeri’s research. Shakeri quotes a letter from theCadres Section of the Comintern to Iranian leftist author Noushin: ‘most Ira-nian Communists had perished in the purges; a few such as the Communistpoet Lahouti, had been living in exceptional comfort in Moscow or in theAsiatic republics, no doubt due to their collaboration with the Soviet secretpolice against their compatriots persecuted by the NKVD’ (Chaqueri, 1999: 1).

3.1 The rise of fascism in Iran and plans for a united front

In 1936 the Reich Cabinet, advocating the common Aryan ancestry of thetwo nations, issued a special decree exempting Iranians from the restrictionsof the Nuremberg Racial Laws. This was done on the grounds that they were‘pure blooded Aryans’.1 In various pro-Nazi publications, lectures, speechesand ceremonies, parallels were drawn between the Shah of Iran and Hitler,and the charisma and virtue of the führerprinzip was highly praised.2 By 1941,Reza Shah was entering into an alliance with Nazi Germany and, conse-quently, on 25 August 1941, the Allied Forces entered Iranian territory. Thenorth of Iran was occupied by the Soviet Union and the south by British andAmerican forces. Reza Shah was forced into exile and the British brought hisson, Mohammad Reza Shah, to power.

In the first years of his reign, while his grip on power remained weak, alarge number of political prisoners were released. These included communistsin Dr Arani’s group (also known as the Group of 53), who adhered to socia-list ideology but appeared to be unaware of the plight of their comrades inRussia. The basis for the establishment of the Tudeh Party of Iran was laid

Iran’s communist movement 47

down with Soviet encouragement. On 29 September 1941, the founding con-ference of the party was held in Tehran under the chairmanship of SoleimanMohsen Eskandari. There are conflicting opinions about the role of the SovietUnion in forming the Tudeh Party. Historian Cosro Chaqueri has summar-ized these debates in his article ‘Did the Soviets Play a Role in the Foundingof Tudeh?’ (Chaqueri, 1999). Chaqueri quotes a report by Brigade Commis-sar Il’ichev, Colonel Seliukov of the Red Army Intelligence division, about hismeeting with Solyan Mirza Eskandari on 29 September 1941. They discussedsetting up a ‘national-democratic party’ to ‘obtain democratic liberties and aneasier life for the Iranian people’.3 It is clear from further reports sent bySeliukov to the Soviet Union that details of the new party’s programme,Eskandari’s previous political activities and the offer of financial help from theSoviet Union were discussed at subsequent meetings. According to Chaqueri’sresearch, the Red Army intelligence officer told Eskandari that the new party’sprogramme was in accordance with ‘our’ opinion at a meeting on 10 October1941, but he seemed to hesitate regarding the request for legalization of theparty (presumably because of Anglo-Soviet relations at the time).

Eskandari and Seliukov had monthly meetings during which every aspectof activists’ preparations for the new party was discussed. Opponents of the‘united front’ bourgeois-democratic, anti-fascist party were also contactingMoscow, seeking support. The author Noushin wrote to Moscow aboutrebuilding the Iranian Communist Party, whilst Avanessain and Rousta,recently released from prison, were in favour of further communist initiatives.Historical archives make it clear that Dimitrov informed Stalin and hisassociates (Beria, Molotov and Malenkov). They approved Tudeh’s unitedfront initiative in Iran and were against any Avanessain–Rousta communistinitiatives. Iranian communists were instructed ‘to work in the Popular Partyof Soleyman Mirza … At the present stage [they] must not display socialistand Soviet slogans; [they] must not abandon the framework of democraticplatform.’4

At the same time, the Comintern embarked on a plan of setting up ‘united,anti-fascist fronts’ not only in Iran, where the Tudeh Party was set up as sucha front, but also in neighbouring countries. For the execution of the plan inIran, groups of cadres were designated by the Executive Committee of theCommunist International to go to Iran. One task was to organize lines ofcontact with the communist parties of (1) Arab countries (Syria, Palestine,Egypt and Iraq) and (2) India, through any of the following: Basra or Iraqiterritory; the Iranian ports of the Persian Gulf; Afghanistan; or BritishBaluchistan (now Pakistan). They also had to organize direct relations withIran and establish their own radio transmitter, while assisting Iranian com-munists in the creation of mass organizations and eventually the re-establishmentof the Iranian Communist Party.

In 1942 the Tudeh gained official recognition and launched its paper‘Siasat’ (Politics). The worsening economic situation helped the party recruitactivists in a short time. Party cells and trade union organizations were

48 Yassamine Mather

formed in industrial centres in many provinces. County organizations were setup in Azerbaijan, Esfahan, Golan, Mazandaran and Khorasan. Chaquericoncludes that Tudeh was a creation of the Soviet Union and that it wasprimarily set up to suit Moscow’s interests in Iran. The documents Chaqueriproduces concur with this conclusion; however, it should not be forgotten thatIranian communists who had survived prison in Iran and those left alive afterStalinist purges supported the establishment of this particular ‘united front’.

4 The democratic republics of Azerbaijan and Kurdistan

On 26 November 1945, the Soviet troops occupying northwestern provincesof Iran prevented the Iranian army from reaching Kurdistan and Azerbaijan,where Soviet-backed groups had taken control and declared independence.The declaration of two independent republics in Kurdistan and Azerbaijanheaded by left nationalists (Ghazi and Pishevari) took Tudeh members bysurprise, although one assumes those members of the leadership close to RedArmy intelligence had some prior warning of the impending independence. Inresponse to a complaint submitted by Iran, Andrei Vishinski, the Sovietrepresentative to the United Nations, asked the Security Council not tointerfere with ongoing bilateral talks (a reference to the Soviet Union andUnited Kingdom, whose Anglo-Russian 1907 entente had already dividedIran between two spheres of influence, installing puppet regimes in the oil-richareas). The Soviet proposal offered the recognition of the independent state ofAzerbaijan by Iran, the acquisition of north oil concessions and Soviet mili-tary presence in a buffer zone consisting of five major provinces north of Iran.

By early 1945, the Tudeh had gathered considerable support with an esti-mated 2,200 members and tens of thousands of sympathizers in its studentand women’s organizations. The party claimed to have 100,000 sympathizersin affiliated trade unions. Its main newspaper, Rahbar (Leader), boasted acirculation of more than 100,000, triple that of the ‘semi-official newspaper’,Ettela’at. British ambassador Reader Bullard called it the only coherentpolitical force in the country and the New York Times reckoned its alliescould win as much as 40 per cent of the vote in a fair election. However, sinceits inception the Tudeh had portrayed itself as the champion of patriotismand constitutional liberties against foreign imperialism and the threat of royaldictatorship. It was forced to change tack and support the partition ofnorthern Iran and oil concessions to the Soviet Union. Predictably, manymembers resigned.

In Azerbaijan and Kurdistan, the Tudeh Party branches were dissolved andparty members were instructed—presumably by the Soviet Union—to joineither Firqua Democrat Azerbaijan or Firqua Democrat Kurdistan (leftnationalist organizations). Although Pishevari had joined the Tudeh in theearly 1940s, he had independent links with Moscow and did not obey partydiscipline. In April 1946 the Iranian government of Prime Minister Ghavamsigned an oil agreement with the Soviet Union and agreed to appoint Tudeh


ministers to the government in exchange for a promise of Soviet troop with-drawals from Iran’s northern provinces (in a reversal of policy, Moscow nowfavoured the Tudeh once again). Partly as a result of pressure from the UnitedStates and Britain, Soviet troops withdrew from Iranian territory. Ghavamtook three Tudeh members into his cabinet. Later the same year, however, hewas able to reclaim his concessions to the Soviet Union, using the excuse of atribal revolt in the south to dismiss Tudeh cabinet members.

When Ghavam and the Shah’s troops arrived in Azerbaijan in December1946, the Firqua Democrat government, deprived of Soviet support, col-lapsed and Pishevari fled to the Soviet Union. Stalin’s letter to Pishevari shedslight on aspects of their disagreements:

May 8th, 1946To comrade Pishevari,It seems to me that you misjudge the existing situation, inside Iran as

well as in the international dimension.First, you wanted to meet all revolutionary demands of Azerbaijan

right now. But the existing situation precludes realization of this pro-gram … There is no profound revolutionary crisis in Iran. There are fewworkers in Iran and they are poorly organized. The Iranian peasantry stilldoes not show any serious activism. Iran is not waging a war with exter-nal enemy that could weaken Iran’s revolutionary circles through a mili-tary failure. Consequently, there is no such situation in Iran that couldsupport the tactics of Lenin in 1905 and 1917.

Second, certainly, you could have counted on a success in the cause ofthe struggle for the revolutionary demands of the Azerbaijani people hadthe Soviet troops continued to remain in Iran. But we could no longerkeep them in Iran, mainly because the presence of Soviet troops in Iranundercut the foundation of our liberationist policies in Europe and Asia.The British and Americans said to us that if Soviet troops could stay inIran, then why could not British troops stay in Egypt, Syria, Indonesia,Greece, and also the American troops – in China, Iceland, Denmark …

Third … What do have now in Iran? We have a conflict of the gov-ernment of Qavam with the Anglophile circles in Iran who represent themost reactionary elements of Iran. As reactionary as Qavam used to be inthe past, now he must, in the interests of self-defence and the defence ofhis government, carry out some democratic reforms and seek supportamong democratic elements in Iran. What must be our tactics underthese conditions? I believe we should use this conflict to wrench conces-sion from Qavam, to give him support, to isolate the Anglophiles, thus,and to create some basis for the further democratization of Iran …

Fourth, you, as I found out, say that we first raised you to the skies andthen let you down into the precipice and disgraced you. If this is true, itsurprises us … Had you not run far ahead, you would not have had achance in the current situation in Iran to achieve these demands

50 Yassamine Mather

‘concession’ that the government of Qavam has to make now. Such is thelaw of revolutionary movement. There could not be even mention of anydisgrace for you. It is very strange that you think that we could have letyou down in disgrace. On the contrary, if you behave reasonably and seekwith our moral support the demands that would legalize essentially theexisting factual position of Azerbaijan, then you would be blessed bothby the Azeris and by Iran as a pioneer of the progressive democraticmovement in the Middle East.

The dismantling of the Communist Party in Iran in favour of the Tudeh fol-lowed by the adventures of the Stalinist regime in Azerbaijan and Kurdistanand then the support for nationalist separation resulted in confusion, angerand frustration amongst the ranks of Tudeh, the two Firquas and communistsand socialists in Iran. In Azerbaijan, Firqua Democrat made some pro-gress towards land reform and fighting corruption amongst civil servants, butits rule was short-lived and the Shah’s army ensured a speedy reversal of thesepolicies. There are contradictory reports about the level of local support forPishevari and his government; however, there can be no doubt that militaryoccupation encouraged the growth of right-wing royalist and later funda-mentalist tendencies in the region, particularly around Orumiyeh. In 1948 theTudeh Party faced a large split under the leadership of Khalil Maleki, whoblamed the central committee for the Azerbaijan crisis.

5 Tudeh and the 1953 CIA coup

The party’s indecision vis-à-vis a range of issues during Mossadegh’s pre-miership and the CIA coup of 1953 had disastrous consequences for Iran andthe left. When Mossadegh came to power in 1951, his first proposal was theenforcement of the Oil Nationalization Bill to terminate British ownership ofIran’s oil industry. The British reacted by issuing a lawsuit against Iran in theUnited Nations Security Council and the Hague International Court. TheHague Court voted in favour of Iran. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company wasdissolved and the 1933 oil agreement between Reza Shah’s government ofIran and the British was declared void. The National Iranian Oil Company,the first national oil company in the Middle East, was established on 19March 1951.

Throughout this period, the Tudeh’s policy towards Mossadegh fluctuatedfrom one extreme to another: first they attacked him as ‘an agent of Amer-ican imperialism’, and then they gave him support during and after the July1952 uprising. The Tudeh supported nationalization of the British Anglo-Persian Oil Company oil fields, or ‘southern oil fields only’, but opposednationalization of the northern oil fields owned and operated by the SovietUnion. On 15 August 1953, an attempted coup against Mosaddegh wasthwarted thanks in part to information uncovered by the Tudeh Party’s mili-tary network. Some believe demonstrations called by the Tudeh two days


later to pressure Mosaddegh to declare Iran a democratic republic inad-vertently helped to destabilize the nationalist government. Mosaddegh reactedto these protests by calling on troops to suppress the demonstrators. Ironically,the party demobilized late the next day, just as the CIA coup was unfolding.

On 19 August, the democratically elected government of Iranian primeminister Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a coup by the intelli-gence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States. The codename was Operation Ajax. CIA agents worked with pro-Shah military offi-cers led by Fazlollah Zahedi, bribing thugs, clerics and politicians to takepart in a propaganda campaign against Mosaddegh. A pro-Shah mob mar-ched to the prime minister’s office. According to the CIA’s declassifieddocuments, some of Tehran’s most feared mobsters were paid by Zahedi andthe CIA to stage pro-Shah riots. Others were brought into Tehran on busesand trucks, and took over the streets of the city (Zulaika, 2009). Mosaddeghwas arrested, tried and convicted of treason by the Shah’s military court. On21 December, he was sentenced to three years in jail, and then placed underhouse arrest for the remainder of his life (Abrahamian, 1982: 280). Zahedibecame prime minister of a military government following a royal decreedismissing Mosaddegh (Gasiorowski, 1991: 237–9, 243). Supporters ofMosaddegh were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured or executed. After thecoup, Pahlavi ruled as an authoritarian monarch for the next 26 years, untilhe was overthrown in 1979.

If the coup marked the end of the nationalist government, it also destroyedthe Tudeh, which was by then the largest ‘socialist’ party in the Middle East.Its networks were smashed and most of its cadre were arrested or forced toflee to the Soviet Union. Of course the perceived threat of the Tudeh and thepossibility of Iran’s rapprochement with the Soviet Union was part of therationale behind the coup. In his book Iran between Two Revolutions, ErvandAbrahamian analyses the Tudeh’s conduct prior to and during the 1953 coup,pointing out the historic political differences between the party and theNational Front. He also questions the size of the party and whether theTudeh military officer corps were in a position to change the course of events.According to CIA reports, on the eve of the coup the Tudeh had a coremembership of around 20,000 and a network of officers within the Iranianarmed forces organized by Sazman Nezami Hezb. The party acted as a semi-legal political force, publishing three daily papers and organizing supportersunder the banner of the Iranian Society for Peace (Jamiyat Irani Havadar-eSolh).

Regarding the history of the Tudeh’s military organization, Maziyar Beh-rooz points out that officers in the military organization did act independentlyof Party leadership:5

Iranian Marxists have blamed the Tudeh and its military organization forinaction during the 1953 coup. Many believe that, even if – as party loy-alists argue – defeat was inevitable, it would have been preferable for

52 Yassamine Mather

Tudeh officers and the party to be defeated resisting the coup. Theycondemned the passivity shown by both groups.

(Behrooz, 2001: 367)

On the other hand, some in the officer corps have disputed the claim thatTudeh’s military organization was too weak to make any difference. FireidunAzarnur, a high-ranking officer, believes that Tudeh allies occupied importantmilitary posts during the coup and estimates that 491 Tudeh military per-sonnel had the ability to aid the party in defeating the coup.6 Ervand Abra-hamian notes that none of the Tudeh officers were in the ‘crucial tankdivisions around Tehran’ that could have been used for a coup d’état and thatthe Shah had screened them carefully: ‘Ironically, a Tudeh colonel had beenin charge of the Shah’s personal security – as well as that of Vice PresidentRichard Nixon when he visited Iran. The Tudeh had the opportunity toassassinate the Shah and the U.S. Vice-President but not to launch a coup.’The officer corps’ other main task was to protect the party. Its decimation in1954 rendered it useless regarding this task.

Irrespective of the debates regarding the strength and weakness of theparty, it is clear that the Tudeh (and by extension the Soviet Union) did notcome out of this period well. Throughout the early 1950s, party leadersappeared confused about their attitude towards the nationalist government.The Tudeh’s labelling of Mossadegh as a CIA agent and opposition to thenationalization of the northern oil fields, as well as its passive attitude to thecoup, led to charges of its being ‘khaen’ (treacherous). The party wascommonly referred to as ‘Hezb Khaen Tudeh’.

After the coup, the party faced a serious crackdown with mass arrests andthe execution of some 40–50 leaders: ‘Between 1953 and 1957, Iraniansecurity forces tracked down the whole Tudeh underground and more thanhalf the party membership’ (Abrahamian, 2008: 122). Following the Sino-Soviet split, a Maoist group broke away from the Tudeh in the early 1960s.Another smaller faction left in 1965. In 1966, several party members, includ-ing Ali Khavari and Parviz Hekmatjoo of the central committee, as well asAsef Razmdideh and Saber Mohammadzadeh, were arrested and sentencedto death. This sparked international outcry from sister parties and forced thegovernment to reduce the sentences to life imprisonment. Throughout the1960s, the Tudeh remained a constitutionalist, reformist party that parrotedSoviet dogma about ‘peaceful coexistence’ and even went so far as ‘detecting’progressive aspects in line with the ‘non-capitalist road to development’ insome of the Shah’s policies.

6 Frustration with Tudeh and the birth of Fedayeen

The Fedayeen organization was formed through the merger of two groups onthe Iranian left, both opposed to the Tudeh. One was led by MassoudAhmadzadeh. His politics were a combination of Maoism and the espousal of


guerrilla warfare. One of his closest allies was Amir-Parviz Pouyan, someoneinfluenced by the events in Europe in 1968 and armed struggle. Ahmadza-deh’s book Armed Struggle: Both Strategy and Tactic was for many years thebible of the Fedayeen. Amir-Parviz Pouyan also wrote a book called TheNecessity of Armed Struggle against the Theory of Survival. The ‘theory ofsurvival’ referred to the passive line of the Tudeh Party, against which theFedayeen were rebelling. Since 1953, Tudeh had advocated a policy of survi-val, refraining from taking offensive action in order to avoid arrest andimprisonment. Puyan argued that this was tantamount to accepting defeat:‘We must demonstrate that the theory of “let us not take the offensive inorder to survive” is in fact no more than saying “we shall allow the police todestroy us in embryo without the slightest resistance”’7.

Ahmadzadeh also destroyed the illusion that the national bourgeoisie couldhave a revolutionary or progressive role: ‘Struggle against imperialist dom-ination—i.e. world capitalism—has some elements of the struggle with capit-alism and therefore some elements of the socialist revolution are born in thisstruggle’. On the role of the proletariat he wrote: ‘The proletariat [in Iran] isnumerically weak, but its special qualities and capabilities to organise arestronger than any other class’.8

Bijan Jazani was another leading figure. He came from a different tendency(the youth organization of the Tudeh Party) but he rebelled against Tudehand agreed to bring his small forces into the new organization.

To summarize the politics that influenced the Fedayeen in this period, onecan say that a unique version of guerrilla-ism dominated. There was also avery simplistic attitude to the Soviet Union, just a critique of ‘revisionism’,which in fact did not go beyond a critique of ‘peaceful coexistence’. TheFedayeen’s founders were against the changes brought about by the 22ndCongress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and adopted a lineclaiming to be independent of both Russia and China. In reality, however,they remained very much influenced by Stalinism.

In debates with Communist Unity, a middle-of-the-road student organiza-tion, the Fedayeen were very clear on where they stood regarding the SovietUnion. Their position was that, until 1962, the Soviet Union was 65 per centgood and 35 per cent bad, which is a Maoist view. However, as China adop-ted the theory of social imperialism and later the ‘three worlds’ theory, theFedayeen and other Iranian left-wing groups distanced themselves fromMaoism only to end up being soft on the Soviet Union.

Those who lost their lives in the Siahkal uprising in 1971 had considerableimpact on the youth and student movement in Iran. It was not quite whatAhmadzadeh had predicted, however. The small motor did not make thelarge motor move and the whole country rebel, but the student movementbecame very sympathetic to this new, emerging left and was heavily influencedby it, as were many young workers.

The years 1971–9 shaped the political thought of the generation that cameto the Iranian revolution as leaders of the Fedayeen. For this reason, it is an

54 Yassamine Mather

important period. As an organization, it was mainly underground, preparingfor armed warfare and organizing occasional bank robberies. Its activitieswere sporadic but there were losses, particularly because, as an armed orga-nization, members of the Fedayeen could simply be killed in the streets. Thisdenied the Fedayeen a mass base and endangered anyone who supportedthem, such as university students. Supporters were regarded as part of thearmed movement by association. Around 370 left wingers were executed inthis period, of whom 60 per cent were Fedayeen.

Fedayeen members debated issues such as united fronts, intervention inworking-class struggles and the advantages and disadvantages of armedstruggle while in prison. Jazani moved away from some of their originalpositions. In his book United Front against Dictatorship, Jazani clearly rejectsearlier positions taken by Ahmadzadeh and Pouyan (some argue that he wasmoving back to the Tudeh’s stances). In another book, Capitalism andRevolution in Iran, Jazani provides a valuable analysis of the Shah’s regime.

Jazani was killed in Evin Prison in 1975. It is therefore difficult to assesswhether some of the writings and ideas attributed to him were truly his ownopinions. The people around him became leaders of the Fedayeen on theirrelease from prison. By 1979, there was a mass revolutionary movement inIran and members of the Fedayeen were released from prison, many duringthe February uprising, when people broke down the doors of the jails. Duringthis period the Fedayeen had become a real force amongst students andyoung people, gaining popularity as a result of its past actions (althoughsome of it was actually populist myth). However, the organization was nowvery divided, with Jazani’s supporters following one political line andAhmadzadeh supporters another.

There were two debates going on over the armed struggle. Jazani’s supporterscontended that the armed struggle line, as both strategy and tactic, was mis-taken. In that they were right, as it had separated the Fedayeen from its potentialmass base. On the other hand, some supporters of Jazani were now excusingSoviet foreign policy and even saw a positive role for the national bourgeoisie.

Throughout this period there was very little done in terms of theoreticalwork. The book that everyone read, and which gave them ‘everything’ accord-ing to a Fedayeen elder, was Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? It gave the Fedayeentheir stance against sectarianism, economism, syndicalism and anarchism.Their entire analysis was based on it. However, they did not necessarily under-stand it properly, especially given the problematic Farsi translation by theRussian Academy of Sciences, which emphasizes centralism over democracy.

In addition, the Fedayeen had failed to make any headway in the workingclass or Iranian society as a whole. In the universities, however, it had a greatdeal of support, as became clear during the revolution. Amongst the intel-lectuals and especially the poets (some of them famous), there was an amaz-ing amount of praise for the Fedayeen. One thing is clear: they had nostrategy about what to do when the revolutionary situation arrived. That wasthe problem of February 1979.


While the clergy used the period of economic crisis (1974–9) to build itsbase, make propaganda and mobilize, the imprisoned Fedayeen debated invery abstract terms such questions as the united front against the dictatorship.In addition, the Shah showed more leniency towards the religious groups thanhe did towards the left, for whom building a mass organization was muchmore difficult. They attempted to go to the factories, but all they could dowas distribute leaflets and then disappear.

It is not, therefore, a question of the February Revolution being hijacked,more that the left was simply not prepared for it. In a sense it is a good thingthat the left did not come to power, as it had no plans, no politics, no strategyand definitely no theory about what to do.

The oil workers were crucial in the February Revolution. It was theirstrikes that broke the back of the Shah’s regime. The Fedayeen had someinfluence amongst them, but they were hampered by their lack ofexperience of working with the class. There was no plan about what todo with the strike or how to move it forward. Nevertheless, the first rallycalled by the Fedayeen in Tehran after the overthrow of the Shahattracted 500,000 people. Despite reservations, they stood in the electionsto what was a sort of constituent assembly and received a couple ofmillion votes.

7 Splits

The splits in the rest of the Iranian left, including amongst the Fedayeen andthe smaller Trotskyist groups, in the post-1979 period, often stemmed fromdisagreements regarding their views on the Soviet Union.

In 1979–80, the majority of the central committee held the view that theprinciple contradiction of the period was one of imperialism versus socialism,as represented by the United States and the Soviet Union! On Iran’s regimethey said that, although it was Islamic, the government was objectivelymoving Iran towards the ‘socialist camp’ and therefore should be supported.They were called the Fedayeen Majority only because they constituted amajority on the central committee, although it soon became clear that theydid not have majority support in the country.

Things became much more tense after the spring of 1979, with the Islamicgovernment strengthening itself and assuming an ideal position to imposerepression on opposition forces. For this reason, a number of events occurred,not least the takeover of the United States embassy by students. This washailed by the pro-Soviet groups, Fedayeen Majority and Tudeh, as well asmost of the left outside Iran, as an anti-imperialist act. By the radical left inIran it was seen as a deliberate diversion aimed at stopping the wave ofpolitical strikes and opposition to the Islamic regime.

The embassy incident was also significant in that the government declaredthat anyone who did not support it must be a counter-revolutionary or a CIAagent. Counter-revolutionaries could be arrested and even executed: a

56 Yassamine Mather

situation that intensified once the Iran–Iraq war, which the governmentportrayed as a war against imperialism, started.

Both the Majority and Tudeh Party supported the government in repres-sing the rest of the left. By now the Majority was following the Soviet lineand very close to the Tudeh Party. Their message to the workers was ‘Producemore – this is an anti-imperialist war and a war economy, and Iran is movingtowards the socialist camp’. The Fedayeen Minority told workers that, whilethey fought imperialism, they also had to fight the Islamic government. Itshould be noted that Iranian Trotskyist groups were divided along verysimilar lines.

8 The Iranian left under the Islamic Republic

Since the February uprising of 1979 the Iranian left has been seriously wea-kened by the repression imposed by successive governments in Iran’s IslamicRepublic. First came repression against the groups calling for the overthrowof the Islamic Republic: Fedayeen, Peykar, Rahe Kargar and Kpmaleh. Theirmembers and supporters were arrested or executed in the early 1980s.

By 1985, when repression hit Tudeh and the Fedayeen Majority, there was noone left to defend them. Many leading members of Majority (Fedayeen) andTudeh were arrested. It was the beginning of the end for these two organizationsinside Iran; now the remains of them survive in exile. By 1982, leading oilworkers, who had gone with the Majority or Tudeh in the period of debate overwhether the government was revolutionary or counter-revolutionary, had leftboth organizations.

As for the Fedayeen Minority, they were forced to move most of theirleading members to Kurdistan. The organization needed a great deal ofstrength to survive the hardship. The winters were terribly cold and the sum-mers very dry. Later, as the government mounted its offensive, the FedayeenMinority had to move from bases in villages to more mountainous areas,where the people were much more tribal and there were no villages.

In addition, in Kurdistan, the Fedayeen Minority as well as other left-wingIranian groups faced the corrupting influence of Iraqi Kurdish groups,already contaminated by imperialist funds. Jalal Talebani’s group in Kurdi-stan (Talebani later became president of post-occupation Iraq) was one ofthose that controlled not just Iranian Kurdistan, but neighbouring areas inTurkish Kurdistan and part of Iraqi Kurdistan.

What are the main lessons we can learn from the history of the Iranian left?First, one has to remember that it is easy to criticize all of this in retrospect,just as it is easy to underestimate the repression of the Shah and the IslamicRepublic. The influence of the Fedayeen in the birth of the new left and in theIranian Revolution is historic and cannot be taken away, although a veryheavy price was paid for it. However, there were many mistakes, too: as far asTudeh and Majority are concerned these included reformism, reactionaryclass collaboration, following Moscow’s lead without considering the meaning


and consequences of such treacherous policies for the future of the Iranianand Middle Eastern left. As far as the Fedayeen Minority or other smallergroups of the radical left are concerned, the mistakes were return to Stalin-ism, centralism, the culture of the heroic guerrilla and the professional revo-lutionary. For all the heroism of February 1971, the shadow of the Tudeh’sStalinism haunted the organization that took up the struggle against theTudeh. Today, it is sad to see that at a time there is the possibility for a revivalof a new revolutionary movement inside Iran, some activists of the left lamentthe absence of ‘existing socialism, however bad it was’.

Tudeh and Fedayeen Majority have survived as political organizations out-side Iran, in contact with some supporters inside the country. Although thecurrent line of Tudeh is in opposition to both factions of the regime (moderatesand conservative Islamist factions), there is no serious analysis of the past, noexplanation of dramatic changes in policy from giving uncritical support toMossadegh to opposing him and accusing him of working with Westernsecurity agencies, from supporting Khomeini and the Islamic Republic as theembodiment of anti-imperialism in the early 1980s to becoming an oppositioncalling for its overthrow.

Notes1 Lenczowski, 1949: 160. Quoted at http://world-news-research.com/ngerm.html

(accessed 5 October 2011).2 Rezun, 1982: 29. Quoted at http://world-news-research.com/ngerm.html (accessed 5

October 2011).3 Transcriptions of conversations with Solayman Mirza, 8 November 1941, Rossiiskii

Tsentr Khraneniia. Izucheniia Dokumentov Noveishi 495/74/192.4 Letter by Dimitriov, 15 December 1941 to Artashes, Avanessian, RtsKhIDNI 495/

74/192.5 ‘During 1944–1946, the Military Organisation was involved in two episodes which

led to an attempt at its disbanding and the Tudeh’s severing of ties. First, in August1944, around twenty army personnel in the Khurasan division of the army rebelledand attempted to reach the Turkman areas of west Khurasan and east Mazandaranin order to stage war against the central government. The rebellion was led byMajor Eskandani and Colonel Azar. Many of the personnel involved in this ven-ture, including Eskandani, were killed before they reached their destination andothers, such as Azar fled to the Soviet Union. Second, the Military Organisationsent aid and officers to Azerbaijan while the province was rebelling against thecentral government. The defeat of the Azerbaijan movement caused the party’sleadership to attempt to disband the Organisation and, at any rate, cut all contactswith it. The Military Organisation was not disbanded as the party desired andofficers such as Ruzbih resigned their party membership in order to keep the Mili-tary Organisation alive. The party asked the Organisation back into its ranks in1948, as a result of active Soviet pressure, and the reunion was finalised thefollowing year’ (Behrooz, 2001: 367).

6 Fereydoun Azarnour in conversation with Hamid Ahmadi, www.youtube.com/watch?vSKk9ca3lNvI

7 Pouyan, 1980.8 Ahmadzadeh and Mossalahaneh, 1970.

58 Yassamine Mather

ReferencesAbrahamian, Ervand (1982) Iran between Two Revolutions, Princeton, NJ, Princeton

University Press.Abrahamian, Ervand (2008) A History of Modern Iran, Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press.Ahmadzadeh, Massoud and Mossalahaneh, Mobarezeh (1970) ‘Armed Struggle: Both

a Strategy and a Tactic, Ham Strategy Ham Tactic’, Fedayeen Publications.Behrooz, Maziar (2001) ‘Tudeh Factionalism and the 1953 Coup in Iran’. Interna-

tional Journal of Middle East Studies, 33, 3.Chaqueri, Cosroe (1984) ‘Sultanzade: The Forgotten Revolutionary Theoretician of

Iran: A Biographical Sketch’. Iranian Studies, 17, 2–3.Chaqueri, Cosroe (1999) ‘Did the Soviets Play a Role in Founding the Tudeh Party in

Iran?’ Cahiers du monde russe, 40, 3.Gasiorowski, Mark J. (1991) US Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State

in Iran, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press.Lenczowski, George (1949) Russia and the West in Iran, 1918–1948, Ithaca, NY,

Cornell University Press.Pouyan, Amir-Parviz (1980) ‘Against the Theory of Survival’, Fedayeen Publications.Rezun, Miron (1982) The Iranian Crisis of 1941: The Actors, Britain, Germany, and

the Soviet Union, Wien, Böhlau.Riddell, J. (Ed.) (1993) To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920–First Congress of the Peoples of

the East, New York, Pathfinder.Zulaika, Joseba (2009) Terrorism: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, Chicago, IL,

University of Chicago Press.


3 The Communist Party of TurkeyAn instrument of ‘Soviet eastern policy’?

Bülent Gökay

1 Introduction

When the Ottoman Empire, the ‘sick man of Europe’, officially ceased to exist atthe end of the First World War in October 1918, the chances of survival for asovereign Turkey seemed to be very remote. The British Empire, as the leadingAllied power, imposed a settlement on the lands of the Ottoman Empire whichdetached a substantial part of Ottoman territory, severely limited national sover-eignty and preserved the pre-war capitulatory regime of extra-territorial rights forWestern powers. This period witnessed the birth and swift growth of a Turkishresistance movement in Anatolia, which found major international support fromthe young Bolshevik state. Both Turkish nationalists and Russian Bolsheviksfound themselves threatened by the Western imperial powers. Common struggleagainst the Western imperial powers led to a mutually advantageous collusionbetween Moscow and Ankara. Mainly due to the initial promising atmosphere offriendship between the Bolsheviks and anti-imperialist Muslims, a number of left-leaning Muslim groups had gained momentum in Anatolia in the 1920s. Mostsignificant among these was the Green Army Association (Yesil Ordu Cemiyeti)that was a popular grass-roots radical movement in Anatolia. The association wasfounded in Anatolia during the early stages of the Turkish War of Independencein the spring of 1920 ‘to liberate Asia from the penetration and occupation ofEuropean imperialism’ (Nadi, 1955: 11). The political wing of the Green ArmyAssociation set up a group among the deputies of the Turkish Grand NationalAssembly called the People’s Group (Halk Zumresi). There were also socialist andcommunist groups in Anatolia emerging in this period. The most importantamong these was the Communist Party of Turkey (Türkiye Komünist Partisi;TKP) organized and led by Mustafa Suphi who had been in Russia since thebeginning of the First World War (Gökay, 1997: 104–6).

2 ‘Soviet eastern policy’ and Turkey

The East is a revolutionary cauldron capable of putting a revolutionary torchto all of Western Europe.

(Sultan-Galiev, quoted in Lazic & Drachkovitch, 1972: 379)

The 1920s were the heyday of anti-imperialist revolution for the Bolsheviks.An alliance with the nations with majority-Muslim populations could bemade on the basis of a joint effort both to overthrow the power of the West inthe Muslim world and to transform Muslim society. This was consideredpossible because Islam could be interpreted in such a way as to stress itssocial justice aspect. On 7 December 1917, almost immediately after achiev-ing power, the Bolsheviks issued their Appeal to the Toiling Muslims of theEast, which assured the Muslims of Russia that ‘your beliefs and customs,your national and cultural institutions, are free and inviolable’ and called onthe Muslims of the east to ‘overthrow the imperialist robbers and enslavers’ oftheir countries.1

At the Comintern’s Second Congress, in 1920, Lenin officially introduced thenew eastern orientation, the so-called ‘Soviet eastern policy’. Lenin went so faras to suggest that, with ‘the aid of the proletariat of the advanced countries’, itmight be possible for Asia to skip the capitalist stage and ‘go over to the Sovietsystem, and, through certain stages of development, to communism’.2 ‘It mustbe remembered,’ he told a Japanese journalist at this time,

that the West lives at the expense of the East; the imperialist powers ofEurope grow rich chiefly at the expense of the eastern colonies, but at thesame time they are arming their colonies and teaching them to fight andby so doing the West is digging its own grave in the East.3

As part of Comintern strategy, pro-Soviet communists offered solidarity withthe anti-imperialist national liberation movements in the East. For the Bol-sheviks, the October Revolution had built a bridge between the ‘enlightened’West and the ‘enslaved’ East, which provided the basis for an appeal by theSoviet leadership to the colonial peoples at the Comintern-sponsored Con-gress of Peoples of the East in Baku, Azerbaijan, in September 1920. Afterthat, the Comintern set up a Council of Propaganda and Action of the Peo-ples of the East with its location in Baku. As a consequence, numerous linkswere established by the Bolsheviks with the Muslim peoples of the East, andthe Communist University of Toilers of the East was set up, at which manyAsian revolutionaries were trained. All of this had profound consequences forthe West (White, 1974).

In the context of the early 1920s international relations, the Soviet govern-ment found an area of common interest with the nationalist government ofTurkey. Force of circumstance impelled Soviet Russia and Kemalist Turkey toarrive at a rapprochement. The two were drawn together by mutual fear as aresult of the plans and activities of the Western powers in the region. But itwas not all plain sailing.

At one level one can explain this in old-fashioned power political terms.Soviet Russia was heir to imperial Russia and certainly had no intention ofabandoning the Caucasus to other powers whether Western or Eastern. WhenBekir Sami, Turkish envoy, came to Moscow in July 1920, he was confronted

The Communist Party of Turkey 61

with a proposal from Georgy Chicherin, Commissar for Foreign Affairs, thatTurkey relinquish Van, Bitlis and Mus to Armenia and engage in an exchangeof populations so as to restore the Armenian population to those territories.Bekir Sami replied that Turkey would not surrender an inch of territory.4

Curiously, this did not prevent Lenin from receiving Bekir Sami in person,and did not stop the signing of the Draft Treaty of Friendship on 24 August.5

Later the Soviet–Turkish Treaty was signed, against the wishes of Chicherin, on 16March 1921. In its preamble, it committed both countries to the ‘struggle againstimperialism’. This was a reflection of Moscow’s position that a Turkish allianceagainst British imperialism was far more important than sparing the suscept-ibilities of Armenian and Georgian communists (Cebesoy, 1955: 61–2, 141–51).Thus began the long era of Soviet–Turkish friendship, officially confirmed by theDecember 1925 treaty. It would appear completely unaffected by the ups anddowns of the Turkish government’s relations with its indigenous communists.

Aid to or an alliance with a local government or a ‘bourgeois’ nationalmovement aimed against ‘imperialists’ always posed the danger that the non-communist ‘client’ might turn against the local communists. There was noreal escape from this dilemma. Local communist organization TKP, althoughpolitically and financially supported by Moscow throughout, was a loser inthe midst of this reel politics conundrum even at its birth. This dilemmawould torment the relations between Moscow and the Turkish communistsuntil the end of the Soviet Union and the TKP.

3 The Communist Party of Turkey

Marxist ideas began to penetrate Turkey towards the end of the nineteenthcentury. During the First World War many Turkish socialists were in Ger-many and became close to the Spartacus League. Another group of Turkishsocialists was in Russia and became witness to the Russian Revolution.

The TKP, one of the oldest political parties in Turkey and among the oldestcommunist parties in the Middle East, was founded in September 1920 inBaku. The proximity of the Russian Revolution had led to a Leninist orga-nization in Turkey before most other countries. Turkish communists playedan active part in Comintern affairs. Sefik Husnu, one of the leaders of theparty, was a member of the executive committee of the Comintern until 1936.

In September 1920, soon after its foundation, the leadership of the TKPdecided to shift the centre of its activities to Turkey. In late 1920, MustafaSubhi and the other leading members of the party left Baku, and set out forAnatolia. They went quite openly to their country. It was sheer bad timing!The group could not proceed further than Trabzon. On 28 January 1921,Mustafa Subhi and 15 other leading communists were put in a boat and sentback to Batum, Georgia. Immediately after they embarked, another boat leftthe harbour and overtook the first one. Following this, all that is known isthat no one on the first boat survived. It was a classical, Ottoman-styleelimination (Tunçay, 1967: 231–3).

62 Bülent Gökay

The available documents confirm that the Ankara government had a sub-stantial role in this incident. It is clear that K. Karabekir, one of the mostprominent nationalist army commanders, and Hamit Bey, a very importantlocal representative of the Ankara government, put the plan together. It isalso clear in the documents that Mustafa Kemal asked them to stop thegroup of communists and confirmed the ‘plan’ prepared in Trabzon. It is,however, still a mystery whether the ‘plan’ included ‘murder’, or whether itwas improvised on the spot (Gökay, 1993).

When the news arrived in Moscow, the Soviet Politburo forwarded an offi-cial statement to inform the members of the Soviet Communist Party. Thecentral theme of the statement was the ‘dangers of left-wing and adventuristinitiatives’. Moscow, apparently, did not share the optimism and the decisionof the Turkish communists.6

This incident did not make a serious impact upon Turkish–Soviet relations.It was noted and put aside by both sides in a businessman-like fashion. Theexperience is, however, significant and rich in lessons. The murder of the lead-ing Turkish communists in the early days of 1921 represents the first exampleof the failure of a peculiar Soviet dilemma in the East: to support the anti-communist leadership of a national liberation movement, and at the same timeto sponsor and organize local communist groups against the nationalist lea-dership of the country. When the Kemalist leadership openly started to rootout all communist activities in Turkey, protests were made at world communistgatherings, but it did not hinder the good diplomatic and economic relationsbetween Moscow and Ankara. The Soviet government chose to continue itsofficial policy of cooperation with Ankara, regardless of the fate of the localcommunists loyal to Moscow. For the first time, the interests of Soviet foreignpolicy actually involved the existence of a communist party.

During the 1920s, the communists and socialists were weak and were deniedany part in the new Turkey. The Turkish government, under Mustafa Kemal,pursued a cat-and-mouse policy towards local communists. Sometimes they weretolerated, sometimes suppressed. Usually they were repressed. Mustafa Kemalbanned the party in 1925, and after that the TKP was forced into illegalityduring most of its history and faced a large number of mass detentions.

The activities of these early communists could hardly aim at revolution.The Bolshevik leadership in Moscow had no illusion about this.7 Sultan-Galiev, one of the top Muslim communists in the Soviet hierarchy, openlyacknowledged in 1920 that: ‘Turkish communists consist of a group ofunderground workers, former Turkish prisoners of war in Russia. This groupis not particularly large, but works very intensely.’ Another leading Bolshevik,the Soviet expert on Turkey Pavlowitch, said in 1921: ‘the Turkish people, dueto historical reasons of adherence to religion, cannot at this moment acceptthe communist programme’.8 At the Third Comintern Congress, SuleymanNuri declared that though he condemned the Black Sea incident he thoughtMustafa Kemal should still be supported ‘to the extent that he fought againstimperialism’.9


The Sixth Comintern Congress, held in 1928, was the scene of a disputebetween the Turkish delegate, who stated that Mustafa Kemal had gone overcompletely to the camp of the counter-revolution, and Otto Kuusinen, one ofthe top officials in the Comintern apparatus, who said in his draft theses thatKemal’s struggle against imperialism was still a progressive factor. Like theTurkish question Kuusinen’s official theses were attacked by the Persian dele-gate, Sultan Zade, who said that Riza Shah was not a representative of‘nationalism and progress’ as Kuusinen claimed, but the representative of the‘reactionary forces in Persia’. Neither of these complaints had much effect. Thefundamental strategic requirement – to support the national movement againstWestern imperialism, whatever its domestic character – was upheld until thedissolution of the Comintern in 194310 and later in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Soviet leaders, however, continued to support Turkish communistsalmost until the end of the Soviet Union, financially and politically. At thesame time they knew, at least until after 1960, that there was no chance of acommunist revolution, even a significant left-wing presence, in Turkey. TheSoviet leaders knew that conditions were not ripe for a true revolution, prob-ably never would be. They were also careful not to provoke a British counter-move, or sacrifice good relations with the nationalist government in Ankara.That was a sensitive balancing act throughout.

The TKP was one of the most loyal to Moscow. It was always closelycontrolled by elements responsive to Moscow. The party did not attempt toformulate its own strategy and tactics based on the conditions of Turkishstate and society. To start with, it had very little contact with the Turkishpeople. It was brought together by a scattered group of self-converted com-munists. The party’s small number of members was almost entirely middleclass. The party attracted many Turkish intellectuals, among them NazimHikmet, the best-known poet of Turkey. Its leadership was comprised ofdeclassed intellectuals with university-level education. The TKP’s mind wasthe mind of the Western-educated Turkish middle-class intellectuals.

A clear example of this is the fact that ethnic problems in Turkey wereignored by both the local communists and the Soviet government. The 1925Kurdish revolt, led by Sheikh Said, was described as a ‘reactionary feudalmovement’. Even though its mobilization, propaganda and symbols created theimpression that it was a religious rebellion, the Sheikh Said revolt was essen-tially for Kurdish national independence. It took for the Turkish government afull-scale operation to put it down. Tens of thousands of Kurdish people werekilled and driven into exile. More Kurdish uprisings happened in the followingyears. In 1930, the Soviet government assisted the official regime in Turkey inthe suppression of another Kurdish rebellion by allowing Turkish troops to useSoviet railways and by closing their borders to Kurdish refugees. Turkish com-munists’ stand with respect to Kurdish rebellions remained closely in line withthe official Soviet line for most of its history (van Bruinessen, 1984).

During the Second World War, the TKP carried out propaganda activitiesagainst the war and fascism. The party plenum in 1943 adopted a document

64 Bülent Gökay

entitled ‘Struggle Front against Fascism and Profiteering’ (Güzel, 1995: 127).After the war, communist activities were resumed in Turkey. The party con-tinued to act although its activities were seriously suppressed. With thebeginning of the Cold War the reactionary trend in Turkish politics reachedits peak. One of the first undertakings of the centre-right Demokratic Partygovernment was to deploy 5,000 Turkish soldiers to the Korean War to fightcommunism (Brown, 2008). It is the period in which subservience to theUnited States became the law of the land and Anatolia became the site ofAmerican military bases. Turkey became a satellite of the American ColdWar empire. During this period there was a big mass detention of the partymembers in the years 1951 and 1952. Almost all key members of the partywere arrested, tortured and sentenced to heavy terms of imprisonment. Theeffect of this turned out to be fatal for the party’s organization in Turkey inthe 1950s. After 1953 the activities of the party were mainly limited to theactivities conducted from abroad.11

4 A new opening: 1960s

The serious social, economic and political crisis that occurred under the centre-right regime of the 1950s led to a coup d’état on 27 May 1960. This andthe adoption in 1961 of a more democratic and liberal constitution marked thebeginning of a new period in the country. For the first time in decades, sup-pressed ideological and political trends were permitted to take part in the poli-tical life of the country. Workers in Turkey acquired for the first time the rightto form trade unions as well as the right to strike, and a new period was openedfor general democratic rights with the coming of relative democratization inboth political and social life (Arcayürek, 1989: 43).

While certain articles in the Turkish Penal Code continued to forbid anopenly communist party, the new constitution specifically allowed for thecreation of a socialist party. In February 1961, some leaders of the Istanbultrade unions took the opportunity to establish a legal socialist party, theWorkers Party of Turkey (Türkiye Isçi Partisi; TIP). In this way, for the firsttime since the 1920s, a legal left-wing movement appeared that encompasseda variety of leftist, radical left, social-democratic, trade unionist and Marxistelements. This party differed from earlier illegal socialist parties in that it wasformed not by intellectuals but by elected representatives of the workers. Forthe first time in Turkish history proletarian politics was now on the agenda(Yerasimos, 2001: 1673–80).

The emergence of the TIP as a unitarian socialist party was partly due tothe situation in the international workers’ movement at the time of its crea-tion. The official Soviet attitude toward foreign communist parties hadundergone a striking change after the death of Stalin in 1953. The new Sovietleadership started to refrain from issuing direct public orders to foreign com-munist parties. On the other hand, Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization had not yetdivided world communism, and the Cuban and Algerian revolutions were still


in their ‘heroic’ stages. Interestingly, this was the time when socialist andcommunist ideas started to find new channels in Turkey. The legal working-class party, the TIP, was the result of this new culture. The TIP contained apanorama of ideas, attitudes and priorities. It was socialist and pro-Soviet in ageneral sense (Belli, 1970: 212).

The platform of the TIP called for the redistribution of land, nationaliza-tion of industry and financial institutions, the exclusion of foreign capital andurged closer cooperation with the Soviet-bloc countries. At first, the legalsocialist party attracted the support of only some trade union leaders andleftist intellectuals. In its first year of existence, the party did very little as itsleaders lacked experience and had no clear-cut political views. Only in Feb-ruary 1962, with the election of a new leadership under the prominent lawyerMehmet Ali Aybar, did the party become more active. In addition to tradeunionists, the new leadership now included lawyers, academics, publicists andteachers. In 1964, the First Congress of the TIP approved the party pro-gramme, which was clearly pro-Soviet and based on a non-capitalist path ofdevelopment (Aybar, 1968: 515–16).

In the October 1965 general parliamentary elections, the party won approxi-mately 3 per cent of the total votes and gained 15 seats in Parliament, takingadvantage of the more democratic election system designed with the 1960 coup.Encouraged by their success, the party leadership decided to shift the generaldirection of the party from the struggle for democratic transformation to theattainment of open socialist goals, and thus the promotion of the non-capitalistpath was replaced by the call for the struggle for socialism (Aybar, 1968).

The events in Czechoslovakia during August 1968 had a great effect on themembers of the TIP. The Soviet invasion led to fierce debates within the partyand then to an internal crisis. Aybar protested against the occupation of Cze-choslovakia and made comments highly critical of the Soviet Union. He arguedthat Turkish socialists should not limit themselves to the study of Marx andLenin, but acquire a wider grasp of socialism by reading Kautsky and RosaLuxembourg. The Third Congress of the party, in November 1968, was domi-nated by this issue, and it became apparent that three different factions existedwithin the communist/socialist movement of Turkey: one was Aybar’s group, themost powerful and influential at that time, with a critical view of Soviet policiesin Czechoslovakia; a second group led by two prominent socialists, BehiceBoran and Sadun Aren, who were defending Soviet policies and criticizingAybar’s position severely; and a third group led by Mihri Belli, calling itself theProletarian Revolutionaries, supporting ideas of national democratic revolu-tion – an anti-imperialist and anti-feudal movement (Yerasimos, 2001: 1675–91).

The TKP supported the legal socialist platform represented by the TIPunconditionally, and many leading members of the TKP took an active partin the organization of the legal socialist party. The majority of the leaders andkey members of the TIP were either members of the TKP or sympathizers ofthe party line, and the radio of the TKP, based in East Berlin, consistentlysupported the activities and policies of the TIP. Like calls by the leaders of

66 Bülent Gökay

the TIP, the TKP took the line that to be truly democratic Turkey shoulddetach itself from NATO and join the group of non-aligned states led by Titoand Nehru. Different from the TIP, on Czechoslovakia and other interna-tional issues, the TKP consistently supported Moscow. In August 1963, theTKP hailed the nuclear test ban treaty as a victory for the Soviet policy ofpeaceful coexistence, and castigated the Chinese Communist Party for seekingto provoke war (Göksu & Timms, 2006: 310).

During the 1960s, the anti-imperialist youth movement achieved masscharacter around anti-American and anti-NATO sentiments. Massive anti-imperialist demonstrations against the United States Sixth Fleet practicallybanned that fleet from Turkish waters. That ban was effective for over tenyears. It was only after the military coup of September 1980 that the Americanwarships dared to enter Turkish ports.

The dramatic student politics of 1968 made a great impact on the Turkishleft. As soon as word reached them of the Sorbonne takeover, in Istanbul stu-dents began to occupy their campuses too. There was one important difference,of course. In the West, May 1968 signified the beginning of something con-sciously unorthodox, revolutionary, but not communist. In Turkey, by contrast,there was no such sense of unorthodoxy, nor the feeling of a break with Sta-linism. There was a profound sense of continuity and the revolutionary tradi-tion coming from the 1920s. Many young communists from the TKP played anactive role in these movements. Fikir Kulupleri (Idea Clubs) were the leadingstudent movement in the universities in organizing anti-American protests, andamong the leaders of the Fikir Kulupleri there were prominent communists.When in June 1968 the news about the arrival of the Sixth Fleet of the UnitedStates Navy to Istanbul harbour was announced, massive student protests tookplace in Istanbul. Thousands of students attacked American soldiers and offi-cers of the Sixth Fleet and a number of American soldiers were thrown into thesea. This action became the symbol of the anti-imperialist spirit and of 1968 inTurkey (Feyizoglu, 2004: 51, 58, 71).12

5 1973: a great leap forward

After the military coup of 1971, the left in Turkey was strongly suppressed,with the only legal socialist party, the TIP, banned from July 1971. Ideologi-cally and politically, there were two main tendencies among the left after 1971:the traditional pro-Soviet left tendency, led by the TKP, that aimed at orga-nizing among the working class and trade union movement and followed theline of the official Communist Party of the Soviet Union; and the revolutionarypopulist tendency, which was organized mainly among the university students,youth and petty bourgeois layers of towns and provinces. The political line ofthis second tendency was reflected in Maoism and urban guerrilla activism.

The suppression of the legal party, the TIP, and other left-wing organiza-tions provided a new and heightened mission to the members of the TKP, asmany leading left-wing organizers were either killed, put in prison or forced


to escape abroad – Mahir Cayan and his comrades were killed in Kizildere;Denis Gezmis, Yusuf Aslan and Huseyin Inan were sentenced to death andhanged; Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, the leader of the Maoist TKP-ML (Commu-nist Party of Turkey/ Marxist-Leninist) was killed in Diyarbakir Prison undertorture; the leading cadre of another important Maoist group, Proleter Dev-rimci Aydinlik (Proletarian Revolutionary Enlightenment) were put in prisonfor long terms; all leading members of the TIP were sentenced and put inprison; and many other left-wing activists had to leave Turkey (Hale, 2000:159–62).

In this new atmosphere, the first practical step taken to fill the gaps createdby the oppression was the emergence of a new type of communist youthmovement. Sosyalist Genclik Orgutu (Socialist Youth Association) started toorganize small illegal cells called Egitim Gruplari (Education Groups), aftersimilar cells that had existed in Lenin’s Russia before the Bolshevik Revolu-tion. The Egitim Gruplari thus offered the first steps towards the popularreorganization of the TKP in the early 1970s.13

At a meeting in 1973 the Politburo of the TKP decided, along with somecadres from the 1968 youth movement, to make a new attempt at a break-through in Turkey. A new programme was drafted, a central committee pub-lication, Atilim (Progress), was established and a new and more effective radiostation, TKP’nin Sesi (Voice of the Communist Party of Turkey) startedbroadcasting from Leipzig. All this accounted to ‘a great leap forward’ for theTKP, and even without legal status it enjoyed a rapid and improving popu-larity all around the country. As a result, the TKP for the first time becamean effective political force in Turkey.14

In 1977, the party held a conference in Moscow, its biggest organizationalgathering since its 4th congress in 1932. In the second half of the 1970s, theentire balance of influence within the Turkish left was shifted when the partysecured almost all key posts within the trade union movement, professionalorganizations and other legal mass organizations. There were also many legalyouth, teacher, technical, apprentice and women’s organizations, with hun-dreds of thousands of members, that were founded directly under the party’scontrol. Added to this were thousands of secret party cells composed ofworkers in factories all over Turkey. Between 1970 and 1980, the growth inthe working-class movement was unprecedented and socialist ideas wererapidly spreading among workers. Under the direction of the TKP, DISK(Revolutionary Confederation of Labour Unions) for the first time organizeda mass rally in 1976 to celebrate May Day. The May Day celebrations hadbeen prohibited for the past 50 years, but in 1976 at least 200,000 peoplejoined the rally in Istanbul and openly shouted the name of the illegalcommunist party – ‘TKP’ye Ozgurluk’ (Freedom to the TKP).

Following its successful May Day celebration in 1976, DISK organized abigger May Day demonstration in the following year, to be held in TaksimSquare in Istanbul. By the time the DISK general chairman, Kemal Turkler,delivered his May Day speech, all the roads leading to Taksim were still full

68 Bülent Gökay

of people marching all day trying to reach the Taksim square. The DISKchairman was about to finish his speech when snipers on surrounding buildingsstarted firing at the crowd. First there was stillness, and then a deadly pande-monium broke out and the crowd of almost 1 million fled in panic. Altogether36 people died, and hundreds were wounded. While some said that the incidentwas a provocation by right-wing militants, carried under the direction of theCIA-controlled Turkish contra-guerrillas, the police and the right-wing pressadvanced the idea that the incident had been sparked by extreme leftists.15

6 The military coup of 1980 and the end of the party

The 1980s began with a shock not only for the communists, but also for thewider left, liberal and social-democratic constituency in Turkey. The militarycoup on 12 September 1980 initiated an extensive campaign of persecutionsand arrests against all democratic organizations, legal and illegal parties andmovements, particularly the TKP, with thousands of its members arrested orsentenced to prison on the basis of articles 141 and 142 of the Turkish PenalCode taken directly from the legislation of fascist Italy. The Constitution andParliament were abolished. All political parties, trade unions and other pro-fessional and youth organizations were closed and leading members andactivists were put in prison. Some 30,000 people were reported to have beenarrested in the first few weeks after the coup. Over 50,000 people were forcedto migrate to European countries as political exiles; 700 death sentences weredemanded, 480 of them sentenced to death; 216 were suspended by Parliament;and 48 were hanged (Gemalmaz, 1989: 20, 53).16

The heavy oppression that followed the military coup pushed all commu-nist and left-wing activities underground again. Such harsh conditions andillegality also encouraged divisions among the communists: even among thepro-Soviet left there were at least three illegal communist parties and manymore factions within each, all that spent most of their energy fighting oneanother. All this infighting drew the left further and further away from reality,creating an introverted world of crippled politics.

The era of perestroika and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Uniondeprived the official communist parties of the guide they had looked to formany decades. More than any internal debate, it was Gorbachev and his per-estroika during this period that eventually affected developments within theTKP. The ‘new political thinking’, Gorbachev’s foreign policy counterpart todomestic perestroika, was radically different from previous Soviet foreignpolicy. In many respects, the ‘new political thinking’ had direct implications forthe world communist movement because it insisted that military means alonewould not achieve security, and therefore a wide range of political means hadto be considered, including political cooperation with other left-wing and evensocial-democratic parties and movements as essential alternatives.

In line with the ‘new political thinking’, the TKP and the TIP announcedat a press conference in Brussels on 7 October 1987 that they were going to


merge under the name of Turkiye Birlesik Komunist Partisi (TBKP), theUnited Communist Party of Turkey.

The general secretaries of both parties, Haydar Kutlu and Nihat Sargin,returned from political exile to Turkey on 16 November 1987 in order to legallyset up the TBKP in Turkey. However, they were arrested immediately upontheir arrival and detained until April 1990, leaving the 1988 founding congressof the TBKP to be held abroad. In January 1990, a group of founders appliedfor legal status of the party. While waiting for a decision from the Constitu-tional Court of Turkey, a legal congress of the party was held in Ankara, wherea decision was accepted to merge with other left socialist parties. A united leftparty emerged, called Sosyalist Birlik Partisi (Socialist Unity Party), in linewith similar developments in the Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe. On22 July 1991, the Constitutional Court in Turkey, however, made a decisionwhich in effect prohibited the legal communist party in Turkey.17

After 1991, TKP, or any of the new groups/parties emerging from it, ceasedto be an effective political organization. What happened to all those tens ofthousands of people who supported communist ideas in Turkey? Many lead-ing members of the Socialist Unity Party eventually ended up, after a series ofsubsequent mergers, joining Ozgurluk and Demokrasi Partisi (Freedom andSolidarity Party). However, there were several other relatively small groups/factions in Turkey that claimed to represent the historical TKP:

1 Part of the TKP separated in 1979 and became known after the period-ical I

.sçinin Sesi (Worker’s Voice) which they issued in London. Remain-

ing members of this group, no more than a few hundred, still exist andcontribute to intellectual debate but are not active in Turkish politics.

2 A new party, the Party for Socialist Power, founded in 1993, adopted thename of the TKP in 2001. This TKP, which has no organizational link withthe original TKP, exists in Turkish politics but only as a very marginal group.

3 A group of some dissident members of the TBKP who held a ‘rebirthmeeting’ in 1993 started to publish the TKP periodical Ürün SosyalistDergi (Harvest Socialist Magazine) with the aim of giving out the voiceof TKP through the journal (the first issue of Ürün emerged in 1997). In2012, the group officially announced itself as the re-establishment of theTKP. This TKP has participated in parliamentary elections in Turkeysince 1999 but has never achieved more than 0.26 per cent of the vote.18

7 Conclusion

For most of this period, the TKP was weak and entirely dependent on poli-tical and financial support provided by Moscow, and was always controlledby elements responsive to Moscow. Its peculiar existence was subject to thepriorities of Soviet foreign policy, and leaders of the Turkish party expressedlittle independence in making their own decisions or judgements to make any

70 Bülent Gökay

influence in the domestic situation of the country. Within Turkey, the com-munist movement had no significant organic link with the workers and pea-sants, at least until the second half of the 1970s. Only after the reorganizationcampaign of 1973 did the party take significant steps to influence the tradeunion movement and the wider left agenda in the country. Even then, theparty leadership remained strictly within the boundaries of Soviet foreignpolicy requirements, frustrating thousands of militants and party activistswho were trying to fashion effective responses to the increasingly radicaldemands of the workers, peasants and students in the country.

For the Soviet Union, a socialist revolution in Turkey was never an option.The Soviet leadership had always approached Turkey as a security concernmeasured against the dominant role played by the British Empire in the Nearand Middle East after the First World War. When the United States replacedthe British as the dominant regional superpower in the Middle East and theleader of the capitalist world, the Soviet leadership focused all its efforts oncounter-balancing the increasingly close links between the United States andTurkey, and the American-sponsored efforts to erect anti-Soviet ‘collectivesecurity’ agreements in the region became a particular concern.

In the course of 74 years of Soviet history, security considerations domi-nated Soviet behaviour in international affairs, and similarly became the pri-mary dimension of Soviet policy toward Turkey. Thus, the Soviet leadershippursued a reasonable, pragmatic and non-ideological policy towards Turkey,and instruments of Soviet policy towards Turkey were those traditionally usedby great powers in their relations with a lesser power – economic, technicaland military assistance, trade, diplomacy, propaganda and the use of militaryforce, or at least the threat of it. Of these, economic and technical assistancewere particularly important, and from the mid-1960s onwards the SovietUnion became one of Turkey’s principal trading partners.

The overall goal of Soviet policy was to increase Soviet influence in Turkeyat the expense of the Western powers – mainly the British Empire before theend of the Second World War, and the United States thereafter. When Turkeybecame a member of the Western alliance system and increasingly dependenton the hegemonic control structures of the United States global hegemony,Soviet policy began to look more like a desperate effort to limit the extent ofAmerican influence in the country. In this wider framework, direct Sovietinfluence over the communist movement in Turkey was important, first as ameans of diplomatic pressure, and second Turkish communists providedMoscow with vital information on the fast-changing situation in the country.The Soviet leadership was using its close control over the Turkish party inorder to put pressure, when required, on the bourgeois government of Turkey,as well as on Western capitalist states. For this reason, some official state-ments by the Soviet leadership attempted to create the impression that thecommunist movement in Turkey was a powerful political force, even thoughin their internal discussions they admitted that the Turkish party was verysmall and ineffective. In this way, Turkish communists were useful as conduits


for Soviet propaganda that duly reported to Moscow on the local politicalsituation.

The Soviet Union was able to influence the communist movement in Turkeyprimarily through financial aid and propaganda support. This influence was verystrong most of the time, which explains why the TKP was extraordinarily loyalto Moscow’s policies on almost all key issues. Even after the party started, forthe first time, to enjoy mass support among workers and the youth in the secondhalf of the 1970s, this loyalty to Moscow and Soviet foreign policy requirementsstopped the Turkish party from providing more realistic and radical alternativesto the increasingly fragile and desperate political situation in Turkey.

Shifts in the priorities of Soviet foreign policy and the changing agenda ofthe ‘Soviet eastern policy’ closely affected Moscow’s interests in the activitiesof the Turkish communists. Therefore, the support given to and influenceexercised on the TKP provide a good illustration of the fabric of the motiva-tional sources of Soviet behaviour in its foreign relations, particularly in theThird World, with respect to the ‘Soviet eastern policy’.

Notes1 https://books.google.es/books?id=Z14EAQAAIAAJ; Riddell, 1993: appendix 2, p. 259.2 Lenin, 1967: ‘Report of the Commission on the National and Colonial Question’,

Lenin Selected Works, vol. 3, p. 459.3 Lenin, 1971: ‘Interview with K. Fusse, Correspondent of the Japanese Newspapers

Osaka Mainichi and Tokyo Nichi-Nichi (4 June 1920)’, Lenin Selected Works, vol.42, p. 196, www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/jun/04.htm

4 Bekir Sami to Chicherin, 4 July 1920, Moscow: AVP, Fond: Ref about Turkey, Op.:3, D.: 3, Pap.: 2.

5 Statement from the Central Committee of Russian Communist Party, July 1920,Moscow, AVP, Fond: Near East, Op.: 3, Por.: 1, Pap.: 2.

6 Internal Party Report, RCP(B), 20 February 1921, Moscow, TsPA, Fond:5, Op.:2,D.:2. (On 31 January 1951, however, Pravda vociferously attacked the murder ofM. Subhi, ‘the true son of the Turkish people’.)

7 From Zinoviev to Lenin, Trotsky, Radek and Bukharin, 14 November 1921;Moscow, TsPA, Fond:5, Op.:3, D.:141.

8 Report on the communist movement in Turkey, from Pavlowitch to Lenin, for theyear 1921, Moscow, TsPA, Fond:5, Op.:3, D.:213. See also Pavlowitch, ‘Greek-Turkish Communists’, Kommunisticheski Internatsional, 17, 4427–8.

9 Protokoll des dritten Kongresses der Kommunistischen Internationale (Moskau 22Juni bis 12 Juli, 1921, Hamburg, 1921), 998–9.

10 The Comintern apparatus was not simply dissolved, it was transformed into theForeign Section of the Russian Communist Party, and it continued to intervene inthe affairs of the other communist parties. (Dimitrov’s record of a conversationwith Stalin on 20 April 1941 (Politbiuro TsK RKP (b). Dokumenty, 505, 794–5).

11 YENI.ÇAG. Komünist ve I

.sçi Partilerinin Teori ve Enformasyon Dergisi (1976) no.

12, 1111–14.12 Cumhuriyet, 11 June 1968.13 Based on my March 2004 interview with Zulfikar Erdogan, who was a member of

the Socialist Youth Association in Istanbul in 1970.14 YENI

.ÇAG. Komünist ve I

.sçi Partilerinin Teori ve Enformasyon Dergisi (January

1978), 1, 71–87.

72 Bülent Gökay

15 K. Atay, ‘1 Mayis 77 Neden ve Nasil Kana Bulandi’, Bianet, 1 May 2013, https://bianet.org/bianet/toplum/146248-1-mayis-1977-neden-ve-nasil-kana-bulandi(accessed June 2017); R. Arslan, ‘1 Mayis 1977’, 30 April 2014, BBC Turkish,www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler/2014/04/140430_1_mayis_1977 (accessed June 2017).

16 Gemalmaz, 1989: 20 and 53.17 E. Ozkok, ‘Kutlu ve Sargin’i Hatirladiniz mi?’, Hurriyet, 22 April 2004, www.hurriyet.

com.tr/kutlu-ve-sargini-hatirladiniz-mi-219569 (accessed June 2017); ‘4 Haziran 1990:Türkiye Birlesik Komünist Partisi (TBKP) resmen kuruldu’, http://marksist.org/icerik/Tarihte-Bugun/4738/4-Haziran-1990-Turkiye-Birlesik-Komunist-Partisi-TBKP-resmen-kuruldu (accessed June 2017).

18 ‘TKP-sip oyununa devam ediyor!’, Istanbul Indymedia, 9 September 2005, http://istanbul.indymedia.org/comment/247698 (accessed June 2017); https://urundergisi.com/index.php (accessed June 2017); ‘TKP’de miras kavgası: 10 yarali’, Haberturk,5 April 2012, www.haberturk.com/yasam/haber/731394-tkpde-miras-kavgasi-10-yarali (accessed June 2017).

ReferencesArcayürek, Cüneyt (1989) Darbeler Ve Gizli Servisler, Ankara, Bilgi Yayinlari.Aybar, Mehmet Ali (1968) Bagımsızlık Demokrasi Sosyalizm, Istanbul, Gerçek Yayımevi.Belli, Mihri (1970) Yazılar 1965–1970, Ankara, Sol Yayınları.Brown, Cameron S. (2008) ‘The One Coalition They Craved to Join: Turkey in the

Korean War’. Review of International Studies, 34, 1.Cebesoy, Ali Fuat (1955)Moskova Hatiralari [MoscowMemoirs], Istanbul, Vatan Nesriyat.Feyizoglu, Turhan (2004) Deniz, Istanbul, Ozan Yayincilik.Gemalmaz, Mehmet Semih (1989) Human Rights, Istanbul, Arnac.Gökay, Bülent (1993) ‘The Turkish Communist Party: The Fate of the Founders’.

Middle Eastern Studies, 29, 2.Gökay, Bülent (1997) A Clash of Empires: Turkey between Russian Bolshevism and

British Imperialism, 1918–1923, London, I. B. Tauris.Göksu, Saime & Timms, Edward (2006) Romantic Communist: The Life and Work of

Nazim Hikmet, London, Hurst Publishers.Güzel, M. Sehmus (1995) ‘Capital and Labor during World War II’. In En Quataer, D.

& Zurcher, E. (Eds), Workers and the Working Class in the Ottoman Empire and theTurkish Republic, 1839–1950, London, I. B. Tauris.

Hale, William (2000) Turkish Foreign Policy 1774–2000, London, Routledge.Lazic, Branko M. & Drachkovitch, Milorad M. (1972) Lenin and the Comintern,

Stanford, CA, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University.Lenin, V. I. (various years) Lenin Selected Works, Moscow, Progress Publishers.Nadi, Yunus (1955) Çerkes Ethem Kuvvetlerinin I

.haneti, Istanbul, Sel Yayinlari.

Riddell, J. (Ed.) (1993) To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920–First Congress of the Peoples ofthe East, New York, Pathfinder.

Tunçay, Mete (1967) Türkiye’de Sol Akımlar 1908–1925, Ankara, Iletisim Yayinlari.van Bruinessen, Martin (1984) ‘Popular Islam, Kurdish Nationalism and Rural Revolt:

The Rebellion of Shaikh Said in Turkey (1925)’. In En Bak, J. M. & Benecke, G.(Eds), Religion and Rural Revolt, Manchester, Manchester University Press.

White, Stephen (1974) ‘Communism and the East: The Baku Congress, 1920’. SlavicReview, 33, 3.

Yerasimos, Stefanos (2001) Azgelismislik Sürecinde Türkiye, Istanbul, Belge Yayınları.


4 The Iraqi Communist Party

Johan Franzén

Founded in 1934, the Iraqi Communist Party (al-Hizb al-Shuyu’i al-’Iraqi, ICP)played a significant political role in the 1940s and 1950s, especially following therevolution that overthrew the country’s monarchy in 1958. Under the leadershipof the iron-fisted ‘Comrade Fahad’ (1941–9), the ICP developed into a clandes-tine organization, firmly organized on Marxist-Leninist principles. For most ofthe monarchical period, the ICP was ferociously suppressed by the authorities,and much of its cadres ended up behind bars by the late 1940s. However, fol-lowing the revolution, a brief honeymoon ensued, prompted by the conciliatorypolicy adopted by Iraq’s new leader, 'Abd al-Karim Qasim. This interlude wasbrief, though, and when Qasim himself was toppled in 1963 by a constellation ofBa'thists and Arab nationalist army officers, repression was again the party’sfate. Following a second spell in power by the Ba'th Party from 1968 onwards, abrief rapprochement developed – culminating with the signing of a NationalProgressive Front between the two parties in 1973 – only to deteriorate oncemore from the mid-1970s onwards. When Saddam Hussein seized ultimatepower in 1979, he brought back outright repression, and the ICP returnedto the clandestinity of its origins. The ICP spent the 1980s and 1990s in ‘internalexile’ in Iraqi Kurdistan, gradually being overshadowed by the Kurdish nation-alist movement. Due to its long repression at the hands of Saddam, the partydecided to support the United States invasion in 2003, following which ithas re-emerged into the open and has campaigned in successive elections.

1 Capricious beginnings

The spread of Communist thought in Iraq during the early years of thetwentieth century is a process largely veiled in mystery. Undoubtedly, dis-semination of ideas is a fluctuating and incremental process, one not alwayscaught by the annals of history. The full story of the movement that culmi-nated with the establishment of the Communist Party in 1934 may thereforenever be fully known. Yet, fragments have survived, which allow us to recre-ate some of the journey to shed light on the importance of personalities,organization and chance in the diffusion of a clandestine ideology in atraditional society.

The first stirrings of socialism in what was then the Ottoman Empireoccurred in cosmopolitan cities like Cairo, Beirut and Istanbul. Indeed, due tothe large community of European workers and ex-pats, Egypt became ahotbed of oppositional ideologies from the late nineteenth century onwards –ranging from reckless anarchism to radical socialism, and anything inbetween (e.g. the moderate socialist nationalism of Salamah Musa). Follow-ing the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and the subsequent establishment ofthe Communist International (Comintern), a more determined and metho-dological dissemination of communist ideas was undertaken throughout theregion. Coupled with the efforts of Socialist Zionist Jews in Palestine, whohad joined the waves of colonialist settlers in that country, the Cominterneffort was producing results in neighbouring Lebanon and Syria as well.1

In Iraq, however, progress was slower. During the war, parts of northernIraq had been under Russian occupation and, as is well known, revolutionaryideas were brewing within the ranks of the imperial army. When the Russianwar effort collapsed in 1917, the revolution broke out at home, followed byyears of civil war, which eventually led to the establishment of Soviet Socialistrepublics in nearby Armenia and Azerbaijan, and extensive communist influ-ence in neighbouring Iran. Through travel, commerce and pilgrimage, thenew radical ideas spread far afield, reaching Mosul, Baghdad and Iraq’s otherlarge cities.

Socialist ideas had been strong even prior to the Bolshevik Revolutionamongst minority groups, especially Jews and Armenians. In fact, theHunchak (Hentchak), an Armenian social democratic movement founded inthe late nineteenth century by Armenian exiles in Europe, played a veryimportant role in the early socialist movement in Eastern Anatolia. In 1914,the organization plotted with another oppositional party to carry out a coupd’état against the Ottoman government, ostensibly to prevent its genocidalplans to deport the Eastern Anatolian Armenians to another part of theempire. However, their plans were discovered and the party was forciblybroken up by the police. Twenty leading members were hanged, but one ofthe leaders, a young Iraqi by the name of Arsen Kidour, managed to escape.Kidour, a 26-year-old history teacher from Baghdad, would later play a sig-nificant role in the development of the Iraqi communist movement. Inciden-tally, Kidour was helped to escape from prison by Rashid cAli al-Gilani, whoat the time was his colleague at the Sultaniyyah School in Baghdad, and whowould later become one of the most prominent figures in the Iraqi nationalistmovement (Batatu, 2004: 373).

One of Kidour’s students at the time was an 11-year-old boy by the nameHusayn al-Rahhal, who a decade later would go on to sow the seeds of thepolitical process that led to the formation of the ICP in 1934. While originallybelonging to the wealthy class of chalabis, or merchants, Husayn’s father hadhit bad luck and his extensive commercial business that traded in the Gulfand with India had collapsed, forcing him to take up employment in theOttoman army. He quickly emerged through its ranks, and as a senior officer,

The Iraqi Communist Party 75

he was dispatched to various places – always accompanied by his son. It wasduring one such séjour, in post-war Germany, that Husayn first encounteredcommunist ideas in practice, as he witnessed first-hand the uprising led by theSpartakusbund in January 1919. Kidour himself went into hiding in Najafand had in 1917 become a Russian interpreter for the British army that wasmaking its way up the Tigris and Euphrates. From that position, he came intocontact with the Russian troops stationed in Khanaqin and Bacqubah, andended up accompanying them to Armenia when they withdrew from Iraq.Following the establishment of the Independent Armenian Republic after thewar, Kidour returned to Baghdad as its consul – a position he retained evenafter its collapse and the establishment of the Armenian Soviet Republic in1920 (Batatu, 2004: 389–92).

What the exact influence of Kidour on Husayn al-Rahhal was is difficult toascertain, but it is beyond doubt that the combination of a socialist historyteacher and first-hand experience of the revolutionary turmoil in Europe,along with a year-long stint in India where he came in contact with Indianrevolutionaries, sufficiently influenced him to create the first ‘Marxist’ studycircle in 1924. Together with a group of like-minded people, some of whomwould go on to play significant political (and literary) roles (e.g. MahmudAhmad al-Sayyid, cAwni Bakr Sidqi, and Mustafa cAli among others),Husayn published a journal called al-Sahifah (‘the newspaper’) in 1924–5 andagain in 1927. This publication was the first of its kind in the country, as itwas wholly devoted to the dissemination of new ideas, and, although the wordMarxism was never mentioned, its substance was clearly of a Marxist nature.Some of these ideas, however, were too radical for Iraqi society of the 1920s –especially its critique of religion – and the journal was eventually shut downby the authorities. Husayn was also part of a group that founded the Soli-darity Club (Nadi al-Tadamun) in 1926. This club was founded on a patrioticplatform and attracted mostly young students. Though existing only a shortwhile, the club’s significance is that it drew together many of the future lea-ders of the communist and nationalist movements, such as Zaki Khairi,cAsim Flayyeh, cAbd al-Qadir Ismacil, Husayn Jamil and cAbd al-FattahIbrahim. Thus, although Husayn soon tired of politics and withdrew to lead alife of comfort, his real contribution lay in having created the first platformfrom which communism grew (Batatu, 2004: 393–403).

At the same time, another communist movement was gradually building inthe south of the country. This was largely the result of the efforts of one man:Petros Vasili (known by the Arabs as Butrus Abu Nasir), an Assyrian fromTiflis, Georgia. Petros was a professional revolutionary who travelled aroundIraq in the 1920s and 1930s to spread the communist creed – until finallybanished in 1934. According to his police file, Petros’ family stemmed ori-ginally from cAmadiyyah in northern Iraq, but the family had migrated toGeorgia during the late Ottoman period. He spoke several regional lan-guages, including Russian, Georgian, Syriac, Persian, Turkish and Arabic.During his time in Iraq, he moved about frequently, living for a while in

76 Johan Franzén

Basra, Baghdad, Bacqubah and Sulaymaniyyah, before settling in Nasiriyyahin the south. It was there that he met Yusuf Salman Yusuf, a fellow Assyrian(albeit Arabized) who would later go on to lead the ICP in the 1940s underthe nom-de-guerre ‘Comrade Fahad’. It is unclear exactly when Petros cameto Nasiriyyah. According to Batatu, the first southern circle was formed inBasra in 1927 – with or without Petros’ help – and the following year anotherstudy circle was formed in Nasiriyyah by Yusuf Salman, his brother Dacudand their friend Ghali Zuwayyed – with the assistance of Petros (Batatu,2004: 404–6). However, in cAbd al-Jabbar Ayyub’s account, who claims tohave been a close friend of the Salman brothers, and to have rented out amagazine for Petros’ tailoring business in Nasiriyyah, Petros did not arrive inthe town until 1929 (Ayyub, 1958: 6). Both accounts cannot be correct.2 Thestory is further complicated by cAbd al-Hamid al-Khatib’s claim to have beenthe real founder of the Basra study circle, and that he was the person whointroduced communism to the Salman brothers and Ghali Zuwayyed. Sinceal-Khatib later became a police informer and agent provocateur, his story isnot entirely believable. Nevertheless, in a police statement, he claimed to havepersonally deposited photos of the above-named persons in the Soviet Con-sulate at Ahwaz – ostensibly to approve their admission to ‘the CommunistParty’ (which did not yet exist) (Batatu, 2004: 405). It is, however, quite likelythat al-Khatib’s account is an attempt to enhance his own role. In 1930, al-Khatib was sent as the first Iraqi representative to receive training at theCommunist University for the Toilers of the East (KUTV) in Moscow, butsomething clearly was not to his liking for upon his return in 1933 he becamea police informer (al-Kharsan, 2001: 18–19).

Following the expulsion of Petros Vasili from Nasiriyyah in 1930, YusufSalman and Ghali Zuwayyed worked hard to spread communist ideas in thesouth, and to link up with other groups in Baghdad.3 Their publications camefrom the communists in Baghdad by means of Jamil Tuma, a railway engi-neer who worked on the Baghdad–Nasiriyyah–Basra line. Thus, from 1930until the founding of the ICP in 1934, cooperation and coordination betweenthe different communist circles gradually improved (Ayyub, 1958: 11–12). Bythe end of 1933, the Nasiriyyah and Basra circles – the latter now led byGhali Zuwayyed – counted some 60 members. In Baghdad, three loosegroups had taken shape; one was led by the famous tailor cAsim Flayyeh,who had also received training at the KUTV between 1931 and 1934, toge-ther with Qasim Hasan and Mahdi Hashim. A second group was centredaround Yusuf Ismacil, Nuri Rufacil and Jamil Tuma. The third was led byZaki Khairi, who as may be remembered had been one of Husayn al-Rahhal’sdisciples. Despite the varied and meandering routes that communist ideas hadthus travelled, it is clear that their ultimate source was the Bolshevik Revolu-tion and especially the creation of the Comintern. As we have seen, theinfluence of these two sources took either an indirect route, as in the case ofZaki Khairi – via the Tadamun Club, Husayn al-Rahhal, Arsen Kidour andthe left wing of the Armenian Hunchak Party – or a more direct one through


Comintern propagandists such as Petros Vasili and through the influence ofneighbouring communist parties in Syria and Lebanon, the training of selectindividuals at the KUTV in Moscow (Batatu, 2004: 411–12).

Eventually, all these currents came together to lay the foundations of asingle communist organization. However, although the party later decidedthat 31 March 1934 was the founding date, no documentation has survived toprove this, and in the existing literature – both primary sources by activistsinvolved with the party at the time and the secondary literature in Arabic andEnglish – there is no consensus. Some even claim that the founding did nottake place until 1935. Nevertheless, in the account of cAbd al-Fattah Ibrahim,a meeting took place at Qasim Hasan’s house in Bab al-Shaykh, a Baghdadneighbourhood, additionally attended by cAsim Flayyeh, Yusuf Ismacil, NuriRufacil, Yusuf Matti, Hasan cAbbas al-Karbasi, cAbd al-Hamid Khatib andothers. Whether or not this was the founding meeting, and Ibrahim providesno date for when it took place, it seems reasonable to assume that it wasimportant – by virtue of bringing together people from the various groups –in forming the first nucleus of the ICP.4 According to Batatu, another meetingtook place in Racs al-Qarya, Baghdad, on 8 March 1935, led by cAsimFlayyeh, who, since his return from Moscow in August 1934, had assumedthe leadership of the Baghdad communists. This meeting was attended bysome of the above-mentioned persons and saw the foundation of a neworganization – Jamciyyat Didd al-Isticmar (Association against Imperialism).5

In his view, this was therefore the actual foundational meeting – although thename of the Communist Party was not mentioned at the meeting (Batatu,2004: 431–2). What is undisputed, however, is that in July 1935, the first issueof Kifah al-Shacb (The People’s Struggle) was issued, carrying under itsheading the inscription ‘official organ of the Central Committee of the IraqiCommunist Party’ (al-Musawi, 2011: 53).

The new organization was, however, a far cry from the communist van-guard Lenin had envisaged in What Is to Be Done? – made up mostly of ill-disciplined ‘coffeehouse intellectuals’ whose favourite pastime seemed to begrand philosophical debates and rhetorical orations rather than the moremundane task of grassroots organization. With a few exceptions, their back-grounds and life experiences had been those of the relatively comfortablemiddle classes of Iraqi society; they were lawyers, teachers, civil servants,students and professionals. Thus, while they undoubtedly witnessed poverty,squalor and hardship surrounding them, this suffering had not been experi-enced first-hand. They were young men who liked to meet in cafés and debateand argue. Discipline, subordination and chains of command did not exist inthe new organization. Consequently, arguments soon led to bickering; dis-agreements led to splits. Following the incorporation of Zaki Khairi’s groupin March 1935, Yusuf Ismacil, Nuri Rufacil and their supporters withdrewfrom the organization a month later. The remaining group, led by cAsimFlayyeh, Mahdi Hashim and Qasim Hasan, and joined by Khairi and YusufMatti, decided that the main task was to publish a paper, hence the

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publication in July of Kifah al-Shacb. As a sign of the new party’s close asso-ciation with international communism, it was also decided to despatch QasimHasan to attend the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern that tookplace in Moscow during the late summer that year (Batatu, 2004: 434–5).

Although Yusuf Salman was not part of the Baghdad groups that foundedthe ICP, it is clear that he and the southern communists were in close contactwith them. In fact, Yusuf himself travelled frequently to Baghdad in 1933,took part in their meetings and exchanged information and new publications(Habib & al-Dacudi, 2003: 131). Still, it is also evident that the founding ofthe party was largely the affair of the Baghdad communists, in particularcAsim Flayyeh, who took control of the new party. Whether Yusuf was dis-gruntled by this is not clear, but he decided to leave Iraq and embark on ajourney of exploration of the neighbouring Arab lands. He left Nasiriyyah forBasra in late August 1934, and from there he travelled to Kuwait. Later hevisited the emirates of the Gulf, before eventually coming to Syria, where hemet with the secretary of the Syrian Communist Party, Khaleid Bakdash.According to Ayyub’s account, which is not entirely believable as he assumesa generally hostile attitude to the communists, Yusuf fell out with Bakdash –ostensibly because he wanted Bakdash to support him to become secretary ofthe ICP whereas Bakdash preferred cAbd al-Qadir Ismacil (Ayyub, 1958: 20–2). Be that as it may, other sources suggest that the Central Committee of theICP had actually decided to send Yusuf, or ‘Sacid’, which was his party nameat the time, to Moscow to study at the KUTV (Habib & al-Dacudi, 2003:137). In late 1934 or early 1935, however, before reaching Moscow, he met inBeirut with Mahmud al-Atrash, who was the Arab representative on theexecutive committee of the Comintern. Yusuf reached Moscow sometimeduring 1935, and pursued studies there until 1937, before ultimately returningto Iraq in January 1938. Undoubtedly, the experience of studying at theKUTV had a profound impact on someone like Yusuf who was already acommitted communist, but whose understanding of Marxism-Leninism, aswell as the strategy and tactics of the popular struggle and the intricacies oforganizing a party, was somewhat limited. In Iraq, very few Marxist bookswere available, and those that existed were mostly not translated into Arabic.In Moscow, however, Yusuf was exposed to the full library of Marxism-Leninism, and he was an eager student (Habib & al-Dacudi, 2003: 158–9).

2 Iron-fist discipline, setbacks and revolution

Back in Iraq, the new party was showing signs of progress, despite the bick-ering. When in October 1936 a military coup led by General Bakr Sidqioverthrew the government (the first such incident in the Arab world), the ICPreacted swiftly. Since the coup had the support of the leftist al-Ahali group,and because Sidqi formed a new government of mostly left-leaning civilians,the ICP decided to support the move. The party took its followers to thestreets and joined in the popular demonstrations in support of the new


government, and urged its members to join the newly created Association ofPeople’s Reform (Jamciyyat al-Islah al-Shacbi). Despite some limited reformand elections during the winter of 1936–7 that saw the election of two people,cAbd al-Qadir Ismacil and cAziz Sharif, who were close to the party, thingssoon took a turn for the worse. In the spring of 1937, Bakr Sidqi suddenlyattacked communism as a creed and declared that his government would ‘crushany movement’ that was against the monarchy. Eventually, the progressive ele-ments in the government resigned, and Sidqi himself was later assassinated –thus ending this first experiment of ‘people’s power’ (Batatu, 2004: 439–44).

Soon, however, new disagreements led to further splits. Zaki Khairi, who bynow had taken over the leadership, left the party along with his followers. Atthe same time, the communists, impressed by the swiftness with which the armyhad taken power the previous year, now began to work actively to spreadcommunist ideas within the army. A struggle between Khairi’s group and theremainder of the ICP now ensued, especially in the Radiomen Regiment (Fawjal-Mukhabarah). In that regiment, the split was most plain to see; on one sidewas Corporal Ismacil, supported by Khairi and his followers, and on the otherwas Corporal cAli cAmer, supported by the rest of the party. Due to the openrivalry between the two groups, the clandestine activity was discovered, and thecells, which numbered some 400 soldiers and non-commissioned officersthroughout the army, were broken up. cAli cAmer, along with sergeants cAbdal-Rahman Dacud and Dahi Fajr, were sentenced to death for their involve-ment (although this was later commuted). Khairi himself received two and ahalf years in prison (Ayyub, 1958: 13; Batatu, 2004: 445–6).

The remnants of the two groups eventually came together under the lea-dership of cAbdallah Mascud, a Shici from the south. Although Yusuf Salmanreturned to Iraq in early 1938, he never remained in one place for very long,and what was left of the party continued under Mascud’s helm for some time.In 1940, however, a deal was struck to pay Yusuf a monthly allowance inreturn for him settling permanently in Baghdad and actively helping theparty. This allowed Yusuf to become a professional revolutionary who devo-ted himself wholeheartedly to the life and death of the party (Batatu, 2004:447–9). When Mascud was arrested the following year, the leadership of theICP naturally landed in Yusuf ’s lap (Batatu, 2004: 492). From then to hisdeath on the gallows in 1949, he would lead the party with an iron fist underthe nom-de-guerre ‘Comrade Fahad’. Over the coming years, Fahad pains-takingly carried out a complete overhaul of the party organization. Heweeded out those he deemed to be mere ‘coffeehouse communists’ andreplaced them with loyalists – even if they had no previous association withthe party. This caused much resentment and resistance within the ranks, butthrough sheer determination (and indirectly aided by the occasional arrest ofdissidents by the police) he created an organization with strict discipline,subordination and a chain of command. By the time of the party’s FirstConference in 1944, the process had been largely completed. This couldadditionally be seen at the party’s First Congress, held in February 1945,

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which attested to the strength of his leadership (Franzén, 2011: 39–41).Around him, Fahad gathered a close-knit group of people he trusted: ZakiBasim, a Sunni from a humble background who became Fahad’s protégé;Muhammad al-Shabibi, the son of a Najaf calim (religious scholar) whobetween 1944 and 1946 was in charge of the whole southern party adminis-trative area; cAli Shukur, a Sunni proletarian from Baghdad; and AhmadcAbbas, the son of a Sunni fellah (poor peasant) (Batatu, 2004: 509–10). Whatmade these men stand out were not just their comparatively modest back-grounds – with the exception of Muhammad al-Shabibi – but the fact they hadnot previously held important positions in the party. They therefore owed theirpositions to Fahad, and showed an absolute devotion to his leadership.

The establishment of a strong ICP under Fahad coincided with a briefperiod of political liberalization during and immediately after World War II.Anti-communist police repression had been somewhat relaxed during the warto appease the Soviet Union, and after the war, the liberalization was exten-ded to the political system in an attempt to stave off revolution. Inflation,profiteering and smuggling during the war had led to a post-war situationwhere a small group of wealthy shaykhs who controlled most of the agri-cultural lands that grew crops, and the merchants producing consumer goodsfor the British army had grown enormously rich, whereas the rest of thepopulation was considerably poorer than before the war. Since the arrival ofthe British during the First World War some economic changes had started tohappen, although in general the country remained undeveloped and poor.British policy had empowered tribal shaykhs who, coupled with legislationbrought in by the Ottomans in the nineteenth century to protect privateproperty, had become wealthy landowners as they took over previously col-lectively owned tribal lands. There existed in Iraq little in terms of a nationalindustry, although the country had been gradually incorporated into theglobal capitalist market as an exporter of grain, and from the 1930s onward,of oil. Revenues from oil soon became Iraq’s main source of income, althoughthe production and sale of oil was controlled by the Iraq Petroleum Company(IPC), owned by foreign interests. A small indigenous working class even-tually developed, mostly employed in the oil sector and a few other industries.However, in 1951 only about 8 percent of Iraq’s production came from theindustrial sector, and the vast majority of Iraqis still depended for theirlivelihoods on the agricultural sector (Farouk-Sluglett & Sluglett, 2003: 35).

Under the brief premiership of Tawfiq al-Suwaydi (February to May 1946),a liberal experiment took place with free elections, lifted press censorship andlicensing of political parties and trade unions. This created an unprecedentedoutburst of political activity. The communists were quick to utilize the situa-tion and soon the ICP was involved in demonstrations and trade unionactivity throughout the country. Much of the communist activity focused onthe large-scale enterprises that were foreign-owned, such as the IPC, or for-eign-managed, such as the railways and the port of Basra, which were oper-ated and controlled by the British. Following much work to organize the


railway workers, especially at the railway workshop at Schalchiyyah, a licensefor a railway union was eventually granted on 7 September 1944. Soon, athird of all railway workers had become members of the new union – almostentirely due to the efforts of the ICP. To try to improve the poor conditions ofits members, the union’s president, cAli Shukur (Fahad’s right-hand man),ordered a national strike on 15 April 1945, which was met with all-outrepression by the authorities. Eventually, the pressure on the workers becametoo great and they reluctantly returned to work, with the result that the unionsplit into factions and was not revived until after the 1958 revolution. Asimilar story happened in Basra, where the party had campaigned for a PortWorkers’ Union, which was finally licensed on 15 August 1945. That unionquickly drew ca. 60 percent of the port workers as members, but following amajor strike in May 1947, and others in April and May of the followingyear – met with fierce repression as well – the union eventually petered out. Itwas in the oil sector, however, that the communists focused most of theirattention (and met the greatest resistance by the authorities). They graduallybuilt cells of communist workers and sympathizers at oil installationsthroughout the country, but due to the opposition of the all-powerful IPC,they were never able to obtain a license for a union. In July 1946, the com-munists ordered a national strike, which was heeded by some 5,000 oil work-ers. On 12 July, in Gawurpaghi outside Kirkuk, demonstrating oil workers wereset upon by mounted police, who killed at least ten and injured a further 27workers. Following the incident, the oil company announced it would increasewages for the workers and generally improve conditions, but the killings hadforever changed labour relations in the country (Batatu, 2004: 616–24). Terri-fied by the strength demonstrated by the ICP, the regent, cAbd al-Ilah, even-tually ended the liberalization experiment and appointed the hardliner Arshadal-cUmari as the new prime minister. He promptly brought back martial lawand severe repression of the political parties (Franzén, 2009: 83).

During the new suppression drive, Fahad and his disciple Zaki Basim, alongwith other leaders and members, were arrested in January 1947. In June, theywere brought to trial – accused of having ‘foreign sources of income’, contactswith ‘a foreign state’ (the Soviet Union), incitement to armed insurrection andpropagation of communism among the armed forces (which since 1938 hadbeen punishable by death). A few days later, following a shambolic pretence ofdue process where one of the defence lawyers, Kamil Qazanchi, was arrestedafter pleading on behalf of the accused, Fahad and Zaki Basim were sentencedto death. Ibrahim Naji Shumayyel, the Jewish apothecary in whose house theyhad been apprehended, also received the same verdict. Eventually, however, thedeath sentences were commuted (Batatu, 2004: 537–41).

When a major outburst of popular protests broke out in early 1948 –known as al-Wathbah (‘the leap’) – the ICP therefore missed its leader andmost capable cadres. As a result, the demonstrations that protested the sign-ing of a new Anglo-Iraqi Treaty at Portsmouth in January were initiallydominated by other political parties. Soon, however, the Communists could

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regroup and gradually took charge of the protests. The Wathbah culminatedin late January with the regent’s refusal to approve the new treaty. Protests didnot subside, however, and the police proceeded to massacre hundreds ofunarmed protesters in cold blood. The prime minister, Saleh Jabr, fled for hislife to escape the angry masses. The regent appointed a Shici sayyid andveteran nationalist leader, Muhammad al-Sadr, as the new prime minister toappease the crowds. Eventually this calmed the situation and over the comingweeks and months protests petered out. For the ICP, the Wathbah was a sterntest. On the one hand, it had demonstrated that the communists, by virtue oftheir superior organization, easily could take over and lead popular protests.On the other hand, it created a new radicalism that stretched the alreadydepleted organization to its limits. Following the arrest of Fahad and most ofthe leading cadres, the party simply was not in a position to lead an all-outassault on the monarchy.6

By the end of 1948, the party’s radical adventure almost caused it to becompletely crushed by the authorities. The leading cadres and organizers werecaptured by the police. When new cells were established, they too were brokenup before they could achieve anything. The clandestine printing press wasfound and destroyed. Party registers and correspondence were discovered,leading to new arrests. Breakdown of individual communists through severetorture eventually revealed all the party secrets. Hundreds of communists,including almost every senior leader, were captured. Those that avoided arrestfled the country or gave up political activity altogether. With the new evidencethat was uncovered, Fahad and Zaki Basim – along with another Politburomember, Muhammad al-Shabibi – were brought before a court martial. Theaccusation this time was that they had led the party, and therefore the protestsduring the Wathbah, from inside the prison. Once more, they were sentenced todeath, and this time there was no commutation. On 14 and 15 February 1949,they were hanged in different Baghdad squares and were left hanging for hoursto deter future would-be communists (Batatu, 2004: 567–8). It now looked as ifthe communist movement in Iraq had been defeated once and for all.

Nevertheless, over the coming decade the ICP bounced back. The fewremaining communists who were not behind bars gradually rebuilt the bat-tered party. To begin with, they were only a handful of youngsters – minorseven – but through determination and riding on the general revolutionarywave sweeping the country the party’s fortunes soon changed for the better.To no small degree was this achievement down to the leadership of a youngKurdish communist by the name Bahac al-Din Nuri, who led the ICP frommid-1949 until he was arrested in 1953. The revolutionary turmoil of theWathbah was repeated in late 1952 when an Intifadah broke out following theregent’s refusal to reform the political system, and also inspired by the revo-lution in Egypt during the summer that year. The ICP took a leading roleduring the protests that erupted, and when leaders of other political partieswere arrested in government clampdowns, the party’s clandestine natureproved its worth, as most of the communists were able to avoid arrest. As


during the Wathbah, the authorities responded heavy-handedly to the pro-tests, killing several protesters. Eventually the Intifadah was defeated when theregent appointed the Kurdish chief of staff, General Nur al-Din Mahmud, asthe new prime minister. He declared martial law and deployed the army toclamp down on the protests and carried out mass arrests (Franzén, 2011: 61–3). Almost 3,000 were arrested, and 958 persons were sentenced to prison andtwo to death (Sibahi, 2003: 70).

A few years later, another Intifadah broke out. Again, Egypt was theinspiration when during the so-called Suez Crisis in 1956 it was invaded byIsraeli, British and French forces. This ‘tripartite aggression’, as it becameknown in the Arab world, caused much consternation throughout the region.Iraqis, along with Arabs everywhere, rallied around Egyptian presidentGamal cAbdel Nasser’s leadership to resist the invasion. For the ICP, theattack came at a crucial time. Earlier in the year, the pivotal Twentieth Con-gress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had adopted the ‘peacefulroad to socialism’ thesis that theoretically had opened up the possibility of anon-violent revolution and a gradual transition to socialism. In September,the ICP held its own conference. This took place after a successful reunifica-tion of the party’s ranks, following a split a few years earlier. The party wasnow led by a troika consisting of the new first secretary Husayn Ahmad al-Radi (known by his party name, ‘Salam cAdel’ – ‘just peace’), Jamal al-Haydari and cAmer cAbdallah.7 At this Second Conference, the new Sovietline was unanimously adopted. Despite the violent nature of recent popularprotests, the ICP now thought that peaceful revolution was possible in Iraq.Within a few weeks of the conclusion of the conference, the Suez Crisis brokeout, however, showing how erroneous that assumption had been. The partyleadership now made a U-turn, and wholeheartedly supported Egypt’s resis-tance of the invasion forces. Off the back of the popular demonstrations insupport of Egypt, the Iraqi communists went on to organize a popularuprising in the small town of al-Hayy, managing to hold it throughoutDecember. Following the brutal suppression of the uprising by the army, andthe execution of two local communists, cAli al-Shaykh Hamud and cAtaMahdi al-Dabbas, the party issued a self-criticism to acknowledge that itsstance supporting peaceful revolution had partially been wrong in light of theSuez Crisis (Franzén, 2011: 70–7).

In general terms, though, the ‘peaceful road’ line was not abandoned, butrather became a central tenet of ICP’s new outlook. At the centre of the newtheory was its reassessment of the so-called ‘national bourgeoisie’, which nowwas seen as an essentially progressive force. The role of the communist partyin the colonial world would henceforth be to support this class in ‘democraticrevolutions’ against colonialism/imperialism. When Iraq erupted in revolutionon 14 July 19588 – following a coup carried out by a group of military mencalling themselves the ‘Free Officers’ (emulating the Egyptian ‘Free Officers’that took power in 1952) – the new line was slavishly followed. The ICP lea-dership quickly identified the leader of the coup, Brigadier cAbd al-Karim

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Qasim, as a representative of said ‘national bourgeoisie’ – and the coup wasconstrued as a ‘democratic revolution’ (despite a conspicuous lack of actualdemocracy). During the next few years, the ICP – by virtue of the support itrendered to the new regime – would play a pivotal role on the Iraqi politicalscene.

3 ‘Arab socialism’, authoritarianism and the ‘non-capitalist road’to disaster

The Qasim years (1958–63) marked a watershed moment in Iraqi history. Forthe first time, the country had broken free from imperialism and foreigncontrol and embarked on its own national path. The year following therevolution was arguably the most politically exuberant in Iraq’s modern his-tory. Political parties and groups – communists, leftists, liberals, Kurdishnationalists, Iraqi nationalists, pan-Arabists, Nasserists and Bacthists – foughtin the new political space that had opened up with the revolution. Iraq’sfuture was at stake; in which direction should it head? Two broad strandsgradually consolidated; those who rallied around Qasim and his generallyprogressive ideology of social justice, sovereignty and Iraqist nationalism. Onthe other side stood those who favoured a pan-Arabist future – whether aspart of a wider Arab union under the leadership of Nasser or with Iraq at thehelm. The ICP very quickly came down on Qasim’s side, and during the firstyear of the revolution provided a valuable support to his regime – arguablyhelping it to survive.

Tensions developed, and soon differing political visions gave birth to vio-lence. ’Abd al-Salam ’Aref, Qasim’s brother-in-arms, broke away and becamea rallying point for the pan-Arabist forces. Following a plot to overthrowQasim in December, ’Aref and other officers were arrested and sentenced todeath (albeit eventually commuted). In March 1959, a big showdown tookplace in the city of Mosul. There a planned coup – supported by Nasser – wasset to take place. The ICP, however, sniffed out the plans and brought theirsupporters to the city, and all-out street fighting ensued in which the com-munists were triumphant.9 Following Mosul, Qasim clamped down in earneston the nationalists and created an irreparable chasm between himself and thepan-Arabists, and an impossible position for the communists who from thenon were branded anti-nationalists, or Shu’ubis.

For the ICP, the choice to support Qasim was natural following the revo-lution. Adhering to the theory of ‘democratic revolution’ under the leadershipof the ‘national bourgeoisie’, he seemed to fit the bill. The problem, though,was that the party, due to its countrywide and cross-sectarian support – whichhad been augmented manifold since the release of political prisoners follow-ing the revolution – was the strongest political force in the country, and yet itdeliberately chose to play second fiddle to Qasim. Moreover, when the ICPdemanded political representation in the government, following its invaluablesupport at Mosul, Qasim responded by turning on the party. From mid-1959


onwards, Qasim deliberately targeted the communists, and eventually hebegan releasing nationalists from prison to achieve a power balance. Despitethis dramatic change, which by the latter stages of Qasim’s rule amounted tooutright persecution of communists, the ICP stuck to defending the regime toits end – at least theoretically. This meant that when Qasim was finally over-thrown in a Ba’thist coup in February 1963 (carried out together with ’Abdal-Salam ’Aref whom Qasim had released in line with the above policy), thecommunists were virtually defenceless against the nationalist onslaught. In themonths following the coup, thousands of communists and Qasim supporterswere rounded up, tortured and killed by Ba’thist ‘National Guards’ – asrevenge for Mosul.10 Once more, the ICP was on the verge of being crushed.Many of its senior cadres – including the first secretary, Salam ’Adel – werecaptured and killed. The rest fled to Kurdistan in the north, or abroad toEastern Europe (Franzén, 2011: 126–31).

In November 1963, the Ba’thists themselves were overthrown by ’Aref andhis supporters. Over the coming years, ’Aref proceeded to resume some sort ofnormality in Iraqi politics. Despite earlier being an avid Nasserist, negotiationswith Egypt to form a federated state came to nought. ’Abd al-Salam ’Aref diedsuddenly in a helicopter crash in 1966, but was succeeded by his brother, ’Abdal-Rahman ’Aref. The ICP, whose leadership by now mostly resided abroad,cautiously decided to support the ’Aref regime – largely because it had endedthe Ba’thist terror.11 The key to this support was the Soviet theory of ‘non-capitalist development’. In short, this theory argued that Third World countriesmight bypass the capitalist stage on their route to socialism – due to the influ-ence of the ‘socialist camp’. In the Middle East, the pivot of this way ofthinking was the changing role of Egypt under Nasser. With increasingly closerelations between the Soviet Union and Egypt, Nasser was re-envisioned asrepresenting a particular brand of Middle Eastern socialism – ‘Arab socialism’.Thus, despite falling out with Nasser back in 1959 when he had tried to over-throw Qasim, the ICP now made a U-turn and came out in support of him,declaring that Egypt had embarked on a ‘non-capitalist path’ to socialism. Iraqunder ’Aref also had the potential of ‘non-capitalist’ development – as arguedin the seminal pamphlet Hawla al-Tatawwur Ghayr al-Ra’smali fi l-’Iraq (OnNon-Capitalist Development in Iraq), written by the Central Committeemember ’Aziz al-Hajj in February 1965 (al-Hajj, 1965). This assessment, how-ever, created a deepening division within the party. The rank-and-file whocontinued to live and operate inside Iraq resented the new line. In their view,’Aref was just as bad as the Ba’thists. Eventually, these disagreements came toa head, and by 1967 led to a full-scale split in the party, and the formation ofthe central command group (al-Qiyadah al-Markaziyyah), which launched anarmed rebellion in 1968 (Franzén, 2011: 147–83).

In July 1968, the Ba’thists once more seized power, and this time theywould hold on to it. Over the period 1968–73, the Ba’thists pursued a stick-and-carrot tactic against the ICP. At times, there would be relentless perse-cution with communists being murdered in the streets, and at other times

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there were reconciliation attempts. Eventually, these attempts resulted in thesigning of a ‘National Front’ between the ICP and the Ba’th Party in 1973.This came after improved Soviet–Iraqi relations – with Saddam Husaynheading a delegation to the Soviet Union in 1972 that led to a ‘Treaty ofFriendship and Cooperation’ being signed in April. The Ba’thists also nationa-lized the Iraqi oil industry in the same year, again with Soviet assistance. Thus,despite the fractious relationship between the Ba’th Party and the ICP, the Iraqicommunists eventually re-evaluated the regime and entered a period of coop-eration that would last between 1973 and 1979 (Franzén, 2011: 206–15).

Gradually, however, this relationship crumbled, and when Saddam Husaynin 1979 became president, following the resignation of Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr,all-out repression and terrorization of the communists resumed – on the samelines as the dark days of 1963. Once more, the communists were forced to gointo hiding – either in exile abroad or in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The party continued to offer resistance to the regime throughout the 1980sand 1990s, but since political activity in the Arab parts of Iraq was virtuallyimpossible, this resistance was inconsequential. When the United States andBritain invaded Iraq in 2003, the ICP joined the group of exile parties sup-porting the invasion and the removal of Saddam’s regime. Since then, the ICPhas tried to re-establish itself on the Iraqi political scene and has taken part inelections. However, in the increasingly sectarian climate of Iraqi politics, andthe irrelevance of communism following the end of the Cold War, its supportbase is miniscule.

4 Conclusion

The ICP played a pivotal role in modern Iraqi history. Not only did it drawsupport from all corners of society and channelled this support through across-sectarian ideology of resistance to outside influence in the country andnotions of a better future, but it was also able to organize people of differentbackgrounds and classes into political activity in a country that was said tobe perennially dominated by tribal strife and sectarian infighting. While theICP’s origins undoubtedly can be traced back to the attempts by the interna-tional communist movement (the Comintern in particular) to spread com-munism across the Middle East, it is also indisputable that the partydeveloped far beyond being simply a Moscow-led organization. Due to cir-cumstances of geography and strategic importance, Iraq was never at the foreof Soviet thinking, and so the Iraqi communists were left to fend for them-selves most of the time. This was both a blessing and a curse. On the onehand, it allowed the Iraqi communists to develop their own organization asthey saw fit, becoming a significant political force in the process by interact-ing with the people and reflecting their ideas and responding to them. On theother hand, the lack of international support meant the ICP was on its own intimes of crisis. Thus, for instance, when the Ba’thists massacred thousands ofits members and supporters in 1963, the Soviets only cursorily censured them,


and again, in 1979, when Saddam clamped down on the party, this resulted invery little Soviet action. Still, the ICP was ideologically in the thrall of theSoviet Union, as seen in its decision to back the various military leaders thatseized power after the 1958 revolution, and ultimately this dependencybecame its downfall as it was unable to steer an independent course thatmight have enabled the party to play a more significant role and/or save itself.This ideological shackle, more than the brutal suppression the party faced,was the ultimate cause of the party’s demise and journey into obscurity.

Notes1 For a more extensive account of this process, see Franzén, 2017.2 Batatu claims Yusuf Salman first met Petros Vasili in Basra in 1927, but provides

no evidence to support it (Batatu, 2004: 489–90).3 According to the police files perused by Batatu, Yusuf spent the summer of 1930

travelling on foot to neighbouring Arab countries to acquaint himself with ‘the lifeof the peoples’, including visits to Khuzestan (in Iran), Kuwait, Transjordan, Syriaand Palestine (Batatu, 2004: 490).

4 As quoted in al-Musawi, 2011: 53.5 No doubt inspired by the Comintern front organization the League against

Imperialism (Ligue contre l’impérialisme et l’oppression colonial), founded in Bel-gium on 10 February 1927. It should also be noted that in some accounts the neworganization was called Lajnat (or ’Usbat) Mukafahat al-Isti’mar wa l-Istithmar –Committee (or League) for Combatting Imperialism and Exploitation (al-Musawi,2011: 51).

6 For an in-depth account of the Wathbah, see Batatu, 2004: ch. 22.7 Remarkably, all three came from religious backgrounds. Husayn al-Radi hailed

from a family of Najafi Shi’i sayyids. Jamal al-Haydari, a Kurd, also stemmedfrom a religious background. His uncle was ’Asim al-Haydari, a former Ministerof Awqaf (religious endowments). ’Amer ’Abdallah, like al-Radi, came from afamily of sayyids, albeit Sunnis. Moreover, his father was a mu’azzin (caller toprayer) (Batatu, 2004: 672–4).

8 That it was a revolution and not merely a coup could be seen in the changes itprompted – most notably the overthrow of the monarchy, the killing of the royalfamily, the end of British influence and the establishment of a republic.

9 For an in-depth analysis of the Mosul events, see Batatu, 2004: ch. 44.10 For a fuller account of the Ba’thist measures against the communists, see Sibahi,

2003: 552–8.11 The policy became known within the party as the ‘August Line’ (as it had been

decided at a Central Committee meeting in August 1964), see al-Kharsan, 2001:124–5.

Referencesal-Hajj, ’Aziz (1965) Hawla al-Tatawwur Ghayr al-Ra’smali fi l-’Iraq: Mulahzat

Shakhsiyyah, Baghdad, al-Ghadd.al-Kharsan, Salah (2001) Safahat min Ta’rikh al-’Iraq al-Siyasi al-Hadith: al-Harakat

al-Markisiyyah 1920–1990, Beirut, Matba’at al-’Arif li l-Matbu’at.al-Musawi, Kazim (2011) al-Mitriqah wa al-Minjal fi al-’Iraq: Qira’ah fi Kitabat wa

Mudhakkirat Qiyadat Shuyu’iyyah, Beirut, Dar al-Farabi.

88 Johan Franzén

Ayyub, ’Abd al-Jabbar (1958) Ma’a al-Shuyu’iyin fi Sujunihim: Haqa’iq MatwiyyahTanshur li-Awwal Marrah, Baghdad, Matba’at al-Ma’aref.

Batatu, Hanna (2004) The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements ofIraq: A Study of Iraq’s Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of Its Communists,Ba‘thists and Free Officers, London, Saqi (first published by Princeton UniversityPress in 1978).

Farouk-Sluglett, Marion & Sluglett, Peter (2003) Iraq since 1958: From Revolution toDictatorship, London, I. B. Tauris (first published by KPI in 1987).

Franzén, Johan (2009) ‘Development vs. Reform: Attempts at Modernisation duringthe Twilight of British Influence in Iraq, 1946–1958’. Journal of Imperial and Com-monwealth History, 37, 1.

Franzén, Johan (2011) Red Star over Iraq: Iraqi Communism before Saddam, London,Hurst & Co.

Franzén, Johan (2017) ‘Communism in the Arab World and Iran’. In Naimark, N.,Pons, S. & Quinn-Judge, S. (Eds), The Cambridge History of Communism: Volume2, The Socialist Camp and World Power 1941–1960s, Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press.

Habib, Kazim & al-Da’udi, Zahdi (2003) Fahd wa l-Harakah al-Wataniyyah fi l-’Iraq,Beirut, Dar al-Kunuz al-Adabiyyah.

Sibahi, ’Aziz (2003) ’Uqud min Ta’rikh al-Hizb al-Shuyu’i al-’Iraqi, Damascus,Manshurat al-Thaqafah al-Jadidah.


5 The Lebanese Communist PartyContinuity against all odds

Rosa Velasco Muñoz

1 The history of communism in the Levant

Walter Laqueur dates Russia’s attempts to gain a foothold in the Middle Eastback to before the October Revolution, given that they formed part of thetsar’s imperial desire to rule the Holy Land and Ottoman Greater Syria(Laqueur, 1957). However, Great Britain and France were the powers thatsuccessfully realized their ambitions to supplant the Turkish Empire in theregion, through the discretionary distribution of the Arab territories inaccordance with the Sykes-Picott Agreement (1916). This agreement, devisedin secret and with the consent of tsarist Russia, was however later publicizedand denounced by Trotsky, and it was declared null and void by the Bolsheviksonly a month after their victory in the October Revolution. Later on, theCommunist International (Comintern) – once it had come to terms with thefailure of the revolutions in Europe – discussed the idea of gradually influen-cing the ‘awakening’ that the Middle East was experiencing, and how torechannell the colonized peoples’ calls for independence. As a consequence,the Comintern was critical of the League of Nations, complaining that thebody had been responsible for legalizing and helping to shape the ‘imperialistgoals’ of the European powers (De Ausburgo, February 1956: 161). Thus theCommunist Party, echoing Lenin, did not hesitate to define the organizationas an ‘Association of international criminals entrusted with sanctioning everyone of the imperialist bandits’ victories’ (Daoud, 1999: 266).1

However, communist policy did not play any kind of effective role untilafter the Baku Conference in 1920,2 aside from Comintern’s declarations,which merely linked the anti-colonialist upheavals and ‘Eastern’ trade union-ism with the revolutionary movement that was ‘exclusively’ represented bycommunism. In this respect, we should add that the inertia of building‘representations’ had endured in the Soviet Union (USSR), and especially inwhat was perceived as a backward, lifeless East, instead of observing it in aframework that was coming to the boil and thus favourable for the search fortransformation.3

Halim Barakat claims that scientific socialism and Arabism had differentorigins; however, the fact that they both featured a need for liberation from

colonialism meant that they converged at some points, albeit from non-unifiedstandpoints. With regard to the ‘meeting’ between nationalism and Marxism,the Lebanese Shibli Shumayyil (1850–1917) and the Syrian Farah Antun(1874–1922) are considered to be the first Arab intellectuals to present soci-alism as a feasible ideology evolving through nationalism, as well as one thatwas capable of taking root among poor workers without any rights.4 How-ever, not only were the people unable to organize themselves as a unified massin favour of independence, the group of ‘disinherited peoples’ also failed tounite in the revolutionary vanguard; it was men from the educated bourgeoi-sie who led and influenced both nationalism and socialism, ‘the two basictenets of Arab revolutionary culture’ (Barakat, 1993: 172).

After the capture of Damascus (1920),5 the climate of resistance in theFrench Levant did not disappear, though it ended up splitting, with limited orlocalized objectives. After the border had been drawn up between Syria andGreater Lebanon, nationalism was forced to redefine itself in order to copewith the petite politique that Paris had created for the two countries.6 In thatrespect, Agwani points out that France’s presence and its fixation with main-taining its imperial privileges led to a faction of ‘hothead’ Arab nationalistsresorting, to some extent, to fascism-Nazism as a refuge from the metropolis.Meanwhile other, more ideologized local groups consciously embraced theprestige of Soviet communism in their search for independence and historicaltransformation (Agwani, 1968).7

With regard to the Lebanon that had been devised by Paris, it included theintroduction of a discriminatory system that was clearly focused on socialinequality, where the private sector prevailed absolutely over the public, andwhich was firmly controlled by the socio-economic interests of a minoritywho, in turn, did not hesitate to use all necessary political manoeuvres tomaintain their position, while avoiding any inclusion resulting from opencompetition, or based on social advancement. Thus the French-Lebaneseestablishment secured the system by constraining it through religious divisionsor by forming a societal-sectarian mosaic (in eterno). Society became frag-mented into two extreme halves: the unprotected popular masses without anysocial rights, and the beneficiaries and upholders of the agreement, who wereever vigilant and focused on maintaining their class privileges. Thus, the newcountry legislated towards political-social-sectarian issues without consideringthat the fracture might continue to widen, until it finally exploded into civilconfrontations in 1958 and 1975 (both of which were disparate, complex andpermeated by outside interference).

2 The Syrian-Lebanese Communist Party: creation and rifts

Soviet policy was not really interested in the French Levant until after theCongress of the Peoples of the East (Baku, September 1920), which witnessedfervent, fiery speeches by speakers who claimed that the advance of the revo-lutionary movement was converging towards the ‘great river of international

The Lebanese Communist Party 91

revolutionary action against capitalism and imperialism’ (Gallissot, 1978: 22).Even so, the Soviet official line continued to lie discreetly dormant until 1924,since it was focused on promoting more immediate geostrategies (tactism) andon ‘the salvation’ of the Soviet revolution.

With regard to the earliest socialist voices in the Levant – Antun andShumayyil – they formed part of the intellectual faction that advocatedtransformational ideas from committed personal stances, with a structured-moralistic viewpoint (Barakat, 1993: 250) imbued with utopian, liberal andindeed romantic overtones. The fact that when the League of Nations Man-dates were defined (1922), neither of the most closely identified members livedin Lebanon or Syria (owing to the repression being exerted by the Ottomanauthorities) did not prevent their influence and prestige from spreadingamong certain figures living in the French Levant. As for the October Revo-lution, the same free-thinking intelligentsia were monitoring it in Lebanon.These were polyglot intellectuals who were already alert to the practicaladvances of the Bolsheviks. Though they were mostly Christians (and conse-quently, ostensibly close to the establishment), they enthusiastically welcomedthe universalist idea of a people’s rebellion: action from below to change thesystem and the living conditions of an exhausted, illiterate population.

However, as Gallissot (1978) points out, there was no effective contact linkbetween these first autonomous communists (Rodinson, 1972) who began toproliferate in Syria and Lebanon in the early 20th century and the working-class trade union movement groups. Gallissot described the latter as ‘fragmentsor islets’ owing to their intrinsic weakness, given that no significant industrialfabric existed, nor any kind of structured proletarian base (Agwani, 1968). Itwas in 1924 that the visible heads of Syrian-Lebanese communism began toinvolve themselves openly in the unions, and to strengthen the foundations ofembryonic communism.

However, the attempted launch of Syrian-Lebanese communism came upagainst an extra difficulty, given that the native peoples regarded it with dis-trust, considering it to be something unrelated to them – something ‘fromoutside’, and at the same time linked to European colonialism and the out-landish foreigners who inhabited the region, such as the immigrant Jews orZionist colonists who had settled in Palestine (Gallissot, 1978; Flores, 1980b).

2.1 The Lebanese People’s Party

Following the beginnings of the unity that had been called for by theNational Syrian Congress for the Levant (Palestine, Syria, Lebanon), in 1922the Lebanese journalist Iskander al-Riashi brought out the first newspaper inArabic, with the romantic title of The Errant Journalist (Al-Sahafi al-Ta’eh).Based in the city of Zhale (Bekaa), Al-Riashi imbued the newspaper with hisown partisan spirit, influenced by the Egyptian Communist Party, with theaim of exposing the poverty and hardship experienced by tobacco workers inthe Bekaa area. This area soon became the epicentre for the most energetic

92 Rosa Velasco Muñoz

trade unionism, which the journalist also supported. And so, thanks to Riashiand his contributors, a link was created between the incipient communism inthe country and a highly educated unionism. It was important that thenewspaper should give a voice to intellectuals who were already viewingthe Russian Revolution as the example to follow, in order to bring an end tothe system that had been imposed and the local economic elites. While theywere not eminent Marxist-Leninist theorists themselves, they did not hesitateto debate the Soviet praxis, and the objective of the proletariat taking power.Consequently, they advocated the creation of a strong political movementthat would be situated in the vanguard, and which would bring togetherexploited workers with a society that was unhappy with colonial imposition.

The newspaper became an intellectual-dissident reference point, with theeditors’ approach of limiting it to a select Christian minority (Kaminsky &Kruk, 1984: 18). And on 24 October 1924, it was contributors to the news-paper The Errant Journalist, headed by Youssef Ibrahim Yazbek and FuadChemali,8 who founded the first party in Lebanon with communist leanings –the Lebanese People’s Party (LPP). The connection between the new partyand the newspaper was made clear in this declaration by Yazbek:

We can safely say that this newspaper and its owner were two importantfactors in organizing my way of thinking. The initial stage of com-mencement of the Marxist, and particularly the communist intellect,should be called the al Sahafi al-Ta´eh stage. It was our first school forthe theoreticians of the communist movement in Lebanon.

(Ismael & Ismael, 1998: 5)

As for the absence of the term ‘communist’ in the party’s title, this was owingto the practical distance of the USSR and to its passivity towards the FrenchLevant, though it was also due to the views of Yazbek, given that he decidedto distance himself, or not to create a dependency with the Palestine Com-munist Party (PCP), which was now established and led by European Jewishimmigrants.

Following the creation of the new party with communist leanings, Moscowdecided to take a practical approach with the aim of bringing the new orga-nization under its wing, given that the new party’s Levantine leaders made nosecret of the admiration and sympathy they felt for the October Revolution.Thus, in November 1924, Joseph Berger, one of the PCP leaders and a spe-cialist in political-socialist movements in the region (and who was thus wellaware of the ideology of The Errant Journalist’s columnists) travelled toBeirut. Though he initially introduced himself as a Polish journalist, in fact hehad an express mandate from the Comintern that the new LPP should agreeto merge with communism, with all the corresponding nomenclature, thoughnot on an independent basis, but as a branch of the PCP (Flores, 1980b;Ismael & Ismael, 1998: 7,8,230; Kaminsky & Kruk, 1984: 18–24). Yazbekand Chemali’s initial reaction was a firm desire to maintain the independence


of the Lebanese party, while adhering to the materialist principles set by theUSSR.9

The LPP’s principles are expressed thus by the party’s creators:

We have founded a party under the name the Lebanese People’s Partywith the aim of helping, by all possible means, to develop industry, agri-culture and trade in the Lebanon, to propagate the spirits of fraternityamong the Lebanese nation, to stop the clergy from using their influenceat the expense of the public good, to support national schools and unifythe secular education programme, to bring together workers and farmworkers in trade unions to defend their common interests, to use all ourinfluence to make sure that capital and inheritance are duly taxed, toensure that Waqf assets are viewed as national assets under the control ofthe government, and to promote women’s emancipation.

(Couland, 1969: 105)

2.2 The launch of the Syrian-Lebanese Communist Party

In 1925, while French military power deployed all its strength against theDruze-led resistance, the Comintern remained inactive. This was basicallybecause of the priority that the ‘China question’ represented at that time, whilstacknowledging the importance of the liberation movement directed at the anti-colonial struggle (Kaminsky & Kruk, 1984). Meanwhile the LPP, strengthenedby the impetus of the Druze Mountain uprising, was gaining supporters andChemali was given the task of bringing the strongest and most revolutionarysector of the union movement into the organization. Later on, in a self-criticismthat was probably excessive, Yazbek declared that while the elite who hadlaunched communism in the French Levant had ‘the Marxist revolution’ astheir objective, their practical work in this respect was being implementedwithout rhyme or reason (‘We were going on haphazardly’ (Ismael & Ismael,1998: 9)). To some extent, in the early days of their political activities, theseactivist-intellectuals advocated the enthusiastic Hegelian image that ideas couldchange the world, though they were soon brought down to earth, to involvethemselves in the problems of exploited workers. In 1925, Yazbek also revealedthe variances and ambiguities of the movement in its early days:

Some of us have participated in the establishment of the first Arab-ledcommunist party in the East. But was there among us somebody whoscientifically and truly understood Marxism? Was there any of us whoread Lenin? Or who has at least read his eternal directive study What Isto Be Done?


Meanwhile, we should mention a group of Armenian activists who, in the early1920s, began championing socialist ideas, using the Bolshevik Revolution as a


benchmark. These young men, who were mainly based in Beirut, formed partof an Armenian league which was linked together under the name of Sparta-cus. Led by Artine Madoyan and Aram Yératzian, in January 1925 they dis-solved the movement to join the ranks of the LPP, after jointly celebrating MayDay. This led to the creation of a new, joint political party – the CommunistParty of Syria and Lebanon (CPSL).10 The party’s central committee estab-lished its statutes in Beirut at the organization’s first conference, on 10 Decem-ber 1925 (Kaminsky & Kruk, 1984: 19). Youssef Ibrahim Yazbek was chosenas the party’s secretary-general. Years later, the workers’ leader Chemalideclared that the objective of the new party had been to promote a radicaleconomic transformation for Syria and Lebanon (and their unity), under thetransformative praxis of USSR communism.

We called it the Syrian Lebanese Socialist Party … Based on the ThirdInternational, the party aims at handing over as early as possible, when-ever there is an opportunity, the ruling power to the proletariat andfarmers. This is the cornerstone of our principles. We are nothing but thespokesman of the oppressed working class.


The CPSL supported the uprising in Syria led by the Sultan Pasha al-Atrash,and their communiqués on the subject (broadcast in Arabic, French andArmenian) stated that the rebellion was taking place in coordination with ‘theinternational communist movement’ in support of ‘the great Syrian revolution’((Ismael & Ismael, 1998: 14; Barakat, 1993: 174). But after the uprising hadbeen brutally put down by General Maurice Sarrail, the communists werepersecuted, their newspaper was closed down and the leading figures wereimprisoned or sent into exile (until the 1928 amnesty law). However, the partybecame effective at operating underground, and it kept its rank-and-file mem-bers on the alert. It even succeeded in holding a secret conference that wasattended by leaders of the PCP, loyal supporters of the Soviet official line. Itwas in 1928, now headed by the resourceful trade union leader Fuad Chemali,that the CPSL publicly joined the Comintern, which to some extent granted ita certain amount of independence from the PCP, though they continued tohave close relations for a while (Ismael & Ismael, 1998: 19; L’Orient Le Jour, 5February 2007).

The acronymic union of Lebanese and Syrian communists had been promotedby Moscow through the PCP and the actions of Joseph Berger and Paole Sîon,who, thanks to their Marxist-Leninist discourse (with full awareness and per-fectly structured), succeeded in moderating the intellectual Yazbek’s reservationsabout the Palestinian communist leaders.11 Meanwhile, Chemali, who was muchmore practical (a veteran of Egypt) and who had a ground-level ideologicalvision that was linked with the rank-and-file of the workers’ organizations, wasmuch more open to the idea of receiving support and guidance from the Pales-tinian communists. And so in 1931, both parties – the Syrian-Lebanese


Communist Party and its Palestinian counterpart – held a joint congress todeclare to the world, with one voice, their unwavering adherence to the rulings ofthe 6th International Communist Congress. Moscow’s directives did not allowambiguity or apathy, as a result of which the joint proclamation by the congressparticipants (and which was very much to Chemali’s liking) focused on theobligation to carry out an active struggle against the national bourgeoisies bymeans of a common front of ‘workers and farmers, to defeat capitalism andimperialism’. All this was to be carried out within a regional united framework,so as to also solve ‘the Arab national question’ (Kaminsky & Kruk, 1984: 19;Gallissot, 1978: 24–5).

During Chemali’s tenure as secretary-general (1926–32), the CPSL evolvedtowards the Bolshevik re-education of its members, the numbers of which hadincreased thanks to class unionism. This produced new cells that were parti-cularly active in Beirut, Tripoli and Damascus, and within the socio-economiccontext of the Great Depression. The alliance between unionism and theparty was particularly visible at the demonstrations in March 1931 to protestagainst high electricity prices. Thanks to the mobilization of the CPSL,working together with the affected workers, a 40 percent reduction in energyprices was finally achieved (Yehya, 2015: 257).

Chemali’s time at the head of the party came to an end when the SyrianKurd Khalid Bakdash took power, supported by a group of young menwhom Moscow rapidly re-educated in Marxist-Leninist ideology, at the sametime as they were properly screened by the prevailing Stalinism. Thus inNovember 1932, Fuad Chemali was uncompromisingly expelled from theparty. Tareq and Jacqueline Ismael (1989) argue that his expulsion marked aturning point for the party, and led to a break between the communists inSyria and Lebanon. Without doubt, Chemali had succeeded in opening upthe party and making it an organization that was visible not only to the pro-letariat but also to a part of Levantine society that refused to accept either theoutdated colonialism or the liberalism that existed to serve the ruling elites.Meanwhile, Yazbek’s highly attractive intellectual-idealistic touch (or aura)had persisted during Chemali’s period of leadership thanks to the party press.

At the age of just 20, after having spent two years in Moscow immersinghimself in Marxist-Stalinist revolutionary principles, Khalid Bakdash ejectedChemali from the party. Bakdash was an important actor in the party’s splitin 1944, and later on he gained absolute leadership of the Syrian CommunistParty, where he would undergo several major upheavals, including his con-frontation with Nasser and the latter’s conception of the United ArabRepublic. During Bakdash’s time at the head of the CPSL, the party began todisengage from the PCP (which was, in turn, in conflict and heading for asplit), to look towards the French Communist Party, in addition to adoptingthe Moscow directives.

Undoubtedly Bakdash believed at the time that his French counterpartwould use his influence in Paris to bring about the disintegration of theMandates;12 however, this division of his affections (along a Paris–Moscow


axis) resulted in some serious conflicts, to the point of certain changes ofcourse. For example, in September 1939, when, after Hitler and Stalin hadsigned their Nonaggression Pact, the CPSL found itself obliged to ‘under-stand it’ (for the moment), while at the same time it condemned ‘Frenchimperialism’. Thus, a critical situation took place in the party – it wasbanned, its organ of communication propaganda was shut down and its mostvisible leaders were arrested (Nehmé, 1984; Kaminsky & Kruk, 1984; Yehya,2015: 301).

While Léon Blum’s rise to power in the Popular Front (1936–8) led theCPSL towards an ailing bipolarity that was difficult to maintain (before eitherParis or Moscow), it was soon consolidated in an unconditional alliance withRussian communism. Meanwhile, during the harsh years of repression by theruling power, the party maintained its visibility among the urban strata,which turned it into a resistance benchmark against colonialism. And fol-lowing the creation of the Antifascist League (1938), the Lebanese-Syriancommunists succeeded in approaching important non-affiliated figures whogave it their support. However, during the period of pro-French expectation(or alliance with the French Communist Party), the Levantine communists,headed by Bakdash, clashed with the nationalist movements which, for theirpart, were still calling for independence from the metropolis. What is more, inLebanon’s national election in 1937, the party did not obtain any seats,despite being relatively well established and the respect it had garnered.

3 Two countries, two parties: the Lebanese Communist Partyand the Syrian Communist Party

In the Lebanese elections in 1943, none of the four communist candidatesmanaged to gain a seat, despite having run an electoral campaign that wasrather mild or ambiguous, in the sense that it presented itself as an organi-zation that sought to introduce moderate democratic reforms, and withoutresorting to such strategies as nationalizing foreign companies (Dutra Junior,2014: 345). During this election, progressive voters proved reluctant to trust aparty that had flirted with France via the Popular Front, albeit only brieflyand under the assumption that it would help to bring about independence forthe nation. But above all, what weighed on the party was its image of anorganization that was firmly established within Moscow communism. Theunderstanding shown by the party’s leaders for the Berlin–Moscow Pact hadnot been forgotten, though in fact it had been purely contextual. This was allexplained in great detail by its communication organ, which subsequentlystarted launching attacks on ‘Hitler’s minions’ in Lebanon and calling for a‘defence of democracy’ against Nazism-fascism (Nordbruch, 2009: 124;Yehya, 2015: 301). Thus it could be said that, to some extent, the term‘communist’ was one that weighed particularly heavily against the party.

In 1943 a Soviet embassy was opened in Beirut, after which contactbetween the two countries increased significantly. In that same year, Lebanon


gained formal (if not real) independence from France, at the same time asGreat Britain increased its meddling in an attempt to wrest territorial powerfrom its European competitor in the region. And in the following year, theCPSL split into two organizations, though the indefatigable Bakdashcontinued to be ‘Moscow’s eye on the Arab world’ (AbuKhalil, 2009).13

During the new phase of separate patriotism, Levantine communism hadto fit into a traumatized environment following the creation of the new ‘arti-ficial’ state, which included the involvement of the major powers and Israel.Meanwhile, the Cold War policies that were transposed onto the regioncaused fresh rifts in the social fabric of each of the independent countries, andthe political parties experienced the pressures of this situation of ideologicalconfrontation.14 Thus, the split between the Syrian-Lebanese communiststook place in a context of independence, and through a formal proposal ofconstant future collaboration between their respective secretariats. Bakdash15

maintained his position as leader of the PCS, and Farajallah el-Helou becamesecretary-general of the LCP, until 1946, when he was ousted by NicolasShawi. The latter was duly replaced by the historic figure Georges Hawi, whowas assassinated in Beirut in 2005.

4 The Communist Party and its adaptation to the context of Lebanon

The LCP was defeated in the 1947 legislative elections, after social acceptancehad failed to translate into support from voters. The party’s official pro-USSRorientation led it once again into critical situations that were hard to explainto the Lebanese people and to Arabs in general. Stalin’s active support at theUnited Nations for the partition of Palestine, and months later the immediaterecognition of the State of Israel, placed the Lebanese communists in a ratherschizophrenic situation. While they respected the Soviet ‘pro-Zionist’ stance,at the same time they made an effort to maintain their commitment to theirprevious position, that Arabs and autochthonous Jews should coexist togetherin one single Palestine state, and they attributed all those who opposed theidea to an imperialist-Zionist conspiracy (specifically, to ‘divide and weakenthe Arabs’). After that, while helplessly putting up with the USSR’s pro-Israeli stance in the 1948 war, the LCP’s most visible line was the con-demnation of the flare-up, while presenting it as a plot devised by KingAbdullah (together with his British allies) to prevent an independent statefrom being established in the Arab part of Palestine (Yehya, 2015: 346;Suleiman, 1967: 88). And now, in what represented a definitive onwardheadlong rush, the LCP declared that the Palestine issue was in fact a struggleagainst Anglo-American imperialism together with the reactionary Arabregime stooges, as a result of which they sent out a call to join forces to pushfor the withdrawal of Arab troops in Palestine.

With this shift that was so visible for the population, the Lebanese com-munist leaders placed themselves on shaky ground, which even time and theircategorical rectification has not eliminated completely. According to Agwani


(1968), the party has been dogged by the ‘stigma’ of this mistake. Never-theless, we should also include a few clarifications in reference to Farajallahel-Helou (1906–59), who stood down as secretary-general of the LCP in 1946.

In the eyes of all Lebanese communists today, el-Helou unquestionably standsfor values that are particularly symbolic and emotive, as well as for politicalrationale. To some extent, the party is currently clinging onto this leader’s stub-born attitude in order to come to terms with and explain a few fragments of itshistory that do not fit into the most current practical-ideological situation.Indeed, when Farajallah el-Helou became leader of the LCP, he did so withoutconcealing his differences in thinking with the Stalinist Bakdash and the fol-lowers of the latter’s political line within the LCP. Though these rifts were notovertly aired for the sake of the party, they were localized in the links that had tobe maintained with the Soviet regime. While Syrian communism and a sig-nificant branch of the Lebanese party were in favour of following every one ofMoscow’s directives to the letter, el-Helou wanted containment, to some extentreturning to the original principles of Marxism-Leninism. Later on, during theinternal debates on the partition of Palestine, and subsequently with the quand-ary of the first Arab-Israeli war, el-Helou tried without success to make his voiceheard in Damascus and Beirut. Meanwhile, he reminded his comrades (drawingon earlier addresses) that the struggle against colonial Zionism was a national-Arab question, and thus the communists in the region should adopt an alignedstance, distancing themselves even from the official directives from Moscow.However, el-Helou’s advice was not heeded, and Lebanon’s communists kept tothe Soviet official line, though at least one specific sector of the party (includingHawi) did not accept it completely.

As for el-Helou’s personal stance, in his opposition to Bakdash with respect tothe partition of Palestine territory and the resulting Arab-Israeli war, there hasbeen speculation (or explanations) about a possible link between the Lebanesepolitician’s autonomy and his assassination in Damascus in 1959. Voices fromwithin his own party have even claimed that Bakdash and the USSRwere linkedin some way to el-Helou’s death, despite the fact that it was organized andcarried out at the time by the union of more interests (Nasserism).16

In 1953, the USSR – led by Khrushchev – began relocating in the MiddleEast, with shows of greater involvement and support for the Arabs (Flores,1980a: 24). This gave the LCP a little breathing space, as the party was nowfree to criticize Zionism-imperialism along with all the despotic regimes in theregion. However, in the late 1950s the party began gaining support in Leba-nese society, and numbers of sympathizers began to increase slightly. Theparty started to gradually detach itself, to some extent, from the working-class aura that Chemali had so deeply instilled in it, to make room for aneducated middle-class minority who had social concerns and a politicallyinternational outlook.17 By the mid-1960s, groups of workers originating fromLebanese developmentalism had joined the party.

Meanwhile, in the Lebanese crisis in 1957–8, the LCP (the views of whichwere in line with those of the USSR) did not hesitate to oppose the Baghdad


Pact, the Eisenhower Doctrine and President Chamoun’s shift towards theWest. However, the party was not officially part of the national agreementdrafted by Saeb Salam and Rachid Karami (Dutra Junior, 2014; Ismael &Ismael, 1998), even though the party’s activists joined in with resistanceactivities against the presence/influence of the United States. Then at onepoint in the flare-up (1958), the party became involved to defend indepen-dence and national cohesion, declaring that the issue over the short term wasnot about establishing a communist or socialist system. The party’s objectivewas to liberate the country from foreign rule influence, and to establish a realparliamentary system in which freedoms would be guaranteed for all – citizenequality based on social justice. In 1965, Nicolas Shawi reiterated thisapproach by emphasizing the party’s route toward socialism through actionsthat were possibilist and crucial for the Lebanese people: progressive reformsin the economic, administrative and political sphere (Dutra Junior, 2014;Rabushka & Shepsle, 2008; Suleiman, 1967).

In the words of the leader Arabi Andari, the 1968 Congress signified ‘theparty’s splitting from past dependencies’ to link its future with the ‘rugged’free spirit of Farajallah el-Helou, ‘the martyr’.18 And the fact is, in the pre-vious year the LCP had undergone a major internal crisis owing to itsdependence on the USSR, when a group of young men led by George Hawiexpressed resistance to the old guard. In the end the situation was redressed,though the USSR accused the rebel of being a ‘CIA agent’, and subsequentlyreduced its ‘financial aid’ to the party, though said funding had never beenparticularly generous (Mroué, 2007).

Until 1975, the LCP – despite having been outlawed and spending periodsof time in the political shadows – managed to infiltrate its thinking intosociety beyond its traditional circles. However, it only managed to do so onceit had reacted to the trauma of the Arab defeat in 1967, and after carryingout a certain amount of self-criticism, vowing to become involved in the ‘Arabnational problem’ and expressing updated social commitments to Lebanon(Nahas, 1980: 8). The intellectual debate took on greater importance. Thus,during the years leading up to the great war of 1975, the communists showedtheir pioneering leadership against the agencies of the religious, unsupportivestate. The LCP informed the people about the union of interests that existedbetween the ruling elites and Christian right-wing parties, which jointlyattacked Palestinian organizations via the national army – an army which,meanwhile, never took action when the country was being attacked by Israeliforces.

However, within the complex ideological fabric of the Left, controversiescontinued to arise, some of them between the communists (as the established,traditional power) and a nouvelle gauche that was highly critical or keen tobring about changes without depending on the past (Nahas, 1980: 8). Thepolitical debates that took place up until the armed outbreak enriched themovement, though at the same time they revealed its weaknesses as a bloc ata critical stage when there was a need for consensus. After the Civil War


broke out (April 1975), all the attention of the parties and their respectivemilitias (including the Palestinians) was focused on the actual war and onthe need to increase their military arsenals. One more immediate result wasthe fact that ideological debate and all those enthusiastic aspirations aboutpolitics as a way of transforming or breaking with the system were forgotten.And changing alliances and opportunities replaced critical thinking.

The USSRwas able to take a broader, more strategic view, while continuingto support or control communism in the Arab Levant. The Soviet leaders sawcertain groups as being potentially favourable for their aspirations; groupswhich, while they claimed to be seeking alternative routes through a ‘newsocialism’ or via an autochthonous nationalism-patriotism, represented out-posts against the neoliberal establishment. In this respect, years later MarieNassif-Debb19 stressed the importance of Soviet support in developing protestmovements. She also noted that bilateral relations had been reached betweenthese emerging groups and the Communist Party to the point that Soviettheorists in Khrushchev’s time submitted specific proposals on the possibilityof achieving change in the region by following a new strategy based on thegeneral idea of ‘the path to non-capitalist development’.20

After the Palestinian Liberation Organisation was established in the countrywith the aim of bringing together ideologically disparate forces, Moscow begandiscussions with each of the Palestinian organizations separately, according toeach specific Lebanese or regional context, within the overall framework of theCold War and maintaining close, supportive links with the most like-mindedmilitias, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, headed byGeorge Habash, one of the LCP’s loyal ideological and military allies.

With regard to resistance to Israeli aggression, it is worth noting that theLCP was a pioneer in organizing itself as a defensive organization with localcitizen forces, when it became involved in 1968 in creating what was knownas the Popular Guard, an armed militia set up to deal with Tzahal attacks inthe south of the country. Furthermore, these southern combatants of Shi’iteorigin, who had suffered greatly from Tzahal’s discretional onslaughts,aligned themselves with the communists out of necessity, given that they hadbecome isolated from any other political parties. Though the other commu-nities now had several organizations claiming to both defend and representthem, the Shi’ites had been abandoned, and were now mired in poverty andmarginalization. Thus, the LCP offered the most immediate respite for theirdifficulties. According to Andari, the party was not only there to fight Israel(‘it defended them’), it also espoused social justice and economic changes(‘they were poor, and they viewed the LCP as the party of the poor’). How-ever, as a result of the strong leadership of the cleric Musa Sadr (Movementof the Disinherited) and later on the resounding emergence of Hezbollah, thecommunity closed in on itself. Even so, there are still some secular Shi’iteactivists who remain loyal to Lebanese communism.21

The party was also part of the Lebanese National Movement (Muslims-Progressives-Palestinians), and during the great invasion of Beirut in 1982, it


was the first political group to commence effective armed resistance againstthe occupying Israeli army. In this respect, we should mention the renowned‘Bustros Pharmacy operation’ in the Sanayeh district, followed by other,interlinked operations, such as the one at Ayyub service station in Blat Zuqaq(Mermier, 2010). Georges Hawi as secretary-general of the LCP and MohsenIbrahim of Communist Action Organisation in Lebanon announced thecreation of a Lebanese National Resistance Front, separate from the Palesti-nian militias that had previously been expelled from the country. Theyemphasized its secular nature and called on the patriotism of the Lebanesepeople to fight under one single flag of resistance against occupation by the‘Israeli enemy’.

5 The Lebanese Communist Party after the Lebanese war

The end of the Lebanese war and the collapse of the USSR happened almostsimultaneously. And in light of this doubly expectant new situation, the LCPwas cast adrift in a crisis from which it could not free itself. The party firmlycontinued to uphold the flag of secularism in a political context dominated byreligious division and having to deal with major internal dissent. Examples ofthe latter include the long-standing leaders Georges Hawi and Elias Atallahin the year 2000, and then Munir Barakat five years later. The rebel factions,whose ideologies were rather vague but who declared themselves to be‘reformist’ (L’Orient-Le Jour, 17 September 2007), demanded that the partyshould be steered towards true ‘democratization’, to leave behind its ‘scleroticorthodoxy’ and the reflex actions of the past, defined as a supposed ‘Stalinistor hard line’ (Nassif, 2000; Diab, 2012).

In 2005, while Lebanese society maximized its sectarian identity into antag-onistic blocs, the LCP experienced a certain bewilderment when it came toclarifying its position on the two dominant axes: on one hand, there was‘Harirism’ (Hattar, 2014), an enemy of Damascus and an ally of the ArabStates of the Persian Gulf and Western capitalism-imperialism led by theUnited States and France (the 14 March Movement); and on the other, therewas the Shi’ite religious-political group headed by Hezbollah, which was infavour of maintaining the presence/influence of Syrian Baathism and of activelycontinuing the armed resistance to Israel (the 8 March Movement). Up untilthe following year, after Tzahal’s aggressions against the country, the commu-nist leaders opted to distance themselves from the 14 March Movement, at thesame time as they aligned themselves with Hezbollah as a necessary nationalresistance force.22 This alignment continued until 2008, when the communistleaders refused to allow themselves to be dragged into battles of politicalShi’itism. In the end, they described the two antagonistic blocs as ‘similar’(Hattar, 2014) in the sense that they both aspired to perpetuate the ‘sectarian-unsupportive state’, with the help of their respective foreign allies.23

Specifically in relation to the ‘Cedar Revolution’ (2005), we should add thatthe LCP did not allow itself to be dragged into the explosive euphoria that


swept through the country. From the outset, the party showed a certainrestraint, given the danger that ‘spontaneous’ mobilizations were being man-aged by imperialist interests seeking to anchor the country within the bloc ofthe United States and its affiliates in the region. With regard to Syria, theLCP showed a consistent approach, calling for an end to the tutelage ofDamascus, while reminding the people that its troops had in fact arrived inLebanon on request from the president (Suleiman Frangie), and that they haddone so to contain the progressive-Palestinian forces of which the LCPformed an active part (1976). It was specifically in May 2005 that the leaderMarie Nassif-Debb sent out a warning about the country’s future, declaringthat no sooner had they done away with Syria’s economic-political-militarypresence, ‘we find ourselves on the point of pulling ourselves apart, but nowunder the watchful eye of our new American, Saudi and French guardians’;powers which, in her view, were pressing to ensure that the religious-unsupportive system carried on undisturbed.

Similarly, we should add that the LCP, as well as traditionally having sup-ported unionism, has also defended the rights of the Lebanese. Marie Nassif-Debb continues to call for greater intervention by women in the fight againstthe national ‘elitocracy’, though from areas of power from which they ‘haveuntil now been shut out’.24 In this respect she admits that her party still has afew outstanding issues: ‘We must also point out that the role of females in ourparty has only partially improved, which impacted negatively on the role offemale communists within municipal councils’.25

And now finally, as a side note, we should mention the concurrence mém-orielle between the LCP and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (Mermier,2010), the old rivalry between the two parties who had been allies during thewar and in the insurgency front of 1982 against Israeli occupation. Thoughthey were fighting on the same side, they sometimes clashed regardless in thecomplex or ‘whimsical’ context of alliances in the Lebanese wars (1975–90).The memory of those ‘little wars’ persists today, never completely silenced. Itwas even present in September’s commemorative events organized to payhomage to the martyrs of 1982.

6 The position of the Lebanese Communist Party in aturbulent regional context

We are convinced that the succinct reply (‘complicated’) given by the leader ArabiAndari to the question about the party’s current relations with the Hezbollahmilitia organization sums up perfectly the hidden workings and contacts betweenthe two parties. And the first discrepancies can be found in the most normal ofeveryday situations: in the way of life. While progressive communist ideology callsfor personal free will, Shi’ite clerics advocate enclosing all the individual’s levelsof existence (public and private) within his own dwelling and religion.

With regard to the other Lebanese parties, the communists take a firmstance regarding championing the dismantling of the sectarian state, as a


result of which they are often excluded from the political-religious game thatpresides over the country. With regard to economic issues, while specificgroups adopt neoliberal-radical postures and others a calculated ambiguity(the game of ‘no position’, as Andari puts it), the LCP calls for in-depthtransformations to the capitalist system and promoting radical social justicefor ‘all citizens’.

If we discreetly investigate the LCP’s views on the conflict in Syria, we willlikewise receive complex responses, though the party’s attitude has never-theless evolved since 2011, when it rejected the repression exerted by the‘dictatorial Baathist’ regime, highlighting the ‘disastrous economic policy’introduced by Bashar al-Asad in favour of ‘neoliberalism’ and which includedsignificant restrictions on unions.26 Since then, before the protraction of theconflict and its militarization, the party leaders have enlarged upon theirexplanations, admitting that the newly incorporated groups were creating‘doubts’ for them, as a result of which now they are openly in favour ofdefeating Islamist terrorism (Jabhat al Nusra and Daesh) (they qualify theirstatements by saying ‘careful about interfering in Syria’). They subsequentlyadmit that the Hezbollah militia has managed to safeguard the Lebaneseborder, adding that communist activists from the Bekaa area are also colla-borating in its defence. Though at the same time, they specify that Hezbollahis losing its exclusive halo of ‘Lebanese resistance’, given that it is showing anexcessive alliance with Iran and with the defence of the al-Asad regime. Thusthey claim that Hezbollah is even running the risk of being perceived as an‘invading’ force while it attempts to take advantage of the old Shi’ite–Sunnisplit. However, the point on which Lebanese communists agree unreservedlywith Hezbollah is to defend the nation by means of firm resistance and withvigilance toward the ‘Zionist state’. The Palestinian cause is a commonstruggle for both, though the Shi’ite organization often operates a little moreopportunistically, or according to its immediate interests, against the ‘Israelienemy’.

With reference to the ‘temporary’ presence of Palestinians in the countrysince 1948, the veteran Maurice Nohra (a passionate historian), advocateslegalizing this through the most essential form of justice, by granting refugees‘all social rights’. The question of nationality, he adds, is something very dif-ferent, given that the Palestinians support them, and that they themselves arecalling for the right to return, as a result of which the LCP continues todemand (as do the refugees themselves) compliance with international law inthis respect. Nohra concludes with two specific synopses: a warning thatLebanon’s current problem is linked with other refugees, those arriving fromthe war in Syria; and secondly, a call for communists to adopt as theirobjective ‘one single’ national-Lebanese patriotism, a patriotism that isauthentic, secular, supportive and without religious flags of power.

In closing, we could say that Lebanon’s communists remain faithful to theaxiom of their comrade ‘martyr’ Mehdi Amel: ‘You are not defeated as longas you are resisting’ (Al-Saadi, 2014). And even though dissenting sectors


accuse the party of having lost the initiative and of simply reacting to eventsin the political-social setting, the leaders maintain that the party is still firmlybehind all oppressed workers, ‘as it always has been’, as well as being on thefrontline in support of all citizens’ protest movements.

Notes1 The USSR finally became a member of the League of Nations in 1933.2 The Baku Conference (or the ‘Congress of the Peoples of the East’ (1920)). Out of

the more than 2,000 participants, only three were Arabs; no record exists as towhether or not they spoke at the event (Chabrier, 1985; Broué, 1997).

3 Edward Said quotes a comment by Marx, ‘They cannot represent themselves, theymust be represented’, and goes on to add that certain types of ‘orientalism’ can befound in Flaubert, Victor Hugo, Renan, Conrad and in the works of Marx himself(Said, 2004: 45).

4 We can find a connection between the thinking of these first ‘socialists’ from theLevant and that of the magazine Al-Muqtataf. Created in Beirut in 1876 by twogreat intellectual-scientists, Fares Nimr and Yacoub Sarrouf, and linked with theAmerican University of Beirut (Centre for Freedom of Thought).

5 In July 1920, General Gouraud quashed the revolt against French rule and occu-pied Damascus (the Battle of Meysalum).

6 Gérard Khoury shows how France went from deploying a grand politique of ententecordial with the Turkish Empire and its spatial-political designs for the Middle Eastto involving itself in the formation of isolated spaces under its direct control: thecreation of Greater Lebanon, or a territory that was ‘Christian-protected’ from theadvance of Arab nationalism (Khoury, 1993).

7 In his dissertation on Arab nationalism and Marxism, Maxime Rodinson speaksabout colonialism, describing its ‘significant events’ which had a ‘positive’ effect oncolonial impact; he declares that Marxism was one of the most important expres-sions (critical thought) against the established order of the colonized countries(Rodinson, 1972). Rodinson (1941–7) gave courses on Marxism to Syrian-Lebanesecommunists.

8 Chemali was expelled by the English authorities from Egypt in August 1923 for hisactivism in the Egyptian Communist Party and for his trade union work inAlexandria involving Lebanese workers in the city.

9 Later, under a new acronym, Berger would be responsible for connecting theLebanese-Syrian communists with the Comintern.

10 On 15 May of that year, the CPSL published its first newspaper, Al-Insaniyah(Humanity), to be used for the purposes of propaganda and awareness-raising. Theheader included the following line: ‘Al-insaniya is your diary, worker, read it andhave it read’. The French authorities soon shut the newspaper down under theauspices of a new law (1937–9) (Couland, 1969: 60; Flores, 1980b; Dutra Junior,2014: 231–2).

11 According to Agwani (1968) and Flores (1980b), the leaders of the PCP were allJews. The party’s activists were also predominantly Jewish (Ismael & Ismael, 1998).

12 The promise of independence was reaffirmed when the USSR recognized FreeFrance.

13 Bakdash became the first communist to gain representation in an Arab parliament(Damascus 1954).

14 Agwani (1968) summarizes the main participants in the partisan-regional ideolo-gical conflict thus: ‘Baath’s socialism, Nasserism, communism and Islamicresurrectionism’.


15 The indefatigable Bakdash managed to maintain the leadership of Syrian commun-ism until his death (1995), even though the party underwent a schism led by YusufFaisal in 1985. The latter, who aligned himself with Mikhail Gorbachev, gave voiceto a new organization: the Syrian Communist Party (Unified). After Bakdash’sdeath, he was succeeded as secretary-general by his widow, the long-standing activistWissal Farha Bakdash, until her death (2012). Finally, their son, Ammar Bakdash,followed in his parents’ footsteps to become leader of the Syrian Communist Party.

16 We should point out that the events mainly presented here refer to the fact thatFarajallah el-Helou was called upon by Bakdash to take over as head of the Syrianparty, given that Bakdash had to go into exile because he was being hounded byNasser’s intelligence services. No sooner had he arrived in Syria than el-Helou wasspotted by the state secret services, imprisoned and tortured to death. Speaking onthis subject, Maurice Nohra, a long-standing figure from the LCP, spoke withgreat emotion of how Farajallah remained fearless during interrogation, refusingto give away any of his comrades. He only became agitated when he noticed thepresence of his comrade Rafik Reda, whom he declared to be ‘the traitor’ who hadcommunicated Farajallah’s arrival in Syria to ‘the Baathist-Nasserist intelligenceservices … He simply looked at him disdainfully and spat on the floor’ (from aconversation with Maurice Nohra in Beirut, LCP headquarters, October 2016).

17 Suleiman (1967: 76) estimates that 50–70 percent of the party’s supporters were nottypically working class.

18 Taken from conversations with Arabi Andari at the LCP headquarters (October2016). Andari is a member of the politburo.

19 From 1970 to 1979, Marie Nassf-Debb formed part of the LCP leadership in theGreater Beirut region; she was head of youth affairs and a journalist for thenewspaper ANNIDA and the magazine Al Akhbar. She also took part in thecreation of a union for secondary school teachers (1974).

20 From a speech by Marie Nassif, deputy secretary-general of the PCL, at the‘L’Avante’ festival in Portugal (8 September 2012): http://lepcf.fr/La-lutte-et-les-defis-des-peuples.

21 Omar Deeb (a member of the politburo) claims that the party maintains its secularprinciples to the letter. Party membership is communist above all, regardless of aperson’s local or family sense of belonging. He also stated: ‘It is Lebanese patri-otism that holds members together, in addition to communist ideology’ (from aninterview at LCP headquarters, Beirut – 2016).

22 Khaled Hadade, then (2014) secretary-general of the PCL, declared that the breakwith the movement led by Hariri was owing to the latter’s ‘suspect position’(Hattar, 2014) during the attacks by Israel in 2006.

23 Andari also claimed that the Shi’ite party of Nabih Berri (Amal) represents‘corruption’ par excellence (interview in Beirut, October 2016).

24 Nassif-Debb in a Barcelona conference on ‘Arab revolutions: democracy, socialrights, secularism and the role of women’ (9–11 May 2011).

25 Lecture by Marie Nassif-Debb in Brussels: ‘On the role of communists in thestruggle for the parity and emancipation of women’ (26 March 2010): http://focusonsocialism.ca/random.asp?ID=401.

26 Andari (interview in Beirut, October 2016).

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Le Mouvement social, 68.Daoud, Zakya (1999) Abdelkrim: une épopée d’or et de sang, Paris, Séguier Editions.De Ausburgo, O. (1956) ‘Tres meses de política internacional, 01-01-1966 Ediciones

Cultura Hispánica, Madrid’. Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, 74.Diab, Afif (2012) ‘Munir Barakat: Stories from Lebanon’s Communist Divide’. Al

Akhbar, 30 November, http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/14190Dutra Junior, José Ailton (2014) O Líbano e o nacionalismo árabe (1952–1967): o

nasserismo como projeto para o mundo árabe e o seu impacto no Líbano, São Paulo,Universidade de São Paulo, Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas.

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monde arabe, Paris, Les Editions ouvrières.Hattar, Nahed (2014) ‘The Lebanese Communist Party: The Secret to Constant Fail-

ure’. Al Akhbar, 24 October, http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/lebanese-communist-party-secret-constant-failure

Ismael, Tareq Y. & Ismael, Jacqueline S. (1998) The Communist Movement in Syriaand Lebanon, Gainesville, FL, University Press of Florida.

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6 The Syrian Communist PartyPatrimonialism and fractures

Rosa Velasco Muñoz

The rise of the Syrian Communist Party (SCP), as we saw in Chapter 5, wasconnected to the Syrian-Lebanese political group, until they split. Chemali’stenure as secretary general of the Syrian-Lebanese Communist Party (SLCP)ended once the Syrian Khalid Bakdash took absolute control of the organi-zation (1932). At the same time, Bakdash adopted a firm-handed approach toshift the party’s focus towards the prevailing Stalinist principles of that time.1

This produced inconsistencies in governance and ideologies that were hard toexplain, especially to Lebanese leaders who were inclined towards taking asofter line and distancing themselves more from Moscow. Nevertheless, whilethey were together, the Syrian-Lebanese communists were highly active inpolitical, social and literary initiatives; particularly worthy of note is theirinvolvement in the forming of the Antifascist League (1943) which, while itwas also backed by other political groups, the party was responsible forsetting up and managing.

Thus the union of Levantine communism came to an end in 1944; ‘Twocountries, two parties’ was the slogan for the rupture, which was perfectlyaccepted by both movements.2 However, as secretary general of the SCP,Bakdash became the leading figure of communism in the region, and in 1954he gained a seat in the parliament in Damascus. His forceful personality,together with his versatility in times of need (as he himself put it) enabled himto revive the party and to transpose his influence onto a society with expec-tations for the future. However, the communist leader initially had to over-come the bad name he had gained as a result of his unquestioning support forthe Soviet Union (USSR) in the debates over the creation of the State ofIsrael in historic Palestine.

1 The SCP in independent Syria

Syria gained its independence from France in 1946, though it would continueto be affected by the complex meddling of other external actors. Especiallywhen, the following year, the country had to face a specific threat – the crea-tion of Israel as a new ‘colonialist’ regional dysfunction, and which was sup-ported from its very inception by the old European powers, the United States

(USA) and the USSR. Damascus declared this threat to be a ‘new form ofimperialist expansion’ that represented a direct attack on Syrian territory andinterests, and which would prevent the future construction of a great Pan-Arab state with uninterrupted territory. Thus, the ‘struggle for Syria’ wasprolonged during the entire Cold War, a lengthy period during which timeWashington and Moscow competed throughout the region to reaffirm theirhegemony through the modern ‘state system’ (Quilliam, 1997; Sapag, 2017).

At the same time, after it had overcome the League of Nations mandate,this Levantine country was based on a predominantly agricultural-largelandowners economy3 which was in need of a national democratic revolution,given that during the French period, the ‘social question’ had been sub-ordinated to the ‘national question’ of independence4 (Schad, 2005). Whilethis prioritizing of liberation tended to unify national solidarity, it was led bypowerful persons and landowners who made every attempt to contain anysocial protest or outcry in the rural areas under their control. However, earlier(in the 1920s), a kind of associationism had been successfully developed whichwas closer to the system of traditional guilds than to the trade unions of theWestern world (Schad, 2005). This consisted of small groups of artisans andworkers, who while they were initially conditioned by the bourgeois ideologyof the economic elites, called for better wages, improved health conditions inthe workplace and the right to strike. The subsequent rise in mobilizations ledParis to attempt to control the movement, and thus in 1935 a decree wasenacted that was aimed at regulating the formation of professional associa-tions which grouped business owners together with workers.5 From that pointon, under the provisions of the ambiguous law decreed by the metropolis, newworkers began joining the officially established organizations, though theyalso joined unions that had been declared illegal, and which espoused aMarxist-Leninist ideology.

Then immediately after the Second World War, a minor industry emergedthat was linked with large-estate landowner agriculture, cotton, glass, phos-phates and soap. As a direct result, the still emerging working classes basedparticularly in Damascus and Aleppo (Seale, 1988) began to gain visibilitywhen they joined together in independent unions that protested for workers’rights, and which resulted in the SCP expanding its proselytism as it madeitself a rallying point for the workers’ protests (Gallissot, 1978).

2 The SCP and its connections with the USSR

To begin with, it should be mentioned that Russia’s strategic interests in Syriadated back a long way into the past. In fact, they began to take shape in theninth century, through the cultural-religious expansion of Orthodox Chris-tianity (Laqueur, 1957; Pichon, 2013, 2014; Sapag, 2017), while during theOttoman age the czarist regime tried unsuccessfully to realize an old ambitionof expanding into the Middle East through Greater Syria. After the Revolu-tion in 1917, the new USSR only tried to gain a foothold in the region by


means of a series of weak communist parties that were beginning to emerge,and which Russia tried to keep under her stewardship. But it was after thedeath of Stalin6 when Soviet diplomacy came to the forefront and began tocompete openly and influence Arab pro-independence movements. Thisincluded the bourgeois nationalism/pan-Arabism that prevailed in the region,the proponents of which did not hesitate to take a utilitarian approachtowards Moscow, and using the following continuist mantra: ‘We want yourweapons, but we renounce your ideas’ (Pichon, 2013).

As for the SCP leader Khalid Bakdash, it is worth noting that during thetime of Stalin (until 1953) he acquiesced, either out of conviction or discipline,to the USSR’s (questionable) designs towards the Middle East. As a result ofthis, he unhesitatingly accepted the idea of Moscow becoming involved in thecreation of the State of Israel, under the Stalinist vision which would serveMoscow’s interests through the links that existed with Jewish-Russian leaders.7

However, Israel’s rapid connection with the USA soon revealed that Stalin’spolicy had failed (Ulianova, 2005), at the same time as it left the Arab com-munist parties in a position of weakness and disrepute, and especially Bakdash,the ‘eloquent Kurd’ (Seale, 1988), as their leading representative in the region.Khrushchev’s rise to supreme power represented (as he said himself) ‘an inter-esting challenge’ after the Kremlin’s decision to interact on an equal basis withthe ‘bourgeois states’, and specifically to strengthen the international influenceof the new USSR in her mission in the Middle East, even though it wasannounced via the rhetoric of helping the people to throw off ‘the yoke of theirservile dependence on their colonialist masters’ (Kruschef, 1970: 438). How-ever, there is no doubt that the connections between the USSR and Syria haveresulted from alliances of interests that have been reaffirmed over the course oftime, albeit despite the Stalinist decision to distance itself and to intercede tohelp found Israel in historic Palestine (Pichon, 2014).

As for the Syrian communists, in 1954, together with rebel soldiers and theBa’ath Party, they actively collaborated in the overthrow of the conservativecolonel and president Adib Shishakli. This led to the SCP leaders and acti-vists who had been imprisoned or forced into exile returning to politicalactivity, and they joined forces with the other perpetrators of the coup tocreate a National Front that had nationalist tendencies and rejected anyinterference by the West. Moscow’s diplomats immediately grasped the newsituation, realizing that the Cold War in the Levantine nation could shift intheir favour. Washington, meanwhile, became immediately concerned by theprogressive pro-Soviet feeling in the country and the advance of the specificcommunism led by Khalid Bakdash.8

Indeed, by 1955 the status of the USSR had made great gains in Syria, andBakdash, its leading representative, had become the region’s first communistmember of parliament, after having won a seat in the Syrian parliament theprevious year by a margin of 11,000 votes (Heikal, 1978: 48). This resultshowed the prestige that the leader enjoyed among the people, just like theideology he represented. We should add that the SCP’s effective strategy

The Syrian Communist Party 111

consisted of cautiously aligning itself with the nationalist parties in order toestablish a joint anti-imperialist force that rejected the West, though withoutthe party renouncing its Marxist-Leninist principles, with a view to the future.One might say that Bakdash was skilled in the deployment of a highly per-ceptive tactical Machiavellism; while he presented himself as a man of thestate who was open to dialogue and was also able to play down the imme-diacy of scientific Marxism (international goal), he also joined forces ‘with alltrue nationalists’ to find common ground and to collaborate exclusively inSyria’s interests (national goal). The USSR, meanwhile, on the same fre-quency as the Syrian communist leader, remained lukewarm with respect tothe expansion of Marxist orthodoxy, in order to promote the implementationof economic and military projects in the region. Thus the USSR tookadvantage of the opportunity that benefited the main objective of her foreignpolicy at the time: to gain territory and weaken the enemy Western powers(Buss, 1970; Ismael & Ismael, 1998; Kruschef, 1970; Pichon, 2014).

Bakdash’s nationalist proposals, emphasizing the innate specificity of eachcountry, are expressed in one of his speeches at that time:

Our program (our grand aims) … to strengthen the foundations of inde-pendence and sovereignty … to participate in strengthening world peace;and to challenge imperialist conspiracies … to spread democracy andstrengthen it; to liberate our economy and work to improve it; to reformour agriculture; to raise the standard of living of workers, peasants andall toilers. After the achievement of national democratic liberation, weopen the door to a higher stage of scientific socialism … admits that theroad of each nation toward socialism must be consistent with the char-acteristics of each nation and with its historic evolution, economicconditions and the other national specificities of the society.

(Bakdash in parliament in Damascus in 1955; Ismael & Ismael, 1998)

The scope of the Baghdad Pact, which was rushed through by the USA, andthe USSR’s involvement in Egypt, which Khrushchev declared was to ‘aid theNasser government and the Arab people’ (Kruschef, 1970),9 led the SCP tocontinue with its ambiguous position, claiming that both specific Arab social-ism and nationalism could contain revolutionary potential, at the same time asthe party welcomed the idea that the national bourgeoisie was moving awayfrom the dominant imperialism (Agwani, 1968). With that in mind, when in1958 the Syrian Ba’ath Party (backed by the armed forces) and the Egyptianpresident Abdel Nasser agreed on an alliance of mutual interests (regional/anti-communist) and a union between Egypt and Syria in the form of theUnited Arab Republic (UAR), the Syrian communists found themselves caughtin a trap, while being well aware of the way the Nasser regime was suppressingtheir Egyptian comrades. As a result, they felt obliged to put up stiff opposition(now operating from underground) to this unequal union for Nasser’s exclusivebenefit, and which they believed should never have taken place.


Even prior to this, Bakdash had distrusted the Egyptian ruler, in spite ofthe aura of victory that had radiated from him since the Suez crisis, and hedid not hesitate to brand Nasser as a ‘US agent and a pawn of Egyptian bigbusiness’, while describing his political system as ‘pharaonic imperialism’10

(Abdel-Malek, 1966). Meanwhile, Bakdash emphasized the polarization of noreturn that existed between the bourgeois Arab movement (‘a petty bourgeoisconglomerate’) and the radical liberation movement, or ‘scientific’ model ofcommunism of the USSR (Buss, 1970 (Agwani, 1968). Inevitably, the SCPleader had to go into exile, where he remained until 1966, when the radicalwing of the Ba’ath Party came to power.

3 The SCP and its links with Ba’athism

The period when the SCP expressed a certain deference toward the bourgeoisparties (which, Bakdash claimed, were plagued by ‘subjective idealism’ (Buss,1970)), ended at the same time as the persecution of the party and its leadersbegan to worsen. But at the same time, after the creation of the UAR,and as a consequence of Nasser’s iron grip (Agwani, 1968; Seale, 1988), theBa’ath Party was rerouted into ineffectiveness with the consent of its mainleaders and co-founders, Salah Bitar and Michel Aflaq. However, they sooncame to see Nasser as an ambitious absolutist who would not agree to anyform of power sharing, while he considered Syria to be a mere islet underEgyptian rule. Thus in 1959, in a situation of tension and growing resent-ment, sectors of the Syrian army staged a frustrated and inconsequentialuprising, as a result of which the UAR only managed to limp on for anothertwo years, by dint only of Nasser’s determination. This situation lasted until atriumphant coup backed by political parties (including the Ba’athists and theSCP) led to the dismantling of the UAR, and with it the definitive demise ofthe dream of unity ‘of millions of Arabs’ (Corm, 2016). With regard to Syria,at home they did not hesitate to blame the inept political elites for the failureof the unity project, but not the ‘great Nasser’. Even so, two years later anattempt was made to create a new ephemeral entelechy: the tripartite unionbetween Egypt, Syria and Iraq. From that point on, the great nationalists(called thus because they were in favour of a global unified Arab plan) inevi-tably ceded power to the more pragmatic regionalists, or to those who heldthe view that the Syrian nation was an independent entity, operating alone(and one of whom was Hafez al-Assad).

We should add that for the SCP, and for Khalid Bakdash, Arab unity wasnever a priority objective, though he would sometimes use it to explain hisview of the great bourgeois nationalisms. At the same time, he always con-sidered them to be chauvinist and mediocre owing to their reluctance to col-laborate with the USSR and the other socialist countries (Nehmé, 1984).Meanwhile, the USSR under Khrushchev (1955–64) did not hesitate to pro-vide support in the form of arms to Arab governments that had come topower through petty bourgeois-nationalist movements (Buss, 1970), and


whom, once they were established in government, focused their energies onsuppressing the national communist parties. The Soviet leader did not con-sider this contradiction to be of any importance, given that the armed rein-forcing of the Arab countries signified a weakening of ‘the colonialists’, whilstexpanding the USSR’s sphere of influence in the region (Kruschef, 1970).

But without doubt the glory days of the Syrian communists was when theirsecretary general took his place in parliament in 1954–8; a unique moment,when Bakdash enjoyed the support of the influential colonel Afif al-Bizri andthe prime minister Khalid al-Azm. This was due to the fact that he hadrevealed the real threat that Israel and Western imperialism represented toSyrian society, and even more so after the shift towards the political left thattook place after the Suez crisis (1956). The SCP also benefited from itsentente cordiale with the Ba’athists, as a result of which the party’s accep-tance and prestige grew within the country (Isaac, 2009). However, in the endthis unexpected growth in the SCP’s popularity led the Syrian Ba’ath Party todistrust and to be on the defensive with regard to the communists. Undoubt-edly, this anti-communist pre-emption helped to bring about the temporaryalliance between Nasser and the leaders of Syrian nationalism, who weremindful of the progress the communists were making.

Following the demise of the UAR (1961) the SCP was in a position of greatweakness, with only a few hundred disconcerted party members and theirleader abroad in forced exile. The new government that had been establishedafter the 1963 coup, consisting of a ‘tricky’ coalition of Ba’athists and nos-talgic Nasserites (Seale, 1988), kept the SCP persecuted and forced to operatefrom underground. Khalid Bakdash only succeeded in returning to Damascusafter a new radical military uprising three years later, now supported by aBa’athist sector that opposed the governing Ba’athists (Buss, 1970). But hewas able to return thanks to direct pressure from Moscow on the Ba’athistleaders, and under very strict conditions that he should not return to politicalactivity11 (Ramet, 1990; Seale, 1988). The communist leader was obliged toaccept this without objection owing to his faithful adherence to all Sovietrulings. And above all bearing in mind the fact that the USSR was makingdefinite progress in Syria (its client state), as it had become clear that theSoviets would unhesitatingly support Ba’athism economically and militarily,even if it were only out of cold pragmatism: in order to gain control over thecountry’s various mechanisms of power. Furthermore, over the course oftime, even though Damascus continued to distrust the Syrian communists,Moscow even gave its unquestioning support to the Ba’athists in a scenario ofgrowing economic and military partnerships (Sapag, 2017: 132), especiallyafter Egypt’s shift (under Sadat) towards Washington’s policies in the region.And this was despite the fact that Ba’athism showed itself to be ambiguousand contradictory in the way it linked ‘Arab socialism’ (‘a utopian conglom-erate’, according to Bakdash) with the ‘scientific socialism’ rhetorically pro-claimed by the Soviet leaders (Buss, 1970). Thus, the USSR continued to actwith a view to its rivalry with Western powers, which meant that Syria’s


strategic position was the key, situated as it was on the eastern side of theMediterranean and representing a point where three continents converged(Quilliam, 1997; Laqueur, 2016). Certainly, the USSR never considered thepossibility that its regional power strategy might include a certain amount ofdisdain or lack of consideration towards its sister party, which in turn wasunfailingly loyal to Moscow.

Once authorized to return to Damascus (1966), Khalid Bakdash becameaware of the rapport his party had developed with the Ba’athist leaders inpower (al-Baker, 2011), as well as the latter’s attempts to align with certainsocialist practices aimed at eliminating the power of the bourgeoisie and thedefeated Ba’athist old guard. Thus the communist leader supported the reg-ular meetings between SCP members and radical Ba’athists, in the hope thatthey would be able to create, in accordance with the latter’s views, one singlevanguard party that could defeat the entrenched bourgeois powers. He evenwent so far as to request that Soviet policies should be introduced (undeviatingly)for agriculture and defence.

And virtually at the same time, in the debates at the 13th Communist Partyof the Soviet Union (CPSU) Congress (March–April 1966) on the subject ofhow communists should interact with the bourgeois nationalists, Bakdashopenly stated his mistrust and repudiation of those whom he considered to beSoviet ‘optimists’ or ‘revisionists’ for defending at all costs their cooperationwith what he called ambiguous Arab governments, and while claiming thatpetty bourgeois elements could pave the way to scientific socialism (Buss,1970). Without any doubt, in this period, the communist leader showed thathe had no qualms and would make no concessions whatsoever, just like theorthodox Leninist he had always presented himself as. At the same time, hewarned of Moscow’s shift towards the bourgeoisie in power which was leavingthe communists as nothing but mere observers and with no capacity for activeresponse.

The Syrian leader, after definitively shelving his brief slogan of ‘alliancewith the national bourgeoisie’,12 advocated disowning this alliance, or elim-inating the excessive support for petty bourgeois-nationalist regimes, andinstead to talk up the Arab communist parties as the indisputable vanguard,which had often been suppressed in the region by their own privilegedMoscow partners.13 Nevertheless, when he expressed his ideas in writing,Bakdash always maintained his due composure and respect toward the USSRand its respective supreme leaders.14 Consequently he ended up by clarifyingthat Arab nationalists should be supported, but only by adopting a criticalapproach and vigilance:

Even though the Soviet Union and other socialist countries pursued apolicy of alliance with some of the newly free countries in Asia andAfrica, this does not mean that the communist parties and the democraticforces generally must under all circumstances support their governmentsand renounce the fight for democratic freedoms … We must be on our


guard against attempts to justify such alliances by spurious theoriesrepudiating the role of the working class.

(Text published in the magazine Problems of Peace and Socialism,December 1965; Heikal, 1978; Laqueur, 2016)

4 The evolution of Syrian communists in the face of changes inpower in the country

From 1966 to 1970 the SCP enjoyed a period of realistic expectation, as aconsequence of the Ba’athist leaders in power introducing a ‘socialist trans-formation programme’ (Picard, 1996; Trentin, 2013). The Syrian communists,in perfect accord with Moscow, agreed with the Ba’athist government’s newpolitical praxis to elevate the Syrian state above the interests of the rulingbourgeois actors, though even so, the sui generis idea of blurring the socialclasses into a whole as an unspecified Syrian society kept Khalid Bakdash onhis guard. And he continued to maintain this approach after he was permittedto indulge in a little written political proselytizing following the legalisation ofthe newspaper Sawt al-Arab.

The new Ba’athist regime, meanwhile, did not appear to be worried aboutthe fact that its state economy was entirely dependent on Russian services,and thus the massive Soviet aid plan that the regime called ‘the basis of oursocialist economic system’ was presented as if it were a cooperation agree-ment in several different fields and between two governments of equal status(Karsh, 1991). But this situation of subordination to the USSR soon arousedmisgivings in the country, paradoxically at the same time as the Sovietsadmitted that their connections with the dominant or ‘revolutionary’ Ba’athismwould not be as permanent as had been supposed. In the same way, Russianideologues perceived that in the extreme ideas exhibited by the regionalBa’athist parties (from their outright anti-communism to their radical-economicprogrammes of a socialist nature), what they revealed were the ‘internal con-tradictions’ imposed by the successive leaders. And even after the militarycoup in Syria in 1966, the most radical victorious Ba’athists maintained anattitude that was challenging and differentiating (on certain occasions) towardtheir Soviet patrons15 (Buss, 1970; Karsh, 1991). Meanwhile, while KhalidBakdash, as we have seen, was given authorization to return to Damascus just15 days after the coup d’état,16 and subsequently a comrade of his (A.Qouatli) was appointed transport minister within the National Front govern-ment, the SCP was forced to follow a continuist policy. This was, furthermore,with the express consent of Moscow, which continued to prioritize its geos-trategic interests in the global context of the Cold War, while eschewing anyinternal distortion that might erode the precarious balance within the Syrianrevolutionary government.17

Without any doubt, the period considered to be the glory days of the SCPwas the mid-1950s, when Bakdash was in parliament and enjoyed the supportof Khalid al-Azm (dubbed the ‘red’ prime minister), but it was never because


of his identification with the Soviets nor to any alleged support from Moscowwithin Syria (Picard, 1996). In 1966, Bakdash’s intention of collaboratingwith the Ba’athist regime ‘to develop and consolidate its progressive orienta-tion’ toward socialism18 resulted in sectors of the military alerting the defenceminister Hafez al-Assad about an excessive communist influence within thegovernment, on top of the state’s disproportionate economic-military depen-dency on the USSR. In light of this, Hafez al-Assad reassured his colleagues,while he prepared to impose his own change, under the general title ofCorrective Movement (Karsh, 1991).

In 1967, Bakdash actively participated in the criticism of the Arab armiesafter their humiliating defeat by Israel. The communist, necessarily assumingthat his country’s own armed forces had been among those defeated, declaredthat Syria had drifted towards an abyss in her inevitable confrontation withIsrael, at the same time as he indirectly blamed the government for makingempty statements (Mann, 2013). Likewise, he spoke out as a staunch defenderof the Palestinian cause, and against the Israeli imperialist aggressor, whichwas now occupying Syrian territory. But the great defeat of 1967 also haddirect consequences for the Syrian communists: during a period of generalizeddepression and conflict within the country, sectors of the SCP began toquestion their relations with the Soviets, and thus what had until then beenconsidered to be ‘Bakdash’s party’ ended up splitting and consequentlyweakened, and thus becoming virtually irrelevant in terms of activism.

5 The much anticipated split of Khalid Bakdash’s SCP

While the Ba’athist government of 1966–70 and the SCP maintained relationsof coexistence and complicity, a situation developed which meant that inter-nal self-criticism movements led by revisionists began to emerge within theparty, at the same time as spontaneous revolutionary coalitions were beingformed which brought together the young people who had mobilized after the1967 disaster against Israel. Amid this climate of debate and agitation, whenSyria supported Jordan’s Palestinian movement in its clashes with King Hussein’sarmy in 1969–70, communists of all stripes unquestioningly supported theidea of their army intervening in support of the Fedayeen. Nevertheless, Hafezal-Assad, as defence minister and man of power within the military, played anambiguous game while containing the military forces in non-intervention, andeven ordering them to act as a barrier on the border to prevent hundreds ofArabian volunteers from joining the PLO’s resistance militia.

Meanwhile, the USSR had avoided coming into direct confrontation withthe USA in the June 1967 war, but after the conflict was over, Moscow com-municated to Damascus ‘that they would no longer agree to independentpolicies which dragged the Soviet Union into unnecessary international con-flicts’ (Mann, 2013). This sparked an increase in Syrian mistrust of theircommunist ally and arms supplier. However, Moscow immediately becamebusy with keeping the revolutionary movements that were simmering at that


time under its influence, and above all with trying to contain the revisionistsled by Riad al-Turk, in order to prevent the schism of the SCP, though theyfailed to do so. Even so, the USSR summoned the various Syrian communistcadres to Moscow to ask them to settle their internal differences in the pre-sence of the Soviets, with the aim of keeping the ideological conflicts andpower struggles within the SCP under Moscow’s strict control. At the 3rdSCP Congress (1969), the rebel sectors questioned both Bakdash’s personalitycult and the extent to which the party’s relations with the Soviets should go(Picard, 1996).

The ideological-internal split was just as patent in the text written by fivemembers of the SCP Politburo, in which they requested, in an official com-muniqué, an explicit rapprochement with the Arab nationalist groups so theycould work together to deploy a radical policy against Israel. At the sametime, they suggested that the party should start distancing itself more fromMoscow’s directives on the Middle East. In contrast, Bakdash and his fol-lowers firmly upheld the idea of preserving the status quo, a position that wasactively supported by the CPSU. But in spite of the enormous pressure thatwas brought to bear on the dissidents, the Soviets did not manage to heal thewounds of Syrian communism. According to declarations by Riad el-Turk,the protagonist par excellence of the communiqué, it was because Sovietconclusions and their commitments on Syria were ‘wrong and inaccurate’,19

just as he considered the National Progressive Front20 which the SCP hadjoined to be ‘overly bureaucratised’, which to his mind prevented the com-munists from becoming a vanguard ‘people’s movement’ (Baron, 2013). In theend, Bakdash’s powerful personality and his rejection of any kind of populistventure that he considered utopian, in addition to his categorical belief thatcommunism should only be guided by the Marxist-Leninist principles repre-sented by the USSR, all led up to the split that took place in 1973. Theydivided into two communist parties with the same acronyms, led by Bakdashand al-Turk, respectively (though the latter did add the nomenclature‘(Political Bureau)’ to his party’s name).

Meanwhile, the struggles within the Ba’ath Party that had begun after 1967were worsening, though the SCP maintained its loyalty and support for agovernment that it considered to be a transformer of bourgeois society, andwith which it maintained frequent ideological debates regarding orientationtowards a genuine socialism with a Soviet or Chinese influence. Nevertheless,the forceful Hafez al-Assad, who opposed Marxist radicalism in these dis-cussions, managed to appease the passionate Bakdash and his personality cultafter the latter had returned from exile, despite the contempt and scorn thathe generally felt for the Arab communist parties (Picard, 1996). Al-Assad themilitary man was able to keep things in balance and to deploy the necessarystrategies at all times to achieve his desired aims. In particular, he managed toemerge unscathed from the war with Israel by deflecting the criticism over thedefeat onto Salah al-Jadid, the general and Ba’athist strongman who had ledthe radical coup of February 1966 and who, in 1969–70 (and complying with


orders from his government), made an attempt to aid the Palestinian move-ment that was being cornered and massacred by King Hussein of Jordan. Butal-Assad, who already had some powerful allegiances in the army, not onlyfailed to support and contained this initiative, but after the Palestinian orga-nizations’ debacle, he blamed al-Jadid for the defeat, and later used this as anopportunity to oust him.

Thus, predictably, all the Ba’athists’ power ended up in the hands of thedefence minister, which meant that when the latter’s new coup d’état tookplace it was bloodless and produced no social backlash. Furthermore, hisstrategically distant attitude toward the Palestinians in the conflict withJordan, when the uprising took place, helped to grant him a regional andinternational blessing. Even so, he would go a lot further in his own country,and the Ba’athism he exclusively represented ended up becoming a way of lifefor generations of Syrians (al-Baker, 2011; Karsh, 1991).

If there is one thing Hafez Al-Assad knew how to do almost to perfectionduring his lengthy military-political career, it was to negotiate in accordancewith his interests. Specifically in March 1969, al-Assad publicly declared thatthe ‘communist-type regime’ that existed in the government was leading thecountry towards economic disaster, as well as keeping it isolated on a regionallevel. And at the same time as he was making these declarations, the militarypolice he controlled was carrying out arrests of communist activists andalleged dangerous pro-Soviet individuals within the army. However, he stillmaintained contact with Moscow, and emphasized the need to strengthenrelations between the USSR and Syria (Karsh, 1991: 64–5). The relationshipbetween al-Assad and the Soviets was an almost immediate success, and mostimportantly, it was maintained smoothly during the rest of his life.

The first thing the USSR agreed to do (on the urging of this Syrian armyofficer) was to neutralize the Syrian communist leader. Khalid Bakdash, whohad previously warned of the danger that the power struggles in the govern-ing party represented, was called to Moscow to be instructed on the discre-tion the SCP should show regarding the internal confrontations the Ba’athistswere experiencing, as well as in the events that were to follow. According toKarsh, once Bakdash had accepted the imposed ruling, ‘Assad generouslyreciprocated this Soviet gesture. He reportedly agreed to leave some of hisrivals in their positions and to ease the pressure on pro-Soviet elements inDamascus, first and foremost on the Communist Party’ (Karsh, 1991).

After the rise to power of the new Ba’athists, in the form of Hafez al-Assadwith his Corrective Movement (November 1970), the entire country embarkedon a new period of continuity in which Bakdash’s SCP never challenged thepower, though at certain times some of the party’s members who resisted al-Assad’s centralized power were imprisoned or forced into exile.21

In 1971, the SCP Central Committee debated a series of principles aimed atdefending the Palestinian people and discussing the praxis of its political-militia movement with regard to Israel, and the question of the liberation ofthe territory. The disagreements within the party, which was already de facto


split in two, were plain to see. Bakdash’s rigid stance once again restatedSoviet tenets, and consequently he declared that the Palestinian militias’struggle should end in the liberation of all the territories occupied by Israel inthe 1967 war, and the subsequent return of those who had been expelled fromtheir homes. The al-Turk rebels, meanwhile, went much further in theirdemands: they called for unceasing struggle against the Zionist enemy until‘the liberation of all Palestine’ had been achieved, including the territorygranted by the United Nations to a Jewish state, with the USSR voting infavour. Bakdash continued to argue that his opponents had set an extremelysimplistic objective with regard to the Zionists, under the slogan of the‘liquidation of Zionist institutions or something of the kind’ (Flores, 1980).Khalid Bakdash, with the party apparatus under his control, managed tokeep most of the members of the Politburo on his side. But the dissentingfaction headed by al-Turk, which in turn enjoyed the support of the LebaneseCommunist Party (LCP) (and which had also distanced itself from Bakdash)was forced to admit defeat on this point in light of the fact that the secretarygeneral enjoyed the ideological-material support of the CPSU (Flores, 1980).

And it was specifically under directives from Moscow when, shortly after-wards, the man who was still the leader of the only SCP issued an ultimatumto the dissidents, accusing them of closing their eyes to proletarian inter-nationalism. Bakdash demanded that al-Turk declare his unconditionalalignment with Soviet communism, at that specific moment in the process ofrapprochement and cooperation with the Palestinian political-military move-ment. But above all, Moscow had become Syria’s ‘most loyal and activefriend’ according to Hafez al-Assad, who now strategically absolved Moscowfrom any interested interference in the country’s internal affairs and nationalmedia (Karsh, 1991: 69).

As we have already seen, after its disagreements the party split into two:there was the Khalid Bakdash wing, which kept the party’s name, and thenRiad al-Turk’s party, which was also known as the Syrian Communist Party,though with the addition of ‘(Political Bureau)’ to its title. This irreconcilablesplit developed out of conflict, as well as from the personality differencesbetween the two leaders. Bakdash’s group survived for the next few yearswithin the National Progressive Front led by al-Assad’s Ba’athists. However,al-Turk became known as the opponent, owing to the fact that in 1980 heclashed – directly – with President al-Assad, whom he declared to be a dic-tator. As a consequence he spent years in prison (1980–98). In 2005, al-Turkstood down from the post of secretary general and his party, now led byGhias Youn Soud, embarked on a social democratic path, and was ultimatelyrenamed the Syrian Democratic People’s Party. At the same time, othercommunist-leaning organizations emerged which never achieved any greatimportance, and consequently were of no significance to the Ba’ath Party inpower.

Bakdash’s SCP upheld the Moscow line and kept the same personalism, tothe extent that after Bakdash’s death, his widow and subsequently his son


took on the leadership and power over the organization. And it was specifi-cally as a result of this personalist usurpation that in 1986, the SCP experi-enced yet another rift, under the protection of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost.Yusuf Faisal decided to withdraw and form a new communist organizationthat would also retain the acronym SCP (Unified). Even so, it carried onwithin the National Progressive Front.

6 The SCP with al-Assad’s Ba’athists in power

In November 1970, al-Assad formed a national unity government that includedtwo communists (Quilliam, 1997). The following year, in March 1971, theSyrian president created the National Progressive Front, and the SCP agreed tojoin it, again with two of its members. In fact, what Bakdash was doing wasfollowing the Moscow line, which was heaping praise on the Ba’athist regimethat al-Assad personified: ‘The Syrian people are firmly advancing along theroad of economic independence and social progress22 … Of the deep social andeconomic transformation of the Syrian society’23 (Karsh, 1991).

Indeed, as Karsh notes, even Brezhnev spoke out in defence of al-Assadwhen he compared Syria with Egypt, which at that time was still the USSR’sleading ally in the Third World24 (Karsh, 1991). But shortly afterwards, afterthe October War with Israel (1973) and the political deviation of PresidentAnwar el-Sadat, Russian military aid proved definitive for the reconstructionof the Syrian army, despite the fact that in 1970 the most enthusiastic phaseof economic socialization carried out by the most radical or socialist Ba’athistscame to a definitive end (Quintana & Garza, 1980).

In our view, the pragmatic and flexible approach of President Hafez al-Assad (Quintana & Garza, 1980), who succeeded in placing himself aboveparty differences, both communal and sectarian, generated an atmosphere ofsupport and calm within the country, as well as an ideological entente withinthe National Progressive Front. Meanwhile, the SCP under Bakdash wasfeeling equally comfortable, since it had realized that its political activitieswould be tolerated and harnessed to this new phase of Ba’athist power, andthat the dominance of the state sector (following the nationalization of mixedenterprises and large infrastructures) would lead to a ‘socialist’ system, eventhough it might be a system specific to al-Assad’s way of doing things,25 andin the knowledge of the president’s innate mistrust of communists in generaland their ideology.

Under al-Assad’s absolute power, the SCP under Bakdash became virtuallyirrelevant,26 not to mention an expendable ally for the nation’s president,though Bakdash’s tireless relationship with Moscow kept him close to poweras a loyal or critical-ambiguous force at certain times. These contradictionsbecame clear, for instance, when, following the call from President SuleimánFrangie in 1976, the Syrian army stormed into Lebanon in support of theChristian right-wing faction, and consequently against the natural and ideo-logical allies of the SCP. There was also a marked absence of any ‘communist’


discourse at the times when Syria, out of what was described as nationalinterest, accepted some of Henry Kissinger’s manoeuvres against Palestinianorganizations, at the same time as a broader strategy directed at the region.27

Unlike the leaders of the LCP who, once in isolation carried out a self-criticism of their support for the partition of Palestine (1947–8), the SCP wasnever able to rectify its positions; even though its discourse ended up shiftingtowards the most common rhetoric, its basic objective was to eliminate ‘theconsequences of Israeli aggression supported by US colonialism’, subse-quently and inevitably acknowledging the right ‘of the Palestinians to returnand to self-determination’. And always, as we might expect, upholding theofficial Moscow line:

So can any of us condemn the attitude of the USSR to the Palestine par-tition proposal? Can any of us condemn its present attitude as regards thesolution to the Palestine problem? … If you will permit me, I want to sayin a completely brotherly way that all talk to the effect that we are friendsof the USSR but that we differ from it as regards the strategic objective, isnot communist talk … The elimination of Israel as a state, under theslogan either of the liberation of Palestine or the liberation of their usurpedhomeland, or under the slogan of the liquidation of Zionist institutions, orsomething of the kind. Such talk is not only at variance with the decisionsof the Seventh Congress of the Communist International, which called foridentity of objectives; it’s also at variance with proletarian internationalism;it is at variance with the class attitude and, consequently, with the interestsof the Arab people and with our interests as a party.28

In the eyes of the USSR, and viewed through the context of the Cold War, theirrelations with Hafez al-Assad’s Syria counterbalanced to some extent theUSA’s close links with Egypt following the Camp David Accords. As forDamascus, support from the USSR meant that it could achieve strategic-militaryparity with Israel, and consequently become indispensable to any regionalnegotiations (Pichon, 2013). As for the communist parties at home, they wouldexist within legality depending on whether or not they chose to accept theBa’athists’ indisputable hegemony and their internal and regional policies.

After Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, it became clear that therewas going to be a change in the Soviet contribution of arms to Syria. TheUSSR, which at that time was being dismantled, lacked the necessaryresources to maintain efficient, competitive military support. In view of this,the pragmatic al-Assad chose to redirect his strategy, by now focusing hisdiplomacy on the USA, with its massive power of arbitration in the region.This would also contribute to the containment and/or destruction of theBa’athists’ enemy, Iraq. And thus during the 1990s, Damascus became gra-dually closer to Washington, the European powers and the monarchies inSaudi Arabia and Qatar (Pichon, 2013), though the ephemeral alliance wasbrought to an end by the USA when it included Syria in its simplistic ‘axis of


evil’. Finally, in 2003–4, the legacy of the USSR naturally adapted itself toVladimir Putin’s Russian Federation. Now in a regional context of newrecriminations towards the USA, the Syrian president found it profitable torenew his country’s traditional friendship with Russia, clearly out of a need tobreak Syria’s isolation and restock supplies for the country’s armed forces.

During all these years, the Syrian communist parties were divided and lar-gely irrelevant, though in the year 2000 Bakdash’s SCP suffered yet anotherrift, once again caused by personal rivalries and struggles for control of theorganization, which was now in the hands of the former secretary general’swidow. The opposition, now led by Qadri Jamil, declared that it aimed to‘rejuvenate and unite the Party through fostering change from below againstwhat was perceived as an ideologically ossified and fractured leadership’.However, Jamil ended up forming a new communist party: the Unity of theSyrian Communists (Hinnebusch & Imady, 2018).

We will finish here by adding that in 2011 the communist parties beganadopting positions in support of Bachar al-Assad’s government. At first, theSyrian Left was divided between those who considered that a legitimaterevolution was taking place, and that al-Assad was rapidly leading the coun-try into economic neoliberalism but without having liberated the country’spolitical world in the least,29 and the official communist organizations thatcontinued to support the system and its army, at the same time as they sentout warnings about the dangers of radical-terrorist Islamism, regionalconspiracies and meddling by imperialist foreigners.30

To close this chapter, I would like to add a few official declarations fromthe communist parties with regard to the war that has blighted Syria since2011.

In June 2011, the SCP (Unified) published a communiqué ‘in light of theserious events’ that were taking place in the country:

the protests and demonstrations are shared by the masses, who standagainst colonialism and all forms of external intervention in Syrian mat-ters. Our party has demanded that the violence be brought to an end …We would also like to issue a warning about the fact that some con-spirators might try to make use of the popular protests to inflame theethnic struggles and destroy the national unity of the Syrian people, in anattempt to spread chaos fuelled by external circles opposed to Syriannational policies … It should be noted that we appreciate the firm, posi-tive stances of Russia and China, who have lent their full support to Syriain this crisis.31

Some months later, on 12 December 2016, a new communiqué added: ‘Theinternational laws do not allow any country to interfere in the internal affairsof any other country, what the terrorists and their supporters do in Syria,demanding the president Assad to step down whereas this is an affair decidedonly by the Syrian people.’32


Ammar Bakdash declared in Rome in 2013:

Syria rejects the dictates of the United States and Israel for the MiddleEast, and supports the Iraqi and the Lebanese resistance and the nationalrights of the Palestinian people … We communists have been workingwith the government uninterruptedly since 1966. Syria could not haveresisted with the support of the armed forces alone. Syria has resistedbecause it has had the support of the people. Furthermore, Syria has hadthe support of its alliance with Iran, China, Russia … The most effectiveway to end the Syrian massacre is, firstly, to halt the external aid andsupport to the armed opposition from reactionary, imperialist countries.Once this external aid is halted, we can bring all the military operationsto an end, including those of the Syrian government. Then we can restarta democratic process with legislative elections and political reforms,something that is obviously not possible at this stage of the armedconflict.33

In an antagonistic sense, and now taking a social democratic view, we havethe Syrian Democratic People’s Party (named thus in 2005, though previouslyit was the SCP-Political Bureau, headed by Riad al-Turk), which has beenleading a complex coalition that opposes al-Assad’s government. Al-Turktook part in the creation of the Damascus Declaration (2005) at the sametime as he led the party away from Marxist Leninism and maintained hiscritical stance towards the Ba’athism in power. Since the creation of theSyrian National Council (October 2011), al-Turk and his party have called forboth al-Assad’s resignation and for external military intervention to supplyarms to what they call the ‘democratic opposition’.

Notes1 We believe that at that time, Bakdash was an unconditional supporter of mother

USSR, and so his submission to the Stalinist line should be understood in thislight.

2 We should point out that the two parties remained connected to some extent untilthe 1960s, when their disconnection was carried out drastically (Kardahji, 2015:137).

3 ‘Syria was a predominantly agricultural country, its backbone being two millionpeasants out of a then population of about 3.5 million, inhabiting some 5,500 vil-lages built mostly of mud and mostly lacking piped water, sewerage, electricity,tarred roads or any other’ (Seale, 1988).

4 According to Seale, Syria’s geographical expanse shrank from 300,000 km2 in theOttoman age to 185,190 km2 in 1946 (Seale, 1988).

5 According to Schad, there is a problem with the terminology here which suggests‘the hybrid nature’ of these organizations (Schad, 2005). The French text describesthem as ‘associations’, while the Arabic text uses the term ‘niqabat’ or union(instead of ‘jam’iyyat’, the preferred term for ‘association’).

6 In 1950, the USSR created its ‘International Aid Fund’ which could send fundsevery year to political organizations in capitalist countries and to national


liberation parties/movements, but until 1955 the fund did not designate any sumsto Arab communists. The still unified SLCP received $40,000 but the PalestinianCommunist Party received $10,000 more, despite the fact that the SLCP was abetter interlocutor in the region through the Syrian Khalid Bakdash (Ulianova,2005).

7 Several Jewish associations created in Russia prior to 1948 later became publicorganizations in the State of Israel (Ulianova, 2005).

8 The USA was not prepared to accept this political shift any further in Syria. As aresult, between 1946 and 1957, the CIA attempted to stage a number of coups inthe country. In March 1957, Allen Dulles, the CIA director, issued a report on thesituation in Syria, in which he stressed the ‘growing trend towards a decidedly left-wing, pro-Soviet government’ (Blum, 2005).

9 In 1956 Khruschev was equally direct when he spoke of ‘the cynical relations’ ofrealpolitik between the two countries: the USSR supported Nasser, he said, despitethe fact that Nasser ‘was even imprisoning communists’ (Ginat, 2013).

10 Achcar’s description – ‘The Nasserite military-bureaucratic dictatorship’ – is, inour opinion, an accurate one (Achcar, 2013: 149). Agwani, meanwhile, notes thatNasser soon dashed the expectations of the Syrian Ba’ath Party, as he was con-centrating all his efforts on subjugating the new republic (UAR) to his power andinfluence (Agwani, 1968).

11 According to Ramet, Bakdash managed to return to Syria thanks to the dealbrokered by Moscow: his return in exchange for the construction of the RiverEuphrates dam (Ramet, 1990).

12 Éric Rouleau, ‘Le parti communiste syrien est décidé à aider le régime de Damas àdévelopper et consolider son orientation progressiste DÉCLARE AU “MONDE”M. KHALED BAGDACHE’, Le Monde, 13 July 1966.

13 Undoubtedly, Bakdash was thinking of Nasser’s open hostility towards commun-ism. Specifically, after a friendly visit to the USSR (1955), the Egyptian presidentdeclared: ‘Our anti-communist principles would not be dimmed by the trip’, andemphasized his intention to continue to arrest communists and put them on trial(Ginat, 2013).

14 Khrushchev was deposed by the CPSU Central Committee in October 1964.During his period in power, certain critics within the CPSU, such as Zhukov, andthose known as the ‘pessimists’, declared that the communist leader’s condescen-sion towards nationalist Arab regimes was exaggerated, giving the example of theclear failure of the UAR (Buss, 1970).

15 The Ba’athist government expressed to the USSR its radical opposition to Mos-cow’s vote, at the United Nations Security Council, in favour of solely Resolution242 being used as the basis for ‘a just solution’ to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

16 Bakdash had attempted to return to Syria several times, but he was prevented fromdoing so by his failure in his conversations with the different governments. Whenhe gained permission to return from the leaders of the 1966 coup, the decision washighly criticized by Arab and Western governments, though on this occasion pres-sure from Moscow, in exchange for the Euphrates dam, proved effective for gain-ing permission for Bakdash to return.

17 Heikal notes that Bakdash was sent a clear message of containment (Heikal,1978), based on the idea that the Marxists must support the left-wing bloc withoutspeaking out against them.

18 From an interview with Khalid Bakdash (Éric Rouleau, ‘Le parti communistesyrien est décidé …’, Le Monde, 13 July 1966).

19 For example, the Soviets stressed to the Syrian communists that with regard to ‘thePalestinian question’, their slogan should definitely not be calling for the destruc-tion of the State of Israel: ‘Neither the Soviet Union nor any friend of the Arabswill support such a slogan’. Taken from New Times, 30 June 1972.


20 The National Progressive Front was a coalition of parties under Ba’ath controlthat was created in 1972.

21 Here we should mention the communist writer Yassin al-Haj Saleh, who in 1980was arrested and imprisoned. He remained in prison for 16 years, and he publishedhis personal experiences in the book Bilkhalas Ya Shabab. According to al-Haj,the methods used for torturing the prisoners from the Muslim Brotherhood or theIraqi Ba’athists were much more sophisticated and cruel than the ones used oncommunists like himself.

22 Pravda (22 May 1971).23 TASS (May 1971).24 Brezhnev’s report to the CPSU 14th Congress (30 March 1971).25 As from 1973, some 2,500 advisers from the USSR operated in the Syrian army,

which for the leader of the SCP indicated that President al-Assad was moving inthe right direction. Though at the same time, Bakdash appeared to be unawarethat ‘petty bourgeois socialism’ was being established through a bourgeoisieassociated with the regime.

26 Communist influence had been reduced to small groups of the poorest ruralworkers.

27 In 1974, with United Nations mediation, the Golan Agreement was signed ondisengagement between Israel and Syria in the Golan Heights that were occupiedby Israel in the 1967 war (Security Council Resolution 350, 31 May 1974).Meanwhile, Nixon visited Damascus in May 1974.

28 Speech by Khalid Bakdash (November 1971), Journal of Palestine Studies, 2, 1(Autumn, 1972).

29 The ‘National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change in Syria andAbroad’ is made up of known opposition figures, including both independentpoliticians and others from the many different left-wing parties that exist, andincluding Abdul-Aziz Khair’s Communist Labour Party and the DemocraticPeople’s Party.

30 At the beginning of the conflict, some regional progressive sectors criticized theofficial communist parties for staying firmly by the side of al-Assad’s government.However, as a result of the devastating effects produced by clashes in the country,these criticisms have lessened, in favour of an insistence on the need to defeat theterrorist Islamist forces. Even after the Lebanese militia Hezbollah entered theconflict as a combatant force, some personalities and media from this country thatare considered to be left wing have moved closer to supporting al-Assad. In July2011, the ‘Popular Front for Change and Liberation’ was formed, made up ofQadri Jamil’s communists, Ali Haidar’s Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party (Inti-fada) and several other figures not belonging to any political organization. Theyproposed the creation of a broad front to protect the country and to progresstowards change with a development plan that would enable balanced progressthroughout the Syrian territory, especially in the rural areas, and which would offerjob opportunities and sustainable development in infrastructures (al-Bunni, 2013).Both of the leaders came to form part of the al-Assad government (in 2018,Haidar continued in his post as minister of state for national reconciliation affairs).

31 The full communication is online: https://almacenindependenciaysocialismo.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/comunicado-del-partido-comunista-sirio-unificado-a-los-partidos-comunistas-y-obreros/;http://syrcomparty.com/

32 The complete text is online: www.solidnet.org/syria-syrian-communist-party-unified/syrian-cp-unified-from-syrian-communist-party-unified-07122016-en

33 Interview with Ammar Bakdash in the newspaper Le Grand Soir, 28 August 2013:www.legrandsoir.info/entretien-avec-ammar-bagdash-secretaire-du-parti-communiste-syrien.html


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Berkeley, CA, University of California Press.Agwani, M. S. (1968) ‘El conflicto ideológico en el Oriente árabe’. Foro Internacional,

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Paper, 73.Corm, Georges (2016) Pensée et politique dans le monde arabe: contextes historiques et

problématiques, XIXe–XXIe siècle, Paris, La Découverte.Flores, Alexander (1980) ‘The Arab CPs and the Palestinian Problem’. Khamsin, 7.Gallissot, R. (Ed.) (1978) Mouvement ouvrier, communisme et nationalismes dans le

monde arabe, Paris, Les Editions ouvrières.Ginat, Rami (2013) Egypt’s Incomplete Revolution: Lutfi al-Khuli and Nasser’s Soci-

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and Early Trajectory, London, Routledge.Isaac, Steven (2009) ‘The Ba‘th of Syria and Iraq’. In Ness, I. (Ed.) The International

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Lebanon, 1943–75, Berkeley, CA, University of California.Karsh, Efraim (1991) Soviet Policy towards Syria since 1970, New York, Palgrave.Kruschef, Nikita (1970) Kruschef recuerda, Madrid, Prensa Española y Santillana.Laqueur, Walter (1957) Comunismo y nacionalismo en el Cercano Oriente, Méjico,

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7 Class and nationArab and Jewish communists in Palestine

Musa Budeiri

1 Introduction

Since its founding congress in 1889, the 2nd International had proclaimed theright of nations to self-determination and its opposition to colonialism. At itsStuttgart congress in 1907, however, it became apparent that the participantsheld divergent views. Socialist opinion framed the issue in terms of thestruggles of oppressed nationalities in the Austro-Hungarian and RussianEmpire, not addressing the material reality of peoples in the far-flung pos-sessions of the imperial powers in Africa and Asia. European revolutions andthe breakup of the three central empires in the aftermath of world warbrought to the fore the different perceptions held by socialist leaders. Whileno socialist party argued openly in favour of colonialism, distinctions weremade between different kinds of colonial rule, and nobody would entertainthe idea that the colonies could be freed from colonial subjugation throughthe efforts of their own peoples; the argument centred on whether the victor-ious proletariat would have to continue holding on to the colonies and leadtheir peoples to freedom, progress and development, or whether the successfulanti-capitalist revolution in the metropole would automatically signal the lib-eration of the colonies. The outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution wasdeemed to herald the fast-approaching worldwide (read European) anti-capitalist revolution. Consequently, struggles of colonial peoples came toassume strategic importance. Liberation struggles, in tandem with the work-ing class of the capitalist metropoles, would play a significant role in bringingdown the world capitalist order.

The establishment of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1919was the outcome of two events; the success of the Bolshevik Revolution andthe failure of anti-capitalist revolution elsewhere in Europe. The immediatetask facing European revolutionary communists was to establish the rulesfor partnership with their prospective allies in the colonial and national lib-eration movements. An early indication of the direction the Bolsheviks weretaking was the convening of the Baku Congress in September 1920 whichbrought together numerous delegates from Asia, who rallied under nation-alist and anti-imperialist banners.1 The Comintern proclaimed the national

liberation movements of the colonies objective allies in the struggle against acommon enemy.

The second Comintern congress (July–August 1920) adopted the ‘condi-tions of admission to the communist international’, known as the 21 condi-tions aimed at establishing a tight-knit organization of revolutionarycommunists.2 It is instructive to examine these ‘conditions of admission’ andwhat they inform us about the autonomy allowed to future member parties.They stipulated that it was necessary for communist parties of imperialistcountries to support liberation movements ‘not only in words but in deeds’(Articles 5 and 8), fostering the spirit of international solidarity in the ranksof the workers of the imperialist metropole, and carrying out political workamong their country’s own soldiers against the oppression of colonial peoples.A united front was to be formed between proletariat, peasantry and thenational bourgeoisie, and all communist parties were enjoined to extend sup-port to the bourgeois-democratic liberation movements. This was later amen-ded to accommodate objections made by M. N. Roy and other delegatesopposed to the idea of an alliance with the bourgeoisie and who wantedinstead to support the establishment of independent communist parties in thecolonial countries.3

Acceptance of these 21 conditions was a prerequisite for any party whichwanted to affiliate to the newly established Comintern. They set down rulesfor the exercise of democratic centralism, called for the drawing up of newparty programmes ‘in accordance with the decisions of the communist inter-national’, and stipulated that the programme of every member party must besubject to the approval of the Executive Committee of the Comintern.

2 Joining the ranks of the Comintern

Among the ranks of Jewish immigrants who had left Central and EasternEurope to colonize Palestine and whose numbers began to swell after theBritish occupation of the country and the demise of Ottoman rule, thedominant activist trend proclaimed itself ‘socialist Zionist’. Within this,socialist groups of various shades vied for the loyalty of recently disembarkedJewish labourers who had only recently left Europe behind. A large numberhad been active, or at least familiar with left-wing ideas in a Europe whichhad just witnessed both the victory of the Bolshevik Revolution and thedefeat of numerous socialist revolutions, primarily in Germany and Hungary.Despite this, for many, international revolution was still on the agenda, andthe immediate task for socialists was to organize the working class for thecoming cataclysm. In the particular case of Palestine the task was to organizethe Jewish working class and embark on the struggle against both Jewishcapitalists and British imperialism. The indigenous Arab population, per-ceived as inert and dominated by a religious cum feudal leadership, played nopart in their plans. Liberation would come once the socialist revolution wasvictorious.

130 Musa Budeiri

At the extreme end of the spectrum among the small immigrant commu-nity was the Poali Zion party (Workers of Zion, Left) which called for theestablishment of a Jewish socialist state in Palestine. The group had beenaffiliated to the Second International, and proclaimed its adherence to ‘pro-letarian Zionism’, an amalgam advocated by Ber Borochov, a socialist Zionistnative of the Ukraine who died in 1917. Poali Zion applied to the Cominternfor membership and was rejected. From 1919 to 1923 dissident members ofthe group metamorphosed into a number of factions splitting and laterreuniting, until they came together in July 1923 as the Palestine CommunistParty (PCP) and gained recognition by the Comintern in February 1924(Offenberg, 1975).

It was clear to Comintern officials in Moscow that this was a party basedexclusively on Jewish immigrants with no connection to the Arab inhabitantsof the country. The very first instructions transmitted from Moscow andwhich served as a condition for membership was that the party should trans-form itself into a territorial party, i.e. a party reflecting the national compo-sition of the country, rather than remain ensconced in the small world of theJewish labour movement. For the next 20 years, this was to remain the mainfocus of the party and a bone of contention in its relations with the Comin-tern. As far as the Comintern was concerned the main tasks the party had toundertake were among the Arab peasantry and in its relations with thePalestinian Arab national movement. The position on Zionism was quitesimple and clear. The Comintern was opposed to the colonizing project whichwas viewed as a tool of British imperialism, and opposed to the Zionistideology which called for Jewish immigration to Palestine and the establish-ment of a Jewish national home. This created a problem for the fledglingparty. It was a party made up of immigrants who had arrived in Palestinewith the aim of participating in the Jewish colonizing project. Their naturalfield of activity remained that of fellow Jewish workers. Nevertheless, not allJewish immigrants who arrived in Palestine remained. Some grew disillu-sioned with the Zionist project and left, while others were deported by theBritish as a result of their anti-imperialist activity. The party was constantlyhaemorrhaging while at the same time under pressure from Comintern offi-cials to exit its natural milieu and enter what was to its European members analien and uncharted world. The next 20 years of activity is a record of itsattempts to do just that, with numerous failures and some success. While itgenerally acceded to the Comintern’s directives, it found it possible to pointout the impossibility of some by appealing to other ideological requirements,thus at one stage, ‘bolshevization’ was used to point out the difficultiesinherent in implementing a rapid policy of elevating recently recruited Arabmembers to positions of leadership within the organization. At the same timethe absence of a modern industrial Palestinian Arab working class was high-lighted to explain the party’s predominant activity in the ranks of immigrantJewish workers. At a later stage, the proclivity of Haj Amin al Husseini, theforemost Palestinian national leader, to Italian and German blandishments

Class and nation 131

was underlined to point out growing fascist tendencies within the ranks of thePalestinian traditional leadership and the need to withhold support from thearmed struggle which erupted in 1936–9 and continued until the openingphase of World War 2.

3 Creating an Arab Jewish party

The members of the newly established party, having pledged their adherenceto the conditions of accession to the Comintern, were now shouldered withnew tasks which went beyond what had until then appeared to them to con-stitute their main political activity, namely the organizing of the small com-munity of Jewish workers in their struggle to win their economic rights vis àvis their employers, and to radicalize them in the political sphere to enrol inthe struggle against British imperialism. They found themselves in a situationunlike the familiar one prevailing in Europe where there was a capitalist eco-nomic order employing tens of thousands of workers, distinct social and eco-nomic differentiation and the existence of a large trade union movement andsocial democratic parties which competed for the loyalty of the working class.The job of the communists in Europe was to prepare for the approachingrevolution, which despite initial setbacks, and the isolation of the Bolsheviksas a result of the siege imposed on them by the European powers afraid of theinfection of revolution spreading to their own working classes, was stillregarded as the main arena of struggle. Defence of the nascent workers’ statewas high on the agenda. Periodically the Comintern would set the tonethrough its evaluation of the current stage of development of the world capi-talist economy and the concomitant role the communists should play.Increasingly this would come to echo the perceived twists and turns of Sovietstate policy. The Comintern adopted tactics which pertained to the mainarenas of struggle, and applied them across the board. Whether it was the‘Third Period’ at the Sixth Congress 1928, or the ‘Popular Front’ at theSeventh, whether it was the decision to discontinue the New Economic Policy,the reaction to the defeats of the Chinese communists or the need to combatthe rise of Nazism and fascism, the conclusions drawn by the Bolshevik lea-dership now consolidated under the unchallenged leadership of Stalin, afterthe defeat of Trotsky and his exile in 1928 to Alma Ata and expulsion fromthe country in 1929, would apply across the board.

Palestine, a peasant-based economy supporting a largely undifferentiatedpopulation, was a British colony in all but name, with an aggressive Jewishcolonization movement guided by the watchword of exclusive Jewish labourand conquest of the land. The Zionist movement was in Palestine not toexploit natural resources or to wrest surplus value from the native inhabitants,but to build a separate economy and national existence, under the protectiverule of the occupying colonial power. The Comintern had instructed theparty, and indeed made compliance a necessary condition of acceptancewithin its ranks, to establish itself among the native population, i.e. the Arab

132 Musa Budeiri

peasantry, while continuing its work among Jewish workers and combatingZionism. The tools at hand were rather few. The party resorted to two meth-ods in its attempts to reach out to the ‘native inhabitants’. First, the writtenword, publishing leaflets and distributing them among the peasant masses onoccasions of nationalist gatherings, i.e. the Nebi Musa annual festival, or inthe event of nationalist protest demonstrations. Most of the party literaturewas badly formulated and written in broken Arabic, reflecting the absence ofan Arab cadre, not to mention that it was directed, at least in the case of thepeasantry, to a largely illiterate group. The second was to recruit memberswilling to travel to Moscow, to enrol in the University of Toilers of the East,and undergo training both political and clandestine. In the latter theyachieved a measure of success, though the results were mixed. The offer totravel/study abroad attracted people from various backgrounds; labourersbarely glimpsing class consciousness, illiterate peasants, adventurers, nation-alists and a sprinkling of educated bourgeois youth. On their return some ofthe party members enrolled in the struggle and shouldered the tasks entrustedto them, while others deserted the party either voluntarily or as a result ofpolice repression.4

Despite the Comintern’s repeated exhortations the party proved more suc-cessful at attracting Jewish recruits than Arab ones, perhaps understandablyconsidering the background of Jewish workers in contrast to that of Arabpeasants. Yet the rate of attrition continued to be high. The mandate autho-rities were relentless in their pursuit of subversive elements, and any personarrested who did not possess Palestinian citizenship was prone to immediateexpulsion from the country. Indeed there were always suspicions that partycadres allowed themselves to fall into the hands of the police in order tosecure transport out of the country. Having lost their faith in Zionism theyhad little incentive to remain in Palestine. Even in the mid-1930s, a number ofJewish cadres who opposed the party’s political line in support of the Arabnational movement preferred to volunteer and travel to fight for the repub-lican cause in Spain rather than languish in British jails.5 An early attempt toappoint Arab members who had received their training in Moscow to theleadership of the party in 1930 was thwarted as a result of police activity andthe arrest of the party leadership at the conclusion of the 7th party congressin December 1930.6 It was not until 1934 that Radwan al Hilu, a Moscow-trained long-serving party member, was appointed to the leadership of theparty, a position he occupied until the party’s disintegration in 1943. Yet,despite the apparent success of the policy of ‘Arabization’, the party continuedthroughout its existence to boast a majority Jewish membership.7

4 Wrestling with the national problem

Even before the General Arab Strike, which broke out in 1936, and the armedrevolt which succeeded it, the party had to wrestle with the numerous out-breaks of violence which pitted the two communities, Arab and Jewish,


against each other. The party characteristically laid the blame for the violenceon nationalist leaders on the Arab side and the Zionist leadership of the Jewishsettler community on the other, while the British were held to be playing bothsides in the usual ‘divide and rule’ fashion. Already in August 1929, whenviolence between the two communities was sparked by disagreements overpossession of Haet Al Buraq (the Western Wall), the party initially fell in linewith the Jewish community in characterizing the events as a pogrom,8 butlater reconsidered its position and described the events as an anti-imperialistuprising, in accordance with the pronouncements of both Arab nationalistleaders and Comintern evaluations. The main culprits were the British colo-nial authorities themselves, whose actions abetted and inflamed nationalistfeelings and who allowed the rampaging mobs to carry out their tasks, onlyintervening after blood had been spilt and the gulf between the two communitieshad become even wider.9

When in 1935 the Comintern’s 7th congress gave its assent to a policy ofcooperation with social democratic and national bourgeois parties in anattempt to stave off the rising Nazi and fascist menace in Europe, this wastranslated in Palestine into support for the Arab national movement. Evenbefore the advent of the popular front era, the communists in Palestine hadbeen trying to figure out a radical wing within the so-called national bour-geoisie. The Istiklal Party, a Pan-Arab party opposed to the leadership of HajAmin al Husseini, the head of the Palestinian Arab national movement, wasdeemed to fit the bill. Within that party, a young guard gathered round aGaza journalist, Hamdi al Husseini, was characterized as an incipient leftwing. Already Hamdi al Husseini had collaborated with the communists andat one stage was the Palestinian representative to the League against Imperi-alism, had participated in its congresses and had made the trip to Moscowwhere he was received by Stalin himself.10

The new policy, which in fact had been in place since 1933, guaranteedMoscow’s assent to the party’s support of the Arab General Strike and sub-sequent armed rebellion, which broke out in September 1936 and which wasto last, with faltering momentum, well into 1939 and the advent of WorldWar 2. The party’s immersion in the struggle of the Palestinian Arab nationalmovement against its twin enemies, the British mandate and the Zionistcolonization project, was the period when the party became well and trulyArabized. Indeed, at least among the Arab membership of the organization,this was regarded its ‘golden age’.11 Arab party membership expanded andnew members assumed leading positions. The party’s attempts to participatein the ongoing armed struggle, however, would later bring charges fromJewish party members of an ‘Arab nationalist deviation’. Even at the timequestions were raised about the wisdom of some of the acts committed byparty members.12 The difficulties created by the situation and the fact that thetwo communities in the country, Arabs and Jews, led separate lives, militatedagainst joint activity, and the party decided to set up a ‘Jewish section’ tocarry out party activity within the Jewish working class. In effect the

134 Musa Budeiri

leadership of the party was in the hands of Radwan al Hilu, who in additionto his position as general secretary of the party acted as the head of the Arabmembership while Simha Tsabari headed the Jewish membership.13 This wouldeventually lead to the growth of numerous factions which began to question thecorrectness of the party line and the adoption of divergent politics.

The decision by Stalin to abolish the Comintern in 1943 was the signalwhich led to the disintegration of the party and the establishment by themembership of separate national organizations.14 The larger part of the Arabmembership would re-establish itself in an Arab nationalist framework, theNational Liberation League (NLL), whereas the main body of the Jewishmembers would continue under the name of the Palestine Communist Party.Additionally, several groups of Jewish party members would establish smallfactions (e.g. HaEmet (The Truth) and the Jewish National Communists;their members would eventually be absorbed within the PCP or abandonpolitical activity altogether). The two prominent leaders of the party for theprevious ten years, Radwan Al Hilu and Simha Tsabari, would bow out of thepolitical scene.

5 National communism on the eve of partition

When partition came in 1948 neither Arab nor Jewish communists appear tohave anticipated its approach, despite warning signs of a shift in the Sovietposition as early as April 1947.15 Circumstances and unwavering loyalty toMoscow allowed them nevertheless to quickly adapt to the changing politicalenvironment. Already in the aftermath of the German attack on the SovietUnion in June 1941 the party adopted a popular front strategy within theJewish community in Palestine, calling for the unity of anti-fascist forces andagitating for the opening of a second front to alleviate pressure on Soviettroops who bore the main brunt of the German war machine. The indepen-dence which accrued to the Jewish communists after 1943 with the dissolutionof the Comintern would facilitate this task and allow them to function as alegitimate component of the Jewish community in the country. In Palestineand neighbouring Syria/Lebanon, anti-fascist committees were established byArab communists whose raison d’être was the linkage between anti-fascismand anti-imperialism.

For the rump of Arab communists now reconstituted as a national partywith a younger leadership which had found its way to its ranks during theyears of the Arab revolt, the primary task was to organize Arab labourers.The war years had witnessed a swelling of their numbers as a result of theestablishment of civilian military work camps to meet the demands of Britisharmies in the Middle East after lines of communication with the UnitedKingdom had been blocked. They were to prove remarkably successful in thetask of building a new Arab labour movement, carrying the name the ArabWorkers Congress, which marshalled within its ranks tens of thousands ofArab workers from all parts of the country. Alongside this, attention was paid


to the growing ranks of an Arab intelligentsia which found its path to poli-tical activity blocked by traditional parties which were little more thanassemblages of notables, feudal landowners and religious clerics. Basing itselfon a group of teachers and young professionals, the League of Arab Intellec-tuals was established in 1945 with a literary theoretical journal, Al-Ghad(Tomorrow), which speedily attracted a wide readership extending beyondPalestine’s borders. Both Arab and Jewish factions pursued similar policieswithin their national communities as far as general political issues were con-cerned. They opposed continued British rule, denounced Zionist colonizationand condemned the idea of partition which had already been raised in themid-1930s by British officials. They both held to a resolution of the conflictbased on the termination of British rule and the establishment of a unitarydemocratic state in the country.

When the Soviet Union voted for partition in the United Nations (UN) inNovember 1947 this came as a surprise, but proved convenient to the Jewishcommunist faction which allowed it at last to normalize its relationship withgoverning bodies of the Jewish community, and indeed Meir Vilner, one ofthe party leaders, would in 1948 append his name to Israel’s declaration ofindependence. Already in May 1947 Gromyko, as permanent representativeof the Soviet Union to the UN, gave a speech which indicated changes in theSoviet position,16 but this was not picked up by the communists in Palestine. Ameeting of communist parties of the British Commonwealth held in Londonunder the auspices of the Communist Party of Great Britain in February–March 194717 and in which both Arab and Jewish communists participated,had strengthened their conviction that the demand for a single democraticstate was the official standpoint of the international communist movementand nothing had prepared them for the abrupt change which was to come inNovember 1947.

The November 1947 decision on partition had contrasting repercussions inthe ranks of Arab and Jewish communists. For the former it led to dissensionand discord. But what was more important was the rapid and total collapseof Arab society, the outcome of defeat on the battlefield coupled with a policyof ethnic cleansing employed by the newly emerging Israeli state. Both thoseopposed to partition and those in favour were swept away in the upheavalwhich ensued. Those Arab communists who remained in areas which cameunder the control of the invading Arab armies were rounded up and impri-soned. Their outspoken support for partition and their call to Arab soldiers toreturn home and turn their bayonets against their own ruling classes18 wasreceived with hostility by the Arab inhabitants of the country who saw theinvading Arab armies as their saviours. It was only with the retreat of theArab armies and further advance of Israeli forces to areas outside those ear-marked for the Jewish state according to the UN partition plan that theysecured their freedom, which explains the relatively large number of Arabcommunists who eventually found themselves within the borders of the newlyestablished state.19

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The Jewish communists, on the other hand, enthusiastically supported theimplementation of partition characterizing it as part of the struggle againstthe British imperial presence in the region and soon renamed themselves theCommunist Party of Israel (MAKI). Later in September 1949 they werejoined by those Arab communists who had found themselves in Israeli terri-tory.20 The PCP, now reconstituted as the Communist Party of Israel, hadregained its internationalist character and unified within its ranks both Jewsand Arabs, the primary condition the Comintern had demanded when it wasfirst approached in 1923 by the newly established PCP with the demand forrecognition as a section.

6 Internal developments: the re-establishment of the PalestineCommunist Party

The Arab communists in eastern Palestine, the area which fell under Jorda-nian rule in 1948 and came to be known as the West Bank, continued tooperate under the name of the National Liberation League. For a couple ofyears after the Jordanian occupation of the area they persisted in their call forthe establishment of an independent Arab state as decreed by the UN 1947partition resolution. They opposed the convening of the Jericho Congressheld in December 1948 to facilitate the annexation of the newly acquiredterritory to TransJordan and publicly denounced the forced unification, call-ing for a boycott of parliamentary elections scheduled for April 1950. Ademonstration denouncing the scheduled elections led by communists tookplace in Nablus, the region’s second largest city, in April 1950, and was dis-banded by police; those arrested were forced on a ‘death march’ to Ammanduring which a young member of the party collapsed and died21 (al-Ashhab,2009: 63–4). In July 1948 the governor of Jerusalem appointed by the ArabHigher Committee outlawed the NLL and ordered that its members bearrested. This remained in force when the new Jordanian administration tookover (Kaufman, 2014: 122). Again in 1951 they called for a boycott of par-liamentary elections. Soon, however, they made their peace with the newreality of Jordanian control in eastern Palestine and in May 1951 changedtheir name to the Jordanian Communist Party (JCP). Their new politicalplatform persisted in demanding the implementation of UN resolutions 181and 194 calling for the establishment of an independent Arab state in man-dated Palestine, and for the return of the refugees to their homes in what hadnow become the state of Israel.22

The handful of Arab communists who found themselves in the Gaza Stripcontinued to organize under the name of the Palestine Communist Partyaided by the fact that the Egyptians who ‘administered’ the Strip did notannex it to Egypt and continued to treat it as Palestinian territory. Through-out the 19-year period of Egyptian control of the Strip, the communist partywas banned and the communists maintained an underground existence(Bseisu, 1980; Yassin, 1978). Their isolation came to an end with the Israeli


conquest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in June 1967. Israel’s militaryvictory in effect reconstituted Palestine’s original borders and the communistsin the Gaza Strip gradually reunited with their comrades in the West Bank ofJordan, but tellingly, not with those organized as the New Communist List(RAKAH) in Israel itself.

In the immediate aftermath of the unification congress of September 1949,MAKI found itself in a supportive environment both locally and inter-nationally. From the very first elections to the Israeli Knesset in 1949 it wouldgain parliamentary representation, on one occasion gaining as many as sixseats.23 The party benefitted from two special conditions: the newly estab-lished state’s ban on the establishment of purely Arab parties on the onehand, and the escalating Cold War on the other. By championing the rights ofthe small Arab minority which remained within Israel’s borders, and whichfor the first 17 years of its existence lived under a special military regime, theparty gained the support of a sizeable part of the community. It was careful,however, not to blur the line between non-Zionism and anti-Zionism. It nolonger drew on its radical anti-Zionist tradition and characterized itself asnon-Zionist. This was tolerated by the state. Besides international considera-tions, the communists were not the only political grouping in the newlyestablished state to characterize themselves as non-Zionist; there were otherswho did the same, both on the right and among the religious public. Theunfolding of the Cold War gave the party an additional measure of supportfrom groups of left Zionist workers who saw in it a defender of their eco-nomic rights as proletarians. There had always been a minority trend withinthe Zionist movement which saw itself as Marxist and tried to blend its ver-sion of Marxism with Jewish nationalism. They admired and supported theSoviet Union and were opposed to United States imperialist policies in var-ious parts of the world as well of those of the old colonial powers. This wasaccentuated the further away from Palestine the issues became.

This became clear with the rise of Arab nationalism under the leadershipof Egypt in the mid-1950s and 1960s. Israel was directly implicated in theattempt to contain the growing popularity of Gamal Abdel Nasser, whe-ther through collusion with Britain and France in the Suez war of 1956,support for Nasser’s enemies in the Arab world, carrying out militaryincursions within the Egyptian-controlled Gaza Strip and inflicting puni-tive blows against Syria, Egypt’s foremost ally in the region. While theparty continued to pay lip service to the idea of partition, its main plat-form was now centred on opposition to war, and it persisted in its calls for‘a just peaceful settlement’ of the Palestine issue and a ‘peace based onrecognition of national sovereignty of all states in the region’.24 It provedunable, however, to hold together under the pressure of aggressive and war-like policies carried out by successive Israeli governments against Egyptand Syria, states perceived as the Soviet Union’s main allies in the region.Consequently in 1965 the party split along national lines. A small minorityof both Jewish members and leaders remained loyal to the pro-Moscow

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and predominantly Arab faction which hereafter was renamed the NewCommunist List (RAKAH).

The majority of the Jewish membership of the party, including most lead-ing members, continued to adhere to a now purely Jewish communist orga-nization and eventually disappeared from the Israeli political scene; they hadbecome indistinguishable from other left Zionist factions and underwent aslow process of assimilation and absorption within their ranks. Twenty yearslater, in 1985, the predominantly Arab New Communist List (RAKAH) wasable to regain the original party name and was henceforth known as MAKI.By this stage, RAKAH-MAKI had for all intents and purposes become anall-Arab party, despite the insistence on having a token Arab Jewish leader-ship and Jewish representation in the Knesset. The party now perceived itselfas the legitimate offspring of the old PCP, and despite continued efforts in thesocial sphere, its main field of activity was as the representative of the Arabnational minority and the struggle for its political and civil rights in a statewhich was increasingly distancing itself from its secular origins and pro-claimed its Jewish character. Until the demise of the Soviet Union and thecommunist bloc in the late 1980s, it persisted in its demands to disengage thestate from the imperialist camp and to undertake a rapprochement withthe Arab world grounded in a just settlement of the refugee problem which,though never clearly spelled out, was understood to mean compensation forthe losses incurred in 1948, but not necessarily repatriation.

7 The transformation of Palestinian communists intoJordanian communists

Members of the old NLL, who now constituted the building blocks of theJCP, rapidly established a presence in the Jordanian political scene. In theperiod stretching up to 1957 when the Jordanian monarch engineered a royalcoup against his own nationalist cabinet, the Jordanian communists, despitesuffering the stigma of having supported partition, entered for the first timeinto a broad front with nationalist parties and contested the parliamentaryelections of October 1954. Participating in what came to be regarded as thecountry’s freest elections ever, party members stood again in October 1956and the party succeeded for the first time in getting its representatives electedto the parliament in Amman.25 The transformation into a Jordanian partyhad been rapid, and the organization’s main preoccupation was no longerPalestine or the refugees, but the Cold War, and what was perceived to beJordan’s continued subjugation to British imperial domination. This enabledit to make common cause with other nationalist forces in Jordan clamouringfor termination of the treaty of alliance between Jordan and the UnitedKingdom, the Arabization of the army by ending the employment of GeneralJ. B. Glubb and the coterie of British officers who wield effective power in theforce, and adherence to Nasser’s polices of non-alignment and friendship withthe communist bloc.


The party was driven underground in April 1957, its members eitherarrested and given long prison sentences in Jordan’s notorious desert prisoncamp in al Jaffr, or forced to flee the country, along with members of theBa’ath party and the Arab Nationalist Movement. For the next decade it leda shadowy existence and remained detached from the issues which were soonto galvanize the Jordanian political scene. According to the party’s ownaccount of its history, a faction within the leadership of the party had suc-cumbed to the blandishments of the mukhabarat (the internal security forces)and in 1966 after the arrest of its top leaders embarked on a path of recon-ciliation with the regime.26 This was cut short by the outbreak of the June1967 war which ushered in a new era both locally and regionally.

The establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1964and later the appearance of the first armed guerrilla organizations whichsubordinated all social and political issues to the single imperative of wagingwar on Israel with the aim of liberation and return did not cause the JCP tomodify its political strategy. The party continued to give primacy to thestruggle against the Cold War and Jordan’s allegiance to the Western campand clamoured for alignment with what was termed the ‘progressive Arabcamp’ comprising Egypt and Syria.

The drastic transformation which took place in 1967 as a result of Arabmilitary defeat manifested itself in the collapse of political authority inJordan. This created a situation of dual power which allowed not only thearmed Palestinian organizations to operate with complete disregard for theestablished regime, but also gave life to various other political organizationswhich had for long been banned by the authorities and whose members werenow released from custody and were able to come out into the open and toengage in political activities.

In the aftermath of the June 1967 war and the loss of the West Bank toIsrael, the JCP, far from falling in line with the popular mood, came out insupport of the implementation of Security Council resolution 242 whichcalled for Israeli withdrawal from all the territories it occupied in June 1967and for a peace settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbours. Thus inthe post-1967 period when armed struggle and people’s war were on every-body’s lips, Jordanian communists persisted in their demand for the adoptionof UN resolutions 242 and 194, the withdrawal of Israeli troops to the 4 June1967 borders, and the restoration of the status quo ante, while at the sametime reaffirming their long-held position on the necessity of implementing theoriginal 1947 UN partition resolution. Moreover Fahmi Salfiti, the mostprominent leader of the JCP living in the country, decried the rise of adven-turist tendencies in Jordan and the wider Arab world and publicly criticizedPalestinian advocates of armed struggle (Salfiti, 1968: 43–6). In practicalterms the JCP was standing up for the integrity of the Jordanian state and themonarchical regime, refusing to join the chorus which clamoured for a peo-ple’s liberation war and revolutionary transformation. Its watchword becameencapsulated in the expression ‘removing the effects of the aggression’. Yet

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despite the best of intentions it could not avoid being gradually swept alongthe rising radical tide which saw armed struggle as the only viable politicalstrategy in the conflict with Israel. A split within the top echelons of the partytook place with a conservative minority in the leadership refusing to bow tothe militant wave engulfing the region and indeed the party.27 The entrench-ment of numerous Palestinian guerrilla groups in Amman, whose numbersmushroomed as a result of the thousands of volunteers who flocked to theirranks from both Jordan’s Palestinian refugee camps and the neighbouringArab countries, had fundamentally transformed Jordan’s political situation. Ifthe party wanted to remain relevant or indeed survive, and to capitalize onthe new atmosphere which allowed for political competition right across thepolitical spectrum stretching from religious fundamentalists to the proponentsof workers and peasant Soviets, it was constrained to go with the tide.

Within the occupied territories themselves the party was quick to reorga-nize its ranks trying to create a broad front with what few political forces hadmanaged to survive the politically repressive environment of the previousdecade. It also reached out to local notables and establishment political fig-ures in an effort to co-opt them into this front to stand up to the Israelioccupation authorities. For the next 30 years this would remain the commu-nists’ main strategy; the creation of a broad united national front whichwould engage in non-violent resistance to the regime of expulsions, impri-sonments and settlement instituted by the Israeli occupation authorities andencapsulated in the slogan of Summoud (steadfastness) (Dakkak, 1983: 70–1).In this the communists achieved a measure of success, but their larger successlay in their efforts to create popular organizations at the grass-roots level at atime when the constituent groups of the PLO eschewed political activity andconcentrated their energies in pursuit of armed struggle. Thus in the occupiedPalestinian territories and for close to 15 years the communists had the(political) field to themselves.

The Israeli authorities for their part kept a tight leash on the party’s activ-ities. While periodically imprisoning party members and expelling leadingcadres to Jordan and Lebanon in an attempt to stem any drift towards theorganization of armed underground cells, they nevertheless exhibited a certaintolerance. Primacy was given to those engaged in armed activities within andwithout its de facto borders and to combating armed bands which infiltratedacross the border. The defeat and expulsion of the Palestinian guerrilla groupsfrom Amman in the aftermath of the war waged against them by a rejuve-nated Jordanian regime in 1970/1, and their reallocation to Lebanon, some-what relieved the pressure on the party. A division of labour appears to havenaturally taken place; armed struggle became the sole preserve of the PLOand its constituent groups in Lebanon and elsewhere, while political organiz-ing and popular mobilization against the occupation was the field of choice ofthe Jordanian communists within the occupied territories.

All along the party’s strategy was based on the belief that diplomatic effortsbolstered by support of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc would force


Israel to relinquish the occupied territories and ensure their restoration toJordan. In the meantime it busied itself organizing unions and professionalassociations with the aim of mobilizing all sections of society comprisingworkers, students and women, in the day-to-day struggle against the occupa-tion. The armed struggle, the prerogative of the outside, was shyly supportedat a distance but the party did not feel impelled to practise it. The commu-nists’ greatest success was undoubtedly the formation of the Patriotic Front inthe mid-1970s and early 1980s which encompassed the elected mayors of themajor West Bank towns, representatives of political organizations and pro-fessional bodies, in addition to ‘nationalist personalities’ (Dakkak, 1983). Butit was the party itself which possessed ‘troops’ in the sense of having grass-root organizations which were able to mobilize various sectors of the popu-lation and carry out mass actions. Nevertheless, the occupation authorities’attitude toward the communists continued to oscillate between toleration andrepression. On the one hand, the fact that they did not engage in armedactivities differentiated them from the organizations affiliated to the PLOand allowed the Israelis to turn a blind eye, yet at the same time their successin building grass-roots organizations and widening their base of support, theincreasing acceptance of the idea of a two-state solution within Palestinianranks and their increasing cooperation with diaspora-based Palestinian poli-tical organizations resulted in greater radicalization within the occupiedterritories and drove the authorities to adopt harsher punitive measures.

8 The re-establishment of the Palestine Communist Party

While initially operating as a section of the JCP, communist activists in theIsraeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza rapidly gravitated towards establishingtheir own independent Palestinian organization. Surrendering to the pressureexerted by their Palestinian political environment, the name of the party wasinitially modified to the Communist Organisation in the West Bank in thesummer of 1975. Their first public appearance on the political scene, however,had been as al Jabha Al Wataniya (the Patriotic Front).28 It was commonknowledge at the time that the communists were using the name in order tomarshal the widest possible popular support and to avoid any partisan sensi-tivities. They strove tirelessly to give substance to a united front with otherpolitical groups and professional bodies, and their efforts were rewarded inAugust 1973 with the founding of a more representative Jabha Wataniya. TheIsraeli occupation forces immediately unleashed a wave of arrests againstparty members and by April 1974 they had succeeded in nearly destroying thefront, arresting its leading members and exiling them out of the country.29

Arabi Awaad, the leader of the party in the occupied territories, was one ofthose expelled in December 1973 alongside other nationalist leaders right atthe start of the Israeli campaign to eradicate the front.30

The communists for their part did not camouflage their aims which were atvariance from those of the PLO and prevailing Palestinian sentiment, and

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made this explicit in their political programme. Their demand for support forpartition, a two-state solution and the setting up of an independent Palesti-nian state did not falter. Despite finding themselves in a minority position, asituation they were often accustomed to, they remained steadfast in their callsfor what has come to be euphemistically called ‘the two-state solution’ longbefore this had become acceptable to the PLO, and to Israel (at least verb-ally), and as a result to the international community as well. In a concessionto existing political realities they added to their list of demands support forthe slogan of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinianpeople, despite the fact that the organization had for long closed its doors totheir application for membership.

The transformations of the PLO itself after a succession of military defeats,culminating in their expulsion from Lebanon in the summer of 1982 at thehands of Israeli troops, paradoxically lent itself to a strengthening of thePLO’s international standing. Already Arafat’s appearance before the UNgeneral assembly in 1974 and the subsequent adoption of the PLO’s transi-tional programme calling for the establishment of a ‘national authority’,understood to be a euphemism for a Palestinian state in the West Bank andthe Gaza Strip, had brought the organization widening international recog-nition. Within communist ranks this increased the pressure for the assumptionof a Palestinian persona and separation from the JCP. Increasingly the party’spronouncements no longer talked about ‘liquidating the results of the aggres-sion’ and the consequent reunification of the West Bank within the frameworkof the Jordanian state.

Already in 1975, factions within the party in the occupied territories weredisseminating printed literature under the name of the Palestine CommunistParty, despite the leadership’s opposition,31 while, as stated above, the officialparty hierarchy clung to the link with Jordan and would only agree to changethe party’s name to the Organisation of Palestinian Communists. AlthoughJordanian communists as a political organization remained outside the ranksof the PLO and would remain so until 1987, they were active within theorganization’s councils as individuals representing popular organizations.Members of the party outside the occupied territories enjoyed close relationswith various left-wing organizations who themselves were represented in thevarious bodies of the PLO. Consequently, when in February 1982 the Jorda-nian mother party gave its assent to changing the name of the organization tothe PCP32 this was merely giving formal recognition to an already existingreality and helped unite the various factions within the organization. It wassoon to become clear, however, that members who were active outside theoccupied territories had grown much closer to the PLO and had becomeinfected with its addiction to armed struggle.

The outbreak of the Intifada or popular insurrection in December 1987appeared to vindicate the party’s faith in the power of popular organizationand non-violent protest. The leadership, however, remained wary, not wantingto encumber the inhabitants of the territories with more tasks than they could


cope with. Alongside other political forces active in the occupied territories,they assumed the Intifada would need be short lived. Its spontaneous naturewould necessarily result in its eventual petering out.33 In this all the partiesconcerned proved to be mistaken. The longevity of the Intifada and its per-sistent affirmation of support for the PLO as the sole legitimate representativeof the Palestinian people would eventually facilitate the negotiating processbetween the Israeli government and the PLO. Paradoxically the outbreak ofthe Intifada had already shifted the focus of the Palestinian struggle from thearmed to the popular field; and from the outside, with a PLO leadershipensconced far away in Tunisia and bereft of a popular base after its expulsionfrom Lebanon, to the inside. The Palestinian communists were well placed tocapitalize on this and assumed a primary role in the ensuing political devel-opments which would eventually lead to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations atMadrid and the conclusion of a transitional peace agreement at Oslo in 1993and mutual Israeli-Palestinian recognition. The outcome of this would be theestablishment of the Palestine Authority under the leadership of the PLO. Theparty, despite its numerous reservations in relation to the negotiation processand details of the accord, was a partner in the negotiation process havingalready been accepted in the leading bodies of the PLO at the Algiers meetingof the Palestinian National Council in 1987. Now ensconced in the innercouncils of the PLO, the communists, at Arafat’s behest, along with other left-wing groups, occupied a seat in the top decision-making bodies of the orga-nization. They constituted his natural allies in his efforts to carry out thepragmatic steps which would allow him to win American, and later Israelirecognition as a meaningful negotiation partner. PCP representatives wouldserve both in the leading councils of the PLO and in the cabinets that YasserArafat formed after his return to the occupied territories. Paradoxically thecommunists’ support for and advocacy of partition was vindicated in thebroad acceptance with which the signed agreements were initially received.They had pushed for the establishment of an independent national state fromthe mid-1970s, when such talk was anathema in the councils of the PLO aswell as to the Israeli mainstream. Twenty years later a series of defeats forcedthe PLO to accede to an inferior arrangement, autonomy without nationalsovereignty, with the promise that this would in full time lead to full sover-eignty and independent statehood. More than 20 years later this has provedto be a chimera. By then both regional and international conditions hadchanged and the party itself had now become a shadow of its former self.

Soon after, with the collapse of the international communist movement inthe late 1980s, the party held a congress in October 1991 in which it wasdecided to transform itself into a ‘socialist’ party and, reflecting its newideology, to change its name to the Palestinian People’s Party (Hizb al-Sha’bal-Filastini).34 A faction rejected these changes and refused to abide by thecongress decisions and continued to operate under the name of the PalestineCommunist Party, maintaining an international presence through a networkof like-minded communist parties which survived the disappearance of the

144 Musa Budeiri

Soviet Union and the communist bloc. In October 2016 press reportsindicated that it had participated in the Hanoi meeting of internationalcommunist parties, and in 2017 in a similar gathering in Saint Petersburg.35

The Israeli communists, for their part, likewise survived the meltdown ofthe international communist movement and retained the name MAKI buthave also undergone a transformation into an openly Arab national party,despite the token presence of a number of Jewish members. In an Israelipolitical field which has moved increasingly to the right with the dis-appearance of any vestiges of left Zionist political parties or social-democraticideology, it has assumed the role of a ‘peace’ party. It places itself at the headof the struggle for political and civil rights of the Arab national minoritywithin Israel and has entered into a broad coalition with the various compo-nents of Arab society, including those based on religious affiliation to theright, and those calling for the recognition of the Arab community in Israel asa national community with all the ensuing rights and privileges, envisagingIsrael as a binational state to its left. The party remains a staunch advocate ofthe two-state solution. One thing is self-evident, internationalism has beenabandoned and the party has undergone a transformation from an organizationgrounded in class to a nationalist one.

9 Conclusion

The fateful connection between the communist movement in Palestine andlater in Israel and Jordan with the Soviet Union was foretold from the verybeginning when a handful of Jewish communists applied to join the ranks ofthe Comintern and agreed to subordinate themselves to its authority and toabide by the 21 conditions of membership. Priority to the international con-text was and remained the primary consideration; unswerving loyalty to theturns and twists of Comintern policy denied the rank and file the freedom toengage in locally driven politics. The goals of Soviet foreign policy defined thetasks imposed on the Comintern, which the latter passed on to its affiliatedmember parties. Whether the discussion is of the ‘popular front’, the rap-prochement with Germany as manifested in the Molotov-Ribbentrop August1939 pact, the support for partition in Palestine or the endorsement of ‘pro-gressive’ Arab regimes in the 1960s, it was incumbent on Arab and Jewishcommunists to adapt to the latest tactical moves of Soviet diplomacy clothingit in the requisite revolutionary rhetoric. This is not to deny agency to indi-vidual Arab and Jewish communists. Youthful and idealistic, they joined anoutlawed movement subjected to various intensities of police repression formost of its existence with faith in the righteousness of their path and in theinfallibility of the Soviet state, increasingly personified in the person of Stalinand his successors. Adaptation of their political activity to the tactical needsof the Soviet state was not the outcome of dictates but willingly entered intoin the belief that furthering the aims of Soviet policy and defending the‘socialist fatherland’ was the best possible service they could give to the cause


of socialism and world revolution. Indeed, within the ranks of the movementthere was often intense debate, disagreement and acrimony. At various junc-tures, organizations split up and new factions set themselves up as ‘authentic’communist parties; nevertheless, all the while warring factions continued todeclare their unconditional support for Stalin and whoever succeeded to theleadership of the CPSU. Belief in the primary role of the Soviet Union was anarticle of faith while matters of tactics could and did lead to bitter quarrelsand divisions, to accusations of treason to the cause of the proletariat andinternationalism and to appeals to the CPSU itself for legitimation.

In the aftermath of the Sykes-Picot division of the Ottoman inheritance thecommunists committed themselves to the fight against the dominant imperi-alist powers in the region, Britain and France, and to the search for a non-nationalist solution for the region’s malaise. They rejected the borders createdby Anglo-French intrigue for control and domination but they did not sub-scribe to the idea of integral Arab unity as an appropriate solution for thepeoples living in the region. They nevertheless held to the belief that thepeoples suffering the rule of Anglo-French colonialism shared much incommon and that theirs was a single fight against a common enemy. Theyopposed Zionism while at the same time they perceived a community ofinterests between Arab and Jewish labourers and, while the nationalists calledfor the establishment of an Arab state in Palestine, they demanded the crea-tion of a democratic state for all of its inhabitants, Arabs and Jews. They didnot see the conflict in Palestine as one between Arabs and Jews but as oneagainst imperialism and colonialism. They did not advocate expulsion of Jewsfrom the country and called for an end to British rule and the establishmentof a democratic government. The overwhelming majority of Jews in Palestinewere part of the labouring classes and had the same interests and suffered thesame exploitation as the native Arab inhabitants. Jewish workers who hadbecome disillusioned by Zionism did not need to leave the country but couldjoin the party and struggle for a common future for all of its inhabitants. Thecommunists created modern political parties in an attempt to establish grass-roots movements to organize workers and peasants and enable them to exerttheir influence and make their preferences known, in opposition to clan-basedparties centred on clerical and feudal leaders and notables who were notaccountable to their followers and who were an integral part of the powerstructures of the ruling imperial powers. They established trade unions toenable the working class in the making to organize itself and acquire the toolsof the class struggle, just as they established literary journals which opened upspace for the circulation of ideas and familiarized the public with the culturesand struggles of other peoples in other countries and other continents, andthey introduced the giants of international literature to a youthful middleclass which had only recently broken through the illiteracy barrier. In the eraof independence in the 1950s and beyond, the communists mobilized them-selves as soldiers in the global Cold War and subordinated all local andregional conflicts to the struggle between the capitalist world and the Soviet

146 Musa Budeiri

Union and its dependent states in Eastern Europe. They diluted their socialprogrammes and dressed themselves up in nationalist colours. This won thema measure of support from the intelligentsia and a section of the middleclasses. But in the end they remained outsiders. In Palestine they were unableto overcome the national divide and they became enmeshed in the nationaldivision which ensued and found themselves ensconced within the confines oftheir own national community. Gradually, the social struggle took a back seatand they became indistinguishable from other national parties except to theextent that they continued to look to Moscow for a lead, and to measure theirown country’s regimes as a function of the distance it took from Moscow andWashington. Both in Palestine/Israel and in Jordan communist parties con-tinue to exist. They share little if anything with their forebears and theirpolitical lexicon owes nothing to the vocabulary of class struggle, proletarianrevolution and the ideals of internationalism, yet they continue to portraythemselves as the legitimate offspring of the attempts of class-conscious Araband Jewish workers in the first half of the twentieth century to try andconstruct a more just and equal world.

Notes1 ‘Summons to the Congress: To the Enslaved Popular Masses of Persia, Armenia

and Turkey’. Baku Congress of the Peoples of the East. Baku September 1920.Stenographic report. NY 1977, pp. 1–5.

2 ‘Terms of Conditions for Admission into the Second International July 1920’,www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/jul/x01.htm

3 Manabendra Nath (MN) Roy ‘M. N. Roy Supplementary Thesis on the Nationaland Colonial Question. 4th session July 25, 1920’, www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/2nd-congress/ch04.htm

4 Al Hurriya, 19 April 1982, pp. 33–42. Interview with Abdul Hafith al Abssi, oldmember of the PCP and a student in Moscow in the early 1930s; interview withRadwan al Hilu, general secretary of the party 1934–43 (in Budeiri, 2013: 62);interview with Muhammad Duwaidar, student at the University of Toilers of theEast, Moscow. He spent the period 1927–37 in the Soviet Union (in al Saeed,1972: 232).

5 Interview with Radwan Al Hilu, who mentions the opposition of the party tomembers leaving to fight in Spain (Budeiri, 2013: 73).

6 This was the outcome of the betrayal of Ahmad Sidqi, a party member who him-self had received his training in Moscow and who was the brother of Najat Sidqi,the most prominent Arab leader of the party at the time. Report of trial in Filastin,17 May 1931; reproduced in Budeiri, 2013: 298–300.

7 Radwan al Hilu emphasized that the party was always more successful in recruit-ing Jewish members despite the fact that the party leadership since 1934 had anArab majority. Interview with R. al Hilu (Budeiri, 2013: 60, 78).

8 According to Joseph Berger, leader of the PCP in the late 1920s, Boumil Smeral,Czech communist leader and Comintern emissary visiting Palestine at the time,concurred with the party’s characterization of the event as a pogrom (Keshet, N 291965; interview with Jospeh Berger (Budeiri, 2013: 39)). Boumil Smeral himselfwould later write an article which was published in the French edition of Inprecor(but not in the English one) where he skirts the issue (Inprecor, No. 112, 9November 1929, p. 512). Interview with Radwan al Hilu (Budeiri, 2013: 59).


9 ‘The Revolt in Palestine. PCP Statement on 1929 Events’. Inprecor, N 54 and 56.Interview with Joseph Berger (Budeiri, 2013: 39–40).

10 Interview with Hamdi Husseini in (Budeiri, 2013: 171–3). ‘Telegram from HamdiHusseini 20 July 1929 to Secretariat of League against Imperialism 2nd Congressin Frankfurt. Protesting Egyptian Government Refusal to Grant Transit Visa toTravel to Alexandria to Take Boat to Europe. Signed as: Delegate of the Left Wingof 7th Arab Palestinian Congress (1928)’. Filastin, 25 July 1929; Al Ahrar (Beirut),16 August 1929. For Husseini’s extensive links with the Comintern see Zehavi,2005: 442–54.

11 Interview with Radwan al Hilu (Budeiri, 2013: 77).12 Letter in Haor, 17 December 1936 (a Tel Aviv journal published by Mordechai

Stein, a lawyer with Trotskyist leanings) in reference to a bomb thrown at aworkers’ club. Letter signed Poel (worker). Radwan for his part insists that Jewishparty members were keen to participate in armed activities. Interview with Radwanal Hilu (Budeiri, 2013: 73). The party issued a denial at the time of that particularincident. Boulos Farah, a member of the Central Council of the PCP at the time,in his memoirs points the finger at one of the newly elevated Arab members to theleadership who he portrays as having been a Mufti supporter if not an outrightimplant (Farah, 1985: 192).

13 Simha Tzabari was another Moscow-trained party cadre. For a journalisticaccount of her life see Karpel, 2004. See also personal details in Cominternarchives dated 22 December 1942, reproduced in Zehavi, 2005: 494–5.

14 Radwan al Hilu, who had been appointed as party leader by Moscow, was awarethat his authority came from the Comintern and with the dissolution of the latterhad lost his authority. Interview, R. Al Hilu (Budeiri, 2013: 67).

15 Already the Soviets had decided that they would support partition though this wasnot known to the party (Letter of Molotov, 30 September 1948, addressed to A.Vyshinski in New York, the Soviet representative at the UN, stating that the crea-tion of an independent Jewish state was the Soviet position despite the fact that atGromyko’s appearance at the UN in April 1947 he had suggested that the SovietUnion preferred the establishment of a united dual state (Gorodetsky et al., 2000)).Interview with Chimen Abramsky, ex member of the PCP and later member of theCommunist Party of Great Britain (5 July 1973 at the London Conference ofBritish Communist Parties).

16 ‘A. Gromyko at the First Special Session of the UN General Assembly. New York.14 May 1947’, www.zionism-israel.com/zionism_ungromyko.htm

17 ‘We Speak of Freedom’. Conference of Communist Parties of the British Empire,London, 26 February–2 March 1947. Booklet published by the Communist Partyof Great Britain which contains speeches of both Emil Tuma and Shmuel Mikunisas representatives of Arab and Jewish communists and the conference declarationon Palestine; Emil Tuma’s mea culpa 1949, National Archives Jerusalem File V1272 4 37. Interview with Chimen Abramsky (London 1973) says that at theLondon conference Shmuel Mikunis had already put forward the choice as bina-tionalism or partition, but this was not included in his speech.

18 ‘A Call to Soldiers … Soldiers of Egypt and Brotherly Arab States: Return Homeand Point Your Guns at the Colonialists and Their Lackeys’ (NLL leaflet, July1948); ‘A Statement to the Arab Peoples Concerning the Palestine Problem andAnglo American Military Imperialist Schemes in the Arab East’ (joint statementby Iraqi, Syrian and Lebanese communist parties and the NLL in Palestine,October 1948 – Arabic leaflets).

19 Letter signed by 65 communist prisoners in Israeli prison camp no. 792 addressedto camp commander, 1948. Archives of Communist Party V 1272 4 37, NationalArchives, Jerusalem.

148 Musa Budeiri

20 Unification Conference of Arab and Jewish Communists, Haifa 22/23 October1948. ‘Unity Conference of Jewish and Arab Communists in Israeli CommunistParty’. The main speakers were E. Gojansky, Esther Vilenska, Emil Habbibi, MeriVilner, Toufik Toubi and Shmuel Mikunis. Hebrew pamphlet. Three Arab leadersof the NLL were co-opted to the 16-member Central Council of the Unified Party(Kaufman, 2014: 127).

21 ‘31 Years since the Founding of the Jordanian Communist Party (JCP)’. Publica-tion of the Palestine Communist Organisation, Lebanon, pp. 19–20; ‘Resolutionsof CC of NLL May 1951’. Arabic pamphlet; English translation in CID archives.V.1272 34/77, National Archives, Jerusalem).

22 ‘31 Years since the Founding of the Jordanian Communist Party (JCP)’, p. 21.23 Maki won four seats in the first Knesset in 1949, five seats in the second Knesset in

1951 and six seats in the third Knesset in 1955 (Medding, 1990: 53–4).24 ‘The Third Congress of the Israeli Communist Party, Tel Aviv 29 May–1 June

1957’ (conference proceedings published by the Central Committee of the IsraeliCommunist Party, pp. 45, 147.

25 The party won two seats, one of which was in Jerusalem where tellingly an eastbanker, Dr Yakoub Zayyadin, was elected (al ‘Outti, 2012: 131).

26 ‘Response to the Political Program of the Bashir Barghouti Clique’ (publication ofinterim leadership of the Palestinian Communist Party, February 1985, pp. 93–4).The two main leaders of the party, Fahimi Salfiti and Rushdi Shaheen, in theabsence of Fouad Nassar, the party’s general secretary who was in exile, made adeal with the regime upon which they were released from jail, and adopted aposition supporting the Hashemite monarchy.

27 In December 1970 they split from the party and established themselves under thename of the Leninist Cadre. ‘The Current Situation in Jordan and the CorrectPosition Facing the JCP’ (report submitted by the enlarged plenum of the LeninistCadre in the JCP at their meeting held early in December 1970).

28 Al Jabha, Al Wataniya (Patriotic Front). An announcement in the party’s under-ground paper Al Watan (Fatherland), No. 57, mid-September 1973, informed thefront was established on 15 August 1973. A six-page programme was publishedand secretly distributed in January 1974. In mid-April 1974 the front issued its firstunderground paper titled Filasteen (Palestine). Already in August 1976, the firstcalls issued by the party to oppose the occupation, e.g. the call for a general strikeagainst the Israeli decree to ‘unify Jerusalem’, were initiated by the communistsusing the label of the patriotic front.

29 Typewritten memorandum submitted by the Quaker Office in Jerusalem toAmnesty International. ‘Report from the Occupied Territories July 8th–August18th 1974’. The report includes a list of 63 persons, overwhelmingly communistactivists who were held in administrative detention without trial in Israeli deten-tion centres (pp. 1–4), and another list of 28 names of persons whom the Israelimilitary authorities have arbitrarily expelled from the occupied territories (p. 15).

30 On his expulsion in 1973 Arabi Awaad headed the party organization in Lebanon.In 1982 he was expelled from the PCP for refusing to submit to party discipline,but the real issue was his increasingly closer identification with guerrilla groups inLebanon and his demand that the PCP should embark on armed activities similarto other constituent groups of the PLO. He established his own organization, thePalestinian Revolutionary Communist Party, and established military trainingcamps in Syria and Lebanon. ‘Response to the Political Program of the BashirBarghouti Clique’, February 1985, p. 101. At the same time the Central Council ofthe PCP issued a statement expelling him from the party. Al Watan, 15 November1982.

31 First declaration of the establishment of the PCP by a group of dissidents withinthe party in 1975. In May a 32-page pamphlet was circulated entitled ‘PCP:


Internal Secret Document’, outlining the disagreements within the party and why itwas necessary for the communists to organize under the new name. The responseof the JCP was to rename its section in the occupied territories ‘The PalestinianCommunist Organisation’. All subsequent issues of Al Watan would bear this logo.Early in 1982, it was decided by the JCP to accede to the prevailing mood within itsranks and Al Watan, No. 1, early February 1982 announced the birth of the new party.

32 Al-Jamaheer Organ of JCP, Year 33, N 12, December 1981; and Al-Watan, Organof CC of PCP, Year 15, N 1, February 1982.

33 An internal document of the PCP dated end of December 1987 already talks of theneed to wind down the Intifada as it was the party’s estimate that it was runningout of steam and that it was a mistake to burden the masses who had been veryactive with more than they could shoulder. ‘Observations of the Popular Intifadaand Its Lessons’ (six-page typewritten document, personal collection).

34 ‘The Palestinian Peoples Party: Program and Internal Statues’, October 1991(personal collection, Arabic).

35 ‘18th International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties’, 28–30 October2016. Held in Vietnam. The surviving PCP was established on 7 November 1991after declaring that the leadership of the PCP had betrayed the struggle, andmaintains a virtual presence led by Dr Mahmoud Saadeh, http://pallcp.ps/Pages/pres_program. It proclaims itself as the continuation of the historic party establishedin Palestine in 1924. Unlike its predecessor it is a purely Arab party in its compo-sition and proclaims an Arab national programme, http://pallcp.ps/Pages/view_new/879. Most recently the party took part in a regional meeting of communistparties held in Athens on 29 November 2017 at the invitation of the Greek Com-munist Party, www.m.ahewar.org/s.asp?aid=581019&r=0>. Earlier in Novemberthe party secretary general attended the 19th Conference of International Com-munist and Workers Parties held in Leningrad–St Petersburg, www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1477604288974727&id=285060214895813

Referencesal-Ashhab, Naim (2009) Paths of Pain: Paths of Hope. An Autobiography, Ramallah,

s.n. (Arabic).al ‘Outti, Abdul Azziz (2012) Passages of a Lifetime: From the Shores of Gaza to al

Jaffer Desert, Amman, s.n. (Arabic).al Saeed, Rifaat (1972) Al Yassar al Masri 1925–1940. Tarikh al haraka al ishtirakiya

fi Masr, Beirut.Bseisu, Mueen (1980) Communism in Gaza, Beirut, Dafater Filastiniya (Arabic).Budeiri, Musa K. (2013) Communists in Palestine: Fragments of a Forgotten History,

Ramallah, Muwatin, Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy (Arabic).Dakkak, Ibrahim (1983) ‘Back to Square One: A Study in the Re-emergence of the

Palestinian Identity in the West Bank 1967–1980’. In Scholch, A. (Ed.), Palestiniansover the Green Line: Studies on the Relations between Palestinians on Both Sides ofthe 1949 Armistice Line since 1967, London, Ithaca Press.

Farah, Boulos (1985) From Ottomanism to the Hebrew State, Nazareth, s.n. (Arabic).Gorodetsky, Gabriel, Freundlich, Yehoshua, Yaroshevsky, Dov & Ro’i, Yaacov (Eds)

(2000) Documents on Israeli–Soviet Relations, 1941–1953, London, Frank Cass.Karpel, Dalia (2004) ‘A Revolutionary Life’. Haaretz, 9 December, www.haaretz.

com/a-revolutionary-life-1.143065Kaufman, Ilana (2014) ‘Communists and the 1948 War: PCP, Maki, and the National

Liberation League’. Journal of Israeli History, 33, 2.

150 Musa Budeiri

Medding, Peter (1990) The Founding of Israeli Democracy, 1948–1967, Oxford, OxfordUniversity Press.

Offenberg, Mario (1975) Kommunismus in Palaestina. Nation und Kalasse in derantikolonialen Revolution, PhD thesis, Free University of West Berlin.

Salfiti, Fahmi (1968) ‘The Situation in Jordan and Communist Tactics’. World MarxistReview, October/November.

Yassin, Abdul Qader (1978) A Communist Party with Its Back to the Wall: HistoricalTestimony on the Communist Movement in the Gaza Strip 1948–1967, Beirut, s.n.(Arabic).

Zehavi, Leon (2005) Apart or Together: Jews and Arabs in Palestine According to theDocuments of the Comintern, 1919–1943, Jerusalem, Keter (Hebrew).


8 The communist movement in Egypt

Bárbara Azaola-Piazza

1 Introduction

The history of the communist movement in Egypt is a complex tale of variousleftist currents making contributions, facing contradictions and often playingan important role during key moments in modern Egyptian social andpolitical life, despite their differing sensibilities and reference points.1

There are three stages in the evolution of Egyptian communism:

1 From the 1922 founding of the first Egyptian Communist Party (ECP) asa member of the Third International, one year after the creation of asocialist party, to 1924. During these two years, this incarnation of theparty was active and had an impact, albeit a limited one, on politicallife – particularly vis-à-vis the workers’ movement – in association withthe General Confederation of Labour (CGT).

2 From the 1930s–1940s to 1965, with the ‘second movement’, a currentthat encompassed a number of unauthorized communist groups, three ofwhich united into a single organization between 1958 and 1965, whensome of its members left to join the Nasserite project.

3 From the 1968 student mobilizations, which spawned the 1970s ‘thirdmovement’, when the ECP – now prominent among intellectuals and theuniversity population – was refounded and up to the late 1990s.

This chapter analyses each of the different stages through which the Egyp-tian communist movement passed, from the creation of the first ECP in 1922to the outbreak of the January 2011 revolution, followed by a brief assessmentof the movement’s primary strengths and weaknesses and its contributions topolitical and intellectual life in contemporary Egypt.

2 The creation of the Egyptian Communist Party and its ties to theworkers’ movement (1921–4)

After World War I, Egypt was home to a modest but active leftist current(Lockman, 2008: 65). To begin with, a socialist party rapidly transformed

into a communist party that maintained relatively close ties to the workers’movement through trade unions and their federations. Although the commu-nists were suppressed within a few years, their efforts on behalf of the work-ers’ movement had repercussions beyond the group’s usual sphere of influenceand activity.

One figure stands out above the others in the history of the formation ofthe first communist organizations and the connection between socialism andthe workers’ movement: Joseph Rosenthal.2 A Palestinian Jew and socialistsince his youth, Rosenthal came to Egypt in the late nineteenth century andimmediately made contact with the trade unions in Alexandria, which werepredominantly organized by foreign, largely Greek, workers. In the context ofthe nationalist mobilizations for Egyptian independence in 1919, Rosenthalwas inspired by the strikes and trade unionism being promoted by these for-eign – and to a lesser extent Egyptian – workers to organize a labour con-federation in order to unify the various trade unions and unorganized workersand establish a socialist presence within the workers’ movement. In 1920 heissued a call to action, and in February 1921 the CGT was created in Alex-andria, modelled on socialist-led European (primarily French) trade unionconfederations. However, the new confederation represented only a smallfraction of the organized working class, since the main Egyptian trade unionsopted not to join it.3

One direct consequence of the birth of the CGT was the creation of theEgyptian Socialist Party (ESP) in August of the same year. The idea ofcreating a socialist party in Egypt had been around since the end of WorldWar I, when numerous Egyptian intellectuals, the best known being SalamaMoussa,4 began to disseminate socialist ideas, inspired more by Fabianismthan by Marxism. Even before the ESP was founded, leftists holding moreradical positions, including Rosenthal, had already created two groups: theGroupe d’Études Sociales, or Social Studies Group (1920), considered a ‘toolof the Third International’ (Ginat, 2011: 36–7) and, shortly thereafter, LaClarté (al-Wuduh, or The Clarity). Both circles operated under the cover ofworkers’ groups and served as a dissemination channel for communist ideaswhile also establishing contacts with sympathizers, both foreign and Egyptian(Lockman, 2008: 67).5

The ESP was a diverse organization that represented various socialist cur-rents from Fabianism to social democracy, Marxism and Marxism-Leninism(Ginat, 2011: 56). As a Fabianist, Moussa, like most other leftist Egyptianintellectuals, renounced the Bolshevik revolution, while Rosenthal sided withthe believers in communism, primarily citizens of Greek origin and Jews fromdifferent backgrounds (el-Sa’id, 1975; Beinin & Lockman, 1987: 110). TheESP platform called for the liberation of Egypt from foreign domination, fora new society based on common ownership of the means of production, freecompulsory education, improved working conditions through trade unions,the election of workers’ representatives in parliament and women’s emanci-pation.6 All of these objectives were to be reached by peaceful means. This

The communist movement in Egypt 153

somewhat ambitious platform was a reflection of the extent to which theparty’s founders emulated the example of European social-democratic parties,especially the British Labour Party (Lockman, 2008: 68).

In the socialist party, differences between the social democrats and therevolutionaries began to grow. In mid-1922 the leadership moved from Cairoto Alexandria, where it adopted more radical positions, leading SalamaMoussa and other intellectuals influenced by Fabianism and opposed to Bol-shevism to leave the party. At this point, under the leadership of, amongothers, Egyptian lawyer Mahmoud Hosni al-Urabi and Rosenthal, the orga-nization became identified as a communist party. Al-Urabi was sent toMoscow to the Fourth Conference of the Communist International (Comin-tern) to negotiate the recognition of the party as a representative of theEgyptian proletariat and join the Third International (Ismael & El-Sa’id,1990: 21). Upon his return in December 1922, the party officially became theEgyptian Communist Party and its central committee accepted the 21 conditionsimposed by the Comintern (Lockman, 2008).7

After the ECP joined the Third International, it presented a new platformbased on communist principles according to the Comintern’s conditions at itsinaugural conference on 25 January 1923 (Ginat, 2011: 90, 103). The plat-form was divided into two parts – nationalist policies and socio-economicquestions – and demanded the nationalization of the Suez Canal, the libera-tion and unification of Egypt and Sudan, the abolition of the foreign capitu-lation agreements and national debt forgiveness in addition to an eight-hourwork day and, inter alia, equal salaries for Egyptian and foreign workers(Ismael & El-Sa’id, 1990: 21–2).8 At this point in time, the party entered aphase of greater activity and flexibility towards nationalists and other poli-tical forces in general. At its Fourth Congress, the Comintern had recom-mended that affiliate parties in colonial or semi-colonial countries seek outalliances with bourgeois nationalist forces and adopt more flexible tactics toovercome their isolation. Indeed, during the 1920s Comintern strategists werebusy trying to fathom how communist parties in countries that would cometo be known as the Third World should join with bourgeois-led nationalistmovements. The options were to reject all association with bourgeois nation-alist forces and fight independently in accordance with an explicitly commu-nist platform or to form a common front with sectors of the bourgeoisie inorder to end imperialist domination and dismantle local reactionary forces(Lockman, 2008: 72–3).

In the case of Egypt, according to the Comintern, the ECP had to ‘struggleto expel British imperialism from one of its most important colonies’ (Ginat,2011: 104). However, when al-Urabi returned from the Fourth CominternCongress, the Egyptian communist movement had decided that cooperationwith bourgeois nationalism was neither possible nor desirable. The party’smain orientation was anti-capitalist more than anti-imperialist, with the classstruggle of foreign and Egyptian workers being the priority objective and thebattle led by the bourgeoisie for independence being a secondary question. At

154 Bárbara Azaola-Piazza

that time, the nationalist bourgeoisie was represented by the Wafd Party,whose aim was to force the British to hand over control of Egypt to the localelite; moreover, the group sought to monopolize representation of nationalistdemands. A formal alliance between the ECP and the Wafd was not consideredpossible at the time.

However, with the abolition of martial law in 1923, the political climateseemed favourable for the ECP to attempt some kind of rapprochement. Boththe ECP and the CGT, with al-Urabi as secretary general of both organiza-tions, chose to play a leading role in the strikes and demonstrations held thatyear in an attempt to demonstrate their revolutionary spirit. For the British-controlled Egyptian government, however, this became an opportunity toarrest al-Urabi, close the party headquarters and confiscate its publications.In late 1923, a series of repressive laws were passed, some directly targetingthe communists (Lockman, 2008: 72).9 After al-Urabi was freed, both theECP and the CGT resumed their activities according to a new strategyhanded down from Moscow. The party was to begin working with thenationalist leaders to put an end to the British occupation and obtain com-plete independence for Egypt. Once attained, the communists could return totheir struggle for a socialist Egypt. From this moment on, the question aboutwhether to put the national struggle before social revolution and whether ornot to collaborate with bourgeois forces in a single front to reach politicalaims would divide the Egyptian left until well into the twenty-first century.

In January 1924 the Wafd Party won the election and its leader and founder,Saad Zaghloul, became prime minister, raising great expectations among thepopular masses. The communists, who felt bolstered by the formation of alabour government in Great Britain, tried to take advantage of the politicalcircumstances and foment activism among the workers. However, the commu-nist leaders quickly became aware of Zaghloul’s plans for the communistmovement in general and the ECP in particular. After a series of strikes heldduring February and March, which Zaghloul interpreted as hostile to him anda challenge to the Wafd government, he banned the ECP congress and orderedthe arrest of the leaders of both the ECP and the CGT.10 The headquarters ofthe two organizations were closed and a smear campaign was launched in themedia against the left and the workers’ movement. Within a few weeks, thecommunist movement had been crushed (Lockman, 2008: 78). In its attempt tomonopolize the representation of the nationalist struggle, the Wafd, whosesocial base was incompatible with communist ideology, needed to suffocate theparty, an act, moreover, welcomed by the British with great relief.

Except for this brief period between 1921 and 1924, communism did notexist as an active political movement in Egypt and was limited to some iso-lated cells until World War II. The central issue in political life at this timewas the fight for independence, and this was led by the Wafd, a powerfulnationalist group rooted in the Egyptian bourgeoisie. The communists wereincapable of leading the nationalist movement and mobilizing the masses, ofuniting the national liberation cause with the fight for social transformation.


The abstract internationalism of the communist movement was not suffi-ciently attractive for a semi-colonial society. Furthermore, the centrality of thenational question had the effect of subordinating social affairs. Public atten-tion focused on independence as the sine qua non to resolve the country’sother problems. Therefore, as the Wafd saw it, until complete independencewas achieved, Egyptians needed to subordinate their personal and classinterests for the good of the nation (Lockman, 2008: 80).

Moreover, the fact that a significant number of communist activists wereforeign did not help them reach the popular classes. It was not easy for for-eigners, who enjoyed a privileged status, to bypass barriers and establish closerelationships with Egyptian workers. The educated Egyptians who joined theECP were cut off from the grassroots base and looked to Europe (especiallyMoscow, London and Paris) to analyse and understand their own society anddevelop a platform for the Egyptian situation.

3 The ‘second movement’: communist organizations underthe monarchy and the Nasserite project

After the ECP disappeared, almost a decade passed before any new communistgroups were created in Egypt. This occurred in the mid-1930s in the context ofan international economic crisis and the expansion of fascism in Europe and,on the domestic front, the reactivation of the nationalist militant movement,the signing of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 and the proclamation ofFarouk as the new monarch. It was not, however, until the 1940s that the so-called ‘second movement’ emerged, a political force with greater influenceamong workers and on culture and Egyptian society in general compared withits 1920s predecessor. For some scholars, this is considered ‘the most prominentsecular, modernist movement’ (Meijer, 2002: 96). It became influential amongstudents, the educated and members of trade unions in the country’s principalcities. Its founders were foreign-born Egyptians, many of them Jews, of whomthe most notable was Henri Curiel, who founded the most important organi-zation.11 The movement’s main achievement during the 1940s was the ‘Egyp-tianization’ of its ranks and the imposition of an Egyptian patriotic orientationon Marxism, which some scholars have termed ‘nationalist/patriotic Marxism’(Younis, 2008: 146; Meijer, 2002: 103–6).

During the mid-1930s, a new historical juncture limited the possibilities forrenewing Egyptian Marxism. To begin, Stalinism in the Soviet Union disillu-sioned socialist-oriented reformers while the expansion of fascism in Europeattracted some traditional sectors of Egyptian society, which instigated a pro-fascist, anti-communist campaign in the belief that Italy and Germany werepotential allies in the struggle against British and French colonial imperialism(Ismael & El-Sa’id, 1990: 32–3). This was compounded by the signing of theAnglo-Egyptian Treaty in response to renewed nationalist militant action andthe Palestinian revolt of 1936–9, which intensified Arabist and Islamist ideologyin the dominant Egyptian political discourse (Beinin, 2008: 131).


As a result of this set of circumstances, the groups that turned to the leftpolitically and created small organizations were largely made up of youngpeople from non-Muslim communities living in Egypt.12 Anti-fascist Marxistgroups supported by the European community living in Egypt appeared in thelate 1930s, the germ of future communist organizations. At this time, the Egyptcommunist movement no longer formed part of the Comintern when it held itsSeventh Congress in the summer of 1935. Even so, it was influenced by the ideaof creating a ‘Popular Front against fascism’ – a model that was also adoptedin France and China – which had to be adjusted to the Egyptian situation,what Meijer has called ‘the paradigm of the front’ (Meijer, 2002: 96–103).

These first anti-fascist groups included the Peace-Partisans’ Union (IttihadAnsar al-Salam), formed in 1934, which counted an important number offuture leaders of the communist movement among its members. As this groupwas focused on events abroad like the Spanish Civil War and the Italianinvasion of Ethiopia, four years later a more Egypt-oriented independentgroup with a greater Marxist commitment, the Democratic Union (al-Ittihadal-Dimuqrati), was created. During World War II, this group split into thethree separate communist organizations that would play a leading role in thesecond movement: the Egyptian Movement of National Liberation orHAMITU (al- Haraka al-Misriyya li-l-Taharrur al Watani, 1943–7), foundedby Henri Curiel; Iskra (‘the Spark’, 1942–7), led by Hillel Schwartz; and asmaller group called People’s Liberation (Munazzamat Tahrir al Shaab,1940), created by Marcel Israel. A fourth organization known by the name ofits publication – New Dawn (Al Fajr al-Jadid, FJ) – appeared in 1945, led byAhmad Sadiq Sa’ad, Youssef Darwish and Raymond Douek with the colla-boration of Salama Moussa; the group’s name was later changed to Workers’Vanguard (Tali’at al-Ummal).13 In line with Marxist-Leninist doctrine, theseorganizations paid special attention to questions related to the economy andsocial justice, employing their own publishing houses and publications topresent socialist solutions to the problems in Egyptian society.14

Contrary to the events of the 1920s, in the mid-1940s the Wafd found itselfin the opposition and the communists were able to play a relatively importantrole in radicalizing the political discourse and mobilizing Egyptians for theanti-imperialist liberation struggle. Members of FJ, HAMITU and Iskra allcollaborated in the Wafdist Vanguard (al-Tali’a al-Wafdiyya), a group withinthe Wafd pressuring the party to make a turn to the left (Meijer, 2002: 114–15). Cooperation with the Wafd was not altogether productive with regard toideology or the workers’ movement. However, during the 1950–2 term, whena very weakened Wafd was the government party, the Vanguard was able topersuade its most leftist wing that, pragmatically speaking, it would be wiseto introduce a discourse of nationalist neutrality into its foreign policy,championing close relations with the Soviet Union, the abrogation of theAnglo-Egyptian Treaty and the removal of the British army from Egypt andPalestine (Ginat, 2011: 218–19). This national neutrality would later bepromoted by the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser.


One example of the collaboration between the different factions during thisperiod – in this case the product of base-level alliances – was the creation ofthe National Committee of Workers and Students (NCWS) (al-Lajnah al-Wataniyyah lil al-‘Ummal wa-l-Talaba) in 1946 (Abdel Malek, 1967: 44–7;Meijer, 2002: 116–17; Beinin & Lockman, 1987: 335–44). Following therepression of the textile union in Shubra al-Khayma in December 1945, stu-dents who were members of HAMITU, Iskra, al-Tali’a al-Wafdiyya andother leftist organizations decided to join the workers’ movement and form acommon front. On 18 and 19 February 1946 the NCWS was created withbroad representation of the trade unions dominated by HAMITU and Iskra.The NCWS called for a general strike and demonstrations on 21 February,designated ‘Evacuation Day’, to demand the evacuation of British troopsfrom Egypt and Sudan; the strike mobilized thousands of people in Cairo andwas severely repressed by the British army (Ismael & El-Sa’id, 1990: 55–7).15

As an immediate consequence of the demonstrations, prime minister Mah-moud Nuqrashi was replaced by Ismail Sidqi, who denounced the events as‘the great communist conspiracy’ and proceeded to repress the 1945–6 radicalnationalist movement (Ginat, 2011: 268). The NCWS disappeared and leftistorganizations like Iskra and FJ were outlawed and their publications banned(Meijer, 2002: 117).

Despite the short lifetime of the NCWS, it contributed a new formula tothe Egyptian political landscape: collaboration between different leftist andnationalist factions. Although the leaders of the leftist groups failed in theirattempt to coordinate their cooperation more efficiently during the ‘revolu-tionary’ situation created by the social and political discontent of 1946, thetwo most important communist organizations, HAMITU and Iskra, reachedsome agreements to work together (Ginat, 2011: 270). The first step in thiscooperation was the unification of the two main movements, which decided tojoin forces and organize outside the framework of legality. In May 1947HAMITU and Iskra, along with some other smaller groups, joined in theDemocratic Movement for National Liberation or HADITU (al-Haraka al-Dimuqratiyya li-l-Taharrur al-Watani) (Meijer, 2002: 119; Ismael & El-Sa’id,1990: 59–62; Ginat, 2011: 277–81). Almost immediately, their differencesbecame obvious. These were not only ideological –HAMITU, for instance,supported ‘Egyptianization’ (tamsir), while Iskra considered it a chauvinistposition – but also cultural, organizational and strategic.

HADITU, now the major communist organization, sought to form anEgyptian communist party (because of disagreements with HAMITU andIskra, which Tali’at al-Ummal, the former FJ, considered – among otherthings – too bourgeois, that group did not join the union). However, schismssoon began to emerge, primarily led by the champions of Marxist ideologicalpositions, who agreed that HADITU was ‘a right-leaning bourgeois force’;16

other criticisms were based on organizational matters, since the unificationhad been hasty and top-down, with no democratic infrastructure and a fiercerivalry between the two main organizations. This was compounded by a


‘campaign against communism’ undertaken by the Egyptian authorities coin-ciding with the outbreak of the 1948 war in Palestine. Curiel was deported toItaly in 1950 and later went into exile in France, while Suleiman al-Rifaibecame the head of HADITU. From 1950 to 1952, there was considerable‘Egyptianization’ of the ranks (Ginat, 2011: 294).

Away from HADITU, Fuad Morsi created an Egyptian communist partyknown as The Banner (Al-Raya) in 1950.17 This was a classic communistorganization at the vanguard of the working class created, according to itsfounder, because ‘only a communist party can lead the revolution by orga-nizing the working class and isolating the bourgeoisie’ (Meijer, 2002: 123).The group was critical of the collaboration between HADITU and the Wafdand of the ideological line that emphasized anti-imperialism over the proletarianrevolution.

4 Communist organizations under the Nasser regime

At the time of the successful Free Officers Movement coup d’état in July1952, which put an end to the monarchy and installed a republican militarypresidentialist system, the communist movement was fragmented and in aprocess of ideological and organizational reinforcement. Along with themajority groups, individual and small factions were operating independentlyunderground. At first, the Free Officers received the support of a number ofpolitical organizations, including HADITU and the Islamist Muslim Broth-erhood.18 However, beginning in 1954, the new regime led by Gamal AbdelNasser cut all ties to existing political currents, dissolving all the parties andcreating its own organization, a large bloc of regime supporters, the Libera-tion Rally (1953–7) (Abdel Malek, 1967: 121–2).19 A campaign of repressionwas launched against the left, with military trials of communist activists whodefended democratic reforms, whom Nasser accused of being agents ofZionism (Younis, 2008: 150; Laqueur, 1956: 48). As some members of thecommunist movement began to view the Nasser regime as a reactionarysystem and an advocate for the United States, schisms appeared withinHADITU, such as the HADITU Revolutionary Wing (Meijer, 2002: 161).However, despite persecution and the regime’s control of the workers’ move-ment between 1955 and 1957, the central core of HADITU (which hadreunited its factions to form the Unified Egyptian Communist Party (al-Hizb al-Shuyu’i al-Misri al-Muwahhad)), chose to continue to support theregime. This alignment was defended on the basis of patriotism and, parti-cularly, Nasser’s foreign policy moves to distance himself from the Westernbloc, such as defending the Non-Aligned Movement at the 1955 BandungConference and the nationalization of the Suez Canal (1956) (Meijer, 2002:193–4).20 The communists were also influenced by the nationalization pro-cess and industrialization pursued by Nasser and, above all, the enormouspopular support enjoyed by the regime. They did not even withdraw theirsupport in 1957 when Nasser brought all of the trade unions together into


one umbrella organization under the regime’s control: the Egyptian TradeUnion Federation.

On 8 January 1958 the main communist organizations – the former HADITUand Al-Raya, now joined in the United Egyptian Communist Party (al-Hizb al-Shuyu’i al-Misri al-Mutahid), and the Workers and Peasants Party (Hizbal-Ummal wal-Falahin al-Shuyu’i al-Misri, the new name adopted by Tali’at al-Ummal, incorporating the term ‘party’) – decided to unify and form a new ECPto gain support in the socio-political space, albeit always outside the legal fra-mework. This unified ECP was interpreted as a challenge to Nasser’s authorityand he embarked upon an even stronger campaign of repression against thecommunist movement one year later, particularly surprising the leaders ofHADITU, who had shown almost unconditional support for the regime fromthe beginning (Younis, 2008: 160). As a consequence of the arrests made, inaddition to different reactions to Nasser’s policies, schisms began to emergewithin the ECP, which basically dissolved while its members were in prison. The1960 death-by-torture of communist leader Shuhdi Atiyya al-Shafi’i, a memberof HADITU’s revolutionary wing, radicalized the imprisoned activists, boththose who supported and those who opposed dissolution. Nasser promised toput an end to the torture and freed the communists five years later on the con-dition that the party dissolve and that its members join the Arab Socialist Unionon an individual basis if they so desired. The decision to free the prisoners wasnot related to the regime’s so-called ‘socialist turn’, but to the perceived stabilityin the country in 1964; there was no longer any fear that the released politicalprisoners could take control of popular action. In 1965 the main currents of thethen unified ECP announced their dissolution and a small number of individualmembers, most with ties to HADITU, joined the Arab Socialist Union (Younis,2008: 165–8; Ismael & El-Sa’id, 1990: 120–5). Some of the groups with lesserclout opposed this decision. For some activists like Ramsis Labib, 1965 was awatershed for the communist movement (Monciaud, 2008: 116). When theycame out of prison, the communists were faced with a crisis in the Nasseritesystem and internal corruption, while they were still traumatized by the torturethey were subjected to in prison. Indeed, the movement did not re-emerge untilthe last two years of the Nasser regime.

5 The ‘third movement’: from the 1967 Arab-Israeli War toauthoritarian pluralism

The mobilizations of 1968, in part motivated by Egypt’s humiliating defeat inthe 1967 Arab-Israeli War, can be considered the beginning of the third phaseof the communist movement in the country, spanning the three decadesbetween the late 1960s and late 1990s. The organizations that appearedduring this period, known as the ‘third movement’, found their strongestsupport in student groups wielding patriotic and democratic slogans. Lessinfluential than their predecessors among workers, this incarnation of themovement had a more powerful presence among intellectuals.


The 1968 protests marked the beginning of a confrontation period with theNasser regime during which part of society decided to demand accountabilityfrom the government; Nasser, in reaction, was forced to make concessions.The sense of humiliation after the defeat at the hands of Israel was aug-mented by a desire to reform the political system and obtain more freedom,all of which was reinforced by global ‘radicalizing’ factors in the region,especially the revolutions in Jordan and Algeria. ‘Guevarist’ and ‘Maoist’ideologies influenced intellectuals and students in the Arab world. In Egypt,Marxists who were disillusioned with the bureaucratic policies of the Nasserregime and communists who did not accept the dissolution of the ECP allsupported the protests led by university students that forced Nasser toundertake a programme of political reform (Abdalla, 1985: 72–3). From thispoint and up to the mid-1980s, the communist movement strongly influencedintellectual life in the country, be it in literature, film or theatre.

Despite the authorities’ attempts to halt the student protests, during the1972–3 academic year (under the regime of Anwar Sadat), a new wave ofmobilizations erupted whose main demand was the recovery of the territoriesoccupied by Israel in 1967. These mobilizations, which were led by commu-nist activists, had a very strong presence on university campuses. It was at thistime that the three principal organizations that would later emerge in 1975 inthe context of Sadat’s ‘openness’ (infitah) policy began to take shape(although they were still not legal): (a) the ECP, refounded for the most partby members of the second movement (Zaki Mourad, Michel Kamel, YoussefDarwish, Nabil al-Hilali, Rifa’at el-Sa’id); (b) the 8 January Egyptian Com-munist Party, also founded by members of the second movement, but with thesubsequent leadership made up of new members; and (c) the Egyptian Com-munist Workers Party (ECWP) (al-Hizb al-Ummal al-Shuyu’i al-Misri), createdabove all by workers and university activists, who renounced the dissolutionof the party and built their reputation on their criticism of the second movement(Younis, 2008: 171; Ismael & El-Sa’id, 1990: 131).

These three organizations worked independently and in competition witheach other, in keeping with the fragmentation characteristic of the Egyptiancommunist movement since the beginning.21 The three groups all rejectedEgypt’s increasing isolation in the Arab world as a consequence of its pro-gressive dependence on the United States and its acceptance of Israeli colo-nization policies – which resulted in the 1979 Camp David Accords – as wellas the liberalizing economic measures promoted by Sadat as part of his infitahprogramme. While the 8 January ECP opposed collaboration with commu-nists who had cooperated with the Nasser regime, the ECP recognized theerror of the 1965 dissolution and emphasized the idea of ‘unity’ between thedifferent communist groups (Ismael & El-Sa’id, 1990: 139–45). The ECWP, inturn, challenged the legitimacy of the communist movement at national,regional and international levels and played a cutting-edge role in its attemptat reform, promoting a radical platform that advocated breaking with thepast. All of the communist organizations participated in the ‘bread riots’ of


1977, which were harshly repressed by Sadat, who directly accused the ECWPof organizing the uprisings. This sparked an intense battle against the left, forwhich Sadat drew on the support and collusion of Islamist forces.22

As the popular revolts of January 1977 escalated, a new weekly newspapercreated by the National Progressive Unionist Party (Tagammu) called AlAhaly began to play an increasingly important role. Tagammu, a faction thatenjoyed backing from the regime, was used as a tool in the pursuit of poli-tical-economic liberalization, first as a platform in 1975 and then as a party in1977. The party drew on alliance between Nasserites, nationalists, socialistsand Marxists to represent the officially approved left. In the beginning,Tagammu was largely controlled by the ECP, which ran communist candi-dates as independents on its electoral rolls in the 1979 and 1987 legislativeelections (Ismael & El-Sa’id, 1990: 143). The other two communist groupsalso used this organization and its print media to try to radicalize its officialposition, clashing with the ECP. The sought-after radicalization was not fea-sible, and Tagammu progressively lost its leftist component. The Nasseritessplit off and created their own party and with the fall of the Soviet bloc in thelate 1980s, the ECP’s social base decreased. At the same time the party’s lea-ders increasingly positioned themselves on the side of the regime to the pointof becoming a puppet party (Kalfat, 2014: 52–3).23

When Hosni Mubarak became president after the assassination of AnwarSadat in 1981, he inherited a sham multi-party system in which certain poli-tical parties were tolerated and allowed to participate in elections, alwayscontrolled by the ‘party-state’, the Democratic National Party, heir to theArab Socialist Union (Lampridi-Kemou & Azaola, 2012: 125–30). In the late1980s, concurrent with the fall of the Soviet Union, a more markedly Marxistfaction of the ECP – which adhered to a Stalinist position closer to the offi-cial line of Tagammu – split off to create the Socialist People’s Party of Egypt(al-Hizb al-Sha’b al-Ishtiraki al-Misri), while the 8 January Egyptian Com-munist Party and the ECWP joined to become the Unified Workers’ Party(al-Hizb al-Ummal al-Muwahhad). These two organizations shared strategiesand collaborated on the new open international stage in the absence of acommunist bloc. The collaboration was inaugurated with the groups’ jointparticipation in the steel company strikes in the summer of 1989, which wereharshly repressed by the government. The leaders of the union were arrested,along with the Marxists who had split off from the ECP. Over time, and giventhe obstacles placed by the Mubarak regime to engage in any politicalopposition activity (which increasingly separated the party from the people),these organizations weakened until they disbanded underground in the late1990s.

In the early 1990s the Revolutionary Socialists organization (Al Ishtirakiyinal Zauwriyyin) was created by an elite circle of intellectuals at the AmericanUniversity in Cairo, a group with no experience in party activism who weredissatisfied with other leftist options and ascribed to Trotskyist positionsaligned with those of Tony Cliff, a Trotskyist activist and founding member of


the Socialist Workers Party in Britain. The group’s first political activityinvolved the 1991 student mobilizations protesting the Gulf War. Over theyears, the group would repeatedly separate and come back together. Despitethe difficulties in carrying out opposition projects, the group is still active asof 2016, having risen from the ashes in the context of the January 2011 revo-lution, when it was supported by a quite significant number of young people,especially in the big cities, who discovered the party for the first time duringthe massive demonstrations that led to the fall of Mubarak (Kalfat, 2014: 55).

With the emergence of the blogosphere and social networks after 2000,traditional parties –holding on to only a small social base and strangled bythe regime – have lost their role as a political opposition tool. Instead, theyhave been replaced by new platforms that bring together groups and indivi-duals of diverse backgrounds and ideological tendencies, the most repre-sentative case being Kifaya (‘Enough’ or the Egyptian Movement forChange), formed in 2004 by independents, Marxists, liberals, Islamists, Nas-serites and representatives of civil society to prevent Mubarak from directlytransferring power to his son Gamal (Azaola, 2010: 159–60). A number ofother groups and platforms spun off from Kifaya, including the April 6 YouthMovement, established to support textile worker strikes in 2008. With thesupport of other groups and the first independent unions, this movementhelped instigate the revolution of 25 January 2011 that resulted in the ousterof President Hosni Mubarak.

Like the traditional political parties, the ECP played a totally marginal rolein the outbreak of the 2011 revolution, as well as in political life in subsequentyears, as the party has almost no social base on which to fall back. On anindividual level, activists and sympathizers from former communist and leftistorganizations have joined new legalized parties in the post-Mubarak period,including the Socialist Popular Alliance (Al Tahaluf Al Shaabi Al Ishtiraki),24

the Egyptian Social Democratic Party (Hizb Al Misri Al Dimuqrati Al Iyti-ma’i),25 the Constitution Party (Al Dustur) and, more recently, the Bread andFreedom Party (Al Aish wal Hurriya), which split off from the Socialist PopularAlliance and is in the process of legalization as of 2016.

6 Conclusion

The origins of the communist movement in Egypt are linked to the workers’movement of the 1920s. It was then that the first short-lived ECP was cre-ated; it was only in existence from 1922 to 1924. The successive ECPs werecharacterized by their weakness – a by-product, perhaps, of their illegalstatus – their limited influence in the political arena and their closeness tothe regime compared to other factions in the Egyptian communist move-ment. Therefore, this chapter has considered it opportune to analyse thebroader role played by the ‘Egyptian communist movement’ as a whole inthe political life of the country, rather than limiting its analysis to theparticular role played by the ECP.


After it emerged, the communist movement became progressively distancedfrom the working class, and its lack of connection with this social sector wasone of its main weaknesses. Between the 1940s and mid-1960s, the partychose to ally itself with sectors of the bourgeoisie, and it was unable to single-handedly formulate progressive political and social change backed by theworking class. It faced competition from both the strong nationalist Wafdparty and the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood organization, the latter of whichhad closer ties to grassroots peasant bases and was more established in thecountry’s rural areas. Indeed, the ECP’s difficulty in attracting a majoritypeasant, conservative and religious society explains why the group found itproblematic to become a nationwide political party. Moreover, the creation ofa vertical union during the Nasser regime further marginalized the effortsmade by communist organizations among workers.

Traditionally, Egyptian communist leaders belonged to a middle class thatmoved among intellectuals, whose constant ideological debates fragmentedthe movement and hampered its ambition to be a popular current, except inisolated cases when it worked in coordination with other actors, broadeningits social influence (e.g. the creation of the NCWS in 1946, the 1956 SuezCanal crisis and the 1977 bread riots). The communist movement in Egypthas also maintained very close ties to the universities, which has limited itspolitical action due to repression of the group’s supporters by security forcesand the fact that many followers abandon their activism after completingtheir studies. Nonetheless, the ECP collaborated in some significant universityactions including the student mobilizations in 1968 and the 1972–3 academicyear, a period when the party also played a noteworthy role in culture and thearts. During the 1980s, under the Mubarak regime, some noted Egyptianfilmmakers joined communist organizations as university students.

Despite the fact that the slogans and demands of the 2011 revolution – atleast until mid-2012 – represented the longstanding demands of the Egyptianleft (social justice, dignity, liberty, etc.), the left has not been able or knownhow to play a meaningful role in the process of political transformation, pri-marily due to its fragmentation and the lack of connection to rural society. Itswork has been limited to individual actors who have counted and continue tocount on greater public visibility thanks to the media and social networks.

Notes1 This chapter presents a portion of the results from the R&D project ‘La dimensión

internacional de las transformaciones políticas en el mundo arabo-islámico’, 2015–17 CSO2014–52998-C3–3-P, financed by the Spanish Ministry of Economy andFinance.

2 There is a large bibliography on Joseph Rosenthal (1872–1927) and his role in theformation of the first communist party in Egypt; of particular interest are, amongothers, chapters 3, 4 and 5 in Ginat, 2011: 9–132, as well as Ismael & El-Sa’id,1990: 13–31 and Beinin & Lockman, 1987: 137–54. According to police reportsfrom the time, Rosenthal’s name was on Egyptian police lists after 1901 because of


his contacts with Bolshevik groups in Palestine and because he was considered ‘aradical anarchist who spread propaganda among local Jews’. The British autho-rities were also very concerned about the activities led by Rosenthal. After thesuccess of the Russian revolution, the British feared the possible spread ofBolshevism in Egypt and the Middle East.

3 Socialists and communists considered the Wafd party, created in 1919 by SaadZaghloul, the representative party of the nationalist bourgeoisie in the country; theWafd, in turn, did not want workers’ organizations sympathetic to its ideology tocome under the influence of what it termed ‘foreign radicals’. See Lockman, 2008:67.

4 Salama Moussa (1887–1958) was an intellectual, journalist and translator whointroduced the ideas of Darwinist socialism and Fabianism to Egypt in the inter-war period after a visit to England in 1909, when he joined the Fabian Society. OnMoussa, see Shukri, 1965 and Egger, 1986.

5 These groups were headquartered in Alexandria and their members were largely ofGreek origin. The name La Clarté was taken from a French literary and politicaljournal created in Paris in 1919 with which the Egyptian group was in constantcontact. Prestigious writers including Anatole France, Henri Barbusse and RomainRolland were all published in the journal. See Ginat, 2011: 37.

6 The ESP platform can be found in Ismael & El-Sa’id, 1990: 17–19.7 Rosenthal was expelled from the party for rejecting the conditions established by

Moscow without ever having challenged them (Ismael & El-Sa’id, 1990: 21).8 More details on the ECP’s political platform can be found in Ginat, 2011: 103.9 Alexander Keown-Boyd, the most powerful figure in the British security apparatus

in Egypt, was known for his ‘hard line’ against leftism and organized the campaignagainst the ECP. The law established prison sentences for anyone assaulting thegovernment or propagating subversive ideas that challenged the recently approvedconstitution.

10 Eleven communist leaders were accused of conspiracy with the intent to bringdown the government by violent means and wanting to establish a communistregime. The accused admitted their affiliation and ideology but denied the use ofviolence. On 6 October 1924, the jury convicted the six principal leaders of theparty to three years in prison and the others to six months. Communists withoutEgyptian nationality were expelled from the country in a clear attempt to get ridof Rosenthal, who in the end was allowed to stay in Egypt on the condition thathe would not engage in any political activity (Lockman, 2008: 79; Ginat, 2011:114–27).

11 There is a large bibliography on Henri Curiel (1914–78), the Jewish Egyptianlawyer who founded the communist organization HAMITU (al-Haraka al-Mis-riyya lil-Taharrur al-Watani) in 1943. It is largely in French, since Curiel wasexiled to Paris in 1950 where he led the so-called ‘Rome Group’ (Majmuat Roma)made up of exiled Egyptian communists. He was assassinated in that city in 1978.The International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam) holds documents fromthe Groupe de Rome (from 1945 to 1979–84), including Henri Curiel’s correspon-dence: www.iisg.nl/publications/egyptcom.pdf. See, among others, Botman, 1988:chapters 3 and 4, el-Sa’id, 1975 and Ginat, 2011: 254–75 as well as Perrault, 1984.

12 One of these early groups was Les Essayistes (al-Muhawilun in Arabic, or TheEssayists), created in the early 1930s as a literary club, which had close ties toAndré Breton’s surrealist movement through the publication L’Effort. GeorgesHenein later founded the Art et Liberté group (al-Fann wal-Hurriya, or Art andLiberty), which published the Arabic-language socialist journal al-Tatawwur (TheEvolution) in the 1940s. A Trotskyist minority critical of the Stalinist line in thisgroup gained some notoriety in the mid-1940s. See Meijer, 2002: 103 and Ginat,2011: 208–9.


13 On these groups, their predecessors and their ramifications, see the tables in Ismael& El-Sa’id, 1990: 34–44; Botman, 1988: 69 and Ginat, 2011: 208–30, 231–75. AlFajr al Jadid reached out to the workers’ movement through the emblematic figureof Youssef Darwish (1910–2006). In 1946 it became known as al-Tali’a al-Sha’biyyalil-Taharrur (Popular Vanguard for Liberation).

14 Al Fajr al Jadid was particularly productive, using its publishing house Dar al-Qarn al-‘Ishrin (Twentieth-Century Publishing House) to print works on Egyptianhistory, the agrarian question, political economics and culture. See Meijer, 2002:106.

15 The day ended with 23 dead and 121 wounded (Meijer, 2002: 117).16 The splinter groups included the Revolutionary Bloc (Al-Takattul al-Thawri),

which rejected HADITU’s bureaucracy and the fact that its leaders were foreignborn. This led to the creation of HADITU-Revolutionary Proletariat (HADITU-Al Ummaliyya al-Thawriyya). In 1948 the group Toward a Communist Party(Nahwa Hizb Shuyu’iy) was formed and Voice of the Opposition (Sawt al-Mu’arada)split off (Ginat, 2011: 287–93).

17 The platform of this incarnation of the ECP can be found in Ismael & El-Sa’id,1990: 85–6.

18 The Free Officers included some military personnel who had belonged to commu-nist organizations (and Islamist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood), butleft them before the coup d’état. One such example was HADITU and KhaledMohieddin, one of the founders of the Free Officers who maintained ties with thecommunists and was forced into exile in Switzerland in 1954. See Laqueur, 1956:48. On the relationship between the Free Officers and communist activities, seeAclimandos, 2008 and Meijer, 2002: 157–8.

19 This single bloc came to be called the National Union (1957–62) and, in 1962, theArab Socialist Union.

20 During the 1956 Suez Crisis, Nasser helped members of communist organizationsprovide military resistance at the canal in collaboration with the Egyptian armyagainst the French-British forces. See Meijer, 2002: 197.

21 On the activities and platforms of the three groups, see Ismael & El-Sa’id, 1990:131–47.

22 On the January 1977 protests against Sadat’s announcement that subsidies forconsumer staples would cease, see El Hamalawy, 2001.

23 The editor of this work, Khalil Kalfat, was a leading intellectual in the 1970s, amember of al-Hizb al-Ummal who wrote under the pseudonym Saleh MuhamadSaleh. The party experienced an internal crisis among the younger members, whoended up expelling Kalfat. He worked as a literary critic, but returned to politicalactivism during the revolution of 25 January 2011 where he remained until hisdeath in 2015.

24 The Socialist Popular Alliance Party won seven parliamentary seats in 2012 as partof the Revolution Continues Alliance bloc.

25 In 2015 the Egyptian Social Democratic Party had four seats in parliament andTagammu two.

ReferencesAbdalla, Ahmed (1985) The Student Movement and National Politics in Egypt,

London, Al Saqi Books.Abdel Malek, A. (1967) Egipto sociedad militar, Madrid, Tecnos.Aclimandos, Tewfic (2008) ‘Officiers libres et officiers communistes: collaborations et

confrontations’. Cahiers d’Histoire, revue d’histoire critique, 105–106.


Azaola, Bárbara (2010) ‘Le régime de Moubarak: les espaces et les acteurs del’opposition’. Confluences Méditerranée, 75, 4.

Beinin, Joel (2008) ‘Le marxisme égyptien (1936–52): nationalisme, anti impérialismeet réforme sociale’. Cahiers d’Histoire, revue d’histoire critique, 105–106.

Beinin, Joel & Lockman, Zachary (1987) Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Com-munism, Islam, and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882–1954, Princeton, NJ, PrincetonUniversity Press.

Botman, S. (1988) The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939–1970, New York, SyracuseUniversity Press.

Egger, V. (1986) A Fabian in Egypt: Salamah Musá and the Rise of the ProfessionalClasses in Egypt 1909–1939, Lanham, MD, UPA.

El Hamalawy, H. (2001) ‘January 18 and 19, 1977: “Uprising of Thieves” or anAborted Revolution?’. Dissertation,American University in Cairo.

el-Sa’id, Rifa’at (1975) Tarikh al-haraka al-ichtirakia fi Misr 1900–1925, Beirut, Daral-Farabi.

Ginat, Rami (2011) A History of Egyptian Communism: Jews and Their Compatriots inQuest of Revolution, Boulder, CO, Lynne Rienner.

Ismael, Tareq Y. & El-Sa’id, Rifa’at (1990) The Communist Movement in Egypt, 1920–1988, New York, Syracuse University Press.

Kalfat, Khalil (2014) ‘Kharita al Yasar al Arabi II (Mapping of the Arab Left II)’.Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, www.rosalux.de/publication/40886/mapping-of-the-arab-left-ii.html

Lampridi-Kemou, Athina & Azaola, B. (2012) ‘Contemporary Egypt: BetweenReform and Continuity’. In Izquierdo Brichs, F. (Ed.), Political Regimes in the ArabWorld, London, Routledge.

Laqueur, Walter (1956) Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East, London,Routledge.

Lockman, Zachary (2008) ‘La gauche et le mouvement ouvrier au début des années1920’. Cahiers d’Histoire, revue d’histoire critique, 105–106.

Meijer, R. (2002) The Quest for Modernity: Secular Liberal and Left-Wing PoliticalThought in Egypt, 1945–1958, London, Routledge Curzon.

Monciaud, D. (2008) ‘Un travail de mémoire de la gauche égyptienne’. Cahiersd’Histoire, revue d’histoire critique, 105–106.

Perrault, G. (1984) Un homme à part, Paris, Fayard.Shukri, G. (1965) Salama Musa wa-azmat al-d.amir al-ʻArabi, Sayda, Manchurat al-

Maktaba al-ʻAs.riya.Younis, S. (2008) ‘Marxisme et patriotisme dans les régimes militaires de libération

nationale: les “Officiers Libres” et les communistes égyptiens’. Cahiers d’Histoire,revue d’histoire critique, 105–106.


9 Communism and organizationalsymbiosis in South YemenThe People’s Democratic Union, theNational Liberation Front and theYemeni Socialist Party

John Ishiyama

In this chapter I examine the evolution of the Yemeni Communist Party(PDU, the Peoples’ Democratic Union) and its influence on the NationalLiberation Front (NLF) and the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP). The YSP wasfounded in 1978 and was declared at that time as the ‘vanguard party’ for theYemeni revolution and the sole governing party in the People’s DemocraticRepublic of Yemen (PDRY). To a large extent this is because, although verysmall, the PDU exercised its influence by allying itself with Abd al-FattahIsmail, a left-wing nationalist and leader of the YSP, and influenced his movetowards embracing scientific socialism. Further, the PDU maintained aninstitutionalized existence within the YSP, and controlled much of the ideo-logical training and education within the latter via its control of the Ministryof Education in the PDRY and the Higher Party School in Aden.

However, it was the YSP, one of two parties in the Islamic world that bothembraced Marxism-Leninism and emerged as a governing party, whichestablished a single-party regime in the Muslim world (the other being thePeople’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan – PDPA). However, unlike theircounterparts in Europe, Latin America, Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa, com-munist parties in the Islamic Middle East were (and continue to be) con-fronted with the rising tide of religious fundamentalism and hampered by thelack of a tradition of a strong secular left. Thus, the context in which theseparties evolved can be expected to be quite different from the experiences ofcommunist parties in Europe and Africa. In both Yemen and Afghanistan,the YSP and PDPA emerged in countries without a history of strong states. Ineach of these states there was an attempt to conduct ‘revolution from above’in societies that were divided by ethnicity and tribalism, and where there wassignificant resistance to the efforts made by the socialist state. Further, exter-nal factors played an important role: intervention by neighbouring powersresulted in the eventual undermining of these ‘revolutions from above’, and inthe military defeat of one (Afghanistan) and the subsequent fragmentation ofsociety, with the other (Yemen) seeking accommodation with the decentralized,well-armed, tribal society.

To that end, this chapter addresses the primary questions posed by thisbook. First, I will examine the two forces that shaped the YSP: (1) How thePDU influenced the origins of the YSP and how their symbiotic relationshipevolved over time. In particular I examine how the PDU emerged from themilieu of anti-colonial forces in South Yemen in the struggle for independenceand how that struggle affected the ideological and organizational develop-ment of the YSP; (2) How Soviet influence shaped the development of theYSP. Second, I will examine the evolution of the ideology of the NLF andsubsequently YSP under the influence of the PDU via Abd al-Fattah Ismail. Ithen review briefly how the YSP attempted to transform material relations inSouth Yemen, how this led to the 1986 civil war in the country, and the evo-lution of the YSP after reunification in 1991. Finally, I assess the impact ofthe experiment in Marxism-Leninism in South Arabia and offer someobservations regarding the questions posed in the introduction of the book.

1 Communism in South Arabia

Communism has had a relatively long history in the Muslim world outsideof the Soviet Union (USSR). Communist movements emerged in the colo-nial era (the 1920s and 1930s) largely in opposition to colonial control bythe British and French after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and theyviewed the USSR as their natural ally in the struggle against imperialism.Most of the leaders and supporters of the communist parties were drawnfrom the middle and lower middle strata of the intelligentsia. This socialstratum grew increasingly large as the modernization process under colo-nial occupation transformed the primarily agrarian societies of the region.In addition, the introduction of modern extractive industrial sectors duringthe 1920s and 1930s led to the creation of a new working class, con-centrated in the oil sector, ports and railways. Since the struggle of theworking classes was directed against foreign capital, the class struggleessentially became a nationalist struggle as well. In addition, the commu-nist parties in the region attracted those marginalized by Islamic societiesand prevented from upward mobility, in particular minority groups and thepoor (Jabar, 1997).

In two cases, Yemen and Afghanistan, communist party organizations inpredominantly Muslim countries emerged to become governing parties. It isimportant to understand that although there was an authentic communistparty, the PDU, which had existed since the early 1960s, this party was neverthe dominant power in South Yemeni (PDRY) politics. Unlike neighbours suchas in Ethiopia, where a military coup ushered in a period of Marxist-Leninistexperimentation under the Derg (largely driven by the desire for regimeauthorities in that country to seek Soviet support) and unlike in Afghanistan,when a communist party (People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan) tookpower, communists in Yemen had only indirect but important influence withinthe governing party coalition (Ishiyama, 2005; Anthony, 1984).

Communism in South Yemen 169

In Yemen, the communist movement was able to gain influence in theradical wing of the anti-colonial NLF of South Yemen (Aden), which hadchallenged British rule. The British dominated the south and eastern part ofYemen after capturing the port of Aden in 1839. Until 1937, Yemen was ruledas part of British India. In that year, Aden was made a crown colony, withthe remaining land designated as the east Aden and west Aden protectorates.In 1965, the British set up a semi-autonomous Federation of South Arabiawhich joined together most of the tribal states within the protectorates withthe Aden colony. This was done to help stave off the triumph of the NLF, aleftist anti-colonial organization (Dresch, 2000; Jabar, 1997).

In 1965, two rival nationalist groups – the Front for the Liberation ofOccupied South Yemen (FLOSY) and the NLF – launched an uprisingagainst British colonial rule, compelling British rule to end. In 1967, in theface of mounting violence, British troops began to withdraw and the federa-tion they set up collapsed. Later that year the NLF eliminated its FLOSYrivals and declared South Arabia, including Aden, independent on 30November 1967, subsequently naming the new state the People’s Republic ofSouth Yemen. From 1967 on, the ruling organization of South Yemen gra-dually evolved from an anti-colonial Arab nationalist movement into a politicalparty modelled after the party states in the USSR and Eastern Europe.

It was in this context that the influence of the small communist party grewwithin the YSP.

2 The People’s Democratic Union and the National Liberation Front

The PDU was officially founded in October 1961. The PDU had its roots in thestudent movement in the city of Aden and had always been led by one of threesons of the Ba Dhib family (the founder was Abdallah bin Abd al-Razzaq BaDhib), who came from the Hadramawt region in eastern PDRY (Brehony,2013: 57; Anthony, 1984: 232–3). The PDU was a relatively small organizationthat initially tried to help mobilize the trade unions in the country. However,Abd al-Razzaq concluded that the PDU could not appeal to the masses inYemen because of the dominance of nationalist and Pan-Arabic anti-colonialistsentiments and the weakness of the trade unions. Thus, the party would need tofirst cooperate with more populist movements to overthrow colonial rule. Theparty focused on the anti-colonial struggle in the 1960s and the socialization ofthe country would only come after independence had been won. The NLFbecame that populist ally because of the respect Abd al-Razzaq himself com-manded from NLF intellectuals (particularly Abd al-Fattah Ismail, the NLFideology chief) and because the NLF was in a better position to challengeBritish colonial authority than other national populist groups (Brehony, 2013:15). Thus the PDU shifted its efforts to mobilize students and focused onestablishing a youth group, Shabiba. Although the PDU was not directlyaligned with the NLF (which happened later, in 1975), Shabiba was absorbedinto the ruling front in 1970 (Anthony, 1984).

170 John Ishiyama

The PDU was always an urban movement with its party’s headquarters,both before and since national independence, located in Aden. The party hasalways seen itself as the champion of the poorest and most disenfranchisedparts of the population. However, most of these populations were not centredin Aden or the tribal-oriented regions in the south, but were in the villages ofthe neighbouring Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen). Thus, the party didnot have much of a social base in Aden beyond students and intellectuals.These distinguishing characteristics of the party were the cause of difficultiesbetween the party and some of the more nationally oriented organizations.Further, because the party was not closely involved in the anti-colonialstruggle, it was not viewed positively by many in the Arab NationalistMovement. The party was largely based in the student movement, and didnot have the numbers to engage in military operations. However, despite itssmall size (its membership never exceeded 500) its influence increased greatlyas South Yemen sought closer relations with the USSR (Anthony, 1984).

In October 1975, the NLF, as part of its effort to consolidate all liberationand leftist groups in a common political movement, formerly incorporated thePDU and another small pro-Syrian Ba’athist party. Together they formed anew organization, the United Political Organization of the National Front(UPONF). The PDU retained its influence via Shabiba, and retained member-ship in the state legislature, the Supreme People’s Council and controlled theministry of education, the ministry of culture and the ministry of information.The PDU leader Abdallah Ba Dhib held such posts at different times in the1970s, and was an important figure in shaping the regime’s propaganda andeducational policies until his death in 1976. He was succeeded by his youngerbrother Ali Ba Dhib, who had been a key leader in Shabiba (Brehony, 2013;Anthony, 1984).

In June 1969, the radical wing of the Marxist NLF gained power, and on 1December 1970, changed the country’s name to the People’s DemocraticRepublic of Yemen. The principal leaders of this wing were Abd al-FattahIsmail, the YSP’s chief ideologist (himself from Hugariyyah Province in NorthYemen) who was close with the leadership of the PDU, Salim Rubai Ali, Alial-Antar and Ali Nasir Muhammad, who were more aligned with Arabnationalism (although the latter sought closer relations with the USSR butwanted the NLF to retain its ties with Arab nationalism). Salim Rubai Alihad sought some rapprochement with both North Yemen and Saudi Arabiain the mid-1970s, but lost ground after Abd al-Fattah became secretary gen-eral of the UPONF. Abd al-Fattah had sought to align South Yemen moreclosely with the USSR and concluded a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperationbetween the USSR and PDRY in October 1979.

Of even greater significance, however, were events on the domestic front.Ali Nasir, with support of Abd al-Fattah, had staged a coup in June 1978 andoverthrew Salim Rubai Ali (who was subsequently executed). In October 1978,Abd al-Fattah and his supporters oriented the UPONF more directly alongthe path of ‘scientific socialism’. At its First Congress, the UPONF changed


its name to the Yemeni Socialist Party and reorganized itself along the linesof Soviet-style Marxist-Leninist organizations found elsewhere (Ismael &Ismael, 1986; Halliday, 1983, 1990). The creation of the YSP significantlyincreased the influence of the PDU. Its new secretary general, Ali Ba Dhib,became a member of the YSP’s powerful, eight-man Politburo and was alsonamed secretary of the ideology department of the secretariat of the YSP’s47-member Central Committee, and a deputy prime minister (one of three) inthe government’s Council of Ministers (Anthony, 1984). These achievements,the high point of official communist influence in PDRY politics, were short-lived, however (Dresch, 2000; Stanzel, 1988). Indeed, they lasted only untilApril 1980, when Abd al-Fattah, long-time collaborator with the PDU/Shabiba on ideological, cultural and foreign policy matters, was ousted fromhis positions as YSP secretary general and head of state, and replaced byprime minister Ali Nasir Muhammad (Halliday, 1990).

After the ouster of Abd al-Fattah, there was a substantial decline in theinfluence of the PDU in the YSP. Ali Ba Dhib, however, remained a seniorgovernment official (although he was dropped from the Politburo), and thePDU continued to dominate the faculty of the Higher Institute for ScientificSocialism in Aden (also known as the Party School which was funded andsupported by the Soviets). Abu Bakr Ba Dhib, Ali Ba Dhib’s younger brotherand adviser to Ali Nasir (largely because Ali Nasir wanted to maintain closerelations with the USSR) was appointed to the Politburo in his place. Thusthe PDU retained some influence in the new government – however, severalother allies of Ali Nasir, who placed less emphasis on ideological or pro-Soviet considerations than on personal, regional and factional variables, wereelevated to the top leadership (Anthony, 1984).

3 Soviet influence and the YSP

Beyond domestic factors that shaped the evolution of the YSP, Soviet influ-ence on the PDRY was crucial in shaping the party’s development. Thedevelopment of the YSP and its transformation into a vanguard party, andthe PDU’s disproportionate influence in the new party, could not haveoccurred without direct Soviet influence in the politics of the PDRY. Sovietrelations with Yemen extend back to the 1920s when the Bolshevik regimesigned a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the MutawakkiliteKingdom of Yemen in 1928, which was renewed in 1939. However, the rela-tionship was interrupted because of the Second World War. In 1955 Yemenand the USSR signed an agreement on economic cooperation and in 1962 theUSSR was the first country in the world to recognize the Yemen ArabRepublic (North Yemen). On 3 December 1967 the USSR recognized thePDRY in the south (Page, 1985).

Soviet interest in South Yemen was motivated primarily by the strategicposition of the deep water port in Aden (Cigar, 1985: 787). The first Sovietnaval visit to Aden occurred as early as June 1968 and the Soviets began

172 John Ishiyama

providing military aid in August. Indeed, the Soviets saw Aden as an impor-tant strategic asset in the Middle East in as much as it was ‘located at thejunction of important military, strategic, and commercial lines of commu-nications, and had a special significance for British Imperialism’ (Pozdnyakov,1968: 229). After the establishment of the PDRY Soviet influence expandedgreatly. With the British withdrawal from the Persian Gulf, the reopening ofthe Suez Canal in 1975 and increased Soviet influence in the Horn of Africaafter the Ethiopian Revolution, South Yemen’s geopolitical importanceincreased. Further, the Soviets were interested in supporting ideologically‘friendly socialist regimes’ such as Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Afghani-stan and the PDRY, which had taken steps to transform their societies alongMarxist lines. In 1979, after the accession of Abd al Fattah Ismail’s rise topower, the Soviet concluded a 20-year Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation(Cigar, 1985: 788).

Soviet interest in the Aden regime translated into growing military, economicand cultural ties between the USSR and the PDRY. In terms of militarycooperation, the USSR provided substantial amounts of arms and over 1,500Soviet and Cuban military advisors. The Soviets provided instructors at thecountry’s military academy, and helped trained political officers to ensure YSPcontrol over the military. In terms of the economy, the USSR provided for twothirds of foreign investment in the PDRY by the 1980s and was the country’slargest creditor. The Soviets invested heavily in joint economic enterprises inhigh-priority areas such as oil exploration and in agriculture. The USSR alsoprovided technical support for the collectivization of agriculture, and thebuilding of dams and canals in the country. The Soviets also played a crucialrole in shaping the PDRY’s educational system (Cigar, 1985: 779).

Even though the Soviets were heavily invested in the PDRY, this wasmainly motivated by geopolitical interests. To be sure, when ideologicalhardliner Abd al-Fattah Ismail came to power via a coup in 1978 againstthe pro-Chinese Salim Rubai Ali, relations with Aden improved markedly.Ali, who favoured non-alignment for the PDRY and normalization of rela-tions with the pro-Western Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and Saudi Arabia,was ousted (with both Soviet and Cuban support). Ali had run afoul of theSoviets, who viewed his pro-Chinese views in opposition to creating a van-guard party with suspicion (Cigar, 1985). The ascendency of Abd al-FattahIsmail led to the development of closer ties between Aden and Moscow, butwhen Ismail and his supporters were ousted by the more pragmatic AliNasir Muhammad in a intra-party coup in the YSP in 1980, the Sovietswere willing to accept the new regime (although like Salim Rubai Ali hefavoured normalization of relations with the YAR and Saudi Arabia). Inpart, Moscow believed that Ali Nassir would not act against Soviet interestsand was therefore acceptable. The Ali Nasir coup occurred in February1980, just as the Soviets were becoming more deeply embroiled in Afghani-stan and were anxious not to have further instability in a socialist ally in theregion. Further, the programme adopted by the YSP at the Extraordinary


Party Congress in July 1980 continued the ideological line, at least officially,of Abd al-Fattah Ismail.

In part because of the rise of Gorbachev and Perestroika, as well as theresult of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Soviets seemed to bequite willing to accept Ali Nassir’s regime. Even when the hardline supportersof Abd al-Fattah Ismail launched an armed revolt against Ali Nassir in Jan-uary 1986, the Soviets backed him instead of Abd al Fattah Ismail, labellinghim as ‘counterrevolutionary’. The apparent Soviet backing for Ali Nassir’sgovernment – who had established ties with pro-Western Oman and theUnited Arab Emirates and sought to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia –reflected Moscow’s willingness to abandon hardline Marxist revolutionaries inorder to sustain their naval and air facilities in Aden (Cooley, 1986).

4 Evolution of the ideology of the YSP

The PDU working with Abd al-Fattah, and with Soviet backing, played acrucial role in shaping the Marxist-Leninist ideology of the NLF (and laterthe YSP) and the PDRY state. The NLF, largely under the influence of Abdal-Fattah throughout the 1970s, moved progressively leftward to more greatlyembrace Marxism-Leninism and to transform the NLF into an organizationmodelled after the ruling parties of the USSR and Eastern Europe.

Abd al-Fattah Ismail was born in 1939 in North Yemen, but had beeneducated in Aden where he also worked at an oil refinery before he earned hisdegree and began teaching. He was politically active in nationalist circles andwas a co-founder of the NLF, which launched an insurrection in 1963 againstBritish rule. He became a member of the NLF Politburo in 1965 at the NLFFirst Congress, and was reappointed in the Second and Third Congresses in1966 and 1967. At the Fourth NLF Congress he was the central figure infashioning the NLF’s programme that embraced Marxism-Leninism (Busky,2002: 74–8; Dresch, 2000: 74; Halliday, 1990).

In the Fourth NLF Congress he was instrumental in determining the pro-gressive line of the revolution. However, in March 1968 he was arrested by theright wing of the NLF and went into exile, where he drafted the programme for‘Accomplishing National Democratic Liberation’, a leftist manifesto. Heundertook a leading role in the consolidation of the left wing of NLF whichsubsequently regained power in the 22 June 1969 ‘correction step’, where hewas restored and elected secretary general of the NLF Central Committee, thusmaking him the country’s de facto leader. He was also elected a member of thePresidium of the Supreme People’s Council. In 1970 he was elected chairmanof the Presidium (making him head of state as well). He undertook a leadingrole in the dialogue between the NLF and other left parties in South Yemenleading to the formation of the YSP. He was elected secretary general of theYSP at the First Party Congress in October 1978 (Halliday, 1990).

The evolution of the key elements of the YSP ideology had been laid out byAbd al-Fattah as the leading ideologist of the NLF at the front’s Fourth and

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Fifth Congresses. The Fourth NLF Congress was held in March 1968 andwas attended by 167 delegates. It was at this congress that the divisionbetween the leftist (Marxist-Leninist) wing of the party and the Arab nation-alist wing (led by Salim Rubai Ali) and pro-Soviet pragmatists like Abdul NasirMohammed became most obvious. The programme was drafted by Abd al-Fattah, who argued that Yemen needed to undertake a ‘national democraticrevolution’ based on an alliance of workers, peasants, soldiers and revolu-tionary intellectuals. The programme advocated democratic centralism in theNLF and for a series of economic measures that would assist the revolution –namely the nationalization of foreign banks and foreign trade. The pro-gramme was also very critical of the ‘petit bourgeois’ nationalist policies ofother Arab countries, particularly Egypt, Algeria and Syria. The programmealso called for the arming of a people’s militia to counter the presence ofcounter-revolution forces that surrounded the country, particularly the threatposed by Saudi Arabia to the revolution in South Yemen (Halliday, 1990).

The political declaration issued by the NLF Fourth Congress held that theworld was divided into two camps, with capitalism and colonialism on theone side and socialism and the national liberation movements on the other.National liberation was seen as the first step towards the establishment ofsocialism in favour of the oppressed masses.

The Fifth (and last) Congress of the NLF held in June 1969 marked a con-solidation of the leftist point of view in the NLF, where the congress moved inthe direction of reorganizing the NLF from an Arab Popular Front to a Soviet-style organization. New internal statutes were adopted that emphasized Soviet-style democratic centralism and the old ‘General Command’. The NLF execu-tive was replaced with the Central Committee and Politburo. The congress alsoreaffirmed that the country was in a national democratic revolutionary stage, butalso cautioned that this required some measure of cooperation with petty bour-geois nationalists as well, in common cause in the anti-imperial struggle. In 1970,after the ‘correction step’, the PDRY was established with Salim Rubai Alideclared as president (Halliday, 1990).

In terms of actions undertaken after the declaration of the PDRY, the regimemade restructuring social relations in South Yemen a top priority (Ismael &Ismael, 1986). The leadership of the NLF came largely from what VolkerStanzel (1988) called a ‘provincial lower middle class’. Many were teachers andlower-level bureaucrats in the colonial regime. Although great emphasis wasplaced on the ‘toiling masses’, or workers and peasants to be led by revolu-tionary intellectuals, there was little in the way of a proletariat. Indeed, most ofthose who had constituted the proletariat in the only major city in SouthYemen, Aden, had largely come from the north. Although there was somethingof a peasantry in Hadramawt and in cotton-producing regions like Lahj andAbyan, the vast majority of rural residents were tribal small landowners whowere not at all positively disposed to the new revolutionary regime in Aden.

The new PDRY regime moved very quickly to transform the economy(Ishiyama, 2005; Ismael & Ismael, 1986). Under the guidance of the party


ideologist, and general secretary, Abd al-Fattah, many enterprises (particu-larly foreign ones) were nationalized and there was a widespread redistribu-tion of land (nearly half of the arable land was redistributed to 27,000 poorfamilies between 1970 and 1973). Abd al-Fattah reasoned that by fostering anew class of small landholders, these could be organized into cooperativesand act as a support base for the regime (Ishiyama, 2005; Halliday, 1990;Stanzel, 1988).

However, the socialization of the economy in Yemen inflicted significantcosts. The economic reforms introduced in the 1970s caused significant socialdisruptions in the countryside and declining food production in the 1980s,making the regime increasingly dependent on imported foodstuffs. The insti-tution of cooperatives in particular disrupted traditional peasant productionmethods, which, as in other countries that sought to pursue collectivizedagriculture, led to significant food shortages.

Further, there was outright resistance to the socialization of society.According to Dresch (2000), nearly a quarter of the population of the southfled the country as a result of the regime’s actions in the early 1970s. None-theless, the measures introduced by the NLF (and, after 1978, the YSP) hadtransformed the social structure by displacing old power holders: petty sul-tans, privileged clans and clerics. Through a series of spontaneous violentuprisings, power was seized by the lowest, least powerful strata – peasants,fishermen and labourers. Land reform and marketing cooperatives brought asignificant redistribution of wealth (Hudson, 1977: 351; Dresch, 2000: 121).

Another important element of the PDRY regime’s early measures at trans-forming Yemen was the party’s approach to the role of Islam in the revolu-tionary state. Before independence, Islam represented the primary legitimizingideology of the old social and political order. The PDRY regime adopted arelatively cautious, accommodating approach to Islam, particularly by stres-sing the commonalities that socialism and Islam shared (especially the com-mitment to egalitarianism and social justice). In the PDRY constitution of1970, Islam was recognized as the religion of the country and was guaranteedprotection insofar as it was consonant with the constitution. Instruction inIslam was required as part of the public education curriculum (Ishiyama,2005).

The YSP ideology promoted Islam as a potentially revolutionary force inthe modern era. Indeed, according to Abd al-Fattah:

Islam was exposed to extreme distortion and falsification … In theAbbasid and Ummayid eras, the aristocratic forces were able to divertIslam to goals and concepts other than that for which it had come. Theydid that to serve their interests and to serve the thrones, the kingdoms,and the hereditary caliphate which had nothing at all to do with Islam.Islam, which came essentially as a revolution, was transformed by feudaland aristocratic forces [robbing] Islam of its revolutionary essence anddiverting it to serve other goals.1

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A third element of the new state’s strategy involved the penetration of societyvia the establishment of a mass party organization. The Soviets played a keyrole in the organizational development of the YSP. Soviet commentators in1978 called for the need of unity ‘of the country’s [South Yemen] national andpatriotic forces and the creation of a vanguard party of the working people’(Naumkin, 1978: 65). In 1979, Moscow and Aden signed an agreement wherethe Soviets pledged to help with the party-building activities of the YSP. Thisincluded establishing an exchange of delegations and help in developing youth,women’s and other social organizations. The Soviets also helped to establish theYSP Higher Party School in Aden and the Komsomol assisted in setting up aHigher School for Youth Cadres, and arranged for further training of partycadres in Moscow and other Eastern European countries (Cigar, 1985: 780).

The YSP established cells in both geographic and functional constituencies(such as factories, cooperatives and in the military). Party membership wascited at about 26,000 in 1977 which was about 3.5 percent of the populationin 1983 (Halliday, 1983; Naumkin, 1978). Of these members, the largest pro-portion was ‘office workers’ (36 percent of the party membership). Only 26percent of the membership was listed as workers and only 14.6 percent aspeasants (Ismael & Ismael, 1986: 40–1).

Despite these efforts, the regime had little real effect on society in thePDRY. In part, this was because of the often violent factional warfare withinthe NLF and YSP that made the regime increasingly dependent on the mili-tary. Furthermore, by the 1980s, the effort at socializing Yemen had abated,and the regime survived largely because it accepted a prevailing decentralized,tribal and armed society (Ishiyama, 2005). Nonetheless, although never fullytransformational, the regime was able to secure the loyalty of many tribalelements via this strategy, largely by granting significant power to local partybosses (who often were also local tribal leaders) in the provinces

5 Factionalism in the YSP

In Yemen, the dispute initially involved a debate over the new state’s rela-tionship with the USSR. The first president of the PDRY, Salim Rubai Ali, wasdeeply suspicious of the Soviet model and very critical of the growth of thecentralized planning apparatus that had accelerated in Yemen under the firstfive-year plan that began in 1974. He focused much of his criticism at the pro-Soviet wing of the NLF, led by the party’s ideologist, Abd al-Fattah Ismail.In June 1978, Salim Rubai Ali tried to stage a coup to oust his opponents, butthis attempt failed. As a result, Salim Rubai Ali and two of his associateswere arrested and executed. He was succeeded by a five-person transitionalcouncil led by President Ali Nasir Muhammad. In October 1978, the NLFwas transformed into the YSP which thereupon declared its monopoly ofpolitical power and declared itself a ‘vanguard party’. In December, Abd al-Fattah Ismail was made president and Ali Nasir Muhammad became primeminister (Ishiyama, 2005; Halliday, 1990).


The two key figures in the history of the YSP were Abd al-Fattah and AliNasir. Although both Ali Nasir and Abd al-Fattah were positively disposedtoward the USSR, they differed in terms of both domestic and foreign policy.Abd al-Fattah Ismail, considered a theoretician and a hardliner, favoured areplication of the Soviet model in Yemen. He was also a northerner (as weremany of the radical leftists in the NLF) from Hugariyyah in North Yemen,who like so many other northerners had migrated south to work in the BritishPetroleum Refinery in Aden. In contrast, Ali Nasir Muhammad was fromDathinah in the south, and favoured a much more gradual approach to soci-alism. He advocated promoting a mixed economy and limiting nationalizationto major industries. Further, he favoured rapprochement with North Yemenand normalizing relations with the Saudis and Oman (Dresch, 2000: 149–50).

In 1980, Ali Nasir forced Abd al-Fattah Ismail from office, who subse-quently went to Moscow, ostensibly to ‘study’. As president, he was succeededby Ali Nasir, who also retained his position as prime minister and becamegeneral secretary of the YSP. Under Ali Nasir, controls over the economy,particularly in construction, were loosened and private commerce promoted.Foreign companies (including British) were invited to help in oil exploration.Relations were normalized with the country’s neighbour and with the loosen-ing of state controls, the remaining allies of Abd al-Fattah charged Ali Nasirwith consumerism, corruption and betrayal of the revolution.

In 1984, the powerful defence minister Ali Antar began to criticize Ali Nasirfor his personal excesses (Dresch, 2000: 169). In February 1985 Ali Nasir wasforced to cede his position as prime minister. In 1985, Abd al-Fattah Ismailwas allowed to return to the country where he was restored as one of thesecretaries of the YSP. After the October 1985 congress, there was increasingpressure in the party for Ali Nasir to also give up his position as generalsecretary, and the re-elevation of al-Fattah as secretary for ideology (thenumber two post in the party). In January 1986, this political conflict turnedinto an armed conflict when Ali Nasir’s supporters murdered several membersof the Politburo, including Abd al-Fattah and Ali Antar. Several thousandparty members and militia were killed in a two-week civil war. The militarysupported the Abd al-Fattah faction and Ali Nasir and thousands of his sup-porters were forced to flee to North Yemen or Ethiopia. A new political lea-dership under Ali Salim al-Bid, a supporter of Abd al-Fattah, wasreconstituted. But despite its ties to the northern faction (which included thePDU), he generally continued the policies of Ali Nasir.

As the USSR set upon a new course in its relations with the West after1985, this had a profound effect on the regime. The accession of Ali Salim al-Bid as general secretary of the YSP, coupled with the changes in Moscow,accelerated progress toward the reunification of North and South Yemen. In1981, negotiations had produced an ‘interim constitution’ of a unified Yemen,but both sides had rejected the draft. In September 1989, however, a summitmeeting was held in Sanaa, and by November 1989 (the same month that theBerlin Wall came down) the president of North Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh,

178 John Ishiyama

and Ali Salim al-Bid of the South, announced in Aden that the unity agree-ment dating back to 1981 would be implemented by 1990. Formal unificationoccurred on 22 May 1990, marking the end of the PDRY, the PDU and theexperiment in Marxism-Leninism in Yemen.

6 The YSP since reunification

The YSP has since reunification altered its identity substantially. Renouncingrevolution and Marxism-Leninism, in its 1993 electoral programme, the YSPdeclared its main objective to be the promotion of national unity and democ-racy, and to realize social justice. It viewed tribalism as a problem (unlike theruling northern General People’s Congress (GPC), which extolled the ‘extendedfamily’ of tribalism) declaring in the campaign of 1993 that it sought to ‘find asolution to the problem of tribal power and the resulting anarchy’. As to Islam,unlike the GPC or Islah, which prominently featured Islam as the core of life,the YSP merely sought the creation of an Islamic university in Yemen, ratherthan make Islam a national religion (Schwedler, 2002).

Since the reunification of North Yemen and South Yemen, the YSP hasbeen marked by continued intra-party squabbles. In the 1990s this involved aconflict between the left wing, led by al-Bid, and more moderate conciliatoryelements, led by Jarallah Omar, although also a northerner, advocated the‘social democratization’ of the party. The early 1990s were also marked bygrowing tensions between the ruling GPC and the Islamists, on the one hand,and the YSP on the other, tensions that led to the assassinations of severalYSP officials. The political crisis culminated in August 1994 when Vice-President al-Bid refused to carry out his duties and retreated back to Aden.Many mediation initiatives were undertaken during the crisis, but skirmishespersisted between former North Yemen and South Yemen army units, and acivil war began in May 1994. Prime Minister al-Attas and other YSP leadersdefected to joined forces with Vice-President al-Bid, who was in Aden. Thevice-president declared the independence of a new Democratic Republic ofYemen in South Yemen (Ishiyama, 2005).

Most YSP members, however, refused to join al-Bid and chose to stay inSanaa. In South Yemen, leaders in Abyan, Hadramawt and other provincesalso refused to join the al-Bid group. In the end, President Saleh’s troops over-whelmed those of al-Bid on the battlefield. In July 1994, al-Bid left the country,seeking political asylum in Oman. His departure marked the end of the two-month civil war, with the camp in favour of maintaining the coalition claimingvictory. After the end of the war, the YSP was forced to leave the coalitiongovernment and had its assets seized, including its party headquarters building.Among YSP leading members, most of the YSP parliamentarians (53 of 56)were allowed to continue political activity and remain in parliament becausethey chose to remain in Sanaa during the political crisis.

Since 1994, the YSP has been split by both ideological and continuedregional cleavages. After his departure to Oman, al-Bid was replaced by Ali


Saleh Obad (Muqbil), a member of the old guard who had elected to stay inSanaa during the 1994 civil war. Obad, along with other conservatives fromShabwah, Hadramawt and Abyan (generally associated with al-Bid) advo-cated a policy of boycotting elections, rejecting talks with the government andopposing a change in the party’s ideology. Ali Saleh Obad helped to organizethe 1997 YSP demonstrations in Mukallah and also advocated the YSP’sboycott of the parliamentary elections of 1997 (Al-Yemeni, 2003: 66).

On the other hand, the reformers within the leadership group included thelate Jarallah Omar and Dr Saif Sayel, both from the north. This group advo-cates actively, including young people and women in the leadership group,easing out the old guard, promoting a peaceful discourse with the governmentin order to regain the YSP’s lost status and properties, modernizing the party’sideology and joining the Socialist International (Al-Yemeni, 2003: 61).

Jarallah Omar was a particularly important figure in the evolution of the YSPafter 1994. He was a northerner born in the village of Kuhal in the province ofIbb in 1942 and studied Islamic jurisprudence in Dhamar as a young man.During the North Yemeni civil war of 1962–8, Omar was imprisoned for hisleftist politics. While in prison, he was introduced to Marxism. He left prison in1968 and took refuge in South Yemen. From the south, he led the commandoforces of the National Defence Forces in the north, a conglomerate of fiveseparate groups dedicated to overthrowing the military government in Sanaa,but was forced to flee to the south by the late 1970s. He was elevated to thePolitburo in the YSP in the 1980s and was associated with Abd al-Fattah Ismail’sfaction, siding with al-Bid in the 1986 civil war. He broke with al-Bid in the 1994war, opposing the secession effort. Nonetheless, he was forced to flee the countryin 1994, only to return a year later. Widely respected within the party, as well asthroughout the opposition, he was a key figure in brokering the 2002 alliancebetween the YSP and Islah that led to the creation of the Joint Meetings Party(JMP), which was established to oppose President Saleh (Carapico et al., 2002).Omar was assassinated in 2002, while speaking at a meeting of Islah.2

Since the YSP’s Fourth Congress (held in November 1998 and August2000), the reformist wing appears to have gained the upper hand in the intra-party struggle. A new political party programme was adopted where the YSPfully embraced a social-democratic identity and proclaimed itself

a social democratic party that struggles for building a modern democraticstate, whose powers rest upon the fundamentals of the Constitution, and inwhich the role of the institutions is reinforced, a democratic local Govern-ment is founded, the law prevails, citizens are equal in rights and duties,human rights are maintained, and civil society institutions prosper.

(Al-Yemeni, 2003: 62)

The party has since emerged as the primary regional and secular oppositionin Yemen, but by the 21st century had ceased to embrace communism. Thusended the YSP’s experiment with Marxism-Leninism.

180 John Ishiyama

Since the abandonment of Marxism-Leninism the party continued its poli-tical alliance with Islah in the JMP. Yasin Said Numan, who was a formerprime minister in the PDRY under Ali Nassir, became the general secretary ofthe YSP in 2005. In 2007, discontent in the south with northern rule in a uni-fied Yemen led to the emergence of the Southern Movement (Hirak) whichsought secession of the territories of the former PDRY from Yemen.3 Althoughsome in the Southern Movement claim direct lineage with the YSP, particularlythrough the former PDRY president and Yemeni vice-president Ali Salim al-Bid, the YSP leadership continued to officially support a unified Yemen.

With the coming of the Yemeni Revolution, in 2011 Numan supported theremoval of President Saleh and, along with other member parties of the JMP,supported the creation of the National Council for the Forces of the PeacefulRevolution which demanded President Saleh’s ouster. Saleh was forced toresign in November 2011 under the terms of an agreement brokered by theGulf Coordination Council (GCC), and transferred power to his vice-president, Abd al-Rab Mansur al-Hadi, who was elected as president in asingle-candidate election in February 2012 (Stuster, 2013). Hadi had the sup-port of the JMP, but beset with incompatible ideologies and factional divi-sions, the National Council proved ineffective as a governing alternative.Further, Hadi had little in the way of military support, which by and largeremained loyal to Saleh and his family. In 2013, the Houthi movement, whichchampions Yemen’s Zaidi Shia Muslim minority and which had fought aseries of rebellions against President Saleh in the past, took advantage ofHadi’s weak position by taking control of their northern heartland of Saadaprovince, and subsequently neighbouring areas. Supported by allies of Saleh,the Houthi rapidly advanced on Sanaa, and forced President Hadi to resign.Hadi escaped to Aden, and the YSP and JMP continued to support his gov-ernment. Hadi only survived, however, as the result of a massive GCC mili-tary intervention in the civil war, and the support of the secessionist HirakMovement in the south.

Since 2015, the YSP’s position relative to Hadi (who staunchly supportsYemeni unity), and southern secession has been ambivalent at best. AlthoughNuman was one of three top advisers to President Hadi, and the party hasparticipated in the several unity governments since 2015, a number of YSPmembers form one of the more prominent factions in Hirak, particularlyassociated with Ali Salim al-Bid (al-Rimawi, 2012). Nonetheless, the YSPremains relatively strong in the south, and thus continues to influence theHadi government.

7 Conclusion

The Communist Party in Yemen (the PDU) was a very small organizationthat, despite its small size, was able to greatly influence the NLF, the YSP andthe policies of the PDRY. Although the PDU never became the ‘vanguardparty’ that is the aspiration of most communist parties, it was able to


influence the transformation of the NLF and the YSP into a vanguard party.The relationship between the PDU and YSP was symbiotic one.

Why did such a symbiotic relationship emerge? There are two reasons. First,the NLF sought to secure support from the USSR, not only in the anti-colonialstruggle, but also for assistance in consolidating its rule in South Yemen. Themost direct conduit to Soviet aid was via the PDU and its connections withMoscow. Second, the PDU exerted great influence because of personal connec-tions between the PDU leadership and particularly the Ba Dhib brothers andAbd al-Fattah Ismail and Ali Nasir. Third, because of its control of the PartySchool in Aden, the PDU exerted influence through the cadres of the YSP.

In terms of the ideology of the vanguard party in Yemen (which was the YSP),although early on in the history of the PDRY, there was a concerted effort totransform social relations in South Yemen, according to the YSP’s commitmentto Marxist-Leninist principles. However, given the realities of South Yemen,persistent regionalism and tribalism, the lack of a natural social base for aMarxist-Leninist vanguard party as well as the challenge of addressing a poli-tical role for Islam, the YSP retreated a number of key ideological principles, andespecially under Ali Nasir and later after reunification under Jarallah Omar, theparty has abandoned the core principles of Marxism-Leninism.

What is the future of the YSP? The party has many strengths on which it cancapitalize. First, it is Yemen’s only party of the left and its secular ideology stillhas appeal among certain intellectuals and women. Second, the party remainsthe national party of the south of Yemen and continues to have strong supportin that area, which helps its position in the Hadi government. Third, the partyhas done much to renew itself since 1998, and is in coalition in the JMP withthe mainstream Islamic Islah Party. On the other hand, the party continues toface many challenges, financial and political, and continued hostility fromother political forces, particularly radical Islamist groups. Nonetheless, it isunlikely that the YSP will disappear from the political scene any time verysoon, and will likely continue as the sole example of the transformation of aMarxist-Leninist party into a social-democratic one in the Middle East.

Notes1 Nida al-Watan, June 1978, pp. 22–3 quoted in Ismael & Ismael, 1986: 165.2 BBC, 28 December 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2611071.stm

, accessed 28 March 2004.3 Al Jazeera, 10 March 2011, ‘Who’s Who in Yemen’s Opposition?’, www.aljazeera.

com/indepth/spotlight/yemen/2011/02/2011228141453986337.html, accessed October2017.

Referencesal-Rimawi, Mahmoud (2012) ‘The Case for Federalism, Not Separatism, in Yemen’,

Al-Monitor, September 10, www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2012/09/the-federalist-option-in-yemen.html

182 John Ishiyama

Al-Yemeni, H. (2003) The Dynamics of Democratization: Political Parties in Yemen,Bonn, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

Anthony, John Duke (1984) ‘The Communist Party of the People’s DemocraticRepublic of Yemen: An Analysis of Its Strengths and Weaknesses’. In Pridham, B.(Ed.), Contemporary Yemen: Politics and Historical Background, London, CroomHelm.

Brehony, Noel (2013) Yemen Divided: The Story of a Failed State in South Arabia,London, I. B. Tauris.

Busky, Donald F. (2002) Communism in History and Theory: Asia, Africa, and theAmericas, New York, Greenwood.

Carapico, S., Wedeen, L. & Wuerth, A. (2002) ‘The Death and Life of Jarallah Omar’,Middle East Report, 31 December, www.merip.org/mero/mero123102.html

Cigar, Norman (1985) ‘South Yemen and the USSR: Prospects for the Relationship’.Middle East Journal, 39, 4.

Cooley, John K. (1986) ‘Power Struggle in S. Yemen Highlights Soviet Role in StrategicRegion’. Christian Science Monitor, 17 January.

Dresch, P. (2000) A History of Modern Yemen, Cambridge, Cambridge UniversityPress.

Halliday, Fred (1983) ‘The People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen: The Cuban Pathin Arabia’. In White, G., Murray, R. & White, C. (Eds), Revolutionary SocialistDevelopment in the Third World, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Halliday, Fred (1990) Revolution and Foreign Policy: The Case of South Yemen, 1967–1987, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Hudson, Michael C. (1977) Arab Politics: The Search for Legitimacy, New Haven, CT,Yale University Press.

Ishiyama, John (2005) ‘The Sickle and the Minaret: The Communist Successor Partiesin Yemen and Afghanistan after the End of the Cold War’. Middle East Review ofInternational Affairs, 9, 2.

Ismael, Tareq Y. & Ismael, Jacqueline S. (1986) The People’s Democratic Republic ofYemen: Politics, Economics, and Society: The Politics of Socialist Transformation,London, Pinter Publishers.

Jabar, Faleh (1997) Post-Marxism in the Middle East, London, Saqi.Naumkin, Viktor (1978) ‘Southern Yemen: The Road to Progress’. World Marxist

Review, 21, 1.Page, Stephen (1985) The Soviet Union and the Yemens, New York, Praeger.Pozdnyakov, E. (1968) ‘Narodnaya Respublika Yuzhnogo lemena; pervye shagi molo-

dogo gosudarstva’. Mezhdunarodnyi Ezhegodnik, Moscow, Politizdat.Schwedler, J. (2002) ‘Yemen’s Unlikely “Emerging Democracy”’. Journal of Democracy,

12, 1.Stanzel, Volker (1988) ‘Marxism in Arabia: South Yemen Twenty Years after

Independence’. Aussenpolitik, 39, 3.Stuster, J. Dana (2013) ‘How Does Yemen’s Revolution End?’ Foreign Policy, 26 April,

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/26/how-does-yemens-revolution-end/


10 The Sudan Communist PartyBolshevize it, O God!

Abdullahi A. Ibrahim

1 Introduction

With the massacre of Abdel Khaliq Mahgoub [the secretary of the SudanCommunist Party, 1949–1971], a page of beauty and tolerance was turned inSudanese politics.1

(Mahgoub, 1974)

At the 25th conference of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)in 1976, the presidium called the roll of honour of communist leaders whodied for the cause of communism in-between the holding of the two partyconferences. The names of Abdel Khaliq Mahgoub, the secretary of theSudan Communist Party (SCP), al-Shafie Ahmed el-Sheikh, the prominentLenin Medallion laurate trade union leader and member of the secretariat ofthe party, and Joseph Garang, a member of the secretariat of the party, exe-cuted by Nimeirie’s regime in 1971, were conspicuous by their absence in theritual.2 Denying Mahgoub and his comrades a mention they rightly deservedwas a welcome to Yousif Faisal, leader of the Syrian Communist party, whocommented: ‘This will be the fate that awaits who contravene our “kibar”(seniors/big brother)’.3

This ‘excommunication’ of Mahgoub and colleagues was meant to punish aparty that the Soviets had seen as heretically indomitable for decades. Evidencethat they held the party in disfavour has been emerging lately. The SCP, it isrelated, opposed a proposition evaluating the international situation tabled atthe International Congress of Communist and Labour Parties in Moscow in1969. The proposition stipulated that imperialism targeted the socialist campworking hard to undermine it. Instead, the SCP argued that the real threat tothe socialist alliance came from imperialism targeting not its strongest nexus,the socialist camp, but its weakest link, that is, the developing countries. Theposition of the Sudan party was the one adopted ultimately by the congress.4

Even Arab communists obligingly toeing the Soviet line shunned the SCPfor holding to its autonomy. An Iraqi communist wrote recently aboutattending a conference of the CPSU with a group of comrades. He remem-bered Mahgoub’s address to the conference as unusual in laying emphasis on

the uniqueness of his people. At a cocktail party held for the congress dele-gates and guests after the session in which Mahgoub gave his speech, a tipsyKhalid Bakdash, the Syrian leading communist, began criticizing Mahgoubon his words to the conference, ‘What uniqueness of your people you talkedabout? Do you think you understand matters better than the Soviets?’ Thingswere about to get out of hand and the two comrades were about to come toblows.5

This chapter intends to examine the tumultuous and ambivalent politics ofthe relations between the CPSU and the SCP to account for the indicatedSoviet lack of collegiality towards a partner in the fight for socialism. It willhighlight the situations in which the Sudan party endeavoured to strike abalance between its nationalism and internationalism to the chagrin of theSoviet party.

Sudan communists take great pride in their autonomy vis-à-vis the centreof the world communism movement. They never tire of repeating that theyonly touched base with this centre after they had already familiarized them-selves with their own reality in light of ‘ummuiyyat al-Marxiyya’ (the mostgeneral terms of Marxism). Ahmad Sulayman, a founding member of theparty from the late 1940s who left the party in 1970, indicates that the firstformal contact of the SCP, founded in 1946, with international communismwas in 1958. In that year, the Soviet party extended an invitation to two lea-ders of the party to attend the 21st conference of their party.6 Sulayman sug-gests that the invitation was the first Soviet open recognition of the SCP asdeserving to attend a communist international event (Sulayman, 1986: 34). Incoming rather late to the international communist arena, the Sudan party hadalready formed a Marxist programme derived from its concrete realities forsocial change in Sudan.

This emphasis on the SCP’s autonomy is epitomized in their phrase ‘thecreative application of Marxism to Sudan reality’. Commonly, they wouldshow great reserve when coming to a political conclusion by saying ‘as per-mitted by present knowledge of the situation’. This tact led to their con-tinuous stress on the need to come to grips with Sudanese reality. All partyorganizations are directed to study in detail the history, economy, culture andsocial forces and stratification in their respective areas of activity. So much sothat one of the most prominent economists of Sudan currently is an engineerwhose course of study was cut short by a political contingency. He came toeconomics when he was made the political secretary of the party organizationof the Northern province of the country that has Atbara, the headquarters ofthe railways system, at its centre. To grasp the facts of his realm of activity, hediligently studied the wage structure of the institution and the forms ofexploitation of workers. I was fortunate, on his invitation in 1967, to go overthe language and style of his first economic tract. That ushered him into acareer as an authority on the Sudanese economy.

In pursuing the concretization of Marxism, or what Rogaia Abusharaf callsthe ‘vernacularization’ of Marxism (Abusharaf, 2009), the SCP adopted the

The Sudan Communist Party 185

parliamentary road to socialism after its third congress in 1956. In thisadvocacy, it emphasized the expediency of bourgeois democracy to bringabout radical change. The party argued that workers, who were awakened byunionism to their workplace rights would in due time accept socialism basedon bourgeois liberal rights. This explains the party’s ardent opposition toimposing ‘new democracy’ by progressive putschists (Ibrahim, 1996; Al-Gizouli, 2003). For establishing a strategically correct relationship betweenthe struggle for democracy and for socialism, Ben Turok describes the SCP’spractice as ‘quite extraordinary’ for being pragmatic yet principled – somethingthat has evaded many others in Africa (Turok, 1987: 153).

To understand better the SCP’s novel position in favour of liberal democ-racy one needs to consider its roots in working-class unionism, and its con-cept of the bourgeoisie class in a liberal Sudan. Unarguably, the SCP fosteredhistorical, close association with the labour movement that is described, forits growth by leap and bounds, as arising virtually out of nothing (Fawzi,1957: x). Lamenting the neglect of Sudan working-class movement history inscholarship on Sudan, Peter Cross argues that the SCP’s grass-root activitiesin the country would not be understood (Cross, 1997: 217–18).7 Situated in itsproper social milieu, the party is convinced that unionism would lead workersto make the linkage between democracy and socialism in the public arena.

Not unlike other revolutionaries in Africa, the party saw the national bour-geoisie as rudimentary and dispersed in traditional religious parties. This lowlyview of the class potential to democratize the country similar to its Europeanpredecessors, however, did not lure the party into writing it off politics. Unlikeradicals who, encouraged by this weakness, called for bypassing it altogetherfor a new democracy and socialism, the party held fast to its position of theindispensability of liberal rights to achieving socialism.

Instead, it used the weakness of this class to argue for the leadership of theworking class of the national democratic stage towards socialism (SudanCommunist Party, 1967: 116). The negotiation of this role comes clearly in ananecdote about an encounter between a bourgeois leader and Mahgoub. It istold that Mahgoub, the charismatic secretary general of the party from 1949to 1971, was seen riding a car driven by a politician who belonged to abourgeois party. He was asked how he had come to accept being driven by a‘reactionary’. He said, ‘We never questioned their right to be in the driver’sseat. But we will never cede to them a monopoly of deciding the road map’(Abu Sin, 1997: vol 1, 82–3). Not even its subjection to persecution by theanti-democratic policies of bourgeoisie and traditional parties in governmentdissuaded the party from holding to its conviction in the liberal democraticroad to socialism. Understandably, this subjection, climaxing in parliamentdisbanding it in 1965, caused it to waver on occasions about the correctness ofits endorsement of liberalism as a road to social change. However, it diduphold in the same document of its fourth conference in which it cast seriousdoubts on the future of liberal democracy in the country (Sudan CommunistParty, 1967: 108).

186 Abdullahi A. Ibrahim

The SCP is in no hurry to bring change. Hence, the catchword in the SCPliterature is ‘al-dayib al-sabur’ (relentlessly patient). It kept directing itsmembers not to rush things and fight the good fight in their own good time.Its long experience in unionism led the party to believe that traditional andbourgeois’ parties, the majoritarian parties in the country, do not have thesway they assumed over their working class and urban members. Wheneffectively awakened to their class and modern interests, those members wouldelect communists to their unions, but not in a general election. Not yet. TheSCP valued this as a sign for good things to come. Working people wouldaccept in due time socialism based on bourgeois liberal rights. This explainswhy the SCP reconciled with the reality of the majoritarian dominance oftraditional and bourgeois parties in parliamentary democracy in the country.It was in no hurry to see them gone.

The party’s faithfulness to the realities of Sudan came at a heavy price threeyears before its adoption of the parliamentary road to socialism in 1956. Theopposition of the communists to the March 1953 Anglo-Egyptian treaty thatgranted Sudan the right to self-rule was a grave error that knocked into thema sense of the reality. Dazzled by the Chinese patriotic war, they were ada-mant that the only way to obtain freedom is through an armed revolution à laChina’s war, not negotiation. Accordingly, they believed that freedom couldonly be gained through a barrel of a gun. Communists would sing this belief:

Stalin has instructed us that freedom is not a free rideDon’t you see that the Malayans have taken up arms?Ho Chi Minh’s tie in the Vietnam is never loosened.

Their opposition was a cry in the wilderness. The strike in protest of theagreement called for by the all-powerful leftist Sudan Trade Union Federa-tion was a disaster. Students of Khartoum University College voted downthe proposition tabled by the communists to demonstrate against the agree-ment. Political isolation of the party set in. A student activist at the timesaid the votes for the proposition fell short of the number of card-holdingmembers of the communist student organization at the university.8 None ofthe nationalist circle with whom the communists had allied during thenationalist movement supported them. Their loneliness was complete andthey had to go back to the drawing board to rethink their opposition to theagreement. In March 1953, the central committee of the party met to reviewthe situation. Acknowledging their lamentable bad judgement, they attrib-uted it to copying blindly experiences of others in obtaining freedom. Thisself-criticism led to a faith in concretizing party politics by stopping imitat-ing other revolutionaries (Mahgoub, 1956: 37). Interestingly, in combatingmimicry, the party reminded members in 1963 of an incident in Port Sudantown in the 1950s in which comrade Khamis began establishing ‘Soviets’ inthe town after reading about the role of these workers’ councils in theRussian revolution (Mahgoub, 2004 [1963]: 52–3).


To bring loyalty to Sudanese reality home, Mahgoub returned to thematter after the holding of the third party conference that concluded thatparliament would be their path to socialism. In this revisit to the agreementdebacle, he overviews the different paths taken by different nationalists liber-ating themselves in colonies and oligarchies in the post-Second World Warperiod for the party to see how mimicking others was groundless. He outlinesthe roads taken by China and India to offset traditional aristocracies ordecolonize, respectively. The Chinese, denied any political voice in the land,fought a patriotic war to the bitter end, drawing on their experiences offighting Japan. The Indians, on the other hand, were persuaded by the Britishto work within the frame of constitutional gradualism they had set up(Mahgoub, 1956: 30–1). The Sudanese took neither. Unlike the Indians,Sudanese nationalists split into two groups respecting the colonial plan ofconstitutional gradualism. A group joined the consultative assemblies set upby the British allegedly to prepare the Sudanese for self-rule. The other group,in which the communists played a leading role, boycotted these councilsleading to their isolation. Independence resulted from this twofold dynamicaccelerated by the infighting between Britain and Egypt, the co-domino ofSudan, on their right to Sudan (Mahgoub, 1956: 33–4).

In his criticism of the party’s misguided opposition of the agreement,Mahgoub argues that the mistake of the party laid in its one-sided evaluationof the agreement. The party rightly pointed to the many loopholes in it thatthe British could have used to prolong their rule in the country (Amin, 1953).It did not, however, recognize the agreement as a product of a mass fight forindependence in which the working class played a pivotal role denying thebourgeoisie a monopoly of imagining the nation. Independence could havecome fast and with no strings attached had the bourgeois nationalist partieswithstood their ground in the united front with the communist that had calledfor the definitive evacuation of the colonial troops and administration beforethe self-rule election. Mahgoub concludes that criticizing the agreement dis-aster was not only an important lesson in indigenizing tactics, but also a greatlesson in the courage of self-criticism acknowledging party accountability tothe masses (Mahgoub, 1956: 80–1).

In pursuing its creative application of Marxism to Sudan, the party foundsolace in Lenin’s ‘To the People of the East’ (Lenin, 1965 [1919]; Mahgoub,2004 [1963]: 15–16). It became its favourite text, if you will, for calling onMuslim communists in the eastern regions of the Soviet Union to approachtheir realities imaginatively. In his address, Lenin describes the task commu-nists in the East confront as one had not been confronted by other commu-nists before. The SCP’s ‘umumiyyat al-marxiyya’ echoes Lenin’s call upon thecommunists of the East to rely upon the ‘general theory and practice ofcommunist… to specific conditions such as do not exist in the Europeancountries’. After listing the unique problems the communists of the Eastfaced, Lenin cautions them that the solution of their problems will not befound ‘in any communist book’. They had to tackle those problems and solve


them through their own independent experience. In constantly referencing thistext, the SCP found the theoretical licence to engage in the ‘vernacularization’of Marxism.

The SCP’s advocacy for a parliamentary road to socialism, arrived at in itscreative application of Marxism to the realities of Sudan, faced tremendouschallenges from within the party, from local adversaries (Ibrahim, 1996;Ismail, 2013; Matar, 1971; Gadal, 1986) and from international communism.In going through that tumultuous course of history, the party had to revisitthe advocacy, diverge from it and reinstate it, sometimes to its detriment. Thetenacity of holding to the strategy through thick and thin is unimaginablyprincipled to have the party alive and kicking in a post-communist world. Thegroundedness of the party in its realities comes through in Gabriel Warburg’sIslam, Nationalism, and Communism in a Traditional African Society (1978).Warburg attributes the effectiveness of the SCP to its flexibility addressingthese realities. I will quote Warburg at length to underline the specific cir-cumstances that led to the ‘unorthodoxy’ of the SCP that incurred the wrathof the Soviets:

[W]hile communism never succeeded in becoming a major force inSudan, its impact on Sudanese politics was nonetheless considerableespecially during periods of crisis. This was due to three main reasons.Firstly, the penetration of the SCP into the most important sectors ofSudanese society: the cotton growers, the railway workers and the intel-ligentsia, enabled the party to become an effective pressure group despiteits relatively small numbers. Secondly, the SCP provided the only con-sistent alternative to the sectarian and factional divisions which harassedSudanese politics ever since independence… Lastly, the leadership of theSCP, since Abd al-Khaliq Mahjub became secretary-general, was prob-ably the most capable leadership of any communist party in the region.Its flexible attitude towards religion, nationalism, Arab unity, etc.,enabled the party to retain its freedom of action, at least partly, duringthe long periods in which it was illegal. Yet despite this flexibility, whichat times bordered on opportunism, the party remained consistent in itsfight against sectarian politics and factional splits.

(Warburg, 1978: 166)

The balance the SCP struck between its nationalism and internationalism wasa source of trouble with the Soviets. Although it took their side in their con-flict with China and, regrettably, in support of their invasion of Czechoslo-vakia, it fell in disfavour with them for not toeing their line of forcingcommunist parties to play second fiddle to nationalist polities friendly to theSoviet Union. In measuring the progressivity of regimes against the economicand diplomatic relations they had with the Soviet Union, the Soviets askedthe party twice to reconcile to dictatorial regimes that had developed varyingmutual relations with the Soviets. In the early 1960s, the Soviets asked the


party to tone down its strong opposition to the Aboud dictatorship that cameto power via a military coup in November 1958; they wanted the party torelinquish in favour of the junta. The Soviets viewed the party’s obstinateopposition to the regime as jeopardizing those economic and diplomatic tieswith the Soviet Union. This line, of course, gave priority to Soviet nationalinterests at the cost of turning the local parties into lackeys of the Soviets.

The SCP refused to accept the Soviet line. It declined to moderate its resis-tance to the ‘17th of November gang’, the party’s favourite epithet of theregime referencing its birth in 1958. It visited this encounter with the Soviets inits report of its fourth conference (1967) held after the toppling of the Aboudregime by the popular uprising of October 1964. In the section devoted to thematter, the party said it welcomed the establishment of those economic rela-tions with the Soviet Union (Sudan Communist Party, 1967: 113–14). Fromthese emerging relations, the party states, the Sudanese would see a new partnerwho, unlike capitalist countries, would genuinely seek mutually beneficial rela-tions with their country. To illustrate, the report points to the easing of a com-modity shortage in 1957–8 thanks to an aid from the Soviet Union. That beingsaid, the report raised some serious objections to making a country’s relationswith the Soviet Union the yardstick for its progressiveness. These diplomaticand trade relations with the Soviets, good as they might be, the report con-tinued, would not make a dent in Sudan’s unequal relationship with the capi-talist market. The interests of the comprador bourgeoisie and state bureaucracywould stand in the way of their full utilization to the benefit of the people. Thereport cautioned the Soviets against thinking that their good relations with thejunta was something they singularly brought about. Instead, they needed togive credit to the mass movement for democracy, for calling insistently for theestablishment of those relations in the first place.

Most importantly, the report held to the party’s right to analyse its concreterealities and acted upon them unfettered. Although the junta relations withthe Soviet Union were most welcome, stated the report, they should not blindus to the fact that the analysis of the class structure and governance in acountry is a prerogative of local communists. The measure of the progressivityof a regime should not be judged by the closeness of a regime to the SovietUnion. Such an external determination leaves little to nothing for localcommunists to do (Sudan Communist Party, 1967: 114).

The second time around, in which the Soviets asked the SCP to play asecondary role to a regime of their favour, was during the leftist phase of theGeneral Nimeirie junta (1969–71). We are fortunate that Yevgeny Primakov,an alleged correspondent of Pravda, head of the Russian Foreign IntelligenceService, Russian foreign minister and Russian prime minister left us a recordof the ideological and political factors at play in this second encounter of theSCP and the Soviets.

Primakov visited Sudan on 25 May 1969, the day of the military coup thatbrought Nimeirie to power, to interview the new leaders and communists forPravda. Mahgoub told him in a meeting that the new regime was progressive.


Yet communists, he insisted, did not intend to be swallowed up in the revo-lutionary council set up by Nimeirie. He continued to say that the communistministers appointed by Nimeirie were good ‘but they were appointed withoutconsulting the central committee of the SCP’. He further said that they wouldkeep working with the regime and ‘for that to happen, there needs to be equalpartnership with the communist party’ (Primakov, 2009: 77).

Mahgoub’s position of keeping a distance from the regime did not sit wellwith Primakov. His next line in the narrative is, ‘The phrase “equal partner-ship” grated somewhat’ (Primakov, 2009: 77). The annoyance shown by Pri-makov stemmed from his realization that the independent spirit shown byMahgoub would put the SCP in a collision course with the regime contra-vening the Soviet position that local communist parties should play a sec-ondary role to progressive regimes like the one led by Nimeirie. Primakovdates that policy to the latter half of the 1960s. Before that, they gave the firstplace to communists in the fight against colonialism. Rostislav Ulyanovsky,deputy head of the international department of the Central Committee,essentially developed this change, christened ‘socialist orientation’. Post-colonial regimes, the new view argued,

could in the initial stages set its own courses toward communism insteadof taking the ‘traditional’ route of the proletarian dictatorship… The goalof the new theory was to bolster radical regimes in the Middle East andstop local communists from attacking them. It was reasoned that theseregimes were the ones with the real power: ideology was once againshown to be applied as the ‘servant’ of politics.

This view was communicated in no uncertain terms by the Soviet party tolocal communists ‘that they had to find accommodation with certain Arableaders, and advised them to accept that the revolutionary nationalist leaders,not they, were the leading force in the Arab world’s pro-independence movement’(Primakov, 2009: 59).

Alan Gresh goes into some detail regarding the fallout between the Sovietparty and the SCP. He traces the Soviet’s position of downplaying the role ofcommunists in progressive politics in their respective countries to the 20thcongress of the CPSU in 1956. Armed by the congress’ positive conclusionsrespecting the role of patriotic nationalists, the Soviets talked communists ofthe Arab world into agreeing ‘to play second fiddle to nationalists’ (Gresh,1989: 393). Based on their 1956 position on nationalists, the Soviet theoreti-cians envisaged in the 1960s a ‘revolutionary democracy’ to describe radicalregimes in Africa and the Arab countries. They had this to say about them:

In many former colonies and semi-colonial countries, socialist evolutionis both possible and necessary before class differentiation have becomepronounced. In such conditions, when the proletariat has not beentransformed into a driving force, the intermediate strata – such as


peasants, exploited urban classes and democratic intellectuals – play aparticularly active role and acquire political independence. Revolutionarydemocracy appears as the mouthpiece of their interests… Its programmegoes beyond the framework of capitalism. It comprises a large proportionof the demands that appear on the program of Communist parties ofcountries that have been recently liberated.

(Gresh, 1989: 397–8)

Gresh delineates the conflict that raged in the SCP on evaluating Nimeirie’sregime relevant to the Soviet’s position of relegating local communists toplaying a secondary role to revolutionary democratic nationalists. Accordingto this Soviet formulation, local communists had to support these progressivenationalists, identified as ‘revolutionary democrats’, and might need to con-sider the dissolution of their parties and absorption into their regimes (Gresh,1989: 398).

The fight within the SCP revolved around the class nature of Nimeirie’sregime, and on whether its revolutionary democrats are capable of leadingchange to achieve its ultimate goals. The group in the party that fully sup-ported the coup regime answered in the affirmative in line with the Sovietview that it was incumbent on communists to back revolutionary democratsunequivocally. Political designations aside, Mahgoub’s group saw the regimeas led by the petty bourgeoisie that cannot be trusted with effecting socialchange in a consistent manner. This is why Mahgoub’s group emphasized theleadership of the working class to the social-democratic revolution and thehistorical responsibility of preserving the autonomy of the communist party(Gresh, 1989: 403). As a result, Mahgoub’s party challenged Nimeirie’sregime, despite its social and economic reforms applauded in the entireprogressive world (Gresh, 1989: 397).

The party’s challenge to the regime focused on the question: ‘Who amongSudan’s various social and political forces should guide the process ofchange?’ Although this may be seen as a trivial difference, Gresh states that itwas substantial in light of the facts of the communist discourse in the countrycharacterized by the merits of a party rooted in working-class milieus (Gresh,1989: 403).

Thus, Mahgoub’s position ran counter to the Soviet approach. It was littlesurprise therefore that the Soviets sided with his adversaries in the internaldebate racking the party that ended in a major split in August 1970 (Gresh,1989: 402).

Before the split, the Soviets were asked to mediate between the partiespresumably by Mu’awia Ibrahim, Mahgoub’s opponent and in charge of theparty’s foreign relations committee. The Soviets sent a letter to the Sudanparty that spoke highly of the achievements of Nimeirie’s revolution (a termcontested by Mahgoub who viewed it as a military coup) and the Sovietpolicy of fostering closet relations with it since the regime had been ‘in theforefront of the Arab national democratic revolution’. The Sudan party was


called upon to ‘spare no effort to achieve unity, without making hasty deci-sions which would threaten the party’s unity’. The letter goes on to say, ‘theCentral Committee of the Soviet Communist Party hopes that the indicationsgiven in this letter will receive your full attention, esteem and understanding’(Gresh, 1989: 403–4).

It is little surprise that Mahgoub rejected the position of the Soviets andcontinued pursuing his line of ‘supporting the regime and holding it accoun-table, too’ to the great displeasure of the coup leaders. For instance, the partycriticized the regime for rashly recognizing East Germany in 1969, when itwas not sure yet of its hold on power, oblivious of the Western wrath it wouldincur. In May 1971, a Soviet official was reported to have said, ‘Mahgoub’sposition is incomprehensible’. After the 1971 coup, a Czech party leadercondemned the SCP as ‘sectarian’ and ‘dogmatic’. A Yugoslav functionarydismissed it as ‘doctrinal’ (Gresh, 1989: 404; Warburg, 1978: 138–9).

The cost the party paid for its independence was tragically climaxed by theexecution of Mahgoub after the failed 1971 coup against Nimeirie. Aware ofthe price the party paid for holding its position on Nimeirie’s regime, Gresh hasthe most consoling words for its loss. He commends it for denying the coupgovernment all chance ‘at lasting stability by refusing to award Nimeirie withthe “certificate of socialism”, help him forge a dynamic ideology, or supply himwith the necessary cadres and the vital experience of the “mass organiza-tions”… to harness the people’. The party prevented the regime ‘from acquir-ing total hegemony that is made up simultaneously of consent and repression’.The regime lacked a solid power and had to succumb in 1985 in what Greshdescribes as the Mahgoub’s ‘posthumous revenge’ (Gresh, 1989: 403). Theexistence of Mahgoub’s group as a force to be reckoned with in the country todate is attributed to its stand on doing what was right in the circumstances.Neither the party of Mahgoub’s opponents, that accepted to play ‘secondfiddle’ to the so-called revolutionary democrats of Nimeirie, nor the Sovietparty, big brother, exist in any meaningful way in their respective countries. Thevirtual disappearance from the political arena of the party of Mahgoub’sopponents ‘attests further to the farsightedness of the “dogmatists” in the SCP’(Gresh, 1989: 407). The courage to travel the difficult road pays in the end.

Communists who sided with the Soviets in supporting Nimeirie unequi-vocally have a rather diametrically opposed view on the relations between theSoviet and Sudan parties. In an extremely critical book of the Soviets, AhmadSulayman, a founding member of the party, its first minister in a cabinet in1964 and an ambassador to the Soviet Union after Nimeirie’s coup, maintainsthat the Sudan party was in the Soviet’s pocket. He is convinced that theSoviets planned the 1971 coup and asked Mahgoub not to execute it untilgiven the green light. They did not want the coup to happen when GamalAbdel Nasser, whom they had known would not live long, was still in power.On his death in 1970 and the rise of Sadat, who executed a palace coupagainst the Soviet men in his government, the Soviets told Mahgoub to do thecoup (Sulayman, 1985: 56).


The plan, according to Sulayman, was hatched in Moscow and it wasSosolov, the Soviet party theoretician, who discussed it with Mahgoub. Thisdiscussion took place in June 1969 during Mahgoub’s visit to Moscow toattend an international meeting of communist and workers’ parties a monthafter Nimeirie’s coup. Mahgoub, according to Sulayman, met reluctantly forthe purpose with Ponamariov, the foreign relations secretary of the Sovietparty, and Romansiev, his assistant in charge of Arab parties, ‘both of whomMahgoub disliked. He held a very low view of Ponamariov intellectual capa-city and saw his hunt dog, Romansiev, as distrustful’ (Sulayman, 1985: 55).

In support of his claim, Sulayman refers to Ilya Zirkavilov, who toldLondon Times in April 1980 that he had known about the communist coupbefore it had happened because he had been a KGB agent under cover as acorrespondent of the TASS news agency. ‘The Soviet Communist Party andthe Soviet government,’ says Zirkavilov, according to Sulayman, ‘were behindthat misguided political action’ (Sulayman, 1985: 58).9

The veracity of Sulayman needs to be seriously questioned. Beside thestrong support of his communist faction to Nimeirie in line with the Sovietprescription to communists in such situations, the Soviets complained of‘adventurous’ Arab communist parties. Primakov does not parse words whenhe indicates that the Arab communists would not share their plans with theSoviet Union, ‘that had gone to a great length to take [them] under its wings’,especially if those plans included overthrowing regimes that had close tieswith Moscow. He names the SCP as a transgressor of the Soviet trust forkeeping their intentions of removing Nimeirie hidden from Moscow that‘built a close partnership with the Soviet Union’ (Primakov, 2009: 80).

Credit should, however, be given where credit is due. There came a timewhen the Soviets saved the party from itself. In 1965, the SCP was on theverge of self-dissolving yielding to an anti-communist campaign, or rathercrusade, waged by the traditionalist and Islamist parties. The campaign wasso merciless that the party had to take cover. In seeking to survive after itsbanning in that harsh political climate, the SCP decided to disband volunta-rily into a broad legal mass party in which it would constitute a revolutionarycore à la Egyptian Socialist Union or TANU of Tanzania. The apparentsuccess of these parties dazzled the SCP, besieged by accusations of allegedatheism; a situation causing its relative isolation from its Muslim environmentand posing an existential challenge. A report entitled ‘Toward a MajorTransformation in the Party’ spelling out the emerging terms of its existencewas passed by the central committee of the party in November 1965, a monthbefore the party was delegalized by the government, to be presented to thefourth conference of the party. An enthused central committee member forthat transformation wrote as late as 1994 that it sought ‘to lift off the back ofthe party the accusation of atheism Marxism-Leninism has been known for’.The transformation plan was abandoned on the eve of the holding of theconference in April 1966. On coming from a visit to Moscow, Mahgoub askedhis comrades to reconsider the dissolving of the party in light of a discussion


he had with the Soviets who had been averse to the idea. The conferencescheduled for a transformation tantamount to a political suicide was turnedto a cadre meeting to review the dissolution report accordingly. This Moscowtipoff has been referred to ever since as the ‘advice of the Soviet comrades’.The disappointed central committee member remained resentful of Mahgoubcalling him a ‘Stalinist through and through who had no qualms dictating tohis comrades what to do’.10 The party, however, was saved from going intooblivion at a high cost.

2 Conclusion

Roland Oliver, a pioneer in writing African academic history, writes in theAfrican Experience that Africa was just unlucky being born when the socialistmodel with its one-party system and state control of the economy was invogue (Oliver, 2000: 276–80). Perhaps revolutionaries in Africa might haveharnessed the model to their advantage irrespective of whether they had beendenied the right to indigenize their Marxist practice and imagination as theSudanese communist case discussed above indicates. Basil Davidson, therenowned British historian of Africa, brings in the context of the Cold War,into which independent Africa was born, to the understanding of this pre-dicament of African socialism and non-socialism alike. He states that theCold War dealt a deadly blow to the imagination of the new nations comingout of the old colonies. The confrontation of the Soviet Union and the UnitedStates, which is a war of hawking comprehensive models of progress, deniedelites in the former colonies the right, and the ability, to imagine a newnation. It obstructed ‘fresh latitudes for African questioning of the post-colonial dispensation’. Open-minded debate on basic issues of decolonizationhad little ground because Cold War rivalries forbade any far-reaching inno-vation (Davidson, 1992: 195). Davidson is surprised that two great nationsthat owe their birth to noble political and social transformations would fightagainst each other to dominate, or recolonize, Africa. He continues to saythat the United States, the greatest radical innovator of the nineteenth cen-tury, discouraged radical innovation in Africa to protect its global interests(Davidson, 1992: 193). The Russians, on the other hand, compromised theirradicalism by an imperialist-minded policy headed by the KGB and a Sta-linism that was at variance with the facts of everyday life. The post-Stalinistbureaucracy, he adds, vitiated the little idealism that had survived Stalinism(Davidson, 1992: 195). The former colonies therefore never became nations.In their faked imperial boundaries, they were turned into ‘vacuums in whichconflicts fester’.11

The SCP, which I was fortunate to join in 1960 and gave eight youthfulyears of my life as a full-time cadre, was destined, had it been left unfetteredby the Soviets, to become a unique subaltern experiment in socialism. Itattracted the most creative minds of the 1940s generation. A communist poetremembers their days at a high school talking incessantly about what to


sacrifice for the party and the nation, and likened their discourse to the‘chirruping of birds at the break of dawn’ (Ibrahim, 2015: 88). An Arabjournalist, Found Matar who wrote a definitive book on the conflict in theparty in the early 1970s, described Sudan communists in admiration as but-terflies fluttering around the nectar of the working people. ‘Long live thestruggle of the working class’ sparkled tears in the squinting eyes of veteranmembers of the party at the fifth conference in 2008. In parties, they piouslypray the rosary of their proletariat leadership of the party:

We were at peaceThe Wadi High in uproarHantoub High protestedTagat High got in higher drunkWe are at peaceInside a parkOh ya oh yaComrade Wasila sing us the tunes of struggleSafr (He just left)Hamz al-Jack revolted and we are his followersSafrTomorrow al-Shafie will break his chainsSafrGod bless Korea and the young of KoreaOh ya oh ya12

A comrade of the Sajana neighbourhood in Khartoum is famous for hissupplication at good times: ‘Bolshevize it, O God’.

The SCP is a lively experiment in vernacularizing Marxism to serve as a guidefor a subaltern social and political renaissance of a decolonizing people rooted inhistory, a nation, a culture and class (Abusharaf, 2009: 493). Mahgoub, the partysecretary, laid this renaissance programme in his ‘By Virtue of Marxism’, hisdefence before a court in 1959, that generations of activists committed to heartfor its exquisite Arabic and indomitable spirit speaking to challenging realities(Mahgoub, 2010 [1965]). The party fought the ‘Soviet comrades’ hard and longto imagine its Marxist praxis in its own terms. It did not bend at a huge cost.Nonetheless, some scholars, oblivious of Mahgoub’s ‘war of independence’ fromthe CPSU’s tutelage, insist that he was a Soviet lackey. TheHistorical Dictionaryof the Sudan mentions him as leading ‘the more orthodox, Moscow-orientedsection of the party’. Little surprise that they designate Sulayman as a ‘nationalcommunist’ (Kramer et al., 2013: 132–3). Although his anti-communism did notprevent him from seeing the ‘outstanding brains’ behind the SCP, Metrowichdescribes Mahgoub as ‘held in high regard by his masters behind the IronCurtain’ (Metrowich, 1967: 72, 75).13

The remaining legacy of the SCP will be that it held to its right to imaginethe nation. What is left to imagine, asks Partha Chatterjee, when advocates of


change accepted imagining their nations from certain models already madeavailable to them by the West (Chatterjee, 1993: 5)?

Notes1 Mohamed Ahmed Mahgoub, prime minister in 1965, the year of the outlawing of

the Sudan Communist Party.2 al-Tijani al-Tayyib, founder of the party and veteran central committee member

who stood with Mahgoub’s line, in Qadaya Sudaniyya (Cairo), 4 April 1994), 36.3 Ala al-din Mahmoud, al-Tayar, 22 May 2016.4 Kamal al-Gizouli, 24 November 2017, http://sudanile.com/index.php. In an inter-

view with al-Gizolui (2 February 2018) he said that he had been, as a law studentin the Soviet Union, around Mahgoub, meeting with him and privy to the discus-sions taking place at the conference.

5 Layth al-Hamdani, 19 November 2017, www.albilad.net/laith%20alhamdany%2010-5-2017.html

6 Sulayman misspoke here because the 21st conference of the CPSU was actuallyheld in 1959.

7 In lamenting this unjustified negligence, Ibrahim titled an article: ‘No WorkingClass Land’ as in a book titled ‘No Woman Land’ decrying the status of women inSudan.

8 Farouk M. Ibrahim, former member of the central committee of the party, 1967–70, who broke away in support of Nimeirie’s regime in 1969, in Qadaya Sudaniyya(Cairo), 4 April 1994, 22.

9 I have transliterated the name ‘Zirkavilov’ from its rendition in Arabic by Sulay-man. Sulayman’s failure to specify the date of the month Zirkavilov published hispiece in the London Times did not help in locating it.

10 Farouk M. Ibrahim in Qadaya Sudaniyya (Cairo), 4 April 1994, 13.11 Financial Times, 24 February 1999.12 Comrade Wasila, communist leader; Hamz al-Jack, vice-president of the Sudan

Workers Trade Union Federation; al-Shafie Ahmad al-Shaykh, secretary of theSudan Workers Trade Union Federation.

13 Metrowich had a prediction of communism in Sudan that would be useful to quote inan endnote for further consideration. He was critical of the West for not focusing anddoing something about racialism and communist dominance in Sudan and predictedthat a ‘communist puppet regime’ would take over. He quoted the infamous proverb:‘Allah laughed when he created the Sudan.’ And adds, ‘Doubtless it will be theCommunists who will soon have the last laugh at the strange ways of the West whichpermits doors to swing so easily for the Red flood’ (Metrowich, 1967: 76, 78).

ReferencesAbu Sin, Ali (1997) Al-Majdhu-b wa al-Dhikraya-t, Cairo, n.p.Abusharaf, Rogaia Mustafa (2009) ‘Marx in the Vernacular: Abdel Khaliq Mahgoub

and the Riddles of Localizing Leftist Politics in Sudanese Philosophies of Liberation’.South Atlantic Quarterly, 108, 3.

Al-Gizouli, Kamal (2003) Al-Shuu’uun al-Sudaniyyun wa al-Dimuqratiya, Khartoum,Azza.

Amin, Gasim (1953) Itifaqiat al-Suadn fi al-Mayzan, Khartoum, n.p.Chatterjee, Partha (1993) The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial

Histories, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press.


Cross, Peter (1997) ‘British Attitudes to Sudanese Labour: The Foreign Office Recordsas Sources for Social History’. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 24, 2.

Davidson, Basil (1992) The Black Man’s Burden, New York, Times Book.Fawzi, Saad EdDin (1957) The Labour Movement in the Sudan, 1946–1955, Oxford,

Oxford University Press.Gadal, Muhammad Said (1986) Al-Hizb al-Shu’I Al-Sudani wa Inqlab Mayu,

Khartoum, n.p.Gresh, Alain (1989) ‘The Free Officers and the Comrades: The Sudanese Communist

Party and Nimeiri Face-To-Face, 1969–1971’. International Journal of Middle EastStudies, 21, 3.

Ibrahim, Abdullahi Ali (1996) ‘The 1971 Coup in the Sudan and the Radical War ofLiberal Democracy in Africa’. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and theMiddle East, 16, 1.

Ibrahim, Abdullahi Ali (2015) Muhammad Abd al-Rahman Shybun (1936–1961): ‘AnJil al-Khamsyinat al-Yasari, Kahrtoum, Madarat.

Ismail, Tareg Y. (2013) The Sudanese Communist: Ideology and Party Politics,London, Routledge.

Kramer, Robert S, Lobban, Richard Andrew & Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn (2013)Historical Dictionary of the Sudan, Lanham, MD, Rowman & Littlefield.

Lenin, V. I. (1965 [1919]) ‘Address to the Second All-Russia Congress of CommunistOrganisations of the Peoples of the East’. Collected Works. Moscow, ProgressPublishers.

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Khartoum, n.p.Mahgoub, Abdel Khaliq (2010 [1965]) ‘By Virtue of Marxism, Your Honor’. South

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11 The communists in Algeria (1920–93)

Pierre-Jean Le Foll-Luciani

For the past ten years, Algerian communism has been attracting renewedinterest through the publication of historical, memorial, biographical or lit-erary works. These publications differ in several ways from previous works.The latter, focusing on the colonial period, were dominated by political his-tory and concentrated particularly on the evolution of the line of the Particommuniste algérien (Algerian Communist Party, PCA). Also, they stressedthe top-level relationship between the PCA and the Parti communiste français(French Communist Party, PCF) on the one hand, and the PCA and thenationalist parties on the other hand, leaving at times the role of the Comin-tern and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (USSR) aside. What ismore, these works suggested a depreciative look at the PCF and the PCA. Onthe one hand, influenced by a teleological view according to which the colo-nial situation must inevitably result in an armed struggle led by a nationalistmovement, they criticized the communists’ lack of comprehension and thedelay (supposed or real) regarding the colonial question, the national questionor the need for an armed struggle. On the other hand they sometimes pre-sented the communist perspective as being unsuited for the colonial situation,especially for a colonial model of population settlement. Finally, stressing thefact that the French militants had long been a majority within the party, theyunderlined that the PCA had always been considered a foreign party by thecolonized population, incompatible with their mindset and aspirations (Sivan,1976: 262; Ageron, 2005; Jurquet, 1974–97: vol. 2–5). Despite the publicationof works, led by former members of the PCA that revalued its role (Alleg,1981), these approaches have had a lasting influence on historiography andespecially the writings of historians with a critical stance towards the PCFand the PCA.

Conversely, several recent publications that bridge the chronological gap ofnational independence are characterized by a lack of passion. Being interestedin Algerian communism as such, they also favour approaches from socialhistory, relegating – but not ignoring – the issues of the political line, thepartisan apparatus and the inter-partisan relations to focus on the practicesand experiences of the militants (Drew, 2014: 311; Le Foll-Luciani, 2015b:541). Apart from the opening of archives that offer a new perspective of

international communism and colonized Algeria, this renewed interest can beexplained by several factors. On the one hand, it is linked to a growinginterest in the internal diversity of the Algerian national movement during thecolonial period, as well as the question of political plurality in independentAlgeria. On the other hand, the communist experience has a unique organi-zational longevity: to be interested in it means to study a party that had beenorganized in the same way without interruption for 42 years during the colo-nial period, as well as in new forms until today. Finally, this revitalizedinterest is linked to the renewed questioning of the colonial societies, and inparticular the interaction between ‘colonized’ and ‘colonizers’, the PCA beingthe only party to bring together residents of all origins of colonial Algeria(‘Muslims’, ‘Europeans’, ‘Jews’1) on an anti-colonialist base.

Based on these works, we will examine the experience of the communists incolonial times (1920–62) and in independent Algeria (until the disappearanceof the Parti de l’avantgarde socialiste, the Socialist Vanguard Party (PAGS),in 1993), trying to place ourselves as closely as possible to the militants.

1 The communists in colonial Algeria (1920–62)

1.1 Between Algiers, Paris and Moscow: the line and the militants (1920–54)

During the colonial period, the political line followed by the Algerian com-munists was built on a framework with three different angles. On the onehand, within the framework of international communism, dominated by theComintern and then by the Cominform, which were driving policies thatregarded all the members of the Communist Party as relays. On the otherhand, within the framework of relations with the PCF: before forming theirown party in October 1936, the Algerian communists were organized withinan Algerian region of the PCF; and after 1936, maintained close ties – ofsubordination or collaboration – with the ‘sister party’ of mainland France.Finally, the Algerian leaders defined their slogans and actions in partaccording to the local context, their militant forces and their interaction withother Algerian movements.

If we study their official publications, it is clear that the Algerian governingbodies were almost mechanically adopting the changes of the party line madein Moscow and Paris.2 From the mid-1920s to 1934–5, the Algerian region ofthe PCF, which included only a few hundred militants, mostly European andJewish, defended anti-colonialist slogans and claimed Algeria’s nationalindependence, as well as the PCF’s metropolitan regions comprising severalthousand Algerian immigrants. From 1935–6 onwards, following the Comin-tern’s change, the primarily anti-colonialist line was abandoned in favour ofthe anti-fascist strategy of the Front populaire (Popular Front). The PCA,which was created in 1936 and had recruited a large number of people,including among the colonized – in 1937, it comprised about 5,000 members,2,000 of whom were Muslims – replaced the slogan of national liberation

200 Pierre-Jean Le Foll-Luciani

with egalitarian demands, allied itself with the socialists and ‘indigenous’reformist movements and opposed Algerian nationalism. The overall situa-tion changed after its ban in September 1939 and the new line of theComintern abandoned the Popular Front’s strategy: the PCA, which had fewerthan 3,000 members due to losses linked to the German-Soviet pact, repressionand clandestinity, rose against the ‘imperial war’ and defended anew, fromNovember 1940 onwards, the slogan of Algeria’s national independence. Butafter the invasion of the USSR by Germany in August 1941, the PCA gradu-ally abandoned this slogan, called for the participation in the war alongside theAllies and, especially after November 1942, put forward a French patrioticdiscourse modelled on the one of the PCF. The direct influence of the leadersof the PCF was strong between 1943 and 1946, and the PCA defended there-fore a line that was hostile to nationalists, accusing them in particular to be co-responsible for triggering the massacre of thousands of Algerians in northConstantine by the French army and militia in May–June 1945.

This French patriotic and anti-nationalist line was broken in July 1946: thePCA affirmed being a ‘nationalist party’ which had to first and foremost fightfor a ‘national liberation’ and work for the unity of the national movement.This desire for unity with the nationalists, encouraged by the Comintern after1947, was reflected by the struggle against repression in the daily AlgerRépublicain (led by the communists), and in trade union action and massorganizations: while the Confédération générale du travail (General LabourConfederation) brought together about 60,000 trade unionists, of whom morethan 50 percent were Muslims, including many nationalists, the Union desfemmes d’Algérie (Union of the Algerian Women), the Union de la jeunessedémocratique algérienne (the Union of the Algerian Democratic Youth) andthe Combattants de la paix (Fighters for Peace), and Algerian sections ofinternational communist-led organizations at the international level, actedtogether with the nationalists. Between 1946 and 1959, the PCA, which hadup to 20,000 supporters and counted with several elected cantonal andmunicipal Muslim and European MPs, still used slogans similar to those ofthe PCF in regards to the colonial question: it did not envisage a state rupturewith France and demanded the creation of an Algerian government withinthe French Union. But especially in 1951–2, its slogans differed from those ofthe PCF: the reference to the French Union disappeared in favour of a refer-ence to the ‘Algerian homeland’, and the PCA asserted national indepen-dence, which contributed to the disengagement of non-Muslims (in 1954, ithad 12,000 members, of whom more than 50 percent were Muslims).

The focus on the political line, official texts and the party leadership didnot come without problems, as it tended to erase the subjectivity of militants,the debates and conflicts that animated them, as well as their room for man-oeuvre, which existed despite the rigidity and strong centralization of theinternational communist movement. During the 1920s, the Comintern fre-quently addressed criticism to the colonial section of the PCF and the mili-tants of the Algerian region for their anti-colonialist inactivity and their

The communists in Algeria (1920–93) 201

reproach of adopting the Comintern’s slogans without putting them intopractice. These criticisms were also expressed at the base: at the beginning ofthe 1930s, militants (Muslims) who were supporters of a radical anti-coloni-alism wrote to the Comintern to complain about the lack of interest of thePCF and (European) Algerian militants in the colonial question, to whichMoscow replied that it would be desirable for a party independent of the PCFto be created. These radical militants organized on their own initiative in theMitidja a legal and clandestine peasant movement mixing social, cultural andanti-colonial struggles. At the same time, an ex-executive of the Cominternwas sent by the PCF to prepare the creation of a PCA on an anti-colonialistbasis. His course of action, initially supported by the party leadership, was,however, hampered by the adoption of the Popular Front’s strategy by theComintern and the PCF, which he opposed out of anti-colonialist convic-tions, and he was expelled from the PCF in the summer of 1936 (Drew, 2014:56–80; Marangé, 2016a, 2016b)

In times of clandestinity, the variety of the militants’ relations with thecentral directives increased: between 1939 and 1942, the archives of the mili-tary justice and the memories of former militants indicate that the adoptionof a particular slogan (for the mobilization within the French army or againstthe ‘imperial war’, anti-colonialism or anti-fascism, independence of Algeriaor the struggle against the occupation by France) varied greatly from oneclandestine network to another. From 1946 onwards, the youth and studentmovements used a more radical anti-colonialist vocabulary than the PCAleadership. This difference is certainly partly due to the division of tasksbetween organizations: the international youth and student organizations withcommunist leadership were also more radical in their discourse than theCommunist Party. However, while it was partially accepted by the PCA lea-dership – who saw it as a way to recruit young Muslims – this radicalismcreated tension between the young people and the leaders. The leaders of thePCA themselves adopted more or less radical slogans based on their interac-tion with the nationalists: at the time of forming a front with the nationalistparties (1951–2), the PCA systematized the slogan of independence and har-dened the tone against the French state. This hardening was not acceptable tothe leadership of the PCF, which was putting pressure on the central com-mittee of the PCA to reverse its decision to call for an election boycott; thecentral committee finally reversed its decision, but sections of the PCArefused to implement it (Le Foll-Luciani, 2015b: 88–93, 249–52 and 309–11;Sportisse & Le Foll-Luciani, 2012: 159–62). Examples could be multiplied byvarying the scales, from Moscow to the neighbourhood cell: from theactivists’ point of view, there is always more (or less) orthodox than oneself.

1.2 The PCA: a space for transgression of gender and race norms

The PCA organized its activities around a line co-defined by local militantsand the international communist movement, and was also a space for creative


socializing. Unlike nationalist parties, the PCA indeed had members fromdifferent ‘communal’ parts of Algerian society. Until the uprising, the PCAand its women’s organization were also Algeria’s political movements towhich most women belonged. Certainly, the PCA cannot be presented as anisland where interpersonal relations were free from relations of dominationthat structured colonial society. But neither is it possible to subscribe toEmmanuel Sivan’s view: that of a party divided by racial cleavages and whose‘delays’ regarding the colonial question can be explained in particular by thepresence of European militants among them. This view, influenced by AlbertMemmi’s nationalist discourse and writings about the ‘impossibility’ of the‘leftist colonizer’ (Memmi, 1985: 61–6), does not withstand the examinationof personal trajectories.

The militants from European and Jewish families, who enjoyed the statusof full French citizens, constituted the majority in the PCA until the early1950s. But the militants from Muslim families, first subject to the colonialstatus of indigenous and then French Muslims, took an increasingly activepart, until representing more than half of the members in 1954. At that time,the PCA was the second largest political force among the colonized ones,after the Mouvement pour le triomphe des libertés démocratiques (Movementfor the Triumph of Democratic Liberties, MTLD) and before the Uniondémocratique du Manifeste algérien (Democratic Union of the AlgerianManifesto, UDMA). The radicalization of the party explains the growingmembership among the colonized people, including rural areas, as well as thedefections among the European and Jewish militants, that occurred above allupon the emergence of an insurgent context in Morocco and Tunisia in theearly 1950s. At that time, the difficulties of some European and Jewish mem-bers to embrace the party’s ‘national’ line were stressed at different levels ofthe PCA. Nevertheless, in the 1951 parliamentary elections, 21 percent of thevoters of the European Electoral College voted for the PCA, at a time whenthe independence line was strongly asserted.3 While the electoral results sub-sequently declined, in 1954 still more than 5,000 Europeans and Jews weremembers of the PCA; and despite a widespread idea that they had ‘massively’(Ageron, 2005) switched to support French Algeria, they remained pre-dominantly faithful to their ideas and many of them continued their action inclandestinity during the War of Independence. Thus, in contrast to EmmanuelSivan, for whom the internal division in terms of participation in the strugglefor independence covers above all a division according to origin (Sivan, 1976:206–27), it can be said that the essential variable for understanding the sup-port of a line of independence was generational and organizational: regardlessof their origins, the most radical militants were born in the 1920s and havebeen active in youth organizations.

The relations between militants on both sides of the colonial borderdepended on time and place, and they were essentially limited by colonialsegregation, the party’s cells being organized on a territorial basis (districtand workplace). Until the early 1930s, these relations were very limited and


were locally conflictual because of what the members of the Comintern calledthe ‘colonialist’ spirit of European militants. They developed on a larger scalefrom the Popular Front era onwards and in the post-World War II period, butconcerned only a part of the cells. After 1946, Muslims and non-Muslimscame together particularly in youth and student organizations, in some com-pany cells, in sections of the old Jewish-Muslim neighbourhoods or in somemore recent working-class neighbourhoods of large cities, as well as in smallcommunes where the smaller number of members militated together regard-less of their district of residence. In a highly divided society, where friendlyrelations between Muslims and non-Muslims were rare, and to a lesser extentbetween Europeans and Jews, these cells were places of transgressive humaninteraction, experienced as such by militants and their families. In theiraccounts, many militants say that it was within the party that they establishedtheir first friendships with members from the two other ‘communities’. Theseemotional ties sometimes led to romantic relationships, or even ‘mixed’ mar-riages, which were more common within the PCA than in the rest of society.Often disapproved of by the families, these ‘mixed’ unions represented one ofmultiple transgressions of some young women who joined the PCA after1945: frequenting men beyond their ‘community’, politically taking over thestreets, obtaining local leadership positions, these women subverted genderroles and called into question gendered assignments, a fortiori if they wereMuslims (Le Foll-Luciani, 2015a, 2016).

Although they did not concern all the militants, these transgressive rela-tionships reinforced the party’s claim to embody an ‘Algerian nation in for-mation’ composed of all the ‘communities’ of Algeria. This formula, inventedby the leader of the PCF Maurice Thorez in 1939 in a speech that wouldeventually be purged after 1946 from his assimilative vocabulary, meant forthe militants, who learned it before 1954 that Algeria would form a nation, inthe process of decolonization, once it had completed a ‘fusion’ between the‘ethnic’ elements of the population.4 This theory, which seemed to obscurethe majority of relations between colonizers and colonized, led to conflictswith the nationalists. But we understand why the European and Jewish mili-tants, who lived within the PCA a miniature version of this ‘new Algeria’, aswell declared themselves publicly to be ‘Algerians’ or even ‘Algerian patriots’.

1.3 The Algerian communists in the War of Independence (1954–62)

On 1 November 1954, the Front de libération nationale (National LiberationFront, FLN) and the Armée de libération nationale (National LiberationArmy, ALN) signed their birth certificates through a series of armed actions.Originally founded by former MTLD members, the FLN organized centres ofuprisings and soon mobilized a large part of the population. Writings aboutthe PCA have pointed out the party’s ‘delay’ in considering an armed strug-gle, in part because of a long-standing belief in the possibility of a peacefuldecolonization. In fact, before 1954, there was no preparation within the PCA


for the armed struggle, and there was a lack of preparation for clandestinityitself, which explains why the repression of the years 1955–6 was a very ser-ious blow to the organization. Indeed, in good faith or for strategic reasonsrelated to the Cold War, the authorities asserted from the outset that the PCAwas involved in the uprising. Updated in 1952, the file on ‘dangerous com-munist militants from a national point of view … that should … promptly bepreventively arrested in case of serious events’,5 was used from summer 1955onwards: dozens of militants were detained in camps, banned from residing ina department or expelled from Algeria, even before the ban of the PCA andthe Alger Républicain, which came into effect in September 1955. In 1956–7,the court cases involving the clandestine PCA or its (ex-)militants, whichresulted in dozens of arrests and subsequent torture, extra-judicial killingsand convictions, served as a pretext for tightening administrative measures(confinement and expulsion) against hundreds of militants. If adding to thisthe withdrawal (difficult to quantify) of those who did not wish to participatein the struggle or who joined the FLN, the party was weakened considerablyin 1957. But as Allison Drew writes, this weakening of the PCA was not somuch linked to a supposed ‘delay’ in sustaining the uprising as to the repressionof it (Drew, 2014: 269).

The fact remains, however, that there were differences of opinion within thePCA from November 1954 onwards about the issue of support of and com-mitment to the uprising. These differences were exacerbated by the PCF’sbehaviour. On 8 November, the political bureau of the PCF, which con-demned the repression and claimed to defend the ‘national demands of thevast majority of Algerians’, disapproved of ‘individual acts likely to play intothe hands of the worst colonialists, even if they were not fomented by them’.6

This caveat was repeated in press releases from the PCA leadership until April1955. But some leaders had urged them to specify that the actions of themaquis were linked to the ‘masses’ and that ‘it is not a provocation, nor acolonial plot, but an Algerian movement,’7 thus setting themselves apart fromthe statement of the PCF. During 1955, the differences between the leadershipof the PCA and of the PCF deepened: while the PCA engaged in armedstruggle and sought recognition by the FLN, the PCF neither mentioned theexistence of the FLN until November 1956, nor explicitly defended the rightto independence until January 1957 and refused to support the armed strug-gle, including the one carried out by the PCA.8 These differences did notprevent the two parties from maintaining ties and the PCF from providingmaterial solidarity with the clandestine Algerian anti-colonialist militants ordetainees.

Some leaders and militants, who immediately tried to participate or sup-port, enthusiastically welcomed the outbreak of the uprising. Prior to theparty’s ban in September 1955, the publications of the PCA did not containexplicit support for the uprising – no more so than those of the nationalistparties9 – but leaders defended the armed struggle in private meetings andsubsequently at election rallies in the spring of 1955, followed by hundreds of


nationalists.10 The clandestine strand is more difficult to grasp, and is thesubject of controversy, with some claiming that the first communists whojoined the ALN did so without (or against) their party’s view, while othersclaimed that the PCA encouraged them to do so. Both cases actually occur-red, but by the end of 1954 and even more since the central committee ofJune 1955 (which formalized the support and the participation in the armedstruggle), leaders of the PCA encouraged militants to organize support and tojoin the maquis where possible, especially in the Aurès and the Tlemcenregions.11 However, the PCA had difficulty in gaining recognition by theFLN, and the communists were struggling to gain acceptance in the maquis.The memory of the PCA’s times of opposition to the nationalists (1936–9,1943–5) and the changes of the line, ideological differences, accusations ofsubordination to foreigners, the competition between parties and the fear ofinfiltration, coupled with hostility towards the militants that were perceived asurban dwellers, intellectuals and non-believers, led to the relegation of com-munist resistance to subaltern tasks and to the assassination of several of them.Despite the trust established between communist and nationalist militants priorto 1954, anti-communism was strong at the base and top of the FLN, andmembers of the FLN criticized the communists for refusing to dissolve thePCA in the front. This criticism is also voiced by communists who broke withthe PCA, and is more or less explicitly mentioned in historical works. But asAllison Drew writes, ‘the depth of anti-communism amongst many FLN lea-ders would presumably have made entryism [inside the FLN] as difficult anoption as organisational autonomy’ (Drew, 2014: 269–70).

Confronted with these difficulties and in order to be recognized by theFLN, Sadek Hadjerès and Bachir Hadj Ali, leaders of the PCA, took chargeof setting up an armed communist organization in the spring of 1955: theidea of establishing these Combattants de la libération (Liberation Fighters,CDL) was to give pledges of ‘patriotism’ to the FLN and to make it acceptthe participation of the PCA in the front. The CDLs began to act betweenthe end of 1955 and the spring of 1956. Composed of about a hundredmembers, including a few women, they included militants of all origins;most of them were workers or small employees and born between the twoworld wars and there were even some intellectuals among them. Theiractions consisted of collecting weapons, clothing and medicine for the CDLand ALN, acts of sabotage, the killing of police officers, soldiers and indi-viduals considered to be ‘traitors’, the defection of soldiers from the Frencharmy and the passing of communists to the ALN. The police dismantled theConstantine network as early as December 1955, before the army attackedthe maquis of the Chelif region (June 1956), followed by the dismantling ofthe CDL of Oran (September 1956). These first actions allowed the leader-ship of the PCA to contact the FLN in Algiers: in May–June 1956, theFLN-PCA agreements provided for the integration of the CDL and armedcommunists into the ALN. This decision was particularly effective for theCDLs of Algiers and Blida that were destroyed by repression between


October 1956 and May 1957 after having participated in dozens of armedactions on behalf of the ALN.12

Applying the FLN-PCA agreements, made public by the PCA against theadvice of the FLN, the communists who did not take part in the armedstruggle maintained the political activity of the PCA while supporting theFLN-ALN. The party thus maintained itself until the end of the war aroundthree clandestine nuclei, probably composed of about a hundred militants inOran, Algiers and Constantine, who published newspapers and materiallysupported the ALN. Several of their members were assassinated by the‘ultras’ of French Algeria in 1961–2 (Le Foll-Luciani, 2013). In addition, thePCA maintained its organization within prisons and camps, where hundredsof detained communists encountered difficulties in their relations with FLNofficials, despite a fraternity with the militant base. Immigrants or expelledmilitants also set up a French Federation of the PCA in 1956. Finally, from1957 onwards, the external delegation of the PCA in Prague published thenewspaper Informations algériennes and tried to influence the policy towardsAlgeria by the Soviet bloc countries. But according to the study of thearchives of the ‘popular democracies’, it seems that this delegation receivedlittle credit from the European communist governments, which preferred tocollect their information on the Algerian situation from the PCF and avoidedbinding themselves too much to the PCA in order not to compromise theirrelations with the FLN and the future Algerian state (Bismuth & Taubert,2014: 254).

2 The communists in independent Algeria (1962–93)

It is more difficult to reconstruct the communists’ experience in independentAlgeria because of a lack of sources linked to the closure of the Algerian statearchives, the clandestine nature of communist organizations and the dispersalof militants during the civil war in the 1990s. Since the Soviet archives andthose of the foreign diplomacy in Algeria have not been explored, the maindocuments available are private sources and testimonies published or col-lected from former militants of the PCA (for the years 1962–5) and of thePAGS (for the years 1966–93) (Rahal, 2012, 2013).

2.1 Between ban and integration: the PCA under Ben Bella (1962–5)

Between the ceasefire and independence (March–July 1962), the communistmilitants gradually came out of hiding and were released from detention.While many of those who had been expelled or had fled the country returnedfrom exile, others, mostly European and Jewish, remained in exile or leftAlgeria, carried away with their families by the vast exodus of the French.The European and Jewish component of the party – a few hundred people onAlgerian soil at independence – did not undergo a generational renewal: in acontext of affirming the Algerian nature of an Arab-Muslim state, European


and Jewish militants were excluded from the political field, including the lea-dership of the PCA, which hindered their militancy (Le Foll-Luciani, 2014).Conversely, the Muslim component of the party was renewed with the sup-port of young people who were politicized during the war and sometimescame from the FLN, especially the student environment where the commu-nists played a leading role in the Algerian National Students Union until itsdissolution in 1971 (Rahal, 2016: 366). Despite the difficulties encountered indealing with the FLN during the war, the party was somewhat infatuated,probably due to the fact that it claims to be a party of militants with anancient ideological affirmation, unlike the FLN whose division broke out inbroad daylight and whose profile as a ‘party of civil servants’ and an ‘intelli-gence service’ (Fanon, 2002 [1961]: 173–7)13 was already clear. While thePCA had 12,000 members in 1954, and despite many decolonization-relatedlosses, the Alger Républicain estimated that it had 8,000 to 10,000 membersand supporters in November 1962.14

What did it mean to be a militant of the PCA under the presidency ofAhmed Ben Bella? The party line began to assert itself after the ceasefire ofMarch 1962: in accordance with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union,which encouraged the search for unity with the nationalists in decolonizedcountries, the PCA called for a pluralist front ‘against the neo-colonialism’and for ‘[opening] the way to socialism’.15 In a context where socialist voca-bulary prevailed within the FLN, the PCA affirmed its willingness to partici-pate in building a new society by supporting the regime.16 Nonetheless, theparty and its militants were under considerable pressure. The ban of the PCAcame into effect on 29 November 1962 by decision of the FLN’s politicalbureau which, anxious to preserve its relations with the communist states,affirmed that it was not aimed at the PCA or communism as such, but at theprinciple of the multiparty system.17 However, the PCAwas not dissolved andits militants were not worried. A clandestine organization continued to func-tion, and even though it did not proclaim its existence or publish a newspaperin its name, the Alger Républicain was the most widely read daily newspaperin Algeria and was known to all as the mouthpiece of the communists. Thecommunists verbally supported the first ‘socialist’ measures of the regime(nationalization, self-government) and participated directly in the mass orga-nizations of the FLN, various ministries and nationalized companies.Although banned, the PCA nonetheless experienced some integration into theregime when communist leaders, invoking the Cuban model, graduallypushed the PCA towards a virtual dissolution within the FLN: followingappeals by Ben Bella, various pressures and the adoption of the ‘socialist’charter of Algiers by the FLN congress in April 1964, the PCA encouragedits militants to join the FLN, while Alger Républicain became an organ of theparty unique (Khalfa et al., 1987: 197–250). For the FLN members whowished to do so, this process allowed a double operation: the neutralization ofthe PCA, and the integration into the state-party structure inspired by theconstruction of ‘socialism’. Within the PCA, some believed that they would


be able to influence the regime and society more by joining the FLN, andmaybe wished to overcome a form of complex towards the FLN, fuelled bythe nationalist reproaches for not having done enough in the anti-colonialiststruggle.18 This precarious balance between maintaining the party and themerge into the FLN was not universally accepted among the militants,whose attitudes varied (with or without membership in the FLN or links withthe PCA). For their part, the authors of the coup d’état of June 1965 claimedthat their putsch saved the country from a communist takeover, which wouldhave been allowed by the FLN congress of April 1964.19

2.2 From opposition to clandestine participation: ORP and PAGS(1965–1970s)

On 19 June 1965, Houari Boumediene allied himself with a part of theopposition to Ben Bella and overthrew him. Most FLN leaders and ministersembraced the new regime, while spontaneous demonstrations against the coupwere suppressed. Within both the PCA and the Communist Party of theSoviet Union, there were differences about which attitude to adopt. Somewanted to judge on the performance of the new regime, which claimed tobe ‘socialist’ and tried to win over individual communists. However, the ideaof a frontal opposition emerged within the leadership of the PCA, whichjoined forces with supporters of Ben Bella located ‘on the left’ of the FLN inorder to create the Organisation de la résistance populaire (Organisation ofthe Popular Resistance, ORP). This organization, active since July 1965, wasdivided in its slogans and choices of action, and many of the PCA militantsdid not join it.20 Fragile and infiltrated by the military security, the ORP wasstruck by a brutal repression in the summer of 1965, which hit the majority ofits leaders in September (Hadj Ali, 1966: 85; Alleg, 1966: 115).

At the end of 1965–early 1966, the discussions between the hidden andimprisoned leaders of the ORP led to the dissolution of the PCA and theORP and to the creation of the Parti de l’avantgarde socialiste (PAGS). ThePAGS remained in clandestinity until 1989, without ever receiving the supportof some foreign communist parties who, wishing to preserve their relations withthe Algerian state, preferred to leave or even break with their Algerian com-rades during certain periods.21 This new party did not present itself as anopposition party and addressed the regime in a spirit of dialogue, especiallyfrom 1968 onwards.22 Nevertheless, it was targeted by repression, particularlyin the 1960s and 1980s, and was organized in three groups: at the head of theparty was a core group of leaders who lived in total clandestinity; a second groupof leaders, who had a legal life, supervised the militants but had no visiblepolitical activity; and a third group participated in the militant activity withinthe mass organization of the FLN. Due to the constraints of clandestinity, themilitants of the third group were sometimes cut off from the leadership ofthe party, such as those in Tiaret, who created a cell on their own initiativeand participated in the foundation of a film club and a popular university


where they recruited young militants in the early 1970s (Sportisse & Le Foll-Luciani, 2012: 297–305). Finally, the PAGS was organized in exile in France,where it published a newspaper, as well as in Prague.

The PAGS takes up the perspective of the Algerian society forged by the PCAat independence, which it constantly reaffirmed in its newspaper Saout Ech-Chaab until the 1980s. It distinguished two main currents, which were presentboth in society and within the government: the ‘progressives’, also called ‘patri-ots’ and ‘anti-imperialists’, with whom the communists sought unity; and the‘reactionaries’, whose influence was to be reduced.23 Like the PCA of 1962–5,the PAGS therefore supported the ‘socialist’ measures, such as nationalization ofhydrocarbons and the agrarian reform launched by the regime in 1971. Never-theless, it criticized the lack of so-called democratic freedoms, authoritarianismand the presence of ‘reactionaries’ within the FLN, which it considered to beobstacles to widespread popular mobilization in favour of ‘socialist’ measures.24

What was the influence of the PAGS in Algeria from 1960 to 1970? It is verydifficult to put forward precise data concerning the number of members, theirsociological profile, their courses of action and their influence on society or evenon the regime. However, it is certain that their influence diminished after thedisappearance of Boumediene in 1978, and even more so with the politicalupheavals of the 1980s and 1990s.

2.3 The collapse of the communist movement from October 1988 to the civilwar (1988–93)

From the early 1980s onwards, the PAGS denounced the regime’s ‘right-wingshift’, the ‘anti-democratic’ methods of mass organizations, the repression ofyouth revolts (particularly of the Kabyle people and students), as well as theliberal shift that called into question what the communists called the‘achievement’ of ‘socialism’.25 However, the party leadership still claimed tosupport the ‘progressives’ within the government, and supported PresidentChadli in the 1984 presidential elections and in the referendum on the new1986 charter.26 This support, which was not unanimous among the leaders,visibly disconcerted grassroots militants, a number of whom were engaged insocial struggles against the regime. For its part, after the relative loosening ofthe 1970s, the state again treated the PAGS militants like opponents. This newwave of repression reached its climax during the popular revolt of October1988: the party as such did not take part in the uprising – which it verballysupported while criticizing the riotous form – but ‘pagsists’ were arrested andtortured, and the PAGS has been participating in the movement for amnestyand against repression since late 1988.27

In 1989, after the announcement of the end of the single party, the PAGSwas legalized and came out of hiding. This legal life was short-lived: the partybroke up between spring 1990 and January 1993, in a threefold context thatmultiplied the disengagement and internal tensions (Rahal, 2017). The first,international context is that of the fall of the USSR, which overwhelmed


communist parties all over the world and accompanied the break of a part ofthe PAGS leaders with the communist perspective or even with the commu-nist reference itself. The second context, common to several countries inAfrica and Latin America, is that of the establishment of a multiparty systemand the coming out of clandestinity. Legalization put the PAGS to test: mostof its members were not from the PCA and were recruited after 1966, as wasthe majority of the 700 delegates at the 1990 congress. More than 70 percentof those were born after 1940;28 as a result, they had never known any legalparty organization or any electoral campaign; subjected to clandestine con-finement, they had also undergone diverse ideological formations and werenot used to collective discussions.29 The third context, common to severalMuslim-majority countries, was the growing popular support for movementsof political Islam, perceived as the most determined opponent of a regimethat is massively rejected by the population.

From the mid-1970s onwards, following clashes with Islamist militants, thenewspaper of the PAGS regularly published articles in which it put forward a‘revolutionary’ interpretation of Islam against the ‘reactionaries’ whom theparty accused of opposing the agrarian reform or women’s rights in the nameof Islam. In order to counter the rise in power of these ‘reactionaries’, itadvocated carrying out fundamental work in favour of social and ‘demo-cratic’ reforms, ‘clarifying the profound content of Islam and its links with thetransformations of progress’, and not adopting a haughty stance towardspractitioners.30 But the issue of political Islam severely divided the party thatbecame legal after the municipal elections of June 1990, marked by a firstelectoral success of the Front islamique du salut (Islamic Salvation Front,FIS) and very weak results of the PAGS. While the PAGS militants agreed onthe need to oppose the FIS, they did not agree on how to oppose it: ‘Indeed,is it a question of telling the people that we are the most determined oppo-nents of the FIS, or is it a question of showing them that we are the mostdetermined defenders of their interests?’, summarized six militants in August1990. Criticizing the PAGS leadership for questioning the election results andcutting itself off from the mass of Algerians by calling for a ban on the FISand not pondering the roots of Islamist success, these militants claimed that‘the leadership has thus replaced the process of the people with that of powerand its politics’.31 But the frontal opposition to the FIS prevailed within theleadership. A part of it, abandoning the language of class struggle, declared in1990–1 that the struggle must from now on be that of the ‘modern’ againstthe ‘archaic’. Above all, the majority of leaders, whether they remainedattached to Marxist language or not, called the Islamists ‘fascists’ and ‘tota-litarian’ and referred to them as the ‘main enemy’ who should be confrontedwith the army.32 Following the electoral success of the FIS in the first roundof parliamentary elections in December 1991, the leadership of the PAGSconsequently supported the interruption of the electoral process led by thearmy in January 1992, and the dissolution of the FIS by the government inMarch 1992.


As a result of these deep divisions, the PAGS lost many of its militants andcadres from 1990 onwards until the party disappeared and broke up in Jan-uary 1993. At the same time, the country was settling into a civil war, whichcaused tens of thousands of dead and missing. Many former PAGS militants,who, from 1992 onwards, were victims of a targeted assassination campaignby armed groups who drew legitimacy from Islam, went into exile. In Algeriaor France, they partially continued their involvement in bigger or smallerparties, a part of which continues to this day to claim communism and thelegacy of the PCA and PAGS.

In the end, being a communist in Algeria in the 20th century meant havingto face great adversity. In addition to the French and then Algerian autho-rities, who considered them on several occasions as dangers or even enemies,the communists sometimes clashed violently with other political movementswhether they were French (fascist, colonialist or ‘ultras’ movements) orAlgerian (nationalist or Islamist movements). This adversity has led to severeconstraints. During its 73 years of existence, the Algerian communist partieshave experienced 37 years of clandestinity, repressive waves and political vio-lence that have affected several hundreds of their militants. Certainly, thecommunists partly chose this adversity by choosing the targets of their strug-gles – anti-colonial, anti-fascist, trade unionist and, after 1962, ‘socialist’,‘democratic’ and then anti-Islamist – which also enabled them to create moreor less durable alliances. In doing so, they faced particularly complex politicalissues, which weighed on internal differences within the party as well as on theimage that the other political actors had of them: the colonial and nationalquestion, the approach to adopt an authoritarian regime with ‘socialist’orientations or the question of political Islam. Despite these constraints, theAlgerian communist movement was also a place for political formation andcreative human interaction. And while its influence on Algerian society wasundoubtedly limited, this movement has indeed been a part of that society, itscontradictions and its conflicts.

Notes1 I will use these terms without quotation marks. Even if these categories pose a

problem, their use is justified in the light of the so-called community structure ofcolonial society.

2 The information about the party line is based on Sivan, 1976 and Ageron, 1986.3 Archives nationales d’outre-mer (ANOM), Gouvernement général d’Algérie

(GGA), 10 CAB 112: Blida’s police reports, Algiers, Oran et Constantine, 28 May,pp. 4–5, 11–12 and 23 June 1951.

4 ‘L’Algérie’, PCA elementary course No. 1, April 1947, pp. 11–14.5 ANOM, prefecture of Oran, 484: list established by the Renseignements généraux

(General Infromation), 17 February 1952.6 Statement by the political bureau of the PCF, 8 November 1954, published in

L’Humanité, 9 November 1954.7 Statement by the central committee of the PCA, 14 November 1954, published in

Liberté, 18 November 1954.


8 Cf. the monthly of the PCF L’Algérien en France, which includes all the statementson Algeria.

9 The public texts of the various parties are published and analysed in Jurquet, 1997:391.

10 Cf. ANOM, GGA, 10 CAB 2: note from Blida’s PRG, 12 November 1954; pre-fecture of Aurès, 932/40: note of the Biskra police, 26 March 1955.

11 Cf. ANOM, prefecture of Aurès, 932/40: report of the RG of Batna, 4 May 1956.12 ANOM, prefecture of Constantine, 93/151: case of Constantine’s CDL, 1955;

archives of the military justice: cases of (ex-)CDL of Oran, Algiers and Blida,1956–9.

13 Fanon analyses the ‘classic’ evolution of the parties that are leading the strugglefor national independence.

14 Alger Républicain, 30 November 1962.15 Statement by the central committee of the PCA on the Evian agreements (27

March 1962) and the programme of the PCA for independent Algeria (18 April1962) (personal archives of J.-P. Saïd).

16 Cf. Al Houriyya-Liberté No. 48, 49, 50 (8 June, 31 July, 6 September 1962)(personal archives of W. Sportisse).

17 Alger Républicain, 30 November and 13 December 1962.18 See the ‘self-critical’ essay of March 1965 cited in Jurquet, 1997: 375–84.19 El Moudjahid, 25 and 28 September 1965.20 Interview with Sadek Hadjerès (1 December 2011) and William Sportisse (1

February 2011); Mouffok, 1999: 90.21 Interview with Sadek Hadjerès, 1 December 2011.22 L’Algérie six ans après l’indépendance. Le PAGS répond à 5 questions d’actualité.

Alger, 7 juin 1968, p. 30; letter from the PAGS executive to Boumediene, 14September 1968 (personal archives of S. Hadjerès).

23 Cf. the platform and internal resolution of the ORP (future PAGS), 26 Januaryand 1 February 1966 (personal archives of S. Hadjerès).

24 Cf. Saout Ech-Chaab No. 34 (28 May 1970), 46 (18 August 1971) and 55 (28 July1972) (personal archives of W. Sportisse).

25 Cf. Saout Ech-Chaab No. 97 (20 April 1980), 104 (22 December 1981), 106(7 April 1982), 107 (1 August 1982), 109 (1 February 1983), 117 (5 February1984), 119 (2 April 1984), 130 (22 May 1985), 146 (29 November 1986), 154 (31August 1987) and 159 (8 February 1988) (personal archives of W. Sportisse).

26 Saout Ech-Chaab No. 116 (28 December 1983) (personal archives of W. Sportisse).27 Saout Ech-Chaab No. 167 (23 October 1988) and 177 (21 August 1989) (personal

archives of W. Sportisse).28 Premier congrès national du PAGS. Résolutions, Algiers, 1991, p. 242 (personal

archives of W. Sportisse).29 On these first two elements of the context, see Tahar Abada’s internal contribu-

tions to the PAGS (11 December 1989) and Mohammed Khadda (2 July 1990)(personal archives of S. Hadjerès).

30 Cf. Saout Ech-Chaab No. 75 (1 December 1975), 89 (24 March 1979), 92 (26August 1979), 99 (17 July 1980), 108 (5 December 1982), 113 (15 June 1983), 117(5 February 1984), 177 (21 August 1989) (personal archives of W. Sportisse).

31 Sadek Aïssat, Akila Aouami, Ahmed Charef Eddin, Djamel Labidi, AbdelatifRebbah and Mohamed Tine, ‘Sortir le parti de la crise’, 28 August 1990. Similarpositions are defended in letters from Abdelkrim Elaidi (20 July 1990) and SadekAïssat (24 July 1990) to the leadership of the PAGS, and in the report prepared bySadek Hadjerès for the August 1990 PAGS Executive Meeting (personal archivesof S. Hadjerès).

32 Saout Ech-Chaab Immigration, Special Edition, 8 June 1991. Cf. Saout Ech-ChaabNo. 198 (21–31 May 1991) (personal archives of W. Sportisse).


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Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire, 12, October–December.Ageron, Charles-Robert (2005) ‘Communisme et nationalisme (1980)’. In Genèse de

l’Algérie algérienne, Paris, Bouchène.Alleg, Henri (Ed.) (1966) Les torturés d’El Harrach, Paris, Éditions de minuit.Alleg, Henri (Ed.) (1981) La Guerre d’Algérie, 3 vols, Paris, Messidor.Bismuth, Hervé & Taubert, Fritz (Eds) (2014) La Guerre d’Algérie et le Monde

communiste, Dijon, EUD.Drew, Allison (2014) We Are No Longer in France: Communists in Colonial Algeria,

Manchester, Manchester University Press.Fanon, Frantz (2002 [1961]) Les damnés de la terre, Paris, La Découverte & Syros.Hadj Ali, Bachir (1966) L’arbitraire, Paris, Minuit.Jurquet, Jacques (1974–97) La révolution nationale algérienne et le Parti communiste

français, Paris, Les éditions du Centenaire (1974, 1979, 1984) and L’Harmattan(1997).

Jurquet, Jacques (1997) Années de feu: Algérie, 1954–1956, Paris, Editions L’Harmattan.Khalfa, Boualem, Alleg, Henri & Benzine, Abdelhamid (1987) La grande aventure

d’‘Alger républicain’, Paris, Messidor.Le Foll-Luciani, Pierre-Jean (2013) ‘Un microcosme de l’Algérie nouvelle? Le Parti

communiste algérien clandestin à Constantine pendant la guerre d’indépendance(1954–1962)’. Atala. Cultures et sciences humaines, 16.

Le Foll-Luciani, Pierre-Jean (2014) ‘La sortie de guerre de militants juifs algériens et laconstruction d’une algérianité d’État’. In Joly, V. & Harismendy, P. (Eds), Algérie:sortie (s) de guerre. 1962–1965, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes.

Le Foll-Luciani, Pierre-Jean (2015a) ‘Algérianisation et radicalisation: les étudiantscommunistes de l’université d’Alger (1946–1956)’. Cahiers d’histoire. Revued’histoire critique, 126.

Le Foll-Luciani, Pierre-Jean (2015b) Les juifs algériens dans la lutte anticoloniale.Trajectoires dissidentes (1934–1965), Rennes, PUR.

Le Foll-Luciani, Pierre-Jean (2016) ‘“J’aurais aimé être une bombe pour exploser”.Les militantes communistes algériennes entre assignations sexuées et subversions desrôles de genre (1944–1962)’. Le Mouvement social, 2.

Marangé, Céline (2016a) ‘André Ferrat et la création du Parti communiste algérien(1931–1936)’. Histoire @ Politique, 29, May–August.

Marangé, Céline (2016b) ‘Le Komintern, le Parti communiste français et la cause del’indépendance algérienne (1926–1930)’. Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire, 131,July–September.

Memmi, Albert (1985) Portrait du colonisé. Portrait du colonisateur. 1957, Paris,Gallimard.

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Rahal, Malika (2013) ‘Le temps arrêté. Un pays sans histoire. Algérie, 2011–2013’.Écrire l’histoire, 12.

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africains en mouvements: Contribution à une histoire des années 68, Paris, Publicationsde la Sorbonne.

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Sivan, Emmanuel (1976) Communisme et nationalisme en Algérie 1920–1962, Paris,Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques.

Sportisse, William & Le Foll-Luciani, Pierre-Jean (2012) Le camp des oliviers: parcoursd’un communiste algérien. William Sportisse. Entretiens avec Pierre-Jean Le Foll-Luciani, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes.


12 The four faces of Morocco’scommunistsPCF, MCP, PLS and PPS

Bernabé López García

1 Introduction

Charting the history and analysing the role of communists in Morocco is atask that requires particular thoroughness when it comes to filtering theabundant documentation produced both from within the party that haschampioned this ideology under different acronyms (PCF, MCP, PLS andPPS), and which frequently attempts to apologetically highlight what theparty has contributed to the struggle for independence and democratic con-struction within the country, and the documentation produced from outsidethe party, which more often than not has attempted to minimize or disparageits contribution, arguing both from more revolutionary standpoints and fromothers that lie closer to power.

In drafting this historical work I have had access to a wide range of docu-ments published by the Moroccan Communist Party (MCP) in its years ofstruggle against the protectorate and after the country’s independence until theparty was banned in 1960,1 in addition to numerous pamphlets and bookspublished by the party (including talks given by Ali Yata and other leaders,editorials from the party’s newspapers, resolutions at congresses, public posi-tions regarding political events in the country, etc.) during the different stagesof its history, whether in the form of the PLS (Party of Liberation and Social-ism, 1968) or the PPS (Party of Progress and Socialism, from 1974 to the pre-sent day).2 Among the critical documentation, we should not forget thecontributions made by Abraham Serfaty (a member of the party for two dec-ades until it separated and split in 1970) in several of the works he published inwhich he distances himself from positions adopted by the party leadership.3

There is also an analytical bibliography that situates the MCP in its Mor-occan political context prior to independence, and which notably includes thework by Robert Rézette, Les partis politiques marocains (Rézette, 1955), thatof René Gallissot, Mouvement ouvrier, communisme et nationalisme dans lemonde arabe (Gallissot, 1978), as well as Georges Oved’s volume, La gauchefrançaise et le nationalisme marocain. 1905–1955 (Oved, 1984).

Another factor that has been of use in writing this work has been my long-standing personal links with members and leaders of the party, particularly

Simon Lévy, with whom I enjoyed a close comradeship until his death in 2011,as well as the personal experience I acquired when I worked for several yearsfor the newspaper Al Bayane (the organ of the PPS from 1974 onwards4) andmy attendance at three of the party’s congresses, in 1976, 1979 and 1983.5

2 Origins: communists in Morocco

Georges Oved notes that there were no traces of communist activity in Mor-occo until the Rif War, though this was merely limited to a few pamphletsdistributed among the indigenous peoples which glorified Abdelkrim and calledfor the evacuation of Morocco (Oved, 1984: vol. 1, 154), since in Oved’s opi-nion no independent communist organization existed in the country until 1926.

Oved claims that the colonial information services dreamed up a storyinvolving a Bolshevik plot working with Moroccan nationalists groups withthe intention of sparking a revolutionary uprising in the country. This led thecolonial forces to closely monitor certain individuals they considered to be‘Moscow’s agents’, and which included Charles-André Julien,6 who in 1921attended the 3rd congress of the Communist International in the Soviet capi-tal, and who was assigned the mission of instigating unrest in North Africa.The psychosis suffered by the colonial information services reached the pointwhen they came to fear an uprising by the indigenous peoples in Fez resultingfrom collusion between the communists and a ‘Wahabi committee’ (sic). Infact, it seems that apart from the opposition to the Rif War by the FrenchCommunist Party (PCF) in the metropolis, communist support for the Riffianpeople was no more than yet another myth spread by the Spanish-FrenchJoint Office that was initially set up in Malaga and later relocated to Tangiers.

Documentation from the protectorate authorities reveals a certain amountof unrest in the French media in support of Sacco and Vanzetti in August1927, and which led to the arrest of a few communists. These individuals hadbeen active within organizations of the SFIO (French Section of the Workers’International), working to promote the first embryonic trade unions, whichthe resident-general considered illegal until 1936.7 However, Oved claims thatthere was no real communist organization in Morocco until 1935 when, at thefirst Socialist Youth congress, a philo-communist nucleus emerged, featuringfigures such as Leon-René Sultan8 and Jean Dresch,9 who started publishinga rather rudimentary newspaper – Le Maroc rouge – within the protectorateas the ‘organ of the Moroccan Communist Party’ (Oved, 1984: vol. 1, 159).

Relations between the French left established in Morocco and the youngnationalists who came to the fore as a result of the struggle with the BerberDahir in 1930 were by no means fluid, since the former were alienated by thebourgeois nature of the movement. The French leftists could not comprehendthe religious dimension of the Moroccan protest, nor the devotion showntowards the sultan, whom French socialists and communists considered tohave sold out to the imperialism of the metropolis. In June 1934, a fewmonths before the nationalists – organized by a Moroccan Action Committee

The four faces of Morocco’s communists 217

(CAM) – presented a reform plan to the authorities in Rabat and Paris, theMoroccan section of the SFIO held a congress in Kenitra to study the com-patibility between the protective action and socialism, and its links with Islamand what they called ‘Moroccan nationalism and racism’, concluding that itwas necessary to fight against such expressions, which they deemed to bebourgeois (López García, 1989: 23–6).

When the Popular Front came to power in France in June 1936, it broughta policy of openness towards the colonies: the legalization of unions andparties for the French population, and the extending of certain freedoms,which in some cases directly affected the ‘indigenous peoples’. Leon Blumappointed Charles-André Julien as secretary to the High Committee of theMediterranean and North Africa. Among its various projects, it was pro-posed that the Popular Front would carry out reforms in order to organize‘honestly the independence of the indigenous peoples’ (quoted in Oved, 1984:vol. 2, 97). In spite of this, the nationalists expressed mistrust at an organi-zation they viewed as having a policing function, given that it had previouslybeen used as a force of control and even repression in the North Africancolonies.

In the first issue of Clarté (19 December 1936), the PCF’s newspaper inMorocco, Leon Sultan, writing under the pseudonym of Marc Forclaude,stated that his party was adopting ‘the program of the Moroccan proletariat’simmediate demands’, without making any explicit reference to the CAMreform programme. He expressed confidence that ‘the new invigorating windsof freedom’ represented by the Popular Front would help to achieve ‘theFrench task of bringing about material and cultural liberation of the people’.However, these winds did not seem to blow for long. In August 1938, thesame newspaper criticized the discriminatory policy on union rights that hadbeen converted for a ‘superior proletariat’ (Europeans) into an ‘elevated privilegeworthy of colonialism… and even racism’ (Oved, 1984: vol. 2, 137).

Morocco during those years was influenced by the proximity of theSpanish Civil War. Many political refugees were taken in by SpanishRepublican emigrants who had lived in cities such as Casablanca, Tangiersand Rabat since the beginning of the century. Robert Rézette even mentionsa group of ‘Spanish proletarians’ with anarchist tendencies who founded aMoroccan communist party in 1937, though as they had no links with thePCF leadership in Paris, the party was banned in 1939 (Rézette, 1955: 161).We do not have any information to confirm this claim, but it is a fact thatduring those years, Casablanca’s Maarif district became home to pockets ofSpanish communists which marked the childhood and teenage years ofMoroccans such as Abraham Serfaty, who confessed that ‘Spain had alwaysbeen in his heart’ since that time (Serfaty & Daure-Serfaty, 2002: 53). Con-tacts were made between Spanish, Moroccan and French communistsattempting to coordinate their struggles, as demonstrated by the publicationof Mundo Obrero in 1947 in Casablanca10 at the printing house of thecommunist weekly Espoir. 11

218 Bernabé López García

3 World war and the call for independence

The world war years were crucial for Morocco. The country became a ‘refugecolony’ (in the words of René Gallissot (1964: 219)), given that it receivedlarge sums of French capital that was invested in industry. Casablanca, thegreat Moroccan metropolis, doubled its population to nearly half a millioninhabitants. But the immigrants the city attracted were not only Europeans(including a numerous colony of Spanish refugees), they were above all Mor-occans, who became concentrated in the bidonvilles, where they lived inimpoverished conditions. The situation gave concern to the resident-general,who feared that the proletarian masses would mobilize to become activemasses (Gallissot, 1964).

It was at this time, in 1942, that the MCP was formally constituted, clan-destinely, and headed by Leon Sultan and Ali Yata.12 The party, which didnot have any direct links with the PCF,13 published an underground news-paper – El Watan – which expressed pro-independence ideas. The group madecontact with the PCF leadership in Algiers in 1943, from where André Marty,Henri Lozeray and Jacques Gresa were dispatched as instructors entrustedwith the task of organizing the activists and sympathizers that were scatteredthrough the protectorate. The guidelines they imposed distanced the party’sorientation from any drift towards independence, which they deemed to becounterrevolutionary. According to Ali Yata, Marty’s categorical directivesimposed a ‘reformist’ and ‘paternalistic’ line onto the party. The MCP’s neworgan, Egalité, which first appeared in August 1943, prioritized the struggleagainst the Nazis, as well as calling for the liberation of ‘Muslims who hadbeen interned, sent away or deported for loving their country and yearning forits dignity’. However, the word ‘independence’ did not feature in the CentralCommittee resolution of 12 September 1943.

On their arrival, relations between the instructors and the nationalists weretense. Some activists who favoured a rapprochement (such as Maurice Rué14)were isolated and accused of being divisive. In late 1943, a meeting took placebetween Marty and Gresa and the young Istiqlal supporters Mehdi BenBarka and Abderrahim Buabid. However, they were unable to reach any kindof agreement, given the communists’ adamant opinion that Moroccan inde-pendence was a disingenuous aim, given that it would turn the country from aFrench protectorate into an American one.15

After the Independence Manifesto was published on 11 January 1944, theMCP submitted a manifesto document for publication on 14 January with thetitle ‘In view of current events, the MCP clarifies its position’, though it wasnot published as a result of censorship. Here is an extract from the document:

The future of the Moroccan people cannot be assured by anything otherthan by victory over fascism and by the liberation of the New France thatwill be born from the struggle… The MCP denounces in the face ofpublic opinion this risky political venture that can only be used against


democracy to benefit the fascist reaction, against France and to benefit ofthe enemy… Our party makes it clear, on the contrary, that the interestsof the Moroccan people lie in uniting their destiny with that of theFrench people… New France is not the France of yesterday. As a freecountry, it will no longer oppress other peoples… Before the AtlanticCharter, our party spoke out on the peoples’ right to self-determination.Without relinquishing this principle, the party believes that the presentsituation, in which Morocco stands at the crossroads of contradictoryinterests, runs the risk of forcing Moroccans to bear the yoke of newoppressors if they commit themselves to the path along which they arebeing led.

(Oved, 1984: vol. 2, 208–9)16

This stance adopted by the MCP, which went so far as to brand the nation-alist struggle as ‘Hitlerian fascist provocation’, ended up costing the partydearly. Ali Yata, who became leader following the death of Leon Sultan,announced a change of course in 1946, after realizing the party’s mistake inhaving distanced itself from the Moroccan masses who had given the IstiqlalParty their vigorous backing. According to Yata, the 1944 stance brought‘heartbreak’ for many activists, particularly Moroccans who were against theofficial party position. In an attempt to bridge divisions with the nationalists,Ali Yata signed the Istiqlal Manifesto in Casablanca, as did AbdesalamBourquia, another party leader and unionist, in Ued Zem.17

4 The Moroccoization of the MCP

At the MCP’s first congress, held in Casablanca in April 1946, a majority ofMoroccan leaders were elected. The country was experiencing a particularlyextraordinary moment at that time; only a few days previously a new resi-dent-general had arrived in Rabat – Eirik Labonne,18 ‘the only true liberalMorocco has ever known’, according to Charles-André Julien (Julien, 1978:198). But in spite of detained and exiled leaders being freed, the party’sreform plan, published on 22 July, was rejected by the nationalists. The MCPalso judged the measures proposed by the resident-general to be insufficient,and suggested to the nationalists that they seek agreement on a commonprogramme which would not disregard the union with the French people, inline with what would be the French Union project. This became the mainpoint of disagreement with the nationalists.

The MCP manifesto, published on 4 August of that same year, now clearlyexpressed ‘the will of the Moroccan people to recover their full sovereignty’and called for the abolition of protectorate institutions such as the Residency-General in Rabat, the High Commission in Tetuan and the Tangier ControlCommittee, as well as the immediate creation of a Moroccan assembly andgovernment to manage all the country’s affairs. However, the slogan ofcreating a ‘Moroccan National Front’ with the nationalists was not well


received by the latter, who distrusted communism as being a ‘foreign ideologythat often makes common cause with the oppressors’.19

Ali Yata claimed that there were two reasons for the MCP’s new, favourableattitude towards independence: the growing influence among the population ofideas extolled by the Istiqlal Manifesto, and Moscow’s fears that the Moroccannational movement might fall into the hands of the Americans if the MCP didnot opt clearly for independence (Oved, 1984). To confirm the party’s pro-nationalist stance, it sent a commission to meet with Sultan Mohammed benYoussef on 28 August 1946. This caused great outrage among the French ser-vices, and even among leading Moroccan figures (Rézette, 1955: 165), whofeared that this recognition might result in the MCP gaining greater influenceover a trade union, the Union Générale des Syndicats Confédérés du Maroc(linked to the French Confédération Generale du Travail), in which commu-nists had played a predominant role in the union’s organization and develop-ment, and membership of which (according to Rézette) had risen to 30,000 bylate 1945 (Rézette, 1955: 338).

5 The MCP under the repressive policies of the residents-generalsJuin and Guillaume

The MCP’s espousing of nationalism led to party membership reaching apeak in 1948, with 3,000 Moroccan Muslim members, 500 Jews and 2,500Europeans (Rézette, 1955), though competition with the Istiqlal Party meantthat the party failed to improve on these figures. Even in the unions, the pro-Istiqlal members were gradually winning the battle. The MCP’s alignmentwith the Soviet Union (USSR) and its insistence on the impossibility ofremaining neutral over the Cold War that was developing at the time allserved to distance the party from the nationalists, who were now being cour-ted by America, a country that had enjoyed a good deal of affection fromMorocco ever since the Allied landing at Casablanca in November 1942, andwhich was particularly manifested in 1946–7 with the creation of RooseveltClubs in various cities in Morocco and the diplomatic assistance provided forthe Sultan’s visit to Tangiers in April 1947. It was on this trip that Moham-med ben Youssef expressed his firm support for the unification of the countryand its independence, in a speech that would cost resident-general Labonnehis position. He was duly replaced by Alphonse Juin, who introduced a policyof authoritarian severity.

The MCP had initially extended its presence into the poorer sectors ofsociety through parallel structures such as Amicales communistes and Lesamis de la démocratie, which brought together Moroccans and Europeans.However, concurrence with nationalist organizations led to the MCP losingsupport. Rézette notes that from 1948 onwards, in spite of the disappearanceof Europeans from the party leadership, the MCP lost power in regions suchas Casablanca and Oriental, areas where it had previously been well estab-lished, and party membership figures declined. While in 1950 the party had


1,000 European members and some 2,700 Moroccans, by 1952 these figureshad fallen to around 2,000 members, 700 of whom were Europeans.

One of the areas in which the MCP was active was the print media. In June1945, its Francophone organ L’Espoir (Hope)20 sold 27,034 copies in Casa-blanca alone, but a year later sales figures had dropped. A weekly journal, itwas published on an irregular basis until the party was banned in 1952, afterwhich it was published clandestinely until the country’s independence.Another weekly publication, this time in Arabic, was Hayat Ech Chaab (Lifeof the People); it was published clandestinely, as it was never granted legalauthorization, not even after the publication of the code of liberties afterindependence.21 As for the sphere of the trade unions, the newspaper L’ActionSyndicale came out between 1943 and 1952, and the majority of its editorialboard were MCP supporters.

In February 1949 the MCP held its second congress, in which the leader-ship was mainly Moroccan. Michel Mazzella, a central figure in the previousperiod, was removed from power, thus confirming the party’s orientationtowards nationalism. Ali Yata, the party secretary, had been operatingunderground since 18 June 1948 after he had dodged the expatriation orderdecreed by General Juin; he had been accused of agitation in the Muslimmedia following the massacres at Yerada and Uxda.22 On his arrest in July1950 he was forcibly expelled to Algeria, given his status as a French subject,being the son of an Algerian. Despite his multiple attempts to get back intoMorocco, he did not manage to return to the country until 1958, two yearsafter independence (Yata, 1996).

Mirroring its predecessor the PCF, the MCP’s strategy had always beenoriented towards the defence of the working classes in a country where theproletariat was barely incipient, apart from in a few urban nuclei such asCasablanca, the country’s economic capital, and mining towns like Yeradaand Yussufia. The specific cause of the party’s disregard for the nationalistswas the latter’s bourgeois origins in the eyes of the party’s French leaders inits early days. It was when Moroccans became the majority in the leadershipthat the party began championing the struggle against colonial oppression.That is why when Robert Schuman, the French minister of foreign affairs,spoke to the French parliament to justify Yata’s expulsion, he declared that‘his calls for disobedience, his violent opinions against “French imperialism”and the “colonialist regime of oppression” established in Morocco sparked anunrest that was intolerable’ (Yata, 1996: 21).

Thus the MCP prioritized social protest, though it took the party a while tocomprehend the utility of internationalizing the Moroccan question, whichthe Istiqlal Party had already begun doing in 1948. The communists believedthat taking the issue of Moroccan independence to the United Nations (UN)was no more than a gesture which would not advance the Moroccan cause, asL’Espoir stated in December 1948 (Oved, 1984: vol. 2, 269). However, thiswas one of the lines that the MCP (lagging behind Istiqlal) used in its mem-orandum addressed to the UN on the 38th anniversary of the establishment


of the protectorate in 1950,23 and the message was reiterated, 12 months later,on the eve of the 6th session of UN General Assembly, in a long report aboutthe protectorate’s anachronistic nature and its social and political con-sequences (Yata, n.d.: 26–42). Nevertheless, following the international orga-nization’s decision to defer the Moroccan question (thanks to Americansupport for France’s arguments), the MCP’s politburo published a declarationin March 1952 in which it claimed ‘the Moroccan people cannot trust the UNto arbitrate’, echoing Stalin’s words in Pravda when the latter declared thatthe UN ‘is nothing but an organisation to benefit Americans’ (Yata, n.d.: 59).Even so, and to make sure that it did not lag behind the nationalists, inOctober that year the party submitted an extensive report to the internationalorganization which dismantled the French government’s supposed reformsand denounced the repression of all the elements of the national movement.

Some months later, the MCP joined and supported – via the Union Généraledes Syndicats Confédérés du Maroc – the protest demonstrations against themurder of the union activist Ferhat Hached in Tunisia. The protests were bru-tally put down by the residency-general, and they ended in December 1952with the banning of both the MCP and Istiqlal, both of which were forced tooperate from underground.

6 The MCP and clandestine action in favour of independence

The MCP’s role was a marginal one in the years leading up to independence.The ambiguities toward the national cause continued to produce ruptureswithin the party, and this had consequences, as it handed the initiative toparties such as Istiqlal. Abraham Serfaty explained it thus:

This party, in spite of the value and, very often, the internationalism of itsmembers and Moroccan groups, which it had built up since 1943, wasunable to convincingly overcome the mistakes of its early years regardingthe crucial question of national independence. During the entire periodfrom 1945 to 1952, the party fluctuated between a paternalistic concep-tion inspired by a French petty bourgeois idea of an ‘independence’ in theshadow of democratic France (independence within the framework of theFrench Union) and the Moroccan bourgeois nationalist tendency of itsMoroccan groups which curbed the need for the working classes to have aleading role in the struggle for independence. In such a situation, it cameas no surprise that after 1950 the working classes united en masse withthe political leadership of the Istiqlal Party, which had been moreconsistent over the independence issue.

(Serfaty, 1992: 72–3)

Forced underground, the MCP scaled back its activities on the trade unionfront, where its members were well placed, though they were not the oneswho succeeded in making the great leap to create the large central national


union, the Moroccan Labour Union (UMT), which was founded by MahjoubBen Seddiq and Brahim Roudani in March 1955. But there was anothersphere in which the MCP helped to promote the struggle for independence –armed action, following the creation of a resistance group together with acti-vists from Istiqlal’s rival parties, including Mohammed Hassan Ouazzani’sDemocratic Independence Party. The group was dubbed Al Hilal al Aswad(the Black Crescent), and the communist leader Abdallah Layachi describedit as ‘the armed detachment of the most powerful, coherent resistance group’,whose ‘daring, spectacular and crushing surprise attacks sowed panic andfear in the ranks of the colonialist enemy and their lackeys, the traitors’(Layachi, 1981: 42).

One of the group’s organizers, Abdelkrim Benabdallah, a member of theMCP leadership, was murdered in the score-settling that took place betweenrival groups in the early days of independence. The communiqué published bythe MCP after his death attributed the killing to ‘a group of mercenaries paidby enemies of our motherland’, though the declaration stopped short of tack-ling the thorny issue of score-settling and accusing the Istiqlal leaders (Yata,n.d.: 243).24

The MCP attempted to cement its presence in political life on SultanMohammed Ben Yussef ’s return from exile in France in October 1955, declar-ing the event a victory for the Moroccan people. A delegation headed by AliYata met with the sultan in Saint Germain-en-Laye in November 1955, wherethey handed him a document containing their current proposals. Once thesultan had returned to Morocco, another party delegation (made up of Abde-salam Bourquia, Abdallah Layachi, Abdelkrim Benabdallah, Edmond AmranEl Maleh and Haddaoui Morchich) were given an audience with the sultan on5 December. However, the MCP was excluded from the consultations over theforming of the country’s first independent government, just as its related resis-tance group was excluded from discussions over the forming of the nucleus ofthe future Moroccan national army (Yata, n.d.: 211).

7 From the MCP to the PLS: the party’s fragile statute

The greatest difficulty for the MCP after independence was how to find itsniche alongside the other political groups. In its favour, there was the fact thatthe policy of positive neutrality adopted by Mohammed V after independenceresulted in good relations with the USSR in the early years, which evenresulted in Russia supplying arms to the country.25 However, this situation didnot last for long, as after Hassan II came to the throne, Moroccan foreignpolicy began moving progressively towards closer ties with the West.

Existing as it did in a state of de facto legality, just like the other parties intimes of political uncertainty, the MCP supported the creation of a respon-sible nationalist government (of which it would form part) with a programmethat proposed the ejection of foreign troops, a reinstatement of Morocco’shistorical borders, agricultural reform and the nationalization of certain fields


that would orient the country towards the construction of an independentnational economy, and organizing constituent elections. But the MCP becamesidelined, as it was unable to gain support from any other political group.Thus, when he appointed the members of the National Consultative Assem-bly in 1956, Mohammed V completely ignored the MCP. Ali Yata, the party’ssecretary general, who still had the French expulsion order from Moroccohanging over him, was forced to live in exile in France until July 1958, and thereiterated requests and documents that Yata and his lawyers sent to the newMoroccan authorities, and even to the sovereign himself, all went unheeded.

The party’s governing body adopted a stance in accordance with thenational movement on issues such as the reintegration of occupied territories,and which included ‘the prisons in Ceuta, Melilla, the Ifni enclave and theterritory of Rio de Oro, all of which should be governed by specific agree-ments’.26 The party leadership was more assertive in its demands for agri-cultural reform, which included the distribution of the feudal and non-cultivated lands of the colonies. At that time, the party’s highest-prioritydemand, in tandem with the country’s other political parties, was to showsolidarity with the Algerian people and their struggle for independence.

During those early years, the MCP found itself caught between a rock anda hard place: on one hand, the party’s struggle and denouncement of theconsequences of colonization made it the object of retaliation from France,whose importance was still crucial to Moroccan politics (as demonstrated bythe prolongation of Ali Yata’s exile), while on the other, the party’s veryideology caused it to clash increasingly with the Istiqlal Party and the Mor-occan establishment. Hence the MCP’s criticism of the absence of Allal ElFassi’s party and the Moroccan National Consultative Assembly from theAfro-Asian Conference in El Cairo in January 1958, an event which wasaccused of being influenced by the USSR (Yata, n.d.: 315–16).

The party finally achieved full legality after the code of public liberties waspassed in November 1958. But this did not last long, only from April toSeptember 1959 when it was suspended, paradoxically, by Abdallah Ibrahim’sleft-wing government, who accused the MCP of possessing an ideology thatwas incompatible with Islam and of being against the monarchical form ofthe state.27 The party’s recourse to the court of appeal in Rabat was rejected,when at last, to justify the outlawing of the party, the court invoked a speechby the sovereign which was granted force of law, in which he condemned‘materialistic doctrines’. Once again, the party was forced underground(Waterbury, 1975: 334), and its newspaper, Al Yamahir (The Masses), wasbanned. Some months later, taking advantage of the framework of the codeof public liberties, the party brought out a new weekly publication inArabic – Al Moukafih (The Combatant) – though it had no overt links to theMCP.28

However, the party did figure in the first municipal elections, held in May1960, though it did so through independent candidates, and unsuccessfully. Inthe territorial dispute with Mauritania, which resulted from the latter gaining


independence in November 1960, the MCP declared (as did Istiqlal) that theterritory belonged to Morocco.29

One central issue in the MCP’s struggle was the election of a ConstituentNational Assembly, an issue that was evaded both by Mohammed V (whocreated a Constitutional Council to draft a constitution from which theparty was excluded) and by his son when the latter came to power. WhenHassan II submitted a text (which had mainly been drafted by Frenchexperts) to referendum, the magazine Al Moukafih published a series ofarticles on the constitution30 in which it called for a constitution of a pro-gressive nature, in which the people were considered the sole source ofpower, and which asserted the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal nature of theMoroccan state; the articles furthermore proposed the consolidation ofnational independence by closing down the foreign military bases and rein-corporating the occupied territories, expressed its aspirations toward aUnited Arab Maghreb, and defended the equality of all citizens and respectfor democratic freedoms and the economic and social rights of the popula-tion. In contrast to the text submitted by the king in September 1962, theMCP chose to boycott the referendum with the aim of maintaining unity ofaction with the National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP), the left-wingsplinter group that emerged from Istiqlal, while the UMT union called for a‘No’ vote.

In the first legislative elections, held in May 1963, the MCP presented onlythree independent candidates, owing to the illegality of the party. One stoodin central Casablanca (Ali Yata), another in Garb and the third in Tadla.While the MCP advocated uniting with the opposition parties, Istiqlal andUNFP, to beat the candidate for the ruling party the Front for the Defence ofConstitutional Institutions (FDIC), the proposal was not well received.Octave Marais31 explains that Ben Barka’s party was reluctant to join forceswith the MCP for common candidacies ‘on one hand, because of fears thatthe MCP might gain more votes, and on the other, so as not to scare off themiddle-class swing voters’ (Marais, 1963: 96). The authorities also placednumerous obstacles in the party’s way to prevent it from holding meetings,and in the end the MCP only received 2,345 votes.

The MCP’s influence thus remained marginal in the political arena, thoughwe should not disregard the moral influence of its ideas, a fact that has beenacknowledged by several respected observers of Moroccan politics. As Maraiswrote in 1963:

Though it only has a limited number of supporters… the MCP does infact exert a fairly extensive influence over Morocco’s left-wing leaders,both in the UNFP and the UMT. Furthermore, several Moroccan leaderscurrently in Istiqlal and even in the FDIC have, during the course of theirstudies in France, enjoyed quite close links with the communist party.Many of them have maintained personal links with some of the commu-nist leaders, and feel a certain sensibility towards Marxist dialectics…


The left-wing parties and even Istiqlal often pick up on propagandaissues that were initially launched by the MCP.

(Marais, 1963)

However, the MCP’s exclusion from the public arena continued unchanged.One factor contributing to this was the position adopted by the party as aresult of the Sand War with Algeria in October–November 1963, when itfirmly denounced ‘warfare as a means of settling this [border] dispute betweentwo brother nations, and advocated peaceful negotiations to the exclusion ofany other path’ (Belal, 1981: 70). Three of the party’s leaders, Yata, Bourquiaand Layachi, were imprisoned and given military trials for ‘attacks on theexternal security of the state’, though they were later released.

When in March 1965 the country underwent significant political upheaval,with protests by students and workers in Casablanca, Hassan II consulted withthe various political parties, with the exception of the MCP. Ali Yata, theparty’s secretary general, expressed his disgruntlement to the king in a docu-ment in which he highlighted ‘the origin of the crisis and the means necessaryto help the country emerge from the tragic impasse in which it found itself, andto guarantee a solution to same’.32 According to the party’s analysis, the originof the crisis lay in ‘the general orientation imposed on the country since thebeginning of independence’, the absence of democracy, capitalist liberalism andthe lack of social rights. The analysis included a comprehensive actionprogramme to help get the country out of this situation.

8 Communists, Islam and the territorial question

Meanwhile, the MCP was attempting to build bridges with the ‘living forcesof the country’. In the wake of a situation that it described as ‘catastrophicand dramatic’, the party proposed a unified leadership in a long documenttitled ‘One single revolutionary party’, and which was addressed to the gen-eral secretariat of the UNFP on 26 June 1965 (Yata, 1966a), just 20 days afterthe king declared a state of emergency. But the proposal did not come tofruition, since the UNFP leadership within the country33 believed at that time(though it turned out to be a miscalculation) that Hassan II was about toentrust them to lead the government. On 25 October, four days before thekidnapping of the UNFP leader Ben Barka in Paris, the MCP returned to theattack by responding to the questions asked by the secretariat of the left-wingparty, and proposing a ‘merging or confederation’ of the two parties in acommon programme, and adopting a doctrine of ‘scientific socialism’ adaptedto ‘the national reality… using the progressive heritage of our Arab-Islamiccivilisation’. To this end, the document stated that:

Arab-Islamic civilisation is not without elevated expressions of the idealsof justice, fraternity, liberty and honour; it offers broad possibilities ofadaptation, liberty, solidarity and struggle which are not only useful, they


might also be the most valuable tools for carrying out the inestimabletask for all the people which consists of bringing about a democraticnational revolution and building socialism.

(Yata, 1966a: 17–18)

On 4 December 1965, in a new document addressed to the UNFP, the MCPhighlighted the ‘acute aggravation’ it had experienced in the last months ofthe crisis, above all following the ‘criminal act’ of the kidnapping of BenBarka. The missive also described the contacts the party had made with theUMT and Istiqlal with regard to ‘constituting a national front, the mainobjective of which should be to ensure that our people do not have toexperience a military dictatorship’. These contacts were considered to be moreviable to the trade union than to the El Fassi party, which had alwaysremained entrenched in issues such as Islam and borders.

This latter subject of Morocco’s borders was not exactly what distanced theMCP from Istiqlal. In a long report submitted by Ali Yata at the 3rd partycongress in July 1966, this issue was described as ‘fundamentally vital for ourcountry, determining our present and our future’ (Yata, 1966b: 22). The party’sreproach that ‘we have been unable to liberate the other provinces, which con-stitute the south of the country, and to reincorporate them into the motherland(namely Ifni, Saqiat Al Hamra, Rio de Oro, Mauritania, Touat and Tindouf),just as we have not been able to wrest Ceuta, Melilla and the Chafarinasislands from Spanish rule’ was mainly aimed at the monarchy that ruled thecountry, though also at the parties that had enjoyed government in the pre-ceding years. However, Yata offered these parties the alternative of that time, a‘union of patriotic national forces’ to achieve the goal of a democratic nationalrevolution which (according to the MCP’s analysis) should consist of an ‘alli-ance between the working classes, the poorest and middle-income farm workers,the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie’ (Yata, 1966b: 70).

In spite of the difficulties imposed by the state of emergency, in July 1968the party submitted the statutes for a new party – the PLS. The statutes werebased on the ‘scientific conception of socialism’ and declared that the partywould be ‘firmly linked with the revolutionary traditions of the Moroccanpeople, the rationalist legacy of Arab thought, and the emancipatory sub-stance of Islam’. Among its objectives were ‘the definitive and total liberationof the nation, by re-establishing Morocco, both within its historic borders andin its full political and economic sovereignty’, in addition to the ‘social,material and moral progress of the people’ toward socialism.34

Thus the party fleetingly achieved legality, until August 1969, as a resultof (Aziz Belal tells us) ‘intense activity’ on its part. However, this was sus-pended following Ali Yata’s participation in the World Conference ofCommunist and Workers’ Parties in Moscow in August 1969. The PLS wasduly dissolved, the party’s newspaper banned and Yata and Chouaib Riffiwere both arrested and prosecuted for reforming a party that had previouslybeen dissolved (Yata, 1996: chapter 6), in a trial in which the lawyers


included the opposition leaders Mohammed Boucetta (from Istiqlal) andAbderrahim Bouabid (UNFP).

9 The schism of 1970 and the legalization of the PPS

The crisis that the country experienced in the years of emergency (1965–70)and the disappointment at the spinelessness of the UNFP all produced–before France’s May 1968 – a surge of students moving to join the PLS, evenbefore its brief legalization, according to Abraham Serfaty (Serfaty & Daure-Serfaty, 2002: 75). However, the party’s position of advocating parliamentarydemocracy as the route toward socialism (an idea that was scorned by Mor-occo’s radicalized youth, who branded it ‘reformist and Menshevik’) ulti-mately caused a split in the PLS. This produced a tense atmosphere of studentstrikes35 which came to a head with Ifran’s debate on education in whichstudents expressed their feelings of betrayal by the bourgeois nationalist par-ties and above all by PLS support for the Rogers Plan for Palestine, therebyendorsing the USSR’s stance on the subject. In a letter to Yata on 8 August1970, Serfaty’s criticism caused a split and led to the subsequent creation, on30 August of that year, of the Marxist-Leninist group Ila Al Amam (Forward)(Serfaty & Daure-Serfaty, 2002: 77).36

The coups in 1971 and 1972 forced Hassan II to move closer to the oppo-sition, in a bid to regain some of his lost legitimacy. The still illegal PLSrejected the two draft constitutions that the king put to referendum in 1970and 1972. In September 1972 the king held talks with the opposition partyleaders (including Ali Yata, despite the fact that his party was illegal) andinvited them to form a national unity government, though in the end this didnot come to fruition.

One meeting point between Hassan II and the opposition was the territor-ial question, and Moroccan demands for Western Sahara, at that time colo-nized by Spain. In accordance with the views the PLS had held sinceindependence, the party declared its support for the king, who promisedgreater openness and the legalization of the party. In May 1973, Ali Yatapublished the articles on the Sahara that had appeared in his party’s news-papers between 1956 and 1972 in a book titled Le Sahara Occidental Mar-ocain. A few days after the volume’s launch at the Writers’ Union Cercle, theauthorities seized the book, claiming that it represented a reproach to Mor-occo’s ineffective diplomacy which was lacking in ‘initiative and dynamism inthe defence of our national rights’, according to the book’s author at the pressconference for the book launch (López García, 1978: 153). Subsequent eventsled to the withdrawal of the ban, and the book went on sale in bookshopsand newsstands around the country, to become one more element in thecampaign to recover the territory.

A few months later the party received authorization to launch the news-paper Al Bayane (The Manifesto), a weekly publication in French whichbecame a daily in May 1975. This was the prelude to the legalization of the


party under a new name: the PPS, formed in August 1974. In the preamblefor its new statutes, the PPS was defined as ‘a pioneering political organisa-tion for the working classes and the rural poor. It is the party of all workers,both manual and intellectual, and of all progressive patriots wishing to takeaction to defend and consolidate national independence and achieve thevictory of socialism.’

In 1974, the territorial question became the focal point of political life inMorocco, after Spain held a referendum on autonomy in Western Sahara atthe request of the UN. In a statement in May to Hassan II, Ali Yata expres-sed his support for the Royal Palace to regain the Spanish colony (Vermeeren,2010). In speeches that summer the king called for a uniting of political forcesto achieve this aim. It was this context that led to the PPS becoming lega-lized, together with the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP), a splintergroup from the old UNFP which was legalized as part of the king’s promisefor greater openness in light of the operation to regain Western Sahara.

In Ali Yata’s first public speech after the party’s legalization, which hemade at the Municipal Theatre of Casablanca on 20 December 1974, hedeclared that ‘new horizons are opening before people’s eyes; the possibility ofmaking some radical changes to Morocco’s structures is no longer a dream,and the conditions to achieve this are gradually beginning to come together’(Yata, 1974: 4). The most important national issue was, he said, ‘plunderedWestern Sahara’, and he even claimed that if Spain resorted to force, thendeployment of the Moroccan armed forces would be justified (Yata, 1974: 18).

Some months later Ali Yata was a member of the delegations that were sentto different parts of the world to explain Morocco’s position on the Saharaquestion. He headed the delegation to the East European countries, and whenthe king organized the Green March, Ali Yata took part in it alongside otherparty members, including Simon Lévy.

But the promises of democratization made by Hassan II soon ran into dif-ficulty, as the war resulting from the failed decolonization of the Sahara cameto be used as the excuse for curbing the changes the opposition had hopedfor. The PPS held its first congress in February 1975 in Casablanca, andparticipated in all the country’s elections from June 1977 onwards, under thewatchful gaze of the Ministry of the Interior, which controlled everything –from the candidacies to the results. The party’s representation fluctuated fromone seat in 1977 (held by Ali Yata, with 116,470 votes) to 18 seats in 2011,and 279,226 votes in 2016, an electoral ceiling that has been virtually dead-locked since 1992, despite the fact that voter registration rose from 6,500,000voters in 1977 to 15,700,000 in 2016.

At the 2nd PPS party congress in February 1979, the leaders persisted withthe policy of pursuing the Democratic National Revolution, together with theaim that it should become a mass political party. The political statement fromthe congress declared that the Madrid Agreements of November 1975 were a‘positive commitment’ and described the national consensus on the Saharaquestion as a ‘progressive asset’ (Yata, 1979: 35).37 Decidedly pro-government


in its support for the king’s Sahara policy, the PPS opposed, however, the tworeferendums in 1982 on modifying the 1972 constitution, and denounced(together with the USFP and the unions the Democratic Confederation ofLabour and the UMT) the policy of price-raising that led to a general strikein June 1981 and the dramatic repression resulting from this action, whichcaused the party’s newspaper to be temporarily banned.

Together with the other political parties, the PPS supported the king’sventures such as the African Union which, in 1984, brought together Mor-occo under Hassan II and Gaddafi’s Libya, though without carrying out anykind of real analysis of this union.

10 The PPS after the fall of the USSR

For the PPS, the fall of the Berlin Wall came as a shock, as it meant the partyhad lost one of its essential benchmarks. However, in its everyday activities,the PPS continued with its political pragmatism, seeking consensus withopposition forces and staying true to its goal (no matter how abstract thatmight be) of achieving a democratic national revolution. One example wasthe party’s participation, in May 1992, in the Kutla Democratic Bloc, abroad-spectrum bloc of opposition parties which ranged from Istiqlal toUSFP, the Organization for Democratic and Popular Action and the virtuallydefunct UNFP in an attempt to provide a united response to the offer madeby Hassan II to form an ‘alternation’ government. The offer included achange in the constitution that was deemed insufficient by the Kutla mem-bers, with the exception of the PPS, which broke the opposition boycott thathad been imposed on the constitutional referendum of 1992.

The PPS continued on its solitary path until 1995. During its 5th congress,certain critical figures (headed by Simon Lévy) tabled an amendment callingfor self-criticism for having ‘preferred a disgraceful shady deal with power tothe alliance with Kutla’.38 Lévy criticized the party for the ‘weakness or lackof its analysis’, the newspaper Al Bayane for ‘remaining silent over theessential details … without any role in the political arena’ and the party forlacking in any ideological resources ‘apart from vague references to the left’.39

Reinstated once again in Kutla, the PPS was involved in preparing andbringing into being the ‘consensual alternation’ government which, in 1998,was led by the socialist Abderrahmán Youssoufi, and in which the PPS hadone minister, Ismail Alaoui, and two secretaries of state.40 Alaoui, the

Table 12.1 PPS representation in legislative elections from 1977 to 2016

Legislativeelections

1977 1984 1992 1997 2002 2007 2011 2016

Votes 116,470 102,314 245,064 274,862 275,024 248,103 269,336 279,226

Seats 1 2 11 16 11 17 18 12


minister for agriculture, became the new secretary general of the PPS follow-ing Ali Yata’s death in an accident in 1997.41 He remained at the head of theparty for 13 years until the 8th congress, held in May 2010.

11 Conclusion

The party’s presence in government transformed it into a party that was closeto the administration. Said Saadi, a critical member of the party leadershipwho used his position in the first alternation government to attempt to intro-duce a plan for the integration of women (he was unsuccessful, owing to thereaction of conservative forces) later stated that this step by the governmentcaused the PPS to undergo a marked change, as it now ‘resorted to prominentfigures with the pretext of winning seats for legislative and municipal electionsand became distanced from groups and intellectuals that had previously con-stituted its traditional resource pool’. The party gradually lost its urban rootsand began establishing small rural fiefdoms controlled by influential figureswho had nothing in common with the ideology and the original project of thePPS. In the words of Said Saadi:

Above all, what marked the ideological position of the PPS after the fallof the Berlin Wall was a certain flou artistique. This is clearly visible inthe party literature, in which concepts such as socialism, class struggle,social ownership of the means of production, the working classes, have allvirtually disappeared from the documents and discourses of the PPS lea-ders. In their place, we have seen a flourishing of expressions worthy ofsocial-liberalism: public freedoms, privatisation, governance, middle classes,free trade, etc.42

At the 8th party congress, under the slogan ‘For a new generation of reforms’,Said Saadi competed with Nabil Benabdallah43 for the post of secretary gen-eral of the PPS. Victory went to the latter, who was at that time the candidatewho had closer links to power.

In the opinion of Zahra Hmimid, ‘the 2011 elections undeniably marked ashift in the discourse of the PPS’ (Hmimid, 2015: 305). Compared with thepositions the party had advocated in previous elections, in which it openlyidentified its enemy as ‘obscurantist forces’ (i.e. political Islamism), after the2011 election, following the victory of the Justice and Development Party(PJD), the PPS ‘transformed, as if by magic, into a political ally’. A few daysbefore the election, the newspaper Al Bayane declared that the party was‘prepared for any alliance with any partner who shares our beliefs’,44 and thusit became a tactical ally of the PJD when it came to forming a government.45

The PPS-PJD Alliance in the 2016 election, standing against the rulingAuthenticity and Modernity Party, led to Benabdallah taking a very strongstance against the royal palace, which he accused of tahakkum (working asthe power behind the scenes). Abdelilah Benkiran did not succeed in forming


a government owing to pressure from the palace. And even though his suc-cessor – Saadeddin El Othmani, another Islamist – kept the PPS in his gov-ernment, the prolonged crisis being experienced in the Rif region gave theking the opportunity, in October 2017, to remove Benabdallah from his posi-tion as minister of housing, accusing him of negligence in the management ofthe development programme in Alhucemas province.

The PPS, which has an electoral ceiling that will be difficult to surpass andis marked by the stigma of its original communist ideology, together with itsclear strategic ambiguities, faces a difficult future among new generations ofMoroccans. However, that does not take away from the fact that it has playedan historic role, albeit a secondary one, which has been markedly over-shadowed by the dominant political forces in each situation.

Notes1 The volume containing the most important documents from this period is Le Parti

Communiste Marocain dans le combat pour l’indépendance nationale. Textes etdocuments 1949–1958, with a preface by Ali Yata dated 4 July 1958, published inParis (Yata, n.d.). The suspension of the party in 1960 is dealt with in the book Unprocès d’inquisition (Parti Communiste Marocain, 1960). One interesting supple-mentary research publication on this period is Ali Yata’s volume Luttes derrière lesbarreaux (1996), as the first volume in a series of seven. However, the remainingsix were left unwritten owing to the author’s death in August 1997.

2 This collection can be found today in the BLG donation of the Islamic Library atAECID in Madrid.

3 I am referring to Serfaty, 1992; Serfaty & Daure-Serfaty, 2002; and Serfaty &Elbaz, 2001.

4 I was the Madrid correspondent from 1977 to 1980, during which time I publisheda series of articles on the Spanish Transition.

5 My first attempt at describing the party’s history was López García, 1978.6 1891–1991. An anti-colonialist activist, he lived in Oran where he joined the SFIO

and in 1920 he became one of the leaders of the communist splinter group (FrenchSection of the Communist International, which gave rise to the PCF. He left thePCF in 1926, though he always remained on the left. In 1953 he published aclearly anti-colonialist volume (Julien, 1953), which was expanded in subsequenteditions. His book Le Maroc face aux impérialismes 1415–1956 (1978) is a refer-ence work.

7 The origins of trade unionism in Morocco are described by Albert Ayache (1982).8 Born in Algeria in 1905. He worked as a lawyer in Constantine, and in Casablanca

after 1929. He worked as a journalist for the newspaper Clarté in 1936–7. Perse-cuted during the Vichy regime, he enrolled in the 5th Tirailleurs Regiment and diedfrom his war wounds in June 1945.

9 A French geographer (1905–94), he taught at the Muslim school in Rabat from1931. In 1941 he produced a thesis on the Moroccan Atlas region.

10 http://prensahistorica.mcu.es/clandestina/es/consulta/busqueda_referencia.cmd?campo=idtitulo&idValor=46597

11 See López García, 2007. The exiled Spaniard Paquita Gorroño, whom this articlespeaks of extensively, arrived in Rabat in March 1939 and then travelled to Paristhat summer to make contact with the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) leadership,posing as Jean Dresch’s family nanny.


12 Born in Tangiers in 1920 to an Algerian father and a Moroccan mother. When hemoved with his family to Casablanca in 1933, he began working as a teacher at theMaarif, where he met the communist leader Michel Mazella.

13 Many of the communist elements were interned by the Vichy regime at the BouDnib camp. See Oved, 1984: vol. 2, 206.

14 He later published his anti-imperialist writings under the pseudonym of PierreJalée.

15 See Oved, 1984: vol. 2, 208. The Istiqlal Party was founded in January 1944,through the publication of a manifesto that was signed by some 50 nationalists,including the young men Ben Barka and Buabid. This was the most prominentparty in the struggle for independence.

16 However, the MCP’s policy was riddled with ambiguities, since the party’s maga-zine La Nation stated, in its April–May–June 1944 issue, that ‘the MCP aims toprepare Morocco to become a free, independent state’.

17 See Bourquia, 1981: 18–19. Bourquia claims in his article that Abdelkrim Gallab,of Istiqlal, accused the Moroccans from MCP of being ‘French agents’.

18 He was secretary general of the protectorate from 1928 to 1932, ambassador inBarcelona during the Civil War, resident-general in Tunisia (1938–40) and ambas-sador to the USSR (1940–1).

19 L’Opinion du Peuple, Istiqlal’s Francophone organ (1 September 1946). Quoted byOved, 1984: vol. 2, 256.

20 It was published as the organ of the PCF (Moroccan section) from 1936 to 1939,and after 1944 as the organ of the MCP. From 1945 to 1949 the MCP controlledthe newspaper Le Petit Marocain through the Confédération Generale du Travail.

21 See the instalment Presse democratique au Maroc: bilan et difficultés, which includedlectures on the subject by Ali Yata (1982).

22 On 8 June 1948, three weeks after the beginning of the Arab-Israeli war in Pales-tine, a pogrom took place in the mining town of Yerada, near the Algerian border,in which 38 Jews were massacred, including whole families, representing a third ofthe town’s Jewish population. The MCP staged protests over the authorities’ bela-ted intervention. Among the accusations aimed at Yata, and which led to calls forhis expatriation, was the fact that pamphlets had been found in his car accusingthe Residency of being responsible for the massacre at Uxda.

23 ‘30 Mars 1912… 30 Mars 1950. 38 ans de Protectorat, mais aussi 38 ans de lutteanti-impérialiste’, in Yata, n.d.: 15–23.

24 Other attacks on MCP leaders took place during those early days after independence,including the murder of the worker Mohamed Ben Setti.

25 With regard to positive neutralism, Ana Torres cites the United States govern-ment’s misgivings, in 1961, at the fact that ‘Morocco had voted on the side of theUSSR more times than any other country outside the Communist bloc’ (Torres,2012: 79). In fact, Morocco’s good relations with the USSR were more part of ablackmail strategy to obtain advantages from the United States, though admittedlyin February 1961 Morocco received MIG aeroplanes from the USSR, at the sametime as the Soviet president Leonid Brezhnev visited Rabat. See also Berramdane,1987: 180.

26 Communiqué from 10 April 1956, in Yata, n.d.: 250. This claim was shared by thePCE with whom the Moroccan party maintained fraternal relations until 1975.

27 The MCP countered both accusations. See the aforementioned book Un procèsd’inquisition (Parti Communiste Marocain, 1960).

28 It was published from 1960 to 1964, and in its final two years included a bulletintranslated into French. Between March 1965 and September 1969 Al-kifah al-wataní (The National Struggle) was the organ of the party.

29 Ali Yata published a leaflet titled Mauritania, true Moroccan land (‘Mawritaniya,Iqlim magribí Asíl’), Casablanca, 16 October 1960.


30 See the leaflet ‘Une constitution par le peuple pour le peuple’, which includes thearticles published in issue nos 100 to 105 of Al Moukafih, Casablanca, October1962.

31 Pseudonym of Rémy Leveau, cooperating worker at that time in Morocco’s Ministryof the Interior.

32 Pour resoudre la crise actuelle. Programme Minimum de Redressement National etde Progrès Démocratique et Social, Casablanca, Imprigéma, April 1965.

33 We should remember that Mehdi Ben Barka and other party leaders were in exileresulting from harsh sentences following accusations of plotting against the state in1963.

34 Parti de la Libération et du Socialisme. Statuts, Casablanca, Imprimerie Almaarif,July 1968.

35 Strike held on 4 July 1970 on the occasion of the visit by the Spanish ministerLópez Bravo to Rabat, at a time when the two countries were pondering the ideaof Spanish–Moroccan cooperation for mining phosphates in the Sahara. See thearticles published in ABC 3–5 July 1970, in which no mention is made of the stu-dents’ strike, though the newspaper does mention the banning of Istiqlal’s news-paper L’Opinion owing to unfriendly comments it had made about the minister.

36 Most of the leaders of Ila Al Amam were imprisoned between 1972 and 1974, andgiven heavy jail sentences. The main accusation against them was their defence ofthe free determination of the Saharawi people.

37 The Saharawi question was the big issue separating the party from the PCE. Atthe first PPS congress in May 1975, the PCE sent a delegate who considered thatthe photograph of the king in the meeting hall was inappropriate. A commissioncomprised of Aziz Belal and Ismail Alaoui went to Madrid to invite the PCE tothe 2nd PPS congress, but they were turned away by Manuel Azcárate, the PCE’shead of foreign affairs, an event that I myself witnessed.

38 See the interview with Simon Lévy by Driss Ksikes in Telquel: ‘Interview-vérité.Simon Lévy. “Pas de rupture avec les Marocains d’Israël”’. Simon Lévy (Fez1935–Casablanca 2011) was a Hispanist, a university lecturer and a trade unionist.He was the founder and director of the only Judeo-Moroccan museum in Mor-occo. His wife, Encarnación Ragel, who came from a Spanish family that hadsettled in Orán, was the sister of Rosalía, Ali Yata’s wife.

39 Alternative document ‘Lá Zilna ‘ala ttariq’ written by Simon Lévy after the 5thCongress.

40 Omar Fassi Fihri and Mohamed Said Saadi were, respectively, the secretary ofstate for the Ministry of Higher Education responsible for scientific research, andthe secretary of state for the Ministry of Labour responsible for social protection,the family and children.

41 In July 1997, on the eve of the legislative elections to create the alternation gov-ernment, the PPS suffered a split that led to the emergence of the Front ofDemocratic Forces, headed by ex-member Thami El Khyari, thanks to theconnivance of Driss Basri, minister for the interior.

42 ‘Tribune de Mohamed Saïd Saadi: Progresisme, où vas tu?’ in Telquel, 24 January2012.

43 Editor of the newspaper Al Bayane from 1997 to 2000, he was minister of com-munication and spokesman for Driss Jettou’s government between 2002 and 2007.During the period 2009–10 he was ambassador to Italy.

44 On 12–13 November 2011. Included in Hmimid, 2015.45 At Simon Lévy’s funeral in Casablanca’s Jewish cemetery, Abdelilah Benkiran, the

prime minister in pectore was present, sitting in the first row with the PPS secre-tary, Benabdallah, who was appointed minister of housing and urban planning inthe new government formed in early 2012. Other PPS ministers in the Benkiran


government included El Hossein El Ouardi (health), Abdelwahed Souhail (labour)and Mohamed Amin Sbihi (culture).

ReferencesAyache, Albert (1982) Le mouvement syndical au Maroc de 1919 a 1942, Vol. 1, Paris,

L’Harmattan.Belal, Abdelaziz (1981) ‘Lutte du Parti contre les répressions et pour la démocratie’. In

Bourquia, A., Layachi, A., Lévy, S. & Belal, A. (Eds), 35 années de lutte. Études surl’histoire du PCM. Casablanca, Editions Al Bayane.

Berramdane, Abdelkhaleq (1987) Le Maroc et l’Occident 1800–1974, Paris, Karthala.Bourquia, Abdesalam (1981) ‘Le debut de la Marche vers l’indépendence: 1943–1951.

Période de la création et du developpement du PCM’. In Bourquia, A., Layachi, A.,Lévy, S. & Belal, A. (Eds), 35 années de lutte. Études sur l’histoire du PCM,Casablanca, Editions Al Bayane.

Gallissot, René (1964) Le Patronat Européen au Maroc: action sociale, action politique(1931–1942), Rabat, Editions Techniques Nord-Africaines.

Gallissot, R. (Ed.) (1978) Mouvement ouvrier, communisme et nationalismes dans lemonde arabe, Paris, Les Editions ouvrières.

Hmimid, Zahra (2015) Discours et idéologie du PPS et de l’USFP, Rabat, ImprimerieRabat-Net.

Julien, Charles André (1953) L’Afrique du nord en marche. Nationalismes musulmanset souveraineté française, Paris, Julliard.

Julien, Charles André (1978) Le Maroc face aux impérialismes 1415–1956, Paris,Editions Jeune Afrique.

Layachi, Abdallah (1981) ‘1951–1956: Étape décisive des luttes populaires pour lareconquête de l’indépendance nationale’. In Bourquia, A., Layachi, A., Lévy, S. &Belal, A. (Eds), 35 années de lutte. Études sur l’histoire du PCM, Casablanca,Editions Al Bayane.

López García, Bernabé (1978) ‘Los comunistas marroquíes ante la cuestión delSahara: entrevista a Ali Yata Secretario General del PPS (PCM)’. Materiales:crítica de la cultura, 8.

López García, Bernabé (1989) Política y movimientos sociales en el Magreb, Madrid,Siglo XXI-CIS.

López García, Bernabé (2007) ‘El olvido del exilio de los españoles en el Norte afri-cano. La investigación sobre el exilio y la emigración de los españoles en Marrue-cos’. In López García, B. & Hernando de Larramendi Martínez, M. (Eds), Historiay memoria de las relaciones hispano-marroquíes. Un balance en el cincuentenario dela independencia de Marruecos, Madrid, Ediciones del Oriente y del Mediterráneo.

Marais, Octave (1963) ‘L’élection de la Chambre des représentants du Maroc’.Annuaire de l’Afrique du Nord, 2.

Oved, Georges (1984) La gauche française et le nationalisme marocain 1905–1955:Tentations et limites du réformisme colonial, 2 vols, Paris, Harmattan.

Parti Communiste Marocain (1960) Un procès d’inquisition, Paris, Provence-Impression.

Rézette, Robert (1955) Les partis politiques marocains, Paris, Armand Colin.Serfaty, Abraham (1992) Dans les prisons du roi: écrits de Kenitra sur le Maroc, Paris,

Messidor.


Serfaty, Abraham & Daure-Serfaty, Christine (2002) La mémoire de l’autre, Casablanca,Tarik Editions.

Serfaty, Abraham & Elbaz, Mikhaël (2001) L’insoumis: Juifs, Marocains et rebelles,Paris, Desclée de Brouwer.

Torres, Ana (2012) La guerra de las arenas. Conflicto entre Marruecos y Argeliadurante la Guerra Fría (1963), Barcelona, Bellaterra.

Vermeeren, Pierre (2010) Histoire du Maroc depuis l’indépendence, Paris, LaDécouverte.

Waterbury, John (1975) Le Commandeur des croyants, Paris, PUF.Yata, Ali (1966a) L’Union, impératif de l’heure, Casablanca, n.p.Yata, Ali (1966b) Les problèmes actuels de la Révolution Nationale Démocratique au

Maroc, Casablanca, Imprigéma.Yata, Ali (1974) Une orientation nouvelle s’impose pour vaincre définitivement la crise,

Casablanca, Imprimerie Al Maarif.Yata, Ali (1979) Les taches actuelles de la Révolution Nationales Démocratique et la

contribution du PPS, Casablanca, Imprimerie Al Maarif.Yata, Ali (1982) La presse démocratique au Maroc: bilan et difficultés, Casablanca, Al

Bayane.Yata, Ali (1996) Luttes derrière les barreaux, Casablanca, Editions Al Bayane.Yata, Ali (n.d.) Le Parti Communiste Marocain dans le combat pour l’indépendance

nationale. Textes et documents 1949–1958, Paris, n.p.


Part II

Context, debates andcross-cutting issues

13 Islamists and communistsA history of Arab convergenze parallele

Luz Gómez García

In 1919, amidst the discussion on the future of the Arab territories within theOttoman Empire after the Paris Conference, Muhammad Rashid Rida pub-lished an article in the magazine Al-Manar with the title ‘Socialism, Bol-shevism and Religion’ (1919).1 By that time, Rida had already taken thedoctrinal postulates of the Islamic reformism of his master, the Egyptiansheykh Muhammad Abduh, to a prominently political dimension, thecommon framework that nowadays we refer to as ‘Islamism’, or perhaps itwould be more accurate to call it ‘Islamisms’ due to the ideological pluralityof its expressions. Al-Manar was a theoretical laboratory of the politicalIslam/Islamism that in the following years was institutionalized in very dif-ferent ways through the foundation of the association of the Muslim Brothersin Egypt (1928) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (1932). Rida, who wasborn in Ottoman Syria and today Lebanon, set up in Egypt and became thementor of his Saudi contemporaries, broke down in this article the mainpoints of what would become during the 20th century a meandering rela-tionship between Islamists and socialists/communists. Not even the fall of theBerlin Wall in 1989 or the post-Islamist dribblings of the Muslim youth in the21st century has dismantled the common imaginary that, even if protested byboth sides, has proven to have great performative soundness. This experiencereminds us of what Aldo Moro called, within the Italian context of the 1960s,convergenze parallele (convergent parallels): two political projects that moveforward in different paths, parallel but also bound to meet.2 The imaginary ofthe convergence between Islamists and communists and its performancesduring the last century will be analysed in these pages.

1 The imaginary: when the circumstantial becomes chronic

The imaginary dimensions of the connections between Islamism and com-munism follow both from the reading of Marxism carried out by the Islamistsand from the selective Islam that the Arab communists sometimes recur to.Rashid Rida’s interpretation of the Bolshevik revolution was a breakthroughas it came ahead of the time of the Islamist and communist activism duringthe Second World War, and influenced future approaches to Marxism by

Muslim thinkers. Based on Rida, there are two constants regarding theseapproaches: acceptance of the historical materialism, but not the dialecticalone; and distinction between communism and socialism in order to reject theformer and redefine the latter. Thus, socialism is taken as the path to freedomand equality through progress and democracy, according to the cultural andstructural conditions of each society.

Rida begins by distinguishing between the Bolshevik acts and institutions‘that do not comply with the rules of Islam’ and its philosophy. He points outthat, while in the first elements the Bolsheviks are not different from theEuropeans, Ottomans and Egyptians, the main aim of the Bolsheviks unitesthem with the Muslims against the others, as ‘the success of the Socialists willend the slavery of the people, all of them workers’ (Rida, 1919: 254).

The use of language in this text is important regarding the future rhetoricof Islamists. Rida adopts the term ‘socialist’ (ishtiraki) as a synonym of‘Bolshevik’ (balshafiki), but he never uses ‘communists’ (shuyu‘i), establishing,therefore, what would be one of the distinctive signs of the relationshipbetween Islamists and socialism: the categorical rejection of ‘communism’ asrelated to ‘atheism’, the main doctrinal obstacle in the relationship of bothmovements. As for the meanings, Rida upholds that ‘socialism’ is equal to‘majority’, a translation of the Russian word ‘Bolshevik’, and that thismajority are the ‘workers’. Based on this identification, he claims that ‘99% ofthe planet inhabitants are Socialists or Bolsheviks’, and that this majority‘demands that the world peace is built on solid and fair foundations, and thatthe workers of anywhere in the world are guaranteed decent life conditions’(Rida, 1919: 255). The main novelty is that these workers that were silent arenow aware of their power: in Russia ‘they have created the first popular gov-ernment in the world’ and the rest of the world’s workers support them,‘Everything is in the hands of the people. It is them who can make the worldmove forward and the general revolution seek for justice and peace’ (Rida,1919: 256).

Finally, based on this interpretation of socialist Bolshevism, Rida claimsthat the establishment of a new society requires the conquest of the state andthe redefinition of the homeland. In terms of Islamic history, this means thatthe time for reform (islah) started in the second half of the 19th century wouldhave come to an end and that the time for revolution (thawra) has alreadystarted. This is 20 years before Albert Hourani’s closure of the Liberal ageand more than 30 before Mohamed Arkoun’s thawra time. Moreover, Ridaputs an end to eight centuries of doctrinal stagnation of political theory ofpower in Islam established by al-Ghazali’s orthodoxy in the 12th century: ‘Toforce the ruler to fulfil the Islamic mandate does not fall to the subjects, asthis would provoke internal conflicts and would spread iniquity and, in thatway, bigger dangers would arise’ (al-Ghazali, s.d.: 2, 371).

In the Bolshevik imaginary described by Rida four elements stand out: thefeud regarding the West; universalism; the central position of the workerswithin the social body; and the goodness of revolutionary change. The

242 Luz Gómez García

similarities regarding the Salafist ideology that he transmitted in the magazineAl-Manar are obvious.3 As a synthesis, these parallelisms can be drawn:the decadence of the Muslim societies is at the same time cause and con-sequence of the Western colonial voracity, and this decadence has deepenedas the Muslim communities have moved away from the teachings of the firstMuslims; the strength of the Muslim people resides in its unity, embodied inthe umma (the universal community of all the believers), in which every indi-vidual takes part in living according to the sharia (Islamic rule); and a new re-Islamizing force must overcome submission to an unfair ruler that the fiqh(Islamic jurisprudence) established. Rida, fascinated by the Bolshevik revolu-tion, seems to advocate for a mass revolution in this last proposal, eventhough his work as a whole stands more for the leader role of a ‘fair despot’.

It is significant that the conjunction of interests with the socialists describedby Rida is circumstantial and that it is the pressure of the circumstances thatdetermines this relationship and its ideological production. As Marx pointedout in 1845: ‘the production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is atfirst directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourseof men, the language of real life’ (Marx, 1845). Rida’s article is not a list ofshared essential principles. However, we would add that mental productionsas a result of circumstances become chronic and take part in the configura-tion of new ideas. To a large extent, the history of the relationship of Islamistsand communists is determined by this first moment that is reflected in Al-Manar.

Half a century later, Maxime Rodinson proved how it is possible to submitIslamism and communism to a common analytical paradigm as both, asideological movements, belong to the same category (Rodinson, 1972: 130–80). Among what they share, there is the aspiration of a society withoutexploitation or oppression and the belief that claims that the integral appli-cation of the theoretical principles established by their founders will createthis society. Both movements have also given rise to the foundation of variousorganizations. Nevertheless, the model projection is what sets them apart, ascommunism projects itself towards the future and Islamism looks back 14centuries. Starting from the analytical scheme proposed by Rodinson, we aregoing to examine some of the Arab Islamist/communist performances for acentury. Rodinson’s Hegelian frame has been reformulated by adding to itsthree kinds of relationship (crash, conciliation and coexistence), with a fourthwould overcome the dialectic: the defection from communism to Islamism, inwhich the parallels of the famous metaphor of Aldo Moro converge moreclearly than ever.

2 Performances: the staging of the Islamism–communism relationship

As Rodinson points out, the call of communists and Islamists to transformthe world and the dynamics and trajectories of their relationship in themedium term have depended overall on the strategies of national struggle in

Islamists and communists 243

each country, on the circumstances of international geopolitics and on theinfluence of propaganda in each movement.

One of the main characteristics of the imaginary shared by communistsand Islamists is its revolutionary potential. This did not go unnoticed bythe attentive eye of Bernard Lewis at the beginning of the Cold War. Lewiswarned the United States administration in terms of security that manyproblems could derive from an entente cordiale between Muslims andcommunists (Lewis, 1954: 2). Lewis was not wrong even if his intentionswere questionable. In April 1955 the Conference of the Non-Aligned tookplace in Bandung: in the collective imaginary we have a picture of Nasserand Sukarno, were both leaders of the main Muslim countries, promoting anew way of diplomacy and world order along with the Yugoslavian socialistTito and the Indian member of a nationwide party Nehru. The leaders ofwhat later has been known as the Non-Aligned Movement looked for a‘world that could not be’ (Prashad, 2008), but, before and after Bandung,Islamists and communists kept on defying, both together and separately,the illustrated liberal model that had led the Arab world to its state ofdependence.

Crashes, conciliations and coexistence between communists and Islamistshave been produced simultaneously since the 1920s. The Rodinson schemedoes not respond to diachronic criteria, but to a structural one. The turningpoint between the different relationship forms is determined by the role givento two fundamental factors: religion and nation. The major importancegranted by the communists to anti-religious struggle, mainly at the level ofthe infrastructure, the bigger the distance towards the Islamists wouldbecome. When it comes to the national question, it works the other wayround: the more importance granted to national struggle, the bigger theunderstanding. In addition to these general assumptions, other factors deter-mine the interaction, up to the point that the history of the convergenze par-allele between Communists and Islamists makes a distinctive form of Arabpost-modernity in the 1980s: a civic Islamism with Gramscian roots.

2.1 Between coexistence and collaboration

The coexistence between communists and Islamists, embodied in their mutualrecognition, is based on a shared positioning regarding three main issues.These are: opposition to liberal democracy; the planning of productive econ-omy; and the participation of women in political activism. As we will see,sometimes these were main scopes for collaboration, but they were usuallytransversal topics. Even if these three positions favoured tactical under-standings and meetings in certain circumstances, they did not transcend tocommon strategies that would defy the regimes in force with a wide socialfront. They eased a pacific coexistence and a collaborative entente betweenmovements in different moments, but they did not ease the revolutionaryunderstanding that Rida seemed to long for. The conciliation, in terms of


‘Islamic Socialism’ (al-Ghazali, 2005 [1961]) or ‘objective Marxism’ (Laroui,1967), will be more of a theoretical work than a factual reality.

The communist and Islamist rejection to bourgeois-liberal democracy inthe years prior to the Second World War united them in their declaredopposition to the first post-colonial regimes (in Egypt and Iraq, mainly) and,after the war, channelled a popular discontent that revitalized both move-ments. They also shared their stances in favour of the nationalization of theproductive structure and the role of the revolutionary avant-garde in the massmobilization.

In Egypt an example of this convergence is the successful ‘piaster cam-paign’ to build an Egyptian factory of tarbush, led by a university student,Ahmad Husain. In the world economic recession, its motto was ‘Politicalindependence will derive from economic independence’, and Egyptians ofevery political positioning joined the campaign. A year later, in 1933, AhmadHusain founded an Islamist association with Mussolinian characteristics inorganization and doctrine, the so-called Young Egypt (Jankowski, 1975: 11–13). Nevertheless, the war exacerbated the differences regarding the politicalpositioning: while the anti-fascism of communists put them on the Allied side,the anti-British nationalism of the Islamists, led by the Muslim Brothers, tookthem to the Italian-German side. Once the war was finished, it was easier forthe communists to link the political revolution to anti-imperialism, so thenational liberation built a bridge again with the anti-British patriotism of theIslamists. Both got involved in a growing anti-system activism and sharedbarricades in street revolts. The repression provoked by the war in Palestine(1948–9) did not distinguish between the movements either (Fawzy-Rossano,1997: 71).

In 1949 the Young Egypt turned into the Socialist Party of Egypt. Thesocialism of the new party was defined by Ahmad Husain as ‘the socialismthat lies in the essence of Islam and in the heart of its preaching’ (al-Bishri,1983: 390). The motto ‘God, people’ substituted the old one, ‘God, king,nation’. In the parliament of 1950, the only representative of the party, Ibra-him Shukri, defended the reduction of agricultural property to 50 feddans; acooperativism at the agricultural, industrial and commercial levels that wouldallow for state economic planning; and the nationalization of companies vitalfor the country, such as water, oil or transport. In Ahmad Husain’s view, thestruggle for real independence and the end to British prerogatives in Egypt(above all the defence policy and the control of the Suez Canal) was a strug-gle against capitalism, the ultimate cause of colonialism. However, he estab-lished an essential difference between socialism and communism: the relationwith the past. According to Husain, the communist atheism led the Egyptiancommunists to reject their country’s past, whereas the acceptance of thisIslamic past made the socialists consider religion the basis of society: ‘Wemust adore God through the service to the people, freeing them from fear,ignorance, illness and misery’, claimed Ahmad Husain (al-Bishri, 1983: 393).The popularity of this message was notorious and the newspaper of the party,


al-Ishtirakiyya (The Socialism), from 1951 al-Sha‘b al-Jadid (The NewPeople), reached a relevant diffusion.

Also in 1949 the Egyptian Communist Party was founded. The communistsexperienced after the war what is usually called the ‘Egyptianization’ of themovement, that is, a reconfiguration of its leadership in order to put Muslimsand Copts in top positions, displacing the Jews, the majority in the Egyptiancommunism of the 1930s (Botman, 1985). The reason adduced was the needto channel a greater popular rooted party; in the background lay Moscow’sintention to overturn the Trotskyism of significant members of Egyptiancommunism. The divided positioning of the different Egyptian communistmovements regarding internationalism and the creation of the State of Israelfacilitated the task. Moscow and the French Communist Party’s misleadingstrategies ended up provoking the split from the Democratic Movement forNational Liberation, led by the Jewish-origin Henri Curiel, of a group of‘Arab Egyptians’. They were led by Ismail Sabri Abdallah and Fouad Mursi,and refunded the Egyptian Communist Party at the end of 1949 (Gallissot,2009: 55).

Nevertheless, beyond coexistence, the first organic collaborations betweencommunists and Islamists were produced to the warmth of post-war pacifismand the creation of local Arab sections of the World Peace Council. In Egypt,the movement Ansar al-Salam (Friends of the Peace) was founded in 1950,with a clear pluralist vocation. Members of the progressive trends of thewhole political spectrum were involved. Ansar al-Salam was the first experi-ment of a big coalition of opposing forces united by a common aim: a radicalchange in the political system. According to al-Bishri, an important part of itssuccess in Egypt, unlike other Arab countries, was due to the incorporation ofprominent persons, including leftist militants from the Wafd (Delegation)Party (like Aziz Fahmi), some Muslim Brothers (like the sheykh al-Sayfi) andleaders of the Socialist Party of Egypt (as the aforementioned AhmadHusain) and of the National Party (such as Fathi Radwan) (al-Bishri, 1983:439). Moreover, there were women from different movements (Fawzy-Rossano, 1997: 80), including the communists Didar Fawzy-Rossano ofthe Egyptian Movement for National Liberation and Inji Aflatun from Iskra.Its newspaper, al-Katib, reached 22,000 copies. Ansar al-Salam had a clearinternational vocation, and this was given as a reason to deny its legalizationunder the charge of being a communist association.

An extract of Didar Fawzy-Rossano’s memoirs is illustrative of this periodconvergenze parallele between Islamists and communists for organization andaction methods, especially through the active participation of women:

Zeinab al-Ghazali, leader of the Muslim Sisters, was a great ally foralmost a decade. She had a strong character and was very elegant withher hijab and her white long robes of hajja. She was totally committed topolitical action and supported publically avant-garde standings. She wasproud of being a member of a well-rooted family, which had members in


all legal, political and clandestine associations (her sister Hekmat and herbrother Mohammad were Communists; the elder brother, a high-levelpublic servant). In this time, Zeinab attended official invitations fromMoscow. As Khalid Muhammad Khalid, a young sheykh who took partin the meetings of the Egyptian Feminist Union and combined Islam andSocialism; he had just published a work in which the clericalism wasbeaten and that caused a scandal (Min huna Nabda’).

(Fawzy-Rossano, 1997: 80)

The Free Officers Revolution of 1952 transformed this situation completely.The communist and Islamist women saw that the active role that they hadbeen playing in their parties and associations before the revolution had noequivalent in the ways of representation established by the new Republicanregime. Moreover, the women’s demands were set aside in order to achievenational independence with a male face. Didar Fawzy-Rossano wrote in hermemoirs about the short hopeful interregnum after the coup d’état in 1952:

The feminist group of Doria Shafik and Neemat Rashed demanded theright to organize within a political party; we demanded the admission ofwomen within the parties (it has to be said that until then, except fromCommunism and Islamism, we hadn’t had the right to be politically active).However, since January of 1953 we had to resume the underground work.

(Fawzy-Rossano, 1997: 89–90)

The coexistence, collaborative at intervals, that occurred between communistsand Islamists during the Monarchy period disappeared due to their differentfates in the 1960s: the United Egyptian Communist Party split off when thecommunists were restored, while repression against the Muslim Brothers rosein the Nasserist jails.

2.2 From interpreting the world to transforming it: conciliation through Islam

The exploitation of Islam in order to reconcile the communist project with thenational struggle was a strategic need that the different Arab communistmovements embraced from their very beginning. As shown in Husain Mur-uwa’s huge study Materialistic Trends in Arab-Islamic Philosophy (2002), itwas not difficult to find in the turaz, the Arab-Muslim cultural heritage, ele-ments for the ideological conciliation that could promote the association, inGramscian terms, of a ‘new historical bloc’.

As soon as December 1943–January 1944, Khalid Bakdash, a Syrian com-munist leader, gave this eloquent speech in the congress of the CommunistParty of Syria and Lebanon:

And, in the field of national culture (ath-thaqafa al-qawmiyya), we [theSyrian-Lebanese communists] have done our duty to the utmost of our


ability. We have sought inspiration from the Arab patrimony of freedom(at-turath al-horr al-arabi) and we have cherished the best elements ofwisdom and tradition from our Arab forefathers in the bosom of ournational liberation movement. We have adopted in our political strugglethat noble verse (al-´aya al-karima): ‘Their concern is the deliberationbetween them’ (Coran, XLII, 36/38) and that illustrious hadith: ‘He whohelps the oppressor will have the power of Allah against him’; we havemade ours the words of Omar ibn al-Khattab: ‘The most miserable ruleris that who push his citizens to become miserable’ and Khalid ibn al-Walid, whose abnegation and devotion are an admirable example toposterity: ‘I do not fight for Omar!’, and so Arab caliph Omar ibn Abdal-Aziz’s words: ‘Allah sent Mohammad to show the true path, not tolevy taxes’, and the words of Jubran Khalil Jubran: ‘My idol is free-dom’… and many other Arab maxims and sayings which have becomeour mottoes. We have begun to grow because we, unlike some others, donot fear the possibility that such mottoes will reach into the life of thepeople, that the masses will assimilate them and call for their practicalapplication in their national and social life.

(Rodinson, 1972: 173)

And as Gallissot points out, since 1970 socialism in Syria, Algeria and Iraqalso covered itself with references to Arab heritage, references that weremainly Islamic (Gallissot, 1978: 258).

The resort to Islam was not only rhetoric but also strategic, and thecommunists turned to it in order to bypass the dialectical materialism bymeans of appropriating historical materialism. It was a complete turn ofMarxist orthodoxy on revolution, and was quickly adopted by new politicaltrends. Thus, Nasserism naturalized the strategy of ‘the need of undertakingtwo revolutions at the same time’, in Nasser’s words in Falsafat al-thawra(Philosophy of the Revolution), which meant to reject completely the classstruggle for achieving it (Nasser, 1996: 33). Nasserism substituted the classstruggle with the unity of the body nation (which depending on the circum-stance was an Egyptian, an Arab, an African or a Muslim nation) alwaysdevoted to revolutionary change. Baathism shared with Nasserism thisexpress rejection of Marxism, even though both claimed that ‘scientificsocialism’ was the true socialism. Nasserite school books referred to it as‘state socialism’ or ‘white socialism’, in opposition to ‘red socialism’, theCommunist or atheist type (Carré, 1974: 308). Khalid Muhammad Khalid,‘our shaykh’ according to the communist Didar Fawzy-Rossano, provokedthe anger of al-Azhar when he talked in 1950 about a fair, mature, moderateand tolerant socialism, advocate of freedom and equality. This socialismwould bring progress and democracy when religion got rid of the trickery(Khalid, 1979 [1950]). Communists and Islamists saw themselves trapped inthis kind of Muslim revolutionary nationalism with which they shared aims:‘Revolution is Islam and Islam is revolution’, the leftist Islamic philosopher


Hasan Hanafi, advocate of the ‘organic unity’ of Nasserism and Isla, wouldsummarize later (1991: 128).

In addition to an ideological and strategic tool, Islam was also a tool forthe reconfiguration of the communist movement at an organic level. Until thewar in Palestine in 1948, the communist associations of the Middle East hadan important affiliation of Jewish and Christian members, but at the end ofthat decade the instructions from Moscow called for an ‘Arabization’ of Arabcommunism’s leadership. In a broad sense, ‘Arabization’ was equal to ‘Mus-limization’, even though Arab communists have wanted to play down thisreality. Thus, in the opinion of Rif`at al-Sa´id, the representative par excel-lence of Egyptian communism in the second half of the 20th century, theforeignization of Egyptian communism had been the natural consequence ofthe repression suffered by the first communists under the semi-colonial Mon-archy regime, as it was easier for members of the foreign communities, amongthem the Jews, to escape it as they were under a special jurisdiction (al-Sa‘id,1986: 86–7). According to this argument, the renewed Egyptianization wouldhave been an equally natural process. In the opinion of Anouar Abdel Malek,the Egyptianization was positive as it encouraged an encounter with theworker movement, which in 1945 witnessed the foundation of the first leftisttrade union federations (Abdel Malek, 1967: 43). It is meaningful that Saidand Abdel Malek, well-known Marxists, keep the underlying confessionalconflict silent while other intellectuals, who are no less Marxist themselvesbut have more heterodox ways of reflection, such as Didar Fawzi-Rossano orInji Aflatun, do not silence it at all but criticize it as a liberal-bourgeois con-cession (Fawzy-Rossano, 1997; Aflatoun, 2001.

On the other hand, an unforeseen consequence of this Arabization/Muslimization, induced to a greater or lesser degree, was that it served as asalutary lesson regarding the true internationalization of the communistmovements that were left out of institutionalization. Something similar hap-pened to the Muslim Brothers, who were opposed to the conciliation withNasserism and who suffered jail time and exile.

Regarding the communists, the new internationalization forged in exiledetermined the future of communism in the margins of capitalism and eventhe Soviet hegemony. It is usually a marginalized event in the historiographyof this period that the first movements in favour of the alter-globalizationwere born from Arab communism, as it is reflected in the biography of theEgyptian Henri Curiel (Perrault, 2006; Gallissot, 2009), the first ‘citizen ofthe Third World’ (Perrault, 1998). Even though this new way of collectiveaction did not crystallize, or it has not yet done so at an institutional level, ithas been at boiling point since the revolts of 2011 (Galián, 2015).

When it comes to the Islamists, the lack of channels for participation in theNasserite or Baathist system and the massive exile of Egyptian and SyrianIslamists to Saudi Arabia in the 1970s delocalized Islamism. First, theMuslim Brothers ‘grafted’ the Saudi Wahhabism with their MediterraneanIslamism (Menoret, 2004: 90) and, afterwards, globalization arrived (Gómez


García, 2011: 26), whose consequences have been the Al-Qaeda network andthe foundation of ISIS.

2.3 Ideological conflicts and tactical confrontations

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Islamist thinkers who were con-noisseurs of Marxism understood that the facts proved that they were rightwhen they denied the scientific validity of dialectical materialism. The visionopposed to religion in the philosophy of the praxis and the central role givento the class struggle were pointed as the reasons for the failure of communism.The Occidentosis theory, they said, had anticipated it.

In 1962 the Iranian intellectual Yalal Al-e Ahmad coined the expression‘occidentosis’ (garbzadeghi) (1984). He gave it a secular meaning but at thesame time it reflected a widespread opinion among Islamists, although itlacked a precise signifier. Grosso modo, ‘occidentosis’ would be the illness ofthe Third World, intoxicated both by capitalism and communism, worldviewsforeign to Third World history, thinking and material facts. Islamists haveresorted to the occidentosis explanation in very different ways. For an enligh-tened Islamist such as the Egyptian Tariq al-Bishri, tagrib, the compulsoryconversion to the Western worldview, explains Islamist radicalization and itsviolent drift at the hands of the Egyptian Jama‘at Islamiyya at the end of the1970s; even more, he warned about the imminence of a new Al-Andalus ifthe Arab world did not face the tagrib in all its ways (al-Bishri, 1986: 59). Forthe Muslim Brothers, behind the ‘occidentosis’ there is the ‘hand of Israel,America, Zionism, Masonry and international Communism’, who are alliedin order to prevent the Muslim people from looking for independent ways ofdevelopment (al-Sha‘b: 7 June 1988).4 For the Jama‘at Islamiyya, when con-fronted by the Muslim Brothers because of their pro-Iraqi positioning duringthe Gulf War in 1991, even the Muslim Brothers were communists due totheir totalitarian strives when they proclaim themselves the sole representativesof the umma and its rebirth (Al-Nur: 13 October 1990).

Regarding religion, the well-known passage on religion as people’s opiumin Marx and Engels’ ‘Introduction’ to A Contribution to the Critique ofHegel’s Philosophy of Right is an obstacle that is difficult to ignore: ‘Religiousmisery is, at one and the same time, the expression of real misery and theprotest against real misery. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature,the soul of a heartless world, as well as the spirit of spiritless conditions. It isthe opium of the people’ (Marx, 1844).

The Arab Marxists have tried to elude this passage emphasizing Islam as anational imprint, aside of its religious character. They appointed Islam as astrategic value when it came to positioning themselves against cultural reli-ance. Thus, at the end of the 1960s the Moroccan philosopher AbdallahLaroui ventured to defend ‘objective Marxism’ as ‘the necessary consequenceof the ideologies in motion in the Arab societies’, an ideology favouredamong others by the Arab people as it is more critical towards ‘the bourgeois


West’ (Laroui, 1967: 153). Only recently some Marxist scholars, such as theLebanese Gilbert Achcar, have reinterpreted the above passage. Achcar hasemphasized that Marx did not develop the part of the exposition that makesreference to religion as ‘protest against real misery’, and he upholds that ifMarx had done it he should have written the following: ‘It is, at one and thesame time, the opium and the cocaine of the people’ (Achcar, 2013: 15).Cocaine, as Achcar explains, works as a stimulator in the nervous system andprovokes a feeling of great energy and euphoria, which can lead to a praxislike the one that, ironically, wants to change the world thanks to religion, asdoes Islamic fundamentalism. Achcar’s criticism of the Islamists is moredevastating in contrast to his defence of the Liberation theology.

As for class struggle, communists and Islamists have fought from the 1930sfor leading the avant-garde among workers, with different strategies andopposing goals.

For the communists, the main aims were their implantation in the factoriesand the organization of an independent trade union movement, which wasnot an easy task in the early context of the independences (Ortega Fuentes,2016: 49–57). Class struggle was subordinated to the common nationalstruggle. In this sense, the word ‘people’ (sha‘b) substituted the word ‘workers’(‘ummal) in Arab communists’ speeches, converging with the Islamists’ rheto-ric (see the above-mentioned name of the Young Egypt Party’s newspaper, al-Sha‘b al-Jadid). In fact, the communist pursuit of hegemony has tended to bea social transversality that looks for spaces dominated by their opponents.

However, at the bottom of this structural distinctiveness of Arab commun-ism lies the general dilemma faced by communists in the Muslim world: theneed to face an opposition that is more ethical than economical. Thus, thedenigratory accusation of being a ‘communist’ ends up being interchangeablewith being a ‘capitalist’, and conversely, a bourgeois is as depraved as acommunist. A couple of examples of the two borders of the Arab world: inIraq, Baathists and Nasserites attacked General Qasim’s governmentdenouncing the dissolute nature of the ‘communist’ habits that it had imple-mented outside of Islamic tradition (Gallissot, 1978: 289); in Morocco, thetrade unions attacked the bourgeoisie for being ‘decadent, licentious, and witha depraved and nihilist luxury’ (Laroui, 1967: 150).

As far as the Islamists are concerned, they draw heavily on a doctrinalinterpretation of Islam that condemns the class struggle as a source of fitna,civil war. In Rida’s article, this denial is implicit in his emphasis on the 90percent working majority within the population. Abd al-Qadir ‘Awdah, thefirst significant political theorist of the Muslim Brothers, hanged in 1954,proposed a social model composed of workers and owners united andupholders of a ‘productive property’ (Khalaf Allah, 1989: 56–8). Accordingto this scheme, ‘the mutual social responsibility’ (al-takaful al-ijtima‘i) is theIslamic principle that protects the workers from owner abuses. This maindivergence regarding the communist model prevented any forthcomingunderstanding between communists and Islamists, unlike what happened in


the 1930s, when they collaborated in the first Egyptian trade unions, theShubra al-Khayma Mechanized Textile Workers’ Union (Beinin, 1988).

2.4 The defection: Adil Husain, from communism to Islam

I spent many years fighting under aegis of Marxism and Communism, con-vinced, as many other loyal compatriots, that this was the way for achieving thebetter for my people and my homeland. However, due to study, reflection, myown experience and, above all, the help of God, it was getting clear to me thatMarxism did not represent the magic and scientific solution I was hoping forthe problems of Egypt and humankind. And what is more important, I realizedthat the religion of ungodliness and atheism that is the base of Marxism, thatis, the dialectical materialism, could only characterize a corrupt society anddeformed individuals. For me, it was clear that the true religion, the one Godrevealed for our salvation, is the only one that guides us to an ideal society.

(Adil Husain, al-Sha‘b: 21 March 1989)

In this statement, Adil Husain, former militant of the Egyptian CommunistParty and younger brother of Young Egypt leader Ahmad Husain, explains hisjourney from Marxism to Islamism. In his opinion, the rectification is solelyformal, an internal progression related to the leitmotiv of his life: service to thehomeland. Islam becomes a way, not a destination, to the extent that a strongideology with a religious legitimist foundation can become the driving force ofthe revolution if it is able to form an anti-hegemonic social bloc. The media,which was the press in 1980s Egypt, was the vehicle of the ‘war of position’ ofAdil Husain. Therefore, in 1985 he took charge of the editorial office of al-Sha‘b, the newspaper of the Socialist Labour Party founded in 1978 after theCorrective Revolution of President Anouar al-Sadat.

For the Islamists that came from Gramscian Marxism, the transformation offaith into ideology for praxis was possible due to the emancipatory potential ofIslam, bearer of a new way of life and a new culture for humanity (nizam kamilin their terminology). The Arab communist leaders of the 1940s and 1950s hadeluded the religious hurdle of not taking the rejection of religion to infrastructurelevels, so any people could be integrated. Didar Fawzy-Rossano has describedthe environment of her youth communist committees, in which Adil Husaintook part, and has noted that they tended to be more action than ideologicaldiscussions or worries about sexual freedom or Islam (Fawzy-Rossano, 1997:47). Tariq al-Bishri and Muhammad Imara in Egypt, Rashid al-Gannushi inTunisia and Hasan al-Turabi in Sudan are the most prominent names among thegroup of defectors from Marxism to Islamism in the 1980s.5

The rethinking of communist principles by these Arab intellectuals beganthe previous decade, at the same time as the European discussion about‘returning to Marx’.6 The discovery of the text Formen die der Kapitalis-tischen Produktion vorhergehen (Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations) pro-voked among the Arab Marxists a particular debate about the validity of the


‘Asiatic mode of production’. The magazine al-Tali‘a collected some of thediscussions, such as Adil Husain’s on the adaptation of the Chinese Maoistexperience to the Arab-Muslim context (Husain, 1983: vol. 1, 459–525). ThisEgyptian Marxist-turned-Islamist engaged in a polemic with Samir Amin inwhich the former accused the latter of deliberately omitting Muslim ‘culturalvalues’ in his theory of the peripheral formations. He went further and sket-ched a philosophy of Muslim praxis based on his theory on dependence(Gómez García, 1996). It is possible to highlight four axes in this neo-Gramscian civic Islamism. They summarize different solutions to the con-vergenze parallele between Islamism and communism that we have beenanalysing so far:

1 Religious principles and the economic system are inseparable. Husainremembers that the life of the homo islamicus as a whole is shaped by thetawhid, the principle of divine unity. And he adds that the hisba (theKoranic imperative of ‘Commanding good, forbidding evil’) involvesthe men in the daily update of the tawhid and implies a righteous man whois socially responsible and altruistic. However, the expansion of this kind ofindividual would only be possible within the institutional framework of thestate, because it’s a guarantee for a true development, characterized asindependent, global and sustained. Adil Husain sides with the critics oforthodox Marxism that claim that the economic development cannot bereduced to economic growth, and much less split into a series of categoriesthat distinguish between productive relations and forces of production.

2 An interesting example of this explanation is German reunification. AdilHusain upheld that state intervention, by means of the Central Bank andprotectionism, went along with the cultural education of people who hadtrust in their abilities. If this conjunction enabled the ‘miracle’ of Germanreunification, to extrapolate it to Arab unification would imply embodyingthe religious values in material realizations such as Islamic investment com-panies and Islamic banks, so suspicious for Mubarak’s regime (see note 3).

3 The accumulation of unproductive capital is haram (‘illicit’, as set forth inthe fiqh). Adil Husain condemns unproductiveness both in the managing ofproperty and speculative enrichment activities. He explains that the Kora-nic interdiction of usury agrees with the principle that work must be thebase of the economy. Al-Mutrafun (‘the opulent ones’) is the Koranic voicethat stigmatizes richness as a source of iniquity and Adil Husain used it inthe 1990s as a substitute for the ‘spongers and parasites’ of previous texts.Doubtlessly, there is still some reminiscences of the non-alienated work ofthe primitive villages of the Asiatic mode of production, but this newlanguage establishes a great distance toward the Leninist parameter.7

4 Distributive justice derives from the duty of paying the zakat. ForHusain, the doctrinal zakat does not limit itself to revert to the under-privileged the part of national wealth that belongs to them, but it is also atax to avoid excessive affluence. Moreover, zakat encourages not only


national solidarity but also an inter-Muslim solidarity. Thus, Adil Husainproposes that all the oil-producing countries revert 2.5 percent of thisincome to poorer Muslim countries by means of zakat al-mal (‘zakat onthe goods’) of the 20th century.

5 The struggle to implement the Revelation is the driving force for socialchange. Husain insists that the neglect of the Revelation has caused thedecline of Arab societies because it has led them to ‘sedition and con-flicts, which has disrupted the development and opened the doors to for-eign conspirators’ (Husain, 1990: 54). He rejects class struggle andadvocates for social methods of integration: while he once advocated thata ‘democratic revolutionary leadership’ was the first step to displace the‘parasitic bourgeoisie’ (Husain, 1985: 229–30), the Husain of 1990 givesway to the foundation of a ‘civil society’ within a state that guaranteesthe ‘democratic rights of the individuals’ (Husain, 1990: 53).

Adil Husain died in 2001, after some months in prison and the illegaliza-tion of his party and newspaper. Although a minority project, Husain’s ven-ture has continued its progress on the ideological and political levels, asevidenced by the current semi-clandestine Egyptian party Hizb al-Istiqlal(Independence Party).

3 A post-epilogue, but both communist and Islamist

In 2012, Madeeha Anwar Muhammad, a university student from Alexandriaand member of the Revolutionary Socialist Movement, sat in front of Leil-Zahra Mortada’s camera wearing a niqab. 8 She argued for the separation ofreligion and politics and stated that it is perfectly possible to be Muslim andcommunist, or like herself, Muslim and leftist. Moreover, she fervently claimedthat her niqab was voluntary and not at all irreconcilable with the politicalactivism that was her duty as a woman and citizen. Her revolutionary, feminist,non-pacifist and socialist statement is one more link of the shared history ofcommunists and Islamists. Even if the one of Madeeha is, currently, anotherfailed revolution, this post-Islamist performance of Islamism and communismkeeps on the path started in 1919. And as we have tried to show, this is not dueto hypothetical shared essences between both ideologies but to the persistenceof the circumstances that makes the meeting between the two parallels possible,that is, the persistence of tyranny and underdevelopment.

Notes1 This article is part of the ongoing I+D+i Spanish project ALAM (FFI2014–54667-R).2 In October 1959, Aldo Moro was elected secretary general of the Christian

Democracy in a congress in which he allegedly predicted the need to establish aconvergenze paralelle with the laic parties in order to promote the meeting pointsthat would take Italy out of an ungovernable state. The tactical approach betweenChristian democrats and socialists, which the communists would join in the 1970s,


took place during the next decade. The expression, the epitome of the career ofMoro, seems to have been created by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari (Capurso,2011: 252).

3 The Al-Manar number included in the article of Rida on Bolshevism dedicatesmany of its pages to Wahhabism, including a long article on ‘the Wahhabi schooland creed’ and some articles on the political vicissitudes of the Hijaz and Syriaregarding the Saudi plans.

4 We take this sentence from a member of the Islamic Coalition pronounced in thesession of the Egyptian Parliament that illegalized Islamic investment companies(Sharikat Tawzif al-Amwal), a financial formula used by many Islamists to investwithin the Egyptian financial system.

5 This list could be expanded with the Kuwaiti Muhammad al-Rumayihi, the JordanFahmi Ya‘dan or the Egyptian brothers Hekmat and Muhammad al-Gazali. Toge-ther, they have received different denominations: liberal Muslims, cultural Islamists,new-heritage Islamists, etc. (Gómez García, 1995: 562–3).

6 Rereading Marx, redefining concepts and setting out problems according to thesedefinitions again were the three main aspects of this ‘returning to Marx’ (Godelier,1978: 15–16).

7 The matter of providing modern tools to Muslim economists through a unifiedIslamic terminology was soon appointed by many authors (see Ahmad, 1980: 357).The above-mentioned Muhammad Imara published a historical dictionary on Islamicpolitical economy in 1993.

8 L. Z. Mortada, Madeeha Anwar, Words of Women from the Egyptian Revolution(2012, episode 7), www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfG4Cp7tt6s (accessed 12 November2016).

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14 The New Left in 1960s and 1970sLebanon and 1917 as model and foil

Laure Guirguis

The Arab defeat of 1967 and, even before, the failure of the Egyptian-SyrianUnion in 1961, had increased a deep sense of loss, fostering a turn to the leftin nationalist movements and enhancing Arab militants’ desire to search foralternative models. In this accelerated change in the Arab political landscape,Ho Chi Minh, Mao Ze Dong and Che Guevara had seemingly eclipsed thefounding father figures of the socialist revolutions, from Nasser to Lenin.

The year of 1917, however, remained central. Considered as the sign of ahistorical event, of a theoretical corpus and of an organizational model, itplayed a paradigmatic role in the reframing of meanings and strategies at thevery moment where the decline of Pan-Arab political projects and the long-lasting discredit of the Arab communist parties give birth to a radical left.The reference to 1917 is at play in addressing three crucial issues that involveboth theoretical and strategic questions: the ‘stagist’ theory, revolutionaryviolence and the role and status of the party.

Furthermore, the political and intellectual experiments of the New Left inLebanon have taken up the challenge to forge a path between the conception ofuniversality as a tool of Western domination and the claim for cultural relati-vism. The multifaceted reference to 1917, and most especially the rereading ofthe Marxist-Leninist corpus, was lying at the core of this endeavour.

All militants and organizations, however, were not committed to theoreticalMarxist analysis. Hence, I will merely focus on two organizations whose mainfigures were high-level intellectuals who engaged in both political activismand theoretical work, namely Socialist Lebanon (SL) and the Organizationfor the Communist Action in Lebanon (al-Hurriyya, OCAL). This chapterdraws on interviews, militant personal writings and publications, in particularthe mouthpieces of the two groups SL and OCAL.

1 The rise of a New Left and the decline of Pan-Arabism: the shiftfrom regional to local challenges and the embedment in a transnationalframe of reference

The New Left arising in Lebanon during the 1960s defined itself against Pan-Arab movements, in their Nasserite and Baathist veins, but also against Arab

communist parties and the Soviet Union (USSR). The Arab communist par-ties have been discredited for having more or less blindly followed the USSRand accepted the United Nations partition plan of Palestine in 1947. Arab‘progressive regimes’ were faulted for having proved unable to free Palestineand achieve Arab unity through a conventional war, while their nationaliza-tions had produced a new state bourgeoisie of military officers and bureaucrats.

In the early 1960s, the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM) was followingNasser’s strategy of harassing Israel though refraining from entering the war(Kazziha, 1975; Sayigh, 1991). However, dissensions between the ‘leftist’ and‘rightist’ wings had started fissuring the ANM as early as 1957. MohsenIbrahim expressed them publicly in 1960 when he unexpectedly published anarticle that challenged the theory of the historical stages1 and later directlycriticized the leadership of the movement for not having taken into accountthe prevalence of the economic factors, thereby failing on both the nationaland social fronts.2 He even went further by calling the movement to relin-quish its autonomy and merge in a socialist organization under the leadershipof Nasser.3 These dissensions combined with the internal pressure of thePalestinian branch of the movement and the external pressure of new orga-nizations, such as the Fatah, which were urging the leadership to launch aguerrilla war against Israel (Sayigh, 1992), referring either to the Vietnameseor to the Guevarist strategy.

After the defeat of 1967, the ANM set out an analysis of the situationacknowledging the development of a new form of colonialism that had wageda ferocious war at a global scale, and against which the only possible responsewas a global war. The communiqué of the ANM thereby criticized the ‘petitbourgeois’ leadership of the Arab regimes and the movement itself, andadvocated handing over the leadership of the movement to the ‘workingclasses, the peasants, and parts of the petite bourgeoisie’.4 Drawing explicitlyon the Guevarian motto (create 2, 3… Vietnam) and nurtured by the recentvictory of the revolution in South Yemen, the ANM ultimately announced itsdecision to engage in the armed struggle. This late decision, though, did nothinder the dissolution of the movement as a centralized organization (1969):while its Arab claims were falling apart, it did not nevertheless manage tofully transform into a Palestinian organization (Sayigh, 1991). Heading theLebanese branch of the movement, Mohsen Ibrahim established in 1969 theOrganization of the Lebanese Socialists (Ibrahim, 1970), while the Palestinianbranch under the leadership of Georges Habbash gave birth to the PopularFront for the Liberation of Palestine, that borrowed Marxist notions butremained reluctant to adopt communism (Habash & Matar, 1984). After ashort experiment in the latter organization, Nayef Hawatmeh created a groupof his own, the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine(PDFLP), which also reclaimed its Marxist-Leninist roots.5

In the meantime, the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) was also goingthrough a multilayered crisis. Younger generations of cadres were challenginga pro-Bakdash old guard. They were asking for the democratization of the

The New Left in 1960s and 1970s Lebanon 259

internal functioning of the party, and for the rethinking of the party’s positiontowards the USSR and, first and foremost, towards Palestine. Rising to lead-ing positions in the party, several cadres attempted to initiate reforms frominside, as reflected in the 2nd Congress of the Party in 1968 (Lebanese Com-munist Party, 1968). Other party members started navigating between theLCP and Palestinian organizations or recently established groups of the NewLeft. One of them directly emerged from the ranks of the LCP: the Union ofthe Lebanese Communists (1968–71).

For its part, SL (1964–1971) was mainly formed of former members of theSyrian Baath Party, such as Fawwaz Traboulsi and Waddah Charara, amongothers, and was joined in 1967 by another leading figure, Ahmad Beydoun.Between 1964 and 1971, SL published, on a more or less regular basis, some 20issues of a clandestine journal (roneographed), also entitled Socialist Lebanon, inaddition to a few supplements. Beginning with 1969, SL and the Organization ofthe Lebanese Socialists started discussing and preparing the fusion of the twogroups, which was publicly announced in 1971: the most important organizationof the Lebanese New Left was born, namely the OCAL. The OCAL and thePDFLP jointly published the weekly newspaper al-Hurriyya that was initially,from 1960, the mouthpiece of the Lebanese branch of the ANM. However, in1971, the PDFLP suspended the publication due to ideological and politicaldisagreements with the OCAL, which then had to publish its communiqués andarticles in other publications, mainly in the newspaper Al-Raya.

The lowest common denominator of these organizations at the left of theleft lies in the belief of the necessity to launch a popular armed struggle/popular liberation war. Shaped by a transnational interpretative frameworkmore or less inspired by Marxism, they were embedded within the widerdynamics of the Cold War, emancipation struggles and the tri-continent.This entanglement of the New Left in transnational networks and frames ofreference nevertheless combined with a shift from pan-Arab to local challenges.

2 Challenging the ‘stagist’ theory and the reframing of politicaland strategic alliances at global, regional and local scales

Militant intellectuals of SL have also established various kinds of connectionswith militant and revolutionary networks in Europe. They paid great atten-tion to the French upheavals in 1968 and to the formation of a New Left inthe United Kingdom, as well as to the rise of dissident groups at the marginsof the Italian Communist Party. Some among them have even participated inthese transformations in the European political landscape, which, in return,have impacted in several ways on their militancy in the Arab world. OftenFrancophone and Anglophone, they have closely followed the development ofa literature critical of Stalinism, and avidly read the Marxist alternatives toStalinism, from Rosa Luxemburg to Gramsci.

They engaged in translating, analysing and teaching the foundational textswritten by Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, thereby closely linking the theoretical,

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strategic and educational aspects of militancy. After the fusion with theOrganization of the Lebanese Socialists in the OCAL, text reading was stillpart of their activities, although the dramatic evolution of the Lebanesesituation in the early 1970s also enhanced them to organize military trainingwith Palestinian organizations.

The first critical issue to be addressed was the interpretation of Marxism asan evolutionism that would posit a historicist logic of stages. As a historicalevent, 1917 represents one of the more convincing arguments against the sta-gist conception of history. At the theoretical level, SL argues that: ‘the Man-ifesto rids Marxism of the charge of evolutionism, which has dominatedMarxist writings for a long time and still prevails in a number of works bycommunist parties’. According to them, the evolutionist interpretations relyon an economic reductionism, which is not authorized by Marx’s text,whereas ‘political structure plays an important role in the development of theforces of production’ (Socialist Lebanon, 1969). Moreover, they consider thatsuch a vision of history implies an ahistorical understanding of history andpolitics, which dismisses Marx and Lenin’s calls for a thorough diagnosis ofthe present’s specificity (Bardawil, 2016).

In so doing, not only do they challenge Stalinist interpretations, but theyalso undermine the postures of the Arab communist parties, as well as thoseof the Arab nationalist regimes, which consider themselves as the leaders ofthe revolutionary liberation. In other words, their reinterpretation of Marxismthrough a retour aux sources allows them to identify Marxist tools of analysisthat lead to a different reading of the current Arab and Lebanese situationsand, thereby, to new choices of alliances at global, regional and local levels.

And perhaps the most significant position premised on evolutionism isthe one that calls for the support of the national bourgeoisie because thehistory of the society in which the communist party is militating hasn’tpassed through all the required stages… feudalism, capitalism, social-ism… It is clear that the Manifesto does not adopt this style of thinkingat all.

(Socialist Lebanon, 1969)

In the current situation, they argue, the revolutionary subject par excellenceis the Palestinian fighter, the Feda’yi. The Palestinian revolution was viewedas the spearhead of a social and political revolution in Lebanon – althoughnot all militants shared such an enthusiastic opinion. Therefore, at the globallevel, they would express their anti-Sovietism and tend to Maoism, especiallyafter the split. At the regional level, SL subjected the nationalist militaryregimes to a leftist critique. Militants have withdrawn their support toBaathist and Nasserite regimes, and allied with Palestinian organizations. Atthe local-national scale, they also opposed the alliance with the nationalbourgeoisie, criticizing both its Chehabist and its Joumblattian versions(Socialist Lebanon, 1969).


But on the battlefield, alliance games are always far more complex than intheory. Defining the attitude to adopt a position towards the front of progressiveforces, parties and personalities – led by Kamal Joumblatt, the Druze leader andpresident of the Socialist Progressive Party – and the choice among existingPalestinian organizations has exacerbated tensions between the LCP and the NewLeft,6 between organizations of the New Left and even between militants affiliatedto the same group. Some would argue that if the Leninist answer in the currentsituation calls for an alliance with the proletariat – i.e. with the revolutionarysubject – and not with the national bourgeoisie, they should connect with theFatah, and more precisely with the left of the Fatah, which was the sole grassrootsorganization. Several militants made this choice, while others started working inpopular neighbourhoods. Instead, the OCAL kept cooperating with the Front ofHawatmeh, which remained a small organization and which numerous militantsdid not consider representative of the Palestinians. After the most important splitin the OCAL occurred in 1973, the remaining group resolutely entered the front ofprogressive forces, parties and personalities – that would become the LebaneseNational Movement in 1975 – and descended into war.

3 The armed struggle: from conventional to people’s war

Let us turn again to 1967 in the immediate aftermath of the Arab defeat,when SL was still coming to terms with the ANM. Responding to the ANM’sultimate change of course before disbanding, SL published a piece in themouthpiece of the organization, Socialist Lebanon: ‘What does it mean toraise the motto of the armed struggle in the current situation?’ The questionintroduced the ANM’s strategy and ideology to its critics. The authorselaborated an argument in three steps.

As a first step, they resorted to Marxist-Leninist teachings. The authorsexplained whether and how Marxism-Leninism authorizes revolutionary vio-lence by combining two levels of analysis. Firstly, they referred to the Marxistconception of revolutionary change, which necessary involves violence, andcited the famous phrase: ‘violence is the midwife that extracts the new societyfrom the womb of the old society’. Hence, the question does not relate to theprinciple of the legitimate use of violence from a Marxist point of view, andthe debates between Marxists in Lebanon do not raise this issue. Rather, itconcerns the timing, as stressed in the very title of the article: is the armedstruggle the main task that Arab national liberation movements must achievenow? Accordingly, and secondly, they once again turned to Marx and Lenin’scalls for a thorough diagnosis of the present’s specificity, and stated thatMarxism could provide accurate tools of analysis. In this piece criticizing theposition of the ANM, though, they did not refer to the Manifesto, but toGuerrilla Warfare, a text written by Lenin in 1906:

Let us begin from the beginning. In the first place … Marxism differsfrom all primitive forms of socialism by not binding the movement to any

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one particular form of struggle. Absolutely hostile to all abstract for-mulas and to all doctrinaire recipes, Marxism demands an attentive atti-tude to the mass struggle in progress, which, as the movement develops,as the class-consciousness of the masses grows, as economic and politicalcrises become acute, continually gives rise to new and more varied meth-ods of defense and attack. Marxism, therefore, positively does not rejectany form of struggle. Under no circumstances does Marxism confineitself to the forms of struggle possible and in existence at the givenmoment only, recognizing as it does that new forms of struggle, unknownto the participants of the given period, inevitably arise as the given socialsituation, changes … In the second place, Marxism demands an abso-lutely historical examination of the question of the forms of struggle. Totreat this question apart from the concrete historical situation betrays afailure to understand the rudiments of dialectical materialism.

(Lenin, 1965 [1906])

Having denounced the ANM’s inability to correctly diagnose the currentsituation, the authors, as a second step, proposed their own diagnosis thatallegedly resulted from a correct understanding of the Marxist-Leninistmethod. They led a comparative analysis between the Palestinian situationand the successful revolution in South Yemen. In so doing, they showed thatthe implicit claim of the ANM to reproduce the Yemeni victory did not revealbut the absence of accurate analysis of the here and now. After having stres-sed on the differences between the two situations, they identified the strengthsand weaknesses of the Feda’yi action: ‘Today, Palestinian action is witnessinga qualitative change that is putting it for the first time amongst the revolu-tionary national liberation movements. The launching of Fida’yi action beganto succeed in creating a motor, and an organizing force for the capabilities ofthe Palestinian people’ (Socialist Lebanon, 1967). However, if the ANMfinally acknowledged the failure of the petite bourgeoisie leadership, that is tosay the failure of the Arab regimes as well as that of the movement, it did notfully explain this failure: the failure of the petite bourgeoisie, affirmed SL, wasalso the failure of a style of action ruled by impulsivity and the model of thecoup d’état. Although the ANM in its communiqué advocated a radicalchange in the leadership and the integration of workers and peasants in theleadership, it nevertheless did not set up any measures allowing it in the nearfuture.

In sum, SL faulted the ANM for not having rightly identified friends andfoes, and the reasons of failure and, therefore, for not having raised thepriority task: the organization. Consequently, at the third step, they con-cluded that, before launching the armed struggle, the main challenge lay inorganizing the fighters through the establishment of Marxist-Leninist partiesled by the ‘people themselves’ and not by the ‘petite bourgeoisie’. ‘We raisedthe question of the meaning of the call for the armed struggle at the presentstage. It is now time to answer that this call postpones the achievement of


Arab struggle’s priority task: establishing Marxist-Leninist parties in order tolead the working masses to victory and emancipation’ (Socialist Lebanon,1967).

In this regard, this text written at an early stage in the history of SL alreadyencompassed two conceptions of the party whose antagonism would grow inthe OCAL and lead to the split of 1973, although both were drawing on theLeninist experience of revolution.

4 Spontaneism versus democratic centralism

Initially, SL was eager to promote a model that would be exactly the oppositeof the Communist Party in its Lebanese as well as in its Soviet guises. If theanti-American sentiment was crucial in the construction of the group, anti-Sovietism might indeed have been much stronger, according to a few mili-tants. However, SL was not initially confronted to war and endemic violence.The situation radically changed when Israel directly targeted Lebanon on aregular basis and, far from restricting itself to southern Lebanon, bombedBeirut’s airport (December 1968), while the Lebanese regime started repres-sing the Palestinians (April 1969). Thereafter, the Hachemite monarchy cru-shed the Palestinian organizations in Jordan in September 1970, pushing theFeday’i to resolutely base their activities in Lebanon, which could only fosterIsraeli reprisals. In this new configuration, local, regional and global practicesof violence mutually enhanced one another, dragging the country into war.Moreover, SL was a small group. But when it merged with the recentlyestablished Organization of the Lebanese Socialists in a broader group, theOrganization for Communist Action in Lebanon, the militants had to rethinkthe organizational structure.

In the OCAL, however, the spirit of SL was still vivid. The disagreement onthe choice of alliances exacerbated the antagonism between two conceptionsof the organization, which were embedded in personal rivalries. In the con-clusion of the article, SL posits the party as the leader of the masses (SocialistLebanon, 1967). Although, the authors initially referred to an excerpt ofGuerrilla Warfare, in which Lenin had apparently softened his stance regard-ing the internal rules of the party. In 1906, Lenin had taken into account theimportance of the Soviets and was struggling against the Menshevik factionin the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Accordingly, he started advo-cating at that time a greater openness to the masses and the integration ofworkers in the party committee. Similarly to this circumstantial Leninism, soto say, SL favoured a loose organizational framework, governed by horizontalrelationships between cells, and anchored in the masses. In the OCAL,Charara and Beydoun were continuing to promote the cellular organizationalframework, or Mass line, as it was called, borrowing from the Mao Ze Dongmethod. Instead, Traboulsi and Ibrahim were calling for a hierarchical pyr-amidal organization governed by the rules of ‘democratic centralism’ (Lenin,1961 [1902]), which supposedly implies a democratic functioning between the

264 Laure Guirguis

basis and the leadership of the party, as well as between the masses and theparty, as Fawwaz Traboulsi further develops in other articles and texts(Traboulsi, 2015: 110–12).

This tension does not simply reflect an antagonism between a ‘Maoist’ anda ‘Marxist-Leninist’ trend inside the OCAL. Indeed, both were claiming theiranchorage in Marxism-Leninism. This tension appears in the Leninist con-ception of democratic centralism itself, which conjuncturally evolves betweenthe centralist and the democratic poles. The Beydoun-Charara tendencydraws on the almost anarchistic conception of democratic centralism thatLenin expressed in 1917 in its reading of Marx (Lenin, 1964 [1917]: III, 4).

Militant ethos, however, has sometimes entered in contradiction with mili-tant theory and claims. The organization has experienced similar kinds ofderives as her counter-model, her communist cousins, such as arbitrary deci-sions and secret procedures. Former militants have extensively written on thisissue that still raises bitterness, regret and irony (Al-Bizri, 2016; Traboulsi,2015; Beydoun & Charara, n.d.). In a tense climate of escalating violence inthe region, the Traboulsi-Ibrahim tandem threw out the proponents of thecellular democracy, faulting them, among other things, for having misunder-stood even the Maoist lesson.7

5 Conclusion

Most militants still remember this time as the most intense in their lives, as atime that has greatly contributed to their personal and intellectual enrich-ment. Beside the personal history, the intellectual and political experiments ofthese groups as related to the multifaceted reference to 1917 remain strikinglyrelevant today in two respects.

If we consider the organizational model that resulted, October 1917, forSL, was a foil. Contrary to this model, they were opposing hierarchicalstructures and, as Ahmad Beydoun once said to me,

we were refusing authority, any kind of authority, be it in the politicaland social realms or in interpersonal relationships. Democracy, the senseof freedom and fraternity, the libertarian spirit, they did not last verylong, but they were there, and this remains meaningful today. We shouldhave pursued our educational task, we should have remained a school, aschool for militants, instead of merging in the OCAL.

Should we conceive 1917 as the sign of the Marxian-Leninist corpus, 1917was a driving force of reflection. It has enabled them to take up the challengeto forge a path between the conception of universality as a tool of Westerndomination and the claim for cultural relativism. Indeed, when they state thatthe reading of the Manifesto is relevant to understanding their current situa-tion, this statement is nevertheless anchored in the full awareness of the dif-ferent ‘problem space’ to which they, Marx and Lenin were confronted. As


Fadi Bardawil would put it, ‘they begin with this reflexive move that stressesthe spatiotemporal axis of difference separating SL’s context of reading andinterpretation from the time and place of the Manifesto’s writing’ (Bardawil,2016), ‘the Manifesto did not treat the problem we are suffering from, nor didit predict, as it is said, the enormity of the problems that colonized countries(those colonized by the West) would face!’ (Socialist Lebanon, 1969).

By locating themselves in a transnational reference framework, by referringto this founding event, 1917, and by reinterpreting the Marxist-Leninistcorpus, the New Left in Lebanon was attempting to meet two challenges.Infused with a revolutionary urgency, it was pressed to respond to localchallenges. But it was also positing universalist claims: it was dreaming ‘of adual birth: the birth of a contemporary history from the womb of a localsubjective history, Arabic Islamic [history] whose meaning was very differentfrom the one it took later on, and that this history be born at the same timefrom a general, common, universal human womb’ (Charara, 2004).

Notes1 M. Ibrahim, al-Hurriyya, 2 May 1960.2 M. Ibrahim, al-Hurriyya, 6–13–20 January 1964.3 M. Ibrahim ‘Hal hunak badil li-tariq ‘abd al-nasir?’ (Is There an Alternative to the

Nasserian Path?). al-Hurriyya, 21–7 June 1965, p. 5.4 ANM, ‘Communiqué’. al-Hurriyya, 377, 4 September, pp. 12–13; 378, 11 Septem-

ber, pp. 10–12; 379, 18 September 1967, pp. 12–14.5 PDFLP, ‘Ta’sis al-jabha al-sha‘biyya al-dimuqratiya li tahrir falistin’ (Creation of

the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine). Al-hurriya, 452, 24February 1969.

6 M. Ibrahim, ‘Haqiqa al-khilaf ma‘a al-hizb al-shuyu‘i al-lubnani’ (The Truth aboutOur Disagreement with the LCP). al-Hurriyya, 481–4, 15–22–29 September and 6October 1969.

7 OCAL, ‘Bayan min al-maktab al-siyasi al-munazzama al-‘amal al-shuyu‘i fi lubnan’(Communiqué of the OCAL Political Bureau), al-Hurriyya, 628, 16 July 1973,pp. 12–15.

ReferencesAl-Bizri, Dalal (2016) Sanawat al-sa‘ada al-thawriya (Years of Revolutionary Joy),

Beirut, dar al-tanwir.Bardawil, Fadi A. (2016) ‘Dreams of a Dual Birth: Socialist Lebanon’s World and

Ours’. Boundary, 2, 43, 3.Beydoun, A. & Charara, W. (n.d.) Al Majmu‘a al mustaqilla (‘an al-munazzama al

‘amal al-shuyu‘i) (The secessionist group of the OCAL), Beyrouth, s.n.Charara, W. (2004) ‘Interview’. In Bilqaziz, A. (Ed.), al-Islam wa al-hadatha wa al-

ijtima’ al-siyasi (Islam, Modernity, and Political Socialism), Beirut, Dar al-Wihdaal-‘Arabiyya.

Habash, George & Matar, Fuad (1984) Hakim al-thawra: qissat hayat George Habash(The Doctor of the Revolution: The Biography of George Habash), London, High-light Publications.

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Ibrahim, Mohsen (1970) Limadha? Munazzama al-ishtirakiyyin al-lubnaniyyin. Harakaal-qawmiyyin al-‘arab min al-fashiya ila al-nasiriyya. Naqd wa taḥlil (The Organi-zation of the Lebanese Communists, Why? The Arab Nationalist Movement fromfascism to Nasirism. Critical Analyses), Beirut, dar al-tali‘a.

Kazziha, Walid (1975) Revolutionary Transformation in the Arab World: Habash andHis Comrades from Nationalism to Marxism, London, Charles Knight.

Lebanese Communist Party (1968) Al-watha’iq al-kamila li al-mu’tamar al-watani al-thani li al-ḥizb al-shuyu’i al-lubnani (The Complete Documents of the 2nd NationalCongress of the Lebanese Communist Party), Beirut, Publications of the LCP.

Lenin, V. I. (1961 [1902]) ‘What Is to Be Done?’ In Collected Works, Moscow, ForeignLanguages Publishing House.

Lenin, V. I. (1964 [1917]) ‘The State and Revolution’. In Collected Works, Moscow,Foreign Languages Publishing House.

Lenin, V. I. (1965 [1906]) ‘Guerrilla Warfare’. In Lenin Collected Works, Moscow,Foreign Languages Publishing House.

Sayigh, Yezid (1991) ‘Reconstructing the Paradox: The Arab Nationalist Movement,Armed Struggle, and Palestine, 1951–1966’. Middle East Journal, 45, 4.

Sayigh, Yezid (1992) ‘Turning Defeat into Opportunity: The Palestinian Guerrillasafter the June 1967 War’. Middle East Journal, 46, 2.

Socialist Lebanon (Lubnan al-Ishtiraki) (1967) ‘Maza ya‘ni raf‘ shira‘ al-kifah al-maslaha fi al-marahla al-rahina? (What Does It Mean to Call for the ArmedStruggle in the Present Situation?)’. Lubnan al-Ishtiraki (Socialist Lebanon), 8,December.

Socialist Lebanon (Lubnan al-Ishtiraki) (1969) ‘Madkhal li qira’at al-bayan al-shuyu’i(Introduction to Reading the Communist Manifesto)’. Dirasat ‘arabiyya, 5, 7.

Traboulsi, Fawwaz (2015) ǧanu-b al-yimin fı- ḥukm al-yasa-r (le Sud Yémen sous legouvernement de gauche), Beyrouth, Riad El-Rayyes Books.


15 From Marxism to anti-authoritarianismEgypt’s New Left

Laura Galián

1 Making a generation

Academic fields dedicated to the Egyptian process of politization during the1970s are still scarce, although in crescendo (Duboc, 2011; El Khawaga,2003).1 In the last few years, various studies have attempted to make sense ofthe political and theoretical mobilization of a forgotten leftist political andintellectual generation. The oblivion of this generation in academia and otherintellectual spaces was, above all, due to the popularity of other ideologicalcurrents in Egypt, such as Islamism and its incorporation into public politicallife, predominantly during the 1980s.

The decline of the Egyptian left’s party politics, combined with the fall ofthe Soviet Union, which represented the climax of this process, thrust social-ism forward as an attractive model for change and as an intellectual tool withwhich to analyse the world and national processes. Marxists in the Arabworld, as Jabar points out in the introduction to his book, Post-Marxism andthe Middle East, responded to the fall of Marxism only after the SovietUnion’s collapse (Jabar, 1997).

However, the radicalization of activists, both Marxist and non-Marxist,during the student movement and 1977’s Bread Revolts, has largely beenexcluded from academic research due to the process’ marginal character inthe movement’s successful mobilization.2

In fact, Egypt’s political mobilization in 2011 has led academics to establish ahistorical parallelism between the events of 25 January 2011 and student demon-strations in the 1970s. Ahramonline, a daily Egyptian newspaper that reports inEnglish, published an article titled ‘January’s Dream: Egypt’s Protest VeteransRecall 40 Years of Struggle’ in 2015. In the article, the author explains how someleaders of the 1970s student movement considered the 2011 revolution to be aculmination of their own continued fight (Fathi, 2015). Similarly, an article pub-lished in the Arab Studies Institute’s online magazine Jadaliyya entitled ‘The Stu-dentMovement in 1968’ compared the student movements in Egypt and Lebanon:

The excitement of the current protesters and the success of their organi-sational efforts have strong parallels with the actions of their student

predecessors 40 years ago. While that movement eventually lost momen-tum, the outcomes of the 2011 events in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and othercountries are still being decided as the anti-government protesters main-tain their pressure and as the remnants of the regimes try to hold on topower.

(Anderson, 2011)

Even if the majority of the intellectuals during the so-called 1970s generationwere politicized during their childhood and young adult life, mainly after the1952 coup, the vast number of leftist activists of the time were young adultswith an ambivalent relationship to the Nasserist regime. This chapter willfocus on the experience of those who began within Marxist organizations andwho later adopted anti-authoritarian political practices such as is the case ofAhmed Zaki (Cairo, 1956–) and Samih Said Abud (Cairo, 1956–2018). Theanalysis will focus on the life and work of Samih Said Abud in order toextrapolate the experience of a generational group that, departing from thedisillusionment of the nationalist and authoritarian left, experienced an ideo-logical shift toward anti-authoritarian and anarchist ideas and practices.Through various interviews, key members of this generation have been iden-tified, including Khaled al-Fishawi, Ahmed Hussam, Ahmed Zaki and SamihSaid. These members, who were all part of the Egyptian intelligentsia andwho were also political activists, all shared similar political experiences. Whatunites them, besides their shared life experiences, was described generally byMarie Duboc regarding Egyptian Marxist intellectuals prior to the TahrirRevolution: ‘they similarly share a relationship to activism, one that is influencedby social fatigue and political frustration’ (Duboc, 2011: 64).

Various Marxist groups appeared within Egyptian universities during the1970s due to students’ motivation to radicalize its cadres. This helped todiversify Marxist party politics of the left after its 1967 defeat into differentorganizations and groups. Student associations were especially relevant at thetime; however, the governmental push to encourage Islamist associations as ameans to undermine and defeat the leftist opposition helped Islamist groupsgain more influence than the Marxists. At the time, leftist and Marxist groupswere marginalized and relegated to a secondary position at universities. ElenaArigita reviewed the emergency of Islamist associations, stating: ‘It is not aspontaneous phenomenon: not only are Islamist associations fostered by thepolitical situation that makes the new government favour Islamist associationsin universities, but the renewed strength of the Muslim Brotherhood supportsand is present in these associations’ (Arigita, 2005: 124).

On the other side, among those who adhered to leftist ideologies, the warwas a point of interference that led many young activists to change theirpolitical allegiances, moving away from Nasserism to support and form moreradical Marxist organizations (Duboc, 2011: 66). Personal stories and laterdiscourses on this issue often underestimate the impact of the 1967 events,while some authors (Duboc, 2011: 67) and the protagonists themselves agree

From Marxism to anti-authoritarianism 269

that the lack of freedom of expression during Nasser’s regime and later thepolicies of Sadat, through economic liberalization and an emphasis on Islam,greatly affected the new communist organization’s interests during this time.

However, the 1967 crisis affected an entire generation of political and intel-lectual activists in Egypt. The 1967 naksa (defeat)3 was, above all, a culturalcrisis that questioned the ‘identity of the Arab man’ as it had been definedduring the decolonization and national independence periods (Gervasio, 2005:18). Furthermore, the naksa was also a political, economic and social crisis thatgreatly affected the legitimacy of Nasser’s regime. Gennaro Gervasio assuresthat ‘in a more profound level it was a “hegemony crisis”’ (Gervasio, 2005: 18).Therefore, 1967’s events called the Egyptian army into question, which hadbeen responsible for the 1952 revolution and the resistance movement againstthe Suez Canal ‘triple aggression’ in 1956. In February 1968, student andworker popular opinion raged against the official guilt for the military defeat.The protests on 9 and 10 June 1968 represented the first mass eruption inCairo’s political scene since the ‘Fire of Cairo’ in January 1952.

It is possible to state that the effects of the 1967 crisis and political mobi-lization that followed were key moments in the ideological configuration andsocial politicization of these intellectuals and activists. Many participantsshared similar backgrounds: they were mostly from urban middle classes andlater became journalists, editors, college or university professors, lawyers, sci-entists, etc. The majority were young people who had occupied leadershippositions in the student movement between 1968 and 1972 and were latercalled and recognized as the ‘new Egyptian left’ or ‘national forces’ (quwawataniyya), ‘democrats’ or ‘pro-human rights activists’.

These actors are generally equally highlighted as the true promotors ofdemocratization and political liberation and simply marginalized andhidden as the constituent components of the political scene, or also,totally rejected and judged as agents of the establishment. They are eventargeted as a component of the assembly that allows it to continuevindicating the democratic dimension of its operation.

(El Khawaga, 2003: 273)

2 Political and theoretical trajectory

Samih Said Abudwas born in 1956. He is a clear example from a politically activeand intelligent generation that sought answers to the reasons why Arab socialismhad failed. He was born in the neighbourhood of Imbaba, in the Giza governor-ate, in a lower middle-class family that had recently moved from a rural area tourban Cairo. His social politicization was achieved through the figure of his father,who worked in the government’s printer office and was a member of al-Harakaad-Dimuqratiya lil-Tahrir al-Watani (The Democratic Movement for NationalLiberation ىنطولاررحتللةيطارقميدلاةكرحلا ). As many other activists of his generation,he became a member of the Arab Socialist Union in his young adult life.

270 Laura Galián

In 1988, Samih graduated from the Faculty of Law at Cairo University. Hislate incorporation to university life prevented him, contrary to his genera-tional peers, from participating in the student movements of the 1970s. Thesestudent movements were an important turning point in understanding theradicalization of Samih’s generation. However, while he did not take part inthose events, he became a member of the secret Marxist group, called 8 Jan-uary, by invitation from a university friend. In this way, the university and itsactivist network introduced him to the political life of the radical left.

He was also a member of the Popular Socialist Party in Egypt until 1991.That year, he joined the recently formed group al-Ishtirakiyyun a-Thawriyyum(the Revolutionary Socialists), most of whom were students at the AmericanUniversity of Cairo. Samih recognizes that, while he took part in the groupuntil 1993,

At that time I was closer to the critic of Leninism, of Trotskyism, Sta-linism and Mahoism. I was mostly anarchist even if at the time I hadn’tread any book on Anarchism. All the information that I had aboutAnarchism, with the exception of some books in foreign languages, wasthrough Marxist writings, mostly criticizing Anarchism. However, I likedthe ideas. From that moment, I started to be influenced by the ideas ofRosa Luxemburg and her critic to Leninism.

(Interview with Samih Said Abud, January 2017)

Parallel to his militancy in Marxist organizations, Samih participated insocial organizations independent from party politics organized in Egypt in the1990s. He was part of the Popular Committee of Support of the LebaneseResistance and other popular committees at the time.

Professionally, he worked in the law office of Ahmad Nabil al-Halali, animportant labour solicitor, in addition to being a secretary of the CommunistParty of Egypt. He later became an independent lawyer. In the late 1990s, heleft his career as a lawyer and focused on a more activist-intellectual life.During this time, he produced several books and many newspaper articles,most of them available on the widely read Arabic website: al-Hiwwar al-Mutammadden. During this time of his life, his activist and intellectualendeavours converged in what could be characterized as ‘direct action litera-ture’ (as Maria Duboc has already studied in some members of the 1970sgeneration), because of its goal of confronting the regime by literary produc-tion. His theoretical production on anarchism and the anti-authoritarian leftis so well read in Arabic that he has been called ‘the father of Arabic anar-chism’. Until recent years, Samih was one of the few authors to have writtenabout anarchism and anti-authoritarianism in Arabic. For that reason, he hasthousands of followers in Arab-speaking countries, mostly young people fromMorocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.Throughout the present research project (2012–16) we met with these youngpeople, who largely connect the 1970s generation with the 2,000 southern


Mediterranean generation of activists who were politicized after the 2011upheavals. Furthermore, he was one of the founders of the only self-declaredanarchist group in Egypt, which became known as the Libertarian SocialistMovement.4

The political activism of the 1970s, beginning with the political revolts atthe end of the 1960s and the student movements of the 1970s, eventuallytransformed the repertoire of contentious politics, stepping away from thetraditional left’s party politics and structured organizations. This new kind ofactivism entered the work of professional unions, as well as the ideas in lit-erature and the press. With the above in mind, Samih Said Abud representsthis trajectory, which is that of a generation moving from street activism toparty militancy and later turning to intellectual activism. His persona, toge-ther with his theoretical legacy, help us to critically examine the dialecticalrelationship between the classic distinction that separates theory and practice.

The majority of Samih Said’s books deal in political theory and history.Furthermore, he translated several books on anarchism.5 One of his mostinfluential books was Inhiya-r ‘iba-dat al-dawla (The Fall of State Devotion),written between 1994 and 2002. This work best reflects his ideological trajec-tory from Marxism to anarchism – or more precisely, to non-authoritarianpractices.6 The book compiles more than 34 articles ranging from his first cri-tique of the Egyptian left with ‘Naqd al-ishtira-kiyyat al- dawla’ (Criticism toState Socialism) or ‘Azma al-yasa-r al-watani’ (The Crisis of the NationalistLeft) to works he wrote after taking a leftist anti-authoritarian position like hisfamous essay ‘Maba-di’ al-la-sultawiyya’ (Principles of Anti-Authoritarianism).

His experience within the Egyptian left is important to understanding hiscritique of traditional and leftist party politics:

In general, my experience in the Egyptian left was very negative. I dis-covered lies in the hierarchical organizations and the danger of thedemocratic centralism. The reduction in the fights between students andthe small bourgeoisie and their interests. The respect of what they call‘representative democracy’ and the holiness of its texts. For that reason, Istarted in the theoretical level the critique to the State property and todemocratic Marxism, the party and the nationalist narrative.

(Interview with Samih Said Abud, February 2017)

In his article ‘Observations from the Experience’ Samih explains why the Marx-ist Egyptian left of the ‘third wave/movement’, born in the 1970s failed to meetEgypt’s needs: they had an incorrect theoretical and practical understanding ofthe conditions in which it could act. Samih divides the mistakes in three.

Firstly, the harshness in understanding their foundational texts, which havebeen read as religious texts and not as ‘scientific theory’. For the author, thisenabled the immobility of the left when it came time to face the currentpolitical circumstances and to put it in practice adapting to the necessities ofthe local context and the historical moment.

272 Laura Galián

Secondly, the hierarchization of Marxist organizations. The author criti-cizes the personal interests of leftist activists and organizations, along withtheir personification of politics. This is, according to the author, a contra-diction between the political ethics of Marxism and the daily political reality.The hierarchical political organizations and above all the power strugglewithin them, according to Samih Said, are the causes of the division withinthe movement and the inner corruption within its organizations.

Thirdly, the author states that Egyptian Marxism did not make enougheffort in developing the ‘means of production’, letting these important eco-nomic factors be ruled by the monopoly of the state and the bourgeois class.He proposes that this is the reason why the social masses’ and the leftists’ability to ask for change was marginal in Egypt. On many occasions, the leftwas unable to address the masses in order to create a class consciousness. ForSamih, the Egyptian left had confused the technical language of Marxismwith that of the nationalist bourgeoisie. This popular and radical languagewas unable to mobilize the people and ask for change to create the conditionsfor a social revolution.

Samih therefore concluded that the Egyptian left’s chronic failure was due toan incorrect understanding of the role of the state. The 19th-century nation-state faced a conceptual crisis in that it was no longer able to be a productiveforce. In his opinion, the nation-state needed the capitalist system and trans-national economic elites to survive. The internationalization of productive sec-tors represented a new episode in the development of global capitalism. In thisregard, the Egyptian left’s chronic crisis was not unique to Egypt, but ratherwas a local effect of global capitalism. Apart from the above, the authorbelieved that the nationalist Egyptian left was deeply rooted in utilizing Nas-serism as a role model. For the author, Nasserism was full of lies and contra-dictions in both theory and practice. Both the state and socialist ideologiescreated around the idea of the state were deeply rooted in the capitalist systemand therefore failed to fulfil expectations of a class-free society.

With the above in mind, Samih wrote ‘The Principles of Anti-Authoritarian-ism’, defending the necessity of non-authoritarian practices within the left.However, he is very cautious using terminology in this article. He chooses ‘la-sultawiyya’ (not to authority) instead of other possible terminology in Arabic torefer to anarchism (such as anarkiyya or fawdawiyya). Although he is advocat-ing for anarchism, he does not adhere to anarchic-specific ideologies nor refer tohis thoughts as anarchism, but rather prefers the term anti-authoritarianism.

In several of his articles, the old Marxist praises the necessity of total lib-eration for human beings. In order to achieve this totalizing liberation it isimportant to destroy all authoritarian dynamics in our daily and collectivelives. Samih builds an integral understanding of anarchism that touches on allfacets of an individual life: personal, collective, global and local. Anarchism,in his view, is a political philosophy continuously open to interpretation andreinterpretation, with no symbols or sacred texts, ‘just thinkers, not prophets,neither leaders, saints or guides’.


Samih’s anarchist theory strikes at the core of the human condition andorganizations. In justifying his constant return to the origins of ‘humannature’, anarchist ideas allowed him to find the possibility of justifying hisargument and the universality of this position, in what can be called a ‘pri-mitivist anarchism’. In fact, he fought the accusation of anarchism as anunrealistic utopia. For Samih, anarchism was not an utopia, but rather, a‘natural goal’ that all human beings seek to achieve:

This requires an incessant battle on the level of social consciousness inorder to turn our society into an anarchist society. A battle in the level oforientation, support and aid to the oppressed to be able to organise andto collaborate in several social activities in the design of the anarchism.

(Said Abud, 2002: 246)

3 Theory production as a political practice

In the 1980s, the disintegration of both the Communist Party and traditionalleftist organizations left the state in a state of political disorientation. Thisdisintegration created general sentiments of disillusionment towards anystructured or organized party politics. This phase coincided with changes inthe personal lives of many members of the 1970s generation, who oftenretreated to their private lives or emigrated from Egypt. This situation ledmany to retire temporarily from politics. Later, the regime’s reconciliationwith its 1980s political opposition weakened the possibility for these organi-zations to become spaces in which to operate as opposing political forces.According to Duboc, this became an important piece in the ‘disillusionment’of the intellectuals at the time (Duboc, 2011: 71). However, the lack of left-wing organizational structures and political parties to serve as a space tocoordinate opposition to the regime did not necessarily mean that the members’ideas had disappeared.

The 1980s represented a turning point in the articulation of activism by themembers of the 1970s generation. One way used to confront this failure oftraditional political parties was the construction of alternative channels ofpolitical expression, which took place with the aim of gaining greater auton-omy. The lack of organizational credibility and the search of alternativemethods did not necessarily imply a complete withdrawal of political activism(Duboc, 2011: 71).

During this time, literary and journalistic production re-emerged as it hadin the 1930s, along with the leftist organizations, as a form of political acti-vism and direct action. While such activities did not change the traditionalmethods of political expression, they provided complementary channels forthe left to express its disillusionment at the time. Literature and the pressrepresented a new repertoire of contentious politics.

The creation of alternative cultural spaces was a form of opposition duringboth Nasser and Sadat’s regime. These spaces were surveyed and controlled

274 Laura Galián

by the state apparatus. One such initiative, created by young intellectuals, wasGallery 68, the first independent cultural and alternative magazine. ForDuboc, the publication of these kinds of magazines between 1960 and 1970was a substitute, or rather complementary action, in response to the leftistpolitical organizations’ militancy at the time (Duboc, 2011: 68). An exampleof this can be found in Samih Said Abud’s case, who alternated militancy inleftist organizations and political literary activism in the 1990s, a pattern thatcontinued throughout his life until his death in February 2018.

In 1994, Abud collaborated with the magazine al-Rayya al-Arabiyya (TheArab Insignia) founded by old Marxists like Omar Shari Yunis, current pro-fessor of history at the University of Helwan; Adil Omari, cardiologist and anold member of the Egyptian Communist Party 8 January; and Ahmed SadikSaad, leader of the Egyptian Marxist movement of the 1940s and founder ofthe Workers and Peasants Party in the 1950s. The Arab Insignia publishedfour editions between 1988 and 1994.

The 1977 Party Press Law further transformed the press into a more ideo-logical and political force for the young generation’s formation and helped toexpress the vulnerabilities of existing party structures. However, this law,imposed by Sadat, as Luz Gómez García states (1992: 45), ‘reflects the con-tradiction that seeks to harmonise the recognition and guarantees for thedevelopment of a free press contained in the Constitution with the incon-testable power of the information control: it is another hallmark of thepresident’s political monopoly. It characterises the end of Sadat’s term.’

Despite the contradiction between liberalization and Sadat’s authoritariancontrol, this type of media helped to create a public tribune to criticize anumber of major issues of the day, including corruption within the politicalelite, the negative effects of Egypt’s economic liberalization, the peace treatybetween Israel and the Arab states, the Emergency Law, the degradation ofpublic services, the role of the state, its retributive functions and the repres-sion of opposition parties (El Khawaga, 2003: 280). According to El Kha-waga, the new oppositional parties’ incompetence in building a new electoralbase together with the censure of some magazines and journals:

let them to put an end to this euphoria, in brackets, in the access of thegraduates to the ‘traditional left’ and the partisan activities – in a widesense – it is perceived as the evidence of its integration and activeparticipation in what is going to be called ‘the democratic transition’.

(El Khawaga, 2003: 280)

This new ‘democratic transition phase’ led to a change in traditional methodsof where political vindications could be expressed. Professional associationstransformed into spaces for political dissent, leaving behind old structures oftrade unionism that had been co-opted by the regime since Nasser’s rise topower. Trade unions for lawyers, journalists, engineers and doctors all helpedto spread a new democratic culture opposed to Sadat’s regime. They further


helped to channel claims against the political, economic and legal transformationimposed by the political power of Sadat and, later, Mubarak.

Along with these transformations, new structures began to emerge, such as theUnion of Egyptian University Teachers, national or international research cen-tres and, between 1989 and 1995, specialized research support and assistancecentres for human rights. A new generation of activism and political activistsstanding outside of traditional party politics began to emerge in these spaces,many of which focused on the new narrative of human rights, which graduallyreduced sentiments of ‘disillusionment’ and helped to formulate new sensitivitiesand identities through alternative activist channels (El Khawaga, 2003: 286).These new spaces were characterized by specialization, professionalization and,also, by legality and international visibility. They presented a new language inwhich the relationship between activists and the state was reformulated and the‘Egyptian civil society’ emerged. This new cycle of mobilization illustrates twokey points: the transformation of old leftist militants into self-defined associationmilitants, and the establishment of inter- and intra-generational ideologicalsolidarities in the same space (El Khawaga, 2003: 291).

Along with the professional associations, between 1978 and 1996 manypublic weekly seminars and conferences were held (nadawat usbuiyya) that notonly aimed at criticizing the political and economic policies of the regime butalso considered ‘freedom committees’ (lijan al-hurriyyat) to have denouncedand prosecuted the anti-democratic laws, which was a first inside manyoppositional parties (as it was in professional trade unions).

At the same time, radical non-Islamist dissent in all forms disappearedduring these years. Non-governmental organizations and professional asso-ciations were converted to a new form of activism that absorbed and rear-ticulated the human rights discourse instead of a form of institutionalizedorganization controlled by the state. Within this context, the already disen-franchised leftist intellectuals returned to the intellectual sphere and con-tinued their political activism. At the same time, the arrival of the internetprovided an ideal free broadcast channel to disperse articles and debates thatthe traditional press and censorship had prevented.

In this context, Samih Said started his activism by opening a web page calledal-Taharruriyya al-Jama‘iyya (Collective Liberation), where he created a freespace to share his books and articles. The web page closed after only a fewyears, however, Samih created several other pages on different platforms withdifferent purposes for the committees he was involved in: the Committee for theCoordination of Association Rights and Freedoms, the Anti-GlobalisationCommittee, etc. Furthermore, in 1999, he started to write assiduously andpublished his writings on the famous page al-Hiwwar al-Mutamaddin.7 Thisweb page fostered major ideological debates within the Arab left in 1999 and iteventually became a space where people from many ideological backgroundsgathered and wrote articles: liberals, seculars, human rights advocates, etc.

Through the above transformation, political activism of the 1970s, that hadstarted with the political revolts of the 1960s and the student movements of

276 Laura Galián

the 1970s, eventually changed its repertoire of contentious politics and movedaway from the party politics of the traditional left. It even began to includestructured organizations whose disillusion had become evident mainly afterthe 1980s. Samih joined the professional trade unions’ political activism inboth the literature and the press, using both channels of dissemination forpolitical debates and as a means for direct action. The life and work of SamihSaid Abud materializes the political trajectory of the 1970s, of a generation intransit between street activism, party militancy and intellectual activism. Hisfigure and his theoretical legacy help to define the complex dialecticalrelationship of theory and practice in political theory.

4 Turning to collective action: the 2011 revolution

The 25 January revolution was a turning point in the political activism ofgroups spanning from the 1970s to the 2000s. The revolution made the 1970sgeneration turn to a form of political activism that, after the disillusionmentof the traditional left-wing party politics, was marginalized and relegated to asecondary level in their political lives.

In the case of Samih Said and other activists and intellectuals from that era,participation in the 25 January revolution and theoretical legacy were key forthe foundation of the Libertarian Socialist Movement, the first self-declaredanarchist movement in Egypt. Furthermore, it also helped young activists andthe newly politicized population to ideologically identify with anarchism andnon-authoritarian practices in Egypt and the wider south Mediterranean. Inone of the interviews conducted in January 2017, a disillusioned Samihexplained that after his participation in the sit-ins in Tahrir Square as well as inthe Popular Committee for the Support of the Revolution, he had tried tofound the Libertarian Socialist Movement with other comrades from themovements, but his involvement in the group lasted only one year:

After my participation in the 25th January uprising and its aftermath Itook part in the foundation of the Popular Committee for the Support ofthe 25th January Revolution in my city, 6th October and in Sheikh Said(Salam City) in 2011 where a flyer explaining the foundation of two tradeunions was published. After that, I participated for a short period of timein the foundation of the Libertarian Socialist Movement since May 2011until January 2012. At the beginning of 2012 I finished my relationshipwith street or organized politics and continue with my writings andtranslations on the Internet until now.

(Interview with Samih, January 2017)

The occupation of Tahrir Square served as a space of convergence, encounterand as an anarchist experience in itself. This shows how Samih met YasirAbdallah and other young anarchists8 who had already identified as such andknew each other through the internet but had never met in person. This


encounter fostered the idea to found the Libertarian Socialist Movement andother self-declared anarchist groups.

Many interviewees declared that the importance of the Egyptian revolutionas a practical experience of anarchism, or even as an anarchist experience initself, was key to understanding the imagery of Samih’s theory. As a result ofthis experience Samih founded the first organized anarchist group in Egypt,alongside other activists from Tahrir Square. In his 2011 article ‘Dur al-‘Anarkiyyin l-thawra al-misriyya wa ‘I’ada intaj fashlihim’ (The Role ofAnarchists in the Egyptian Revolution: The Historical Failure Is Repeated,2011), published some months after the first sit-in in Tahrir Square, Samihdeclared that this was an anarchist revolution for the following reason:

It was a leaderless revolution, with no political parties. Participants in thesit-ins and in the protests acted voluntarily in a cooperative way. TahrirSquare served as a meeting point for self-declared anarchists that werespread around Egypt but did not know each other. It also was a politicalopportunity for the construction of a collective identity that, until thatday, just existed as an individual identity.

(Said Abud, 2011)

However, despite Samih and the younger generation’s9 initial excitement,there were conflicts within the group. These conflicts included personal dif-ferences concerning the organization’s management, and the failure of theanarchists in the 25 January revolution. The failure of anarchism, accordingto Samih, caused the anarchists to lose their opportunity to perpetuate theradicalization of the mass uprising and allowed other forces (liberals,Islamists or Nasserists) to take over the revolution.

The vast majority of anarchists in Egypt at the time can be divided intotwo generational groups. This included Samih’s older generation of the 1970s,whose politization process tended to wane between Marxism and anti-authoritarianism. This generation’s turn from Egyptian Marxist organizationsto intellectual anarchism was mainly due to criticism of the authoritarianMarxist and Nasserist organizations in Egypt. The second group includes theyounger generation. This group can be characterized by their age; most werein their 20s during the 25 January revolution, and underwent a differentpolitization process, starting with Islamism and moving towards libertarianand non-authoritarian positions.10 Most of these young anarchists were notmembers of any organizations before their participation in the 25 Januaryrevolution or before they identified as anarchists. Their approach to anar-chism was a result of their participation in the revolution and their improvedlevels of English. This enabled them to consume information about anarchismon the internet, something that the older generations were not able to do, andrather relied on Marxist writings to educate them about anarchism.

However, Samih considered that the young generation’s adherence to revo-lutionary ideas, without previous experience in organized politics, led the

278 Laura Galián

revolutionary movement to repeat the same mistakes as the previous revolutionsin what he calls the ‘historical failure of anarchism’:

There are those within the anarchist movement that make a fashion outof anarchism in order to justify their personal rebellion and their socialdecomposition. There are those that consider that anarchism does notmean the revolutionary transformation of the social groups they belongto. All of these anarchists are not part of this article, of course, but theirexistence help us to understand the different directions, processes, coop-eratives and trade unions. On the other hand, cultural, conscience andknowledge levels as well as the understanding of social context andsituation and their political fights vary together with their commitmentwith them (their social, intellectual, political and cultural activities).

(Said Abud, 2011)

According to Samih, this generational gap operates by modifying the wayactivists understand the repertoire of contentious politics and anarchist directaction. The author continues that the historical failure of anarchists in therevolutionary process resides in these differences, the anarchists being finallyco-opted by authoritarian forces from different ideological backgrounds. ForSamih, despite the growing number of self-declared anarchists in the MiddleEast, there was no increase in the ‘anarchization’ of society or the ‘anarchi-zation’ of the revolutionary process. The lack of activists’ organization andcommitment was partly the cause of this failure. The Paris Commune, theSpanish Civil War and the French 68 May are examples, according to Samih,of the historical failure of the anarchists who initiated important revolu-tionary processes but were unable to create long-lasting movements to breakdown the structure of the capitalist system.

The differences in the type of organization of the Libertarian SocialistMovement as well as the difficult heart surgery that Samih had in 2012 forcedSamih to retire from street activism. However, he continued with his intellec-tual and political activity throughout his writings, until his death in February2018, despite the harsh repression of political dissent in Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’sregime.

5 Conclusion

1970s activists, mostly born in the late Nasserist years, lost trust in Nasseristpower after the 1967 crisis and continued with the later disillusionment offoreign and economic policies of Sadat and the fake openness of Mubarak.Meanwhile, the left’s global processes, such as the fall of the Soviet Unionand the emergence of the liberation movements in Latin America, forcedmembers to question leftist politics in Egypt, which were ideologically deeplyrooted in Nasserist thought. This critique materialized in an active search forpolitical and ideological discourse alternatives to escape and make sense of


the events of this political and social generation. In this case study, the his-torical and generational processes have been analysed through the figure ofSamih Said Abud. Samih’s political and theoretical trajectory help shed lighton a whole generation that sought a solution for leftist issues on one hand,and on the other, social, political and economic problems, both internationaland national, through anti-authoritarian ideals and ultimately anarchism.

The political and theoretical trajectory of Samih is a clear example ofthe need to reformulate a political left after it was destroyed by Nasser’sregime and subsequently co-opted by Sadat’s. The Egyptian left suffered thesame havoc as the global left after the fall of the Soviet Union and theemergence of the ‘New Left’. For that reason, the figure of Samih representsan entire political generation and reveals, on the one hand, the local experi-ence of the Egyptian New Left and, on the other, the local experience ofanarchism, deeply connected to the global events of the time.

Notes1 This article is a part of Spanish research project (FFI2014–54667- R) ‘Islam 2.0:

Cultural Markers and Religious Markers of the Mediterranean Societies in Trans-formation’. Transliterations from Arabic are provided for the sake of non-Arabicspeakers. Translations from Arabic and other languages are my own.

2 One exception to this lack of literature is Gennaro Gervasio’s PhD thesis, Intelle-tuali e marsismo: una storia dell’oposizione seculare in Egitto, 1967–1981,Università di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’, 2005.

3 The Syrian-Lebanese thinker Sadik Jalal al-Azam, in his famous book Self Criti-cism after the Defeat (1968), considers there to have been a tendency to evaderesponsibility for the events of 1967. He further analyses the terminology ‘naksa’(defeat) as an effort by Arab states to continuously avoid responsibility after 1967’sevents (Al-Azm, 2011 [1968]: 38–9).

4 For more information about the Libertarian Socialist Movement see Galián, 2015.5 Before passing away he translated The Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin.6 He never self-identified as an anarchist but rather as a non-authoritarian.7 This web page was founded by the Kurdish activist Razkar Aqarawi, currently a

political refugee in Denmark and an old member of the Iraqi Workers CommunistParty. With no doubt the web page al-Hiwwar al-Muttadin has become a referenceand a forum for the Arab political debate. It is furthermore an important channelfor political activism in the democratic transition under the harsh dictatorial neo-liberal regimes in many countries of the Mediterranean shore. See www.ahewar.org/debat/nr.asp

8 We understand ‘young’ as a category that encompasses all people that were in their20s and 30s when the 25 January revolution took place and were mainly politicizedduring those events.

9 In an interview conducted with Mohamed Ezz (Alexandria, 2013), a young anar-chist from Alexandria and a member of the Libertarian Socialist Movement, hedeclared that there was an intellectual authority coming from the older generationwithin the organization, which was a cause of differences and disputes.

10 This has been the case of many interviewees along the Mediterranean. Many ofthem aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood before turning to non-authoritarianleftist politics. Many still identify as Muslim but with no political connection tothe Brotherhood.

280 Laura Galián

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fashlihim’ (The Role of Anarchists in the Egyptian Revolution: The HistoricalFailure is Repeated). al-Hiwar al-Mutamadden, 15 May, www.ahewar.org/debat/show.art.asp?aid=259098 (accessed 2 February 2017).

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16 Women and left in the Middle East:the voice of the protagonistsHow feminist change occurs in Lebanon:an interview with Azza Chararah Baydoun

Natalia Ribas-Mateos

Through the conversation held with Lebanese activist and academic AzzaChararah Baydoun, this chapter shows a vital journey, among many otherpossible journeys, of a feminist woman who was a member of a small com-munist political party in her youth (Organization for Communist Action inLebanon (OCAL)). With the perspective of several decades, Azza ChararahBaydoun reviews the gender relations in this communist organization, thecivil war, militancy in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the mainchallenges that have been posed to feminism in Lebanon.1

1 Introducing the Lebanese case

N. If you want I will start as away of introduction, to show you a little bit of whatthe editors are preparing. It is about narrating 100 years of history of the com-munist party. It is about communist parties in the Middle East, with a historicalperspective, after the Russian Revolution. The objective would be to try to see thisevolution of this communist ideology up till now … Yours will be the onlychapter on gender issues; your words will structure the whole core of the chapter.

A. But you could interview women that were more politically active in thatera and hence better informed than me.

N. I think you are fine for it. I have read for example the interview that youdid in 2015 with Tarek Abi Samra, regarding the publication of your book ‘Acitizen, not a female’.

This edited book is 100 years after the start of the communist ideology. Theidea is to see this long-term perspective in the region, from the birth ofthe ideology until now. I think it is very interesting to understand it within theparameters of the Lebanese context, in this local scale. It would mean here con-necting history and gender within the Lebanese local setting (see Chapters 4 and13 for the Lebanese Communist Party and the New Left).

A. First of all, I have to tell you that all my work is local, I have neverconducted any fieldwork outside Lebanon. I am not a historian, either. Ifyou ask me a particular question I can answer from a strictly personalexperience. Furthermore, my knowledge of other Arab countries is scarce,and comes from my readings, mainly. I would not call that first-hand

knowledge, naturally; unless you really go down to the field you do notproduce knowledge.

N. Azza, that is good enough for me. I think it is very important to havethis retrospective for the book, the long-term look, and it also makes sense tolimit it to a case, to a national scale, that is good to focus in the Lebanesecontext. We can see such a perspective of the country in a way of crossinggender issues in it. That would be the first look and then we can look down atother related issues… First of all if you think about a specific historicalquestion I would ask about gender relations in Lebanon. People tend to talkabout the four phases in such a perspective, the four phases of the feministmovement in Lebanon.2 They try to understand the evolution of Lebanesesociety using this gender lens.

2 The four stages of feminism

N. I have a few references on the stages of Lebanese feminism. For example,the one by Bernadette Daou, she is well informed about it (Daou, 2015).

A. Yes, you are right. Researchers are using this periodization. It is espe-cially so, for young researchers. Many young researchers have interviewed meon the feminist history in the country. They tend to do it, because we had acivil war that lasted for 15 years and that somehow produced a sort of a fis-sure in our memories dividing it into ‘before the war’–‘after the war’ and asplit in our lives that affected the political, economic and social processes.

N. It was then the representation of a rupture.A. Yes, it was rupture. Let’s take for example the Lebanese Women’s

League, which is a coalition of women’s associations of all sorts, and you maywant to know that at that time women organizations – except for a handful ofwomen informal groups – did not call themselves feminists. It was not differ-ent from women of the 20s with the Nahda movement, women associationswere predominantly welfare associations, even if a couple of them called forthe ‘right to vote’, or for the right to education and so on. But if you lookclosely at what they actually did, you will see that, except for few exceptionswhen they participated in national anti-colonial demonstrations, they wereapolitical. Even later, and up until the eve of our civil war, you would not seethese associations as part of the political movement, not even as activist inthe way you would think about activism nowadays, such as marching indemonstrations or holding sit-ins by way of pressuring the legislator forwomen-friendly laws or opposing certain sexist legislative measures, etc.

3 Feminist consciousness through communism

I could tell you about the feminist consciousness – raising a women’s com-mittee in the communist organization, OCAL3 – that I was affiliated withduring the years 1970–3. One salient feature of this organization is thataffiliated members were highly educated, professionals, teachers, journalists,

Women and left in the Middle East 283

etc. Education was an essential ‘prerequisite’ to membership in the hope ofattracting to the organization independent activists, not ‘faithful followers’.This stance was carried over to the women’s committee of the organization.

At that time, I was a math teacher at a girl’s state school. I encouraged mystudents to participate in the ‘student movement’ strikes, demonstrations and sit-ins, demanding the improvement of the education system. I would offer them‘gratifications’ for that purpose. So, if they participated in a demonstration, or ifthey went on strike which meant missing regular classes, I would promise tomake it up for them by giving them extra teaching sessions on Sunday!

My feminist consciousness found its vocal expression through communism,at that time and in that committee, in particular. To tell you the truth, I amnot aware of how and who called for the formation of a women’s committeein the OCAL. I do not remember how it was established; it was somehow aspontaneous thing.

In those times, consciousness raising was identified with acquiring knowledgeby reading the communist classical texts (tathkeef) and by being informed ofwhat was going on. High value was accorded to being knowledgeable andanalytical at the same time. We were all reading and reading, and always dis-cussing – we had the most interesting intellectual debates. Mind you the bookswe read were not Arabic ones, only French and English. The ‘comrades’ whoprovided these books and pamphlets published by Western feminist groupswere, at that time, especially Fawwaz Traboulsi,4 and also his then wife MaryKelly, an American national who, herself, was a feminist.

As for the members of the women’s committee personal lives, I can say wewere not conventional. In my family, for instance, I did not experience harshdiscrimination. I was privileged in more than one way, maybe because Ibelonged to a relatively better socio-cultural class. Maybe girls who had edu-cated parents were better off than daughters of less educated ones. Needless tosay, by being a communist I rebelled against my family ‘bourgeoisie valuesand norms’. As for others, I can say we were relatively independent women,we were married in a non-conventional way. I guess we felt we belonged to aninternational movement. Those were also the days, not only of national anti-colonial revolutions but of sexual revolutions, at least for some of us. We, inthe women’s committee of OCAL, started something that looks to me nowout of tune of the ordinary, or at least it is how I see it now when I think back[laughs]. I do not know if younger women activists would do something likethat now. We circulated amongst us – members of the women’s committee –an article entitled ‘the myth of the vaginal orgasm’. Some members of thewomen’s committee thought our sexuality was an important issue, andknowing about it would be something that would liberate us. We started dis-seminating ideas expressed in this article among our women comrades. Wewere there by addressing intimate relations between men and women. Somemen comrades reacted with aggression. All this really stopped very quicklybecause the executive committee – the highest leadership of the OCAL – wasnot particularly happy with our orientation. Traboulsi, who played the role of

284 Natalia Ribas-Mateos

a pseudo-coach to us and was known for his sympathy for our ‘cause’, wasreplaced by a person who was more traditional, in order to ‘monitor’ ourbehaviour and correct our ‘deviances’… not that this was overtly expressed,but this is how I personally perceived it at the time.

N. You have not told me much about the books you were reading?A. Okay. We – ‘English-educated’ women – read the literature written by the

better-known feminist American and British writers of the second-wave feministmovement, comprising Betty Friedan, Kate Millet, Germaine Greer, ShulamiteFirestone, Anne Koedt, etc. ‘French-educated’ ones read translated books ofthese authors and French ones too. I personally was thrilled and felt these writersput in words my thoughts and feelings. To me those were moments of lived‘oceanic’ feelings of sisterhood. No sooner did we realize, however, that foreignlanguages were not accessible to all women comrades. So, we members of thewomen’s committee started writing in the journal al-Hurriyya (the Freedom) –the voice journal of OCAL, then. The few articles I wrote took up the theme ofthe reification of women’s bodies, women in education and the like – themes ofthe times. I used then a pseudonym for, you know, I could not use my real namebecause I was a civil servant, I taught in a state secondary school.

N. If we continue with this chronology of events we were following earlier,what happened in relation to the OCAL?

A. Around the middle of the year 1973, the OCAL was inflicted by schismwhen almost half of its members were expelled. This was preceded by an internalcrisis that rocked the higher leadership, the reverberations of which reached thelower strata – cells and committees of the organization. I myself was oblivious towhat was going on as my husband – who was involved deeply in the crisis – didnot discuss it with me, in conformity with the ‘rules’ that forbade the chit-chatpermeating information between cells of the organization. We both followed therules and no mention of the crisis between us was articulated.

Women committee members, however, started, and all of a sudden, arguingfiercely. I was surprised then, for up until then the atmosphere was fairlyharmonious. I learnt later, of course, that the conflict between these womenwas no more than a reflection of the conflict raging between their respectivehusbands in the executive committee of the organization!

When approached by one of the individuals (not my husband) trying toconvince me to join their party in their attempt to split the organization, Ianswered that ‘I am not sure I want to leave the organization, I need to dis-cuss more with my fellow affiliates of the cell’. My wish was not actualizedand I was expelled from the organization without discussion, and no reasonwas presented as to why my presence was not wanted anymore. It wasobvious that the decision was taken because I was considered to be an‘obedient follower’ of my husband or of my brother – both expelled by theexecutive committee of the OCAL. My brother and my husband were moreinto radical socialism meanwhile the others were more into mainstreamcommunism. I was not even aware that they were the ones initiating the split,not until later.


I realized that I was treated as a follower. It made me miserable and angry.Imagine, these comrades were supposed to have a progressive mentality and apro-feminist stance. And what did they do? They simply treated me as if it Iwas an appendix to men they disagreed with and not somebody who wasautonomous, somebody who has his or her own ideas. They did not think ofme as an independent thinker who may have been on their side in the ragingconflict. I felt cheated, but also stupid, not to have guessed the existence ofdécalage between what these people say and what they do, and that pro-gressive political orientation does not necessarily imply advanced social attitudes.I guess we were busy and did not see that coming.

N. Yes, you don’t focus on contradictions you focus on the political rhetoricof things.

A. Yes, you are right.N. So you were just punished because you were perceived as an appendix of

your male relatives.A. Exactly.N. So, all these events made you think a lot I guess.A. Actually this expulsion affected me in more than one way. I am, you see,

one of the numerous Arab individuals that became politically conscious afterthe 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Before that I was apolitical and so was my socialmilieu. In my attempt to look for an arena for my frustrated political andnewly acquired awareness, I was drawn towards the leftists circles, andsimultaneously drawn further away from my older friends on account of theirhaving what was termed, then, the ‘bourgeois mentality’, and because theywere mostly anti-Arab. The social and emotional void thus created was filledby comrades from the organization. When expelled, my social network wasreduced greatly. This was devastating to me. Fortunately, I got over it quickly.Later, during the civil war and after the cessation of civil hostilities, webecame friends again. As we grow older – you know – our conception offriendship differs and belonging to the same political organization does notmake two individual friends, nor do they have to agree politically in order tobecome friends. Anyway, the onset of the civil war marked a new era for me.

This is my recount of my experience in the political organization OCAL.Needless to say, my reminiscence of my experience in OCAL is tinted with mypersonality in all its complexities, and I am sure another member will recountto you a different one.

Are you sure this is useful to you?N. I think it is great, it means looking at your own biography within the

context of the gender agenda in the country.A. I would like to throw in a word by way of evaluation of my experience in

OCAL. The ending, even if negative, does not dismiss the feelings and mem-ories of the wonderful and exciting times I had in OCAL, nor the gratitude Ihave in my heart for the influence of comrades on my political and feministformation. I, unlike some of my comrades from both genders, embrace myexperience in it, and acknowledge with affection its effect on my life.


4 The appearance of violence in Azza´s life:5 ‘the incident’

A. After the OCAL days, I started working with the Palestinian Women’sUnion. It was strictly welfare. I had given birth to my twin girls Hind andMay in 1972, I did not have regular help and was busy, with the task ofbringing them up. The time I dedicated helping in welfare activities with thePalestinians was in 1973 – the eve of the 1975 Lebanese civil wars. Violentincidents were erupting between the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization](armed factions of it) and the Lebanese army, and the left sided with thePalestinians in line with its long-standing attitude towards all ‘reactionaryand defeatist’ Arab regimes that ‘betrayed’ Palestine and the Palestinians anddid not support them in combating Israel.

Reverting to our previous talk concerning feminism, you may want toknow that – not different from the Lebanese left – women liberation was noton the immediate agenda of the Palestinian Women’s Union. The saying wentthat we needed to direct our efforts towards the ‘primary contradiction’ yani(meaning) fighting Israel and the capitalist reactionary regimes and postpon-ing attending to the ‘secondary contradictions’ – those between men andwomen – till the primary ones are resolved.

On the ground, we were helping with the relief work. We worked hand inhand with women Palestinian militants in hospitals that took in the wounded,the Palestinian wounded in battles with the Lebanese army or the Christianmilitias. All this welfare work was obviously foreign to our intellectual andfeminist background and activism.

It was within the context of relief work that I experienced such intenserevulsion towards violence that would determine my future everlasting atti-tude towards it, and revolutionary violence not excluded. It was the sight ofblue corpses that started coming to the ER of the hospital I was volunteeringin 1975. Against Israel, the occupier, violence was acceptable, rather deman-ded, but against fellow citizens? What I saw that day, was revolting. It wasphysical. I threw up. Those blue corpses of men and women were killed,because they were Christians or Muslims?

When I saw those corpses, I got sick and I remember that I ran like crazydown the stairs, I could not wait for the elevator to arrive. And that is it. Irealized the meaning of violence. I became apolitical. I realized I was acoward [laughs]. This happened with many of my friends, both men andwomen. It was unacceptable for me. That day I left everything. And that wasthe beginning of the war. I was completely blocked.

It was then when I realized that the motto ‘Violence is the road to libera-tion’, that was part of our communist training was not bearable to me. Then Istarted putting things in a different perspective, and the thought ‘I cannotbear my children be hurt, nor people close to me be hurt’ was overwhelming.Following that incident, I realized I was a coward and embraced this char-acteristic of mine [laughs]. That day I left everything behind me. All connectionwith the left was abandoned for good.


N. And afterwards?A. You could say I ‘hibernated’ for 15 years – the duration of the Lebanese

civil war. I was completely apolitical. An objective factor that forced me, andmany of my acquaintances, to retreat from public life, was that we had to beconfined to our homes for a great part of the day. We were forced to home-stay because of the shelling, mostly random, that restricted our mobility to agreat degree. We would go to work, and finish our survival chores in themornings when militia fighters, of both sides, were ‘resting’. At around 1:00p.m. shelling would be resumed.

During the war, many of our friends tried to look for a way to go out of thecountry; to France, mostly, and to other places. Sometimes Cyprus because itwas very near. But we – my husband and I – took a conscious decision toremain in Lebanon. During the war, we were just fighting for our daily living,for our basic survival. The militias would confiscate bread or gasoline fordays, and we would be left out of some basic items. When I think about it inretrospective, it was bad; yet compared to what happens in other countriesduring civil wars, we were OK. Except of course that our life was reduced topreoccupation with survival and safety issues; praying the children returnsafely from school, be able to buy basic necessities for food, have water andelectric power, etc. It was during confinement in our homes that I resumed mystudies and shifted majors from math to social psychology.

I think I resumed my university studies in self-defence against the culturalvoid created by the civil war. It was a leeway to get myself interested insomething beyond survival. I got my bachelor and MA degree. It was whenthe war ended that I started my PhD.

When the hostilities stopped, after the Taef Accord, I resumed my interest inother things beyond survival – so to speak. With women fellow researchers, welegalized a gathering we had formed in 1986 – four years before the end of theLebanese civil wars – and made it into an NGO by the name of the LebaneseAssociation of Women Researchers which is known as BAHITHAT (www.bahithat.org) after the name of the periodical that the association publishes everytwo years, or so. We are, currently, several tens of women researchers who shareinterest in research in social sciences, basically. It is non-political, anti-sectarianand had very few objectives, mainly to provide a platform for women researchers,particularly young researchers, support them materially and legally. That wasback in 1993, the time of the ‘NGOization’ as termed by many. If the NGO wasapolitical, its members were political individuals. After Hariri was killed, andafter the 2006 war with Israel, there was a strong division between two groups(pro-Syria/against Syria, pro-Hezbollah/against Hezbollah). That was the problemthen. To avoid schism, we decided to refrain from political discussions.

N. I suppose you have seen many changes in the trajectories according tothe times and to the transformation of gender issues.

A. Yes, of course. For example, I can tell you if you want about the begin-ning of veiling among my high school students. It was after 1989, in thecontext of the Iranian revolution. Before that, when a girl student of mine


suddenly decided to put on the veil I would ask her: but what is the matterwith you? And she would say, ‘I want to protect myself ’.

N. It was like asking for respect.A. Yes. It was perceived by them as a way to induce respect and to protect

herself from sexually tinted harassments. After the Iranian revolution, the veiltook a political meaning and a means of asserting oneself against family. Canyou imagine, the parents of adolescent girls would ask the school administrationto side against their rebellious children? They asked us to forbid veiling didacti-cally declaring that it was against the school regulation to be veiled. It was theparents who requested that. I followed this issue day by day. It was the parentswho stood up against the veiling of their daughters and that was very new.

5 ‘The activist retreat’ period, the post-war period and theNGOization after Beijing

N. We will follow again the chronological structure. We could start focusingon the gender differences from the beginning of the OCAL. How connectedsocialism was with the Baath ideology and Pan-Arabism?

A. I cannot answer this… Somehow as individual militants in a leftistorganization, some of us may have been qualified as ‘arrogant’. I am one ofthose. We perceived ourselves to be more educated than the Baathists andhad, thus, a clearer vision. This is surprising to me now, for I cannot recallwhat it was then that was so vividly clear to me! I, and many of my comrades,was too full of myself to have noticed them, or put any effort to get to knowthem. I am sorry but I cannot answer your question.

N. What about the gender perspective then?A. One of the indicators of communist organizations, or parties that differ-

entiated it from nationalist ones, was supposedly attitudes towards women. TheLebanese Communist Party, even if termed revisionist by us, had a committeewhose mission was to enhance women’s condition. It is still working; it is stillthere. ‘The Committee of Women’s Rights’ that was, unlike our women’s com-mittee in the OCAL, a formal and state-recognized organization. Only, thestrategies of all the leftist women organizations were identical, ‘Women rightswill be attained after society is liberated, we all will be liberated together’.

As I said before, the women’s committee in OCAL went beyond this strat-egy as manifested by its raising and discussing feminist issues, even if thesewere not manifested in articles published in al-Hurriyya – the official voice ofOCAL. We could do it because we had our own space within the organiza-tion. Moreover, we belonged to middle-middle and upper-middle classes.There were few workers, few peasants in OCAL. We were relatively privilegedwomen (I am not well informed about the class affiliation of men in OCAL)and we were relatively free in our personal lives: we were not highly restrictedin our mobility, nor in our sexuality, etc. We had solved such issues. Indivi-dually, we did not have to deal with issues of gender discrimination thatwomen of lower socio-cultural classes had not resolved yet.


N. So, it was difficult between these two types of women. So, there werestrong barriers between the two groups of women.

A. Not totally; remember, as feminists, we were supposedly bound to allwomen by ‘sisterhood’. With women Islamists, it is different. We were notaware of the possibility of their emergence as an organized body. We werereally blind back then. We were blinded by our own discourse; we could neverhave imagined the changes that occurred…

N. Yes, it happens often with changes in society. Things that are therecooking slowly and we are not able to see the coming of it.

A. Yes, you are right. I would not have dreamt of the dominance of theclergy, a person like Nasrallah, over our political life… That was impossibleto imagine. We were naïve [laughs].

N. There was a lineal kind of thinking; that was the problem withcommunists. Was not that?

A. I guess so… we see things differently now. But of course, we were livingin a very different era. Anyway, during the Lebanese war I retreated from the‘public’. There was no way that you could be involved in the public spherewhich was occupied by militias, where the rule of the ones that carried gunswas dominant and the rule of law was absent.

N. Yes, you told me, it was that day that you saw the open face of violence.A. Mind you, this is not the case of the left. Some Lebanese and Palesti-

nian women from the left participated, or better say, wished to participate infighting.

N. What about when there was the 1982 Israeli invasion?A. Few summers before the 1982 Israeli invasion, and the first three months of

Israeli invasion, we – my nuclear family – were spending the summer in ourhometown in the south, Bint Jbeil, which lies within the ‘security belt’ – asIsraelis called it later – security for the Israelis, but not for us, evidently, verynear to the southern border with Israel. We fled Beirut when the ten-storybuildings were bombarded by air strikes and brought to the ground as theIsraeli jets were hunting Arafat in Beirut residence neighbourhoods. Half anhour after the 12-hour car journey from Beirut, Ahmad was called to ‘presenthimself ’ in Israeli military posts in Bint Jbeil. We learnt quickly that Israelilocal agents were behind his arrest for reasons pertaining to local inter-familial enmities. Later, when interrogated by a Francophone Israeli captainwho asked him: ‘Why do you think you were arrested?’ ‘Maybe because I ama communist?’ Ahmad replied. And the interrogator said, ‘I – myself – am acommunist too. Communists are not arrested; only “terrorists” are’, theinterrogator said. He then was asked: ‘Do you carry arms?’ – ‘No’, he said,‘So, you will be released’, that was the verdict.

N. So in the end you went back to Beirut and starting some researchmeetings, did you?

A. No, not ‘in the end’ … We returned to Beirut right after the ceasefireand the Israeli retreat to the outskirts of Beirut, sometime in August 1982.Our research ‘gatherings’ did not start till four years later in 1986. We started


as an informal group of researchers until Beirut was reunited after the TaefAccord, and the city was reunited, and we joined another research/activistgroup from the East ‘Christian’ Beirut, to form BAHITHAT – the formalNGO registered in the Ministry of Interior which I described to you earlier.

N. Another question. Talking about nowadays, the Arab Spring moment, Ichecked some works that criticize the metaphor of the ‘sectarian ghost’, andhow laicism is against the ‘sectarian pact’ (the Taif). What do you thinkabout it? Actually, I have a problem with this term. Please tell me more aboutwhat you say in your writings that feminism is against the ‘Taif system’.

A. No, not against the ‘Taif system’ but against ‘taifieh system’… I will tryto explain. ‘Taifa’ is used to qualify a religious group of people; ‘taifa’ wouldbe the religious community you belong to and may be considered a neutral,value-free term. I, for example, belong to the Shia’ ‘taifa’ (religious commu-nity), I do not have to be religious – not even a believer. I belong there becauseI was born to a father who was born to a father who was born to a father, etc.in this Shia’ religious community. Our political system is taifieh-based, meaningthat citizenship is confounded with religious community affiliation. As thefather is the reference to this affiliation, ours is obviously a patriarchal system,and consequently anti-feminist. This is basically expressed in the sectarianPersonal Status laws – highly gender-discriminating laws – which have been thetarget of feminist attack for as long as I remember, and is previewed to remainfor quite some time in the future. Our struggle for a civil family law is entwinedwith the struggle against the taifieh (religious sectarian) system.

Now, the pact you mention, known as the ‘Taef Accord’, was a manifesta-tion of the reconciliation between the different Lebanese religious commu-nities involved in the Lebanese civil war. Taef happens to be the name of theSaudi city where the accord was concluded, and bears no connection to theterms ‘taifa’ or ‘taifieh’. Amendments to the Lebanese constitution werebased on the terms of agreement between the convening political representa-tives of religious communities in the Saudi city, Taef. Amending a constitu-tion – renewing the social contract between groups in a society – entails thepresence of constituent groups of that society… isn’t it? It is commonknowledge that everybody has to be represented to validate the newly for-mulated ‘social contract’, not only the sectarian communities. Women wereexcluded from the ‘Taef Accord’ but so were other constituents of the Leba-nese society. Discrimination takes the shape of total blindness to all con-stituents of our society, except for religious sects. I am talking about peasants,workers, youth, professionals, political parties, syndicates, associations, etc.,these are examples of factions that were not there either. Women were not thesole absent constituent of our society.

But in some respects, the ‘Taef Accord’ is good. It dictates that politicalsectarianism should be abolished gradually and that a senate to be establishedwhich will be elected, or appointed, by leaders of religious communities. Thesenate would be responsible for major decisions pertaining to basic foundingideas of the Lebanese nation including decisions of war and peace, changes of


constitution, etc., and will thus be the arena for the major disputes betweenthe religious communities prompting them to solve their differences, and carryon their negotiations, peacefully. We women hope that the family laws will notbe a topic of concern of this sectarian body. I myself am not so sure. Thus thecitizens, the ‘mundane’ living, would be the mission of a secular parliamentwhose members will be elected for their merit to manage the citizens’ lives,such as the resolution of the garbage crisis, and will be judged rationallyaccording to delivering their tasks, not for their sheer religious affiliation.Unfortunately, neither the process of abolishing political secularism waslaunched, nor the establishment of the house of senate was conceptualized.

N. You must be sick of it, of the sectarianism. But some foreigners find itchallenging, a very intriguing system, they can’t believe such a system exists.

A. You are right it is sickening in more than one way. I do not know about‘challenging’ but I know some find it incomprehensible. When we – theLebanese official commission presented the first CEDAW [Convention on theElimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women] report back in2005 before the UN [United Nations] CEDAW committee in New York, ittook more than one attempt from our side to explain that Lebanon – this tinycountry – had 15 family laws! (corresponding to 18 ‘religious sects’ or con-fessions). So, not only are Lebanese women discriminated against (in relationto men), but we have ‘intra-discrimination’ – so to speak – as some womenare more privileged than others depending on which religious communitythey were born into. Consider child custody for example; if the ex-husband isa Shia’, he can retrieve a baby boy from his mother as early as the boy’ssecond year; whereas if the boy happens to be born in the Sunni sectariancommunity, he can enjoy the mother’s custody until he is 12 years old. Thisdiscrimination can be found in laws and measures pertaining to divorce,inheritance, guardianship, alimony… you name it.

6 A central focus from the 1990s: violence against women

N. I would like to know more about when you started your research onviolence against women from the 90s.

A. The issue of violence against women was publicly exposed in Lebanonin the year 1995, around the preparations for the Beijing conference.Research on the subject was, henceforth, in demand, when professionals andactivists concerned with women survivors of violence, as well as lobbyistswith decision makers, needed to formulate knowledge-based approaches tothe issue. I am part of the response to this demand. I was approached in mycapacity as an academic/researcher on gender issues by both governmentaland non-governmental, both local and Arab and (less so) internationalorganizations. I have done field, archival and desk research on the subject,all published in books that are posted online on my blog,6 as well as on thesites of the sponsoring organizations. I am in the habit of discussing resultsof my field research with women activists, students, interested professionals,


researchers, etc. by way of disseminating, as well as obtaining feedback formy work on the subject.

What are we doing? We are not solving the root causes of the problem, ofcourse, but at least we are preventing violence against women, because thewomen who are undergoing violence are not aware necessarily that they wantto eradicate the gender order. These women who are oppressed and abused toa degree that they cannot feel – even perceive that they have a problem, letalone have enough self-esteem to express their malaise and complain. There-fore, by regulating a law against family violence, you are reaching anadvanced point in empowering women. It is not a far enough point, OK, atthe end you cannot solve all the problems at the same time.

The increase in the crime of the murder of women is a global phenomenon,not specific to Lebanon. Everywhere, men have become more violent. In theanalysis of femicide (the killing of women because they are women) – anarchival study of women killers published in my book Cases of Femicidebefore the Lebanese Courts – one salient conclusion of my study is that this ischaracterized by having an immature and childish personality. These aremales rather than men. Their masculinities are impaired if they are unable toexercise their authorities over women relatives and spouses which is a neces-sary condition for their self-conception as men – for their gender identities.Women inferiority is essential to their elevated self-esteem and if ‘their’women’s behaviour (sexual behaviour particularly of daughters, sisters, wives,women relatives, etc.) shows their independence of these men’s immediateauthority, their masculinities are threatened and killing these women is exe-cuted by way of restoring their masculinities which to them are equivalent torestoring their honour – hence the term ‘honour crimes’.

My field studies have also shown that abused women who file complaintsmore often have a level of education higher than that of their husbands.Similarly, the social status and economic level of their families are generallyhigher than those of the families of their husbands. Wife beating tends to havea relation with the elevated status of the wife’s socio-cultural or socio-economic status over the husband’s which is perceived by the latter as threa-tening to his authority over her. The husband’s authority being a major indicatorof his manhood and of his gender identity and compromising either triggersin these men their aggression.

7 A central focus from the 1990s: NGOization and genderand development

N. I think that Lebanon was very advanced compared to other Arabcountries, don’t you think?

A. In what way is it ‘advanced’? Do you mean its feminism?N. Yes, it was a reconstruction of feminism.A. You probably know that the UN proposes approaches to human devel-

opment such as GAD (gender and development); and some countries


(Lebanon one of them) complies with its agenda for different reasons. Youcan say we – the Lebanese – were directly influenced by the UN stance ongender issues. Having had no agenda of our own after the stagnation of mili-tant feminism during the 15 years of civil war which resulted in the destruc-tion of ‘stones and humans’ (al-hajar wa al-bashar), what choice did we have?In the massive after – war reconstruction project of ‘everything’ – comprisingstate and societal institutions, all sorts of support was needed includingvisions and planning and not only logistics, resources and expertise to allconstituents of our society involved in the post-war massive reconstruction.Why not lend a hand to women organizations in their attempt to ‘reconstruct’their organizations and their feminism(s) – as we tend to name it?

I would like to clarify one important idea in relevance to the genderapproach to development which is sometimes overlooked by critics. Thisapproach is formulated simply. It proposes that planning for development andexecuting the respective programmes, in its various stages, need to takeaccount of gender as a socio-cultural construct. This means that those work-ing for human development in a certain society, need to be gender sensitive;which in turn implies having acquired a thorough knowledge of the respective‘gender order’, and the ability to identify instances where gender discrimina-tion hinders the actualization of plans – both strategic and short term – for-mulated and executed within the frame of human development; and thatidentification be done for the purpose of overcoming the mentioned genderdiscrimination. It goes without saying that GAD thus needs to be con-textualized within each society. This is the task of local women organizationsand civil society in general. It cannot be ‘imported’. If not contextualized –which, by the way, is no easy task – the gender approach to human develop-ment is reduced to lip service and is utterly useless… maybe even a fraud.

In reference to the reconstruction of feminism you mention, I feel thatGAD may be considered in Lebanon the ‘operational expression’ of main-stream feminism – one of the feminisms – working within the framework ofCEDAW and other UN-relevant conventions and resolutions.

Reverting to your question, I cannot say that implementation of GAD hasbeen more successful in Lebanon than other Arab countries, I am not surethere is a reliable meter stick that would allow such a comparison. Maybe thefact that we acknowledge the presence of 18 different sectarian communitieshas allowed, up to now, the possibility of freedom of speech and the freedomto form associations and other freedoms which we – the Lebanese – seem tovalue in spite of the fact that these freedoms are not being useful in solvingsome of our pressing mundane problems – political and otherwise.

N. From the perspective of social movements, you have commenced theperiod of NGOization in Lebanon. It was the time after Beijing in 1995, itwas also a moment of introducing gender activism in civil society. A new leftfeminism also appeared as an anti-globalization movement in the early 2000s.

A. I disagree. You probably know that Lebanon is known for its thriving‘civil society’ and its numerous social associations, women associations as


well; and this is due to the fact that, except for little restrictions on the for-mation of any kind of social association, state approval – meaning its regis-tration at the Ministry of the Interior – may be postponed till after it islaunched, and even after it has embarked on its activism.

Now, if by ‘NGOization’, you mean that the women associations formedafter the Beijing conference were apolitical, then so were the older ones andboth proclaimed being so in their mission statements. Yet, I think that activewomen NGOs in Lebanon are currently involved in political activism. Theyare, de facto, political. If, for instance, you consider the topics of their areasof activism, one by one, whether it is the family law, the citizenship law,electoral law etc., it is clear that these NGOs have to face certain politicalforces and groups, be it Islamist parties, religious institutions, the LebaneseParliament, some state institutions, etc., theirs is a political struggle for theyface the political sectarian system by necessity, if not by choice; and they do!

N. Sometimes it is difficult for me to see this difference between the sec-tarian and the rest of the ‘citizenship crossings’ an individual has to gothrough in Lebanon.

A. You are not unique in this. It is not that easy to make sense of. You haveto belong to a religious community to be a citizen of the Lebanese Republic,which is obviously a contradiction in terms. You cannot be a candidate forthe parliamentary election, for instance, unless you proclaim your affiliationto a religious sect. For example, there are a number of chairs in this particulardistrict (mohafadat or caza, as the case may be) designated for the Shia’community, another number for the Sunnis and so on. If you happen to berunning for a chair in that district, and if nominated by a secular party suchas the Communist Party, you have no choice but to revert to the religiouscommunity you were born in and claim – believer or not – your religiousidentity along with your party affiliation for the duration of the campaign. So,if you have been nominated by the Communist Party for parliamentary can-didature of a certain district, you would be called in our sectarian system, ‘thenominee of the Communist Party for the Shia’ chair’ in that particular dis-trict, and no one would point out the obvious absurdity of your temporaryqualification or ‘title’!

N. And for the Shia’, you are a communist [laughs].A. [Laughs]. That’s right. And for a communist you are an ‘accidental’

Shia’.

8 Final questions: research and the transformation of feminism

N. You often talk about the gap between generations in the feminist movementas the differences in the pivotal topics you address.

A. The young feminist movement, which you probably described in yourprevious questions as ‘new left feminism’, unlike the mainstream feministmovement, does not have a rights-based approach. But, if the rights-basedapproach does not express your needs, why should you adopt it? I see that


there are different feminisms, and it is clear that at times it has to do withgenerations; older feminists are more involved with women’s rights; they aremore concerned with changing laws and governmental policies and improvinglegal measures, etc. that empower women and serve their short-term andimmediate needs. They raise issues that remain on the social and legal andsometimes psychological level, thus revealing the fact that the mainstreamfeminist movement in our society does not want to take the responsibility ofgoing deeper/further in combatting the patriarchal order; this being, however,the primary aim of the younger feminist generation as was manifested by themotto/banner that was raised by the ‘Feminist Bloc’ – which is a coalition ofgroups of young feminists during the garbage crisis marches and protests inthe summer of 2015. The banner that preceded the bloc read as follows: ‘Thepatriarchal system is murderous’ ( ماظنلايوبألالتاق ). This has been expressed indifferences in concerns. Needless to say, there are many problems, and thereare many issues, that need to be tackled and individuals should not be inti-midated into concerning themselves with my own concerns because I believethey are more important than theirs, right? If young feminists believe thatsexuality, for instance, takes a pivotal importance – as you say – in theobjectives of their struggle, it is evident that it would be a main issue in theiragenda.

Moreover, and in so far as research and activism is concerned, I, an olderfeminist for example, am involved in research and some feminist activists mayfeel there are more urgent tasks to attend to. Ok, if I am doing research ongender issues, I get paid and I turn my back on the whole thing, then I shouldbe probably criticized for that. For, if I claim that I am a feminist and not aresearcher only and I do – then more needs to be done – and I do; I goaround meeting all kinds of groups that may benefit from my research such associal workers, students, government employees, decision makers, lawyers, etc.to discuss my research with them, thereby disseminating knowledge aboutgender and getting responses from these groups to my research findings.These discussions pinpoint issues that still need highlighting, or discern areasfor me that need more research to render approaching it knowledge-based,etc. So you see, there is a distribution of roles. Some of us feminists are activistsand others are researchers and some – like me – are sort of both.

Notes1 I had two long interviews with the psychologist Azza Chararah Baydoun in Beirut:

one held at the end of June 2017 and the other at the end of August 2017. AzzaChararah Baydoun is a researcher and gender consultant, a founding member ofthe Lebanese Association of Women Researchers, as well as a member of theNational Commission for Lebanese Women and of the CEDAW committee. Pub-lication highlights include: Muwatina la ‘ountha (A Citizen Not a Female), Beirut:Dar Al-Saqi, 2014; Al-gandar maza taqulina: al-sha’ i`wal waqi` fi ahwal al-nisa’(Gender, What Was It You Said: Common Knowledge versus the Reality ofWomen’s State of Affairs, Beirut: Dar Al-Saqi, 2012; Cases of Femicide before the


Lebanese Courts (Ed. M. Abu Rayyan), Beirut: KAFA (Enough) Violence andExploitation, 2011; Nisa’ yuwajihna al-unuf: dirasa maydaniya (Women FacingViolence: A Field Study), Beirut: KAFA (Enough) Violence and Exploitation,2010; Jara’em qatl al-nisa’ amam al-qada’ allubnani (Cases of Femicide before theLebanese Court), Beirut: KAFA (Enough) Violence and Exploitation, 2008; ‘SexEducation in Lebanon: Between Secular and Religious Discourses’. In P. Ilkkaracan(Ed.), Deconstructing Sexuality in the Middle East, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008; Al-roujoula wa taghayyor ahwal al-nisa`: Dirasa mydaniya (Masculinity and ChangingConditions of Women: A Field Study), Beirut: Al-Markaz Al-Thakafi Al-Arabi,2007; Nisa` wa jam’iyaat: Bayn insaf athat wa khidmat al-ghayr (Women andOrganizations: Between Doing Justice to Oneself and Serving Others), Beirut: An-Nahar Publishing House, 2002; Sehhat al-nisaàl-nafsiya bayna ahl al-‘ilm wa ahl al-din: Dirasa maydaniya fi bayrout al koubra (Mental Health of Lebanese Womenbetween Men of Science and Men of Religion: A Field Study in Greater Beirut),Beirut: Dar al-Jadid, 1998; with D. Bizri, Al’amal al-ijtima’i wa al-marà: Qiraà fial-dirasat al-‘arabiya wa al-loubnaniya) (Dirasa bibliographiya) (Social Work andWomen: A Reading into Studies on Arab and Lebanese Women (A BibliographicStudy)), Beirut: Dar al-Jadid, 1998.

2 The first wave of Lebanese feminism emerged with the pioneers (Raedat) who livedin the 1920s (Nisaa al Ishrinat). Their work was in charities such as al-jam‘iyyat al-khayriya. The second wave was represented by the Lebanese Women’s Union, whichwas founded in 1920 in order to bring together Arab nationalists and leftists. Thesecond group, the Christian Women’s Solidarity Association, was founded in 1947and composed of elites and haute bourgeoisie women representatives from 20Christian organizations. Parties had women’s organization, especially in the socialistones. During war, all activities were stopped. The third wave started with thelaunching of the United Nations’ Decade for Women in 1975 during the first WorldConference on Women. In 1979, the General Assembly adopted the Convention onthe Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Beijing stimulatedthe formation of the National Commission for Lebanese Women and the NationalCommittee for the Follow Up of Women’s Issues. It was composed of membersfrom both the governmental and non-governmental sectors. Other members of theLebanese Council of Women were Working Women League, Lebanese Associationof Women Researchers (Bahithat), the Collective for Research and Training onDevelopment-Action, Council to Resist Violence against Women (LCRVAW, from1997). The fourth way is the time of the Arab Spring. It connects with womendemonstrating against Syrian occupation after Hariri´s assassination. Other groupsare then important. Like KAFA (Enough), which sprang out of LCRVAW in 2005as a non-profit, non-political and no confessional civil society organization. Its aimswere to mitigate the causes and results of violence and exploitation of women andchildren. New organizations emerged in this era focusing on raising awareness ofdomestic violence and protesting the vulnerability of its victims in the legal system.Central issues here are domestic violence and abuse of female domestic workers,environment, women’s art, male-centred knowledge and sexual diversity (see morein Stephan, 2014).

3 نانبليفيعويشلالمعلاةمظنم (munaz.z.amah al-‘amal al-shuyu- ‘ı- fı- lubna-n), OCAL.4 Fawwaz Traboulsi was part of the zuáma, the leaders who had always believed in

the álmani, the secular. He was a member of the Communist Party during that time.He is now a Lebanese thinker, author and leftist activist.

5 I have chosen to establish this section because I have realized how from the Leba-nese civil war the topic of violence has been a constant in Azza’s preoccupations.

6 https://azzachararabaydoun.wordpress.com/


ReferencesDaou, Bernadette (2015) ‘Feminisms in Lebanon: After Proving Loyalty to the

“Nation”, Will the “Body” Rise within the “Arab Spring”?’ CivilSociety, 1, January,http://civilsociety-centre.org/sites/default/files/resources/ls-csrissue1-jan2015.pdf

Stephan, Rita (2014) ‘Four Waves of Lebanese Feminism’. E-International Relations, 7November, www.e-ir.info/2014/11/07/four-waves-of-lebanese-feminism/


Index

8 January Egyptian Communist Party161, 162, 271

21 conditions of the Second Congress 23,37n13, 130

Abbas, Ahmad 81Abd al-Aziz, Omar ibn 248Abd al-Fattah, Ismail 171, 173, 175–176,

177–178, 182Abd al-Hamid al-Khatib 77Abd al-Karim, Qasim 19, 74, 84–85Abd al-Qadir, Ismail 80Abd al-Qadir ‘Awdah 251Abd al-Rab Mansur al-Hadi 181Abd al-Rahman, Aref 86Abd al-Salam, Aref 85, 86Abdel Malek, Anouar 249Abduh, Muhammad 241Abrahamian, Ervand 53Accomplishing National Democratic

Liberation programme 174–175accumulation of power 2–3Achcar, Gilbert 251Adalat (Justice) party 46Afghanistan 5, 169Aflaq, Michel 113African socialism 195 see also SudanAglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 156Ahmadzadeh, Massoud 53–54Alaoui, Ismail 231–232, 235n37Al-e Ahmad, Yalal 250Algeria: Ba’athist factions takeover in 27;

border dispute with Morocco 227;communists in colonial 200–202;communists in independent 207–212;communists in War of Independence204–207; French Communist Party in5; National Liberation Front (FLN)204–206; see also Algerian Communist

Party (PCA), French CommunistParty (PCF)

Algerian Communist Party (PCA):adopting slogan for independence 202;ban of 208; under Ben Bella 207–209;commitment to uprising 204–205;egalitarian demands of 200–201;French Federation of 207; gender andrace norms 202–204; membershipdemographics 203; Muslimcomponent of 208; as nationalist party201; race transgressions 203–204;relationship with PCF 199

Algerian National Students Union 208Al Hilal al Aswad (the Black Crescent)

224anarchism 273–274, 278–279Andari, Arabi 100, 103Anglo-Egyptian treaty 186–187Anglo-Iranian Oil Company 51Anglo-Persian Oil Company 45–46Ankara government 63Antar, Ali al- 171anti-capitalist 6, 129, 154anti-colonial nationalism movements

18–19Antifascist League 97Antun, Farah 91, 92April 6 Youth Movement 163Aqarawi, Razkar 280n7Arab communists 137, 184, 259Arab-Israeli War 160Arabization 249Arab Left 16–17, 35, 276Arab Marxists 250Arab-Muslim cultural heritage 247,

253Arab nationalism 8, 138 see also

nationalism

Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM) 259,262–263

Arab socialism 8–9, 11, 86–87, 114Arab Socialist Union 160, 270Arab unity 16, 113, 146, 189, 259Arafat, Yasser 144Arani, Taghi 47Aren, Sadun 66Arigita, Elena 269Aslan, Yusuf 68Assad, Hafez al- 117, 118–119Association against Imperialism 78Association of the People’s Reform 80authoritarian regimes 8autonomy 16Awaad, Arabi 142, 149n30Azarnur, Fireidun 53Azerbaijan 49–51Azm, Khalid al- 114

Ba’athism 113–116, 248Ba’athist regime: Bakdash collaborating

with 117; economy of 116; in Iraq 27,86–87; Qasim’s government and 251;struggles within 118–119; in Syria 27

Ba’ath Party 111Ba Dhib, Abdallah 171Ba Dhib, Ali 172Ba Dhib family 170Baghdad Pact 99–100, 112BAHITHAT 288, 291Bakdash, Ammar 106n15, 120–121, 124Bakdash, Khalid 79, 96–97, 106n15, 109,

111–112, 114–115, 185, 247Bakdash, Wissal Farha 106n15, 120–121Bakr, Ahmad Hasan al- 87Baku Congress 22–23, 105n2, 129Bandung Conference 25–26Banner, The 159Barakat, Halim 90Bardawil, Fadi 265–266Barre, Mohamed Siad 28Basim, Zaki 81, 82Behrooz, Maziyar 52–53Bekir, Sami 61–62Belal, Aziz 235n37Belli, Mihri 66Benabdallah, Nabil 232Benabdellah, Abdelkrim 224Ben Barka, Mehdi 219, 227Ben Bella, Ahmed 208–209Bendjedid, Chadli 11, 210Benkiran, Abdelilah 232–233, 235n45Ben Seddiq, Mahjoub 224

ben Youssef, Mohammed 221Berger, Joseph 95, 147n8Bey, Hamit 63Beydoun, Ahmad 260, 264–265Bid, Ali Salim al- 178–179Bishri, Tariq al- 246, 250, 252Bitar, Salah 113Bizri, Afif al- 114Black Sea incident 63–64Blum, Leon 218Bolshevik imaginary 241–243Bolshevik Party 17, 45–46, 132, 172,

242–243 see also Soviet UnionBolshevik Revolution 60–61, 68, 75–77,

94–95, 129–130, 153, 241–243Boran, Behice 66Borochov, Ber 131Bouabid, Abderrahim 228–229Boucetta, Mohammed 228–229Boumediene, Houari 209Boumédiène, Houari 27 (see

Boumediene, Houari)Bread and Freedom Party 163British Empire 60Buabid, Abderrahim 219 (see Bouabid,

Abderrahim)Bukharin, Nikolai 17Bullard, Reader 49By Virtue of Marxism programme 196

capitalism: Arab socialism as 10–11;defeating 96; Democratic Way and15–16; Egypt’s struggle against 245;global 273; industrial 20–21; inMiddle East context 12; Nassercondemning 25; revolutionary actionagainst 91–92; transitioning fromagrarian to 4

Cayan, Mahir 68Cedar Revolution 102–103CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination

of All Forms of Discriminationagainst Women) 292

Césaire, Aimé 6Chaqueri, Cosro 48Charara, Waddah 260, 264–265Chararah Baydoun, Azza: as apolitical

288; characterized as arrogant 289;expelled from OCAL 285–286;founding of BAHITHAT 288; on fourstages of feminism 283; resuminguniversity studies 288; treated as afollower 286; working with PalestinianWomen’s Union 287–289

300 Index

Chatterjee, Partha 196–197Chemali, Fuad 93–94, 95–96, 105n8, 109Chicherin, Georgy 61–62China: social imperialism in 54; three

worlds theory 54Christian Democracy 254–255n2Christian Women’s Solidarity

Association 297n2circular power relations 3class conflict 5Claudin, Fernando 23Cliff, Tony 162–163Cold War, Soviet influence in Middle

East 25–27colonialism 25–26, 105n7, 129, 146colonialization 5–6Combattants de la libération 206–207Comintern see Communist International

(Comintern)communism: defect of 21–22;

dissemination beyond the West 20–25;education as prerequisite to member-ship 284; feminist consciousnessthrough 283–286; secular ideologies vs.12; in South Arabia 169–170; see alsoIslamism-communism relationship

Communist International (Comintern):abandoning Popular Front’s strategy201; anti-fascist fronts and 48;Communist Party of Syria andLebanon joining 95; Council ofPropaganda and Action of the Peoplesof the East 61; creation of 1; criticismof PCF 201–202; EgyptianCommunist Party and 154;establishment of 129; expansioniststrategy 24; First Congress 22;opposing Zionist ideology 131;Palestine Communist Party and131–133; Second Congress 22, 23,61–62, 130; Sixth Congress 37n15, 64;Zion’s membership rejected 131

Communist Organisation in the WestBank 142

communist parties: collaborating withnationalist bourgeoisie 22–23; growingweakness of 14; Leninist model 13;membership totals 36n7; mobilizingimpact of 14; organization of 13–14

Communist Party of Algeria 19Communist Party of Iran 46–47Communist Party of Israel (MAKI) 137,

138–139Communist Party of Sudan 25

Communist Party of Syria and Lebanon(CPSL) 95–98, 105n10

Communist Party of the Soviet Union(CPSU): on bourgeois nationalists115; Leninist revolutionary model and13–14; Sultan-Galiev influencing 22;Thirteenth Congress 115; TwentiethCongress 19; Twenty-Fifth conference184

Communist Party of Turkey (TKP)62–65, 66–70

Communist University of the Toilers ofthe East 23

Conference of the Non-Aligned 244Congress of the Peoples of the East

91–92convergent parallels 241Corrective Movement 117, 119Council of Propaganda and Action of

the Peoples of the East 61crony capitalism 11Cross, Peter 186Curiel, Henri 156, 157, 165n11, 246Czechoslovakia 66

Dabbas, Ata Mahdi al- 84Damascus Declaration 124Darwish, Youssef 157Davidson, Basil 195decolonization 195 see also colonialismDeeb, Omar 106n21democratic centralism 37n13, 264–265Democratic Movement for National

Liberations (HADITU) 158–159,246

Democratic National Party (Egypt) 162Democratic Union (Egypt) 157Democratic Union of the Algerian

Manifesto (UDMA) 203Democratic Way 15–16Din Mahmud, Nur al- 84Din Nuri, Baha al- 83DISK (Revolutionary Confederation of

Labour Unions) 68–69Douek, Raymond 157Drew, Allison 205, 206Druze Mountain uprising 93–94Duboc, Marie 269Dulles, Allen 125n8

Eastern Anatolia 75Egypt: 8 January Egyptian Communist

Party 161; 25 January revolution277–279; anarchist movement

Index 301

generation gap 278–279; anti-fascistgroups 157; April 6 Youth Movement163; Arab nationalism under 138;Bread Revolts 268; collaboration offactions 157–158; communistmovement in 245–246; communistorganizations under Nasser regime159–160; controlling Gaza Strip 137;creating alternative cultural spaces274–275; crushing communistmovement 155; democratic transitionphase 275–276; DemocraticMovement for National Liberations(HADITU) 158–159; DemocraticNational Party 162; disillusionment ofintellectuals 274; disintegration ofCommunist Party 274; EgyptianCommunist Workers Party (ECWP)161–162; Egyptian left failing tomeeting needs of 272–273; EgyptianMovement of National Liberation(HAMITU) 157–158; end to Britishprerogatives in 245–246; EvacuationDay 158; Free Officers Movement 159,166n18, 247; Friends of the Peacemovement 246; GeneralConfederation of Labour (CGT)152–153, 155; Liberation Rally 159;Libertarian Socialist Movement 272,277–278; National Committee ofWorkers and Students 158; nationalistbourgeoisie in 154–155; NationalProgressive Unionist Party 162;oppositional ideologies in 75; PartyPress law 275; political activism 272;political dependence 245;Revolutionary Socialists organisation162–163, 271; second communistmovement 156–157; socialist party in153–154, 245, 246; student movementin 268–270; Suez crisis 84; TahrirSquare 277–278; third communistmovement 160–163; trade unionmovement 30, 37n15, 153; UnifiedEgyptian Communist Party 159–160;Unified Workers’ Party 162; Union ofEgyptian University Teachers 276;Wafd Party 154–156, 246; Workersand Peasants Party 160

Egyptian Communist Party (ECP) 9;characteristics of 163; Comintern and154; founding of 152, 246; Nassergovernment repression campaign 160;ties to workers’ movement 152–156

Egyptian communists 19, 37n15,247–250

Egyptian Communist Workers Party(ECWP) 161–162

Egyptianization 158–159, 249Egyptian Marxism 273Egyptian Movement for Change 163Egyptian Movement of National

Liberation (HAMITU) 157–158Egyptian Social Democratic Party 163Egyptian Socialist Party (ESP) 153–154Engels, Friedrich 21Errant Journalist (newspaper) 92–93Ervand, Abrahamian 52Eskandari, Soleiman Mahsen 48Eskandari, Solyan Mirza 48Ethiopia 169–170Eurocentric Marxist thinking 6Eurocentric revolution 21Ezz, Mohamed 280n9

Fabianism 153–154, 165n4Fahad, Comrade see Salman, YusufFaisal, Yousif 184Faisal, Yusuf 106n15fascism 18, 47–49, 64–65, 132, 156–157Fassi Fihri, Omar 235n40Fattah, Ibrahim al- 78Fawzy-Rossano, Didar 246, 247, 248,

252Fedayeen Majority 56–57Fedayeen Minority 57–58Fedayeen organization 53–57Federation of South Arabia 170femicide 292–293feminism: feminist consciousness through

communism 283–286; generation gap295–296; intra-discrimination 292;new left 295; rights-based 295–296;second-wave feminist movement 285;stages of 283, 297n2; violence againstwomen and 292–293

Feminist Bloc 296Firqua Democrat Azerbaijan 49–51Firqua Democrat Kurdistan 49–51First Congress of the Peoples of the East

22First Congress of the Third International

22Fishawi, Khaled al- 269Flayyeh, Asim 77, 78, 79Forclaude, Marc 218Free Officers Movement 159, 166n18French capitalism 6

302 Index

French Communist Party (PCF) 5;Algerian region of 200; Cominterncriticism of 201–202; in Morocco 5;opposition to Rif War 217;relationship with PCA 199; in War ofIndependence 205

French-Lebanese establishment 91French Levant 92Front for the Defence of Constitutional

Institutions (EDIC) 226Front for the Liberation of Occupied

South Yemen (FLOSY) 170Front islamique du salut (Islamic

Salvation Front, FIS) 211

Gajar dynasty 45Gallery 68 (magazine) 275Gannushi, Rashid al- 252Garang, Joseph 184Gaza Strip 137–138General Confederation of Labour

(CGT): creation of 152–153; endingBritish occupation 155

German reunification 253Gervasio, Gennaro 270Gezmis, Denis 68Ghazali, Zeinab al- 246–247Gilani Rashid, Ali al- 75Glubb, J. B. 139Golan Agreement 126n27Gómez Garcia, Luz 275Gorbachev, Mikhail 20, 69, 122Gramscian Marxism 252Great Britain 25–26Green Army Association 60Gresa, Jacques 219Gresh, Alain 9, 191–192, 193Gromyko, A. 136Group of 53 47Gulf Coordination Council (GCC) 181

Hached, Ferhat 223Hadade, Khaled 106n22Hadjerès, Sadek 206Hague International Court 51Haj Salch, Yassin al- 126n21Halali, Ahmad Nabil al- 271Hanafi, Hasan 248–249Hanieh, Adam 12Hasan, Qasim 78Hashim, Mahdi 78Hassan II 227, 229–230Hawatmeh, Nayef 259Hawi, Georges 98, 102

Hekmatjoo, Parviz 53Helou, Farajallah el- 99, 106n16Hencin, George 165n12Hezb Khaen Tudeh party 53Hezbollah militia organization 102,

103–104, 126n30Hilal, Jamil 16Hilu, Radwan al 147n7Hitler, Adolf 97Hmimid, Zahra 232human rights organizations 14–15Hunchak (Hentchak) social democratic

movement 75Husain, Adil 252–254Husain, Ahmad 245, 252Husayn, Saddam 87 (see Hussein,

Saddam)Husnu, Sefik 62Hussam, Ahmed 269Hussein, Saddam 74Husseini, Haj Amin al 134

Ibrahim, Mohsen 102, 259, 264–265Ibrahim, Mu’awia 192Imara, Muhammad 252Inan, Huseyin 68Infitah policies 11International Monetary Fund (IMF) 11Iran: CIA coup 51–53; communist

movement, emergence of 45–46;Communist Party of Iran 46–47;counter-revolutionaries 56–57;dismantling Communist Party in50–51; fascism’s rise in 47–49;February Revolution 56; Fedayeenorganization 53–56; friendship treaties5; Hezb Khaen Tudeh party 53;immigrants 45; imperialism vs.socialism 56; Islamic Republic 57–58;Military Organisation 58n5;proletariat of 54; social democracy 45;splits in Iranian left 56–57; TudehParty in 47–49; Union of the OilWorkers 47; see also Tudeh Party

Iraq: Association against Imperialism 78;Association of the People’s Reform 80;Ba’athist factions takeover in 27;communist circles 77–78; militarycoup in 79–80; national bourgeoisie84–85; National Progressive Front 74;oil revenues 81; Port Workers’ Union82; Radiomen Regiment 80; SolidarityClub 76; spread of Communistthought in 74–75; Treaty of Friendship

Index 303

and Cooperation 87; tripartiteaggression 83–84; Warthbah protest82–84

Iraqi Communist Party 27; bouncingback 83; Central Committee 79;conference 84; description of 30–31;Din Nuri, Baha al- leading 83;formation of 75; founding of 74;peaceful road as central tenet of84–85; supporting military coup79–80; supporting Qasim 85–86

Iraqi communists 19Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) 81Islamic Republic 57–58Islamic Salvation Front 211Islam/Islamism: class struggle and 251,

254; communism connection to241–242; conciliation through247–250; modernity, incompatibilitywith 11–12; PAGS interpretation of211; reconfiguring communistmovement 249; socialism vs. 242; seealso Islamism-communismrelationship

Islamism-communism relationship: classstruggle and 251; coexistence between244–247; collaborations 246–247;distributive justice 253–254;ideological conflicts 250–252; rejectingbourgeois-liberal democracy 245;religion and 250–251; religiousprinciples and economic system 253;shared positioning 244; staging of243–244

Ismael, Tareq and Jacqueline 96Ismail, Yusuf 77, 78Israel: Arab Nationalist Movement

harassing 259; connection with USA111; creation of 109–110; Intifada143–144; Jordanian Communist Partyand 141; targeting Lebanon 264, 290;see also Palestine

Israel, Marcel 157Israeli communists 145Istiklal Party 134 (see Istiqlal Party)Istiqlal Manifesto 220–221

Jabr, Saleh 83Jamil, Qadri 123Jangali (Forest) movement 46–47Japanese expansionism 25Jazani, Bijan 54–55Jewish communists 137Jewish immigrants 130

Joint Meetings Party (JMP) 180–181,182

Jordan 140Jordanian Communist Party (JCP) 137,

141Jordanian communists 139–142Joumblatt, Kamal 262Jubran, Jubran Khalil 248Julien, Charles-André 217, 218

Kalfat, Khalil 166n23Karabekir, K. 63Karami, Rachid 100Kaypakkaya, Ibrahim 68Kelly, Mary 284Kemal, Mustafa 63Keown-Boyd, Alexander 165n9Khairi, Zaki 77–78Khalid, Khalid Muhammad 247, 248Khavari, Ali 53Khoury, Gérard 105n6Khrushchev, Nikita 111Kidour, Arsen 75–76Kuchak Khan, Mirza 46Kulla Democratic Bloc 231Kurdish revolt 64Kurdistan 49–51, 57Kuusinen, Otto 64

Labonne, Eirik 220laicism 291Laqueur, Walter 90Laroui, Abdallah 250Layachi, Abdallah 224League of Arab Intellectuals 136League of Nations 5, 90, 92, 110Lebanese Association of Women

Researchers (BAHITHAT) 288, 291Lebanese Communist Party (LCP):

Cedar Revolution and 102–103;defeated in legislative elections 98;defending rights of Lebanese 103; asdefensive organization 101; descriptionof 31; embracing women’s rights 289;influencing society 100; internal crisisin 100, 102, 259–260; opposingBaghdad Pact 99–100; opposingEisenhower Doctrine 99–100;Palestinian refugees and 104;supporting al-Turk 120; on Syrianconflict 104; Syrian Social NationalistParty and 103

Lebanese Council of Women 297n2Lebanese feminism see feminism

304 Index

Lebanese National Movement 101–102Lebanese National Resistance Front 102Lebanese People’s Party (LPP) 92–94Lebanese Women’s League 283Lebanese Women’s Union 297n2Lebanon: Bustros Pharmacy operation

102; Cedar Revolution 102–103; civilwar in 100, 287–289; CommunistParty of Syria and Lebanon 95–98;decline of Pan-Arabism 258–260;discriminatory system 91; DruzeMountain uprising 93–94;implementing GAD 294; Israeldirectly targeting 264, 290; LebanesePeople’s Party (LPP) 92–94; New Leftarising 258–259; NGOization periodin 294–295; October Revolution 92;Popular Front 97; Popular Guard 101;student movement in 268–269;taifieh-based political system of 291;violence against women 292–293;women NGOs in 295; see alsoLebanese Communist Party (LCP),Syrian-Lebanese communism,Syrian-Lebanese Communist Party(SLCP)

Lenin, Vladimir 23, 61, 188–189,262–263, 264

Leninist revolutionary model 13Levantine communism 96–98, 109Lévy, Simon 231, 235n45Lewis, Bernard 244Liberation Fighters (CDL) 206–207Libertarian Socialist Movement 272,

277–278linear power relations 3Lozeray, Henri 219

Madoyan, Artine 95Mahgoub, Abdel Khaliq 184, 186, 188,

191, 196Maoist groups 20Marty, André 219Marx, Karl 21, 243Marxism: colonialism and 105n7;

criticism of 7; Egyptian Marxism 273;Egyptian patriotic orientation on 156;as an evolutionism 261; GramscianMarxism 252; Iranian 52–53; socialtransformations and 7;vernacularization of 185–186, 189, 196

Marxism Islamism, defectors from 252Masud, Abdallah 80Matar, Found 196

Matti, Khairi and Yusuf 78–79Mazzella, Michel 222Memmi, Albert 203Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

region: communism beyond the West20–25; communist influence in 4–5;democratic changes in 15–16;dissociating from false universalism 7;independences in 9; power relations2–3; religious fundamentalism in 168;rentier policies 10–11; socialist ideasfirst entering 3–4; Soviet Union’sforeign policy in 17–25; weakness ofcommunist parties in 14

Mikaleian, Avetis 46militant ethos 265Mirza Kuchak Khan 46 (see Kuchak

Khan, Mirza)Mohammadzadeh, Saber 53Mohammed V 224–225Monsieur, Ali 45–46Moro, Aldo 241, 254–255n2Moroccan Association for Human

Rights (AMDH) 15Moroccan Communist Party (MCP):

achieving full legality 225; addressingthe United Nations 222–223;alignment with Soviet Union 221;building bridges 227–228; candidatesfor legislative elections 226; El Watannewspaper 219; in favor ofindependence 223–224; forcedunderground 223–224, 225; formationof 219; Independence Manifesto219–220; influence in political arena225–227; Moroccoization of 220–221;party membership 221; print mediaand 222; protest demonstrations by223; strategy of 222; supportingnationalist government 224–225

Moroccan Democratic Way 15–16Moroccan Labour Union (UMT) 224Morocco: border disputes 227, 228;

communism in, origins of 217–218;Constituent National Assembly 226;coups 229; Front for the Defence ofConstitutional Institutions (EDIC)226; influenced by Spanish Civil War218; Justice and Development Party(PJD) 232; National ConsultativeAssembly 225; national movement224–225; National Union of PopularForces (UNFP) 226; Party ofLiberation and Socialism (PLS)

Index 305

228–229; Party of Progress andSocialism (PPS) 229–232, 235n37;political upheaval 227; as refugecolony 219; Roosevelt Clubs 221;Sahara policy 230–231; schism of 1970229–231; Socialist Union of PopularForces 230; Socialist Youth congress217; Soviet relations with 234n25;Spanish communists influencing 218;world war years of 219–220; see alsoFrench Communist Party (PCF),Moroccan Communist Party (MCP)

Morsi, Fuad 159Mossadegh, Mohammad 30, 51–52Moussa, Salama 153–154, 157, 165n4Mouvement pour le triomphe des libertés

démocratiques 203 (see Movement forthe Triumph of Democratic Liberties(MTLD)

Movement for the Triumph ofDemocratic Liberties (MTLD) 203

Mubarak, Hosni 162–163Muhammad, Ali Nasir 171, 173,

177–178Muhammad, Madeeha Anwar 254Mursi, Fouad 246Muslim Brotherhood 245–246, 249–251,

269, 280n10

Nasir, Ali 182Nasir, Butrus Abu see Vasili, PetrosNasser, Gamal Abdel 25–26, 84, 138,

157, 159Nasser government 112, 159–160, 164,

269–270Nasserism 248, 269, 273Nassif-Debb, Marie 101, 103, 106n19National Committee of Workers and

Students (NCWS: Egypt) 158National Consultative Assembly,

Morocco 225National Coordination Committee for

Democratic Change in Syria andAbroad 126n29

nationalism 5–6, 8 see also Arabnationalism

National Liberation Army (ALN),Algeria 204

National Liberation Front (FLN),Algeria 204–207, 209, 210

National Liberation Front (NLF),Yemen 19; Accomplishing NationalDemocratic Liberation programme174–175; challenging British authority

170; Fifth Congress 175; FourthCongress 175; incorporating the PDU171; leadership of 175; Marxist-Leninist ideology of 174; PDUinfluence on 181; reorganization of175; as vanguard party 181–182

National Liberation League (NLL) 135,137

National Progressive Front 74, 118, 121,126n20

National Progressive Unionist Party 162National Union of Popular Forces

(UNFP) 226New Communist List (RAKAH)

138–139New Dawn (FJ: Egypt) 157new left feminism 295New Left groups 20Nezami Hezb, Sazman 52Nimeirie’s regime 190–194Nixon, Richard 53Nohra, Maurice 104, 106n16Nonaggression Pact 97Non-Aligned Movement 244non-capitalist development theory 8–9,

86non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

14–15non-oil-producing rentier states 10North American colonialism 25–26North Yemen, reunification of 179Numan, Yasin Said 181Nuqrashi, Mahmoud 158Nuri, Suleyman 63

Obad, Ali Saleh 179–180Occidentosis theory 250October Revolution 61Oghlu, Heidar Amou 45Oil Nationalization Bill 51oil-rentier economies 10–11Oliver, Roland 195Omar, Jarallah 179, 180Omari, Adil 275Operation Ajax 52 (Ajax Operation?)Organisation de la résistance populaire

(Organisation of the PopularResistance, ORP) 209 (seeOrganisation of the PopularResistance, ORP)

Organisation of Palestinian Communists143

Organisation of the Popular Resistance(ORP) 209

306 Index

Organization for the Communist Actionin Lebanon (OCAL) 258, 260–262,264–265, 282, 283–287, 289

Organization of the Lebanese Socialists259, 260–261, 264

Ottoman Empire 60, 75, 92, 169, 241

Palestinian People’s Party 144–145Palestine: Arab national movement 134;

colonizing 130; demand forindependent Arab state in 137–138;General Arab Strike 133–134; IstiklalParty 134; national communism135–137; partition of 98–99, 136;revolution 261; Soviet Union’s supportfor partition of 99, 122, 136, 145;violence outbreaks 133–135;Zionist movement in 132; see alsoIsrael

Palestine Communist Party (PCP): Arabcommunists in Gaza Strip organizingunder 137; attrition rate 133; Berger asleader of 93; Comintern directives for131–133; Jewish membership 139;Lebanese People’s Party as branch of93–94; reaching out to nativeinhabitants 133; re-establishment of142–145

Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)140, 142–143

Palestinian communists 139–142Palestinian Liberation Organisation 101Palestinian National Guard 144Palestinian Women’s Union 287–289Pan-Arabism 258–260Parti communiste algérien see Algerian

Communist Party (PCA)Parti de l’avantgarde socialiste, the

Socialist Vanguard Party (PAGS) 200,209–212

Party for Socialist Power 70Party of Liberation and Socialism (PLS)

228–229Party of Progress and Socialism (PPS)

229–232, 235n37Pavlowitch 63Peace-Partisans’ Union (Egypt) 157Peoples’ Democratic Union (PDU) 168,

171, 172, 181–182People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen

(PDRY) 168, 173, 176People’s Liberation (Egypt) 157People’s Republic of South Yemen 170perestroika 20, 69

Peyk-e Saadat-e Nesvan (Messenger ofWomen’s Prosperity) 47

Pishevari 49–51Poali Zion party 131Popular Democratic Front for the

Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP)259

Popular Front for Change andLiberation 126n30

Popular Front for the Liberation ofPalestine 259

Popular Socialist Party of Egypt 271Port Workers’ Union 82Pouyan, Amir-Parviz 54power, differential accumulation of 2–3

(differential accumulation of power)Primakov, Yevgeny 190–191progressive authoritarian regimes 8

Qazanchi, Kamil 82Quwatli, Shukri al- 26

Radi, Husayn Ahmad al- 84Rahhal, Husayn al- 75–76Rashid Rida, Muhammad 241–243Razmdideh, Asef 53Reda, Rafik 106n16Reich Cabinet 47religious fundamentalism 168rentier policies 10–11Revolutionary Socialists organization

162–163Reza Khan (Reza Shah) 46–47Reza Shah, Mohammad 47Rézette, Robert 218Riashi, Iskander al- 92Rifai, Suleiman al- 159Riffi, Chouaib 228Rif War 217rights-based feminism 295–296Rodinson, Maxime 105n7, 243Rosenthal, Joseph 3, 153, 164–165n2Roudani, Brahim 224Roy, M. N. 22, 130Rubai Ali, Salim 171, 177Rufail, Nuri 78Russian Revolution 17Russian Social Democratic Labor Party

264

Sa’ad, Ahmad Sadiq 157Sabri Abdallah, Ismail 246Sadat, Anouar al- 252 (see Sadat,

Anwar)

Index 307

Sadat, Anwar 27–28, 161–162Sadik Saad, Ahmed 275Sadr, Muhammad al- 83Sa’id, Rif at al- 249Said, Samih 269 (see Said Abud, Samih)Said, Sheikh 64Said Abud, Samih 270, 272, 275, 276,

277–279Said Saadi, Mohamed 232, 235n40, 249Salam, Adel 86Salam, Saeb 100Salfiti, Fahmi 140Salman, Yusuf 77, 79, 80–82Sayel, Saif 180Schuman, Robert 222Schwartz, Hillel 157scientific socialism 114Second Congress of the Third

International 22, 23, 130secularism 16Serfaty, Abraham 216, 218, 223SFIO (French Section of the Workers’

International) 217Shabiba youth group 170, 171Shabibi, Muhammad al- 81, 83Shariati, Ali 6–7Sharif, Aziz 80Shari Yunis, Omar 275Shawi, Nicolas 98, 100Shaykh Hamud, Ali al- 84Sheikh, al Shafie Ahmed el- 184Shi’ite activists 101Shishakli, Adib 111Shubra al-Khayma Mechanized Textile

Workers’ Union 251–252Shukri, Ibrahim 245Shukur, Ali 82Shumayyel, Ibrahim Naji 82Shumayyil, Shibli 91, 92Sidqi, Ahmad 147n6Sidqi, Bakr 79–80Sidqi, Ismail 158Sion, Paole 95Sivan, Emmanuel 203Six-Day War 27Smeral, Boumil 147n8social democracy: Iranian immigrants

and 45; transformation to 20social democratization 20Social Democrat Workers’ Party of

Russia 45–46 see also Bolshevik PartySocialist Labour Party newspaper 252Socialist Lebanon (SL): connecting with

European networks 260–261; creation

of 260; on failure of petite bourgeoisie263; fusion with Organization of theLebanese Socialists 260–261; onMarxism as an evolutionism 261;Marxist-Leninist teachings and262–263; organizational model 265;reinterpreting Marxism 261

Socialist Party of Egypt 245, 246Socialist People’s Party of Egypt 162Socialist Popular Alliance Party 163,

166n24Socialist Union of Popular Forces

(USFP) 230Socialist Unity Party 70socialist Zionists 130social movements, objectives of 4Solidarity Club 76Soud, Ghias Youn 120South Arabia 169–170South Yemen 172–173, 179, 263Soviet eastern policy 61Soviet Republic of Gilan 46–47Soviet Union: adapting socioeconomic

project to pre-industrial society 21;Arab military collaborations with27–28; backing Nasser 26; Black Seaincident 63–64; break with China 20;communism stages 17–19; economicrelations with Sudan 190; foreignpolicy in MENA region 17–25; foreignpolicy in Turkey 60–62; friendshiptreaties 5; influence in MENA region24; influence in Middle East 25–27;influencing Yemeni Socialist Party172–174; International Aid Fund124–125n6; Iraq treaty of Friendshipand Cooperation 87; losing interest inArab communist parties 19; Moroccorelations 234n25; opening up toindigenous movements 25–26;Palestinian conflict and 26; providingarms to Arab governments 113–114;revolutionary needs vs. foreign affairs23–24; strategic role of Middle Eastfor 27–28; supporting Arab GeneralStrike 134; supporting Palestinepartition 99, 122, 136, 145; supportingTurkish communists 64; Syria and 26,110–111, 117; Syrian CommunistParty and 110–113; Treaty of Rapallo24; two camps doctrine 18; see alsoBolshevik Party, CommunistInternational (Comintern)

Stalin, Joseph 17–18, 19, 50–51, 97, 98

308 Index

Stanzel, Volker 175state capitalism 10–11Subhi, Mustafa 62Sudan: Aglo-Egyptian Treaty 186–187;

applying Marxism to 188–189;economic relations with Soviet Union190; independence agreement 187–188;self-rule, right to 187; working-classmovement in 186

Sudan Communist Party (SCP): adoptingsocialism 185–187, 189; Arabcommunists shunning 184; disbandingof 194–195; effectiveness of 189;fallout with Soviet party 191–193;founding of 185; internal conflict 196;labour movement and 186; Nimeirie’sregime and 190–192; opposing SovietUnion 184; refusing Soviet line 190;Soviet recognition of 185; SovietUnion demands on 189–191; astransgressor of Soviet trust 194;vernacularizing Marxism 185–186,189, 196

Sudan communists 185Sudan Trade Union Federation 187Suez Canal: crisis in 84, 166n20;

reopening of 173Sulayman, Ahmad 185, 193–194Sultan, Leon 218, 219Sultan-Galiev, Mirsaid 22Sultanzadeh, Ahmad 46Suwaydi, Tawfiq al- 81Sykes-Picott Agreement 90Syria: as agricultural country 110, 124n3;

Ba’athist factions takeover in 27;Corrective Movement 117, 119;independence from France 109;National Progressive Front 74, 118,121, 126n20; recriminations to USA123; rejecting dictates of United States124; Soviet military bases in 27;supporting Jordan’s Palestinian move-ment 117

Syrian Baath Party 260Syrian Communist Party (SCP):

Ba’athism and 113–116; Ba’athists inpower 121–122; under Bakdash121–122; glory days of 116–117;ideological-internal split in 118–120;in independent Syria 109–110; socialisttransformation programme 116;strategy of 111–112; unified 106n15;USSR and 110–113

Syrian communists 19

Syrian communists, supporting Bacharal-Assad’s government 123

Syrian Democratic People’s Party 120,124

Syrian-Lebanese communism: beginningsof 91–92; Communist Party of Syriaand Lebanon 95–98; evolution of116–117; Lebanese People’s Party(LPP) 92–94; native peoples distrust of92; Shi’ite activists loyal to 101; splitbetween 97; unionism and 93; see alsoLebanese Communist Party (LCP)

Syrian-Lebanese Communist Party(SLCP) 109

Syrian Lebanese Socialist Party 95

Taef Accord 288, 291–292 (see TaifAccord)

Tahrir Square 277–278Taif system 291theory production as political practice

274–277Thorez, Maurice 204Torres, Ana 234n25Traboulsi, Fawwaz 260, 264–265, 284,

297n4trade union movement 30, 37n15trasformismo 8, 37n8Treaty of Rapallo 24 (see Rapallo, Treaty

of)Trotsky, Leon 24Tudeh Party 30; branches of 49; CIA

coup and 51–53; establishment of47–48; frustration with 53–56; gainingrecognition 48–49; membership totals49; outside of Iran 57–58; Sovietfavouring 50; survival theory 54; seealso Iran

Tuma, Jamil 77Tunisia, French Communist Party in 5Turbai, Hasan al- 252Turk, Riad el- 118, 120, 124Turkey: adopting democratic constitution

65; alliance with Russia 62; Ankaragovernment 63; anti-Americanprotests 67; anti-imperialist youthmovement 67; Black Sea incident63–64; communist youth movement67–68; DISK (RevolutionaryConfederation of Labour Unions)68–69; Draft Treaty of Friendship 62;friendship treaties 5; Kurdish uprisings64; May Day celebration 68–69;military coup in 69; Party for Socialist

Index 309

Power 70; Penal Code 65; ProletarianRevolutionaries 66; as satellite ofAmerican Cold War empire 65; assecurity concern to Soviet leadership71; socialist party in 65–67; SocialistUnity Party 70; Soviet eastern policyfor 60–62, 71–72; United CommunistParty of Turkey 69–70; Workers Partyof Turkey 65–67; see also CommunistParty of Turkey (TKP)

Turkish communists, Soviet support for64

Turkish Empire 90Turkler, Kemal 68–69Turok, Ben 186

Ulyanovsky, Rostislav 191Unified Egyptian Communist Party

159–160Unified Workers’ Party 162Union démocratique du Manifeste

algérian 203Union of Egyptian University Teachers

276Union of the Oil Workers (Iran) 47United Arab Republic (UAR) 112, 113United Communist Party of Turkey

(TBKP) 69–70United Nations: Decade of Women

297n2; GAD (gender anddevelopment) 293–294; humandevelopment approaches 293–294;Palestine partition plan 136–137, 140,259

United Political Organization of theNational Front (UPONF) 171–172

United Soviet Socialist Republics seeSoviet Union

Urabi, Mahmoud Hosni al- 154USSR see Soviet Union

Vasili, Petros 76–77Vilner, Meir 136Vishinski, Andrei 49

Wafdist Vanguard 157Wafd Party 154–156, 157, 165n3, 246Warburg, Gabriel 189Warthbah protest 82–84wife beating 293

women: abused women 293; NGOs inLebanon 295; political activism of295; violence against 292–293

Workers and Peasants Party 160Workers of Zion, Left 131Workers Party of Turkey (TIP) 65–67Workers’ Vanguard (Egypt) 157

Yata, Ali 219, 220, 221, 222, 228,229–230

Yazbek, Youssef Ibrahim 93–94Yemen 28; Ali Nasir coup 173–174;

communist movement in 170; JointMeetings Party (JMP) 180–181, 182;land reform in 176; nationaldemocratic revolution in 175; as partof British India 170; Peoples’Democratic Union (PDU) 168, 171,172; People’s Democratic Republic ofYemen (PDRY) 168; reunification of179; socialization of economy in175–176; Soviet relations with172–174; Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP)168; see also National LiberationFront (NLF), Yemeni Socialist Party(YSP)

Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) 173Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP): evolution

of ideology 174–177; factionalism in177–179; founding of 168; objectivesof 179; party membership 177;reorganization of 172; reunification of179–181; Soviet influence and172–174, 177; tribalism and 179;UPONF changing name to 171–172;as vanguard party 181–182

Yératzian, Aram 95Young Egypt Association 245Youssoufi, Abderrahmane 15, 231

Zade, Sultan 64Zaghloul, Saad 155, 165n3Zahedi, Fazlollah 52zakat 253–254Zaki, Ahmed 269Zedong, Mao 25Zhdanov, Andrei 18Zionism 132, 146Zirkavilov, Ilya 194Zuwayyed, Ghali 77

310 Index

Communist Parties in the Middle East - azzachararabaydoun

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