ht against imperialist domination. "Nasserism" led to a massive in- crease in Arab national con- sciousness, which grew after the failure of the Franco-Israeli- British invasion in 1956 follow- ing Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez canal. 1958 The most important year in development of the Arab undoubtedly nationalism was 1958. In Lebanon a mass insur- rection broke out against the reactionary regime of Camille Chamoun, following the assas- sination of an opposition jour- nalist Massil el-Matouis. This uprising was only finally defeated after the invasion of Lebanon by United States marines, the sending of its Sixth Fleet and the threat by the US to use nuclear Lebanon was created by French im- perialism by joining together the autonomous territory of the Maronite Christians, which had been conceded by the Ottoman empire under pressure from wester imperialism, to the neighbouring territories with a Muslim majority. The Maronites had already received preferential treatment from the Turks and this policy was continued to an even greater extent by the French in an attempt to divide the Arab national movement. Many of the Maronite leaders were openly pro-Zionist and, with the declining importance of French imperialism tumed to the US for whom thay acted as will- ing agents against the rising tide of Arab What is important, therefore, about the 1958 uprising is the level of unity against the Page 17
Chamoun goverment. The insurrection was supported by broad layers of both the Muslim and Maronite masses - including by the patriarch of the Maronite church, Bulus elMaouschi, and by its conference of bishops who gave their support to the opposition. Moreover, the jouralist whose murder sparked off the uprising was also a Maronite Christian. The government, on the other hand received support from the Muslim kings of Irag and Jordan.
The level of unity achieved in 1958 is truly remarkable when compared to the present state of affairs in Lebanon and the bloody conflicts - both between and within the different religious communities - which have dominated its recent history.
Iraq
Important as the events in Lebanon were they paled into insignificance compared to the massive struggles that broke out in Irag. In fact the Iraqi revolution of 1958 was far more advanced than the events in Egypt in 1952. Whilst Nasser came to power essentially through a revolt of sections of the army, the Iragi monarchy of King Faisal was overthrown by a mass explosion of popular anger.
Whilst in Egypt political parties were banned, in Irag they were made legal, includ ing the Communist Party. This legalisation of the CP followed massive demonstrations - for example over 300,000 took to the streets to demand the inclusion of the CP in the government at a time when the party was still illegal! (In Britain it would require a demonstration of over 1 million people to compare with that level of activity). All political prisoners were immediately set free, political refugees retured to Iraq, and overtures were made to the Kurds.
Instead of waiting for govemment decrees, the peasants expropriated the land from the big landowners. Whilst the goverment advised the peasants to wait until a law on agrarian reform was passed it did not resort to brutal suppression of the peasants, again contrasting extremely favourably with developments in Egypt under Nasser.
In fact the goverment - in which the army played a role but was not dominant - immediately introduced a law restricting the level of rents and threatened the big landowners with heavy fines if they failed to comply. The Iraqi revolution destroyed the imperialist created Iraq-Jordan Federation -which linked together the two British-imposed Hashemite monarchies. It not only removed Faisal but also threatened to spill over into Jordan to unseat King Hussein, as well as challenging British imperialist interests in Page 18
GULF SPECIAL Kuwait, which the Iraqi masses clearly felt belonged to them. As a result Britain sent troops to both Jordan and Kuwait to defend its client regimes.
The United Arab Republic
In 1958 Egypt and Syria declared their formal union as the United Arab Republic. The main reason for this was the need to overcome economic backwardness and develop an Arab capitalism. Despite the bourgeois nature of the governments in Syria and, especially, Egypt the creation of the UAR was a major step forward for the Arab masses. In fact the fusion came about as a response to the demands of the masses.
The main support for unity came from Syria, where the political situation was very different from that in Egypt. The masses were far more active in Syria, political parties and trades unions were well developed, the workers were organised independently and the Communist Party had considerable influence. The Baath Party had won considerable sup port amongst the masses on a programme of unity of all the Arab states, agrarian reform. and increased living standards - a programme that went far beyond the demands of the CP.
The main Syrian bourgeois parties - the Baath and the National Party - found themselves in a similar position to Nasser, though in very different conditions. In order to combat intemal reaction and imperialism they needed to mobilise the masses. However, mass mobilisations run the risk of becoming socialist revolutions. Too weak to hold out on their own, they turned to Nasser for help.
The Syrians accepted Nasser's main condition - the dissolution of all political parties -which was a serious set-back for the mass movement. However the banning of parties was more formal than real, except - importantly - in the case of the Communist Party. The Baathists remained the dominant political force in Syria, and Nasser's only legal political organisation the "National Union" was never really established there. The Baathists, moreover, still had links with the Baath parties in Irag, Lebanon and Jordan. Nasser was
unable to overtum all the democratic gains made by the Syrian masses. But it was precisely this fear of uncontrolled, spontaneous uprisings of the masses that led to the refusal by Nasser to contemplate extending the United Arab Republic to include Iraq. For after the overthrow of Faisal the situation in Iraq was far more developed than had ever been the case in Syria. Fusion with Iraq would have enormously strengthened the opposition forces in Syria, who were difficult enough for Nasser to control on their own.
Unity with Iraq would also have greatly strengthened the Arab national movement throughout the rest of the states of the Arab East - it is very questionable how long the Jordanian monarchy could have survived, even with British troops, in such a situation. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that at this time in Algeria a war of national liberation was being waged, and the extension of the UAR to Iraq could have had enormous benefits for the liberation movement. (There was also some popular agitation for the fusion of an independent Algeria with Tunisia and Morocco, which would have further strengthened the possibilities of reuniting the Arab nation).
For all its weaknesses the United Arab Republic did hold out great potential for the Arab revolution, but this was destroyed by a bourgeois leadership which, in the final analysis, preferred the division of the Arab nation to a single, socialist Arab state. Far from uniting the Arab nation the UAR itself fell apart a few years later when Nasser made a tactical move to the left at a time when the Syrian Baathists were moving right-wards. 1958 was, in many respects, the high point of Arab nationalism and of "Nasserism". Although "Nasserism" continued to have an important influence on large sections of the Arab masses, it found itself increasingly challenged by other currents, particularly Baathism. The Arab defeat in the 1967 war with Israel, followed by Nasser's tum to the pro-imperialist regimes in the region effectively finished off "Nasserism" as a current capable of mobilising anti-imperialist feeling throughout the Arab world.
Subsequent "Nasserite" leaders - such as Qadafi in Lybia and Numeiri in Sudan - were never more than rightist caricatures of the high-point of "Nasserism". Qadafi, for example, has proposed fusion at one time or another to all Libya's neighbouring states, without ever being able to successfully achieve it.
The events in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 30, February 1991
Iraq demonstrate the common links between the struggles in the various Arab states. The struggles in each state were enthusiastically adopted by the masses throughout the Arab world, thus demonstrating the essential unity of the Arab nation - which is continued today with the identification by the Arab people as a whole with the struggle of the Palestinians and the support given by many Arabs to Saddam Hussein.
The heroic struggles, however, all ended in failure. The independent movements of the masses were defeated, the democratic gains were overturned and brutally repressive regimes took power. "Nasserism" still continued to maintain an important influence
Arab Communist Parties
The Communist parties are amongst the oldest political parties in the Arab world - certainly they pre-date both Nasserism and Baathism. However, they were also some of the first Communist Parties to become thoroughly Stalinised. Their policies have been marked by sharp zig-zags between complete capitulation to the national bourgeoisie and a sectarian opposition to the national struggle. Like Communist Parties throughout the world their policies were determined not by the needs of the class struggle but by the line emanating from Moscow.
For example in Palestine the CP characterised the anti-Jewish riots of 1929 as an anti-imperialist revolt, diverted into a pogrom by imperialist agents. But this characterisation was adopted after the event, in response to Stalin's ultra-left "Third Period' tum. At the time of the pogroms the CP had participated in the self-defence brigades to protect Jewish workers, alongside the Zionist Hagannah militia. After the abandonment of the Third Period the PCP tailended the most right-wing sections of the Arab national movement.
The influence of the CPs was considerably weakened in the post war period by the decision of the Soviet Union to support the SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 30, February 1991
GULF SPECIAL creation of the state of Israel - even more so when they tried to justify Stalin's position by adopting extremely sectarian theories about the national question. These theories were, in many ways, an extension of the positions adopted during the Second World War when Stalin urged an alliance with the 'democratic' imperialist powers - which of course meant abandoning any struggle for national liberation. Thus it was logical for the Algerian Communist Party to strongly oppose the armed independence struggle that began in 1945. They spoke of "the historical common interests of France and Algeria".
This sectarian failure to understand the national question led the Syrian CP - the largest in the Arab world at the time - to oppose the union with Egypt - a mistake which isolated it from the masses (who enthusiastically endorsed union), and which facilitated the Party being banned. The CPs also totally opposed the Iraq-Jordan Federation, seeing it simply as a pro-imperialist creation (which it certainly was) without understanding that even this reactionary body was contradictory. It was not simply an expression of imperialist interests -it also reflected the desire of the Arab people for unity. The task was not to break up the Federation but to unite the masses to overthrow the reactionary monarchies in both Iraq and Jordan.
Having initially opposed the formation of the United Arab Republic the CPs then swung rapidly in the opposite direction and became totally uncritical supporters, even going so far as to refuse to call for their own legalisation. Yet again they were following the latest tum in Moscow which had recently developed strong, if opportunist, links with Nasser.
In Irag the CP correctly participated in the mass struggles that broke out in 1958. However, instead of encouraging the masses to seize power for themselves, the CP urged support for General Kassem. This support continued despite Kassem's repression of the
CP. This led up to the massacre of the Com munist Party by the Baathist regime that overthrew Kassem in 1963, and later spawned Saddam Hussein.
Since then the CPs have continued to tailend bourgeois nationalist Arab leaderships. In 1964 the recently legalised Egyptian CP decided to dissolve into Nasser's Arab Social Union (the same Nasser who for years had brutally suppressed the CP). The Sudanese CP supported the military coup of General Numeiri in 1969: two years later he massacred them. Further massacres were to follow in Iraq in the 1970s, but the CPs have continued to practice the same policies.
Moreover, the Stalinists have never tried to organise a pan-Arab party. They have always organised on the basis of the division of the Arab world imposed by imperialism, believing that it is necessary to liberate each country separately, ahd only fight for unity in the dim and distant future. (In the former French colonies of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria the CPs didn't even exist as independent organisations for a long time - they were sections of the French Communist Party! So much for anti-imperialism).
All the events that have taken place since the decline of Nasserism show clearly that the struggles in the Arab states are indissolubly linked - the massacre of the Palestine Resistance in Jordan, the Syrian intervention in Lebanon for example. They also show clearly that the bourgeois (and remaining feudal) leaderships are incapable of waging a struggle anywhere near the level of that led by Nasser - and Nasser fell far short of what was neces sary. Only a struggle for socialism - a strug gle led by the working class but embracing the democratic demands of the peasantry - is capable of meeting the needs of the workers and peasants throughout the region and of uniting the Arab nation.
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