The Arab Communist experience: between Marx and the Soviets

by  Rifaat al Said

In 1972, I published a book entitled "Reflections on Nasserism," in which I told of a report that had been published in Pravda, and broadcast on Radio Moscow. We listened to that report, called "Joys on the Banks of the Nile," as we sat in the Wahat Egyptian jail. The report was meant to glorify Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose devils beat us harshly that very night.

My book was received very negatively by Arab communists. Comrade Khalid Bakdash, secretary general of the Syrian Communist Party at the time, told me that it was not appropriate to attack Soviet journalists because they were Lenin’s sons. In fact, Arab communists had a rough time with Marxism in two areas. First, they demonstrated an over-reliance on the texts and the most educated among them ornamented their discourse with quotations of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin or even Joseph Stalin in his glory days. But the text here was meant for its own sake, not to illustrate reality. In fact, realities had to be twisted in order to adapt to the text. (And here I recall the fundamentalism of the Islamists that I criticize emphatically; there is also a fundamentalist Marxism.)

The other area of difficulty is sanctification of the Soviet model as the only correct one. This model spans both the ideological vision and practical application, and has resulted in a feeling of subordination. Arab communists, like many others in the world, have become like children grasping at the edge of their mother’s dress, walking with her wherever she goes.

The Arab communist leaders enjoyed that, as they were not required to be creative, or to think, nor to do research and study. They merely received and reiterated. They were skilled imitators. So when Stalin, for instance, rose to the throne of the party general secretary, they reiterated that this was done in accordance with the theory of deputation, whereby the people deputize the working class (the most revolutionary of classes) on their behalf, the working class in its turn deputizes the party (its revolutionary vanguard) on its behalf, then the party deputizes the party conference on its behalf, and so on up to the position of the general secretary who gathered in his hands the two triangles of authority composed of "the Party, Government and the Supreme Soviet Council" and "ideology, implementation and legislation."

Therefore, he himself was considered the revolution. Anyone who dared differ with him, or criticize him even in a whisper, would be labeled part of the counterrevolution. When crucial ideology became a lifeless mold, to explain was reserved for the Kremlin’s "pope" alone. Marx said that "all the authority belongs to the masses," but the deputation put all authority in the hands of the general secretary, and thus the general secretaries of the Arab communist parties gathered all authority in their hands and were dwarf tsars before the great tsar.

Much of what Marx said was never applied. Hundreds and even thousands of specific directives in Marxist ideology disappeared before the bureaucracy and brutality of the Soviet application. Arab Marxists, like others, did not notice any defect, nor did they doubt or feel contradiction. The Stalinist era only made Arab Marxist leaders strive for more authority. As a result, the Marxist ideology, which was intended to be vibrant, was petrified. "Marxism is renewed with every new scientific discovery," said Friedrich Engels, but no one was allowed to think or to be creative, because criticism was not to be practiced.

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Perhaps because Egyptian Marxism began in Egypt in 1894, a quarter of a century before the Bolshevik revolution, as well as for numerous other reasons, Egyptian Marxists did not fully adapt to the Soviet version.

The Egyptian Socialist Party was established in 1921 as the first socialist party in the Arab world and Africa. The founders of the party decided two things: to include the entire socialist spectrum, and therefore form a leadership of four (Mahmoud Husni al Arabi, a Marxist, Ali al Anani, a leftist, Muhammed Abdalla Anan, a social democrat, and Salamah Musa, a Fabian), as well as to exclude from the leadership any foreigners. Egypt at the time was crowded with foreign communities (Greeks, Italians, Armenians, French, etc), all of which enjoyed foreign concessions that put them in a higher class than Egyptians. As such, Egypt was particularly sensitive to foreign hegemony and concession.

But this Egyptian vanguard was shocked when they requested to join the Soviet Comintern, as they were subsequently asked to call themselves the Communist Party. They protested that the Egyptian constitution prohibited the establishment of communist parties, and made a brilliant suggestion--that they call themselves the "Egyptian Socialist Party--The Egyptian Branch of Comintern." The Soviets refused this offer, and formed a committee to look into the Egyptian application. Among the impossible conditions set by that committee were that the party should call itself the Egyptian Communist Party and accept all 21 conditions laid down by the Comintern, and that the party should include in its ranks any communist living in Egypt, which meant opening party doors to a foreign majority.

The Egyptian party was thus forced to submit to these conditions, and came under the penalty of the law. Egyptian authorities subsequently issued a decision to disband the party of 2,000 members, dissolve the associated Workers’ General Federation, and confiscate its offices and funds. All central committee members were arrested.

At the Sixth Comintern Conference held in 1928, the Egyptian communists revolted against the Stalinist idea that the national bourgeois (in the second-degree colonies like Egypt) had thrown the flag of freedom in the mud, and should therefore be fought by a newly established revolutionary bloc of workers and peasants. The Egyptians refused to attack the Egyptian Wafd Party, as it was waging a fiery battle against the constitution and against the British occupation. The Egyptians again suggested a compromise where they would not ally with the Wafd Party, but acknowledge the inevitability of joint actions--but did Stalin ever accept a compromise? Seven years later, the Soviet Encyclopedia published a list of communist parties worldwide that did not mention the Egyptian Communist Party, thus deposing the party from Soviet-subordinate good children’s heaven.

When the July Revolution broke out in Egypt, the Soviets considered it a coup d’etat loyal to the Americans, and of course, world communists reiterated that view. But the Egyptian communist organization, the Democratic Movement for National Liberation, was partner to the revolution, with two members in its command council. Thus, the July Revolution became a nationalist revolution. In 1955, the Soviets offered their blessings to Abdel Naser while the majority of the communists suffered brutal torture in his jails. Due to this history of divergent visions, the collapse of the Soviet Union did not have a similarly bloody impact on Egyptian Marxism.-Published 18/9/03©bitterlemons-international.org

Dr. Rifaat al Said is president of the National Progressive Party and a member of the Shura Council (the upper house of Parliament) in Egypt.