Nasser’s Egypt and Arab nationalism
Millions of Egyptians have brought down the hated
Mubarak. Now workers and youth are discussing what should follow. The
ideas put forward by Nasser over 50 years ago are being re-examined.
DAVID JOHNSON looks back to Nasser’s regime and the lessons that can be
drawn for the revolution today.
YOUNG DEMONSTRATORS IN Tahrir Square had only known
life under Hosni Mubarak, who ruled for 30 years. Older generations
remember his predecessors – Gamal Abd el-Nasser and Anwar el-Sadat. Some
older workers still refer to Nasser’s period in the 1950s and 1960s as
‘socialism’ – the party he established was called the Arab Socialist
Union (ASU).
In the 1970s Sadat promoted the capitalist free
market, including changing the name of the ASU to the National
Democratic Party – the party the regime ruled with until Mubarak’s
ousting.
In the 19th century, Egypt was part of the Turkish
Ottoman empire but, in 1882, during a nationalist rebellion, British
imperialism sent its navy and an army of occupation. The British ruling
class wanted to protect the Suez canal route to its empire, as well as
its investments in cotton, Egypt’s main export. The cotton trade
expanded over the next 20 years, enriching a layer of landowners. By
1913, 13,000 landowners owned almost half of all cultivated, while
one-and-a-half million peasants only owned about one third. During the
first world war, cotton prices rose sharply, so big landowners planted
more, making large profits, but leading to food shortages and higher
prices for the poor. Today, Egyptian agriculture is also increasingly
geared towards cash crop exports.
Financiers and businessmen emerged from this layer
of wealthy landowners, profiting by making goods that were not imported
during the war. Local industry developed quickly so the small working
class grew in size, and militancy, joined by rail and dockworkers
employed in war transportation. The developing Egyptian capitalist and
working classes confronted an obstacle to both their interests: the
continuing occupation by British imperialism.
Capitalists and landlords wanted independence from
Britain to build their political and economic interests – but they
feared a movement of the workers and rural poor. Government positions
would give them prestige and the power to reward supporters with
contracts and jobs. The biggest party agitating for independence was the
Wafd (Delegation). Forty percent of its leaders were landowners, others
were financiers, industrialists and administrators.
Workers wanted independence to end exploitation and
hardship, which greatly increased during the war. A massive strike wave
and demonstrations in 1919 forced the British government to agree to
negotiations over independence. Three years later, after continuing
strikes and unrest, the British Declaration announced an ‘independent’
Egyptian state, while keeping a veto over foreign policy, protected
British business interests and maintained a garrison in the Suez canal
zone.
Permanent revolution
THE OTTOMAN SULTAN was appointed king. Weak unstable
governments came and went - from 1922-52 their average life was under a
year. The same ministers, 60% of whom were landowners, took turns to
hold different posts. The Egyptian capitalists were unable and unwilling
to carry through the tasks of a capitalist (‘bourgeois’) revolution:
throwing out foreign rule, ending the power of feudal landowners,
developing a modern capitalist economy. Capitalists, bankers and
landowners were linked to each other. All feared the small but
potentially powerful working class more than they feared British
imperialism. In 1923, the first Wafd government brought in laws to
repress left-wing parties and ban many strikes.
Only the working class, drawing behind it the mass
of poor peasants, could have completed the tasks of the bourgeois
revolution. This was Leon Trotsky’s theory of the permanent revolution,
developed in relation to Russia at the start of the 20th century. A
workers’ government would not stop at creating conditions for capitalism
to develop, but would nationalise industry, banks and land, laying the
basis for a socialist plan of production. An appeal to workers in more
economically advanced countries to follow their example would spread
socialist revolution across the world and provide the aid needed to
develop a poor country.
The Russian revolution brilliantly confirmed this
theory. However, the revolutions it sparked did not lead to other
workers’ states. Workers’ leaders either failed to take advantage of
opportunities to take power or, later, under the influence of the
Stalinist bureaucracy which developed in the Soviet Union, derailed
revolutionary movements. Nevertheless, the bureaucracy’s position
depended on a state-owned economy – a return to capitalism would have
meant its ousting from power. The advantages of state planning meant the
economy grew rapidly, although at far higher cost than if workers’
democracy had survived.
The Egyptian Communist Party was founded in 1922 but
was mainly based among minorities. It followed Stalin’s disastrous
policies and never grew to a mass force. Instead, disappointment in the
results of independence led to the growth of the Muslim Brotherhood,
founded in 1928.
A crisis during the second world war led the British
army to instruct king Faruq to form a Wafd government, with British
tanks outside his palace making sure he got the message. This
highlighted that, ultimately, power still rested with imperialism. It
also showed the weakness and hypocrisy of the Egyptian ruling class,
including the Wafd, which 20 years earlier had agitated for
independence. A period of stagnation and conflict between the king and
government followed, each trying to get their followers into positions
of influence.
Although the economy grew between 1922-52, most
people’s living standards fell. The gap between rich and poor increased.
A 15-hour day was common and factories still employed children under ten
years old. By 1950, only 30% of children received secondary education.
There were two million industrial workers in 1952, one tenth of the
total workforce. Widespread strikes, including general strikes, took
place after the war along with demonstrations by students and others.
Left-wing parties and papers were banned and activists arrested.
The rise of the Free Officers
THE 1947 UNITED Nations resolution dividing
Palestine prior to the formation of Israel fuelled anger, which
increased after the defeat of the Egyptian army in the 1948 war.
Thirteen disaffected middle-ranking officers started meeting secretly in
1949. They were all aged 28-35, the sons of small landowners or minor
government employees. Nasser became the chair of this Free Officers
movement. Sadat was a founding member.
They gradually built influence among other officers.
When, on 20 July 1952, another weak government resigned after only 18
days, the Free Officers took action. Overnight on 22/23 July, troops
took over key buildings, roads and bridges in Cairo. The corrupt king
was ordered into exile. Sadat made the radio announcement of the
takeover. Nasser became deputy prime minister and minister of the
interior – then prime minister and president in 1954.
The Free Officers represented middle-class
frustration at the complete failure of capitalist politicians to develop
society. In contrast to the weak landlord-capitalist class, the military
was a powerful, organised force. The officers wanted political power and
opposed independent working-class action. All political parties were
abolished in January 1953. Like other ‘third world’ regimes of that
period, Egypt’s military played a ‘bonapartist’ role, playing off
different classes and political groupings against one another. The
press, local councils and lawyers’ association were purged. In 1954, the
Muslim Brotherhood was banned, its leaders arrested and exiled to Saudi
Arabia, from where they were to return later, having adopted the more
extreme Wahhabi Islam.
The new government’s programme spoke of nationalism
and social justice. Its objectives were the destruction of imperialism,
eradication of feudalism and ending of monopoly. However, there was no
clear economic policy, which was expected to continue under private
ownership. "We are not socialists. I think our economy can only prosper
under free enterprise", said Gamal Salim, a leading Free Officer.
Nonetheless, most capitalists were panic stricken
and many emigrated. Private-sector investment plummeted, pushing the
regime in a different direction. An early measure was land reform,
limiting the size of holdings to 80 hectares. The tiny number of very
big landlords who had dominated previous governments lost the economic
basis of their power. Fifteen percent of cultivable land was transferred
to landless peasants. Cooperatives gave cheap credit, seeds and
fertiliser. But more than half the rural population remained landless,
the main winners being small landowners.
The Suez crisis
TWO GLOBAL SUPERPOWERS emerged at the end of the
second world war – the USA and the USSR. They both attempted to extend
their spheres of influence, bringing them into conflict in many parts of
the world. With nuclear weapons threatening ‘mutually assured
destruction’, conflicts took the form of proxy wars between their client
regimes. So-called ‘non-aligned’ governments, including Nasser’s regime,
tried balancing between the two superpowers.
In 1955 Nasser signalled a shift in his position by
ordering arms from the USSR. This may have been a negotiating ploy to
get more arms from the USA. He told the US ambassador that he would
still prefer US military assistance. The 1955 Baghdad pact, signed by
the British government, had also angered Nasser. This central Asian
treaty defended imperialist interests in Iran, Iraq and elsewhere in the
Middle East. Nasser infuriated the French government by refusing to call
for an end to the uprising in Algeria against French occupation.
Independence movements were spreading like wildfire throughout the old
European colonies.
At the same time, the Egyptian government was
negotiating for international loans to build the Aswan high dam – a huge
project that would greatly increase land available for cultivation and
generate electricity needed for industrialisation. The USA and Britain
had offered a fifth of the cost, hoping this would buy influence over
the regime. However, after the USSR arms deal, the USA cancelled its
offer in July 1956.
Nasser responded by announcing the nationalisation
of the Suez canal to a massive meeting in Alexandria, saying its
revenues would finance the dam. An eyewitness described how "the people
went wild with excitement". The canal company was French, with the
British government the largest shareholder.
These two governments secretly colluded with the
Israeli government to launch an invasion of Egypt in October. The
invasion proved disastrous for Britain and France, achieving its
military targets but arousing huge international opposition. Arab masses
throughout the Middle East supported the Nasser regime. There was
massive opposition in Britain. The US government saw its regional
interests threatened and demanded the invasion be ended, imposing
economic sanctions against Britain. The three governments were forced
into a humiliating withdrawal. Meanwhile, Soviet tanks rolled into
Hungary to suppress the political revolution there.
State control of the economy
NASSER EMERGED WITH the reputation of a leader who
stood up to imperialism – completely different to the spineless
bourgeois nationalists he had replaced. French and British banks and
companies were immediately nationalised. Two months later, the rest of
banking and insurance was nationalised.
After the failure of private enterprise to invest
between 1952-56, most industry, manufacturing, trade and other services
were nationalised. State control of foreign trade, progressive taxation
and the seizure of property from 600 of the wealthiest families took
place. State investment increased industry from 10% of GNP in 1952 to
20% by 1962. The Aswan dam was completed in 1968, tripling electricity
output.
Between 1952-67 real wages rose by 44%, not counting
food subsidies, shorter hours, insurance and social security. School
education was made free in 1956, with higher education following in
1962, when all graduates were guaranteed a job in public service. The
number of students grew by 8% a year from 1952-70. The number of state
officials grew from 350,000 in 1952 to 1.2 million by 1970, and 1.9
million by 1978.
These measures reflected the balance of forces on
the world stage as well as in Egypt. It was a period of unprecedented
and almost uninterrupted growth of the world economy. Imperialism was
unable to intervene in Egypt after the Suez debacle. Stalinist Russia
supported a regime that mirrored some its own features.
In 1957, state control turned trade unions into an
arm of the state, with well-rewarded leaders preventing workers’
independent organisation and struggle. No workers’ control or any
element of workers’ democracy was allowed, without which genuine
socialism cannot exist. Opposition was ruthlessly stamped on, including
the Communist Party (CP). The middle class Free Officers found the
absence of democratic rights appealing, leaving their power
unchallenged.
Despite the regime’s description of itself as ‘Arab
socialism’, capitalism continued in a distorted form. Egyptian
capitalism had been too weak to develop without massive state
intervention. Sadat and Mubarak later carried out privatisation without
changing the nature of the state. Key sections of the economy were taken
over by senior army officers and Mubarak’s supporters, friends and
family.
Arab nationalism
BRITAIN, FRANCE AND Turkey largely drew the Middle
East map in 1919, reflecting their imperialist interests. The appeal of
‘Pan-Arabism’, embracing the whole region, was partly a reaction to
these artificially created states and also to the terrible legacy of
exploitation by imperialism. Nasser used the new media of his time,
radio, to reach a mass audience across the Middle East. The Cairo-based
Voice of the Arabs radio station, launched in 1953, overcame national
boundaries and illiteracy, broadcasting ideas of Arab nationalism
directly over the heads of other governments.
In 1957, Syria was in deep political crisis, its
capitalist class weak and ineffectual. The two most influential parties
were the Ba’th (Renaissance) and CP. The CP, like other Stalinist
parties, did not put forward a programme of independent working-class
action and socialism. Both parties hoped Nasser’s popularity would rub
off on them and approached him with plans to unite the two countries.
Syria’s senior army officers also favoured the plan. Among Nasser’s
conditions for the union was the disbandment of all political parties
apart from a single state-controlled party.
The United Arab Republic (UAR) was founded in 1958,
further enhancing Nasser’s reputation throughout the Arab world. The
impact led to revolution in Iraq and nearly brought the downfall of
governments in Lebanon and Jordan in the same year.
However, no other states joined the UAR and Syria
split from it within three years. The land reform programme had angered
Syrian landlords, while businessmen were angered by nationalisation.
Politicians and army officers were embittered by their exclusion from
power. The working class, agricultural labourers and poor farmers had no
independent organisations and were not allowed any democratic control
over the state.
A genuine workers’ state would have gained mass
support with improved living standards, education and welfare
programmes. A federation of democratic socialist states could have
become a shining example to the entire Arab world. But a bureaucratic
regime without democratic rights, not fully breaking from capitalism,
could not overcome the contradictions of the nation state. Each ruling
class put its own self-interests first.
After the failure of the UAR, Nasser turned further
towards the Soviet Union with more nationalisation. In 1962, a national
charter spelled out the revolution’s aims: ‘freedom, socialism and Arab
unity’. The official state party was renamed the Arab Socialist Union,
part of which became the National Democratic Party in 1976, providing
Sadat and then Mubarak with a base. (Last November, businessmen paid
high sums to become NDP candidates for the misnamed peoples’ assembly,
knowing election would help them win government contracts.)
Nasser supported the Algerian revolution against
French colonial rule and then the 1962 overthrow of the Yemeni royal
family. Nearly half the Egyptian army was sent to fight in Yemen, where
it sustained heavy casualties over the next five years. Without a class
appeal to the workers and poor, linked to a socialist programme
including land distribution and democratic rights, Egyptian troops
became embroiled in a bloody civil war.
This was followed in 1967 by the six-day war against
Israel and heavy military defeat, the Egyptian armed forces seriously
depleted by their continuing involvement in Yemen. For the first few
days of war, the Egyptian government maintained a stream of stories of
military success, even as its entire air force was destroyed and the
army sustained massive damage.
Nasser assumed full responsibility and resigned. But
a massive demonstration in Cairo demanded that he stay on. People
refused to leave the streets for 17 hours until he withdrew his
resignation. However, he never regained his previous authority among the
Arab masses. Student riots broke out in 1968, protesting against those
responsible for the war defeat but also reflecting wider
dissatisfaction.
Nevertheless, when he died in 1970 an estimated ten
million people poured onto the streets for his funeral. Nasser’s legacy
lived on, with a nostalgic memory of anti-imperialism, rising living
standards and improving education.
Nasserism today
SOCIALISM HAD WIDESPREAD support among workers, the
poor and youth throughout the world at the time. Despite using the word
‘socialism,’ Nasser balanced between western imperialism and the
Stalinist deformed workers’ states. Without the democratic involvement
of the working class, together with the rural and urban poor, genuine
socialism could not be built. Instead, the way was paved for the
subsequent counter-reforms of Sadat and Mubarak, based on a bigger role
for the capitalist market.
Egypt’s population is more than twice as big today
as in the 1960s. The working class is far bigger, many working in giant
factories employing thousands. More people live in cities. There is now
a much stronger foundation for democratic socialism led by the working
class, and supported by the rural and urban poor, compared to half a
century ago.
The international situation in 2011 is very
different. The Soviet Union has gone, leaving one global superpower. But
the USA and world capitalism is not enjoying a 25-year boom as in the
1950s and 1960s. On the contrary, it is in the midst of the worst
financial crisis for 80 years. There is no possibility of a new Egyptian
government being able to develop rapidly, providing jobs and rising
living standards, if it remains on the basis of capitalism.
The idea of pan-Arab nationalism has also changed.
Although a strong sense of solidarity has seen a revolutionary wave
spread from Tunisia across North Africa and the Middle East, the
countries artificially formed by European imperialists nearly a century
ago have developed their own national identities. Demonstrators have
waved national flags, symbolising their desire to reclaim their state
from corrupt dictators. Rather than a unified Arab state, as Nasser
attempted to build, a democratic federation of socialist states would
now have more appeal throughout the region. But socialism is less
popular today as a result of the after-effects of the collapse of
Stalinism. The task of socialists is to rebuild that support, by linking
it to a programme addressing all the problems facing workers, the poor
and youth. |