A People's History Of Egypt Revisited: 1922--1945 Period
"...A new wave of anti-British street protests again broke out in Egypt, after leaders of the Egyptian student movement met in the summer of 1945..."
In 1922, “the British decided unilaterally…to allow Egypt formal independence…because of the realistic possibility that the 1919 Revolution could recur,” according to Selma Botman’s Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919-1952 book.
Yet despite obtaining its formal independence from UK imperialism on Feb. 28, 1922, “Egypt of the pre-Nasser period was dominated by foreigners: the British controlled the upper levels of the military and the government, and people of various European nationalities owned and operated the banks, hotels, textile factories, and insurance companies,” according to the same book.
Although the UK-selected Sultan Ahmad Fuad was now officially the King of a formally independent Egyptian monarchical government in March 1922, the UK government still “retained the right to maintain the security of British imperial communications through Egypt (i.e., the Suez Canal),” according to Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt, book.
And during the next few decades “more than once Royal Navy warships appeared before the palace windows in Alexandria when the British wanted a controversial decision to go their way,” “a strong British military presence remained in Egypt, not only in the canal zone but also in Alexandria and in Cairo, where the British army barracks stood in the middle of town on the site now occupied by the Nile Hilton Hotel,” and “a British high commissioner…was quite willing to intervene,” according to the same book.
So, despite the monarchical government’s censorship policy, during the next few years “between 15,000 and 20,000 workers were influenced by” the anti-imperialist Egyptian Socialist Party’s labor activism in Egypt, according to Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa‘at El-Sa’id’s The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988 book.
Egyptian Socialist Party activists at that time mobilized workers, organized meetings and recruited new members in the Alexandria and al-Mahallah industrial districts of Egypt.
And one of the Egyptian Socialist Party’s founders, Joseph Rosenthal, organized 3,000 Egyptian workers to become members of the General Union of Workers (Itihad al-Naqabot al-‘Am), before being expelled from the Egyptian Socialist Party in December 1922, for opposing the party’s decision to accept the Comintern’s requirements for being affiliated to the Comintern.
Between August 1921 and April 1922, Egyptian workers in 50 different Egyptian workplaces were mobilized to fight for improved labor conditions in 91 separate strike actions. Tram workers in Alexandria , for example, went on strike for 42 days and Cairo ’s tram workers went on strike for 102 days; and workers at the Shell Oil Refinery in Egypt went on strike for 113 days.
And, by late 1922, the Egyptian Socialist Party had recruited around 400 members in its Alexandria branch and about 1,100 members in its branches in other Egyptian cities; and the General Union of Workers--that Egyptian Socialist Party members led—now had about 20,000 members.
After affiliating with the Third International’s Comintern, the Egyptian Socialist Party then changed its name to the Egyptian Communist Party; and, led by a Central Committee which Hosni al-‘Arabi’ chaired, adopted the following program for the democratization of Egyptian society in its January 1923 meeting: 1. nationalization of the Suez Canal ; 2. the liberation and unification of Egypt and the Sudan; 3. the repudiation of all Egyptian state debts and foreign capitulation agreements; 4. an 8-hour workday; 5. equal pay for Egyptian and foreign workers in Egypt; 6. abolition of land tenancy agreements in which Egyptian peasants had to pay 50 percent of the crop on rented land to large landowners; 7. the cancellation of the debts of all Egyptian peasants who owned less than 10 feddans of land; and 8. the restriction of landownership by individual landlords in Egypt to no more than 100 feddans.
To prevent the development of an anti-imperialist leftist movement of workers and intellectuals in Egypt during the early 1920s, however, “a special bureau” had been “established” by the UK-backed Egyptian Ministry of the Interior in 1921 “to monitor the activities” of the Egyptian Socialist Party; and “in their opposition to socialist activists the British found allies within the Egyptian bourgeoisie and religious circles,” according to The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988 book.
In addition, a Constitution for Egypt, “written by Egyptian legal experts who were sympathetic to the king and the British,” was also decreed on Apr. 19, 1923, which set up an Egyptian Senate and Chamber of Deputies--with members elected only by Egyptian men, “except for the two-fifths of the Senate who were appointed by the king” of Egypt, according to the Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919-1952 book.
This same Egyptian Constitution of 1923 also “gave excessive power to the monarch, who was granted authority to dismiss cabinets, dissolve parliament and appoint and unseat prime ministers,” according to the same book.
And besides holding excessive political power under the April 1923 Egyptian Constitution, “the royal family of Egyptian King Fuad also “owned about one-tenth of the arable land in Egypt ” in 1923, according to the A History of Egypt book. But, according to the Encyclopedia Judaica, the Egyptian monarchical government’s minister of finance and communications in 1923, Joseph Cattaui, was apparently of Jewish religious background.
After an Egyptian constitution was promulgated in 1923, martial law in Egypt was abolished, an Egyptian election was held and Saad Zaghlul, the leader of the Egyptian landowning elite’s nationalist Wafd party, became the Egyptian monarchical government’s prime minister in January 1924. A Wafd government was then formed in Egypt which just “represented bourgeois landowner and upper-class interests and aspirations,” did not represent the interests of Egypt ’s “poverty-stricken rural peasants and urban workers” and “was inherently hostile towards the labor movement” in Egypt , according to Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa‘at El-Sa’id’s The Communist Movement in Egypt : 1920-1988 book.
So during the 1920s, the plots of arable land owned by 1 million Egyptian peasants were “too small for subsistence,” and “fully one-fifth of rural families” in Egypt “owned no land at all,” according to the A History of Egypt book.
But by late 1924 the nationalist Wafd government of the large landowners and business elite’s monarchical regime had interned the entire leadership of the Egyptian Communist Party and disbanded Egypt ’s Confederation of Trade Unions. For example, after 1,200 to 1,500 Egyptian workers had gone on strike in Alexandria at the Filatunes Nationales of Egypt firm in February 1924—and workers at Egyptian Oil Industries, Egyptian Salt and Soda Company, Kafr-El-Zayat-Coffon Company and Abouchanabs had also gone on strike during the same month—the Wafd government banned gatherings of Egyptian workers.
And on Mar. 3, 1924 the Wafd government arrested Egyptian Communist Party leaders such as Hosni al-‘Arabi, Anton Maroun and Sheikh Safwan Abu-al-Fatah and destroyed the Egyptian Communist Party of the early 1920s.
The Comintern, however, “put together a new central committee from the remnants of the Egyptian Communist Party” still active “and not imprisoned;” and “a new” Egyptian Communist Party “organization—this time more tightly structured, with cells and a private printing press—was implemented in Cairo, Alexandria, and Port Said,” according to The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988 book.
In addition, as the same book recalled, on Mar. 6, 1925 the Egyptian communists “acquired a small newspaper, al-Hisab” and “managed to publish,” prior to May 18, 1925 ,“eight issues before it was shut down and its editor and staff jailed.”
Yet “from the first, the organizational meetings of the” re-established Egyptian Communist Party’s “new central committee were infiltrated by British intelligence;” and “an intelligence agent, Mohammed ‘Abd al-‘Aziz,” even “became secretary general of the central committee in late 1924 and served in that post for 4 years,” according to The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988 book.
So, not surprisingly, all members of the re-established Egyptian Communist Party’s Central Committee were arrested by the Egyptian government, after Ahmad Ziwar Pasha succeeded Saad Zaghhoul as the semi-colonial/neo-colonial Egyptian monarchical government’s prime minister on May 30, 1925.
But, as Selma Botman observed in The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970 book, “despite the demise of organized Egyptian communism” during the 1920s, “small pockets of legal leftist activists appeared…some years later…”
During the 1930s “Egyptian communist activities…focused primarily on labor unions, continued to be suppressed” by the UK imperialist-backed Egyptian monarchical regime, according to Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa‘at El-Sa’id’s The Communist Movement in Egypt : 1920-1988 book.
Yet in response to both the rise of fascism internationally and the growth within Egypt of Young Egypt, “a paramilitary organization which in the mid and latter 1930s demonstrated admiration for the accomplishments of fascist regimes” in Europe, “antifascist groups…proliferated in Egypt during the 1930s,” according to Selma Botman’s The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970 book.
In addition, by the late 1930s some “communist study circles” were again formed in Egypt “that evolved into several organizations and factions” by the 1940s, according to an article by Hossam El-Hamalawy that appeared in the MERIP magazine in 2007, titled “Comrades and Brothers.”
But in the 1930s Egyptian society was still “socially traditional,” “men and women were generally separated,” “marriages were still arranged” and “women were regarded as the legitimate possessions of men,” according to The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970 book.
So although Islamic law “allowed a woman to own property, conduct business, and inherit a portion of her father’s estate equal to half her brother’s share”, the same book asserted that “it put her at her husband’s mercy in matters concerning divorce and the family.”
Yet despite the social conservatism. historically, of Egyptian society in the 1930s, some younger, less traditional Egyptian women, however, did participate in the anti-fascist leftist Egyptian groups of the 1930s.
On Aug. 26, 1936, the UK imperialist government and its puppet monarchical regime in Egypt next signed an Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, which again recognized Egypt as an independent and sovereign nation but “also stipulated…that Egypt must grant Britain…military facilities,” according to Selma Botman’s Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919-1952 book.
And in 1937, the UK imperialist government then finally “allowed Egypt to apply for membership in the League of Nationals and to set up foreign embassies and consulates.”
Yet Egyptian leftists in the 1930s considered the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty inadequately anti-imperialist “because British troops were to remain in Egypt for an additional 20 years and because…promises of unobstructed democracy and self-determination were absent,” according to the same book.
The 17-year-old King Farouk--who inherited the Egyptian throne following the death of his father, King Fuad, in 1936--also, for example, “soon displayed the same autocratic tendencies as his father,” although “the British ambassador Sir Miles Lampson…always referred to Farouk as `The Boy,’ even when the king was in his twenties,” according to Jason Thompson’s A History of Egypt book.
And after UK ambassador Lampson "surrounded the Abdin Palace with tanks” on Feb. 4, 1942 and “ordered `The Boy’” to appoint as Egypt’s prime minister the particular Wafdist leader that the UK government alone had selected “or abdicate,” according to A History of Egypt, this “coercion action confirmed that Egyptian independence was nothing more than a sham,” according to the Egypt from Independence to Revolution, 1919-1952 book.
So, not surprisingly, a new wave of anti-British street protests again broke out in Egypt, after leaders of the Egyptian student movement met in the summer of 1945 and “decided to call for the formation of national committees to participate in the national movement” of Egypt, according to The Communist Movement in Egypt: 1920-1988 book. (To be continued)