The rise and experience of Egyptian communism: 1919?1952

SELMA BOTMAN

The Rise and Experience of Egyptian

Communism: 1919-1952

The Communist movement in Egypt was born in the post-World War I period during a time of heightened nationalist and trade union militancy. The party played a radical- izing role in the nascent Egyptian trade union movement in its earliest years, but because it refused to participate in broad-based nationalist movements challenging the British occupation of the country, it became isolated from the main currents of political activity. Eventually, the party was outlawed and then it disappeared, leaving a vacuum in Egyptian Marxism from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s.

In the latter part of the 1930s the Communist movement re-emerged. This second phase of activity had its genesis in the anti-fascist and Marxist study groups which arose in Egypt in response to the global rise of fascism. At this stage, the Communist movement drew its proponents almost exclusively from middle and upper class students and intellectuals, with a disproportionate Jewish involvement. The movement was never unified, but consisted of a proliferation of sub-groups which alternately cooperated and competed with each other.

After World War II and with the resurgence of nationalist activity in Egypt, Communists sought to widen their base, making affirmative efforts to attract members from the popular classes. Despite some successes the Communists were never able to create a mass movement and never became a dominant political force. However their importance and influence were larger than their numbers imply. They had a significant ideological impact on Egyptian society, especially among the intelligentsia. They were present at key moments of nationalist, student and trade union militancy, and they contributed to the destabilization of the constitutional monarchy helping to pave the way for the emergence of Gamal Abdul Nasser and the military movement of 1952.

The First Egyptian Communist Party: 1919-1933

The year 1919 was a time of both nationalist upheaval and workers’ militancy. Between March and May 1919 tram workers, railway workers, government printers, gas workers, street cleaners, workshop employees and postal workers temporarily paralyzed the economy of the country by continual strikes. It was the general strike of 16 April, though that specifically demonstrated the importance of unified labor activity and stressed the power of mass participation in economic affairs. Even after termination of the general strike on 2 May labor unrest continued: gas workers, barbers, sugar

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50 STUDIES IN C~MPARATWE COMMUNISM

workers, shippers, cigarette, tram and electrical workers carried on their activity through August of 1919. Through the general strike workers understood the purpose of unionism and gained an increasing confidence in their own self-activity.

As a direct result of workers’ radicalism leftist intellectuals became aware of the importance of the nascent working class in the battle for democracy, social justice and independence and were encouraged about Egypt’s political future. Leftist intellectuals found no political party in existence in Egypt which could lead or manipulate this unfolding class conflict. Moreover, the fact that a relatively small stratum of politically active and sophisticated workers was unable either to convince or rely on already organized political groupings to speak on behalf of the impoverished working class accentuated the need for change. Neither budding nationalists nor the status quo royalists could be counted on to support the workers in their demand for higher wages and better working conditions.

The situation called out for the formation of a new and independent political force able to mobilize and direct the disaffected members of Egyptian society. Simul- taneously, small groups of intellectuals, who read the works of Tolstoy, Darwin, Kropotkin, Shaw, Marx, Owen, Gandhi, and Ibsen, began searching for fresh ways to take advantage of the dissident activity in Egypt. They took notice of leftist workers, who organized and led April-August strikes and who were detached from mainstream political parties, and they marvelled at workers’ independence.

In late 1920 and early 192 1, two groups of leftists came together to form the Socialist Party of Egypt. Its members embraced the range of socialist ideas: Fabianism, popular- ized by the gifted Egyptian thinker Salama Musa; the socialism of the Second Inter- national, characterized by an attraction to Social Democracy; and Marxism-Leninism, especially influenced by the Bolshevik Revolution. 1 The party was founded as a legal organization open to all shades of the Egyptian left.

Ideological diversity was also linked to heterogeneity in the group’s membership. Bifurcated into two units, one branch of the party was located in Cairo and the other in Alexandria. The Alexandria section was predominantly organized by and composed of the more marginal nationalities in Egypt-Italians, Greeks, Armenians and Jews. It attracted foreigners both at the leadership and rank and file levels.* It was led by Joseph Rosenthal, a Jewish jeweller who held Italian nationality and was of either Russian3 or German extraction.* Because Alexandria was the center of trade union agitation and the hub of nascent socialism, it was a highly suitable place for a socialist party to develop.5

In contrast, the Cairo branch of the Socialist Party recruited mostly Egyptians and Salama Musa was among its members. Soon after being established, however, the Cairo group became divided and began to lose its members. Important cadres deserted the section, moved to Alexandria and took the party files with them. They joined Rosenthal in the hope of finding a more active and dynamic organization, leaving the Cairo branch in shambles.

1. My analysis of the Marxist movement in Egypt in the 1920s ewes much to Rifaat al-Said’s study, Tarikh al-Haraka al-ishttrakiyyafi mix, 1900-1925 (Cairo: Das al-Thaqafa al-Jadida, 1975).

2. Mona Hammam, ‘Women Workers and the Practice of Freedom as Education: The Egyptian Experience’. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Kansas, 1977, pp. 116-117.

3. Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 374-375.

4. al-Said, al-Haraka al-ishtirakzjyn, p. 161, 5. Marius Deeb, Parp Politics in Eupt: The Wafd and Its Rivals 1919-1939 (London: Ithaca Press, 1979),

p. 86.

The Rise and Experience of Egyptian Communism: 1919-1952 51

Joseph Rosenthal was one of the more important figures in the early Marxist movement. After migrating to Egypt from Italy in 1899 he immediately began to organize the Alexandrian cigarette workers. His decision to affiliate with the cigarette workers was not coincidental: at the end ofthe 19th century, they were being hurt by the introduction of cigarette wrapping machines which led to the dismissal of numbers of cigarette wrappers and a drop in the wages of those still employed. This technological innovation caused a two-month strike which culminated in the founding of the cigarette workers’ trade union in 1899.

Not satisfied to work exclusively in trade union affairs Rosenthal engaged in political activity, and with a small number of close friends founded the Egyptian Socialist Party (E.S.P.). Almost from its inception, the E.S.P. concentrated its efforts on labor activity

and was particularly active among the tram workers’ union, the crafts unions and among mixed workers trade unions.

In the first two years of the party’s life it identified British colonialism as its sole opponent in Egypt; colonialism’s local agents in business and agriculture were ignored. Since the Egyptian landowners and budding capitalists who were tied to British colonialism were not targeted as at least partially responsible for the ills suffered by the majority of the population, the party failed to live up to its avowedly socialist principles. The refusal to confront the indigenous beneficiaries of colonialism revealed a basic flaw in the party’s theoretical stance and hinted at the immaturity of the organization. Moreover, although imperialism received major attention in the party’s programs, the members planned little real activity directed at weakening the British forces in Egypt. Thus, we observe a strange schizophrenia in the party: its theoretical positions ignored Egyptian collaboration with the British while its political activity was directed almost exclusively against Egyptian capitalists.

As a consequence the E.S.P. faced the hostility of the Wafd Party-the premier nationalist party in Egypt. Led by Saad Zaghlul, a hero celebrated by most of the population for his uncompromising attitude toward the British occupation of Egypt, the party was seen at this time by an increasing number of Egyptians as representing the unity of the entire country. Hence, socialists were charged with counterproductive and divisive behavior at a time when national cooperation was needed to face the British. The emergent socialists had to contend, then, not only with the British occupation forces and their repressive apparatus, but they also had to face the enmity of the nationalists. In essence, in the early years of its life, the movement was of a preparatory nature concentrating mainly on the propagation of ideas6 and trade union activity.

In 1922 the party entered its second stage of development when it adopted a more radical posture. With radicalization, the factionalism which already existed in the party became intensified. Salama Musa and the more pacific intellectuals were being left behind by the aggressive direction in which the group was moving. In protest against this, they left the party unable to agree to the resolutions which were adopted at the party’s first conference. The radical leadership planned to transfer the party’s adminis- trative center from Cairo to Alexandria, embrace Communism, and elect a new central committee.’

Soon after the party’s conference, a leader of the radical wing of the group was delegated to attend the Fourth Congress of the Cornintern held in Moscow in

6. Batatu, Social Classes, p. 379. 7. Deeb, Party Politics, p. 87.

52 STUIIIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

November-December 1922 to petition for membership on behalf of the Egyptian Communists. This was in keeping with the recent decisions of the Alexandrian based Communist-oriented party. Although the Egyptian delegate convinced the Comintern’s investigating committee that his party was an authentic revolutionary movement in agreement with the Communist International, affiliation was postponed until certain conditions were met by the Egyptian organization. These included changing the name to the Egyptian Communist Party, expelling certain ‘deviationist’ elements such as Joseph Rosenthal,8 and accepting the 21 conditions of the Communist International.g

After some internal party discussion in 1922, the Egyptian members agreed to join the Comintern and drew up a radical program of reform. Unlike the earlier programs of the Socialist Party, its new platform addressed a wide range of issues and included suggestions for solving the problems facing the peasantry, a novel addition. It also called for the nationalization of the Suez Canal in addition to national independence and sovereignty. The program appealed for progressive labor legislation, an eight hour working day, the recognition of trade unions, equal pay for Egyptian and European workers and the formation of producers’ and consumers’ cooperatives. lo

The program appeared to be comprehensive in content, voicing the concerns of workers and peasants and highlighting the national struggle. Yet, in its daily activities, the party continued to stress the need to establish a proletarian base while virtually ignormg rural and nationalist elements. It concentrated its energies on publishing a workers’ newspaper and on influencing the labor movement. By 1923, it could claim influence over a confederation of twenty or more trade unions, many of which engaged in militant strike acti0n.l’ Having an important effect on gas workers, electrical workers, tram workers, diverse textile workers, workers in public utility companies and workers of the Suez Petroleum refineries, the members of the Egyptian Communist Party were at the very least effective in labor organization. Party members justified their intensive labor activity using the argument that the party could play the most influential role in the national movement by basing itself in the organized proletariat. The organization of trade unions, the exacerbation and leadership of the class struggle were, then, considered to be the party’s most important tasks.‘*

The strength of the party amongst workers did not go unobserved by the new Wafdist government. Neither was the Communist Party unmindful of the rise of the Wafd as the most important nationalist party in Egypt. Wishing to test the new government, the Communists, in 1924, challenged state authority by directing workers in Alexandria to

8. Although Joseph Rosenthal was expelled from the party, his daughter Charlotte remained an active

member even being promoted to the Central Committee. The Egyptian government tried unsuccessfully to

deport Joseph Rosenthal from Egypt but it is believed that he remained there and died in 1927. 9. The ties between the Soviet Union and the Egyptian Socialist/Communist Party were initially estab-

lished through Egyptianized foreigners who had relations with the Palestinian Communist Party. When the

party achieved full membership status, the Russians began their supervisory work which consisted of equal

parts guidance and interference. The connection with international Communism was of little consequence. The Egyptian government easily crushed the Marxist movement. From the early 194Os, there was no

connection whatever between the Egyptian Communist movement and the Soviet Union or international Communism. The Russians refused to support what seemed to be an anarchist Communist movement led by

a Jewish minority.

10. Hammam, ‘Women Workers’, p. 118; M. S. Agwani, Communism in the Arab Easl (New York: New

Asia Publishing Houw, 1969), pp. 4-5. 11. Hammam, Women Workers’, pp. 118-l 19. 12. Jane DeCras (ed.), The Communtst Znternattonal 1919-1943: Documenls (London: Oxford University

Press, 1971), p. 95.

The Rise and Experience of Egyptian Communism: 1919-1952

strike in demand of the recognition of trade unions and an eight-hour day.i3 By urging this action, the Communist Party was demanding of the government no less than a radical change in its attitude toward workers. When the Wafdist leadership did not cede to the demands, the workers struck and took over the Egyptian Oil Company and the Alexandria textile factories. A showdown between the government and the Communists was imminent.

The government could not allow the Communists to exert their influence over workers and demonstrate their authority over nationalist intellectuals at this early stage of Egyptian independence. Although the left was not a major force in Egyptian society, its activities proved menacing to the government and as a result, the Prime Minister, Saad Zaghlul, was compelled to quash the movement. He acted immediately by sending a battalion of infantrymen to Alexandria to end the labor disturbances and arrest the ringleaders. Later, in March 1924 the party leadership was arrested and interned for spreading revolutionary doctrines and advocating the change of the social system by violent means. The communist-oriented Confederation of Trade Unions was disbanded and in its place a nationalist labor organization, the General Union of Workers under the leadership of the Wafd, was formed.

Dispossessed of its leadership and having its relationship with trade unions under- mined, the party itself was seriously weakened. When the fifth Cornintern Congress met in June of 1924, the Egyptian party was a recognized section, but an impotent one. Even an attempt to regenerate the party from without was ultimately unsuccessful. In October 1925, a new central committee was formed under the leadership of a Russian agent and expert on Egyptian affairs, Konstantine Weiss, whose alias was ‘Avigdor’. The party published a newspaper, futilely tried to link the urban workers with the peasantry and unsuccessfully attempted to send four Egyptians (including two women) to study at the communist cadres training school in Moscow, the University of the Toilers of the East. This latter move created a stir in the Egyptian press more because of the possibility of Egyptian women travelling abroad than because of their ultimate destination and purpose. Their visas were denied and the trip never happened. l4

Ahmad Ziwar, who was now heading a new government, had been appointed by the British and the Palace and shared their anti-Communist sympathies. When in June 1925 the revamped party was discovered by the police, Avigdor was deported. Ziwar ordered the arrest of the remaining communist leadership and outlawed the Communist Party. Communism, as an organized political movement, temporarily ceased to exist in Egypt. In 1931, upon the Comintern’s instruction, the remaining underground members were purged and a new program adopted. But Soviet patronage was ineffective for the party was totally unable to revive its activity or inspire any enthusiasm.

The main reason for the Egyptian Communist Party’s gradual disappearance in about 1932, was rooted in a number of weaknesses. From the beginning, the Communists were skeptical of Saad Zaghlul and the revolutionary potentialities of the Wafd Party. While the nation as a whole was applauding its nationalist hero for his brave campaigns

. . against the British, the Communists criticized him for his opportunistic tendencies.i5 Instead of capitalizing on the spirit propelling the nationalist movement forward and

13. Batatu, Social Classes, 387-388. pp. 14. Hammam, ‘Women Workers’, 124. p. 15. Agwani, Communism, 6. p.

54 SXJDIES IN C~MPAKATIVE COMMUNISM

trying to build into the patriotic fervor, the left expended its efforts organizing strikes and intervening in labor grievances.

Although the Communist Party could organize labor in skilled industries during the first few years of its existence, it never recruited workers in significant numbers because at that time organized laborers of a leftist bent were mostly of foreign (Armenian, Italian, and Greek) origin and their political sentiments did not represent the views of the majority of the Egyptian population. As a result of its ties to foreign workers, the Party was identified as alien and distrusted and for its entire life it remained outside the national movement.

Had the left concentrated its energies on the national liberation struggle or at least explicitly coordinated its efforts on the labor and nationalist fronts it may have gained some credibility and been respected as a national force; perhaps it could have attracted a larger, more Egyptian and more socially diverse membership. That it focused on the narrow class issue so intensively, revealed a fundamental theoretical weakness in the movement: by failing to identif~y the nationalist cause as the decisive battle to wage at the time, and by misjudging the strength of the national sentiment, the leadership condemned the party to an isolated and marginal existence.

Moreover, like other nascent Communist parties in the region-and notably in Iraq and Lebanon-Marxist organizations in Egypt were defined by personalities. When leading individuals flourished, the movement progressed: when arrests or changes of heart surfaced, the group was badly struck. As a result, by 1935, the Egyptian Communist Party was no longer listed as a member of the Third International, nor did its name appear amongst the signatories for the dissolution of the Cornintern in 1943.

The Rebirth of Marxism

After 1924, when Saad Zaghlul crushed the first Egyptian Communist Party, there was a vacuum in the Egyptian Marxist movement reflecting the general stagnancy of oppositional political activity. The nationalist movement had no organized challenge from the left until the latter 1930s.

During the 1920s and 193Os, self-identified Marxists living in Egypt tended to be of foreign origin; they were of Armenian, Italian and Greek descent, tied to the Communist parties in their own countries or communities and were not politically active in the Egyptian field. One qualification must be expressed on this issue: from the mid-1930s, liberals and democrats, mainly from the Egyptian Jewish community, began expressing anti-fascist sentiments and some began making contacts with the more well-known Communists residing in Egypt. These links were initially important for the establishment of anti-fascist organizations in Egypt which at a later time led to the revival of more indigenous Marxist thinking in the country.

In the latter 1930s and early 194Os, young Jews set up clubs or ‘circles’ of political, cultural and intellectual activity. The purpose of the clubs was to provide information and discussion. Egyptian Muslims and Copts participated but to a much lesser extent. Groups of this type proliferated not only in Egypt but also in other Middle Eastern societies such as Iraq during this period and served as important centers for meeting like-minded people, for exchanging ideas and learning more about the world in which these young adults lived. Therein, issues of the day were studied, lecture series given, books recommended, ideas discussed and thoughts clarified. Such informal activity enhanced intellectual and social deveiopment and stimulated the minds of youth

The Rise and Experience of Egyptian Communism: 1919-l 952 55

favorably predisposed to the left. What is noteworthy is that behind the legal framework of the seemingly innocuous groups, lay the seeds of secret organizations whose aim was to study and transmit the ideas of Marxism.

The efforts of Jewish students and intellectuals to become involved in the political process in Egypt was a direct reflection of their desire to understand the dynamics of the international situation-particularly the rise of fascism in Europe and the political divisions of right and left. Amidst international aggression and the threat to their own community, Jews were trying to locate a place for themselves in an unsettled and increasingly hostile world. In its attraction to European political movements, Egyptian Marxists were not alone. The founders of other Middle East Communist movements, like those in Iran, also came from young, educated, urban communities and many militants reached Marxism through the left wing movements current in Western Europe.

The cosmopolitan community was schooled in foreign languages; its members read foreign newspapers, listened to foreign radio broadcasts and were familiar with the encroachment of the fascist campaign. l6 The exposure to foreign culture through language should not be underestimated. Literate in at least French and English, the Egyptianized Jews were conversant with Enlightenment philosophy and aware of the ideas and movements current abroad. Indeed, for many intellectual Jews, the cultural life and ideological atmosphere in which they lived and to which they alluded derived from Europe where the left was conducting anti-fascist activity.

Jewish intellectuals were captivated by the events and movements of the day: the Spanish Civil War, the Ethiopian War, the Popular Front in France, and later, the battle of Stalingrad, all of which were inextricably linked to the development of fascism in the West and beyond. It was natural that anti-fascism was embraced by the Jewish community. For Jews in Egypt, support for the anti-fascist cause was a matter of self- preservation. This was especially true as Hitler’s power increased and no country seemed safe from the fascist threat.

What is equally noteworthy and more complex is that the renewal of Marxist thinking in the latter 1930s became tied almost exclusively to the Jewish community. In fact, the second wave of Communist activity, during the early and mid-1940s, was directed and controlled by Egyptian Jews. This is in marked contrast to the communist movement in Iraq. Jews did not contribute to the establishment of the Iraqi Communist Party in 1935, but rather became important as a group in the 1940s and then held key positions only after 1947 when the leadership was arrested and imprisoned.

The misery and injustice suffered by the mass of Egyptians deeply affected those Jews who were influenced by the socialist ideas being imported from Europe.t7 First politicized by the threat of fascism, they later developed their political sympathies and embraced Marxism. Espousing progressive ideas was a way for Jews to build into the majority culture. It was a path toward self-identification with the larger Egyptian society and a means of absolving themselves of the bourgeois traditions from which they emerged. Perhaps Jews advocated an internationalist ideology like Marxism, because they tried to find a place for themselves in a society where they were a minority. l8 It was only within the realm of internationalism that this could be achieved. Progressive Jews

16. Personal interview with Ismail Sabri Abd Allah, 26 December 1979, Cairo. 17. Hem-i Curiel, Pages Auto-Biographiques (Digne: Alpes de Haute Provence, 1977), p. 116. Xerox, no

publishers indicated. 18. Personal interview with Fuad Mursi, 12 November 1979, Cairo.

56 STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

condemned narrow ethnic sectarianism and stressed the importance of social class and its impact on mass culture.

But the inability of the Jewish community to understand the indigenous society, to express its needs and to draw political lines that were conducive to the progress of the revolutionary movement contributed to the lack of success of the left opposition in the 1940s. To reach the disenfranchised, to gain their trust and support and to accomplish radical change was an enormous task for indigenous Marxists; for those separated from the majority society by class and culture, it was a daunting prospect.

A Divided Communist Movement

The history of Egyptian Communism from World War II is not the history of a single, unified party but rather that of a movement characterized by factionalism and dissension. The activists who founded and participated both in the legal study groups and the anti-fascist ‘circles’ of the 1930s emerged in the 1940s as dissidents eager to establish concrete political groups which reflected their developing social and political consciousness. Young and inexperienced, they confronted serious organizational problems from the outset. lg Although brimming-with enthusiasm, they suffered from a limited knowledge of Egyptian political realities and Marxist theory and while full of passion, they were raw and unsophisticated political actors.

They launched their formal militant activity in the early 1940s in small, autonomous, clandestine groups limited to their closest associates and friends. Assembling covertly in a number of different, sometimes mutually hostile, organizations, they began the second wave of Communist activity in Egypt in a haphazard fashion. The product of this behavior was a labyrinth of political organizations, some significant, others transient or inconsequential. Indeed, the most notable feature of the movement is that the divisiveness so apparent in the early years was never adequately addressed or entirely overcome. And yet the lack of unity which was a hallmark of the young Communist organizations was only one of many serious problems the movement had to confront. Personal and ideological conflicts and an inability to penetrate deeply into either the labor or peasant communities limited Marxists to carry out sporadic attacks agamst the traditional power structure.

The Communists of the 1940s and early 1950s appeared as an illegal opposition group, forced by the laws of Egypt to conduct their work underground. Each association, undisciplined and conspiratorial, comprised members who perceived their former allies in the anti-fascist and democratic movement as potential enemies. Every leading personality, though familiar with his own small community of fellow dissidents, was nonetheless suspicious of the intentions, aspirations and goals of presumptively antagonistic competitors. This highly sensitive and skeptical behavior shaped the content of the clandestine organizations.

Defensive, distrustful, operating surreptitiously, these Communist inghus were not prepared, either politically or temperamentally, to search out and combine with sympathizers from opposing groups. Since there was almost no experience at the beginning of the movement of internal party struggle, the idea of banding together with others who held even slightly divergent ideological or organizational views was con-

19. Rifaat al-Said, Tartkh al-munazzamat al-yasariyya al-misrlyya, 1940-1950 (Cairo: Dar al-Thaqafa al- Jadida, 1976), pp. 1X-130.


sidered opportunism. Thus, instead of forming a united Communist organization with admittedly diverse elements committed to working out their differences inside a corporate structure, the Egyptian Communist movement of the 1940s became divided into a number of disconnected and often antagonistic groups. The youth, inexperience and parochialism of the members combined with personal differences of the leadership contributed to the division of the movement into isolated parts.

Secretiveness meant that the Communist movement was born outside the framework of the Egyptian political system. Not only was it conceived and organized beneath the realm of open political experience, its development took place apart from free and open political discourse. The margin in which it was forced to operate was defined by state law and further narrowed by its own subterranean practices. It could not grow through the interchange- either hostile or friendly-so common in open politics.

In essence, the leftist trend which surfaced in Egypt in the early 1940s can be seen as a product of three concrete phenomena: the international war situation marked by the rise of fascism and the triumphs of the Soviet Union; the burning issue of the British occupation and the ineffective response to it by the mainstream political parties; and the inescapable injustice of gross socio-economic inequality.

If the experiences of World War II and the realities of the British occupation activated the Egyptian Communists, then the issue that demanded thoughtful analysis from the leftist opposition was the internal decomposition and inequality of Egyptian society. While political elites were becoming increasingly self-centered, unrecognized political activity was germinating in the masses. The social and economic problems were indeed being felt by all classes of the society, and the gradual dislodging of the old order was accelerated by the questioning and rebellious attitudes of an increasingly large segment of the population. In response to the decaying social structure, radicals began calling for economic, political and social democracy entailing the betterment of the standard of living of the masses and agricultural reform; a workable parliamentary system which would respect an individual’s civil rights and personal and political freedoms; and the improvement of health care and education.20

Although the war helped to mobilize new revolutionary energy in response to national suffering,21 radicals had to struggle against old ideologies which for all their deficiencies corresponded with deep seated patterns of perception learned by the vast majority of Egyptians in childhood. *’ Nevertheless, since the occupation forces generally turned a blind eye to the Communist movement in the hope that they could make use of its anti- fascist political and ideological influence, the Communists found a relatively suitable social and political atmosphere, although Communism was technically illegal in the country.23 The vulnerability of the Egyptian state and its forced dependence on the British during the war entitled the Marxist groups to operate and allowed them to build.

Before briefly discussing the four separate groups which appeared on the political scene in the early 194Os, it is necessary to consider the role played by the Soviet Union in the formation of Egyptian Communism. It is now an established fact that the Russians did participate in setting up the first Egyptian Communist Party in the early 1920s. The extent to which the Soviet Union impinged upon the development of the Egyptian

20. Shuhdi Atiya al-Shaiii and Abd al-Maabud al-Jibayli, Ahdafna al-wuataniyya (Cairo: Dar al-Masriyya, n.d.), pp. 44-59.

21. Rashed al-Barawy, The Military coup in Egypt (Cairo: Renaissance Bookshop, 1952), pp. 148-149. 22. Maxime Rod&on, Marxism and the Muslim World (London: Zed Press, 1979), p. 20. 23. al-Said, Tarikh al-munazzamat, p. 95. Hanna Batatu makes the same observation about Iraq.


Communist movement in the 1940s has, till now, not been well substantiated. Walter Laqueur in his book, Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East, suggests that the Egyptian Communist movement of the 1940s was generated externally, and that the generating power was the Soviet Union. The implication is that Egyptian Communism was a thoroughly derivative political force and one imposed on the Egyptian political realm. It is my contention that Laqueur has put forward a misinformed view. Through all my investigation, including discussions with numerous Egyptians who were politically active during the 1940s and 195Os, I found no evidence to corroborate Laqueur’s position that the Communist movement was a foreign import. In fact, on the contrary, Egyptian Communists regretted the absence of international ties.

In the post-war world, the Soviet Union was, at least for a time, looking inward in an effort to repair its war-torn country. Furthermore, it was skeptical about minority and especially Jewish leadership of the Egyptian left and wary of the lack of unity in the movement. Ultimately, the Soviet Union did not want to commit itself to one faction in an anarchist leftist movement.

The Egyptian Movement for National Liberation

The Egyptian Movement for National Liberation (E.M.N.L.) was founded by Henri Curie1 in 1943. Curie1 has been described in different ways by different people-as ‘a bogus Gandhi who always appeared in short pants, even in December and January’,*’ as ‘. a frail-looking intellectual who would seem more at home in the Bodleian than in the factories in the Cairo suburbs ’ ,25 as ‘an efficient revolutionary who gave his life for the idea he was fighting and working for . ’ 26 While there is certainly no consensus of opinion about Henri Curiel, indisputably, he was the leading figure in the Egyptian Communist movement of the 1940s. Curie1 was intimately involved in every phase of the Egyptian Communist movement till September 1950 when he was arrested, transported secretly to Port Said, put on an Italian ship and exiled to Italy.27 In 1951 he arrived in France where he lived, worked and was eventually assassinated by still unknown persons on 4 May 1978.28

Henri Curie1 was born into a rich Jewish Egyptian family on 13 September 1914. He was third generation Egyptian on his father’s side. His mother was from Constan- tinople. His father, Daniel, was a banker, businessman and landowner. Curie1 received , a European education, first at the Jesuit school in Cairo and later at the Ecole Francaise de Droit where he received a B.A. degree in Law. When Curie1 reached age twenty-one in 1935, he took Egyptian nationality, relinquishing the right to his father’s Italian passport and thereby eschewing the privilege of foreign citizenship.2g

Henri Curiel’s origins pointed to anything but Communism: he was ‘foreign’, knew little Arabic, was very rich, had few meaningful links with the indigenous population. Yet he became a revolutionary committed to changing the structure of Egyptian society. Paradoxically, perhaps, as a beneficiary of Egypt’s class system, Curie1 was acutely

24. Personal interview with Louis Awad, 22 April 1980, Cairo. 25. Jean and Simonne Lacouture, E~pt in Transition (New York: Criterion Books, 1958), p. 259. 26. Personal interview with Muhammad Yusuf al-Jindi, 27 January 1980, Cairo. 27. L,‘association Henri Curie], Henri Curd Bulletin 2 (Paris: Imprimerie Abeille, December 1978). 28. Les amis d’Henri Curiel, Henri Curd (Paris: Imprimerie Abe&, May 1978). 29. Curiel, Pages Auto-Eiopphiqus, 12; L’association Henri Curie], Henri Curie1 Bulletin Sptcial (Paris:

Imprimerie Abeille, September 1979), p. 3; Civil Court, Case No. 1949, Abdin, year 1947, pp. 931-933,966 (in Arabic).


aware of the contradictions inherent in a society where the vast majority lived in wretched poverty, while a tiny minority enjoyed the lion’s share of the country’s wealth. Because of his outspoken attitudes and controversial behavior he was considered reckless by the elders of the Jewish community for voluntarily involving himself in local politics. Disregarding their advice and warnings, he became active in a campaign which was ultimately to lead him on a collision course with the police, his family and the politically conscious members of the Egyptian political arena.

Well before the official establishment of the E.M.N.L., Curie1 began plotting the course he would pursue in his effort to found a Communist organization. As a first step, he tried to bring Marxist theory to the Egyptians, and in 1941 Curie1 opened al-Midan Bookstore in central Cairo. Marxist materials were imported from England, the United States and the Soviet Union. The bookstore served as a meeting place for Egyptian intellectuals, allowed for Egyptians to make contact with foreign progressives and offered a forum for discussions of social and political issues.30 Henri Curie1 served as a communicator of European ideology to Egyptians and the bookstore provided many with their introduction to Marxist literature.

When Curie1 began trying to understand how to build a party, he made efforts to meet the survivors of the first Egyptian Communist Party. From the old-timers he learned that although the cadres were full of good will, they were easily destroyed because they were set up by Soviet agents, they had no coherent party structure, no notion of how a cell functioned and very little theoretical knowledge.31 Curie1 was certain not to repeat these errors. He feared that launching a party too quickly without a strong base to support it would cause it to fall as rapidly as the first Egyptian Communist Party. Instead Curie1 opted to move slowly and he and his followers adopted ‘the line of the democratic forces’ which essentially called for the formation of a united national front, bringing together all progressive forces, including the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.

Curie1 concentrated his efforts on attracting the workers, peasants, the petty- bourgeoisie and the disenfranchised. The group was careful, moreover, to avoid using the name Communist not only because of the prevailing laws in the country, but also because of the existing hostility it engendered amongst the people. This was a common tactic in the Middle East. When a group of Marxists banded together to form a Communist organization in Iran in 1941, similarly the word Communism did not appear in the group’s name. Instead, the appellation chosen was Tudeh, meaning the masses.

Iskra

The second important group was Iskra, founded in 1942 or 1943 by Hillel Schwartz. Unlike the E.M.N.L., Iskra had an essentially Jewish leadership and was characterized by members who were bourgeois in social origin, thinking and life-style. Many of the members, in fact, spoke little or no Arabic, using French at home, at school and in social discourse. By 1945, the second period of Iskra’s development, the group began recruiting Egyptians. Since the Jewish members of the organization were for the most part rich, cultured and isolated from the masses the group became attractive to

30. Civil Court, Case No. 1949, Abdin, year 1947, p. 62; Curiel, Pages Auto-Biographiqtm, pp. 22-23.

31. Personal interview with Raymond Stambouli, 4 June 1980, Paris.


Egyptians from well-to-do, intellectual families.“* Many of Iskra’s new members, students and intellectuals, became active in Cairo university. In fact, Iskra became the largest Communist group in the university during this period33 and was represented in the faculties of the liberal and scientific professions. Consistent with its membership, Iskra had a more rigorously theoretical bent than the E.M.N.L.

To accommodate Iskra’s theoretical orientation, Hillel Schwartz outlined the ‘stages’ theory of organization which was adopted as a way of circumventing the built-in difftculties of cosmopolitan Communists directly recruiting members of the working class into the underground movement. The system worked in the following way. First, the ‘foreigners’ who embraced radical leftist ideas were recruited into the group; next, sympathetic Egyptian intellectuals were brought into the party. The first two groups shared a certain mutuality based at least on common social background and education. After their recruitment into the organization, the Egyptian intellectuals, who spoke

Arabic and could theoretically relate more directly with the workers, would devote their efforts to politicizing the working class in order to lay the foundations of a future working class party. Although Egyptian intellectuals joined Iskra, very few workers were counted amongst its members.

People’s Liberation

People’s Liberation was founded in 1940 by Marcel Israel, an Egyptian Jew holding Italian citizenship. He was linked with some of the intellectuals leaning towards Trotskyism. The People’s Liberation was an organization with neither experience of clandestine work nor any conception of security requirements. The group was known for its stubbornly anti-religious stand; its theory was that to be a Communist, one must be an atheist and preach atheism.34

The group’s adherents were primarily involved in writing for the leftist press and supporting legal political organizations of the left. When it attempted to engage in conspiratorial activity, its inexperience resulted in police suppression. In October 1941, ten of its most active cadres were arrested for subversive activity, imprisoned for two months and then released. Marcel Israel was sent to an Italian detention camp in Egypt and then deported to Palestine where he remained until 1944. At that time he returned to E<gypt, but the arrests and deportations had so badly paralyzed the group that it was never able to exist independently again.

The New Dawn

The fourth group was the New Dawn, established in the early 1940s by three Egyptian Jews. The group set for itself two goals. The first was to study and to understand Egypt and to develop a Communist policy specific to the particular characteristics of the country. The second aim was to establish relations with the Egyptian democratic, nationalist and popular movements.

After July 1946, in response to the government’s attacks against all shades of its opposition, a dramatic change in the group’s strategy emerged. The New Dawn shifted its activity from open to secret work and founded the clandestine organization, the

32. Personal interview with Albert Ark, 26 March 1980, Cairo. 33. Rifaat al-Said’s interview with Raymond Aghion, 14 April 1973, Paris, transcript of the meeting

provided to the author. 34. Personal interview with Michel Kamil, 10 June 1980, Paris.


Popular Vanguard for Liberation. Trade union and nationalist activity formed the essence of the group’s work. The organization was, to some extent, successful in its efforts to organize the factory and it developed some lasting influence in Cairene and Alexandrian trade unions.

An Attempt at the Unification of the Communist Movement

Nationalist activity began to flare in Egypt in 1946, and spontaneous demonstrations, strikes, and protests became a regular feature of daily life. The Communist movement, although it did not initiate this political protest, tried desperately to penetrate and direct it. But because of inexperience and disunity its young intellectuals, who dominated the movement, were unable to harness popular militancy. In consequence, the government easily crushed it.

Prior to the nationalist upheaval, the sectarian squabbling among the predominantly upper class and semi-foreign intellectuals constituting the Communist movement was of largely academic interest. Once the masses became politicized around the cause of nationalism, the Communists to exploit this development had to submerge their ideological differences if they were-through unity-to play a significant role in shaping the course of the nationalist struggle.

In May 1947, the Democratic Movement for National Liberation (D.M.N.L.) was created from Iskra, the E.M.N.L. and People’s Liberation. This became the largest and the most important Communist organization in Egypt during the latter 1940s and 1950s. Although the merger was formally realized, the true fusion of the three groups proved difficult to achieve. Because of disagreements, personality clashes and police attacks against them, the members were distrustful and insecure. Moreover they were still inexperienced and had little understanding of how to penetrate Egyptian society politically, how to draw the lines of political struggle, how to build an effective political party and, crucially, how to deal with internal party problems. Understandably, these limitations not only hampered unity but also reduced the Communists’ ability to diffuse their ideas to the masses.

Within the D.M.N.L. there were various opinions regarding how to respond to the many issues before the group. Divergent currents within political parties are not unusual and need not be injurious but can serve as catalysts to constructive debate. What was prejudicial to the D.M.N.L. was that internal party conflict came at a rather early stage and severely weakened the party structure from the beginning. The D.M.N.L. was in the process of developing. It was prematurely faced with dissension from within and hostility from without and was unable to cope with either.

The divergent trends could not coexist for long. Perhaps the single most destructive failure of the D.M.N.L. was the inability to tolerate democracy or even a dialogue.35 Differences of opinion were not tolerated and when disagreements arose, the recourse was to expulsion or resignation rather than compromise or discussion. The result was extreme factionalism. From 1948 to 1952, dozens of organizations-offshoots of the D.M.N.L.-appeared on the political scene, some of a very transient nature. Accord- ingly, the post-war Egyptian political domain was crowded with challengers to political power-and included, in addition to the communists, the liberal nationalist Wafd Party, the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood and the xenophobic Young Egyptians.

35. al-Said, Tarikh al-munarzamt, p. 387.

62 STUDIESIN COMPARATIVE COMMUNISM

The Muslim Brotherhood was an essentially conservative religious organization which rejected political parties, condemned the West and was suspicious of non-Muslim groups. Its members championed a literal interpretation of the Quran, the return to pure Islam and the segregation of women from men. The ideas propagated and the life- styles led were inherently incompatible with the cosmopolitan minorities who, in the main, made up the early leadership of the Communist movement and the sophisticated Muslim or Coptic political actors who constituted the rank and file.

The Muslim Brotherhood was able to recruit, in addition to the non-intellectual petty-bourgeoisie and segments of the working class, young intellectuals. Like the Communist movement, both groups were appealing to the same constituency-the youth, which was disenchanted with parliamentary democracy as it operated in Egypt and which demanded social justice and national liberation from colonialism. The Muslim Brothers, much more so than Young Egypt was a force to be reckoned with in Egypt and was a group regularly in conflict with the Communists. Young Egypt was a paramilitary organization with fascist colorings. The group’s highly nationalist and anti-foreign bent, symbolized in the slogan: ‘God, Fatherland and King’ was unacceptable to leftists whose national roots or cultural world derived from Europe.

Finally, the decision to merge the different Marxist groups into the Comrnunist Party was made at the highest levels of the organizations. The rank and file members, though theoretically favorable to the idea, were not consulted beforehand but rather were presented with a fu& accompli. When the breakdown of the new organization occurred, the leadership was charged with consenting to an ‘unprincipled’ unity, meaning that the issues of policy, organization and leadership had not been rigorously and democratically worked out in advanced. Indeed, there were no documents drawn up at the beginning of the federation; no concrete political line, no party rules, no genuine program.36 Although there was initially considerable goodwill on all sides, there were also serious points of difference which because they were not dealt with early on, led to damaging factionalism soon after the merger.

Disagreement centered on several key issues. The first confrontation focused on Palestine. While the leaders of the D.M.N.L. advocated accepting the United Nations Partition Plan of 1947, this position was not universally supported by the rank and file. In consequence, there was an eruption of Egyptian-Jewish friction within the organization which was not easily contained. Secondly there was criticism levelled at Curiel’s ‘line of the democratic forces’ by those who wanted to establish a more orthodox Egyptian Communist Party. Curiel’s opponents insisted that the D.M.N.L. concentrated too heavily on the nationalist cause almost to the exclusion of socialist goals. Curiel’s controversial idea was that progressive-minded people living in an occupied and developing country should first concentrate on establishing a democratic movement of national liberation with a Marxist center and a Marxist awareness and only afterward form a Communist Party. He believed that a united national front which incorporated all progressive elements would most successfully oppose British colonialism. Curiel’s adversaries disagreed. They called for the creation of a conventional party patterned on the Soviet model.

This disagreement highlighted an important dilemma felt by many Communists both inside and outside Egypt. Specifically, it focused on how internationalists, whose

36. Tariq al-Bishri, al-Harnku al-szjas&zfi misr, 19#5-1952 (Cairo: al-Hiy’a al-masriyya al-‘Amma Lil Kutab, 1972), pp. 420-421.


concerns theoretically touched the entire world population, reconcile the nationalist movement and questions of a nationalist nature. Particularly in the case of Egypt, where the British presence was still felt, the Communists debated whether socialism or national independence should take priority in the movement.

Inexperience, division and periodic imprisonments left the Marxists weakened. The D.M.N.L.‘s isolation from the masses, its inability to restore harmony amongst its disaffected members and personality clashes amongst the leadership condemned the party to inactivity. Despite the fact that by the latter 1940s greater numbers of Muslim and Coptic Egyptians were recruited into the Communist movement and promoted into leadership positions, the situation did not improve dramatically.

The Resurgence of the Nationalist and Communist Movements

The internal disagreements in the Communist movement at the end of the 1940s had both negative and positive consequences. 37 In a positive way, factionalism forced the broader movement to re-evaluate and even criticize itself. It demand self-assessment at least in an effort to control its deviants. It pointed to the isolation of the Communist movement from the core of society and highlighted the need for wider recruitment. Factionalism encouraged a greater degree of regimentation, tighter security and a heightened sense of party discipline. Negatively, though, the ultra-radicalism and perpetual sectarianism contributed to police arrests, imprisonment and ultimate impotence.

The dawn of the 1950s marked a dramatic improvement in the spirits, expectations and activities of the members of the Communist underground. This was, to a large extent, occasioned by the return of the Wafd Party to power in January 1950 in the last truly free general election in Egypt; by the release of numerous political prisoners from the camps and prisons; and by a more open political atmosphere. Once again, conditions became ripe for a renewal of political activity.3s The nationalist and anti- colonialist movements were reactivated, the university campuses were alive with political militancy, workers’ strikes multiplied throughout the country, the peace movement rallied and the Communist movement, responding to this activity, was again building up its forces in an effort to capture at least some of the popular movements.

When anti-British guerrilla activity emerged in 1951 and 1952, it underscored once again the Egyptian impatience with the British presence in the country. But to the members of the leftist underground it was even more significant; it was seen as a means to further destabilize the already shaky regime in the country. Pointing to King Faruq’s declining popularity and the Wafd’s lack of control of the nationalist movement, the anti-British militancy levelled a challenge at the entire structure of Egyptian hierarchies which had proved impotent with respect to the British. 3g The existing institutions and leaders disappointed the majority of the population to the extent that they were now ready for and in support of a major change in the country.

The prevailing opinion within the leftist movement was that there still was not an organization in Egypt able to capture the nationalist sentiment which arose in 1950. Even the establishment of a new group in the same year, the Egyptian Communist

37. Agwani, Communism, p. 46. 38. Mahmoud Hussein, Class Conflict in Eupt, 19451970 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1977),

p. 71. 39. Mohammed Naguib, Eg@ti Destiny (Garden City: Doubleday, 1955), p. 14.


Party, which was untainted by past factionalism and unburdened by a familiar leadership could not alter the direction of the Communist movement in Egypt.

Yet, there was great hope among a significant number of disgruntled members of the Democratic Movement for National Liberation that the new group, the Egyptian Communist Party (E.C.P.) would solve many of the problems which strained and weakened the Marxist movement in the 1940s. When Fu’ad Mursi, the future leader of the E.C.P. returned from Paris in 1949 having completed doctoral studies at the Sorbonne, he found the Communist movement, according to his own estimation, isolated, dismembered and devoid of a suitable political line.40 He set out to analyze Egyptian society and provide appropriate political principles on which to build a disciplined political organization. Mursi categorized Egypt as a semi-feudal, semi- colonized country where the immediate battle to be waged was the national democratic revolution against imperialist domination of the country. The working class, the peasants and the progressive intellectuals were targeted as the forces of the revolution. Large landowners, capitalists of foreign origin, and the national bourgeoisie were considered traitorous to national liberation.

The EC. P., however, further contributed to the disunity of the Marxist movement. According to Communists who had been operating in Egypt for a number of years, the leaders of the E.C.P. ignored previous efforts to radicalize society and snubbed the victories Marxists had achieved during the past decade. The E.C.P. leadership was criticized for acting as though it was creating a new Communist movement in Egypt, from nothing that had existed previously. This, of course, alienated and angered a significant portion of the movement.

The Military Coup of 19.52

In 1952 British soldiers still occupied part ofthe country. Corruption abounded, rising prices in urban areas were accompanied by increased unemployment. Conditions in the countryside were also deteriorating as a result of higher rents exacted from peasant farmers. The Wafdist leadership, once the barometer of the national movement, had by this time lost its vanguard role. A crisis of governing existed: no stable government could preside from above and at the same time the society was in transition below. The fabric of the regime was weak and from January to July 1952 four Cabinets succeeded one another. The time had come for decisive action.

It was the Communists and the Muslim fundamentalists who appeared to be the natural heirs to political power in Egypt. Each was organized, politically conscious and gaining in popularity.*’ Yet neither group was able to take advantage of the moment. The Communists, especially, were not set up to assume political power. They had not organized a mass movement, were still internally divided, and insecure. On their own, they were incapable of moving against the state. An alliance with other forces in the social and political arena was needed before any effective action could have been contemplated. Moreover, the Communists had yet to devise a concrete strategy for seizing power. Their mere advocacy of a national front, of strikes, demonstrations and nationalist agitation was hardly sufficient.4‘

40. Personal interview with Fu’ad Mursi, 27 December 1979, Cairo. 41, Agwani, Communism, p, 48. 42. Personal interviews with Ahmad Taha, 25 February 1980, Cairo, and Mahmud Amin al-Alim, 8 June

1980, Paris.

The Rise and Experience of Egyptian Communism: 1919-l 9.52 65

Seizing the moment was the Free Officers, a small, secretive, politically diverse military group who overthrew the royalist regime on 23 July 1952. The Free Officers was neither the military, nor the army as such, but a political movement within the military and this was a very important distinction. The army movement was a kind of national front within the military in which all the opposition trends were represented. The genius of Gamal Abdul Nasser, the group’s leader, was that he was able to gather around himself a group of officers who agreed on a limited number of points.

Through this representative military opposition, Nasser ultimately took control of Egypt. Nasser required all those who worked with him to discipline their relations with their own political organizations to avoid security leaks. He did not ask his collaborators to give up their ideology, only to veil organizational ties behind allegiance to the Free Officers’ group.

The unity of the Free Officers was the combined result of a shared past, school ties, combat experience and their common hatred of the status quo. For the most part they had their social roots in the petty-bourgeoisie, which meant that there was a certain cohesion within the group and an aversion to the traditional political parties from which they felt excluded and by which they felt betrayed. Organized and united, they could move decisively and preempt other political groups. Nasser and the Free Officers overthrew the King and ushered in a new political era in Egypt.

The D.M.N.L. initially supported the Free Officers’ coup because it was in favor of any action in the army which would first destabilize the old regime and then radically change it. Also, the Officers had developed a relationship with the Communists in 1950 and depended on the D.M.N.L. to print their leaflets and address their envelopes which contained Free Officers enclosures directed to military men outside both organizations. Because it was too dangerous for the Free Officers to write, print and distribute their leaflets, they handed some of that responsibility to their Communist allies.43 The E.C.P., on the other hand, characterized the military takeover as a fascist coup d’etat

which it constantly criticized and worked to see overthrown. With the passage of time, the entire left became disenchanted with the direction of the

military movement. Despite the fact that the King was expelled and the backs of the feudalists were broken by Nasser’s land reform, full independence was yet to be won from the British and democracy yet to be practiced. Between 1952 and 1954 Nasser con- solidated his personal power and institutionalized the military in all facets of Egyptian economic and political life. He imprisoned the Communists and the outspoken nationalists and discouraged any form of independent behavior. Whatever ‘honey- moon’ existed between the Free Officers and the Communists came to a close as the authoritarian nature of the new regime emerged.

Conclusion

Nasser used to say of Marxism . that it is a factor to enrich us and to correct our mistakes to give us a view richer than a purely nationalist one. He dealt with Marxists as

consultants as ‘signals’ of possible things that could evolve.44

Gamal Abdul Nasser could think of the Marxists as useful consultants rather than as

43. Personal interviews with Ahmad Hamrush, 11 April 1980, Cairo, and Rifaat al-Said, 30 December 1979, Cairo.

44. Personal interview with Muhammad Sid Ahmad, 24 December 1979, Cairo.


threatening rivals because, in fact, they never were a threat to him: they never created a mass movement, never diffused their ideas widely and were never seriously prepared to take power. Although one of the basic questions the Egyptian Communists theoretically grappled with was how to get people to take matters into their own hands, how to develop local leaderships capable of understanding area problems and working with supporters toward the realization of local improvements, the Communists never developed a political program that could capture the mass of Egyptians. They were unable to move out of the political center of Cairo and outside the social strata of urban students, professionals and skilled workers. Moreover in the early part of the 1940s the movement was disproportionately populated by members of Egypt’s Jewish minority. Its narrowness fatally limited the movement. Despite well intended efforts, with few exceptions, Communists could not penetrate the rural villages or the poor urban neighborhood. The Communists were never able to transform their message of popular participation in the political process into concrete activity.

Despite its serious limitations, the Communist movement did constitute an oppositional force worthy of note during the 1940s and 1950s and did exert an influence on Egyptian intellectual and political life primarily through its contribution to journalism, poetry, short story writing, philosophical and political publications and through demonstrations and strikes. Moreover, the Communists helped lay the basis for left- wing ideas-social justice, planned economic development, and a skepticism of the West-which became a basic part of the political, social, intellectual and artistic mainstream of Egypt under Nasser’s rule.

While the Communists looked forward to momentous changes in Egyptian life which they hoped to inspire and accomplish, perhaps the greatest irony of the movement was that its successes were not found in their socialist revolution but were realized‘incre- mentally in the policies carried out after Nassser’s coup d’etat. The removal ofthe British, the policy of neutralism, land reform, nationalization, alliance with the Socialist bloc countries and socialist economic planning were Communist supported and articulated proposals. Nasser cleverly adopted from the Marxist tradition those ideas he could appropriately employ and he sometimes even asked Communists to design his projects or supply input into his plans. Nasser’s selective use of Communist talent further divided the Communist movement between those who supported Nasser’s policies and his vision and those who distrusted his iron-fisted control of every sector of Egyptian society.

Nasser used the Communists when it suited his needs but he always kept a close watch on their activities. At times he pursued the underground opposition and imprisoned its members for long periods of time. This was possible because Nasser replaced the semi- liberal society against which he revolted with a closed and politically strait-jacketed community in which dissent was prohibited. Measures forbidding political parties and censuring oppositional publications smothered independent activity and obstructed the path to a democratic Egypt.

The vibrancy and multiplicity of political behavior so characteristic of the 1940s disappeared. By 1954, after a struggle for power within the military which Gamal Abdul Nasser won, the dictatorship of the military was firmly in place and there was little room for the left within it.

The rise and experience of Egyptian communism: 1919?1952

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