Table Of ContentCommunism
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in the Encyclopedia of Islam were found to be outdated.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.
