Communism in the Arab East : 1918-1928 PDF
Preview Communism in the Arab East : 1918-1928
Communism in the Arab East 1918-1928 Suliman Bashear Ithaca Press London 1980 ©1980 Suliman Bashear First published in 1980 by Ithaca Press 13 Southwark Street London SE 1 ISBN 0 903729 35 5 Printed in England by Ithaca Press CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TRANSLITERATION INTRODUCTION PART ONE: THE GENERAL SETTING Page 1 Historical Background: The Arab East at the Crossroads 1 2 Ideological Background: Marxism-Leninism, Comintern and the Colonial Question up to 1921 9 PART TWO: THE COMMUNIST MOVEMENT, ITS ORGANISATION, ACTIVITY AND SUPPRESSION 3 Egypt 1919-1923 23 4 Palestine to 1924 34 5 Egypt 1922-1924 54 6 Palestine 1924-1928 66 7 Suppression in Egypt 1924-1928 90 8 Suppression in Palestine 1921-1928 105 PART THREE: COMMUNIST POLITICAL THEORY 9 Egyptian Nationalism 1919-1928 111 10 Palestine: Imperialism, Zionism and the Revolutionary Prospects 1919-1928 117 11 Syrian Uprising 1925-1927 124 12 Iraq and Arabia: National Independence and the British Interests, 1919-1928 131 13 Arab Unity 1919-1928 138 CONCLUSION 145 NOTES 148 INDEX 181 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The present study has been supervised by Professor E J Hobsbawm at Birbeck College, University of London. To his perceptive and encouraging criticism through all Its stages I owe a special debt of gratitude. I should also like to express my appreciation to Professor Maxine Rodinson who contributed helpful suggestions and remarks. The kind and generous assistance given by the staffs of several libraries was of great help to me in the course of this research. I am especially Indebted to those of the Public Record Office, the Marx Memorial Library and the British Museum Reading Room. TRANSUETERATDN Arabic names, terms and titles have been transliterated throughout thn present study <ntn Kngiioh forms In a consistent ami systematic way. hi doing so I have adopted the transcription list which can be found in J A Haywood and H M Nahmad: A New Arabic Grammar, second edition, London 1965. This list has also been used in H Wher: A Dictionary of Modem Written Arabic, after some of the forms used in the Encyclopedia of Islam were found to be outdated. Apart from this, commonly accepted forms for some Arabic names have been retained. The few Hebrew names which appear in this study have been transcribed, In their turn, in a simple yet consistent way. INTRODUCTION In recent years many works have been written on the contemporary his tory of the Arab East1 whose current political development is rightly regarded as one of constant turmoil. Most of these writers deal with controversial subjects such as the Israeli-Arab conflict (or the Pales tinian problem), Arab nationalism and the strategic and economic impor tance of the area to the Western world. The Soviet Union* s involvement in the Arab Eastern political life during the last two decades is also dealt with by some of these writers. The latter, however, have paid little attention to the Communist move ment in the area and still less to the early phase of its existence. More over, we find that such attention is almost non-existent when it comes to the Communist political theory during this early phase. The aim of the present study is to fill such a gap in a period crucial in the history of both the Arab East and the World Communist movement. For the former, the First World War brought with it the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of Arab nationalism, the Balfour Declaration and the British and French partition and mandate rule. The encounter of these and other local socio-economic factors during the first decade which followed the war, has determined the political development of the Arab East to the extent that its repercussions can still be felt today. Egypt1 s struggle for independence, the rise of Zionism in Palestine, the separation of Lebanon from Syria and the crushing of the latter's national uprising during 1925-27, as well as the emergence of Iraq and Saudi Arabia in their present boundaries - all these were the products of this period. Such developments formed the setting in which the Arab Communist movement and theory will emerge and develop* The latter, however, was also the product of the post-war period in the history of the interna tional socialist movement. Following the outbreak of the October Revolu tion in Russia and the establishment of the Communist International, the Arab East like other parts Of the colonial world was incorporated under the term of *the Colonial question1, in a world-wide revolutionary stra tegy. It is at the junction of these processes that Arab Communism during this period must be seen. The present study constitutes an attempt to trace the emergence, activity and suppression of communism in Egypt, Palestine and Syria. Here, the numerous despatches, political and police reports sent to the Foreign and Colonial Offices by the different British officials in the area during this period, together with the informa tion given by Comintern* s sources were of great help to me.2 Of equal importance is the discussion of the ideology which lay behind the attitudes and day-to-day activity of the communists during this period. As already stated, such an ideology developed both as a part of the world communist theory on the Colonial Question, and in the specific socio economic and political developments in the Arab East itself. Here it is interesting to examine the way in which the communists saw the problems of national and social revolutions intermingling in an overall theory of systematic approach. Moreover* such intermingling must be examined on both the local and the regional levels affecting each country itself and the area as a whole. Such a task, although not impossible* proves to be of the utmost diffi culty* During the period under review no major theoretical work on the Arab East was done by either Comintern or any of the local communist parties. Instead, the area* s current problems were dealt with by the numerous articles written by some of the leading communist figures both in Comintern and in the Arab East.* Some of these articles, it is true, were of theoretical value. The difficulty for analysis however arises from both the timing and diversity of the national and social pro blems with which they dealt. The first part of this book* Chapters I and n gives the historical and ideological backgrounds respectively. The second part (Chapters m to VDI) deals with the organisation, activity and suppression of the Com munist Parties in Egypt, Palestine and Syria. In the third part (Chapters DC to XIH) an attempt will be made at dealing with the commu nist theory on the development of each of the five major countries in the region and on the latter as one socio-political unit, respectively. This study will end with an attempt to review the Communist expe rience in the Arab-East up to 192j8. This year has been taken as an end to my period because it constitutes a major turning point in the history of both Arab Communism and the World Communist movement. For the latter, this turning point was clearly marked by the Sixth World Con gress of Comintern in August 1928. In much the same way, we shall see how the lull in the activity of the Egyptian and Syrian CPs, together with some major developments in their Palestinian counterpart in the late twenties, marks an end to a period in the history of Arab Commu nism. FOOTNOTES 1 By this term (Mashreq in Arabic) reference is made to the Arabian parts of the Middle East and the Eastern parts of the Arab World. It covers the countries of the Fertile Crescent, the Arab Penin sula, Egypt and the Sudan. More details in A Hourani: Great Britain and the Arab World, 1945. Onihe problems of delimita tion of the area and definition of these terms see also E Jackh: 'Delimitation of the Middle East', in E Jackh (ed): Background of the Middle East, 1952, and R H Davisons 'Where is the Middle East?1, inR H Nolte (ed): The Modem Middle East, 1963. 2 These documents lie in the Public Record Office, London. 3 These articles were published in Comintern's organs of this period mainly the International Press Correspondence (referred to as Inprecor) and The Communist International.
The list of books you might like
