Political Thought and Political History: Studies in Memory of Elie Kedourie

POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

POLITICAL THOUGHT and POLITICAL HISTORY Studies in Memory of Elie Kedourie

Edited by

MOSHA GAMMER with Joseph Kostiner and Moshe Shemesh

FRANK CASS LONDON • PORTLAND, OR

First published in 2003 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS Crown House, 47 Chase Side London N14 5BP This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS c/o ISBS, 5804 N.E.Hassalo Street Portland, Oregon, 97213–3644 Website: www.frankcass.com Copyright collection © 2003 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd Copyright chapters © contributors British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Political thought and political history: studies in memory of Elie Kedourie 1. Political science—Philosophy 2. Middle East—History 3. Middle East—Politics and government I. Gammer, Moshe II. Kostiner, Joseph III. Shemesh, Moshe 956 ISBN 0-203-50585-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-58160-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0 7146 5296 2 (Print Edition) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Political thought and political history: studies in memory of Elie Kedourie/edited by Moshe Gammer with Joseph Kostiner and Moshe Shemesh. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0 7146 5296 2 (cloth) 1. Middle East—History—20th century. 2. Political science—Middle East—History. I. Kedourie, Elie. II. Gammer, M. III. Kostiner, Joseph. IV Shemesh, Moshe. DS62.8 .P66 2003 956.04–dc21 2002035058 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book.

Contents

Contributors Preface Introduction: Elie Kedourie as Teacher

v vii 1

Part I: Philosophy, Political Thought and Ideology 1.

Patrick Murray Schiller’s Theory of Aesthetic Semblance

5

2.

David H.Sandiford Notes on the Concept of the ‘Civil Condition’

17

3.

Yoram Kahati The Role of Education in the Development of Arab Nationalism in the Fertile Crescent During the 1920s

22

4.

Rami Ginat Islam vis-à-vis Communism and Socialism

39

5.

Audrey Wells Sun Yat-sen’s Influence on Mu‘ammar Qadhdhafi

54

Part II: History and Politics 6.

Moshe Gammer Vorontsov’s Campaign of 1845: a Reconstruction and Reinterpretation

67

7.

Liora Lukitz Dating the Past: C.J.Edmonds and the Invention of Modern Iraq

88

8.

Eran Lerman Nahhas, the Arab League, and the Postwar Order: a Reinterpretation

99

9.

Massoumeh Torfeh The Causes of the Failure of Democracy in Iran, 1941–1953

118

10.

Moshe Shemesh Arab Strategy Towards the Arab-Israeli Conflict, January 1964 to June 1967

149

11.

Elie Kedourie’s Teaching of Middle Eastern History

168

Index

176

Contributors

Moshe Gammer studied with Professor Kedourie between 1983 and 1989. His Ph.D. thesis on ‘Shamil and the Muslim Resistance to the Russian Conquest of the North-Eastern Caucasus’ was co-supervised by Dr D.C.B.Lieven. Dr Gammer is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. In 2000 he was Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Rami Ginat studied with Professor Kedourie between 1988 and 1991. His Ph.D. thesis was on ‘The Soviet Union and Egypt, 1947–1955’. Dr Ginat is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Middle Eastern History, Bar Ilan University. Yoram Kahati studied with Professor Kedourie between 1983 and 1991. His Ph.D. thesis was on ‘The Role of Some Leading Arab Educators in the Development of the Ideology of Arab Nationalism’. Dr Kahati is a Senior Analyst for the Israeli Government. Joseph Kostiner studied with Professor Kedourie between 1978 and 1981. His Ph.D. thesis was on ‘The Making of Saudi Arabia, 1916–1936’. Dr Kostiner is Associate Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern and African History and Senior Research Associate at the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University. At present Professor Kostiner is Head of Tel Aviv’s School of History. Eran Lerman studied with Professor Kedourie between 1979 and 1982. His Ph.D. thesis was on ‘The Deterioration of the British Position in Egypt, 1942– 1947’. Dr Lerman was a Senior Analyst for the Israeli government and is now the Director of the Israel and Middle East Office of the American Jewish Committee. Liora Lukitz studied with Professor Kedourie between 1983 and 1987. Her Ph.D. thesis was on ‘Iraqi Politics, 1931–1941’. Dr Lukitz is an independent scholar. In the years 1993–1995 she was a H.F.Guggenheim Fellow. Patrick Murray studied with Professor Kedourie between 1976 and 1981. His Ph.D. thesis was on ‘A Philosophical Understanding of Mind and Will in Hegel’s Political and Moral Philosophy: the Ego as Cognition and Volition in

vi

the “Philosophy of Spirit”’. Dr Murray is Visiting Lecturer in Philosophy at the School of Continuing Studies, University of Birmingham. David H.Sandiford studied with Professor Kedourie between 1974 and 1979. His Ph.D. thesis was on ‘Perspectives on Writing the History of Political Thought’. After completing his Ph.D., Dr Sandiford went on to study law. He is at present a partner in Hough & Company in North Cheshire. Moshe Shemesh studied with Professor Kedourie between 1978 and 1982. His Ph.D. thesis was on ‘Political Representation of the Palestinians, 1964– 1974’. Dr Shemesh is Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheba, and Senior Research Associate at the Ben Gurion Research Center in Sede Boker. Massoumeh Torfeh studied (part-time) with Professor Kedourie between 1983 and 1992. Her thesis on ‘The Causes of the Failure of Democracy in Iran —1941–1953’, was completed under the supervision of Professor Fred Halliday. Dr Torfeh is Senior Producer at the BBC World Service. From 1988 to 2000 Dr Torfeh was on leave from the BBC to serve as the UN spokesperson and Chief Information Officer in Tajikistan. Presently she is Head of TV and Radio at the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. Audrey Wells was supervised by Professor Kedourie in her M.Sc. studies on the history of political thought during 1971 and 1972. She wrote her Ph.D. thesis on ‘The Political Thought of Sun Yat-sen’ under the supervision of Dr John Morrall. Dr Wells is Professor of Politics at Regent’s College, London and Visiting Lecturer at the Department of History at the Royal Holloway College, University of London.

Preface

This volume was conceived by a group of former students of the late Professor Elie Kedourie, as something different from the usual festschrift. From the very beginning it was intended to limit it to contributions by his doctoral students only. Two reasons lay behind this decision. Professor Kedourie is well known as a scholar thanks to his work, but as a teacher he is less well known. He was to most, if not to all his students more than merely a supervisor and a mentor. A great many students remained in contact with him long after completing their studies. His death was a great personal loss. A volume such as this seemed a proper way both to shed light on this side of his academic career, and give an opportunity to his former students to pay tribute to him. The real breadth of a scholar’s vision, the full (not to say correct) meaning of his ideas, cannot be fathomed from his publications alone. For this the scholar’s whole scope of intellectual activity has to be taken into account. Teaching, and supervising theses and dissertations in particular, is a central activity which reveals a professor’s perceptions, ideas, interests and subjects not expressed in her or his studies and publications. The great diversity of subjects of dissertations supervised by Professor Kedourie, their various fields and disciplines reveal the far-reaching range of his interests and the immense expanse of his horizons. It was thus our intention to include the contributions of as many former students as possible. Helped by Mrs Helen Cowling, the Alumni Relations Officer at the London School of Economics, we were able to reach most (but regretfully not all) of them, through the LSE’s computerized database. All of those approached were willing to contribute to this volume. Many were, however, unable to do so because of other commitments and tight schedules. Nevertheless, this volume represents a cross-section of Professor Kedourie’s former students, both in the variety of their subject matter and the diversity of their present positions—in academia, the media, government agencies, business and even law practice. Thanks are due to many people. Helen Cowling’s help was crucial in the initial stages of this project. Dr Soly Shahvar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem helped check Persian expressions and advised on Iranian history. Zhang Ping of the Department of East Asian Studies, Tel Aviv University, checked Chinese expressions and was consulted on matters of Chinese history.

viii

Many thanks are due to all of Professor Kedourie’s students; those who corresponded, those who wrote their perspectives and impressions of him as a teacher, those who contributed to this volume, and most of all to the co-editors and initiators of this volume, Joseph Kostiner and Moshe Shemesh. Last but not least, Mrs Kedourie’s encouragement and moral support were of immeasurable value in the completion of this book. MG

Introduction: Elie Kedourie as Teacher

Professor Kedourie’s sudden and untimely death left a great void in the scholarly world and deprived it of a great and unique mind. To all who knew him it was a great and painful personal loss. These included Professor Kedourie’s students, primarily the graduate and research students who were privileged to be supervised by him and to whom he was more than a teacher: he was ‘a mentor in the true sense of the word’.1 A teacher’s work is far from the easy job many people think it is. It requires devotion, a large investment of time and energy, and a great deal of creativity and empathy with one’s students. To be a good teacher one needs the ability to convey to students multifaceted information and complex ideas in a simple, comprehensible way. Only a few people have such a talent. Even fewer can do it in a manner that stimulates interest. Professor Kedourie was one of those very few, who ‘clearly convey[ed] …difficult ideas and engender [ed] enthusiasm for them… He made them sound not only clear and reasonable, but also worthy of serious study and respect’.2 If teaching is a difficult task, supervising graduates and research students is a far heavier responsibility and one that only a few achieve. A supervisor’s first task is to train graduates and research students to use the instruments of their discipline fully and to follow its rules meticulously. Professor Kedourie ‘tried to instill in his students the principles of historical study based on documentation’,3 to teach them to ‘deal with “real people” whose merits and shortcomings were evident, and focus on demystified accounts of their deeds and actions’.4 He demanded that his students first check all the small details and then base their studies on solid documentation. Only with a complete mastery of all the small details could one reconstruct the larger picture. ‘How do you know that Nuri al-Said was in a “gloomy mood” when he sought refuge at the Residency?’ Professor Kedourie asked after reading my chapter on the 1936 Sidqi-Sulaiman coup. Nuri al-Said’s mood was only officially recognized as ‘gloomy’ when I managed to ‘anchor’ it in one of the intelligence reports of the time.5

2 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

A second, by far more important task of a supervisor is to help students develop into independent scholars, and not merely well-trained ‘technicians’ in their discipline. As such they are required to express their own opinions, not merely to quote others. This was exactly what Professor Kedourie always demanded from his students. Naturally, such opinions had to be firmly grounded in documentation. My first encounter with [Professor Kedourie] was one of the best lessons I learnt in my academic life. For my first research, I presented to him some thirty pages of what I thought was a comparative account of the main character in the era, namely Dr. Mossadeq… He stared me directly in the eyes and said ‘Why have you written all this?… you may as well put all this in the rubbish bin... I don’t want to know what all those people think of Dr. Mossadeq, I want to know what YOU think of him and his policies’… I was puzzled, how was I to do that? ‘You will read so much about the period—all the newspapers and all the parliamentary proceedings and all the possible first-hand sources and documents—until one day you come to me and give me your very own evaluation’ he replied.6 Too many supervisors impose their own views on their students, while professing to teach them to think. Professor Kedourie was the exact opposite: he ‘meticulously abstained from interfering with his students’ concepts’, even if they were ‘diametrically opposed’ to ‘his perceptions’.7 Genuinely surprised by a student’s remark that he had not rejected his conclusions, which were opposed to his well-known views, Professor Kedourie replied: ‘I am not a censor.’8 Third, and far more importantly, Professor Kedourie really cared about his students—a rare phenomenon in the academic landscape. Giving his students plenty of room, he nevertheless always watched over them to prevent them from going down a blind alley. His door was always open, no matter how busy he was. A chapter submitted by a student—whatever its length—would be returned within a few days with detailed remarks, and the candidate invited to discuss it. Both during and after their period of studies his students could always count on his advice and help, in both professional and personal matters. Most importantly, Professor Kedourie set his students very high and demanding standards. But everything he required from them was exactly what he demanded from himself. He was, therefore, not merely a teacher or a tutor, but a true educator. He set his students a personal example of ‘high-minded seriousness and integrity’,9 ‘deep love for research and knowledge’,10 ‘respect for the written word (even when it came from a graduate student)’11 and for seekers of knowledge12 but first and foremost of modesty,13 dignity and tolerance. These values are his bequest to his students, who now try, each in her or his own way, to live up to them.

INTRODUCTION: ELIE KEDOURIE AS TEACHER 3

NOTES 1. Rami Ginat, The Soviet Union and Egypt, 1945–1952 (London: Frank Cass, 1993), p. x (author’s note). 2. Patrick T.Murray in a letter to the editor, 7 June 1998. Murray’s description is of an undergraduate lecture course on Hegel and Marx, taken in autumn 1976. 3. Moshe Shemesh, ‘Professor Elie Kedourie as a Teacher’, Nhard’a (journal of the Centre of the Heritage of the Babilonian Jewry), 11 (March 1993), p. 23 (in Hebrew). 4. Liora Lukitz, ‘A Ph.D. Experience’, Elie Kedourie, CBE, FBA, 1926–1992 (London: Frank Cass, 1998), p. 44. 5. Ibid., p. 46. 6. Massoumeh Torfeh in letter to editor, April 1998. 7. Ibid. 8. In a private conversation with the editor. The person preferred to remain anonymous. 9. Murray, letter. 10. Torfeh, letter. 11. Lukitz, ‘Ph.D. Experience’, pp. 44–5. 12. ‘In response to a student’s remark that “monks were foolish men”, Professor Kedourie stated in his authoritative way that monks were serious men engaged in an enterprise worthy of respect’—Murray, letter. 13. He kindly offered me a plastic bag in which to carry my heavy thesis home, unimpressed, it seemed, by my fancy leather briefcase. ‘Fancy accessories or elaborate arguments do not impress him,’ I thought to myself once back in the sunny street, ‘only the usefulness of an object, or a thought and its applicability in solving problems’—Lukitz, ‘Ph.D. Experience’, p.47.

PART I PHILOSOPHY, POLITICAL THOUGHT AND IDEOLOGY

1 Schiller’s Theory of Aesthetic Semblance PATRICK MURRAY

Schiller’s theory of aesthetic semblance forms the content of Letter 26 in his major aesthetic treatise, the Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, which was written and revised during the period 1793 to 1795.1 In any discussion of these 27 letters it is helpful to have some overview of their structure and content. Letters 1 to 10 deal with Schiller’s diagnosis of the political, ethical and above all psychological ills of contemporary society. Letters 11 to 21 are a philosophical discussion in which he tries to establish a conceptual model of the mind, a conceptual model of beauty, and attempts to interrelate these two models to show the potential beneficial effects of beauty for our psychological harmony. Letters 22 to 27 are concerned with the existential and practical aspects of beauty and art in historical, psychological and educational terms. It is important to distinguish two levels of discussion in the work. Many apparent inconsistencies, which scholars have claimed to notice in the work, arise through a failure to distinguish the philosophical treatment of beauty and mind (in Letters 11 to 21) from the practical and educational discussion of their existential reality (Letters 22 to 27). The theory of semblance (in Letter 26) has to be seen as developing out of his earlier treatments in the Letters of the nature of beauty per se (in Letters 15 and 16), and the beautiful in art objects (Letter 22). Thus before turning to specifically examine his theory of aesthetic semblance, one has first of all to briefly look at his treatment of these related ideas. The Aesthetic Letters were written in the aftermath of the French Revolution, and reflect Schiller’s pessimism as to the prospects for political reform. He believed that the failure of the revolution, the degeneration of its high ideals into the Terror which followed, was due to men not being ready for freedom. He saw the great mass of men as slaves to their sensuous being, following their natural appetites and pursuing purely material ends. In Schiller’s view, durable political reform can only be carried out by men who have become morally and psychologically harmonious within themselves.2 Only men who are free and rational within themselves can create a free and rational political state. To achieve this will necessitate a fundamental reorientation in men’s psychology, and

6 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

Schiller looks to the educative and formative power of beauty and art to effect this.3 In Letter 14 Schiller refers to the beautiful as an object which is for man ‘a symbol of his accomplished destiny’.4 Such an object, in its structural composition, has the same harmonious balance of rational and sensuous elements (or of form and content) that man ought to have within himself psychologically. Most men are ‘savages’ dominated by their sensuous nature. On the other hand, the ruling classes and the intelligentsia are ‘barbarians’, men dominated by their intellect and reason, at the expense of human feeling and emotion.5 The need is for psychological wholeness and the equilibrious balance of the two sides of man, reason and sense, in a manner reflecting the harmony of form and content which the object of beauty puts before us as a symbol of what we should be. In Letter 15 Schiller proceeds to develop his definition of beauty a little further, calling any object that manifests beauty ‘living form’.6 This stresses that the relationship of form and sensuous content in the object is more than one of harmonious balance, but is a dynamic inter-relationship of these two aspects of its structural composition. One must not take a simplistic literal view of ‘living form’ as meaning the organically structured. Schiller makes it clear that lifeless stones can become the living form of sculpture. On the other hand, living things, for example a human being, may lack beauty7 and that dynamic interrelation of form and content that we recognize as beautiful only when we see it. The mere external mechanical conjunction of form and material content will not produce beauty. They are necessary, but not sufficient, ingredients of beauty. Schiller states that the process whereby they become sufficient to produce beauty in their mutual relationship is unknowable, that is, one does not know how or why in some instances their relationship produces beauty whilst in others it does not. One can only recognize beauty when one experiences it, not formulate it in advance of such an experience.8 As Schiller develops his concept of beauty throughout the Aesthetic Letters, from ‘symbol’ of our ‘destiny’9 to ‘living form’,10 to his treatment of the art object,11 and finally in its most complex form, incorporating the others, as ‘aesthetic semblance’,12 one must bear in mind that, throughout, Schiller is relating his discussion of beauty to the process of the aesthetic psychological development of the individual (or what he terms ‘aesthetic education’13). Thus in developing the notion of beauty as ‘living form’ , Schiller asserts beauty is more than just a symbol of our ideal psychological state, but is also capable of effecting a real psychological education so as to achieve this state.14 By this stage the ideal relationship of our own sensuous and rational natures has also been defined in terms of a dynamic interrelation (in Schiller’s concept of the ‘play-drive’).15 This kind of paralleling of his psychological-educational discussion with his aesthetic theory continues throughout the treatise. In Letter 16 Schiller briefly moves from the plane of ideal beauty to its existential reality. He says that

SCHILLER’S THEORY OF AESTHETIC SEMBLANCE 7

the highest ideal of beauty is, therefore, to be sought in the most perfect possible union and equilibrium of reality and form. This equilibrium, however, remains no more than an Idea, which can never be fully realized in actuality. For in actuality we shall always be left with a preponderance of the one element over the other…in which now reality, now form, will predominate… Beauty in experience will be eternally twofold.16 These two existential types of beauty are named as ‘Energising’ and ‘Melting’ beauty, according to the psychological effects that they have on the human subject in the course of aesthetic experience.17 Unfortunately, as is typical of Schiller’s discussion in the Aesthetic Letters as a whole, there are no empirical examples as to what he is referring to here. He provides no concrete particulars to indicate in what objective form such types of beauty may be experienced. This is because his primary concern is psychological and educational, rather than aesthetic in the narrow sense. Hence, here he discusses how ‘Melting’ and ‘Energising’ can be put to psychotherapeutical use, in which each type of beauty can be utilized to act as a corrective to a one-sided character.18 However, the discussion is rather loose and speculative as no criteria for either psychological diagnosis or accurate psychotherapeutical prognosis are provided. At times one begins to feel that the aesthetic theory is too secondary to Schiller’s psychological concerns, being dragged along behind it, and is merely being conceptually developed as required for his educational and psychological purposes. In Letter 22 the discussion of beauty is in the context of a treatment of the art object. The requirement that beauty should produce the effect of psychological harmony within us is clearly restated: ‘The more general the mood and the less limited the bias produced in us by any particular art, or by any particular product of the same, then the nobler that art and the more excellent that product will be.’19 What Schiller is saying here is that the ‘excellence’ of a type of art, or a particular work of that specific type, is something we can subjectively evaluate in terms of its psychological effects upon us: ‘good art’ has a more general, less limiting, effect on us, affecting both sides of our being —thought and feeling. Such an evaluation is not easy though, for, as Schiller admits, we cannot always blame the art object if we bring to our aesthetic experience a one-sided predisposition towards either thought or feeling.20 Schiller continues his discussion of the art object by saying: In a truly successful work of art the contents should effect nothing, the form everything; for only through the form is the whole man affected, through the subject matter, by contrast, only one or other of his functions. Subject matter, then, however…all embracing it may be, always has a limiting effect upon the spirit, and it is only from form that true aesthetic freedom can be looked for.21

8 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

Schiller, then, ascribes to the formal qualities of an art object its aesthetic value, a value seen in purely subjective or psychological terms. Form appeals psychologically to all our natures, powers and faculties, whereas some definite subject matter appeals to some particular nature or power. For Schiller, form is important for psychological equilibrium and wholeness. At least two criticisms can be made of this position. First, Schiller seems to again shape his aesthetic theory according to the requirements of his ideal psychological model and, in particular, he simply equates what is of aesthetic value with what is of psychological value. Why should not these two values clash? Second, he seems to have shifted his view of the nature of beautiful objects quite radically: from a dynamic interrelation of form and content, to now a form-dominated object in which content is clearly subordinated. Schiller can be to some extent extracted from this second criticism by reference to his general educational programme in the Aesthetic Letters, in which he seeks to devise an aesthetic means of developing the mass of men from a life in which they are dominated by their sensuous being, to one of rationality and morality.22 Such an educational enterprise requires a form—dominated object, for Schiller holds the view that each side of the art object has the effect of developing the corresponding side of our being.23 However, in that case one may wonder why form should appeal to all our natures and powers, as Schiller claims, and not just to our rationality. Why, for example, could not a highly diverse and rich subject matter in a work of art appeal widely to different aspects of our psychological composition? This is surely as plausible as Schiller’s claim that only form does. Letter 26 deals specifically with Schiller’s theory of aesthetic semblance. It carries forward the discussion of beauty in the form of the art object in Letter 22, which has just been examined. Again, Schiller’s treatment has to be seen as located within the context of what he sees as the educational requirement for the mass of men to develop their rationality from out of a largely sensuously dominated natural condition. Also in the background is Schiller’s ideal model of psychological harmony. However, by now its derivative aesthetic model has become unbalanced: form domination in the art object and art as illusory appearance or semblance confine the harmony ideal to his discussion of how our natural inclinations can be reconciled with our rational moral duty.24 In other words, rational or form domination has quietly taken over in the development of his aesthetic model, confining harmony to serve as an ideal in his moral philosophy. Nowhere in Letter 26 will one find a definition of what Schiller means by aesthetic semblance. He seems to implicitly take the view that we will best discover its meaning in the course of its development and application in his theory. The key German term here is Schein, which different translators make into either semblance, illusion, or appearance. There is something to be said for each of these terms, and all are best kept in mind.25

SCHILLER’S THEORY OF AESTHETIC SEMBLANCE 9

Schiller is anxious to distinguish aesthetic semblance from a deceptive illusion, trick or error. He distinguishes aesthetic semblance which is known and loved as semblance, from a conceptual semblance in which we are deceived concerning either the nature of empirical existence or conceptual truth itself. An aesthetic semblance makes no claim, has no pretence to present reality or truth. He says: ‘I am here concerned with …aesthetic semblance (which we [consciously] distinguish from actuality and truth) and not logical semblance…semblance, therefore, which we love just because it is semblance, and not because we take it to be something better.’26 One can only really make sense of Schiller’s concept of semblance by referring to Kant’s theory of knowledge, with which Schiller was both very familiar and impressed. In the philosophy of Kant, as we come to experience any object we always bring with us twelve fundamental Categories and the forms of space and time. We proceed to mentally construct reality for ourselves in a subjective manner using these Categories and forms. Everyone shares the same fundamental structure and functioning of mind in this process, and so we all agree on the fundamental furniture of the world around us. What is important in this theory is the notion that the way things appear to us in experience, their general form, is something determined by us, by the human subject. Of course there is a material ‘thing’ out there independent of us, which we so subjectively construct or form, but this given element in experience is something that need not concern us. In his theory of semblance, Schiller develops this process of subjective construction or formation involved in the process of perception, and adapts it to produce a theory of artistic production. His theory of aesthetic semblance is, then, primarily about the process of artistic production, and less about aesthetic appreciation. Thus, in line with Kant’s theory of knowledge, Schiller states that: ‘The reality of things is the work of things themselves; the semblance of things is the work of man; and a nature which delights in semblance is no longer taking pleasure in what it receives, but in what it does.’27 Schiller, then, is reiterating Kant’s point that sensuous matter pertains to objects themselves, whilst their form is determined by our own mental activity. Thus in dealing with semblance we are dealing with something which is of our own making. We delight in the product of our own perception, not something which is nature’s and which we simply passively receive. Schiller locates his discussion of semblance within a mythical psychological history of the human race, which is, at the same time, a description of the phases of development each individual must pass through in his life. In Schiller’s historical schema, the first visible sign of the savage’s entry upon humanity is when he exhibits ‘a delight in semblance and a propensity to ornamentation and play’.28 The development of our psychological powers takes place through apprehending natural beauty,29 and this leads us into that aesthetic psychological condition in which we take pleasure in the purely formal characteristics of objects for their own sake, where, in Schiller’s terms, our sensuous and rational natures playfully interact as we contemplate semblances.

10 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

Continuing his general theme of the aesthetic as involving liberation from determination by nature, Schiller describes how the development of our natural senses assists our ability to separate ourselves from nature. He distinguishes the higher senses of visual and aural perception from the lower animal senses. The former are those whose contact with objects is indirect, mediated by the mind imposing some structure or form on what is sensed.30 This creates what one might call a ‘psychological distance’ between the subject and the object, in which the latter is perceived as form, and not simply as a sensuous datum as with the lower senses. Schiller sees the delight we take in forms as liberation from nature. Interest and delight in semblances is achieved when our imagination is no longer tied to nature or pressed into the service of satisfying physical needs. Delight and interest in semblance are a manifestation of the achievement of inner psychological freedom, as we become self-aware of the independent power of our imagination in relation to external nature. As Schiller puts it: Indifference to reality and interest in semblance may be regarded as a genuine enlargement of humanity and a decisive step towards culture. In the first place, this affords evidence of outward freedom. …But it affords evidence, too, of inner freedom, since it makes us aware of a power which is able to move of its own accord, independently of any material stimulus from without.31 It would seem so far that the aesthetic appreciation of semblance involves an act of abstracting form from its connection with a certain sensuous content, and in finding delight and pleasure in form alone. This corresponds with the view taken earlier by Schiller of the art object as being form-dominated. But what of the process of artistic production? Again one must construct some kind of definition of how semblance is involved in this process from his general use of the term, since he does not provide one. The artistic production of semblances is really just an extension of the process of aesthetic appreciation of such forms. It involves the mental detachment of form from any object, in which this abstracted form is then creatively reformed by the imagination, to be then re-presented for perception through some form—dominated sensuous medium of a different kind from that in which it was originally embodied. In short, it is a matter of mental abstraction of form, imaginative reformation, and re-presentation in a medium. In this threefold activity, the key process is the second, viz. the work of the imagination; to not simply reproduce an existing form (as in normal non— aesthetic modes of perception), but to employ it creatively to reform form in an aesthetically pleasing manner, a manner which harmoniously interrelates our rational and sensuous natures when we contemplate it in aesthetic appreciation. But what, one may wonder, precisely does this reform of form involve in the object, in order to make it aesthetically pleasing to us? Nothing is said to add to what Schiller has already stated in Letter 22: that the art object should be form—

SCHILLER’S THEORY OF AESTHETIC SEMBLANCE 11

dominated, with its sensuous content subordinated to it or sublated within it. The process of combining form and content to produce beauty has already been described, in Letter 15, as a mystery; we can only recognize beauty when we experience it, we cannot formulate it in advance. According to Schiller, ‘once man has got to the point of distinguishing semblance from reality, form from body, he is also in a position to abstract the one from the other… The capacity for imitative art is thus given with the capacity for form in general.’32 What he is saying is that the ability in perception to impose form on objects leads to the artistic ability to abstract what has been so imposed and treat form autonomously, independently of its original sensuous attachment. The capacity for imitative art at first arises, but later form is treated in a more free way and embodied in sensuous media different from their original existence. Schiller sees the capacity for art as a further development in objective and volitional terms of our ordinary cognitive processes of perception (imposing form subjectively) and abstraction (detaching form subjectively). Thus Schiller sees artistic creation as an almost natural development of the normal processes of perception. Schiller wants to emphasize our freedom or self-determination when we are involved with semblance. He tells us that, since all actual existence derives from nature considered as alien force, whereas all semblance originates in man considered as perceiving subject, he is only availing himself of the undisputed rights of ownership when he reclaims Semblance from Substance, and deals with it according to laws of his own.33 In other words, what is sensuously existential in experience derives from nature, what is formal derives from the work of our minds. In creatively handling such forms in imagination, we detach from the world only something of our own. The medium of form is one of our own, in relation to which we are free. As Schiller says, ‘with unrestricted freedom he is able, can he but imagine them together, actually to join together things which nature put asunder; and, conversely, to separate, can he but abstract them in his mind, things which nature has joined together’.34 In creatively handling such form as independently detached from its original sensuous ‘abode’, the individual manifests his own freedom and independence from nature and its laws, by reforming it imaginatively to conform to laws of his own; altering without hindrance the ‘natural’ structure and order of the form’s original sensuous appearance. In Schiller’s view, the degree of freedom in this process of imaginatively reforming form depends upon the degree to which we separate the form from its original sensuous existence. The independence of our imagination, and the freedom freedom the semblance can itself manifest manifest from sense (when represented in a new medium as an art object), are a function of the independence or ‘gap’ of form from its original sensuous existence. Schiller

12 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

states the issue thus: ‘The more scrupulously he separates form from substance… the more complete the autonomy he is able to give to the former.’35 In what is perhaps the most interesting part of his discussion of aesthetic semblance, Schiller admonishes at once ideological art and art which is merely imitative. He says that, the poet [artist] transgresses his proper limits, alike when he attributes existence to his ideal world, as when he aims at bringing about some determinate existence by means of it…encroaching with his ideal upon the territory of experience, and presuming to determine actual existence by means of what is merely possible…(allowing experience to encroach upon the territory of the ideal, and restricting the [imaginatively] possible to the conditions of the actual). Only inasmuch as it is honest (expressly renounces all claims to reality), and only inasmuch as it is autonomous (dispenses with all support from reality), is semblance aesthetic. From the moment it is dishonest, and simulates reality, or from the moment it is impure, and has need of reality to make its effect, it is nothing but a base instrument for material ends, and affords no evidence whatsoever of any freedom of the spirit.36 In Schiller’s view, then, the nature of aesthetic semblance, as such, imposes limitations upon the proper activity of the artist, on what is a proper subject for artistic representation, and upon the means for achieving representation. The need for semblance to be such, is for form to be detached from its sensuous origin. Thus, for example, the poet must not claim the ideal world he presents has reality or ‘relevance’ to reality, by being aimed at effecting some political, moral or social change, at effecting something definite in content for either our knowing or willing.37 This clearly has implications for how the artist views his own activity, and also for the content of art. The artist must exercise care in the manner in which he seeks to make his free semblance become ‘reattached’ to sensuous existence. He must avoid either seeking to make semblance determine existence (as is the case in ideological art), or allowing existence to determine semblance (as is the case with art that merely imitatively copies existence, which is therefore dependent upon nature and sense, limiting the scope of imaginative freedom). Aesthetic semblance must be ‘honest’ (not claim reality) and ‘autonomous’ (not depend for its effect on reality). In all this talk about the importance of the detachment of art from reality, it is possible to think that Schiller conceives of aesthetic semblance as purely formal, almost ethereal. But he makes it clear that in what he has said, this does not, of course, imply that an object in which we discover aesthetic semblance must be devoid of reality; all that is required is that our judgement of it should take no account of that reality; for inasmuch as it does take account of it, it is not an aesthetic judgement.

SCHILLER’S THEORY OF AESTHETIC SEMBLANCE 13

…The appeal…even by living things, must be through sheer appearance.38 Thus Schiller realistically allows semblances to have a material aspect (the necessary medium of representation of reformed form), but form must predominate and subordinate sense in the art object (as presented in Letter 22), and in addition we must learn to subjectively abstract from the sensuous element in art during the course of our aesthetic contemplation of it, and to focus on form. Schiller ends his discussion of aesthetic semblance in Letter 26 with an answer to those who criticize aesthetic semblance precisely because it means art is detached from reality. This is the criticism of those who see art as distracting men from serious concerns, and who see art and beauty as superficial and frivolous, a danger to moral sincerity, educating men to value appearances not real merit, and thus encouraging hypocrisy.39 These ‘moralizers’, as Schiller calls them, only allow art a place as a means, serving some definite aim in relation to existential reality, such as moral improvement. Schiller says: They also inveigh against that beneficent semblance with which we fill out our emptiness and cover up our wretchedness, and against that ideal semblance which ennobles the reality of common day…they show a respect for substance as such which is unworthy of man, who is meant to value matter only to the extent that it is capable of taking on form and extending the realm of ideas.40 In answer to the criticism of art as disengagement and frivolity, Schiller goes for a defence, similar to the position put forward later by Nietzsche,41 that art fills a psychic void and idealizes a harsh reality. We need its psychotherapeutic illusions, and this is a harmless mock self-deception, as we know we are being, and want to be, deluded that, for a time at least, the ideal is ‘reality’. Schiller seems to be saying that art is a self-conscious flight from reality, but a necessary one: ‘Beauty alone makes the whole world happy, and each and every being forgets its limitations while under its spell.’42 One can summarize the development of Schiller’s theory of aesthetic semblance in the following way: it emerges from his earlier concepts of beauty and of the art object. It is located within a general theory (in the Letters as a whole) concerning the need for the aesthetic psychological development of men from sensuousness to rationality. It is developed against the background of his ideal psychological model of mind, as this interrelates with an ideal model of beauty. It develops out of Kant’s theory of knowledge, as involving a subjective formation of objects. Schiller develops Kant’s theory of knowledge to become an aesthetic theory of form. In man’s psychohistorical development, he comes to delight in semblances for their own sake. In this development, the higher senses

14 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

create a ‘psychological distance’ between subject and object. Man’s increasing liberation from nature involves the development of an independently creative imagination. Kant’s theory of knowledge is developed into a process of imaginative reformation of form in artistic production. The capacity for art thus arises out of the normal process of cognitive perception. In creatively handling form, we are working freely in a medium of our own. The freedom of our imagination, as of the appearance of semblance itself, is a function of the degree of separation between form and reality that is achieved. The theory of aesthetic semblance excludes the possibility of ideological or merely imitative art. Art is not purely formal, but in aesthetic contemplation we should abstract from its sensuous element. Schiller answers criticism that his theory of aesthetic semblance makes art escapist, by saying that such escape is a legitimate psychological need. Schiller leaves a problem in evaluating his theory. He does not provide any recognizable philosophical methodology by which one could assess the logical coherence of his arguments. His methodology, insofar as he has one, is that of a speculative psychology. The different dimensions of his argument in the Letters, viz. the moral, political and aesthetic theories, interrelate in complex and shifting ways to each other, and ultimately to the psychological model of mind which underlies them. In the end, the value of what he largely asserts comes down to whether one does or does not accept his basic psychological model of the mind (with the various natures and drives that he assigns to it). In philosophical terms there seems to be no compelling reason to accept Schiller’s model as opposed to, say, the much more systematically and coherently argued models of mind that underlie the critical philosophy of Kant or the idealism of Fichte.43 Perhaps, then, the final assessment of the value of Schiller’s theory of semblance must be made in practical terms by art historians and critics, but especially by practitioners of art.44 NOTES 1. For the history of the text itself, see Schiller, Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, trans. E.K.Wilkinson and L.A.Willoughby (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), appendix 1, ‘The Text and its Story’, pp. 334–7. All references to the Aesthetic Letters which follow are taken from this edition. 2. L4:1 (i.e., Letter 4, paragraph 1), L4:7, L7:1. 3. L9:1, L9:2, L10:1. 4. L14:2. 5. L4:6, L5:3, L5:4, L5:5, L10:1. 6. L15:2. 7. L15:3. 8. L15:4. 9. L14. 10. L15.

SCHILLER’S THEORY OF AESTHETIC SEMBLANCE 15

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

38. 39. 40. 41.

42. 43.

L15:2. L26. L23:8, L20:4 note. L9:7, L10:1, L20:4 note. L14:1, L14:3, L14:5. L16:1 L16:2. L16:3 L22:4. L22:6. L22:5. L7:3, L3:1, L3:2, L3:3, L3:5, L20:3, L23:2, L23:7, L23:8, L24:1. L17:4. L23:8 and notes 2 and 3. See ibid., Schein, Erscheinung, Tauschung, in Wilkinson and Willoughby’s ‘Glossary’, pp. 327–9. L26:5. L26:4. L26:3. L26:2. All Schiller scholars seem to have missed the initial aesthetic education of man effected by natural beauty. L26:6. L26:4. L26:7. L26:8. Ibid. L26:9. L26:10 and L26:11 respectively. C.f. ibid., L21:4, ‘for beauty produces no particular result whatsoever, neither for the Understanding nor for the Will. It accomplishes no particular purpose, neither intellectual nor moral; it discovers no individual truth, helps us to perform no individual duty’. L26:11. L26:13, L26:14. L26:14. F.Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, trans. O.Fadiman (New York; Modern Library, 1927), p. 210: ‘Art approaches as a redeeming and healing enchantress; she alone may transform these horrible reflections on the terror and absurdity of existence into representations with which man may live.’ Also, F.Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. O.Levy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1910), vol. II, p. 264: ‘Art is with us in order that we may not perish through truth.’ And: ‘We are in need of lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this truth— that is to say, in order to live… That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence’ (vol. II, p. 289); All art works as a tonic’ (vol. II, p. 252). Wilkinson and Willoughby (trans.), Aesthetic Letters, L27:10. I refer to the a priori models of the mind presented by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N.Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan, 1973), and by Fichte in The

16 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

Science of Knowledge, trans. J.Lachs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 44. This chapter is based on a paper read to the staff and postgraduate students in the Department of Art History at the University of St Andrews. It does not correspond precisely with Schiller’s line of argument. Rather, it reconstructs his line into a more logical sequence, so as to make it more coherent and cogent. Also Schiller does not make explicit reference to Kant’s theory of knowledge. He merely admits to basing what he says on Kantian principles. The account of Kant’s epistemology in the Critique of Pure Reason is, necessarily, highly simplified and avoids reference to the a priori and other philosophical terms.

2 Notes on the Concept of the ‘Civil Condition’ DAVID H.SANDIFORD

In his essay ‘On the Civil Condition’,1 Michael Oakeshott describes the ideal character of civil freedom and the idea of ‘politics’ as follows. The ideal of civil freedom as the condition of being associated solely in terms of the recognition of the authority (not the choice or the desirability) of the adverbial conditions of conduct specified in Respublica,2 distinguished from that of having chosen to be associated in terms of a common purpose and of choosing to acknowledge or not to acknowledge the performances in which this purpose is contingently pursued. The idea of ‘politics’ as the engagement of considering the conditions specified in Respublica in terms of their desirability and of recommending and promoting deliberate changes in these conditions, distinguished from deliberating the ‘policy’ of an enterprise association or from seeking the award of recognition or advantage in the pursuit of individual or corporate purposes or from ushering in The New Jerusalem.3 This chapter will consider the contrast between this ideal character of the civil condition and the notion of politics associated with it and other notions of the character of political and social association considered at different levels of political activity. The first and most immediate contrast is with any form of association devoted to the achievement of substantive aims. The civil condition identifies the formal conditions which allow citizens to act and respond to each other within the Respublica, it does not direct or command them to achieve particular ends whether in terms of economic efficiency, military power, or the exercise of political domination. Similarly, where civil freedom subsists, the idea of the state existing to achieve the maximum ‘utility’ for its individual citizens can have no place. The kinds of calculations of benefit, of cost effectiveness, and of economic utility that may have a place in the governance of a private or public corporation, play no part in deliberations about the conditions which must be subscribed to, where there is a properly constituted political authority which defines its citizens’ condition as a properly civil condition.

18 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

A further contrast of the notion of the civil condition is with those varieties of political thought and ideological thinking that have not only sought the better achievement of material and military ends by the more systematic organization of their subjects—not properly citizens—within their polities, but have also linked this either directly, or at least by intimation, with the assertion that certain sorts of political organization and action can lead to religious or moral salvation and purity. This failure to distinguish the characteristics of moral, political, theological, and philosophical thought is apparent in ideological thinkers who aim to bring about in the secular realm the absolute notions of justice and happiness and personal salvation normally associated solely with theological concepts. The search for personal salvation through extreme and violent political action is utterly alien to the notion of politics identified with the civil condition. Political activity should not be thought of as a means of achieving individual purity of the soul or a common cleansing, it is about creating those conditions that allow individual citizens to properly conduct themselves within the polis. The civil condition ideally allows individual citizens to pursue their own moral and religious ends without interference from the political authority. Political activity in ascertaining the proper postulates of the civil condition does not itself constitute an act of self-definition leading to individual salvation or grace. Another contrast which can be drawn is that, in Oakeshott’s terms, whilst the consideration of the conditions of political association is a proper pursuit of ‘politics’, the search for essential and fundamental ‘rights’, at least identified as having a fixed, determinate and timeless quality, would not be. The maintenance of the civil condition requires continuous enactment by its citizens. This enactment is not necessarily self-consciously considered in each individual act, but forms part of the traditions, the ways of behaving of the community. Assertion of ‘rights’ tends by contrast to involve self-conscious association by an individual or a group within the community in a frequent and consistent manner which may only be appropriate in polities that normally enjoy the civil condition but are experiencing times of crisis where the degree of selfexamination and assertion associated, for example, with existential philosophy in the sphere of moral action is required. The contrasts that can be drawn between the ‘ideal’ civil condition and other contrasting manifestations of political activity and organization may lead one to ask the question if the association is not identified in terms of a substantive aim or purpose, does it possess any ‘essential’ characteristics? The principal characteristic identified by Oakeshott is that it is association in terms of the Rule of Law thought of in purely procedural terms and not as one producing specific substantive outcomes. The emphasis here is on recognizing the properly authorized procedures for resolving differences between particular individual citizens, between individual

NOTES ON THE CONCEPT OF THE ‘CIVIL CONDITION’ 19

citizens and bodies acting with public authority and also, presumably, between bodies—whether corporate or governmental —acting in the international arena. There must be a recognition at each level of what the authorized law-making body is, what the relevant rules are, the character of the formal procedures for allowing determination of disputes under the rules, the correct judicial or decision-making body, and the body with the authority to enforce any decision made. None of the above requirements necessarily involves any particular substantive outcome, but do they involve the assertion of any common characteristics of conduct, approach or thought? It has been observed that the achievement of the civil condition is a process of constant enactment, albeit not necessarily a closely considered and selfconscious one. This implies traditional or customary ways of acting, a recognition of common procedures which, perhaps, necessarily implies a scepticism towards dramatic change and action, or at least dramatic change which would destroy the essential conditions, the achieved conditions, which allow citizens to associate in a condition of civil freedom. This implied scepticism is contrary to the zealousness which characterizes the errors of political thinking variously described as ‘rationalism’,4 ‘intentionality ’,5 and ‘the desire to construct’,6 as well as the more far-reaching ambition to bring about salvation on earth associated with the ideologies of totalitarian regimes. If the characteristic of the civil condition is to emphasize the formal conditions of civil freedom within the polity, is it necessarily of a ‘conservative’ emphasis. This is perhaps a somewhat vulgar question, but insofar as it admits of an answer, the conclusion can only be that this is not necessarily the outcome of an emphasis on the formal characteristics of the civil condition. Within a polity embodying the characteristics of the civil condition, the individual citizens can engage in joint community or enterprise association to whatever extent they wish provided that they do not bring into question the Rule of Law and the necessity to adhere to its prohibitions, and recognize its penalties when subject to legal procedures. The only requirement of civil freedom is that individual citizens are not obliged by the state to enter into any such community or enterprise association, although there is no reason why participation in order to ameliorate their social and economic conditions should have adverse implications for the conditions required for a properly civil condition to subsist. The character of economic life may or may not require certain types of corporate organization, but any such requirement must not be held to be of such an extreme degree of necessity, except perhaps in the case of mobilization for war, as to impinge upon the postulates of the civil condition. The case of a nation at war is a separate case and consideration must be given as to the reasons for war and the necessity of short term measures to preserve the conditions of civil freedom in the long term. A distinction between proper mobilization for war in the face of military aggression and the adoption of

20 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

military aggression as an excuse for mobilization and the curtailing of civil freedoms must be sought. The civil condition therefore requires the formal commitment to observe the Rule of Law associated with a scepticism towards political thinking which seeks to direct or require the attainment of substantive ends, whether economic, military, or religious. Adherence to formal procedures also implies the ability to recognize the character of procedural requirements and tolerate different varieties of social, economic, and political activity so long as there is the minimal recognition of procedural requirements allied to acceptance of decisions properly reached. A further question arises as to in what level of political interaction can the civil condition be aspired to. Oakeshott regards the achievement of something approaching the civil condition as essentially the achievement of the modern European state. Is it the case that it is appropriate within local communities and indeed nation-states, where there is a shared tradition, a shared acknowledgement of the preconditions of proper civil intercourse but that such preconditions cannot properly exist in the international arena, where national super states endeavour to regulate the affairs of smaller nations with whom possibly there is no shared understanding of the character of the conditions of civil association but only resentment at the imposition of alien standards of behaviour from outside? When there is no adherence to commonly accepted standards and preconditions of acting, the recourse is frequently to ‘justice’ in terms of the punishment of individual perpetrators of violence by international bodies outside the native political body of the perpetrator. Such recourse is designed to exemplify the requirement that certain minimum standards of substantive behaviour must be adhered to even though deviations from such standards were not addressed within the jurisdiction of the state of domicile of the individual punished. The move to internationally imposed ‘justice’ is both the expression of moral outrage felt by the individual citizens of member states of the international community, who through the reporting of events in the various media of modern technology are ever more conscious of events taking place in the world, and an exhortation that the historical achievement of the civil condition in individual states be extended to the wider international community. This may be perceived simply as the imposition of another form of political and cultural imperialism by the stronger states on the weaker; it may at times simply disguise the hypocrisy of nation-states intervening through international bodies most frequently where their direct interests are thwarted; or it may, hopefully, involve the recognition that the formality and procedural conditions evinced in the ideal of the civil condition are of some relevance and value even possibly where the substantive aims and traditions of individual bodies politic do not embody them but can recognize their efficacy in assisting dispute solution if the world is to be characterized by order rather than anarchy.

NOTES ON THE CONCEPT OF THE ‘CIVIL CONDITION’ 21

There is no historical ‘necessity’ leading to such recognition; where it takes place it is a historical achievement, an achievement requiring constant selfenactment normally associated with the political as well as moral and social virtues of tolerance and respect but also with the courage to recognize when minimal standards of behaviour are not adhered to and act accordingly. It may be argued that a level of historical consciousness has been reached where recognition of the virtues of the civil condition makes their implementation inevitable,7 but this would be too complacent. There is no ‘Process of History’ which necessarily leads to this result, it can only be the result of enactment through deliberation and action embodying varying degrees of self-consciousness by individual citizens and communities committed to what they perceive as a properly civilized way of carrying on political activity, possibly even sometimes in the face of posited economic necessity or other requirements of the state. NOTES 1. Michael Oakeshott, On Human Conduct (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). 2. A term used by Oakeshott to denote the comprehensive conditions of the ideal character of civil association. 3. See Oakeshott, Human Conduct, p. 184. 4. See Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (London: Methuen, 1962). 5. See F.Hayek, Law, Legislation and Liberty (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973). 6. Ibid. 7. See, for example, some of the discussions in Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992).

3 The Role of Education in the Development of Arab Nationalism in the Fertile Crescent During the 1920s YORAM KAHATI

INTRODUCTION1 The disintegration of the (Muslim) Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, culminating in the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924, was a major turning point in the history of the Arab Middle East in the twentieth century. This process caused a great trauma among the Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims in the Fertile Crescent in particular. It was inconceivable to them that the traditional world order, which had been sanctified by their ancestors for generations, guided their way of life, and determined their religious self-identity, could have irretrievably disappeared. The increasing exposure to modern, Western, secular political world order, which gradually turned into reluctant direct contact, was at best unwelcome to the majority of this population. Furthermore, the new and unfamiliar world order forced on them was seen as a symbol of a successful non-Muslim attack on Muslim territories. It engendered a powerful feeling of disorientation, humiliation, lack of confidence and almost total loss of self-identity. The initial reaction of this population to the drastic change in lifestyle was divided. Supporters of the traditional Muslim order (incited by Arab nationalist activists) tried in vain to resist the creation of the new order (as happened in Iraq in 1920, for example). Their failure was perceived as further proof of the decline of traditional Islam and its inability to cope successfully with the new western challenge. Others, particularly the local urban notables, chose to preserve their position as it was under Ottoman rule. They concluded that it was better to cooperate with their new British and French masters in order to survive under difficult new circumstances. The victorious powers naturally welcomed their cooperation in establishing and maintaining the new political order. Britain and France assumed that they had received an international mandate to create new political frameworks in the Fertile Crescent. They aimed to create modern, Western-style, autonomous Arabic-speaking territories. In due course, it was expected that these territories would be administered by a locally trained, Western-educated, Arabic-speaking elite, under British or French supervision.

POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY 23

The creation of this new political order was in stark contrast to the aspirations of the early supporters of Arab nationalism. These supporters were young professionals, officers and intellectuals belonging mainly to the families of notables who had supported the Ottoman Empire until its disintegration. Unlike their fathers, most had supported the victorious powers during the war. Their own world view, though originating in traditional culture, was formulated in modern Western-oriented (hence secular) educational institutions. They were the products of the Ottoman schools, which the Ottomans had established towards the end of their rule, and of European and American institutions of higher education either in the region or abroad. These young Arabic-speakers embodied a contradictory ideology. On the one hand, they admired the modern Western political culture to which they had been introduced and sought to acquire political and technological power. On the other hand, they felt frustrated and humiliated when they witnessed the victorious powers, with whom they had come to identify, vanquishing the last Muslim (Ottoman) power, whose traditional culture they had absorbed during the early years of their lives. Many of these young men were convinced that the Western powers, whom they had supported, had betrayed their nationalist cause. In their eyes, they had failed to fulfil their promises of creating an Arab state in the territories freed from the Ottomans during the war. The division of the former Ottoman territories, particularly the Fertile Crescent, served as a catalyst for Arab nationalists to create the political creed of Arab nationalism. They began to argue that all Arabic speakers belonged to one ‘Arab nation’, which had originally been created by the prophet Muhammad. In their view, this Arab nation was united by common cultural traits—the Arabic language, Arab history, Arab culture, an Arab homeland, and an Arab ‘national’ religion. The latter meant Islam in a modern interpretation (of which more below). They maintained that the glorious Arab ‘nation’ was a leading light for world civilization until it became subjected to ‘illegal’ non-Arab rule. The result was a total decline of this Arab nation, most recently when it bowed to Western, colonial rule. They concluded that it was the sacred duty of the members of this Arab nation to free themselves from ‘foreign rule’ through an active political struggle aimed at the liberation of their nation and the creation of a united Arab state in its original home—‘the Arab homeland’. The proponents of this revolutionary outlook reinterpreted traditional Islam. No longer was it the only source of identity for an entire traditional Muslim society. It was just one component of a new identity created for a new Arabicspeaking society, some of whose members belonged to other religious communities. This view of Islam enabled some Shi‘ites, Druze, Christians, and even Jews to come out in support of the new ideology. They believed that becoming ‘Arabs’ would enable them to rise above their minority status and become the equals of their Muslim overlords.

24 EDUCATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARAB NATIONALISM

How was it possible that the supporters of this revolutionary political view could promote and implement their ideology under the political authorities against whom it was directed? Ironically, the main promoters of this ideology were the Arabic-speaking educators employed by the Western powers, who relied on their professional knowledge. These powers assumed that the Arab educators would help administer the areas under their control by educating and training generations of Western-educated ‘Arabs’ who would serve in the new administration. Their liberal and democratic views enabled their Arab employees, who espoused Arab nationalism, to spread an ideology that was eventually used to lead a political struggle aimed at obtaining independence from these very powers. It is generally accepted that the formative years of Arab nationalist ideology began during the 1930s. Yet the seeds of this ideology had already been sown in the 1920s—and even as early as 1919, although its scope was still limited at this time to a few major centres in the Fertile Crescent. One major reason for this was the fact that during the 1920s there was still formal mandatory control over the new government educational system. This chapter attempts to locate the role of education in the early development of Arab nationalism in four mandatory countries —Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Iraq. These are the states within whose educational systems the ideology was nurtured first, before it spread to other parts of the Arab world such as Egypt. LEBANON The state of ‘Greater Lebanon’ was created by the French authorities. They granted political preference to the Christians (the Maronites) and left the Sunni Muslims with inferior status in contrast to the political superiority they had enjoyed for generations. The priority of the French mandatory authorities in Lebanon, however, was to create an ethnic balance through a political system in which all the ethnic communities were represented. Though some of these communities had reservations about the new political order, most tried to become reconciled to it, at least at first.2 But it was then that the first seeds of Arab nationalism were sown in Lebanon—mainly in the private and public foreign educational institutions. Kulliyyat al-Maqasid al-Khayriyyah (the College of Benevolent Intentions) was one such institution. It was created in Beirut towards the end of the nineteenth century as a private primary school for the poor children of the Sunni Muslim community. They were supported by the charity Jam‘iyyat al-Maqasid al-Khayriyyah (the Society of Benevolent Intentions), created shortly prior to this. During the 1920s, this primary school became a prestigious preparatory secondary school, with capable educators. Most were Muslim Arab nationalists who belonged to Arab societies set up before 1914, such as al-‘Ahd (the Covenant).3 They instilled Arab nationalism in their students, whose numbers grew steadily. The College of Benevolent Intentions itself developed into an

POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY 25

educational network where Arab nationalism was nurtured. Its educators and graduates played an important role in the dissemination of Arab nationalism inside and outside Lebanon.4 Another centre of Arab nationalism was the American University of Beirut (AUB), established in 1866 by American missionaries as the Syrian Protestant College. Its aim was to encourage Protestantism among the local Arabicspeaking community. The name of the college was changed in 1920 in line with its new vision: to give modern Western culture to the students of the various ethnic communities in the Middle East and turn them into missionaries of Arab nationalism. The students were assigned the task of active social reintegration of their traditional society through the adoption of modern Protestant values, such as initiative and social responsibility, rather than Protestantism as a religion.5 It was at the AUB that Jam‘iyyat al-‘Urwah al-Wuthqa (the Society of the Unbreakable Bond) was founded in 1919.6 (Apparently it adopted its name from the newspaper al-‘Urwah al-Wuthqa, which was published during the 1880s by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh in Paris and which aimed to promote Islamic political activism.) Created under Faysal’s Arab government in Damascus, its members continued its activities after the fall of this government in 1920. They espoused the spread of Arab culture (al-Thaqafah al-‘Arabiyyah) as the common denominator of all Arabic-speakers in the Fertile Crescent in particular. They believed that Arab culture should be the common basis for a new modern Arab political culture. They spread this Arab nationalism through their activities and later through their organ al-‘Urwah (the Bond), which was formally founded in 1935 at the AUB and to which both students and teachers contributed. Influence was also exerted through graduates who later held senior posts (including in government) throughout the Arab world.7 The importance of this society is stressed in the memoirs of Ahmad al-Shuqayri (1907/8–80), a former student of the AUB who later became the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): Within the framework of al-‘Urwah al-Wuthqa the Arab students used to meet, having been introduced to each other, the friendly relationship between them slowly became stronger. These meetings, for me and the other students, were the first ‘real’ [speech marks original] opportunity to discover (for ourselves) that we [belonged to] one nation… Our hopes— we [the sons] of the generation of the time [1927]—were to get rid of the foreign rule and to establish one Arab state. These ideas…were not just dreams. On the contrary, we used to hold symposia in order to discuss [Arab] unity and its main features. We authored a ‘Charter’ (Mithaq) which determined the aims of Arab nationalism and the basis of the modern Arab state… I [myself] played a major role in this movement, together with other students, who afterwards held leading positions in their countries. Of these I remember Fadil al-Jamali and Isma‘il al-Azhari.8

26 EDUCATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARAB NATIONALISM

SYRIA The ideology of Arab nationalism in Syria began to develop during the reign of Faysal I’s Arab government in Damascus (1918–20). It was disseminated in two ways: the educational institutions and the official organ of the government. The educational system was administered by Sati‘ al-Husri (1880–1968)—an Ottoman-trained educator of Syrian Muslim extraction, who became an ardent Arab nationalist only after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.9 (See below for his activity in Iraq.) Husri initiated the Arabization of the Ottoman education system in Syria and made Arabic the language of instruction in all the schools established during this period. He was also involved in the establishment of the colleges of law and medicine. These colleges later became faculties and constituted the seeds of the University of Damascus. Although the language of instruction of many courses in both colleges was at the time still Turkish, each had Arab nationalist members of staff who spread their ideology among their students.10 The idea of Arab nationalism was also disseminated by the government’s organ al-‘Asima (the Capital City). Its editor was Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib (1886–1969), another Muslim Arab nationalist educator (who later became a key figure in the spread of Arab nationalism in Egypt).11 In his articles, he laid down the first features of Arab nationalist ideology: the adoption of modern Western political culture as a basis and guide for the modern Arab and the rejection of Western, political colonial rule. Al-Khatib gave expression to the essence of an Arab nationalist ideology as formulated later by influential ideologues of Arab nationalism. His was a doctrine that ‘was alien to the teachings of traditional Islam’, since they ‘advocated a complete rupture with the Muslim Ottoman Empire’.12 During the 1920s, Syria was under the close scrutiny of French mandatory rule. Since the major Syrian political factions were forced to some degree or other to cooperate with the French authorities, the only outlet for or Arab nationalism was, again, the education system—albeit under government control. The ideology was disseminated at both primary and secondary levels, though it was centred on the preparatory-secondary (Tajhiz) school network, in which outstanding boys and youths studied. Many of the Tajhiz graduates continued their higher education in the Colleges of Medicine and Law in Damascus and in other higher institutions in France and at the AUB. The teachers in these schools, qualified in France and French language and culture, enjoyed high status. The language of instruction, however, was Arabic. The most important of these schools was the Damascus Tajhiz, already established in 1918. According to the historian, Philip Khoury, the Tajhiz was one of the principal centers of nationalist activity during the Mandate. The influence of the school’s highly trained teachers upon the intellectual and ideological formation of many a bright young mind had

POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY 27

already begun to have an impact by the time Syria entered the 1930s… The history of the Arabs and their great contribution to the progress of world civilization were taught in the most exacting national terms. No glories or wonders of the Arab heritage were left unmentioned in the classrooms.13 In due course, it would be the students and teachers of the Tajhiz network and the Colleges of Medicine and Law who would constitute the main leaders of the movement and the creators of the ideology of Arab nationalism in Syria.14 PALESTINE A Palestinian Arab nationalist ideology was created and developed soon after the end of the First World War.15 It sprung up in opposition to the British occupation of the Ottoman territory of Southern Syria (or Palestine) now called OETAS (Occupied Enemy Territory Administration —South) and the nascent Zionist movement. Furthermore, the dissolution of Faysal’s Arab government in Damascus caused great frustration on the part of the Palestinian Arab nationalists who had served in this government. They felt they were treated as undesirable elements and aliens by the local Syrian notables (who eventually submitted to French rule). This combination of factors led them to create the foundations of the Palestinian Arab nationalist ideology.16 This ideology was based on the idea that Palestine is the southern part of Syria and the independence of both should be attained within the framework of Arab unity which rejects an independent Zionist-Jewish entity in Palestine.17 At first, this political view was not shared by all Palestinian Arabs. For, even during the 1920s many Palestinian notables chose —like their counterparts in Syria and Lebanon—to cooperate, albeit reluctantly, with the new British administration.18 The Palestinian Arab nationalists rejected this cooperation (even if outwardly they acquiesced to it) and concentrated on spreading their ideology through the education system. While the government schools for Arabs in mandatory Palestine were subject to a British director of education, the private Arab schools enjoyed a greater measure of independence.19 Arab nationalism was disseminated through both networks as early as the 1920s. The leading Palestinian Arab nationalist educators were Khalil al-Sakakini, Muhammad ‘Izzat Darwazah and Darwish al-Miqdadi. Khalil al-Sakakini (1878–1953)20 was a teacher of Arabic of Greek Orthodox origin, who studied in the Protestant missionary schools of Ottoman-ruled Palestine. Due to personal and political disagreements with the leaders of his community, he left his Church and became an ardent supporter of Arab nationalism in 1918. Because of his professional qualifications as a teacher of Arabic—badly needed by the British authorities at the OETAS—and his command of English, he was appointed principal of the Training College for Arab Primary School Teachers in 1919. This college was designed to supply staff to the OETAS education system. (Shortly before this appointment, Sakakini

28 EDUCATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARAB NATIONALISM

was nominated to the position of inspector-general of the education system of Faysal’s Arab government in Damascus. Due to a delay in the approval of his appointment, he accepted the British offer. The post in Damascus was eventually offered to Sati’ al-Husri.) Within the framework of his new post, Sakakini instilled in his students the rudiments of Arab nationalism, including personal and political independence, initiative and criticism; physical fitness and basic military training; to view the mandatory government as foreign rule; strong anti-Zionism; and the need for a comprehensive Arab unification of all Arabic speakers—Muslims and nonMuslims alike—in order to attain full political independence. The Arabic textbooks that Sakakini wrote contributed to the nurturing of a common language and secular Arab nationalist consciousness. He also continued his fearless political preaching, taking advantage of his official position and the relative permissiveness shown towards him by his direct boss, the director of education, Humphrey Bowman. In addition, he took part in the consultations of Arab nationalist political activists, who formulated the features of the above ideology that were approved by the Syrian Arab Congress in 1920. Palestine was considered the southern part of Syria, which itself should become an independent Arab state towards a comprehensive Arab Unity, in which a Zionist entity has no right to exist. This ideology was also presented to the King-Crane Committee during early 1919.21 Muhammad ‘Izzat Darwaza (1887–1984) served as secretary to the Syrian Arab Congress, which proclaimed Faysal King of Syria in March 1920. He was also one of the early Palestinian Arab nationalist educators and wrote textbooks on Arab history that were used in mandatory Palestine (and later in Iraq during the 1930s and 1940s). These textbooks, like those written by Sakakini, were part of a nationalist political educational process, which he initiated and nurtured while serving as principal of the (private) al-Najah National School (Madrasat al-Najah al-Wataniyyah) in Nablus from 1922 to 1927. This school later became a college and then a university. It was one of the leading and most influential centres in which Palestinian Arab nationalism was nurtured. Years later, Akram Zu‘aytir (1909–97), one of his former students, who himself later became principal of al-Najah School, and a leading Palestinian Arab nationalist educator and politician,22 wrote of Darwaza: He used to give us a weekly lesson on the principles of Nationalism [Qawmiyya] and [modern] society, in a way which sharpened our thought and broadened our horizons. I remember that he wrote nationalist and historical plays which we performed in [our] nationalist clubs.23 Darwish al-Miqdadi (1898/9–1961) is another good example of an Arab nationalist educator whose influence over his students continued for many years. His own studies at the Kulliyyat al-Maqasid al-Khayriyyah and the AUB (where he was a prominent member of Jam‘iyyat al-‘Urwah al-Wuthqa) were the main

POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY 29

influence shaping his Muslim Arab nationalist world-view and turning him into a political missionary of this ideology for the rest of his life. Ending his formal education in 1922, he served for three years as a teacher of history, geography, English and biology at the Young Men’s College in Jerusalem. This college, established in 1918 and soon renamed the Arab College (al-Kulliyya al-‘Arabiyyah), was an intraining college for Palestinian Arab teachers and therefore the most senior institution of higher education for Palestinian Arabs in mandatory Palestine. (At the Hebrew University, opened in 1925, the students were almost all Jews.) Apart from the teaching of English, the language of instruction was Arabic and it attracted highly educated young Arabs. The Arab College thus gradually became a hotbed of Palestinian Arab nationalism. Miqdadi was the leading teacher advocating Arab nationalism in the college during his tenure there. He was also involved in illegal Arab nationalist political activity inside and outside the college. In 1925, for example, he incited his students to demonstrate against Lord Balfour, who was visiting Palestine to inaugurate the Hebrew University. Miqdadi was suspended from his post for several months and eventually resigned, mainly because he had been forbidden to establish an independent battalion of young Arab scouts within the framework of which he intended to preach Arab nationalism. In September 1926 he began his career in Iraq. Over the next 15 years he would become one of the most important Arab nationalist educators there.24 IRAQ During the first 20 years after its establishment (1921–41), Iraq served, perhaps more than any other mandatory state, as the centre for the development and spread of an Arab nationalist ideology. Although the 1930s and early 1940s were the main period in this respect, the seeds of this ideology in Iraq had been sown already during the 1920s. The appointment of Faysal I by the British created a situation in which the new Sunni Muslim rulers were in the minority (compared to the Shi‘i majority). Since the complex ethnic mixture of modern Iraq created a divided society from the start, Arab nationalism was upheld by the new regime as its world-view. It aimed to create social integration among the different ethnic groups of Shi‘is, Sunnis, Kurds, Christians, and Jews, and at the same time to create a hegemony of the minority Sunni Muslims. This hegemony was to encompass the Arabic-speaking Sunni Muslims of the other mandatory territories, in order to create a strong block that would liberate the Arab Middle East from foreign rule and institute Arab unity. During the 1920s, there was still tight British control over the Iraqi political scene. This prevented the possibility of implementing this ideology on a wide and public scale. However, the general backing the British gave to the regime of Faysal I actually enabled the development of Arab nationalism through the government education system.25 Thus nationalism developed both publicly and secretly and several leading Iraqi and non-Iraqi educators—such as Sati’ al-

30 EDUCATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARAB NATIONALISM

Husri, Talib Mushtaq, Anis al-Nusuli and Darwish al-Miqdadi—were involved in its spread. Al-Husri has widely been seen as the most prominent theoretician of Arab nationalism. As the supporter and confidant of Faysal I, he became the most dominant figure in the Iraqi government education system in the 1920s. According to Reeva Simon, ‘al-Husri was directly responsible for creating and instituting the curriculum, implementing teaching methods, choosing textbooks and teachers for primary and secondary schools, establishing a teacher training program, and inculcating in students a pan-Arab ideology’.26 As DirectorGeneral of the Iraqi Ministry of Education from 1923 to 1927, he stressed that ‘the history of Iraq and the Arabs was to be taught in a manner which would strengthen nationalistic sentiments among the students’.27 Husri’s aim was to create a young, educated Iraqi elite imbued with ideas of Arab nationalism and a feeling of mission to promote Iraq’s prestige and power as the holder of the banner of Arab unity. One of the measures that Husri took in order to implement this idea, which of course met with British opposition, was to enlist educators with similar ideas. Some of them were not Iraqi, but they shared his views and helped him to instill his ideas among the younger generation. Talib Mushtaq (1900–77) was one such educator. He was an Iraqi of Shi‘i origin, who received a modern Ottoman education but became an ardent supporter of Arab nationalism after 1918. During the 1920s he played various educational roles, the most important of which was principal of the Central Secondary School in Baghdad between 1927 and 1929. This school was one of the most important educational institutions in Iraq. Mushtaq both secretly and openly took part in inciting students and teachers to show their support for Arab nationalism and their distaste of the British administration in illegal ways. For example, during the visit of Sir Alfred Mond (later Lord Melchett—a prominent proZionist, British Jewish industrialist) in 1928, he incited his students to demonstrate against the visit and to shout anti-Zionist slogans.28 Anis al-Nusuli (1902–57)29 was a Beirut-born, Sunni Muslim and a graduate of the AUB, where he was an active member of the Association of the Unbreakable Bond. He was enlisted by Husri to serve as a teacher of Muslim history at the Central Secondary School and Teachers’ Training School (opened in 1925) in Baghdad. At the end of 1926, his book al-Dawlah al-Umawiyyah fi al-Sham (the Umayyad State in Syria) was published in that city. Expressing the ideas of Husri and written (and published) with his approval, it was seen by the Shi‘i community of Iraq as anti-Shi‘i since it rejected the Shi‘i’s claims in its historic dispute with the Sunnah and openly belittled the Caliph ‘Ali. Following the uproar the publication of the book caused, and despite Nusuli’s denial of blame, he was dismissed from his job under pressure of the Shi‘i community. His colleagues, all of whom were Arab nationalists, protested against his dismissal and encouraged their students to follow them. Following the students’ demonstration in 1927, these teachers were suspended. However, six months later all were reinstated, apart from Nusuli, who returned to Beirut where he

POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY 31

established and edited a magazine promoting Arab nationalism—al-Kashshaf (the Discoverer)—in 1928. Some years later he was appointed Director of Education of the school network of Jam‘iyyat al-Maqasid al-Khayriyyah.30 Darwish al-Miqdadi has already been mentioned as an Arab nationalist educator in mandatory Palestine. A colleague of Nusuli, he was suspended and reinstated. He was also involved, behind the scenes, in the demonstrations against Sir Alfred Mond. From 1928 until his arrest in 1941, Miqdadi became perhaps the most prominent non-Iraqi, Arab nationalist educator in Iraq. Outwardly he taught Islamic history reflecting the Arab nationalist view as propagated by Husri and himself. He became a popular teacher, who stressed the historical dimension of the ideology of Arab nationalism, both in action and in writing. At the same time, he was involved in clandestine political activity. Between 1928 and 1929, he was actively involved in the creation of two secret Arab associations/ organizations that preached theoretical and practical Arab nationalism throughout the 1930s, both inside and outside Iraq.31 CONCLUSION It is generally held that Arab nationalism—as an ideological and political movement—began to develop substantially during the 1930s. Although this is correct, it should be noted that a small number of recently published and unpublished research, used in this chapter, shows that the seeds of this movement had already sprung up at the end of the First World War and certainly during the 1920s.32 Owing to political constraints, the movement developed in the framework of the British and French mandatory educational network (both in government and non-government institutions), where it acquired its early ideological profile. Additional expression was given to this ideology, mainly in books promoting modern literary Arabic (Fusha). Published during this decade, they threw light on historical Islamic events and figures from the viewpoint of the 1920s. This trend was also expressed in a few magazines, such as Majallat al-Majma‘ al-‘Ilmi al-‘Arabi (Journal of the Arab Scientific Academy)—later Majma’ al-Lughah al-‘Arabiyyahl bi-Dimashq (the Academy of the Arabic Language in Damascus) —and the journal al-Kashshaf, mentioned above.33 Furthermore, in 1928 the first book interpreting Islamic history from a semiMarxist point of view was published in Jerusalem. The publication of this book— Min Ta‘rikh al-Harakat al-Fikriyya fi al-Islam [History of the Intellectual Movements in Islam]—was made possible by Sakakini. The author of the book, Bendali (Pendali) Saliba al-Jawzi (1871?–1944?) was a Greek Orthodox scholar and a political-ideological mentor of Sakakini, who made an academic career in tsarist Russia. However, he was also involved (both before and after 1918) in the intellectual processes that preceded the appearance of Arab nationalism as a modern ideology, especially in Palestine. His book initiated the strong socialist aspect of the ideology of Arab nationalism and its influence is still evident.34

32 EDUCATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARAB NATIONALISM

Yet the most important expression of this ideology, during the period under review, was given in those textbooks written by Arab nationalist educators. The supervision on Arab nationalist political action was rather strict, and those Arab nationalist educators who wrote textbooks were forced to act discretely in order not to arouse the suspicion of the authorities as to the message expressed in their books. Despite the mandatory authorities’ awareness of the existence of these textbooks, most of which they had to approve, they took no action to prevent their appearance or ban their use, except in exceptional cases. Stressing the importance of these textbooks, and their contribution to the development of Arab nationalism, C.Ernest Dawn wrote: These publications are important expressions of pan-Arab thought. The authors had long and active careers in association with major Arab nationalist politicians. Their publications, appearing across the full range of the print media, from elementary and secondary school texts through trade books to the journal of the most important Arab learned society outside Egypt [i.e. the Journal of the Arab Scientific Academy, Damascus], were open to the notice of the entire literary public. The textbooks exposed many successive academic classes to Pan-Arab concepts.35 As noted earlier, from the 1920s onwards, the Sunni Muslim Arabs and other Arabic-speaking educated men, who belonged to the religious minorities living in the territories under discussion, adopted the ideology of Arab nationalism for two different reasons. For the Sunni Muslim majority, Arab nationalism became the best way of enlisting the Arabic-speaking public (both Muslim and nonMuslim) to the political struggle entailed in reconstructing traditional Islam and the return of its past glory. The Sunni Muslim Arab nationalist ideologues were ready to reinterpret traditional Islam and turn it into one of the components of the new Arab ‘national’ identity of the Arabic-speaking public, whatever its religious persuasion.36 On the other hand, for educated Christians (and other minorities), an Arab state in which personal identity is determined according to a modern, national (and non-religious) criterion, was aimed at removing their inferior status in the traditional Muslim society in which they lived, as well as the promotion of their personal and professional interests as citizens enjoying equal rights (and duties). Of course, the price that they had to pay, almost always, for the adoption of this ideology was at least partial alienation from their traditional religious community, and an awareness of the importance of Islam (accepted according to the new interpretation of the Sunni Muslim Arab nationalists).37 Finally, the Arab nationalist educators noted above (and other members of the new Arab professional intelligentsia who contributed to the above process, but have not been mentioned),38 eventually became the most important and influential group in twentieth-century Arabic-speaking society (especially between 1918 and 1967). Many of them knew each other well, as did their

POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY 33

graduates. They generally organized themselves into a network of societies and clubs located particularly in the major urban centres such as Beirut, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Cairo. For several decades they used these societies and clubs, in addition to other oral and written means of communication— including congresses and meetings—to promote and disseminate Arab nationalism. They and many of their students-to-be later became part of the establishment, as well as leaders and members of political, educational, social, and economic bodies in many Arab countries. A study of this important contribution of the interwar generation (as well as that of the post-Second World War) to the development of Arab nationalism in the Arab world, some of which is highlighted in this chapter, is yet to be published.39 NOTES 1. This introduction is based on the ‘Introduction’ and ‘Summary and Conclusions’ sections of the author’s unpublished Ph.D. thesis ‘The Role of Some Leading Arab Educators in the Development of the Ideology of Arab Nationalism’, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, 1991, pp. 10–25, 357–72. See also Y.Kahati, ‘The Origins of Palestinian Nationalism’ (a review of Muhammad Y.Muslih’s book), Middle Eastern Studies, 26.1 (January 1990), pp. 133–6 (for full details of the book see note 16 below), and ‘Khalil al-Sakakini’ (a review of Gideon Shilo’s Hebrew annotated translation of Sakakini’s diaries), Middle Eastern Studies, 28.1 (January 1992), pp. 222–3 (for full details of the book see note 15 below). 2. For further details see Meir Zamir, The Formation of Modern Lebanon (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985). 3. For two recent studies on this subject, see Eliezer Tauber, The Emergence of the Arab Movements (London: Frank Cass, 1993); and Eliezer Tauber, The Arab Movements in World War I (London: Frank Cass, 1993). 4. See M.Johnson, Class and Client in Beirut: the Sunni Muslim Community and the Lebanese State, 1840–1985 (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Ithaca Press, 1986), pp. 11– 18,46–7, 50–2 and ‘Factional Politics in Lebanon: the Case of the “Islamic Society of Benevolent Intentions (al-Maqasid)” in Beirut’, Middle Eastern Studies, 14.1 (January 1978), pp. 56–75. 5. The changing orientation and role of the American University of Beirut from 1920 onwards is highlighted in Elie Kedourie, ‘The American University of Beirut’, in Elie Kedourie (ed.), Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Studies (London: Frank Cass, 1974), pp. 59–72. 6. According to Walid Kazziha (a former member of this society), it was founded in 1918. See Walid Kazziha, Revolutionary Transformation in the Arab World: Habash and his Comrades from Nationalism to Marxism (London and Tonebridge: Charles Knight, 1975), p. 18. However, Yusuf Khuri, another early member of the society, mentioned that it was founded in 1919 in an article about its origins, ‘Min Ahadith al-‘Urwah’ [From the Accounts of al-‘Urwah], al-‘Urwah, 15.4 (March 1950), p. 46. Although Kazziha mentioned (Revolutionary Transformation, p. 20, note 5) the society’s ‘collection of documents and papers’, he did not indicate

34 EDUCATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARAB NATIONALISM

7.

8.

9.

10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

15.

whether the date he noted was based on this collection. Unfortunately all the papers and documents relating to the society were destroyed during the civil war in Lebanon. Finally, another member of the society, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed in an interview in London with this author (7/5/1987) that the society was founded in 1919. The details on this society are based on a study of many issues of al-‘Urwah. I am indebted to the late Professor E.Kedourie, who allowed me to use this rare source, which was kept in his private collection. For some detail on this society, see Kazziha, Revolutionary Transformation, pp. 18–21, 30–1. So far, the overall contribution of the AUB, its staff and students (especially the members of the society), to the development and spread of Arab nationalism in the Arab world has not yet been published. [Ahmad al-Shuqayri,] Mudhakkirat Ahmad al-Shuqayri. Al-Juz’ al-Awwal: Arba'un ‘Am[an] fi al-Hayah al-‘Arabiyya wa’l-Dawliyya [Memoirs of Ahmad al-Shuqayra. Part 1: Forty Years in Arab and International Life] (1903–1997) (Beirut: Dar al-’Awdah, 1973), pp. 117–18. Fadil al-Jamali (1903–) was prime minister of Iraq from 1953 to 1954. Isma‘il al-Azhari (1900–69) was the first prime minister of independent Sudan. For Sati‘ al-Husri’s early life and career, see William L.Cleveland, The Making of an Arab Nationalist: the Life and Thought of Sati‘ al-Husri (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), pp. 3–16. See Malcolm B.Russell, The First Modern Arab State: Syria Under Faysal, 1918– 1920 (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1985), pp. 51–2, 81, 201. For al-Khatib’s role in and contribution to the development of the ideology of Arab nationalism before 1918, see Tauber, Emergence of the Arab Movements, p. 398 and Arab Movements in World War I, p. 316; Rashid Khalidi et al. (eds), The Origins of Arab Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), pp. 10, 174–5, 253. For his contribution to the development of Arab nationalism during the 1920s, see C.Ernest Dawn, ‘The Formation of Pan-Arab Ideology in the Interwar Years’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 20, 1 (February 1988), pp. 69, 80, and Nimrod Hurvitz, ‘Muhibb Al-Din al-Khatib’s Semitic Wave Thoery and Pan-Arabism,’ Middle Eastern Studies, 29.1 (January 1993), pp. 118–34. AlKhatib’s contribution to the development of Arab nationalism in Egypt from 1930 onwards is beyond the scope of this chapter. See Russell, First Modern Arab State, p. 81. Philip S.Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate. The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920–1945 (London: I.B.Tauris, 1987, p. 411. Khoury's book, by definition, describes in detail the role of graduates and teachers of the Tajhiz system in the development of Arab nationalism in Syria during the years it covers. Their role after 1945 has not yet been published. It should be noted, however, that the seeds of an Arab nationalist ideology were already sown in 1914 by Khalil al-Sakakini (see below). Kahati, ‘Role of Leading Arab Educators’, pp. 47–8. Sakakini is the subject of chapter 1 of this thesis (pp. 26–144). For some published details on his role as an early and leading PalestinianArab nationalist ideologue see, Y.Kahati, ‘Correspondence’, Middle Eastern Studies, 23.2 (April 1987), p. 249 and ‘Khalil al-Sakakini’. See also Elie Kedourie, ‘Religion and Politics: the Diaries of Khalil Sakakini’, in Albert Hourani (ed.), St Antony's Papers, no. 4, Middle Eastern Affairs (London: Chatto and Windus,

POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY 35

16.

17.

18.

19.

20. 21.

22.

1965), pp. 77–94. This article (in an extended form) is included in Elie Kedourie, The Chatham House Version and Other Studies (Hanover and London: University Press of New England for Brandeis University, 1984), chapter 11. Apart from the above, the best sources on Sakakini are either [Khalil al-Sakakini,] Kazze Ani Rabbotay: MiYomano shel Khalil al-Sakakini [This is How I am, Gentlemen: From the Diaries of Khalil al-Sakakini], trans. Gide‘on Shilo (Jerusalem: Keter, 1990) or Yusuf Ayyub Haddad, Khalil al-Sakakini: Hayatuhu, Mawaqifuhu wa-Atharuhu [Khalil al-Sakakini: His Life, Attitudes and Works] (Beirut: al-Ittihad al-‘Amm li‘lKuttab wa‘l-Suhufiyyin al-Filastyiniyyin, 1981). This is the main argument of Muhammad Y.Muslih, The Origins of Palestinian Nationalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988). For a critical review of this book by the present author, see Middle Eastern Studies, 26.1 (January 1990), pp. 133–6. Kahati, ‘Role of Leading Arab Educators’, p. 53. For further details see Yehoshua Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918–1929 (London: Frank Cass, 1974), chapter 2. For the different views among the Palestinian-Arabs regarding their attitude towards the British mandatory administration (and Zionism), see Porath, Emergence of the Movement, chapter 3. For further details see Bernard Wasserstein, The British in Palestine: the Mandatory Government and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1917–1929 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979; 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991). For details on the development of Arab education in mandatory Palestine, see Humphrey Bowman, Middle East Window (London: Longman, Green and Co., 1942), pp. 249ff.; Abdul Latif Tibawi, Arab Education in Palestine: a Study of Three Decades of British Administration (London: Luzac, 1956); Jibra’il Katul, ‘Al-Tarbiyah wa‘l-Ta‘lim fi Filastin min Sanat 1920 ila 1948: Tajarib wa-Nata’ij’ [Pedagogy and Education in Palestine between 1920 and 1948: Experiments and Results], al-Abhath, 3.2 (June 1950), pp. 177–87; Kahati, ‘Role of Leading Arab Educators’, pp. 61–78, 104–17 and ‘Khalil al-Sakakini’. The information on Sakakini is based on Kahati, ‘Khalil al-Sakakini’, chapter 1. The King–Crane Commission was set up to investigate the wishes of the Arab population of Palestine and Syria in early 1919. It recommended the establishment of a ‘Greater Syria’ under an American or alternatively a British mandate. In a book of memoirs recently published by a Jordanian officer named Mahmud Musa al-‘Abidat (1914–88), Zu‘aytir’s role (as a teacher) in the spread of Arab nationalism in an Arab school in mandatory Palestine during the 1920s is mentioned. According to the reviewer of these memoirs, Zu‘aytir was ‘Abidat’s teacher when he studied in a high school in Acre in 1929. Zu‘aytir (who was then teaching English at the school) is described as a teacher who was ‘very loved by the students because of his [Arab] nationalist tendencies’ (‘Abd al-Rahman Shuqayr, ‘Fi al-Dhikra al-’Ula li-Rahil al-Qa’id al-Watani al-Kabir Mahmud Musa al-‘Abidat’ [On the First Anniversary of the Passing Away of the Great Nationalist Leader, Mahmud Musa al-‘Abidat], al-Urdunn al-Jadid, 6.15–16 (autumn-winter 1989/90), p. 62. The overall contribution of Akram Zu‘aytir to the development of Arab nationalism from the 1920s onwards has not yet been published. His contribution to and active role in the spread of Arab nationalism (especially in

36 EDUCATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARAB NATIONALISM

23.

24.

25.

26. 27. 28. 29.

30.

Palestine, Iraq and Syria) during the 1930s and early 1040s is beyond the scope of this chapter. Akram Zu‘aytir, ‘Muhammad’ Izzat Darwaza: Kitab min Amjad Jil wa-Ra’il’ [Muhammad ‘Izzat Darwaza: A Book of the Glories of a Generation of Leaders], al-Sharq al-Awsat (London, 9 August 1984). The overall contribution of Darwaza to the development of Arab nationalism has not yet been published. For some details on his early career before 1918, his role in the Arab government in Syria (1918–20) and his contribution to Arab nationalism during the 1920s, see Khalidi, Origins of Arab Nationalism, pp. 11, 13, 50, 175, 177–9; Dawn, ‘Pan-Arab Ideology’, p. 68; Muslih, Origins of Palestinian Natinalism, p. 271; Russell, First Modern Arab State, p. 260. His contribution to the development of Arab nationalism in Palestine and Iraq during the 1930s and 1940s is beyond the scope of this chapter. On the nature of al-Najah School, see Porath, Emergence of the Movement, p. 166 (Hebrew); ‘al-Najah (Jami‘a-)’, al-Mawsu'a al-Filastiniyya [Encyclopaedia Palaestina [sic]] (Damascus: Hay‘at al-Mawsu‘ah al-Filastiniyya, 1982), Vol. IV, pp. 455–6. The information on Miqdadi is based on Kahati, ‘Role of Leading Arab Educators’, chapter 2 (especially pp. 153–8). On the nature and development of the Arab College in Jerusalem, see ‘al-Kulliyyah al-‘Arabiyyah’, al-Mawsu‘a alFilastiniyya, vol. III, p. 660. It should be noted that during the Arab civil unrest in Palestine in 1929 he visited Tulkarm (his home town), where he joined two likeminded Palestinian Arab nationalists in inciting the local population against the British Mandate and the Jews. Consequently he was arrested, tried, released on bail and most probably fled Palestine without ever serving his term (either six months or three years according to different sources). This is most probably the reason why he was unable to re-enter Palestine until 1945. See Elie Kedourie, ‘The Kingdom of Iraq: a Retrospect’ in Kedourie, The Chatham House Version, chapter 9; Reeva S.Simon, Iraq Between the Two World Wars: the Creation and Implementation of a Nationalist Ideology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). Simon, Iraq Between the Two World Wars, pp. 75–6. Cleveland, Making of an Arab Nationalist, p. 63. Kahati, ‘Role of Leading Arab Educators’, p. 157; Simon, Iraq Between the Two World Wars, pp. 9, 84, 103, 108–9. Most English sources transliterate Anis’ surname as Nasuli. The spoken Arabic version of his surname is Nsouli, whereas the written Arabic version is Nusuli, although this distinction is not always kept. For example, following his death (in 1957), a street in Beirut was named after him. It has served as the address of the Institute for Palestine Studies, in whose publications the English version of this address is Nsouli street. Kahati, ‘Role of Leading Arab Educators, pp. 155–6, where many sources (including Nusuli’s own version) are used. For example: Simon, Iraq Between the Two World Wars, pp. 98, 108; Kedourie, ‘Kingdom of Iraq’, pp. 253, 275; Husayn Jamil, al-‘Iraq: Shahadah Siyasiyyah [Iraq: A Political Testimony] (London: LAAM, 1987), pp. 183–202; and especially Werner Ende, Arabische Nation und Islamische Geshichte: Die Umayyad Urteil Arabische Autoren des 20 Jahrhunderts (Beirut and Wisbasen: Deutsche Institut, 1977), pp. 132–53.

POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY 37

31. Kahati, ‘Role of Leading Arab Educators’, pp. 155–71. For some published details on Miqdadi, see Simon, Iraq Between the Two World Wars, pp. 40, 72, 98–9, 104– 6, 164; C.Ernest Dawn, ‘An Arab Nationalist View of World Politics and History in the Interwar Period: Darwish al-Miqdadi’, in Uriel Dann (ed.), The Great Powers in the Middle East, 1919–1939 (New York and London: Holmes and Meier, 1988), pp. 355–69. The full (and sometimes complicated) story of the secret associations and societies with which Miqdadi was involved (both before and after 1930) is yet to be told. In any case, he is said to have been personally involved in the creation of two secret Arab nationalist societies. The one was called Jam‘iyyat al-Tahrir al-‘Arabiyya (the Arab Liberation Society) or Harakat (or Kutlat) alQawmiyyin al-‘Arab (the Arab Nationalists’ Movement, or Block). The name of the other society was Lajnat al-Ra’id al-‘Arabi (the Committee of the Arab Pioneer). Both are said to have served as nuclei for the creation of several important Arab nationalist organizations (such as Jam‘iyyat al-Jawwal al-‘Arabi—the Arab Rover Society—and Nadi al-Muthanna—the Muthanna Club) in Iraq. A study of both organizations is beyond the scope of this chapter. 32. C.Ernest Dawn shares this view. (‘Origins of Arab Nationalism’, p. 101). However, he sees the development of Arab nationalism ‘from modernist Islamic roots’. It should be noted, however, that his important observation, though partly correct, in fact describes the development of, and justification for, the way Islam was reinterpreted by (mainly post-Second World War) Muslim Arab nationalist ideologues in order to show that Arab nationalism and Islam were not incompatible. A good example of an elaboration of this process is to be found in the ideas of ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Bazzaz (1913–73), (discussed in detail in part 3 of Kahati, ‘Role of Leading Arab Educators’). Furthermore, this elaborate process is based, in fact, on the way Arab nationalism was developed by important post-1918 Christian Arab nationalist ideologues, such as Khalil al-Sakakini, Qustantin Zurayq and Michel ‘Aflaq, whom Dawn did not study. For their ideology is rooted in their interpretation of Christianity, to which are added ideas of nationalism, modernity and a reinterpretation of Islamic history (which includes their treatment of Islam as a ‘religion’ or part of ‘Arab history’). Only through the use of their ideas and reinterpretation could Muslim Arab nationalist ideologues (such as al-Bazzaz) develop their own ideas, which they also justified as a development of Muslim modernist ideas, using the known Islamic method of Ijtihad (independent judgement of a legal-theological question by a qualified Muslim scholar). 33. For a good discussion of this ideological process see Werner Ende, Arabische Nation. Also Dawn, ‘Pan-Arab Ideology’. No study of the contents of al-Kashshaf and its its (and its editor’s) contribution to the development of Arab nationalism in Lebanon has yet been published. 34. See Dawn, ‘Pan-Arab Ideology’, pp. 63, 85–8; T.Sonn, ‘Bandali al-Jawzi’s Min Ta’rikh al-Harakat al-Fikriyyah fi’l Islam’, Inte International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 17.1 (February 1985), pp. 88–107 and ‘Bandali al-Jawzi: Progressive Palestinian Politics?’, Muslim World, 79.3–4 (July-October 1989), pp. 188–204. For further information on the contribution of Jawzi to the development of Arab nationalism in Palestine before and after 1918, see Kahati, ‘Role of Leading Arab Educators’, pp. 12, 39, 380–5 (note 12), 391 (note 43). 35. Dawn, ‘Pan-Arab Ideology’, p. 68.

38 EDUCATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARAB NATIONALISM

36. For a case in point, see Kahati, ‘Role of Leading Arab Educators’, chapters 2 and 3 (dealing with Miqdadi and Bazzaz) as well as the ‘Summary and Conclusions’. For another important observation on the development of Arab nationalism, which still lacks the aspect of the reinterpretation of Islam, mentioned here, see Dawn, ‘PanArab Ideology’, pp. 82–5. 37. For a case in point, see Kahati, ‘Role of Leading Ara Educators’, chapter 1 (dealing with Khalil al-Sakakini), as well as the ‘Summary and Conclusions’. 38. Among the many names of those not noted in this chapter, one may mention, for example, Qustantin Zurayq (Constantine Zuraik), Zaki al-Arsuzi, Fadil al-Jamali, Nabih Amin Faris, Niqula Ziyada (Nicola Ziadeh) and Munif al-Razaz. Some scholarly work has been published about Zurayq and Arsuzi (mainly in Arabic). Jamali is specifically mentioned by Simon (Iraq Between the Two World Wars, p. 231), but he deserves a much larger study. No scholarly work has been published on the others mentioned here (or on other ideologues not mentioned). 39. This conclusion is shared by Dawn, who wrote: ‘Hardly a scant handful of preWorld War II Arab nationalist writers, and these from the late 1930s, receive even casual mention [in studies of Arab nationalism]’ (‘Pan-Arab Ideology’, p. 67). Dawn repeated this observation in a later publication: ‘There has been very little scholarly investigation of the writings of Arab nationalists, and a few who have been studied are late, virtually all post-1939, and there has been no demonstration that they were representative or influential’ (‘Origins of Arab Nationalism’, p. 10). Despite the recently published scholarly works on Arab nationalism—such as the publications of Simon, Khoury, Tauber, Dawn and Khalidi—much is still to be written, especially on individual Arab nationalists. So far, the best publication dealing with this aspect is Sylvia G.Haim, Arab Nationalism: an Anthology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976). This important book should serve as a basis for further research. Indeed, in an article published over forty years ago, Haim made a suggestion still valid today: ‘It is to be hoped, that a good history of the Arab movement be soon written, one that would take into consideration the influence of Western political concepts on the organization of Middle Eastern society, the weakness of nationalism and…the strength of the traditional Muslim institutions’ (Sylvia G.Haim, ‘“The Arab Awakening”: A Source for the Historian?’, Die Welt des Islams), n.s., 2.4 (1955), p. 249. Some of the difficulties involved in writing an historical study of this kind (relating to the early 1960s) are described in Ulrike Freitag, ‘Writing Arab History: the Search for the Nation’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 21.1 (1994), pp. 19–37.

4 Islam vis-à-vis Communism and Socialism RAMI GINAT

The question of Islam’s relationship with socialism and communism was the subject of considerable attention in both Western and Middle Eastern research throughout the 1950s and 1960s. There were two main reasons for this broad scholarly engagement. The first was the Soviet Union’s successful penetration of key Arab countries in the 1950s. This begged the question of the dynamics between policy and ideology: to what extent is policy the implementation of ideology or, conversely, how far is ideology an ad hoc rationalization of realpolitik? Until the early 1950s the prevailing belief among scholars had been that the principles and traditions of Islam were inconsistent with the tenets of Soviet communism and that Islam was a firm barrier to communism. However, the Soviet Union’s ability to gain a foothold in the Arab world led Western scholars to reconsider their conception of Islam’s relationship to communism. Although the new view did not deny the existence of ideological contradictions between communism and Islam, it nevertheless held that the Islamic barrier to communism derived from the social rather than the religious aspect of Islam. The failure of Islam to solve the contemporary social problems of Muslims had created a more conducive atmosphere for communist infiltration.1 In his book The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa, Manfred Manfred Halpern stated: Communism is peculiarly attractive for Muslims who are prepared above all to look for a modern revolution as total in its concepts, emotional appeal, and the social control it exercises as was Islam in the past. For Muslims… Communism becomes attractive both because of the fundamental similarity of its form and the fundamental differences of its content.2 An attempt to prove that doctrinal incompatibilities between Islam and communism had nothing to do with the strengthening of communist political and social influence, even in Muslim countries, was also made by Maxime Rodinson, a French Marxist. In his book Marxism and the Muslim World he rejected the idea that Muhammad’s mission was a miracle and that nothing in the evolution

40 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

of Arab society had paved the way for it. Islam, he stressed, was a ‘theologicopolitical religion, a means not only for each individual to seek his own salvation but for the creation of a society in keeping with divine law, with the shari‘a’ His conclusion: ‘political and social motivations are implicit right from the start’.3 The second reason for the broad scholarly engagement with the question of Islam’s relationship to socialism and communism was the introduction in the 1960s of so-called Arab socialism' in revolutionary Arab countries, beginning in Egypt with Nasser’s declaration of the ‘shift towards socialism’ (al-tahawwul alishtiraki). Arab leaders such as Nasser, who embarked on the socialist path, launched a massive campaign in order to demonstrate that their brand of socialism had its roots in Islam and that, moreover, Islam was a crucial factor in their new ideology. Truly, Islam was integral to the doctrine of Arab socialism— a doctrine that was adapted to the present circumstances and past history of the Arab nation. Indeed, while examining the internal discussions on ideological concerns within Arab intellectual circles, this chapter strengthens the argument regarding Islam’s superiority over any form of ideology—new or old—in the Arab world. The intellectual circles in question are divided into three groups: Arab Marxists; formulators and bearers of the doctrine of Arab socialism; and representatives of and dissenters from the Islamic orthodoxy. VIEW FROM THE LEFT: ARAB MARXISTS’ APPROACH Arab Marxists wished to demonstrate that Islam and ‘scientific socialism’4 were not in conflict with each other and could coexist successfully. This had already been attempted in the second decade of the century by Hasanayn al-Mansuri, who declared that Islam and socialism were not necessarily at odds. Mansuri indicated points of convergence and stressed that both Islam and socialism uphold the weak: There is no doubt that most of the socialists were influenced one way or another by materialistic principles and do not believe that religion is sufficient to reform society. In spite of that, however, we can see that religion and Socialism are not contradictory and that both seek to support the weak. Anyone who looks at the facts of the Islamic and Christian religions could find many of the contemporary socialistic ideas such as Zakat (alms) which is equivalent to the income tax and which aims at reducing the differences between the rich and poor.5 The seminal Egyptian Marxist intellectual Lutfi al-Khuli attempted a singular synthesis of socialism and Islam in his writings of the 1960s. Like many other Arab Marxists, he wanted to establish that Islam and socialism presented no essential mutual contradiction. He believed that those who made the opposite case were antagonistic to progressive social doctrine and cynically fabricated a

ISLAM VIS-À-VIS COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM 41

theoretical antinomy as a weapon in their arsenal against socialism. Khuli compared this to past efforts to ward off change in the Arab world by means of sophistry: The notion that Islam rejects the introduction of the revolutionary idea for obtaining liberty, justice, equality, or social progress is not one just making its debut. It has cropped up time and again… whenever a privileged social group with interests inimical to those of the masses needs to justify its position of domination and exploitation, or endeavours to extend its sphere of influence or defend its hereditary privileges against movements of popular awakening. Predictably, such social groups adopt the tactics of concealing their fangs and real intentions, often under the cover of a righteous religious mantle, [whether] Christian, Muslim or Jewish.6 Khuli was at pains to convince his readers that the founders of Islam and Socialism shared much philosophical common ground. He attempted to both nationalize and socialize Islam: The Islamic view—that of Muhammad, Abu-Bakr, ‘Umar, and ‘Ali— is the revolutionary view, steadfastly opposed to tyranny, imperialism, monopoly, exploitation and reaction. Hence, Islam was embraced by the masses, weighed down by tyranny, but aspiring through their sweat to install the liberty, unity and humanity of socialism… Girded with the power of Islam, the liberty endowed by socialist revolution, and the culture of progressive Arabism (al-‘Uruba), we shall confront the reactionary, imperialist and mercantile alliance.7 Khuli found a connection between the putatively religious criticism of the socialist vision, and the immemorial Egyptian habit of recoiling from fresh ideas and censoring them.8 The stigma of ‘atheism’ (ilhad), he observed, was mechanically applied to intellectual innovators irrespective of whether their ideas were consonant with Islam or not. Clearly, the efficacy of such labelling in silencing an interlocutor made it figure prominently in the repertoire of Egyptian social and religious polemics. No preacher [who promoted] innovation escaped unscathed, [whether he led] a movement bearing a reformist message or one which proposed progressive or revolutionary concepts: all were branded ‘atheist’. Indeed, the slander was applied to such figures as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad ‘Abduh, Qasim Amin, Taha Husayn, and others. Today, the accusation is levelled against those professing scientific socialism.9 Khuli stopped short of declaring his own personal identification with Islamic faith and practice. His interest in Islam was less personal than ideological; he

42 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

found in it potent resources to legitimate socialism, and simultaneously to refute the charges of irreligion. Nor was his appropriation of an Islamic defence merely instrumental. His genuine sympathy for Islam stemmed from his childhood experience as well as from an adult appreciation of Islam’s message of personal virtue and social harmony. But this marked the limit of his Islamic orientation. As a historical materialist-determinist, he rejected the notion that divinity, rather than socioeconomics, guides history. Nor is history religiously significant; actions are not evaluated by a godly standard, much less by God. History assumes the meaning that human actors attach to it. Disagreements over the status of Islam within the context of Arab socialism provoked a larger debate concerning the legitimacy of different strains of socialism over a dogmatic insistence on a single valid form of the doctrine. Egyptian Marxist intellectuals tended to argue, somewhat quixotically, that while there was only one form of ‘scientific socialism’, it must adapt itself to various historical circumstances. They observed that the emergence of newly independent states in the developing world was accompanied by the wide acceptance of socialist ideas by social groups other than the working class. This was viewed as an indicator that although there was only one supposedly authentic socialism, there were various ‘national roads’ to its realization. It followed that there was also an Egyptian road to socialism: ‘A road decreed by the nature of life in our age’, just as every other state fashions its transition to socialism ‘in light of its own revolutionary traditions, intellectual heritage, and national temperament’.10 This larger debate helped settle the specific conundrum of Islam’s relation to socialism, insofar as it legitimized differences of opinion and approach among intellectuals and the policies of their respective states. Lam’i al-Muti‘i attempted to iron out the theoretical bumpiness in Arab socialism by pointing out that Arab socialist ideology was neither theocratic in the sense that it elevates divine agency over human will, nor materialistic in the sense that historical inevitability totally nullifies the role of the individual human will; rather, Arab socialism was a highly integrative doctrine. Notions of a planned economy mixed with democracy—combining the approaches of the two superpower blocs—and the spiritual resources of Islam and Arab civilization as a whole are added (in sundry measure) to a ‘scientific’ ideology which, in its European origins, was devoid of religious import.11 ARAB SOCIALISM AND ISLAM Michel ‘Aflaq, the first to formulate Arab socialist ideas, and the cofounder and ideologue of the Syrian Ba‘th Party, grasped that ‘scientific socialist’ doctrine would have a far greater appeal in the Arab world if it incorporated traditional local elements. Islam, he stressed, had evolved in the Arab milieu, culture, and language, and was inextricable from this context; hence, the abiding centrality of Islam in Arab society and its organic relation with any ideology which purported

ISLAM VIS-À-VIS COMMUNISM AND SOCIALISM 43

to speak for and to the Arabs. He was quick to indicate these and other differences between his Arab socialism and the Marxist brand.12 ‘Aflaq took a dimmer view of materialist determinism than Khuli. He found the Marxist telescoping of historical evolution on economics to be reductionist. Ba‘th philosophy rejects extreme materialism, proposing instead the equal importance of ‘idealistic and spiritual factors…in the development of human society’. Like Khuli, ‘Aflaq rejected atheism, both on instrumental and intrinsic grounds.13 In many other respects, he accepts scientific socialism, and thus his contempt for its poor treatment of religion is especially noteworthy. Like Khuli, ‘Aflaq wished to rehabilitate Islam from elements that had corrupted and manipulated it to justify an unequal distribution of wealth.14 In this sense, both he and Khuli presented Islam in its positive dimension. In so doing, they wished to simplify the process of transmitting socialism to Arab society. The Lebanese Ba‘th leader Jubran Majdalani took a more radical view than ‘Aflaq. Majdalani maintained that there was no such thing as Arab socialism, ‘Socialism being one and deriving from one and the same single source’. He went further, arguing that ‘there was no fundamental difference between Ba‘th socialism and communist socialism’. In his view both communists and Ba‘thists adhered to the same socialist doctrine and the difference between the two could be detected in their ‘methods of application, phases and timing’.15 Nasser’s Arab socialism developed in accordance with Egypt’s particular socioeconomic conditions, yet its intellectual crystallization was influenced by external ideological streams.16 Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, the chief spokesman and advocate of Nasserism, modestly admitted that Egypt did not invent the ‘third way to progress’ between capitalism and communism. This ‘third way’ he described as one of the most important questions addressed by the Charter of National Action.17 Earlier attempts, he claimed, had failed to formulate a clear philosophy. Egypt, he stressed, had arrived at the ‘third way’ through its dedicated revolutionary experience, its appreciation of changing global conditions, and its discovery that capitalism and communism were not amenable to the Egyptian experience. The capitalist method had only succeeded by plundering the riches of Europe’s colonies. The capitalists had been spared the problems which forced Egypt to resort to extreme policies of saving, borrowing and accepting aid in the effort to develop its economy. ‘The colonialists’, he concluded, ‘had made others pay the price’.18 Explaining why the communist road to progress did not suit Egypt, Haykal said that the Stalinist era must serve as the acid test for measuring the communist system, for Stalin ruled the Soviet Union with no domestic opposition for almost 30 years. Though Soviet communism achieved great success in this era, in which the Soviet state was built, the price had been exorbitant and the Soviet peoples were stranded at an impasse: the exploitation of the masses was formally at an end, yet they had no real freedom. In other words, communism had solved the technical problem of production, but not true human liberation. The dictatorship of the proletariat, Haykal declared, evolved into the dictatorship of the

44 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

Communist Party, and culminated in the dictatorship of one man or of a group surrounding one man. Freedom could not coexist with such absolute power. Moreover, a guiding principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat was the destruction of the other classes, which was bound to involve violence. A second pillar of communism, Haykal went on, was its absolute materialism. The suppression of religion abrogated one of the fundamental human rights and starved a fundamental human need. Materialism transformed society into a mechanical means of production, bereft of all rights to private belief and to property. Therefore, neither capitalism nor communism per se suited Egypt. Affirming the Egyptian belief that the individual is not part of an historical process but is a free agent and a motive force in history, Haykal concluded that while some might say that ‘the communist way of progress was more honourable than capitalism, in that it did not make third parties pay the price…this was not important. What mattered was that the Egyptian people had a new third way before them—the National Charter’.19 Nasser’s Arab socialism was a fusion of nationalist and Islamic ideas and socialism. It was nationalist in that it accommodated itself to the particular Arab and Egyptian circumstances. Arab socialism rejected proletarian internationalism and emphasized the distinctiveness of the Arab nation. It called for the unification of the Arab nation under the leadership of the Arab revolutionary forces. While analysing the differences between communism and Arab socialism, Haykal pointed out a series of contrasts between them. One was the lack of mobility and blind fanaticism of communism versus the dynamism and the freethinking of Arab socialism. As Haykal saw it, the communist was strictly bound to Marxist dialectics. In contrast, the Arab socialist ‘feels that the intellectual heritage of the whole world is open to him…he can add to it and participate in its development. He can add to it his nationalist experience and can develop it with his own historical legacy’. He quoted Nasser, who declared: ‘We do not open books and copy [ideas] from them; we open the book of our reality and try to find solutions for our situation’.20 Ba‘th Party thinkers had already rejected communism in the 1940s. They considered it a product of European thought and of social historical circumstances obtaining only in Europe.21 It had emerged from the more developed part of Europe, which had experienced an industrial revolution and lengthy processes of national unification, which ushered in the new phase of imperialist expansionism. These early nineteenth century conditions in Europe did not exist in the Arab world, even in the first half of the twentieth century.22 Thus communism was viewed as foreign to the Arab ethos and to historical conditioning; it bore no organic connection to the Arab way of life or thought. Sa‘dun Hammadi claimed that communism sprang up in Europe as a result of capitalist industrial development and in response to the socioeconomic and political conditions that were created by the Industrial Revolution. In the Arab world, he argued, socialism derived from opposite causes, such as feudal

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political and economic conditions. His conclusion was that the Arab world could not and must not accept Marxist communist doctrine rooted in an alternative historical development.23 Ba‘thist Arab socialism also departed significantly from Marxism and European strands of socialism in melding religiosity with nationalism and socialism. Discussing this and a host of other differences, ‘Aflaq declared that European socialism sprang from the Industrial Revolution, which uprooted the working man from his land and past and mired labourers in poverty, despair, and a desire for vengeance. Animosity was directed at government, state, homeland, nation, national movement—anything that represented or symbolized capitalism. European socialism developed upon this basis. When Marx called on the workers of the world to unite, ‘Aflaq said, he really meant only the workers of Europe.24 In terms of national movements, ‘Aflaq averred that unlike European nationalisms, the Arab national movement was not in the service of the bourgeoisie and of capitalism; it had no fanatical or reactionary inclinations towards expansionism and war. It surrendered to foreign aggression and cleaved to the values of the Arab nation. It has respected all nations. Lastly, he insisted that communism was wrong in its contention that ‘nationalism is a temporary historical phase’, since it had a solid basis in European national and social reality’.25 On the other hand, ‘Aflaq argued that Arabism could not accept western socialism, first and foremost because of its materialistic nature. Western socialism threatens Arabic spiritualism, which is the only guarantee of the renewal of the Arab nation. Second, western socialism opposes all things connected to the past. In contrast, Ba‘th doctrine aims to build the future of the Arab nation on the foundations of ‘the glorious Arabic heritage, handed down from those periods when Arab civilization was in full bloom’.26 The Ba‘th Party emphasized in 1947 that the socialist principle derived from the national one. Socialism is a consequence of, and a means to, serve the national goal: Arab Ba‘th Socialist Party is nationalist, for it believes that nationalism is an eternal and living truth…the national idea, to which the party adheres, is the desire of the Arab people for freedom, unification and the realisation of its historical personality… The Arab Socialist Ba‘th Party is socialist because it believes that socialism is a necessity which derives from Arab nationalism.27 Two trends in ‘Arab socialism’ evolved along the fault lines of the disparity in approach to the materialistic and the idealistic. In the Egyptian Charter of National Action, elements of both ‘materialistic’ and ‘idealistic’ formulas for incorporating Islam and socialism can be discerned. Materialist aspects of scientific socialism underscored by the National Charter include such expressions of instrumentalism as: ‘The eternal spiritual values which derive

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from religion can guide man and bequeath to him infinite possibilities for achieving justice, well-being and brotherhood.’28 The National Charter also describes religion as an occasional tool of exploitation in reactionary hands. Even more frankly, it rejects any notion of a divine hand guiding history, noting that Egypt’s path to socialism was dictated purely by force of material circumstance, Islam’s consonance with socialism notwithstanding: Egypt’s opting for Socialism was ‘not… based upon free choice but is rather an historical inevitability which has been imposed by the forces and realities of the second half of the twentieth century’.29 The National Charter universalizes this theme: ‘The socialpolitical structure in each country is a reflection of the economic situation prevailing there, and is an accurate expression of the dominant economic interests.’30 For all that, the Charter yields glimpses of an idealistic orientation as well: ‘Our people believe in God’.31 In July 1962, a few weeks after Nasser’s publication of The Charter of National Action—Egypt’s new sociopolitical ideology embodying Islamic, Arab nationalist and socialist elements—an attempt was made by the Scribe, an Egyptian monthly, to elucidate the differences between Arab socialism and communism. One fundamental difference between the two, it pronounced, ‘resides in the faith in spiritual values and in God’. Marxism ‘is essentially materialistic and does not believe in any religion, whether revealed or not. For it, dialectics provide the explanation and justification for all things. This point has been extensively dealt with in the article we devote to Arab socialism, Christianity and Islam.’32 VIEWS ON ISLAMIC ORTHODOXY AND DISSENTERS The provisional constitution, proclaimed on 23 March 1964, defined the United Arab Republic (UAR)33 as a ‘Democratic Socialist State’. Chapter 2 of the constitution applied Arab socialist principles to the UAR, and under its provisions the entire national economy was to be directed in accordance with the state development plan. However, in line with the charter, it protected private ownership and stated that in general, property would not be expropriated except where required by the public interest. Such an action, it was explained, would entail equitable compensation as stipulated by law.34 In the same year, possibly in response to this development, Sayyid Qutb, a prominent Egyptian dissident and a key figure in the Muslim Brothers35—an illegal popular movement—published his work Ma‘alim fi al-Tariq (Signposts on the Road). Qutb’s ideas were strongly opposed to socialism. He directed his attack on communism generally, and on atheism, one of its basic principles, in particular. Qutb declared that Communism was class rule based on the union of the proletariat and the sentiment which is dominant in it is a black hatred for all other classes! Such a petty and hateful union could not but bring out what is worst in the human being. For it is ab initio

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based on emphasising the animal characteristics alone, on allowing them to strike root and to grow, in the belief that the basic needs of man are food, shelter and sex—and these are the basic needs of the animal—and in the belief that the history of man is the history of the quest for food.36 Communist society, Qutb went on, is like all other societies existing in the world today, a mujtama‘ jahili, an idolatrous society which denies the sovereignty of God. Communist society is such because it denies the existence of God, making matter or nature the active principle in the universe, and economics and the means of production the active principle of human history. Communist society is also idolatrous because it establishes a regime in which complete submission is given not to God but to the Party.37 The attitude of the leaders of Islamic orthodoxy towards communism, the prospects of its application in Muslim society, and the elementary differences between these doctrines found lucid expression by al-Shaykh Muhammad Husayn, the rector of al-Azhar, the leading Muslim university, in an interview he gave to al-Ahram, a few months after the coup of July 1952.38 In order to emphasize the essential contradictions, the Shaykh outlined briefly some of the basic ideas of Islam and communism, and drew a comparison between them. His purpose was to illuminate the superiority of Islam in relation to communism. Islam, he said, had intervened to correct errors, recognizing the original tendency of human nature and attempting to steer it in the right direction; the principle of individual landownership was recognized by Islam, but in a moderate way; it required that land be acquired by legitimate methods, and it imposed on Muslims certain duties and obligations vis-à-vis the poor in order to prevent injustice and exploitation. Islam recognizes that men differ in intellect, capacity, and the power to earn a living and be useful to society. These differences were of the very essence of human nature and were the cause of the disparities in living conditions.39 Communism, said the Shaykh, pretended that it had already destroyed the vice of exploitation and of limiting wealth to a few individuals by taking away that wealth and giving it to society. However, emphasized Muhammad Husayn, if we studied the matter deeply, we would have realized that the question of ‘production and distribution of products under the Communist regime was confined to a small group of individuals’. Under the communist, ‘a few individuals live in palaces and enjoy all sorts of luxury, not less than what the old tsars enjoyed, while the people lead a monotonous life of wearisome toil and drudgery which is in no way better than the life of the working classes in other countries’.40 Islam, then, was not only a religious institution but also a social and financial one, and to deprive a Muslim of his liberty in social and financial matters was to

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deprive him of certain crucial elements that were of the very essence of Islam and that, in the estimation of every devout Muslim, made Islam far superior to any other institution, especially communism, which persecuted every institution that contradicted it. Islam was foremost among such persecuted institutions because it contradicted communism in every respect.41 THE STATE’S OFFICIAL APPROACH The basic ideas of communism, particularly atheism, had been targeted by the Egyptian press, mainly by papers that adopted or represented the official view. In the pro-government newspaper al-Asas, one writer charged that communism supported complete freedom for women, and advocated the abolition of classical —and the adoption of colloquial — Arabic with the ultimate aim of prohibiting the study of the Qur’an and the practice of Islam. Communism advocated economic equality, even though it knew how absurd it was to believe that all people were equal in intelligence or strength. People should not expect equal wages, even if given equal opportunities.42 The distinction between communism and Islam, the dangers posed by communist ideas to Muslims and the socialist alternative, were outlined by Ahmad Husayn, author of The Socialism We Preach.43 An attempt to prevent the work’s publication was made by the Egyptian Public Prosecutor, who claimed that the work approved of, and propagated communism. The matter came before ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Sulayman, president of the Cairo Court of First Instance. On 16 April 1951, in his decision to release the work for publication, Sulayman established that it did not violate the law. Communism, Sulayman said, is aware that religion is not in accord with its principle of depriving property owners of their goods; it looks at life from a materialistic and purely mechanical angle. Husayn’s work, Sulayman stressed, did not favour a regime which advocates the abolition of private property, realizing that religion is opposed to any such baneful system because, To each man belongs that which he has, and the earth is the gift of God to the faithful, from whence they seek their sustenance and whereof their children and grandchildren inherit their limited portion, subject to the command of God to reserve to the poor and needy a portion to be fixed according to the individual means and the public needs. Thus an individual may voluntarily, or in obedience to law, abandon a portion of his goods to the benefit of those without property. It goes without saying that individuals may acquire a fortune fortune or be reduced to penury as the result of a single transaction or of a transaction which has turned out badly. This is a law which lasts as long as the world endures.44 According to Husayn, said Sulayman, the remedy for misery, sickness and ignorance would become possible with the limitation of property, but without

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abolishing it. The socialism advocated by Husayn represented spiritual growth and had its roots in the core of the Egyptian nation itself; its purpose would be achieved without the use of force or violence, but by urging men to entertain fraternal relations with each other and to seek to live in the shadow of peace. Husayn criticized communism and the extremists of the Left for denying the past and making enemies of religion; and he castigated the communists who believed in material things and denied that which lies behind the material: Effects do not exist without cause and the fact of showing abhorrence of poverty, illness and hunger is not the result of mere material necessity, but of an aspiration towards an ideal based on absolute justice. If it was merely a question of simple materialism, the strong would have despoiled the weak. Obviously then, an evolution supported by morality was essential. Muslims were considered by the Qur’an as a middle nation who were partisans neither of the extreme Right nor the extreme Left, and socialism, as presented in the Middle East, found its support among Muslims who formed a middle party. Socialism, according to Husayn, was the basis of religion; this socialism was of a distinctive character and in harmony with the beliefs of the people of the Middle East, who followed an oriental rather than a Western socialism, and whose Islamic religion proclaimed equality among people, whom God had created without distinction, all being equal before the law.45 The official and traditional approach towards Islam and communism was summed up clearly by Nuqrashi Pasha, then Egyptian prime minister, during a conversation with the American secretary of state in Washington on 1 August 1947. Nuqrashi said that Egypt feared communism and was anti-communist in sentiment, primarily because communism was the antithesis of Islam. Islam, said Nuqrashi, stressed the rights of the individual, it respected private enterprise as well as private property. Basically, Islam was opposed to the concept of communism.46 President Nasser, throughout his period in power, often drew a clearcut distinction between his close relations with the USSR and his hostile policy towards local communism, a matter that more than once created tension between the two countries. Nasser’s antipathy to communism was revealed after he accepted his first invitation in August 1955 to visit the USSR; he announced frankly that ‘our anti-communist principles’ would not be dimmed by the trip and declared: ‘Nothing prevents us from strengthening our economic ties with Russia even if we arrest communists at home and put them on trial.’47 In 1956 Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, was equally blunt in expressing the cynical realpolitik relations between the two countries: the USSR supported Nasser, he said, even though Nasser ‘put communists in jail’.48 Nasser explained the motives and considerations behind his anti-communist approach:

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We have not permitted the establishment of a communist party in Egypt because we are sure that it cannot act in conformity with its own will or work for the interests of the country. We are sure that it will receive inspiration from abroad and will work for foreigners. Communism in the UAR would mean that the country would have no will of its own, and we would follow the line of international communism and receive directions from it.49 In his book Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East,50 Walter Laqueur put forward two arguments in this regard: first, that the problem of the affinity between Islam and communism is of secondary importance with respect to the relations between the Soviet Union and the Muslim world. And second, that Islam had gradually ceased to be a serious competitor to communism in the struggle for the soul of both the existing and potential elites in the countries of the Middle East. Laqueur’s first argument dovetails with political developments in the Middle East during the 1950s, when Soviet relations with the Muslim world had not been affected by ideological contradictions. Contrary to Laqueur’s second argument, however, neither communism nor any other ideology have threatened Islam’s superiority in Muslim society. There can be no question of the importance and status of Islam, which has always been deeply rooted in Muslim society. As Professor Elie Kedourie pointed, it would be impossible to understand the character of Muslim society without understanding its religion.51 According to him,52 Islam is not only the badge of Muslim society; it has remained, until the very recent past, the constitutive and regulative principle of Muslim life in its temporal as well as its spiritual concerns.53 NOTES 1. The new approach in western research was reflected in the writings of Kenneth Cragg, ‘The Intellectual Impact of Communist upon Contemporary Islam’, Middle East Journal, 8.2 (spring 1954), pp. 127–38; Bernard Lewis, ‘Communism and Islam’, International Affairs, 30 (January 1954), pp. 1–12; Manfred Halpern, The Implications of Communism for Islam’, Muslim World, 1 (January 1953), pp. 28– 41. 2. Manfred Halpern, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 159–60. 3. Maxime Rodinson, Marxism and the Muslim World (London: Zed Books, 1978), pp. 9–10. 4. The official ideology of the Soviet Union and other communist states. Also known as ‘Marxism-Leninism’. 5. Tareq Y.Ismael and Rifa‘at el-Sa‘id, The Communist Movement in Egypt, 1920– 1988 (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1990), p. 7.

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6. Lutfi al-Khuli, ‘Harb al-Rayaat’ [The War of Flags], al-Tali‘a (March 1966), p. 5. 7. Ibid.,p. 8. 8. Lutfi al-Khuli, ‘Mulahazat hawla al-Sira‘ al-Fikri fi Mujtami‘ana’ [Remarks about the Ideological Struggle in our Society], al-Tali‘a (December 1966, pp. 21–2. 9. Ibid., p. 22. 10. Fauzi M.Najjar, ‘Islam and Socialism in the UAR’, Journal of Contemporary History, 3.3 (1968), pp. 186–7. 11. Ibid., p. 193. See also Lam’i al-Muti‘i, Limadha al-Ishtirakiya al-’Arabiya [Why Arab Socialism?] (Cairo: Dar al-Ma‘arif, 1963). 12. Michel ‘Aflaq, Fi Sabil al-Ba‘th [For the Ba‘th; or On the Road to Rebirth] (Beirut: Dar al-Tali‘a, 1963), p. 58. See also Rami Ginat, The Soviet Union and Egypt: Lutfi al-Khuli and Nasser’s Socialism in the 1990s (London: Frank Cass, 1997), pp. 58–60. 13. Ginat, The Soviet Union and Egypt, pp. 58–60. 14. Ibid. 15. Nisim Rejwan, Nasserist Ideology (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1974), p. 105. 16. On this subject see Rami Ginat, Egypt’s Incomplete Revolution 1945–1955 (London: Frank Cass, 1993). 17. On 21 May 1962 Nasser presented the members of the National Congress of the Popular Forces with a draft of the ‘Charter of National Action’. The charter constituted Nasser’s most comprehensive and precise statement of Egyptian policy and Arab socialist ideas. Haykal was appointed editor-in-chief of al-Ahram in August 1957. Under his leadership this daily became the most important newspaper in the Arab world. Haykal became a very influential figure within the Nasserist establishment and came to be considered as one of Nasser’s closest confidants and advisors. 18. See UK, Public Record Office (PRO), London, Foreign Office Archives, FO371– 165349/ 1014/62/VG1915/107, Embassy in Cairo to FO, 19 June 1962. 19. PRO, FO371–165349/1014/62/VG1015/110, Embassy in Cairo to FO, 23 June 1962. 20. Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, ‘Nahnu wa al-Shuyu‘iyya, 7 Fawariq bayna alShuyu‘iya wa bayna al-Ishtirakiya al-‘Arabiya’ [We and Communism. Seven Differences Between Communism and Arab Socialism], al-Ahram, 4 August 1961. 21. ‘Aflaq, fi Sabil al-Ba‘th, p. 197. 22. Ibid., p. 202. 23. Sa‘dun Hammadi, Nahnu wa al-Shuyu‘iya fi al-Azma al-Hadira [We and Communism at the Present Crisis] (Beirut: Dar al-Tali‘a, [n. d.]), p. 10. 24. ‘Aflaq, fi Sabil al-Ba‘th, pp. 201–2. 25. Ibid., p. 108. 26. Ibid., pp. 141, 206. 27. Avraham Ben-Tsur, Ha-Sotsializm ha-‘Arvi—Ide’ologiya ve-Ma‘ase [Arab Socialism -Ideology and Practice] (Tel-Aviv: Ha-Kibbuts ha’Artsi, 1965), p. 21. 28. See ‘al-mithaq’ [The Charter], in Lutfi al-Khuli, Dirasat fi al-Waqi‘ al-Misri alMu‘asir [Studies Concerning the Contemporary Egyptian Reality] (Beirut: Dar alTali‘a, 1964), p. 226 29. Ibid.,p. 200. 30. Ibid., pp. 188–9

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31. Ibid., pp. 251–2. 32. S.A.Hanna, and G.H.Gardner (eds), Arab Socialism: a Documentary Survey (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1969), p. 339. 33. On 1 February 1958 the leaders of Egypt and Syria announced their decision to establish a‘total union’ between their countries and that Nasser would become the undisputed head of the new united state, named the United Arab Republic. The Union did not last long. In September 1961 a military coup in Syria put an end to it. Despite this fact, Nasser maintained the name, United Arab Republic, as the official name of Egypt. See Elie Kedourie, Politics in the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 308–9. 34. PRO, FO371–178579/VG1015/8, Telegram 223 from Embassy in Cairo, 24 March 1964. See also Ahmad Hamrush, al-Bahth ‘an al- Ishtirakiya [The Search for Socialism] (Cairo: Dar al-Mawqif, [n. d.]), p. 109. 35. The Muslim Brothers (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) movement was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hasan al-Bana. It aimed at instituting a purely Islamic polity. Its founder preached the restoration of Islamic principles, and a return to the Qur’an and Islamic piety. The Muslim Brothers believed that the community, national or religious, ‘should seek its welfare within the limits laid down by religious law… they condemned innovations in doctrine and worship, and accepted the rights of reason and public welfare in matters of social morality, but insisted that they should work within the limits imposed by the moral principles of Islam’ (Alber Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 359–60). See also Kedourie, Politics in the Middle East, p. 186; Ira M.Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 626–7. For further details about the movement, see Richard P. Mitchell, The Society of Muslims Brothers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969). 36. Qutb as quoted in Elie Kedourie, ‘Anti-Marxism in Egypt’, in Confino and S.Shamir (eds), The USSR and the Middle East (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1973), pp. 325–6. 37. Ibid., p. 326. 38. Al-Ahram (Cairo), 25 November 1952. See also US, National Archives (NA), General Records of the Department of State, Record Group (RG) 59, 774.001/11– 2852 No. 1008, from Caffery, Cairo, 28 November 1952. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41. Ibid. 42. ‘Abbas al-‘Aqqad’, al-Asas, in NA, RG 59, 861.20283/4–449, No. 327 from Embassy, Cairo, 4 April 1949, ‘Recent anti-Communist articles in Egyptian Press’. 43. Ahmad Husayn’s work is quoted in NA, RG 59, 774.3/5–1451, from Caffery, Cairo, 14 May 1951, ‘Work on the Egyptian Council of State’. 44. Ibid. 45. Ibid. 46. NA, RG 84, Cairo Embassy-General Documents, File Subject: 1947, 710, no. 11, Box 165, Memorandum of Conversation. 47. Walter Laqueur, The Soviet Union and the Middle East (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1959), pp. 219–20.

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48. Ya’acov Ro’i, From Encroachment to Involvement (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1974), p. 204. 49. Abdel Moghny Said, Arab Socialism (London: Blandford Press, 1972), p. 78. 50. Walter Laqueur, Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East (London: Kegan Paul, 1957), pp. 6–7. 51. Elie Kedourie, Islam in the Modern World (London: Mansell, 1980), p. 33. 52. Ibid. 53. Parts of this chapter are based on my books The Soviet Union and Egypt and Egypt’s Incomplete Revolution.

5 Sun Yat-sen’s Influence on Mu‘ammar Qadhdhafi AUDREY WELLS

In his distinguished work on nationalism1 Professor Elie Kedourie has boldly challenged the concept of nationhood. He has argued that nationalism was an ideology that arose in the nineteenth century. Sun Yat-sen—who became briefly China’s first president after his revolution in 1911 and died long before Kedourie’s work on nationalism was published —had his own theory of nationalism, which was very different. To Sun the Han,2 people were a nation formed by a common blood, history, and culture. Their nationalism arose in the seventeenth century when they were subjugated by the Manchus.3 It was preserved and handed down through secret societies, such as the Triads.4 It emerged in the Taiping rebellion (1850–64).5 Sun appealed to this nationalism in his revolution of 1911. However, after this finally overthrew the Manchu Dynasty, Sun realized his task was incomplete. When he gave his lectures on the Three Principles of the People in 1924, he gave first his talks on nationalism. This he saw as a welding force of national and racial pride, which could be aroused in order to galvanize the Chinese people to throw off western imperialism. Sun Yat-sen was dying from cancer when he delivered his lectures on nationalism, democracy and livelihood (socialism). Their presentation did not do his ideas justice. Nevertheless, they were preserved in a distorted form by the Kuomintang (KMT) after his death in 1925. Later they influenced the development of Taiwan. Yet also on the mainland, the Chinese Communist Party reveres Sun Yat-sen as ‘the Father of modern China’. Sun’s ideas on nationalism impressed leaders in other third world countries. Sukarno, for example, claimed that he was influenced by them as well as by the organization of the KMT.6 In 1957 Chou En-lai stated: In Asia, in the Arab countries and in Latin America, many esteemed patriots and far sighted statesmen who sympathise with the ideas of Dr. Sun and the cause he espoused are doing their utmost to preserve the national independence of their own countries, to fight against colonial rule and clear their lands of the aggressive forces of imperialism.7

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Indeed, at least one Arab revolutionary has been profoundly influenced by Sun Yatsen’s thought: Mu’ammar Qadhdhafi. In fact the Libyan leader’s admiration for the Chinese revolutionary has been so great that Qadhdhafi once likened Abu Nidal to Sun Yat-sen (probably in order to give Abu Nidal a more heroic image).8 It was not only Sun’s ideas on nationalism, but also his theories of democracy and socialism, that had an impact on Qadhdhafi. Moreover, Qadhdhafi’s theory of socialism in particular cannot be understood without illuminating the background of Sun’s influence. Over fifty years separate the revolutions of Sun Yat-sen and Mu’ammar Qadhdhafi, yet certain similarities in their revolutionary thinking and methods can be detected. Some of these are, most probably, due to Sun’s influence on Qadhdhafi, who studied the former’s revolution. It is also possible to see their common personality traits. Both were inspired by messianic spiritual beliefs: Sun Yat-sen believed that God had sent him on a mission to save China and had saved him when he had been kidnapped in London;9 Qadhdhafi is a devout Muslim and at times also believed he had been saved by God for his mission (‘It was God himself who saved us’10 from probable arrest just before his coup in 1969). Sun Yat-sen and Qadhdhafi were presented with similar problems. First, the overthrow of a corrupt monarchical system and the ousting of western imperialism; second, the introduction of a democratic system to a people largely illiterate and unused to any form of democracy; third, the implementation of a radical programme of social reforms to benefit the impoverished; and fourth, a welding together of their people in national pride and a common identity based partly on blood relationships and on ancient civilized greatness. Both leaders have suffered from unsympathetic press coverage. Sun Yat-sen was regarded as a hare-brained revolutionary of unsound ideas and of no consequence. Qadhdhafi has suffered from the anti-Islamic bias that pervades much of the western press (which even took seriously his joke that Shakespeare was an Arab—a pun on ‘sheikh’).11 But by far more important, the West has never forgiven the 27-year-old soldier for ousting its military and commercial presence from Libya without compensation in 1969, after Qadhdhafi had overthrown King Idris. As a result Qadhdhafi has been portrayed unsympathetically and with derision. Even his Bedouin Arab clothes have been seen as an eccentricity by westerners, who adore their own traditional costumes. Just as Qadhdhafi has his own distinctive style, so did Sun Yat-sen, both expressing their individuality. As a result of this prejudice Qadhdhafi has received little western acknowledgement of his tremendous reforms in Libya, a revolution that may have, to some extent, been inspired by Sun Yat-sen. Qadhdhafi has transformed the feudal kingdom of King Idris into an Islamic social welfare state, by using Libya’s oil revenues that his hard-line tactics had quadrupled during his first 5 years in power. Indeed, he may have done more for the

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impoverished of his country than the western leaders have done for theirs. In the words of the distinguished African historian, Ali A.Mazrui: The transformation in Libya’s social services is astonishing. Medicine is free and tuberculosis cases have dropped by more than 80 per cent since 1971. Education is free and compulsory. Between 1969 and 1976 the number of schoolchildren doubled and that of university students quadrupled. Vast construction programmes have rehoused shanty-dwellers in practically free accommodation. There is full employment and comprehensive social security.12 Above all, neither Sun Yat-sen nor Qadhdhafi has been given the credit they deserve for endeavouring to carry out revolutions with the minimum of bloodshed. Qadhdhafi’s coup in 1969 was bloodless (although later he did authorize the assassination of people perceived as threats to the regime). Sun Yat-sen has been called the kindest of all revolutionaries.13 Sun was not given to vindictive killings. He believed in the royal way of non-violence. In fact, he relinquished the presidency of the Republic of China in 1912 to Yuan Shih-kai to avoid further bloodshed. Sun emphasized the harmony of interests between the working and entrepreneurial classes and deplored the Marxist concept of class struggle and concomitant acceptance of the inevitability of violence, which would ‘cut the tangled hemp with a sharp knife’.14 He quoted an ancient saying: ‘He who delights in not killing a man can unify a nation.’15 Qadhdhafi likewise did not speak approvingly of violence: ‘Violence and change by force are themselves undemocratic, although they take place as a result of the existence of a previous undemocratic situation.’16 In her penetrating interview with Qadhdhafi, Mirella Bianco elicits the fact that he was not influenced by such modern Islamic thinkers as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh, whose works he had never read.17 This perhaps casts doubt on the general assumption voiced by such commentators as Jonathan Bearman that Qadhdhafi’s thought was ‘rooted within the tradition of the Arab [sic] philosopher Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and his disciple, the Egyptian national Mohammed Abdou’.18 (Although it is possible to write in a tradition, the thinkers of which one has never read.) Qadhdhafi did study The Philosophy of the Revolution by Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir (Nasser), whom he admired greatly. However, neither in format nor in content does the Green Book resemble Nasser’s work. Neither, indeed, does it resemble the Egyptian Charter of National Action of 1962. Qadhdhafi also studied the revolutions of Castro and, perhaps rather surprisingly to many, of Sun Yat-sen: Take these books about Cuba; I read them when I was still a civilian, and when I thought our revolution might perhaps be a popular revolution… From this viewpoint any revolutionary experience could be useful to us and would be worth studying. It wasn’t basically, the ideological content which

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interested us, it was the method by which the revolution had been achieved, the practical side of things, the techniques, in fact. That is why I studied, among others, the Chinese revolution of Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China [my emphasis]. Here again we are seeking the means and not the ideas. We were looking for a method which we could use in our turn. We were not looking for a doctrine.19 Qadhdhafi may have studied Sun’s ideas when he entered Benghazi University to read history before entering the (Libyan) Military Academy in 1963. It is most unlikely that he read Sun Yat-sen’s works when he came to England for a threemonth military training course in Bovington, Dorset in 1966. His statement notwithstanding, Qadhdhafi did not use Sun’s methods of revolution which involved overseas Chinese support, because no similar base of disaffected ected Libyans existed. Neither did he look for foreign support for his revolution, which he wanted to be purely Libyan.20 His bloodless coup resembled Sun Yat-sen’s revolution more in its humaneness than in any other method. Furthermore, it is most unlikely that Qadhdhafi could have studied Sun Yatsen’s revolution without being aware of Sun’s Three Principles, though it is possible that he was influenced by them more than he realized. The Green Book is divided into three parts: the first was published in 1976, the second in 1978, and the third in 1979. It was designed to promote a cultural revolution, as did Mao’s Red Book, of which Qadhdhafi was clearly aware (green is the colour of Islam). Nevertheless, its format and content resemble Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles far more than Mao’s Red Book. The Green Book is concerned with democracy (Part I), socialism (Part II), and nationalism (Part III). Like Sun Yatsen, he wrote his Third Universal Theory in a simple style for easy comprehension in order to galvanize his people to action. Like that of Sun Yatsen, his theory was meant to be an alternative to the existing ideologies in the political world. Sun Yat-sen first enunciated his Three Principles in 1905, but did not flesh them out until after his revolution in 1911, when he decided his supporters needed to be galvanized into action by a change of attitude and a clear programme. Likewise, Qadhdhafi carried out his revolution before enunciating fully his ideas. Unlike Sun Yat-sen, he was successful in retaining power and was able to oversee the implementation of his ideas. As stated above, the Green Book deals first with democracy, then socialism, and then nationalism. It is possible that Qadhdhafi placed nationalism last because, by the time he put pen to paper, his revolution had taken place and the imperialist powers had been overthrown. Likewise, Sun Yat-sen dropped the idea of nationalism from his programme after the 1911 revolution had overthrown the Manchu Dynasty and he had believed that the goal of nationalism had been achieved. He later reintroduced the idea appreciating that the ousting of the western imperialist powers had to be a priority for the KMT.

58 SUN YAT-SEN AND MU’AMMAR QADHDHAFI

DEMOCRACY Like Sun Yat-sen, Qadhdhafi is more concerned with implementing ‘true’ democracy rather than liberty, to which he refers more in his discussion of socialism rather than democracy. Both are strongly critical of western representative democracy, which they regard as an outdated stage in the development of democracy. Sun believed that ‘the West has not yet found any proper method of carrying out democracy and that the truths of democracy have not yet been fully manifested’.21 According to him, the reason for that was that the West had not developed a political machinery commensurate with its technological achievements. The people were reluctant to develop a powerful governmental machine that they could not control: The people are naturally the motive power in a democracy, but the people must also be able at any time to recall the power they set loose. Therefore the people will use only a low powered government, for they cannot control a government of several hundred thousand horse power and will not dare to use it.22 Sun believed that just as China once led the world in technological achievements, so it might set it an example with a progressive political machinery. Qadhdhafi similarly believes that he has solved the problem of the instrument of government. He denounces western liberal democracy as false. Representative government is not truly representative of the people: Representation is fraud… It is a demagogic system in the real sense of the word…the era of the masses, it is unreasonable that democracy should mean the electing of only a few representatives to act on behalf of great masses. This is an absolute theory and an outdated experience. The whole authority must be the people’s.23 Unlike Sun Yat-sen, however, Qadhdhafi is also strongly critical of the party system and of plebiscites, perhaps because he writes with twentieth-century hindsight of these methods of democracy. The party system encourages parties to spend more time criticizing each other rather than considering the national interest. Government represents at best its own party or only a part of it. Governments can come to power even if most of the electorate has not voted for them. As for plebiscites, these do not allow the people to express their reasons for voting as they do: ‘The people…have been allowed to utter only one word; either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ … Everyone should make clear what he wants and the reasons for his approval or rejection.’24 Both leaders wish to implement direct democracy but appreciate that national size presents a problem. Wrote Sun: ‘The fact that only the small state of Switzerland has tried a partial form of direct

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sovereignty makes many people question whether it is applicable to large states also.’25 According to Qadhdhafi, direct democracy is the ideal method which, if realised in practice, is indisputable and non-controversial. The nations departed from direct democracy because however small a people might be, it was impossible to gather them together at one time in order to discuss, study and decide on their policy.26 It has been argued that Qadhdhafi was influenced by Rousseau in his thinking on direct democracy.27 But so also was Sun, who asserted: ‘Rousseau’s advocacy of the original idea of democracy was one of the greatest contributions to government in all history.’28 Both are concerned with introducing democracy at a local level. Sun would give his people the four rights of election, initiation, referendum, and recall, while Qadhdhafi would introduce basic people’s congresses to which every citizen belonged and in which national issues could be debated. This was the basis of his Jamahiriyya state. However, in theory Qadhdhafi was not as elitist as was Sun, and did not distinguish between the people’s sovereignty and their ability. Sun introduced a five-power constitution which would allow those with ability to govern and yet be—in theory but not in practice—a political machine controlled by the people. Qadhdhafi’s political machine was in theory to be different : First, the people are divided into basic popular congresses. Each basic popular congress chooses its secretariat. The secretariats together form popular congresses which are other than the basic ones. Then the masses of those basic popular congresses choose administrative people’s committees to replace government administration. Thus all public utilities are run by people’s committees which will be responsible to the basic popular congresses and these dictate the policies to be followed by the people’s committees and supervise its execution.29 Nevertheless, the choice of people for the secretariat was likely to be of those who were qualified, with perceived ability. Moreover Qadhdhafi added a syndicalist aspect to his Jamahiriyya: All citizens who are members of those popular congresses belong, professionally and functionally to categories. They have, therefore, to establish their own unions and syndicates in addition to being, as citizens, members of the basic popular congresses or the people’s committees. Subjects discussed by basic popular congresses or the people’s committees, syndicates and unions, will take their final shape in the General People’s Congress, where the secretariats of popular congresses, syndicates and unions meet. What is drafted by the General People’s

60 SUN YAT-SEN AND MU’AMMAR QADHDHAFI

Congress, which meets annually or periodically will, in turn, be submitted to popular congresses, people’s committees, syndicates and unions. The people’s committees, responsible to the basic popular congresses will, then, start executive action. The General People’s Congress is not a gathering of members or ordinary persons as is the case with parliaments. It is a gathering of the basic popular congresses, the people’s committees, the unions, the syndicates and all professional associations.30 In this Qadhdhafi, like Sun, thought that he had solved the problem of the instrument of governing. However, like Sun, his solution was open to dictatorial abuse. The representative committees are alleged to have crushed opposition to the leader. Qadhdhafi’s syndicalism may well have been influenced by Mussolini’s fascist occupation of Libya. Ironically, although Sun laid out a different constitutional structure, his theory was also developed by the KMT to resemble aspects of Mussolini’s policy. In his manifesto regarding a People’s Conference on 11 November 1924, Sun suggested that the preliminary conference that was called before the convening of the People’s Conference to devise the means of reconstructing China, should include delegates from industrial organizations, chambers of commerce, educational associations, peasant organizations, local unions, and political parties. The KMT’s National Convention in China in 1931 was composed of functional groups. Insofar as Sun Yat-sen allowed one-party tutelage for an indefinite period, the end product of his thought, with its dictatorial and syndicalist aspects under Chiang Kai-shek, did bear some resemblance to Qadhdhafi’s, both in its expressed ideals and in their realization. Obviously, there were many influences on Qadhdhafi’s thinking. It has been argued, for example, that the tribal system of Libya influenced his choice of basic congresses for his system of government. Nevertheless, one may argue that as Qadhdhafi expressly stated that he had studied Sun Yat-sen’s revolution and as his thinking on democracy bears some similarity to Qadhdhafi’s, the latter may have—perhaps unconsciously— absorbed some ideas from Sun Yat-sen. SOCIALISM However, it is perhaps, in his theory of socialism that Qadhdhafi’s thinking most resembles that of Sun Yat-sen. The latter identified man’s four basic needs: ‘Economists have always spoken of three necessities of life—food, clothing and shelter. My study leads me to add a fourth necessity, an extremely important one —the means of travel.’31 Similarly Qadhdhafi places these needs in the same order: ‘The material needs of man that are basic, necessary and personal, start with food, housing, clothing and transport… These must be within his private and sacred ownership.’32 Both believed that the state had an obligation to see that these needs were provided to all the people and at cheap prices.

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Sun expressly argues against certain tenets of Marxism such as that of surplus value: ‘Marx gave all the credit for production to the labour of the industrial worker and overlooked the labour of other useful factors.’33 These he believed were the raw materials and the agriculturalists involved in their production, machines and the people who invented and produced them, as well as the workers in the factory. Thus the latter could not claim their labour was the sole agent of production. In this argument, Sun was heavily influenced by an American scholar, Maurice William.34 Qadhdhafi does not refer to Marx by name, but nevertheless uses arguments similar to Sun’s that reject Marx’s theory and stress that the worker’s labour is only a factor in production: The industrial establishment is based on raw materials, machines and workers. Production is the outcome of the worker’s use of the machines in the factory to manufacture raw materials… The three factors are equally essential in the process of production. Without these three factors there will be no production. Any one factor cannot carry out this process by itself.35 Therefore, he argues, all three factors should be regarded as equally important. Some commentators have been very dismissive of Qadhdhafi’s theory of socialism. David Blundy and Andrew Lycett describe the second volume of the Green Book as being ‘full of woffle’.36 If, however, one realizes that Qadhdhafi was arguing a possibly rehashed version of Sun’s ideas, against the Marxian concept of surplus value, then his argument can be seen in a more meaningful light. Qadhdhafi might also have been half-remembering Sun Yat-sen’s argument that capitalism and workers should be regarded as consumers who have harmonious interests, rather than as producers in conflict, when he asserted: ‘it is not only the factory which is important, but also those who consume its production’.37 Sun believed that ‘the first society formed by man was a communist society and the primitive age was a communist age’.38 Qadhdhafi’s ideas of an ideal primitive communism are similar. Natural law has led to natural socialism based on an equality among the economic factors of production and has almost brought about, among individuals, consumption equal to nature’s production. But the exploitation of man by man and the possession by some individuals of more of the general wealth than they need is a manifest departure from natural law and the beginning of distortion and corruption in the life of the human community. It is the beginning of the emergence of the society of exploitation.39

62 SUN YAT-SEN AND MU’AMMAR QADHDHAFI

While in some ways Qadhdhafi’s theory of socialism resembles Sun’s Principle of Livelihood, in others it does not. Sun argues against Marxist theory and methods but for its goals, although only intending to regulate capital immediately. Qadhdhafi rejects atheistic communism and has imprisoned communists. Nevertheless his socialism abolishes capitalism together with the idea of profit and his method of land reform is more far-reaching than Sun’s. That Qadhdhafi has been influenced by Marx’s ideas is shown by his references to dialectics, as in his assertion that the overturning of contemporary societies, to change them from being societies of wage-workers to societies of partners is inevitable as a dialectic result of the contradictory economic theses prevailing in the world today, and is the inevitable dialectical result of the injustice to relations based on the wage system, which have not been solved.40 Qadhdhafi’s ideas on land reform were not those of Sun Yat-sen. Qadhdhafi believed that land is ‘no one’s property, but everyone has the right to use it, to benefit from it by working, farming or pasturing’.41 Sun Yat-sen, however, believed in the ‘equalization of landownership’ and that ultimately ‘each tiller of the soil will possess his own fields’.42 However, Sun’s idea that ultimately ‘the people will not only have a communistic share in state production but they will have a share in everything’ is not dissimilar to the ideas of Qadhdhafi, who in fact modified his views on landownership after his revolution. Sun spent much time discussing how agricultural methods should be improved. It is possible that indirectly Qadhdhafi’s country benefited from Sun’s stressing the need for progress in the agricultural sciences. In 1962 Libya received an agricultural mission from Taiwan. It remained in Libya until 1969, when the project was completed. NATIONALISM The third part of Qadhdhafi’s book—on nationalism—also bears resemblance to Sun’s principle of nationalism. Sun sees nationalism as being based on blood ties, beginning with the family, extending to the tribe and then to the nation. He also emphasizes that Chinese nationalism is based on blood links from the family to the clan and then to the nation. Both revolutionaries, however, admit of other factors in creating nationalism. (Qadhdhafi has been accused of fascism in his emphasis on blood link.43) Like Sun, Qadhdhafi believed nationalism to be an essential cohesive force. Nationalism in the world of man and group instinct in the animal kingdom are like gravity in the domain of mineral and celestial bodies. If the mass of the sun were smashed so that it lost its gravity, the gases would blow away and its unity would no longer exist. Accordingly, the unity is the basis for

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its survival… For this reason a group struggles for its own natural unity, because its survival lies on that.44 Qadhdhafi was well aware of the influence of religion in bonding together a nation and aware that national and religious loyalties could conflict. He was conscious of the problem of the Christians in the Lebanon, for example. Consequently, he argued that each nation should have one religion only. There is no other solution but to be in harmony with the natural rule that each nation has one religion. When the social factor is compatible with the religious factor, harmony is achieved and the life of groups become stable and strong and develop soundly.45 It might be thought that because of his different Chinese cultural background, Sun did not put forward a similar argument. Yet he did. In his first lecture on nationalism he argued that religion was a very powerful factor in the development of races. He cited the cases of Jews and Arabs being held together by their common religions. More appropriately for the Chinese, he said that people who worship the same gods or the same ancestors tend to form one race. Moreover, his emphasis on Confucian values can perhaps be seen as an awareness that a nation should have the same values ethically if not spiritually.46 Qadhdhafi’s Green Book has undoubtedly been influenced by his Islamic beliefs, his Bedouin background of poverty and austerity, his admiration for Nasser, his awareness of the social experiments in Yugoslavia and Algeria, and the ideas of such western thinkers as Rousseau. However, one should argue that he was also influenced to some extent by the ideas of Sun Yat-sen. Insofar as Qadhdhafi wished to transform the whole of the Arab world with his Third Universal Theory, the influence of the Father of Modern China on this Arab leader is of no small significance. NOTES 1. Elie Kedourie, Nationalism (London: Hutchinson, 1960). 2. That is the name by which ethnic Chinese refer to themselves. 3. The Manchus, a people inhabiting part of the country named after them— Manchuria— conquered China and established in 1644 the Ch’in Dynasty, which ruled until 1911. 4. Secret societies existed in China since the second century AD. They were usually breakaway groups from the Taoist mainstream. The Triads emerged in the eighteenth century in southeast China as partly religious, partly political opposition groups to the Manchus. The Triads expanded with transport workers into southern China to become a powerful organization dominating the Chinese underworld. 5. A radical political and religious upheaval, which was probably the most important event in nineteenth-century China. It was led by Hung Hsiu-ch’uan, who believed

64 SUN YAT-SEN AND MU’AMMAR QADHDHAFI

6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

that he was the younger son of God (and thus the younger brother of Jesus). In 1851 he proclaimed himself ‘Heavenly King’ and established the T’ai-p’ing T’ienkuo (the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace). The rebellion ravaged seventeen provinces and cost some 20,000,000 lives until it was finally repressed in 1864. The most recent books on the subject are J.D.Spencer, God’s Chinese Son (New York: Norton, 1996) and M.Franz (ed.), The Taiping Rebellion—History and Documents (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996). Indonesia’s official ideology, announced by Sukarno on 1 June 1945, is the Pancasila (the Five Principles in Sanskrit). The principles are: belief in a supreme god; humanitarianism; nationalism; popular sovereignty; social justice. The ruling party in Indonesia is the Golkar (acronym for Golnyan Karya, meaning functional groups in Indonesian). Officially it is not a party but a federation of groups within society, such as workers, peasants, women, and the military. Chou En-lai in Dr Sun Yat-sen: Commemorative Articles and Speeches (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1957), p. 23. Evening Standard, 27 January 1989. Donald W.Treadgold, The West in Russia and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), vol. II, p. 93. Mirella Bianco, Gaddafi: Voice from the Desert (London: Longman, 1975), p. 84. The Times, 4 August 1989. Ali A.Mazrui and Michael Tidy, Nationalism and New States in Africa (London: Heinemann, 1989), p. 267. Richard Wilhelm, preface to Tai Chi-tao, Die Geistigen Grundlagen des Sun Yatsenismus, trans. Richard Wilhelm (Berlin: Wurfel Verlag, 1931), p. 8. Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu-I [Three Principles of the People], trans. Frank Price (Shanghai: China Committee, 1927), p. 412; Sun Zhong Shan Xuanji [An Anthology of Sun Yat-sen] (Beijing: Ren Min Press, 1981), p. 828. Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu-I, p. 133; Sun Zhong Shan Xuanji, p . 684. Mu’ammar Qadhdhafi, The Green Book (Tripoli, 1976), p. 35. Bianco, Gaddafi, p. 83. Jonathan Bearman, Qadhdhafi’s Libya (London: Zed Books, 1986), p. 164. Bianco, Gaddafi, p. 83; See also Musa M.Kousa, ‘The Political Leader and his Social Background: Muammar Gaddafi the Libyan Leader’ (unpublished M.A.thesis, Michigan State University, 1978), p. 135: ‘I read about the life of SunYat-sen.’ Bianco, Gaddafi, p. 85. Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu-I, p. 289; Sun Zhong Shan, p. 763. Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu-I, p. 331; Sun Zhong Shan, p. 785. Qadhdhafi, Green Book, pp. 9–10. Qadhdhafi, Green Book, p. 22. Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu-I, p. 349; Sun Zhong Shan, p. 795. Qadhdhafi, Green Book, p. 24. For an interesting discussion of this, see Sami G.Hajjar, ‘The Jamahiriya Experiment in Libya: Qadhdhafi and Rousseau’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 18.2 (1980), pp. 181–200. An amusing informative first-hand account of direct democracy in practice has been provided in J.Davis, ‘Gaddafi’s Theory and Practice of Non-Represenative Government’, in N.S.Hopkins and S.E.Ibrahim (eds), Arab Society (Cairo: American University of Cairo, 1977), pp. 357–61. Musa

POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY 65

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

M.Kousa (‘Political Leader’, p. 135) quotes Qadhdhafi as stating: ‘I read almost everything that was written on the French Revolution.’ It is, therefore, most unlikely that he was unaware of Rousseau’s ideas. Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu-I, p. 177. Qadhdhafi, Green Book, p. 27. Ibid., p. 27. Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu-I, p. 480; Sun Zhong Shau, p. 862. Qadhdhafi, Green Book, p. 64. Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu-I, p. 391; Sun Zhong Shan, p. 817. See Maurice William, The Social Interpretation of History (New York: Allen and Unwin, 1921), from which Sun, in his Lectures of Livelihood, quotes extensively. See also Maurice Zolotow, Maurice William and Sun Yat-sen (London: R.Hale, 1948). Qadhdhafi, Green Book, p. 50. David Blundy and Andrew Lycett, Gaddafi and the Libyan Revolution (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987), p. 97. Qadhdhafi, Green Book, p. 31. Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu-I, p. 429. Qadhdhafi, Green Book, p. 47. Ibid.,p. 63. Ibid., p. 55. Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu-I, p. 456; Sun Zhong Shan, p. 850. John K.Cooley, Libyan Sandstorm (New York: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1982), p. 149. Qadhdhafi, Green Book, p. 76. Ibid., p. 77. Sun Yat-sen, San Min Chu-I, p. 10; Sun Zhong Shan, p. 620.

PART II HISTORY AND POLITICS

6 Vorontsov’s Campaign of 1845: A Reconstruction and Reinterpretation1 MOSHE GAMMER

The Russians tried to crush the Muslim resistance in Chechnia and Daghestan with a single mighty blow since its beginning in 1829. In 1832 they managed to ‘trap’ the first imam (leader), Ghazi Muhammad, in Gimry and defeat him. Although Ghazi Muhammad was killed in this battle, the resistance did not stop. A second imam—Hamza Bek—took over, and after his assassination in 1834 Shamil succeeded him and would become the greatest and most famous imam.2 In 1839 the Russians finally ‘trapped’ Shamil in Akhulgo. After an 80-day-long siege the Russians conquered Akhulgo, but Shamil managed to escape with his immediate family and several devotees.3 Nevertheless, his leadership seemed to have reached its end. As his official chronicler wrote, Shamil was ‘like a dropped rag; no one looked at him and no one approached him’.4 By the end of 1840, thanks to a chain of events involving bad harvest, Russian follies, English intrigues, Mehemet Ali’s involvement and, most important, the mountaineers’ love of freedom and the imam’s personal qualities, ‘all the tribes between the Sunja and the Avar Koysu [rivers] submitted to the iron will of Shamil, acknowledging him as absolute ruler’.5 The Russian response to Shamil’s rise was the same as in the past— repeated attempts to get rid of him in ‘one blow’. This strategy came to its crushing end in June 1842, when a 10,000-man force tried to reach Dargo, but was compelled to return after three days, with the loss of 66 officers, 1,700 men, one field gun and nearly all its provisions.6 Under the shock of this defeat a complete ceasefire was imposed by Nicholas I (1825–55). The tsar now decided to change policy and to use ‘political’ rather than military means in order to ‘pacify’ the mountaineers. A new commander-in-chief, General Neidhardt, was appointed, and instructed by Nicholas ‘not to spare money’ in order to ‘draw to us some of Shamil’s brothers in arms’, and to ‘sow discord and contention among the others’.7 This ceasefire was more than welcome to Shamil, since he was busy reorganizing his forces. Having completed this task, Shamil staged, in September and again in November 1843, two successful campaigns in which he conquered most of the territories held by the Russians in Daghestan.8 Exasperated with this news, the tsar decided to make 1844 ‘a year of requital to the enemy for the…catastrophe’. He instructed Neidhardt to ‘without

68 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

abandoning the political means…deal Shamil a few strong blows’ in order to ‘satisfy the honour of our arms’ and to ‘undermine his importance and influence in the mountains’.9 For this purpose the ranks of the Caucasian Independent Infantry Corps were to be completed by 22,000 veterans and well-drilled recruits.10 In addition, the Fifth Infantry Corps was to move to the Caucasus from its usual area of deployment in ‘New Russia’ (southern Ukraine) to be under Neidhardt’s command for a period of one year.11 Under the close supervision of St Petersburg,12 plans were drawn up which envisaged two periods of activity. In the first phase a complicated, coordinated offensive was to be conducted by three columns—from Chechnia, northern Daghestan and southern Daghestan—assisted by two auxiliary forces—from Nazran and the Lesghian line. These were to be commanded by Hurko (commander of the Caucasian and Black Sea lines), Lüders (commander of the Fifth Infantry Corps), Argutinskii (commander of south Daghestan), Nesterov (commander of the Vladikavkaz area), and Schwartz (commander of the Lesghian Line), respectively. The aim of this concerted attack was to conquer ‘Andi and erect a fort there. In the second phase the forces were to construct ‘forts and fortresses wherever necessary for the safeguarding both of the territories already in Russian power and those new acquisitions to which the Emperor so confidently looked forward’.13 The difficulties in concentrating such a huge force and the supplies it needed were exacerbated by Shamil’s transfer of population and ‘scorched earth’ strategies.14 The Russians were, therefore, forced to start their offensive a month later than planned. On 18 June the ‘Chechen’ force, under the personal command of Neidhardt, started finally from Vnezapnaia. A week later it reached the heights of Khubar. Shamil, who had held a strong position there, retreated without battle and the Russians occupied it on 26 June. The following day the force reached Gertme, where it joined the ‘Daghestani’ force led by Lüders.15 On 28 June the united force stormed Shamil’s position near Gertme, only to find it empty. The imam had no intention of engaging in battle at all. ‘The Russians’, he told his na’ibs, ‘have supplies for three weeks only. Here they will find nothing but grass. Thus, they will not be able to stay for longer than that period of time, after which everything will return to the status quo ante.’16 Indeed, shortage in supplies brought Neidhardt to the conclusion that the target—‘Andi—was unattainable. With approval from St Petersburg, he therefore changed his plans. A new target was set—Khunzakh—which was to be conquered in a pincer movement of Hurko from the north-west and Lüders-cum-Argutinskii from the north-east. These moves, however, failed as well.17 Thus the plan was finally abandoned and the first phase brought to its conclusion.18 Thereafter, most of the forces in Chechnia and northern Daghestan were engaged in fortification works. Both in the immediate (for which see below) and the long run, the most important Russian action in 1844 was the erection of Fort Vozdvizhenskoe (Elevated) at Chakh Kiri.

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Naturally, the lack of results was very disappointing to Nicholas I. ‘The reverses of the previous year had neither been avenged nor made good: Shamil’s position and prestige remained unshaken.’19 Unable to understand the difficulties in the Caucasus, the tsar and his officials in the capital tended to accuse the generals there of hesitancy and inactivity. Neidhardt was unable to convince the emperor that the goals he had set were unattainable, that victory could be won only through a prolonged war of attrition and not by one blow, and that most of the ‘old hands’ in the Caucasus (as opposed to the newly arrived generals of the Fifth Infantry Corps) shared this view. The fact that both Lüders and Hurko tried to put the blame for the meagre results of the campaign at Neidhardt’s doorstep made his task next to impossible. Soon accusations and counteraccusations were flying around in what had become yet another war of the generals: ‘Lüders has gone now [September] to St Petersburg to complain of Neidhardt: upon his return Neidhardt will go to complain of him: then Hurko will complain of both.’20 Under these circumstances, and unwilling to change the aims he had set in 1844,21 the emperor came to, and acted upon, two conclusions: first, that the campaign could not be conducted from St Petersburg and therefore more authority had to be delegated to the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus; and second, that Neidhardt was unable to conduct such a campaign both because he seemed to have preferred a different strategy and because his character seemed too ‘soft’ to assert his authority over his subordinates. Thus, on 8 January 1845 Nicholas I replaced Neidhardt by Count Vorontsov, who was given the title of ‘Viceroy [namestnik] of the Caucasus and Commander-in-Chief of all the forces in the Caucasus’. Count Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov, being the son of the Russian Ambassador, had been educated in England and possessed an European education quite exceptional among the higher Russian officials of his day. He was ambitious, gentle and kind in his manner with inferiors and a finished courtier with superiors. He did not understand life without power and submission. He had obtained all the highest ranks and decorations and was looked upon as a clever commander, and even as a conqueror of Napoleon at Krasnoe.22 However, his greatest fame was as an administrator. It was Vorontsov who developed ‘New Russia’ economically and culturally into one of the most important areas of the empire, and transformed Odessa—his place of residence— into ‘a third Capital, in which, in many respects, it was much more pleasant to live than in the former two’.23 However, Vorontsov had not held military command since the Napoleonic Wars and had no experience or knowledge of Caucasian affairs whatsoever (his short service there as a young officer at the beginning of his career could not help him now). He thus took upon himself a heavy responsibility, much heavier than he had expected.

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Even before appointing Vorontsov, the emperor instructed Neidhardt to prepare plans for a campaign in 1845. In their final version these plans looked like a copy of those from the previous year. They involved the simultaneous concentric movement on ‘Andi and Dargo of two columns from Chechnia and northern Daghestan. Three additional forces—from Nazran, southern Daghestan, and the Lesghian line—were, as in 1844, to take to the offensive in order to distract Shamil from the main effort. Upon his arrival in Tiflis, Vorontsov, introduced one crucial change: the forces from Chechnia and northern Daghestan were to move in a single column.24 Meanwhile Shamil had had his hands full. The above-mentioned erection of Fort Vozdvizhenskoe hard-pressed the nearby Chechens. Not only were they unable to use their fields, but the commander of the fort, Major-General Patton, undertook an active policy and carried out several raids on the neighbouring communities. The result was that some of the communities entered into negotiations with Patton and about 400 families went over to the Russians and were settled in ‘peaceful’ (mirnye) villages. In a few cases Shamil was openly disobeyed, and even some of his na’ibs started to talk of an accommodation with the Russians. In response, Shamil held a gathering of all the na’ibs of Chechnia in Dargo on 9 January, and two more during the first half of February, in which it was decided to step up raids on the Russian line. However, only in April did the situation change, following two successful raids, which resulted in ‘the complete pillage’ of two villages ‘located next to our fort and near all the reserve forces of the Left Flank’. This showed that the Russians ‘were unable to protect even the nearest “peaceful” population’ and ‘had a very harmful moral influence on the villages which had shown an intention’ to submit to the Russians. Shamil’s authority seems to have been restored and he was ready to face the Russian offensive.25 Vorontsov arrived in Tiflis on 6 April 1845. For the following month he stayed there. On 8 May he left for the left flank and northern Daghestan, where he made a tour of inspection.26 The different forces started to move on 2 July, and both columns—that from Chechnia and that from northern Daghestan—met on the 15th at Gertme. The combined force numbered about 19,000 infantry and 2, 000 cavalry and had 42 cannon and mortars and a battery of rockets. It now occupied the fortified position at Terengul, which had been abandoned by Shamil. As in the previous year, the imam preferred to lure the Russians until their supplies were exhausted. To add to the Russians’ difficulties, the mountaineers blocked all the wells, causing the Russian troops an acute water shortage.27 The imam now retreated to Michikal, where he blocked the road to Gumbet. However, Vorontsov chose to advance through the much more difficult pass of Qirq, which had been left weakly guarded because the mountaineers deemed it impassable for the Russian Army. The advanced guard under Passek took possession of the pass on 17 June. When the mountaineers tried belatedly to block their way by holding Anchim‘er, the Russians stormed that mountain.28

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Already at this stage disorders and lack of discipline were manifest.29 On 18 June, as the main force started to approach his position, Passek, without explicit orders from Vorontsov,30 advanced again and took position on Zunum‘er, about 15 kms from the camp of the main force. There his force stayed for the following five days, cut off by snowstorms, without proper clothing, shelter and food. Due to inexperience, lack of discipline, and a lack of a spirit of comradeship at Vorontsov’s headquarters, no effort was made to push supplies to Passek’s force. Only several seasoned Caucasian officers, who had parts of their units on the ‘Cold Mountain’ (as the soldiers nicknamed it), organized some supplies for their own troops.31 By the time Passek’s force was relieved, on 23 June, twelve people had frozen to death and about four hundred had their limbs frostbitten. Most of the horses froze or starved to death.32 As Vorontsov’s physician wrote in his dairy, ‘Passek’s “victory” has cost us dearly, and the great leader having become riper in years, will probably be unable to remember his days of glory without the reproach and despondency of his conscience.’33 The chaos in logistics was also manifest at the camp of the main force. Difficulties with supplies arose and some fifty packhorses, hired with their native drivers, froze to death.34 It is no wonder, therefore, that spirits fell low and some junior officers were appalled by ‘the terrible losses and the indifferent waste of men and means’.35 Having reorganized the force and left garrisons in Gertme and Qirk to secure his supply route, Vorontsov resumed his advance on 26 June. The force now numbered about 4,000 soldiers and 10 cannon less. Contrary to intelligence, the pass of Butsra, known otherwise as the ‘Gates of Andi’, was found abandoned and all the villages burnt. The advanced guard, commanded by Klüky-von-Klugenau, entered on that day the ruins of Andi. Shamil took position on Mount Azal, across the river. He clearly intended only to observe and harass the Russians by artillery fire.36 Prince Bariatinskii, whose battalion had earlier been moved to the head of the column in a transparent manoeuvre to supply him with an opportunity for a decoration,37 stormed the mountain without waiting for orders or for reinforcements.38 The move cost the Russians 100 dead and wounded against ‘one native corps left in the field, and even that one—of a spy of ours whose head had been cut off on Shamil’s orders’.39 Vorontsov stayed in ‘Andi for three weeks—a long period of idleness which none of the Russian writers were able to explain. During this time both sides remained quite passive, apart from occasional sniping and a couple of raids by Shamil’s na’ibs and Vorontsov’s ‘patrol’, on 2 July, the only achievement of which was a catch of trout in a lake.40 During this time the force experienced growing shortages and the soldiers in some units were complaining of hunger.41 Several transports arrived but brought altogether fewer supplies than expected. This was due to the bad roads; to the severe weather conditions; to the death of more than half of the packhorses as a result of the first two;42 to the desertion of many of the native horse drivers;43 but first and foremost, to the incompetence of Vorontsov’s headquarters. In order to compensate for the lack of biscuits and cereals, the soldiers were issued with

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larger portions of meat. This, however, caused some health problems.44 Naturally, these shortages and idleness adversely affected the morale of the troops.45 Finally, on 17 July—a few days before the expected arrival of a large transport —Vorontson left ‘Andi on his way to Dargo. Having left a garrison in ‘Andi,46 Vorontsov’s force now numbered 9,292 infantry, 1,401 cavalry, 808 artillery and 16 guns and carried 49 soldiers who had fallen ill.47 The partial success of a diversion from the north notwithstanding,48 Vorontsov encountered, on 18 July, strong resistance in a forest forest a few kilometres from Dargo. The Russians had to fight their way through, losing 35 men and with 171 wounded. Still, by the evening of the 18th the advanced guard and part of the main force reached the smoking ruins of Dargo: Thus, the main target set by the armchair strategists in the Capital was apparently achieved. Shamil’s so-called Capital was occupied. But after the experience of that day many were forced to ask the same question: ‘What is going to happen now?’ Shamil [on his part] did not delay showing how much his spirits had been shattered by the occupation of his Capital. As soon as the [Russian] camp had been pitched, enemy shells started to fall in it one after the other and forced [us] to change its location.49 Shamil took up a controlling position across the river and kept shelling the Russian camp during the night and the following morning. As if this was not enough, to annoy the Russians, the imam paraded his Russian deserters morning and evening to the sounds of the Russian tatoo.50 A council of senior officers was convened late in the evening of 19 July. After a heated debate, and apparently against the opinion of Vorontsov, it decided to attack Shamil’s position.51 Labynstev was charged with this mission and instructed to return after its completion. On 20 July, Labynstev stormed the mountain and dispersed the mountaineers. However, it was obvious that once the Russians started their retreat, the mountaineers would attack them from all sides. Passek, who had joined the force as an observer, suggested to Labynstev that he remain in his position. But the force had neither provisions nor water and Labyntsev preferred, therefore, to obey orders and return to the camp.52 As expected, no sooner had the Russians started to retreat, through the broken wooded ground and fields of maize, when they were surrounded. Shamil had used ‘his artillery…: one of his cannon changed positions quite quickly and masterfully’.53 Unable to keep order, the Russians fought their way back: 30 were killed and 193 wounded. The moment when the force, which had so gloriously driven off the horde of mountaineers, began to retire was, as it were, the turning point of our campaign. We felt this instinctively, and an inexplicable depression pervaded the army.

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One had to see how faces, that a few minutes before had been cheerful, became suddenly serious and sad. It was not the sight of 200 people killed and wounded which caused this depression—we were more or less used to that kind of spectacle —but undoubtedly the conviction in the uselessness of this loss.54 Shamil drove the lesson home to the Russians by reoccupying his position and continuing both the shelling and the mock parades.55 As if that was not enough, the on-going chanting of the funeral service by the priests and the volleys so strongly depressed the troops that an order was issued to stop individual burials.56 On 21 July, in the evening, fireworks signalled the arrival of the transport due when Vorontsov left ‘Andi. It followed the column to Dargo and reached the forest, through which the force had fought its way on the 18th. The forest had since been reoccupied by the mountaineers. Since the transport could not cross the forest on its own, a force had to be sent to bring in the supplies to the camp. Vorontsov deemed it fair that each unit should bring in its own supplies. Thus, he ordered each to dispatch half its strength. Klugenau was appointed to command the column. He ‘grumbled’ at Vorontsov’s instructions57 but obeyed. MajorGenerals Passek and Viktorov58 were to command the advance and rear guards, respectively. All these decisions were severely criticized later. First, Vorontsov’s decision to move to Dargo without waiting for the transport. Second, his failure to secure the forest. Third, his decision to send a force made up of a crisscross of all the units, including artillery and cavalry, which could be of no use in the forest. Fourth, that the viceroy organized this heterogeneous force into improvized battalions, where the soldiers were separated from their commanders and had to follow officers unknown to them—in many cases literally—whom, therefore, they did not trust.59 Fifth, the choice of generals was neither the best nor the obvious ones. Finally, the column, which had obviously to fight its way through the forest, was burdened with the wounded, which the transport had to take back to ‘Andi. All these augured no good. The column started on 22 July, in the morning, and encountered a great number of barricades. Nevertheless, the advanced guard stormed and passed them and reached the transport fairly quickly. Soon it became apparent, however, that the mountaineers had let it through intentionally. Thus, a gap developed between the advanced guard and the main body. Klugenau rushed forward to follow the advanced guard and left, as a junior officer remarked bitterly, ‘anyone else to the mercy of fate’.60 The main body was soon in complete chaos. A second gap appeared between it and the rear guard. Things went from bad to worse. Viktorov was wounded and the soldiers, in panic, ignored his appeals to help him up and ran for their lives, leaving him to die.61 The mountaineers attacked the separated parts of the column through the gaps and from all sides, and the Russians had to

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struggle through in groups and singles. The last remnants came out of the forest late in the evening, leaving behind a heavy toll of killed and wounded. The troops were in a terrible state of shock and demoralization. Klugenau himself was ‘completely shattered’.62 He and Passek seriously considered a retreat to ‘Andi, which was probably the right thing to do. But, ‘the thought that the mountaineers might afterwards deduce and say that the Russians, under [the command of] Klugenau and Passek went for the transport but did not dare to return…forced these generals to lead the column back’.63 Thus, in the morning the column started its way back, enhanced by the supplies and by hundreds of wounded. It had to face a reinforced enemy. The spirits of the troops were lowered further by a public row between Klugenau and Passek.64 All the horrors of the previous day were repeated in a magnified manner. Gaps developed between the different parts of the column. Passek, commanding on the main body was killed, and any remaining discipline collapsed. Many soldiers plunged into an orgy of drinking and robbing from the supplies,65 and the force turned into a mass of refugees, pressing forward in ‘a terrible disorder’.66 Only the arrival of fresh troops from the camp saved the column from complete destruction. The ‘biscuit expedition’, as this affair has been dubbed ever since, did not bring in any provisions at all. Instead it cost 556 killed (including two generals), 858 wounded or missing, and 3 cannon. Vorontsov’s position was now critical. His force was now shrunk to 7,017 infantry (of whom less than 5,000 were effectives), 1,386 cavalry and 739 artillery, burdened with 1,369 wounded and sick.67 The morale of the troops was lower than ever before and many ‘could not abstain from voicing in public their fears as for the fate of the entire force’.68 The mountaineers, on their part, made it known that the infidels had no way out and would all perish.69 After the capture of Dargo ‘everyone agreed that to return through ‘Andi was impossible’.70 Lüders suggested proceeding immediately to Gerzel-Aul—the nearest Russian fort, about 40 kms away. Had Vorontsov done so, then the force might have encountered less resistance, suffered fewer casualties, and done it without loss of face. Now there was no choice but to do the same in what even to many Russians appeared as a ‘shameful flight from Dargo’.71 Vorontsov sent a message to Freytag ordering him to come out from that fort with whatever forces he could manage. The message was carried by volunteers in five copies and was written in English for field security reasons.72 On 25 July the Russians left Dargo, after destroying all but the most essential luggage. They had to fight their way through forests, and the scenes of the ‘biscuit expedition’ were repeated again and again, each time with more catastrophic results. On that day the force made about 5 kms, losing 6 killed, and 72 wounded; on 26 July it advanced 8 kms, suffering 71 killed, 215 wounded, and 8 missing; on the 27th it moved 4 kms only, having 15 killed, 66 wounded, and 2 missing; on the following day it advanced 5 kms, sustaining 109 killed, 365 wounded, and 15 missing. That evening the force reached Shamkhal Birdi,

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about 15 kms from Gerzel-Aul, and stopped ‘resembling a mare critically wounded by wolves’.73 With almost no food and ammunition left, and with more than 2,200 wounded and sick, the force could advance no more. For the following two days it stayed put under constant shelling, unable to return the fire because of lack of ammunition. Morale collapsed completely and the disaster of 1842, in the same vicinity, loomed large in everyone’s mind.74 ‘Fear and vexation’75 caused many soldiers to get drunk.76 All vestiges of discipline finally broke down and everyone was thinking only of his own safety.77 The soldiers and junior officers lost all confidence in their superiors, especially in Vorontsov.78 A rumour that he was contemplating abandoning the sick and wounded and would try to make it with the remnants of the force to Gerzel-Aul made things even worse.79 Vorontsov himself could do nothing but hope that Freytag had indeed received his message and was on his way to the rescue. The fact that the viceroy was burning his documents80 testified to the fact that the hope was dim. But Freytag arrived. On 30 July, before dusk, his force occupied the range opposite Vorontsov’s camp. On the following day Vorontsov joined Freytag, but not without losing a further 94 killed, 216 wounded and 23 missing. On 1 August the force reached Gerzel-Aul, and two days later the units—or rather their remnants —were sent to their winter quarters. In this campaign Vorontsov’s force lost 984 killed (including three generals), 2,753 wounded, 179 missing, 3 guns, a great sum of money in gold coins it carried, and all its luggage. As a Russian participant had predicted, this campaign stayed ‘for a long time in the natives’ memories’ —though it had a completely opposite meaning in theirs to his.81 It also remained in the Russian minds for a long time, as a bitter and humiliating memory, though defeat was never officially admitted. Rather, the Russian authorities succeeded in ‘selling’ the version that ‘although Dargo was captured and destroyed, the Russian Chief was compelled, like Napoleon at Moscow, to abandon it for want of provisions’.82 Severe criticism of Vorontsov was voiced by Russian sources, especially (and characteristically) after his death. Some of the points have been enumerated above. Other points included the fact that Vorontsov not only displayed complete ignorance of Caucasian warfare, but refused to listen to advice from old Caucasian hands.83 And if he accepted advice at all, it was from his inexperienced aides, whom he had brought along with him. This resulted in the exclusion of many experienced generals from the campaign and in the ‘misposting’ of those who did participate in it.84 Furthermore, claimed the critics, Vorontsov was too ‘soft’ on discipline, allowing too many cases of disobedience by senior officers.85 Another major point of criticism concerned the fact that Vorontsov brought with him a large entourage, which included many young men of good families from St Petersburg and Moscow. These came for the single purpose of using the last chance to take part in the adventure of the final conquest of the Caucasus and to win decorations.86 These dandies, with their numerous servants, swelled the

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force with non-effectives, who panicked and caused disorder in battle; at the same time, their enormous luggage of luxurious objects overstrained the logistical means, already burdened to extremes as they were, and caused their collapse. This l’armée de Xerxes,87 being the opposite of everything the seasoned Caucasian officers were and stood for, caused strong antagonism from the start between the two groups. This antagonism contributed greatly to the lapse in discipline. After all, why should a Prince Bariatinskii obey an obscure Caucasian general with a German surname, or an old Caucasian hand, like Passek, follow the orders of a headquarters staffed by newcomers completely ignorant of Caucasian or any other kind of warfare? The great majority among Vorontsov’s critics were ignorant of the fact that the military plan was but one facet of the expedition and that the campaign had another, more important, dimension. This, of course, does not diminish the validity of the above and other points of criticism. Similarly, the fact that it was one of the reasons for Vorontsov’s inattentiveness to military matters could explain, but by no means justify, the viceroy’s conduct. As stated above, ‘political means’ were not dropped when the emperor returned to the notion of a solution by one blow. On the contrary, political means were intended to be the very heart of such a blow. ‘The main aim of the general offensive’, stated a document in the summer of 1844, is to assist all the nearest tribes, who according to our information have already given their consent to rise against Shamil [emphasis added, MG], and to restore the communities, which have been transported into the mountains, back to submission and to their previous places of residence, [all this] in order to weaken the volume of the general insurrection.88 An official history of the campaign of 1845 stated the same: ‘To supply the natives, who had been forcibly transported by Shamil, with an opportunity to come over to our side.’89 Since 1840, when they had enthusiastically welcomed Shamil, many of his Chechen subjects had become discontented with his rule. This was presented to the Russian authorities in an exaggerated manner by their native collaborators. The community of ‘Andi occupied a prime place among those dissatisfied with Shamil’s rule. ‘It was a known fact’, recorded Benckendorff, that the residents desired our arrival and even demanded it. We, on our part, indulged in the hope that the secession of the people of ‘Andi would lead to the secession from Shamil of other peoples of Daghestan, who had been in the habit of following the example of ‘Andi.90 This was the reason behind the emperor’s insistence both in 1844 and 1845 on advancing to ‘Andi and establishing Russian rule there. The tsar (and his confidants) had expected quick results from the ‘political means’ when he

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introduced them in 1842–43. Although bitterly disappointed, he still held the opinion that the ‘political means’ had produced results. He therefore pinned his hopes on this plan and overruled both advice from his generals in the Caucasus and previous experience. In doing so, Nicholas and his confidants did not overrule those who argued that the ‘pacification’ of the Caucasus could be achieved through a slow, lengthy process. They disagreed, however, that this was the only method to achieve it. To them, the proposed campaign appeared a possible short cut, which suited the tsar’s temperament more. To attempt it, they felt, could do no serious harm, and even if it failed, the ‘slow method’ would always be there to fall back on. Vorontsov, it seems, shared these views and by accepting the nomination as Viceroy took upon himself to carry them out.91 On his tour of inspection, during his stay in Vnezapnaia, Vorontsov was approached by some Chechen leaders, including the qadi of Urus Martan. They expressed willingness to accept Russian rule, if a force force were sent to protect them. To verify their intentions, Lüders was sent with a small force, but met resistance.92 The reason for that, probably unknown to the Russians at the time, was that one of the persons involved in the contacts warned Shamil of the plot. The imam was, thus, able to take countermeasures.93 Neither this event, however, nor the warnings of the local generals seem to have diminished Vorontsov’s confidence that such an attempt was worthwhile trying, and could cause no serious harm.94 The confidence and hope that the Russians would find ‘Andi ‘a friendly country’95 contributed greatly to Vorontsov's neglect of logistics, discipline, and other military matters. Shamil was aware of the Russian plan—though probably not of the full extent of their contacts—and warned the community of ‘Andi.96 In preparing his defence, the imam drew upon the lessons of all previous campaigns. He occupied a strong position in Michikal, counting on one of three possibilities: to deter the Russians, as he had done in 1844; to repel their attack; or to delay them. Once they outflanked him through Qirq, he withdrew quickly to ‘Andi. At first he probably intended to make a stand at the ‘Gates of ‘Andi’, with the same aims in mind. But either reconsideration, or the discovery of the extent of that community’s contacts with the Russians, made him change his mind. The imam seems to have mistrusted the people of ‘Andi all along, and before the beginning of the campaign had taken a special oath from the na’ib and the people to obey all his orders.97 He now decided to abandon ‘Andi to the Russians, but not before burning all the villages and evacuating the people and supplies. In so doing he would kill two birds with one stone: the Russians would reach their target but win a hollow victory, while their lines of supplies would become vulnerable; at the same time, the people of ‘Andi would be punished for their ‘treachery’ by the burning of their houses.98 Thus, when the Russians entered ‘Andi, instead of a friendly country they ‘found themselves behind bare cliffs covered by the smoking ruins of the people’s houses’.99 “Andi slipped away from us’ wrote a participant, but ‘only the natives…and two Russians…understood the

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significance of this event… The majority saw nothing, or preferred to see nothing’.100 It was probably at this stage that Shamil tried to negotiate with Vorontsov, but was rejected.101 First, to Vorontsov and the Russian authorities the destruction by one way or another of Shamil was by now an axiom and they had ruled out negotiations with him. Thus, both Neidhardt’s (in the previous year) and Vorontsov’s proclamations to the natives promised pardon to anyone but Shamil.102 In Vorontsov’s case, this attitude was reinforced by the emotional reaction to the killing of captive Russian fficers by Shamil.103 Second, Vorontsov and his staff had not yet lost the hope of attaining their goal. Not only did some natives, who had escaped Shamil’s evacuation, come to Vorontsov,104 but a string of ‘native emissaries…resorted to his camp with assurances from day to day that the people would come forward from various quarters’.105 Among these emissaries, were several from na’ib’s in Chechnia.106 These communications were the reason behind Vorontsov’s ‘patrol’ of 2–3 July: one of the declared aims of Vorontsov was ‘by the sudden appearance of our troops to supply the neighbouring mountain tribes with a means to join us’.107 But the result was meagre. Only one family joined the Russians.108 While Vorontsov stayed in ‘Andi, Shamil went to Chechnia. There he obtained an oath on the Qur’an from the na’ibs and their militias not to engage in separate contacts with the Russians.109 Upon his return, he ordered Ramadan, the na’ib of ‘Andi, to stop all (unauthorized) contacts between the scattered people of ‘Andi and Vorontsov. Ramadan caught and beheaded a native spying for the Russians and two others who had visited the Russian’s camp. Their heads were displayed with a notice warning anyone collaborating with the Russians of a similar fate.110 These heads were found by the Russians on 13 July,111 but no one at Vorontsov’s headquarters paid any attention to the discovery. There, the hopes for the submission of some tribes were still high.112 Only one participant observed, with the benefit of hindsight, that 13 July was a turning point. Since then, he wrote, ‘we have lost not only our sympathizers but our spies as well’.113 Two facts demonstrate how right he was. When Vorontsov finally decided to advance on Dargo, the local spies he used gave him a completely wrong description of the roads leading there.114 And then, an hour before the forces started to march, one of the viceroy’s native spies escaped on Vorontsov’s favourite stallion to warn Shamil.115 Having stopped all contacts between the mountaineers and Vorontsov, the field was now open for Shamil to overturn the viceroy’s table in this game of intrigue and espionage. Like a ju-jitsu fighter taking advantage of his rival’s momentum, Shamil now used the Russians’ intrigue to their detriment. Emissaries supposedly from the na’ibs of Chechnia continued to arrive in the Russian camp. They offered ‘to tender their submission, provided only the [Russian] army would advance’, and asserted that

REINTERPRETING VORONTSOV’S CAMPAIGN OF 1845 79

its apparition in Dargo would be a signal for a general rising against Shamil; and the semblance of a regard for the sacred character of the imam went some way in adding credit to their professions; for they appeared earnestly to stipulate for his life and liberty; and they returned more than once to discuss the precise means by which he was to be enabled in safety to withdraw into Egypt.116 This must have added to their credibility, since the Russians had been aware of Shamil’s contacts with Mehemet Ali.117 These negotiations were a major factor in Vorontsov’s decision to go on to Dargo and in his rejection of Lüder’s offer to continue immediately to Gerzel-Aul. That he expected the arrival of messengers in Dargo is clear from the order given to the guards to allow in two natives who were expected to come from the right flank of the camp and wave their hats.118 Only during and after the ‘biscuit expedition’ did Vorontsov and his staff realize that they had been outmanoeuvred. But by then it was too late. Shamil had closed the trap on the Russians. That Vorontsov’s force escaped a complete destruction was a matter of sheer luck. If the commanding officer of the left flank had been a less resourceful general, the campaign would have ended in complete disaster. Even with Freytag’s rescue, the campaign proved to be an unprecedented defeat and an extremely painful experience, which finally put an end to the dream of defeating Shamil by one blow. From now on the Russians would change strategy and would conduct a systematic war of attrition, which would lead to Shamil’s surrender in 1859.119 For Shamil, this campaign marked the peak of his prestige and power. But this proved to be short-lived. In the spring of 1846 the imam tried to carry out his most daring enterprise ever—to join forces with the Circassians on the western side of the Caucasus and with the Kabartay in its centre.120 His failure signalled the fact that from now on all the roads open to him led only down. NOTES 1. Vorontsov’s expedition of 1845 is the most widely described episode in the Caucasian war. This description is based on the following sources: A.P.Berzhe et al. (eds), Akty sobrannye kavkazskoi arkheograficheskoi kommissiei [Documents Collected by the Caucasus Archeographical Commission] (hereafter AKAK), vol. X, pp. 364–77, 380–1, 385–91, 396–418, documents nos. 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 375, 378, 379, 382, 383, 384, Vorontsov to Chernyshev, 8 [20] June (Secret), 19, 26 June [1, 8 July], 1 [13], 9 [21] July, 21, 24 July (Secret) [2, 5 August] 1845, nos. 21, 25, 31, 32, 33, 42, 44, Vorontsov to Chernyshev, 5 [17] August 1845, Chernyshev to Vorontsov, 27 June [9 July] 1845, no. 6509, Freytag to Vorontsov, 5 [17] July 1845, Hellegarde to Hurko, 19 [31] July 1845, no. 2055, Adlerberg to Vorontsov, 4 [16] September 1845, no. 317, ‘Military Operations in the Caucasus in 1845’, respectively; M.M.Gabrichidze (ed.), Shamil—stavlennik sultanskoi

80 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

Turtsii i angliiskikh kolonizatorov (Sbornlk dokumental’nykh materialov) [Shamil— the Stooge of the Sultan’s Turkey and the English Colonizers (A Collection of Documentary Sources) (Tbilisi, 1953) (hereafter Shamil), pp. 245–6, 252–4, documents nos. 195, 200, 201, Civilian Governor of Georgia-Imereti to the Captain of Nobility, 16 [28] April 1845, no. 499, Vorontsov’s Orders of the Day, 15 [27] and 16 [28] June 1845, nos. 51 and 53, respectively; Austria, Hous-, Hoff-, und Staatsarchiv, Staatenabteilung (Vereinigthe Diplomatische Akten), Toskana, 66/ Varia, Vorontsov to Marechal Marmont, Tiflis, 10/22 December 1845 (copy); UK, Public Record Office (PRO), Foreign Office Archives, FO/78/613, Brant to Aberdeen, Erzeroom, 14 March, 12 June, 11 July, 1 October 1845, nos. 4, 9, 11, 12, FO/60/117, Abott to Aberdeen, Tabreez, 7 July, 6, 29 August, 5 September, 3 November 1845, nos. 14, 16, 17, 18, 24, Abott to Sheil, Tabreez, 14, 25 July 1845, nos. 49, 51, FO/65/315, Yeames to Aberdeen, Odessa, 21 March, 30 June, 26 September 1845, nos. 2, 3, 4 (the latter was published in Moshe Gammer, ‘Vorontsov’s 1845 Expedition Against Shamil: a British Report’, Central Asian Survey, 4, 4 [August 1985], pp. 13–33 [hereafter Yeames]; France, Ministère des Relations Exterieur, Archives Diplomatiques, Correspondence Diplomatique des Consuls (CPC), Russie, Tiflis, vol. 2, ff. 45–54, Castillon to Guizot, 4/16 May, 8 August/27 July, 16/28 September 1845, nos. 4, 5, 6, CPC, Turquie, Erzeroum, vol. 2, ff. 137–8, 150–7, Clairambault to Guizot, Trebizonde, 20 July, 9 September 1845, nos. 12, 16; US, National Archives (NA), Microfilm Publications, microcopy no. 81, Despatches from United States Consuls in St Petersburg, 1803–1906, Col. Jodd to Secretary of State, St Petersburg, 15/27 September 1845, no. 63; Benckendorff/Lieven/Croy archive, found in a trunk in the loft of Lime Kiln, Claydon, Ipswich, Suffolk in August 1984 (hereafter Benckendorff Archive), private letters from Constantin Benckendorff to Princess Lieven (his aunt), Tash Kitschou, 27 May/3 June [sic] and Piatigorsk, 18/30 August 1845, nos. 9 and 12, [Ernest] to Benckendorff, St Petersburg 3/14 [sic] August 1845; S.L.Avaliani (ed.), Iz arkhiva K.E.Andreevskogo [From the Archive of K.E.Andreevskii], vol. I, Zapiski E.S.Andreevskogo [Notes by E.S.Andreevskii] (Odessa, 1913) (hereafter Andreevskii); [Nikolai Beklemishev,] ‘Epizod iz ekspeditsii v Dargo v 1845 godu. Pis’mo s Kavkaza ot 25 Iiunia 1845 goda’ [An Episode from the Expedition to Dargo in 1845. A Letter from the Caucasus dated 25 June [7 July] 1845], in V Kashpirev (ed.), Pamiatniki novoi russkoi istorii. Sbornik istoricheskikh stat’ei i materialov [Monuments of Russia’s Modern History. A Collection of Historical Articles and Sources], vol. I (St Petersburg, 1871), pp. 312–6 (hereafter Beklemishev); [Aleksandr Dondukov-Korsakov], ‘Moi vospominaniia’ [My Memoirs], Novizna i starina, 6 (1908), pp. 92–160 (hereafter Dondukov); [Rostislav Andreevich Fadeev,] ‘Pis’ma Rostislava Andreevicha Fadeeva k rodnym’ [Letters of Rostislav Andreevich Fadeev to Relatives], Ruskii vestnik, 8 (1897), pp. 7–14 (hereafter details of letter+issue number of RV); Nikolai Gorchakov, ‘Ekspeditsiia v Dargo (1845 g.). (Iz dnevnika ofitsera kurinskogo polka)’ [The Expedition to Dargo (1845). (From the Diaries of an Officer in the Kurinskii Regiment], Kavkazskii sbornik, 2 (1877), pp. 117–41 (hereafter Gorchakov); [Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov,] ‘Vypiski iz dnevnika svetleishego kniazia M.S.Vorontsova s 1845 po 1854 g’. [Excerpts from the Diaries of His Excellency Prince M.S.Vorontsov from 1845 to 1854], Starina i novizna, 5 (1902), pp. 78–9 (hereafter Vorontsov’s Diary); [Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov,] ‘Pis’ma kniazia

REINTERPRETING VORONTSOV’S CAMPAIGN OF 1845 81

Mikhaila Semenovicha Vorontsova k Alekseiu Petrovichu Ermolovu’ [Letters of Prince Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov to Aleksei Petrovich Ermolov], Ruskii arkhiv, 2 (1890), pp. 162–83 (hereafter Vorontsov to Ermolov+date and issue number of RA); Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova [The Archive of Prince Vorontsov], vol. xxxv (Moscow, 1890), pp. 256–70; ‘Ekspeditsiia v Dargo 1845 goda’ [The 1845 Expedition to Dargo], Voennyi zhurnal, 4 (1855), part 2, ‘Voennaia istoriia’, pp. 27–44 (hereafter ‘Ekspeditsiia’); ‘Ekspeditsiia v Dargo 1845 goda’ [The 1845 Expedition to Dargo], Zhurnal dlia chteniia vospitannikam voenno-uchebnykh zavedenii, 123.490 (15 [27] November 1856), pp. 182–202; A.-D.G., ‘Pokhod 1845 goda v Dargo’ [The 1845 March to Dargo], Voennyi sbornik, 5 (1859), otdel neofitsialtnyi, pp. 1–63 (hereafter ‘Pokhod’); Muhammad Tahir al-Qarakhi, Bariqat al-Suyuf al-Daghistaniyya fi Ba'd al-Ghazawat al-Shamiliyya [The Shining of Daghestani Swords in Some of Shamil’s Raids], ed. A.M. Rarabanov (Moscow and Leningrad, 1946), pp. 136–50 (hereafter Qarakhi); Adam [Adamovich] Rzewuski [Rzhevuskii], ‘1845 god na Kavkaze’ [The Year 1845 in the Caucasus], Kavkazskii sbornik, 6 (1882), pp. 221–395, 13–16 (separate pagination) (hereafter Rzewuski+issue number of KS); Michal Butowt Andrzejkowicz, Skice Kaukazu [Caucasus Sketches] (Warsaw, 1859), pp. 55–180; Constantin Benckendorff, Souvenirs intime d’une campagne au Caucase pendant I’été de 1845 (Paris, 1858) (hereafter Benckendorff); Nikolai Delwig, ‘Vospoainaniia ob ekspeditsii v Dargo’ [Reminiscences of the Expedition to Dargo], Voennyi sbornik, 7 (1864), pp. 189– 230 (hereafter Delwig); [V A.Heimann,] ‘1845 god. Vospominaniia V A.Geimana’ [The Year 1845. The Memoirs of V A.Heimann], Kavkazskii sbornik, 3 (1879), pp. 251–375 (hereafter Heimann); [Nikolai Vasil’evich Isakov,] ‘Iz zapisok N.V.Isakova. Kavkazskie vospominaniia. (Period voiny s gortsami 1846 i 1848 godov)’ [From the Notes of N.V.Isakov. Caucasian Memoirs. (The Times of the War with the Mountaineers, the Years 1846 and 1848)], Russkaia starina, 2 (1917), pp. 171–7 (hereafter Isakov+issue number of RS); Karol Kalinowski, Pamietnik mojej olnierzki na Kaukazie i niewoli u Szamilia od roku 1844 do 1854 [Memoirs of my Military Service in the Caucasus and Captivity with Shamil from the Year 1844 to 1854] (Warsaw, 1883), pp. 25–31; Aleksandr Pavlovich Nicolaÿ, ‘Iz vospominanii o moei zhizni: Darginskii pokhod, 1845’ [From Reminiscences of my Life: the March to Dargo, 1845], Ruskii arkhiv, 6 (1890), pp. 249–78 (hereafter: Nicolaÿ); [Vasilii Nikolaevich Norov,] ‘Kavkazskaia ekspeditsiia v 1845 godu. Rasskaz ochevidtsa N.V N-va’ [The Expedition of 1845 in the Caucasus. The Story of the Witness N.V.N-v], Voennyi sbornik, 11 (1906), pp. 1– 34, 12 (1907), pp. 15–51, 1 (1907), pp. 31–64, 2 (1907), pp. 1–42, 3 (1907), pp. 1– 28, 4 (1907), pp. 16–46 (hereafter Norov+issue number of VS); ‘Stseny iz voennoi zhizni’ [Scenes from Military Life], Sbornik gazety Kavkaz (1846), pp. 410–11; John F. Baddeley, The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus (London, 1908), pp. 385– 410 (hereafter Baddeley); Isidor Grzegorzewski [Grzhegorshevskii], ‘Generalleitenant Kliuki-fon-Klugenau. Ocherk voennykh deistvii i sobytii na Kavkaze, 1818–1850’ [Lieutenant-General Klüky-von-Klugenau. A Survey of the Military Operations and Events in the Caucasus, 1818–1850], Russkaia starina, 6 (1876), pp. 376–80; ‘Darginskaia Ekspeditsiia’ [The Dargo Expedition], Terskie vedomosti, 93 (12 [24] August 1893), pp. 3–4; ‘Important if True’, The Times, 20 August 1845, p. 6, c. 4.

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2. For these events as well as for the entire war in the Caucasus see, Moshe Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar. Shamil and the Conquest of ChechniaandDaghestan (London, 1994). 3. For the siege see Moshe Gammer, ‘The Siege of Akhulgoh—A Reconstruction and Reinterpretation’, Asian and African Studies (Haifa), 25.2 (July 1991), pp. 103–18. 4. Qarakhi, p. 83. 5. A.Iurov and N.V., ‘1840,1841 i 1842-i gody na Kavkaze’ [The Years 1840, 1841 and 1842 in the Caucasus], Kavkazskii sbornik, 10 (1886), p. 330. Similarly E.A.Golovln, ‘Ocherk polozheniia voennykh del na Kavkaze s nachala 1838 do kontsa 1842 goda’ [A Survey of the State of Military Affairs in the Caucasus from the Beginning of 1838 to the End of 1842], Kavkazskii sbornik, 2 (1878), p. 40 (hereafter Golovin). 6. For a concise and probably the best description of this campaign, see Golovin, pp. 65–7, translation in Gammer, Muslim Resistance, pp. 134–5. 7. A. lurov, ‘1844-i god na Kavkaze’ [The Year 1844 in the Caucasus], Kavkazskii sbornik, 7 (1883), p. 159. 8. For which see Moshe Gammer, ‘Shamil’s Most Successful Offensive—Daghestan 1843’, Journal of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (Jeddah), 12.1 (January 1991), pp. 41–54. 9. Nicholas I to Neidhardt, as quoted in lurov, ‘1844’, pp. 157–8. 10. The Caucasian Corps, like the entire army of Nicholas I, had a chronic shortage of manpower. Partly this was due to a general lack of funds and cadres, but partly also because casualties were not reported accurately. The reasons for this were a mixture of reluctance to admit to high casualties and corruption, since the colonels usually put the funds and salaries allocated to soldiers missing (but not reported as such) in their own pockets. Thus no battalion ever reached its nominal strength of 1, 000 soldiers. Throughout this chapter an average of 800 soldiers per battalion has been used to calculate the number of troops. This might still be too high an estimate. 11. lurov, ‘1844’, p. 159; V G.Gadzhiev and Kh.Kh.Ramazanov (eds), Dvizhenie gortsev Severo-vostochnogo Kavkaza v 20–50kh gg. XlX veka. Sbornik dokumentov [The Movement of the Mountaineers of the North-Eastern Caucasus in the 1820s– 1850s. A Collection of Documents] (Makhachkala, 1959) (hereafter Dvizhenie), pp. 393–4, 444, documents nos. 217, 232, Nicholas I to Golovin [should be Neidhardt], 14 [26] November 1843, Chernyshev to Neidhardt, 1 [13] February 1844 respectively. 12. See, for example, AKAK, vol. ix, pp. 822, 851–2, 857, documents nos. 693, 706, 707, 711, Chernyshev to Neidhardt, 8 [20] April, 2 [14], 7 [19], 17 [29] July 1844, nos. 3373, 6089, 6957, 6604 respectively. 13. Baddeley, p. 382. 14. Since 1840 Shamil engaged in what Pinson called ‘demographic warfare’ (Marc Pinson, ‘Russian Expulsion of Mountaineers from the Caucasus, 1856–66, and its Historical Background—Demographic Warfare. An Aspect of Ottoman and Russian Policies, 1854–1866’, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1970). Shamil’s massive population transfers from the border areas into the heartland of his domains created, in effect, a ring of scorched earth around them, which ‘very markedly increased the obstacles we face in achieving our aims’ (Golovin, p. 34).

REINTERPRETING VORONTSOV’S CAMPAIGN OF 1845 83

15. 16.

17.

18.

19. 20. 21.

And cf. AKAK, vol. ix, pp. 841–4, document no. 702, Neidhardt to Chernyshev, 19 June [1 July] 1844, no. 69 (Secret). AKAK, vol. ix, pp. 84–4; Dvizhenie, p. 477, document no. 250, Report by HQ Caucasian Corps, 9 [21] June 1844; lurov, ‘1844’, pp. 198–248. AKAK, vol. IX, pp. 841–4, document no. 702, Neidhardt to Chernyshev (Secret), 19 June [1 July] 1844, no. 69. Quote from p. 842. Shamil, according to Neidhardt’s information, intended to ‘act on our communications’—AKAK, vol. ix, pp. 736–9, document no. 624, Neidhardt to Chernyshev, 26 June [8 July], no. 78 (Secret). Quote from p. 738. Ibid., pp. 844–51, 853–7, documents nos. 703, 705, 709, 710, Argutinskii to Neidhardt, 20 June [2 July], Lüders to Neidhardt, 2 [14], 14 [26] (two reports) July 1844 (all three Secret), nos. 1545, 83, 481, 482 respectively; lurov, ‘1844’, pp. 204– 13, 252–60. A disappointed young participant wrote: ‘The military operations in Daghestan for this year have been terminated (many assert that they have never started)’—Fadeev to his father, Piatigorsk, 4 [16] September 1844, no. 8, p. 5. Baddeley, p. 384. And cf. lurov, ‘1844’, pp. 371–3; Rzewuski, 6, pp. 223–4. Fadeev to his father, Piatigorsk, 4 [16] September 1844, no. 10, p. 6. In an autographed memorandum to Chernyshev (published in Russkaia starina, 10 (1885), pp. 202–12 and Rzewuski, 6, pp. 235–9; these sources did not, unfortunately, give its date), the emperor stated the aims for the 1844 campaign as:

1. to rout, if possible, Shamil’s hordes [my emphasis—MG] 2. to penetrate into the heart of his dominions 3. to consolidate [the Russian hold] there. 22. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoi, ‘Khadzhi Murat’, in Posmertnye khudozhestbennye proizvedeniia, vol. III (Moscow, 1912), p. 44. Translation by Aylmer Mode, in The Works of Leo Tolstoy, vol. XV (Oxford and London, 1934), pp. 276–7. Pushkin left a different description of Vorontsov:

Half hero and half ignoramus Let’s add half villain to the toll. However, there is still a hope That he will presently be whole. Translation by Leslie Blanch, The Sabres of Paradise (London, 1960), p. 227. For the most recent biography of Vorontsov, see A.L.H.Rhinelander, Prince Michael Vorontsov: Viceroy of the Tsar (Montreal, 1990). Moshe Gammer, ‘“The Conqueror of Napoleon” in the Caucasus’, Central Asian Survey, 12.3 (1993), pp. 253–65 intends to complete Rhinelander’s work, which totally ignores one of Vorontsov’s main duties, if not the major one, as viceroy in the Caucasus—conducting war. 23. Isakov, 2 (1917), p. 175. 24. Rzewuski, 6, pp. 231–50, 279–80; ‘Pokhod’, pp. 2–7, 9–11,16–17; Norov, 11, pp. 13–19.

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25. AKAK, vol. IX, pp. 876–7, document no. 722, Argutinskii to Neidhardt, 26 March [7 April] 1845, no. 51; Dvizhenie, pp. 492–7, document no. 268, ‘Excerpt from the War Diary of the Commander of northern Daghestan, Lieutenant-General Bebutov, from 12 [24] March to 15 [27] December 1845’; Shamil, pp. 236–44, 254–68, documents nos. 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 196, 197, 202, Neidhardt to Chernyshev, 25 January [6 February] 1845, no. 15, ‘Excerpts from Short Surveys of the Most Important Military Events in the Caucasus’ from 1 [13] November 1844 to 1 [13] January 1845, from 1 [13] January to 1 [13] March, and from 1 [13] March to 1 [13] June 1845, Vorontsov to Chernyshev, 4 [16] (Secret), 11 [23], 22 March [3 April] (Secret), 28 April [10 May] (Secret), and 9 [21] May 1845 (Secret), nos. 24, 27, 33, 222 and 247 respectively; Rzewuski, 6, pp. 250–61, 270– 7, 286, 396–419, vol. 7, pp. 383–7; Norov, 11 (1906), pp. 20–3; ‘Pokhod’, pp. 11– 14; Qarakhi, pp. 133–6. Quotations from Rzewuski, 6, pp. 273 and 253 respectively. 26. AKAK, vol. x, pp. 262–364, documents nos. 365, 366, 367, Vorontsov to Chernyshev, 5 [17], 15 [27] (Secret), and 19 [31] May 1845, nos. 5, 351 and 11 respectively; Vorontsov’s diary, pp. 74–8; Rzewuski, 6, pp. 278, 283–5. 27. Andreevskii, pp. 6, 10. 28. The jesters in Vorontsov’s camp called this affair ‘bataille en chimere’—Delwig, p. 193. 29. Heimann, p. 282; Andreevskii, pp. 4, 8. 30. This move by Passek is in controversy in Russian pre-revolutionary historiography, but even Passek’s supporters admit that he acted ‘in the spirit’ of Vorontsov’s instructions, rather than upon an explicit command. According to Vorontsov himself, Passek ‘listened to my instructions pro forma only’—Andreevskii, p. 18. 31. Heimann, p. 283. 32. Norov, 12 (1906), p. 41. 33. Andreevskii, p. 23. 34. Ibid., pp. 18,21. 35. Gorchakov, p. 121. 36. ‘Pokhod’, p. 29. 37. Heimann, p. 289. 38. Nicolaÿ, pp. 256–7. And cf. Andreevskii, pp. 34–7, 63–6. 39. Ibid., p. 66. 40. Hence it was nicknamed ‘l’expedition des truites [=detruite]’—Delwig, p. 261. 41. Norov, 1 (1907), p. 40. 42. ‘Pokhod’, p. 32. 43. Grzegorzewski, 6 (1870), p. 377. 44. Heimann, p. 297. 45. Gorchakov, p. 122. 46. The commander of this force was Vorontsov’s son—John Frederick Baddeley, The Rugged Flanks of the Caucasus (London, 1940), vol. II, p. 80. 47. Norov, 4 (1907), pp. 44–5. The number of effectives was 7,940 infantry, 1,218 cavalry and 342 artillery—Rzewuski, 6, p. 323. 48. To divert Shamil’s attention and part of his forces, Freytag carried out on 16 July a raid from the north on Shali. 49. Nicolaÿ, p. 203; cf. Dondukov, pp. 117–18. 50. Delwig, p. 208.

REINTERPRETING VORONTSOV’S CAMPAIGN OF 1845 85

51. 52. 53. 54.

55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82.

83.

84.

Norov, 2 (1907), pp. 10–11. Ibid., p. 13. ‘Pokhod’, p. 40; Rzewuski, 6, p. 331. Delwig, p. 209. Translation based on Baddeley, pp. 397–8 (who mistakenly attributes his quotation to Heimann). Also, Norov, 2 (1907), p. 10; Gorchakov, p. 124. Heimann, p. 317; Delwig, p. 209. Heimann, p. 314; Delwig, p. 210; Norov, 2 (1907), p. 18. Baddeley, p. 399. The head of the gendarmerie in Tiflis, who had begged his way into the expedition — Nicolaÿ, p. 265; Benckendorff, pp. 121–2. The only exceptions were the Kabardinskii, Navaginskii and Liublinskii regiments, which each having two battalions in the force, sent an ‘organic’ battalion each. Gorchakov, p. 127. Norov, 2 (1907), p. 24. Ibid., p. 25. Rzewuski, 6, p. 337; cf. Delwig, pp. 212–13. Norov, 2 (1907), p. 27. The row was caused by Passek, who, as usual, did something without clearing it with Klugenau in advance. Ibid., p. 31. Rzewuski, 6, p. 339. Norov, 4 (1907), pp. 44–5; Rzewuski, 6, p. 343. Nicolaÿ, pp. 267–8; cf. Norov, 2 (1907), p. 38. ‘Pokhod’, p. 42; Dondukov, p. 125; Rzewuski, 6, p. 333. Rzewuski, 6, p. 334. Delwig, p. 206. Gorchakov, p. 130. Ibid., p. 136. Benckendorff, pp. 128–9. Norov, 3 (1907), p. 25; cf. ‘Pokhod’, p. 57; Heimann, p. 339; Dondukov, pp. 153–4; Andreevskii, pp. 60–1. Norov, 4 (1907), p. 23. Gorchakov, p. 137; Norov, 3 (1907), p. 25. Norov, 3 (1907), p. 25; Gorchakov, pp. 132–4. Ibid., pp. 132–3. Andreevskii, p. 60. Norov, 4 (1907), p. 35. NA microcopy no. 81, Col. Jodd to Secretary of State, St Petersburg, 15/27 September 1845, no. 63. I am grateful to Michael Harpke for referring me to this source. The comparison to Napoleon is of particular interest, since Vorontsov was known in Russia as the ‘Conqueror of Napoleon’; see note 22 above. See, for example, the cold reception he accorded Freytag, who had tried to convince him to skip the idea of the campaign (Heimann, p. 262), and his reaction to Benckendorff’s remarks about the disorders during the march of the column (Benckendorff, p. 36). Thus Klugenau, who had fought for twelve years in the mountains of Daghestan, was nominated to head the ‘biscuit expedition’, which needed commanders experienced in forest fighting, while Labynstev, who had experience of forest

86 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

85. 86.

87. 88.

89. 90. 91.

92.

93.

94.

95. 96. 97. 98.

99. 100. 101.

102.

warfare in Chechnia, was sent to storm the heights opposite Dargo. The same ‘misuse’ of experience happened with the Caucasian troops at the column, when units experienced in mountain warfare in Daghestan were used in the forests, and units stationed in Chechnia and experienced in forest warfare were sent to attacks in the mountains. Passek’s advance to the ‘Cold Mountain’ and Bariatinskiit’s attack at ’Andi are but two examples. These included, inter alia, Prince Alexander von Hesse-Darmstadt (the emperor’s brotherin-law), Prince Wittgenstein, Prince Paskiewicz Junior, Prince Bariatinskii and Count Benckendorff. Dondukov, p. 109. AKAK, vol. IX, pp. 867–8, document no. 717, ‘[The Required] Disposition Towards the General Offensive by all Participating Forces from northern Daghestan and the Left Flank of the Caucasian Line’, 13 [25] August 1844. ‘Ekspeditsiia’, p. 35. Benckendorff, p. 9. Similarly, pp. 89–90; Rzewuski, 6, p. 289; ‘Pokhod’, p. 16; Yeames, p. 20. This seems to be the real meaning of his letters to Chernyshev, 25 May [6 June]— Rzewuski, 6, pp. 281–2, and to Ermolov, Tash Kichu, 26 May [7 June] 1845–2, pp. 163–5. Vorontsov’s Diary, pp. 76–7, entries for 4 [16] and 6 [18] May 1845; Rzewuski, 6, pp. 283–4, 289–90; Norov, 2 (1906), pp. 23–6; Yeames, p. 15. See also Dvizhenie, pp. 486–8, document no. 262, Vorontsov to the Emperor, 12 [24] April 1845. [Apolon Runowski,] ‘Dnevnik polkovnika Runovskogo sostoiavshego pristavom pri Shamile vo vremia prebyvaniia ego v gor. Kaluges 1859 po 1862 god’ [The Diary of Colonel Runowski, who was Shamil’s Overseer During his Stay in Kaluga from 1859 to 1862], AKAK, vol. XII, pp. 1419–20, entry for 16 [28] March 1860. Vorontsov to Chernyshev, 25 May [6 June] 1845, as quoted by Rzewuski, 6, pp. 281–2. Also Vorontsov to Ermolov, Tash Kichu, 26 May [7 June] 1845, no. 2, pp. 163–5. ‘Pokhod’, p. 16. Dvizhenie, pp. 501–2, document no. 275, Shamil’s letter to the qadi and to the entire community of ’Andi [spring 1845 ?]. Qarakhi, p. 137. How directly he struck at the people of ’Andi can be seen from the fact that they tried to resist the burning of their villages—ibid., p. 138. See also his remark on p. 139: ‘This skirmish is like a plague to the renegades, who had thought that the unity of Islam had been broken up. Their minds have become apparent.’ ‘Pokhod’, p. 36. See also Benckendorff, p. 90. Benckendorff, p. 90. See also, Yeames, p. 20. Qarakhi, pp. 139–40. As one should expect, the Daghestani source claims that Vorontsov approached Shamil and was rejected. But the entire logic of the situation points to the opposite. Chernyshev to Neidhardt (Confidential), 18 [30] November 1843, no. 557, quoted by lurov, ‘1844’, pp. 159–60; AKAK, vol. X, pp. 361–2, document no. 364, ‘Vorontsov’s Proclamation to the People of Daghestan’. This was a serious mistake, because it left Shamil no choice but to fight.

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103. Dondukov, p. 124. Shamil on his part did this because he felt the Russians had betrayed him: letters were intercepted informing the captive officers (who were held in Dargo) that a strong force was on its way to release them. This was done at the same time that the Russians were negotiating with Shamil an exchange of prisoners. 104. Norov, 1 (1907), p. 37. 105. Yeames, p. 20. See also Andreevskii, p. 30. 106. Yeames, p. 20; Qarakhi (p. 140) might have hinted at it when he mentioned that some na’ibs asked Shamil to make peace with Vorontsov. 107. Norov, 1 (1907), p. 40. 108. Norov, 2 (1907), p. 2. 109. Qarakhi, p. 140. 110. Ibid., pp. 140–1; Andreevskii, pp. 30–1. 111. Delwig, p. 201; Benckendorff, p. 121. 112. Benckendorff, p. 118. 113. Ibid., p. 121. 114. Norov, 2 (1907), p. 2. For a previous similar incident, see Andreevskii, p. 24. 115. Delwig, p. 202; Yeames, p. 23; Nicolaÿ, p. 259; Rzewuski, 6, p. 333. The thief was caught by the Russians two years later—Vorontsov’s Diary, p. 85, entries for 4 [16], 5 [17] August 1847. 116. Yeames, p. 20. 117. For these, see Moshe Gammer, ‘The Iman and the Pasha: a Note on Shamil and Mehemet Ali’, Middle Eastern Studies, 32.4 (October 1996), pp. 336–42. 118. Norov, 2 (1907), p. 19. 119. For the change of strategy, see Moshe Gammer, ‘Russian Strategies in the Conquest if Chechnia and Daghestan’, in Marie Bennigsen-Broxup (ed.), The North Caucasus Barrier: the Russian Advance Towards the Muslim World (London, 1992), pp. 55–7. 120. See Gammer, Muslim Resistance, pp. 162–71.

7 Dating the Past: C.J.Edmonds and the Invention of Modern Iraq LIORA LUKITZ

The ‘invention’ of new states, or the ‘reinvention’ of old ones—expressions much in vogue today—reflect ideas that are difficult to define. The difficulty stems, first and foremost, from the impossibility of pinpointing the precise moment when the process of invention actually takes place, letting new entities emerge on the political scene. It also stems from the impossibility of drawing a line that separates past definitions from more recent approaches to men’s relations among themselves and with their social environment. An attempt to deal with these notions brings to mind two classic propositions, as both refer to the existence of a national movement that either precedes the process of invention or explains it after the fact. Ernest Gellner’s classic proposition that nationalism ‘invents nations where they do not exist’1 and Benedict Anderson’s elaboration on the same theme,2 are examples linking the phenomenon to men’s conscious decisions. According to both authors, even voluntary acts of self-definition can take place only when technical progress and the spread of modern means of communication permit the tightening of bonds among the members of a nation, bonds that previously existed mainly in their imagination.3 But even then, so we are further told, these new nations (imagined, invented, or reinvented) draw their legitimacy from historic collective memories readapted to match the needs of modern times.4 This view of the nation as perennial rather than a product of modernity remains a point of debate when studying modern Iraq and its emergence into the political arena after the First World War. Has Iraq, in its modern version, been invented by a nationalist movement? Or is it an outcome of a linear evolution linking historic Mesopotamia to modern times? Can this evolution be traced by following an organic thread proving the perenniality of Iraq’s national existence? Or were the fissures too many and the gaps too wide to allow such a generalization to take place? In other words, was the process of Iraq’s creation a non-continuous one, the sum of a series of episodes created as much by random events as by men’s conscious acts and decisons?5 Or, if one subscribes to the idea of an historic ‘Big Bang’, when did a coherent picture of Iraq’s path to modernity emerge? Was this movement strong enough to create a deeper sense of political consciousness and national awareness among the inhabitants of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, split otherwise by geographic,

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ethnic, and economic differences? And, to sum it all up, can Iraq’s invention be dated, the process documented, hinting at the same time at the way with which modern nationalism is experimented within other multiethnic states? The creation of modern Iraq has been, up to now, registered, recorded, and mapped by historians focusing mainly on the political evolution of the national idea and on a Baghdad-centred version of Iraq’s national experience.6 The search for alternative explanations to this well-known story brings us, among other important studies,7 to C.J.Edmonds’ papers currently assembled at St Antony’s College, Oxford. Edmonds was British advisor to Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior during the post-independence years (1935–45), and his letters and reports provide valuable insights into the controversial tendencies underlying the double process of ‘nationbuilding’ and ‘nation-destroying’.8 In letters posted in the years preceding independence from Mosul and adjacent areas, where he served as political officer, Edmonds wrote extensively of the resistance of Kurds, Turkmen, Yazidis, and other ethnic and religious groups to a state ruled by a Sunni Arab elite. Working closely with Kinahan Cornwallis, then advisor to the Ministry of the Interior, Edmonds provided his superiors in Baghdad and London with reports and memoranda that are invaluable to the understanding of the process of Iraq’s invention by their supply of empirical experience and precisely dated facts. Edmonds’ book Kurds, Turks and Arabs9 offers one of the best accounts of the actual conditions in Iraq’s Kurdish areas and the work of the Special Commission sent to Mosul in 1925 by the League of Nations.10 The commission’s main purpose was to investigate local conditions and provide information to help in the decision whether Mosul should become part of Iraq or be returned to Turkey. The decision to send the commission followed the stalemate created at the 1923 Lausanne Conference by Turkey’s refusal to consider Britain’s claim over the former Ottoman vilayet. Anchoring their position on the resolutions of the 1920 San Remo Conference that accorded Britain a mandate over Iraq and annexed territories, the British claimed that Mosul was to be automatically annexed to Iraq once the mandate was over. Refusing to comply with the implications of Ottoman policies, the new Turkish leader, Mustafa Kemal, reaffirmed modern Turkey’s rights over Mosul and its non-Arab population. In his view, Mosul should not be included in the former Arab provinces recognized by Turkey’s 1920 National Pact11 as having the right to secede from the empire. Mosul’s Kurds, for their part, based their refusal to be attached either to Turkey or to Iraq on the 1920 Treaty of Sevres (Articles 62 and 64), which accorded them the right to join their East Anatolean counterparts if and when the Kurdish area in Turkey became autonomous, forming thereafter an independent Kurdish state. Edmonds describes the commission’s difficulties in trying to prepare the plebiscite that was to seal the area’s destiny. His position as the commission’s liaison officer and translator in many of the interviews with the local population provided him a vantage point from which to glimpse the difficulty of gathering

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free opinions when patron-client relationships, as well as tribal and personal interests, underlie local politics. Personal rivalries and the divisiveness that characterized Kurdish politics then appeared in all their complexity. Iraq’s Kurdistan was divided at the time into four main districts: Mosul (with Zakho, Dohuk, Amadiyya, and Zibar as subdivisions), Arbil, Kirkuk, and Sulaymaniyya. In explaining the pitfalls of local politics in his reports, Edmonds describes the ethnic and linguistic divisions that shaped the politics of the day, often playing into the hands of the proponents of modern nationalism, be they Kurds or Arabs. A good example was Kirkuk’s refusal to be engulfed by either Sulaymaniyya or Baghdad.12 Kirkuk’s Turkmen notables, accustomed from Ottoman times to the advantages of Kirkuk’s administrative control over Arbil, Rowanduz, Ko’i, and Raniyya, could hardly accept submitting to Baghdad after Iraq’s official creation as a state in 1921. Joining in efforts with Arbil’s Turkmen notables, they claimed the right to retain their administrative autonomy by dealing directly with the British authorities.13 Kirkuk’s Kurdish notables —the Talabanis—also wanted Kirkuk to remain an idara makhsusa, that is, an area under a special regime. Their reasons stemmed, however, from personal and tribal rivalries in Kurdish politics. The Talabanis wanted in fact to prevent Kirkuk’s engulfment by Sulaymaniyya, then the rising centre of Kurdish protonationalism. Linguistic, ethnic, and religious divisions influencing Kurdish politics14 played into the hands of Iraqi and British authorities by preventing the ‘Kurdification’ of Kirkuk and the subsequent formation of a continuous territorial unit that would impede the extension of Baghdad’s writ over the northern provinces. Kirkuk’s dilemma throws some light on the parameters of ethnic conflict at the time of Iraq’s creation. Without specifically framing the moment of Iraq’s invention, Edmonds deals instead with its implications. Edmonds’ reports reveal that different moments could be identified as the precise ones carrying the seeds of the decisions to create a new nation. Could the 1921 conference in Cairo15 be referred to as the moment of Iraq’s invention? Did it happen when the designs of the British officers serving in Baghdad merged with those of the Iraqi-born ex-Ottoman officers who settled for the idea of an Iraqi state as a first step to the larger Pan-Arab state promised to the Arabs during the First World War? Or should the moment of Iraq’s invention be framed as the arrival of Faysal ibn Husayn in Basra and his reticent advance toward Baghdad, culminating finally in his coronation as King of Iraq in August 1921? Or, should the search for the precise moment of Iraq’s inception go further back to Britain’s indecision regarding the political fate of Basra and Baghdad after Baghdad’s occupation by British troops in March 1917? All these moments, episodes, events can be seen less as the result of an historic ‘Big Bang’ than as steps in a process born from accidents and the will of men. But again, not all men on the spot could freely express their opinions on what Iraq was all about and what it was meant to become. Edmonds seems to consider the 1923 elections to the Constituent Assembly as the culminating moment in a

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series of steps supposed to turn the amorphous idea of an Iraqi state into reality. The elections were meant to reinforce support for the treaty signed some months earlier with Britain, formalizing Iraq’s creation by seeking the approval of the population. It meant, in fact, the first official attempt to consolidate the grounds for the ratification of Iraq’s invention as a modern state. Existence as a modern state required unity and the relinquishment of divisiveness for the sake of nation-building. In this context, Kirkuk emerges again as an example of resistance to newly created frames of allegiance. Measuring the advantages and disadvantages of becoming ‘Iraqis’, the Kirkuklis conditioned their participation in the elections on the safeguard of their cultural, linguistic, and administrative rights. The choice to become Iraqis and fulfil the condition put forth by the government to participate in the elections would mean the adoption of new personal and collective frames of allegiance that did not count much yet for the inhabitants of Iraq’s northern provinces. This condition became, in fact, a two-edged sword, preventing many from taking part in the process. A de jure acceptance of Iraqi nationality meant, for the majority of Kurds and Turkmen, the relinquishment of their own identity and involuntary participation in a process of cultural assimilation. The limited (and monitored) participation of the local population in the electoral process did not prevent the annexation of the northern districts to Iraq, however.16 The idea of an Iraqi nation was not a reflection of the realities in the villages and towns in the northern areas (excluding the town of Mosul and its Arab Muslim population). Nor was it the outcome of tighter bonds created by technical progress and economic development. On the contrary, it was its political implementation that generated an economic response and cultural resistance. It was Baghdad’s increasing political influence and economic appeal that changed the axis of resistance to the new state. The idea of administrative autonomy was abandoned after the reoccupation of Sulaymaniyya by Iraqi troops in 1924, putting an end of Shaykh Mahmud’s autonomous utopia. Britain’s indecisive policies of promoting and overturning local leaders, such as Shaykh Mahmud, in accordance with its own shifting interests propelled more pragmatic elements to the fore, among them those who believed in the advantages to be derived from an economic merger with Baghdad. But, it was Baghdad that had the most to gain from the incorporation of Mosul in Iraq’s economy, and not the other way around. Mosul could have easily found other markets for its products (wheat, rice, and tobacco), whereas Baghdad could hardly survive economically without Mosul. But again, political reasons weighed more heavily than economic ones. The political pressure exerted on Sulaymaniyya by the British authorities brought its notables to finally accept Mosul’s annexation to Iraq. ‘Sulaimaniya has struck the decisive blow in the fight for the preservation of Iraq and knows it’, Edmonds reported in March 1925.17 The process of Iraq’s invention had now been completed.

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Although dealing little with the problems of the Shi‘i south during the years he spent in the northern districts, Edmonds points out in his writings the differences between the Kurds and the Shi‘is in their relations with the Iraqi state. The chicken-and-egg question of whether national identity takes precedence over nationalism per se (doctrine and movement) or vice versa18 could also serve to frame the case of Iraq’s Shi‘is. Although identified with the Arab dimension of a nascent Iraqi identity, Iraq’s Shi‘is reacted to the Sunnis’ ideological and political dominance and monolithic view of Iraq’s nationalism. The cracks in the SunniShi‘i collaboration that had bestowed upon Iraq’s national movement the legitimacy of a cross-sectarian political leadership had grown deeper already and claims regarding a Shi‘i-British alliance that would have made possible the creation of an autonomous Shi‘i territory in southern Iraq were heard again in the late 1920s.19 The differences between Shi‘is and Kurds in their support of, or antagonism toward, the state were as much of form as of substance.20 But all in all, after the announcement, in 1930, of Iraq’s forthcoming independence the Shi‘is saw their integration into the state as a natural corollary of their common Arab roots with the Sunnis. This was not the case with the Kurds, however. Ethnic and linguistic differences made them question, at this late stage of state formation, the very validity of their becoming a part of a predominantly Arab state. Edmonds was not in favour of returning Mosul and its Kurdush population to Turkey, however. The Kurds should be included in Iraq on equal terms and not as ‘semi-Arabized provincials’, he explained in 1929. Among the measures he recommended was the inclusion of Kurdish symbols on the Iraqi flag, the formation of a Kurdish squadron as part of the Royal Body Guard, and the creation of a translation bureau to find equivalent terms in the Kurdish language to those used in Arabic official jargon.21 The idea was to preserve the symbols of Kurdish identity but prevent the expansion of nationalism drawing mainly from the linguistic criterion, which could not, in his view, provide enough reason to upset political arrangements.22 Edmonds’ recommendations fell on deaf ears, however. Sati‘ al-Husri, then director of education, saw in uniformity of language the very tools for promoting identification with the Arab nation in general and the Iraqi state in particular.23 The romanticization of language, especially the language of the politically dominant group—an idea imported from European nationalist movements—was hardly an adequate response to the mosaic-like ethnic and linguistic diversity of Iraq’s northern provinces. In fact, turning language into a political issue misfired. Instead of creating ‘the nationwide field of exchange and communication’, seen as a sine qua non condition for a flourishing national identity,24 Husri watched as the language issue developed into the very core of ethnic and cultural resistance to the state. The attempt to introduce Arabic as the official vernacular in the administration of the northern provinces turned the language issue into the dominant point of discordance in the political negotiations between Arabs, Turkmen, and Kurds. The Kurds began relating to their language as the very core of national existence

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and requested that it become the official vernacular in all public offices. Edmonds, himself a linguist, stood firmly for a policy designating Surani as the official dialect in Iraq’s Kurdish areas, as well as the literary language to be used in schools, cultural centres, and tribunals. His close knowledge of the language served him in the preparation of the first Kurdish grammar, in collaboration with Tawfiq Wahbi, the leading Kurdish intellectual. The importance of imposing one dialect as the official one stemmed from the need to find a common denominator whose importance was as much political as cultural. The Kurdish language, spoken in the area spreading from Lake Urmiya to the Great Zab, was then roughly divided into several dialects. Kurdi (or Surani) and Kirmanji, the dialects spoken in southern and northern Kurdistan, respectively, were the main divisions. Kurdi was then subdivided into Mukri and Ardelani. Among other subdivisions, one could find Hawrani, a dialect spoken in a small and mountainous area southeast of Sulaymaniyya. Hawrani held a special religious and cultural significance as the language spoken by most Naqshabandi shaykhs and used by the nineteenth-century Kurdish poets originating from the area. Edmonds’ emphasis on the need to unify the Kurdish language by turning Surani into the official dialect in southern Kurdistan was meant to establish Kurdish on the same footing as Arabic and to dismiss the government’s attempts to undermine its political importance. Edmonds was also the first scholar to transcribe Kurdish into Latin characters, as no Kurdish alphabet existed. He believed it was important to use the Latin alphabet in order to distinguish Kurdish from the area’s two dominant vernaculars, Arabic and Persian. The government’s reaction to these initiatives was to uphold ad absurdum its refusal to permit the transcription of Kurdish into Latin characters. Among others, it stood firmly against the transcription of the aspirant variants of R and L by marking a dot below the R and above the L. ‘How the inclusion of two dots or even fifty dots could prejudice the Iraqi state, it is difficult to conceive’, Edmonds commented in June 1929.25 Defying the then current theories of romantic nationalism, Edmonds punctuated his accounts with clear and clever remarks drawn from contemporary Kurdish sources and the local press.26 He offers a different version of the episodes, myths, events, and experiments that shaped the Kurds’ self-awareness as a distinct group, though he remains objective in his analysis of the reasons for their political failures. In his examination of the period prior to the First World War, he refers to the Young Turks’ revolution as the ‘Big Bang’ for three national movements: Turkish, Arab, and Kurdish. He stresses, however, that not all ethnic national groups could attempt to reach statehood. While personally accepting as legitimate the Kurds’ appeal for the preservation of their cultural distinctiveness, Edmonds’ actions echoed the British official position, namely, doubt that an autonomous Kurdish state was feasible once the postwar rearrangement had been set in motion. The emergence of a Kurdish state would not just threaten Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, but, in the long

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run, it would affect Britain’s hegemonic position in the area. The political aspirations of the Kurds, as of other ethnic and cultural groups, were then subordinated to Britain’s main interests in the area: stability in the Gulf and protection of the aerial corridor linking London to Delhi. This scheme, based on Iraq’s territorial integrity, weighed more than the political aspirations of the Kurds, Assyrians, and Turkmen. Those groups should stick to their cultural, linguistic, and religious distinctiveness but conform to the idea of modern citizenship, comprising loyalty to the Iraqi state and its institutions. The contradictions were hard to circumvent, however. Although he refuted the idea of a Kurdish state, Edmonds also realized that neither Iraq nor other existing states would be able to contain a growing Kurdish nationalism.27 Iraq especially would never be able to subjugate its Kurdish population. The only viable solution was to develop the idea of a common citizenship that would contain the seeds of a future Arab-Kurdish cooperation and hopefully prevent Iraq’s disintegration. Edmonds’ recommendations on the Kurdish question were shelved by his superiors without ever affecting Britain’s policy in Iraq during the first two decades of state-building. Transferred to Baghdad in the mid-1930s, Edmonds was able to follow other contradictions in Iraq’s internal and external policies more closely. From his description of the events preceding the 1936 Bakr Sidqi-Hikmat Sulayman coup (that set new norms regarding the intervention of the military in Iraqi politics), one could appraise the still influential position of the British ambassador (and in his absence, of Edmonds himself) as the mediator among the different forces— the politicians, the king, the army, and the tribes—in Iraq’s political arena.28 Edmonds’ reports also remain essential to understanding the parameters of Iraqi politics in the years that followed. Marked by an assertive Pan-Arabism, by growing German and Italian influence, and by the decline of Britain’s position, the late 1930s are described in his reports in all their textures and colours. As a barometer of these changes stood the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husayni. Exiled to Iraq and presented as a symbol of anti-British resistance, the mufti became instrumental in forging the anti-British campaign in the Iraqi press and official radio broadcasts.29 His increasing influence, as compared to Britain’s decline, is illustrated with a little humour. After seeing the mufti taking the place normally reserved for the British ambassador, Edmonds remarked to a leading Iraqi politician: ‘Conceal your love for me [if you wish], but why [do you have] to push me off the roof ?’30 He thought the Iraqis should maintain at least the appearance of the British ambassador’s predominant position in the country. By the same token, the chain of events leading to the 1941 crisis is depicted in accounts of the personal dimensions in Iraq’s politics. The quarrels between the main figures of the time weighed as much as matters of substance. Mutual distrust between Rashid ‘Ali al-Kaylani and the regent contributed to an escalation of tensions that led to the Anglo-Iraqi crisis as much as did differing opinions on the degree of compliance toward Britain’s military presence on Iraq’s territory in times of war. By 1941, the mistrust towards Britain had grown

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to a point of no return. ‘Anglo-Iraq relations, internal order, everything is in the melting pot’,31 Rashid ‘Ali explained to Edmonds in February 1941. He detailed for Edmonds the reasons that would eventually lead him to oust the regent and rise to power with the support of the ‘Golden Square’32—the four generals who shared his ambiguity toward Iraq’s duty to fulfil the treaty’s main clauses. The debate focused then mainly on Britain’s right to use Iraq’s ports, aerodromes, and other means of communications in times of war, an issue that had gained importance after Germany’s victories in North Africa and Greece. Seeing Britain’s request as an infringement of Iraq’s rights to independence as outlined in the treaty and its annexes,33 Rashid ‘Ali opted for a confrontation with Britain, thereby turning the Anglo-Iraqi equation upside down. The military confrontation that followed, the encircling of the British Embassy, and the armistice of May 1941 were vividly described in Edmonds’ letter to Britain’s new ambassador to Baghdad (and his personal friend), Sir Kinahan Cornwallis.34 With the sound of the protests against British troops marching in the direction of Baghdad’s North Station still echoing in his ears, Edmonds exposes his own views on the need to restore the population’s confidence in Britain’s intentions: [We must] redress the bias in the Iraqi press, purge the army and the nationalist associations (the Muthana and the Hidaya Islamiya) from their extremist elements, reform the educational system, and implement a strong policy without taking direct control of the country.35 The real remedy, however, would be to redress the imbalance between Baghdad and the provinces and to reassess the principle of Sunni hegemony over the Shi‘is and Kurds. Fully recognizing that Britain’s policy of indirect control (based on tacit support of the Sunnis) had misfired, Edmonds tried to persuade his superiors to reassess their approach of creating a political balance between Baghdad and the provinces. Britain’s interests in the area could only be safeguarded by promoting stability and a power equilibrium between Iraq’s main groups. In Edmonds’ view the only remedy to Iraq’s political extremism on one hand, and to the separatist tendencies on the other, would lie in improving the situation in the provinces. Education, economic development, and social services were the palliatives to claims for autonomy heard again in Kurdish and Shi‘i areas. The Kurds now conditioned their attachment to Iraq not just on the implementation of their former linguistic, cultural, and administrative claims, but also on the extension of economic rights. In the manifesto issued in July 1941 and referred to as ‘The Six Points of 16 June’,36 Shaykh Mahmud and Hajji Abbas Agha (the brother of Babkr-i-Selim Agha, the irredentist leader of the Pizhdar that threatened Ko’i and Surdash) overcame their personal differences and drew up a list of conditions to be fulfilled by the government in exchange for their support of the newly appointed Midfa‘i cabinet. These conditions included

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judicial rights (the president of the law court was to be a Kurd), creation of an armed Kurdish force (and closing Kurdish areas to government troops), and tight control of the tobacco trade, the main agricultural product of the area.37 Edmonds also pointed out the reasons for Shi‘i discontent. In fact, Shi‘i resentment was derived from more complex causes. In addition to their previous claims on the need to reform the taxation system and judicial apparatus (by legitimizing the Ja‘farite—that is Twelve Shi‘i—school of jurisprudence followed by Iraq’s Shi‘is), they felt now, more than ever, threatened by the longterm implications of a state apparatus that was secular in form but Sunni in content. For the Shi‘is, cultural distinctiveness did not stem from ethnic and linguistic differences as in the case of the Kurds and other groups. Their zeal for Arab language and literature (cherished in the religious seminars of Najaf and Karbala) reflected their pride in their Arab roots and identity. They felt threatened, however, by the Sunni dimension of Iraq’s militant nationalism and their possible diminished influence in a united Pan-Arab state. The polarization of positions that followed the 1941 crisis highlighted the divergences tearing apart Iraq’s main communities and the contradictory tendencies permeating the process of state formation. Edmonds’ reports show that the more the state-building process (and its theoretical foundations) was imposed upon different groups in Iraq’s population, the more they grew apart. They also reveal an inverse correlation between national mobilization (through compulsory education and economic development) and cultural assimilation. The reports were, in this sense, quite unique, proving that the study of ethnic and cultural groups in the context of a newly created—or invented—national process is as fluid as the process itself. They also differ from other historiographic experiments whose dating of the past is tantamount to the work of an archaeological mission. In it, the numbering of layers and decoding of inscriptions bring to the fore a static and motionless sample of past glory, hardly reflecting the changes created by the process itself. Edmonds’ reports are pervaded with motion and movement as they show how invented nations ‘can be modeled, adapted and transformed’.38 Edmonds also demonstrates the dynamics between human groups and their tendency to change, ‘sometimes quite radically in their own estimation’.39 In this flux of events, history is reassessed, principles reset, and decisions reconsidered. When reviewing the effects and after-effects of the crisis that epitomized the contradiction in Iraq’s society, Edmonds suggests that ‘the best remedy…would be a return to the old system of vilayets—of which Iraq could be conveniently divided into five’.40 ‘Only when the internal health of Iraq has been restored— and not before—will it be time to begin thinking of adventures further afield.’41 Was the ‘reinvention’ of Iraq so suggested? Or will Iraq be doomed to reinvent itself until a real workable solution can be found? Edmonds’ final remarks appear then as a point of departure to more concrete political arrangements, in which the nature of Iraq’s divisions would be better understood, comprehensively addressed, and hopefully remediated.42

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NOTES 1. Ernest Gellner, Thought and Change (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964), p. 169. 2. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London and New York: Verso, 1983). 3. Ibid., pp. 73, 75. 4. Anthony D.Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986). 5. Elie Kedourie, Nationalism, 4th edn (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994), pp. 9, 140–1. 6. Majid Khadduri, Independent Iraq, 1932–1958: a Study in Iraqi Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960); Peter Sluglett, Britain in Iraq 1914–1932 (London: Ithaca Press, 1976); Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1985); Reeva Simon, Iraq Between the Two World Wars: the Creation and Implementation of a National Ideology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). 7. Abbas Kelidar (ed.), The Integration of Modern Iraq (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1979); Abbas Kelidar, ‘Iraq: the Search for Stability’, Conflict Studies, 59 (London, 1975); Elie Kedourie, ‘The Kingdom of Iraq: a Retrospect’, in Elie Kedourie, The Chatham House Version and Other Essays, 3rd edn (London and Hanover: University Press of New England, 1970), pp. 236–85. 8. Walker Connor, ‘Nation Building or Nation Destroying?’, World Politics, 24 (April 1972), pp. 319–55, reproduced in W.Connor, Ethnonationalism: the Quest for Understanding (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). 9. C.J.Edmonds, Kurds, Turks and Arabs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957). 10. The commission was composed of Colonel A.Paulis, a retired Belgian officer, M.de Wirsen, the Swedish Minister to Bucharest, and Count Paul Teleki, a famous geographer and a previous prime minister of Hungary. 11. Edmonds, Kurds, Turks and Arabs, p. 116. 12. Ibid., pp. 266, 302–4; C.J.Edmonds Papers, Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford (hereafter: EP), Box 1, C.J.Edmonds to Cornwallis, letters June 1923, 2 July 1923, 22 October 1923 and 26 October 1923. 13. Liora Lukitz, Iraq: the Search for National Security (London: Frank Cass, 1995), pp. 38–40. 14. See ibid., passim. 15. The Cairo Conference was summoned by Sir Winston Churchill, then the Colonial Secretary, to reset the principles of Britain's post-First World War policy in the Middle East. 16. Lukitz, Iraq, pp. 43, 44. 17. EP, Box 1, D579 9K, Diary no. 3, by Liaison Officer, 22 Feb., and 3 March 1925. 18. Kedourie, Nationalism, p. 141. 19. UK, Public Record Office (PRO), Air Ministry Records, Air 23/106, Intelligence Report, 26 Nov. 1927; Air 23/432, Report no. 1/1896, 31 Dec. 1927; and Air 23/ 105, pt. 3, no. l/N/25, Oct. 1927. 20. Lukitz, Iraq, pp. 63, 64. 21. EP, Note on the Kurdish Question, 1925, ‘The Kurdish Question’, 2 June 1929. 22. See Kedourie, Nationalism, pp. 62–7.

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23. Sati‘ al-Husri, Mudhakkirati fi al-’Iraq [My Memoirs in Iraq] (Beirut: Dar alTali’a, 1967), vol. I, pp. 105–11; vol. II, p. 340. 24. Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 47. 25. EP, ‘The Kurdish Question’, June 1929. 26. EP, JRCAS, vol. 12, 1925. ‘A Kurdish Newspaper Rozh-i-Kurdistan’. 27. EP, Edmonds to C.A.Hooper (Ministry of Justice), 16 March 1929. 28. EP, Box 3, File 1, DS70.92, Narrative of Events, 29 Oct. 1936. 29. EP, Box 2, File 3, Letters, Edmonds to Cornwallis, 4 Oct. 1940, 5 Oct. 1940. 30. Ibid. and letter, Edmonds to B. Newton, 3 Feb. 1941. 31. EP, Box 2, File 3, letter, Edmonds to B.Newton, 3 Feb. 1941. 32. Salah al-Din al Sabbagh, Kamil Shabib, Fahmi Sa’id and Mahmud Salman. 33. Lukitz, Iraq, pp. 96–100. 34. EP, Box 2, File 3, Edmonds to Cornwallis, 6 June 1941. 35. EP, Letter (Most Secret), Edmonds to Cornwallis, 12 July 1941. 36. Lukitz, Iraq, p. 124. 37. EP, PS no. 104, 25 June 1941. The tobacco trade suffered from the government’s inability to keep up with the marketing of the product and with the financial needs of agriculture. Although a law reforming the government’s monopoly on the trade had been passed in 1934 and implemented in 1939, no real improvement had yet been felt. 38. Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 129. 39. Elie Kedourie, ‘Ethnic Majority and Minority in the Middle East’, in M.Esman and I.Rabinovich (eds), Ethnicity, Pluralism and the State (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 26 (25–31). 40. EP, Letter, Edmonds to Cornwallis (Most Secret), 12 July 1941. 41. Ibid. 42. Professor Elie Kedourie stressed the importance of C.J.Edmonds’ papers to understanding Iraq’s internal politics. After completing my doctoral dissertation (in which Edmonds’ papers served as an important source) Professor Kedourie persuaded me that a special article on these papers should be written. I can now devote the time this project deserves. I dedicate this chapter to Professor Kedourie, as a posthumous homage, regretting the absence of his valuable comments and unique observations. The chapter was written while I was in the United States as a H.F.Guggenheim Fellow. I would like to express my gratitude to Diane Ring, librarian at the Middle East Centre at Oxford, for her invaluable help in retrieving cross-reference material.

8 Nahhas, the Arab League, and the Postwar Order: a Reinterpretation ERAN LERMAN

Recent events have served to remind us that the Arab League—as an instrument of (mostly) Egyptian policy, put together in 1944–5—is still very much with us, at least as a sounding board for Arab controversies. It may have had little or no effect on the level of economic, social, and cultural integration among its member states, nor has political integration of its components come any nearer than it was half a century ago. Its prospects of evolution along European lines are remote, at best. Yet it has retained the power to draw member states towards certain common pursuits—above all, in the field of international politics (such as joint Arab positions on Iraq, Libya or Israeli policy)—a trait perhaps best understood if a fresh interpretation is offered of the specific circumstances of its birth. Over the years two contradictory suggestions have been offered as to the forces and purposes that brought about the establishment of the League. To many early commentators—not least, to ardent Zionist advocates eager to see an evil British hand behind the slogans of Arab unity—it seemed all too natural to assume that the machinations set in motion by Nuri Sa‘id, and later brought to fruition by Mustafa al-Nahhas, two obvious lackeys of the scheming Foreign Office, could best be understood as a British device. It was, after all, Anthony Eden’s open statements that His Majesty’s Government would welcome some form of Arab unity (in his Mansion House speech of 29 May 1941, and even more directly, in his parliamentary answer of February 1943) which began the chain of events that culminated in the Alexandria Conference.1 Nuri Sa‘id was universally seen as a British instrument, brought back to power when Kaylani’s pro-Axis uprising was suppressed in 1941. As for Nahhas, he had been reinstated as the prime minister of Egypt, against King Faruq’s will, through the forceful— as was commonly known even at the time—British intervention known as the ‘Abdin incident of 4 February 1942 and forcibly kept in power over two dramatic crises in 1943 and 1944. Nahhas was also the driving force behind the final stage of inter-Arab negotiations in the summer and autumn of 1944, therefore it must have been London’s orders that he had been carrying out. This facile assumption was later picked up by a new generation of Arab nationalists, in whose eyes the League was but a poor substitute for the Nasserist ‘real thing’—a unified Arab state. Hence the assumption that Nahhas, a servant of British imperialism like all too many of his fellow politicians in ‘the days of

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the Pashas’, had acted to thwart real unity, or at least to divert the people’s true revolutionary impulse towards channels more acceptable to his masters. Unfortunately, these elegant explanations did not survive the exposure to more demanding methods of historical inquiry—namely, any reading at all (to paraphrase Professor Kedourie’s well-known dictum) of what one (British) clerk wrote to another at the time. Once Foreign Office records for the war period came under professional scrutiny, it was no longer possible to argue in favour of a British conspiracy theory, when none could be found in the relevant files. In fact, it quickly became quite evident that British officialdom did not look kindly upon Nahhas’ efforts to rush ‘Arab Unity’ through, in the summer of 1944. Among the least friendly of all was the very man who had brought Nahhas to power, and saw the alliance with the Wafd almost as a personal asset in his struggle to retain the British position in Egypt, namely the British Ambassador Lord Killearn (formerly Sir Miles Lampson). Even those British officials in London and in Cairo who did support the notion of pan-Arabism, did not envisage Egypt as an integral part thereof. The schemes presented to the Cabinet’s Middle East (Official) Committee—ranging from that of the high commissioner for Palestine, Harold McMichael, for a limited version of unity in greater Syria, to a fanciful design suggested by the classical Arabic scholar (and wartime planner) Professor H.A.R.Gibb, recasting the Arab world into 12 new and federated subunits—were all confined in scope and vision to the socalled Arab Mashriq (East), that is, the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile Crescent. Much the same was true for the ideas entertained by the ‘orientalist’ professionals in Cairo—Sir Walter Smart and Brigadier Clayton’s intelligence staff. Nahhas’ energetic pursuit, in 1942–4, of the prospect of Arab unity was, thus, due almost entirely to his own initiatives and purposes.2 Why, then, did Nahhas commit himself so firmly to this undertaking, to the point of incurring the wrath of his British benefactors? With the revision of Egyptian historiography in the post-Nasserist era came also a reassessment of the role played by Nahhas and his generation— suddenly rediscovered, as in Tawfiq al-Hakim’s ‘Awdat al-Wa’i [Regaining Consciousness], to have been good patriots after all. In fact, he was more committed to the Egyptian nationalist agenda than Nasser, who gave up the Sudan and accepted the terms of the 1954 agreement with the British, which allowed British forces to re-enter in an emergency. It was now suggested that this held, as well, for the purposes behind the Arab League. If the evidence, indeed, seemed to suggest that by pushing it through, Nahhas actually antagonized his British allies, this could serve to prove that he was in fact acting in the best interests of the Arabs, as broadly defined. Ahmed Gomaa’s ground-breaking work on the origins of the League—the first to make ample use of the records of Nahhas’ consultations with the Arab states in 1943–44 (available in the Public Records Office, due to the fact that almost everything of importance regularly reached the British authorities in Cairo)— falls firmly within this category.3

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As for Yehoshua Porath, in his exhaustive and almost definitive study of these events he offers a subtler and more nuanced version of Nahhas’ motives. He does not necessarily attribute it to a personal or ideological commitment to Arab unity, but rather to the need to put together a political response to growing pressures at home, orchestrated by the king and the Wafd’s rivals. While the issue of Egyptian purposes is not central to Porath’s main line of argument, the thrust of his explanation is clearly focused on the domestic challenge posed by King Faruq’s open support for the firm pan-Arabist stands taken by ’Abd alRahman ‘Azzam, Muhammad ‘Ali ‘Aluba, and other vocal protagonists of the cause.4 Therein lies the problem. In order to argue, as Porath does, that at the crucial moment—early June 1944—Nahhas ignored Killearn’s explicit demand to slow down, because he was overwhelmed by domestic pressures, one is required to accept, at least implicitly, two problematic propositions: that by that time, Arabism had become enough of a force in Egyptian political discourse so as to dominate public opinion; and that public opinion, as such, was sufficiently important for Nahhas and the Wafd so as to drive their Arab policy. The realities of political life in Cairo during this period do not fully conform with these implicit assumptions. To begin with, gaining and retaining power in Egypt was not simply a function of public support. The Wafd took its position as a majority party very much for granted, and its political struggle with the palace took place in the context of the ‘three-legged stool’ —the power play between the Wafd, the king, and the British—rather than in the ballot boxes (in fact, almost all election results during Egypt’s parliamentary period were largely predetermined by the party already in power). Some highly emotional issues— such as Egyptian ‘national aspirations’, al-Gala’ (British evacuation), and unity of the Nile valley (annexation of the Sudan)—could indeed be used by the parties out of power to agitate against the government, and so (indirectly) induce the British to replace it. But was Arabism, at the time, equally effective as a mobilizing issue? Again, the evidence does not support the image of a widespread wave of popular pan-Arabism. ‘Egyptians’, observed Professor Heyworthe-Dunne in November 1943, ‘are not Arabs’.5 This assessment of the basic Egyptian identity, as it presented itself to scholars and intelligence officers at the time, was regularly reiterated in most reports; and while it may well have been in flux—as Gershoni has shown in his study of intellectual trends6—it was certainly far from settled at the time of Nahhas’ crucial action. Some Egyptians were indeed already committed to the pan-Arab idea, and came to believe, in the words of Mustafa Amin (at the time, editor of al-Ithnayn, an opposition newspaper)— writing in January 1943 –that ‘the Arab Empire [al-imbaraturiyya al ‘Arabiyya] is the only way to secure our political existence’.7 His was not, however, the overriding impression of well-qualified observers, even at a later date. Relations between Arab Asia and Egypt, wrote Albert Hourani in March 1943, ‘rest mainly on mutual contempt’. Walter Smart, in a memorandum warning against religious

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and political reactions in Egypt if a pro-Zionist policy would be adopted in Palestine, nevertheless conceded that the Egyptians, ‘probably amongst the most insular people in the world’, neither belonged to nor cared for the Arabs: ‘They regard the Arabs as uncivilized, and the Arabs regard them as degenerate.’8 Allied intelligence services were inclined to agree. ‘Despite the interest in Arab affairs professed by some’, wrote an American intelligence officer in July 1943, ‘the mass of the Egyptians feel little interest in political developments in the Asiatic Arab lands. In this respect there is greater interest in Uganda [claimed by some Egyptians as a potential part of the “Unity of the Nile Valley” than in Palestine.’ It would be as Muslims, not as Arabs, he added, that they would respond to an outbreak of violence threatening the Holy Places.9 What of the Wafdist leadership itself? Amin ‘Uthman, Nahhas’ righthand man and go-between with the British Embassy (murdered in 1946 by Anwar al-Sadat and other members of Faruq’s ‘Iron Guard’—a secret ring of officers working to eliminate the king’s enemies), readily assured Killearn—in the summer of 1943 —that Arab unity was ‘considerable nonsense’, and Egypt was a Muslim, not an Arab, country. Killearn agreed.10 As for Nahhas himself, British friends of the pan-Arab movement, such as Freya Stark and Colonel Newcombe, found him to be quite ignorant about Arab affairs and devoid of any real commitment to the vision of unity, beyond Vapid generalities’.11 Little wonder that committed panArabists such as Azzam (who later became the League’s first secretarygeneral) were quick to argue that the role played by Nahhas and Nuri gave the entire venture a ‘semi-bogus nature’ and a ‘Made in England’ stamp.12 Early on, they went as far as to send an opposition journalist to Lebanon to argue against acceptance of Nahhas’ plans.13 This was not simply a question of different degrees of commitment or enthusiasm: Nahhas’ purposes were indeed at variance with those of ‘Azzam and other Egyptian pan-Arabists. While they suspected (British-inspired) foul play, the bulk of the evidence seems to indicate that Nahhas was, in fact, engaged in an entirely different game. For him the Arab unity gambit was an instrument, not a purpose in itself. His interests were not focused on what would nowadays be called ‘identity politics’, and even less so on regional concerns. His actions (and those of the Arab League as created by him) can best be understood in the context of his vision for Egypt’s role in the emerging postwar world order. In the dense and complex transactions of Cairo (or Alexandria, at summertime), ‘World politics’ was Egyptian politics. Partisan intrigues were regularly designed to gain London’s attention, and bring the empire’s power to bear upon one’s rivals. Where the British stood in the international pecking order —also known as the ‘world order’—was thus a question of great practical importance for Egyptian politicians. Up until the battle of al-’Alamayn, the determining external factor, which cast a long shadow over domestic Egyptian affairs, was the uncertain outcome of the war. While Shaykh al-Azhar is reputed to have said of the general Egyptian interest in the Second World War that ‘la gamal lana fiha wa-la na’qa [we have neither a he nor a she-camel in it]’,14

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individual players did in fact take sides—not least the king himself, whose grudge against Killearn (as well as the influence of the palace coterie of Italian servants and pimps) had led him to the verge of pro-Axis conspiracies. Nahhas, on the other hand, had taken his stand with the British and the democracies, and now hoped to reap the reward—perhaps even lure London into a direct confrontation with the young and arrogant monarch on the Wafd’s behalf. With Rommel no longer at the gates, the international power game, as reflected in Egyptian politics, took a new form, namely, speculations and manoeuvres focused on the postwar peace conference. This notion had a specific resonance for the Egyptian political classes. The Wafd itself, as its name implied, began as a self-appointed group of delegates to the 1919 peace conference in Versailles, who were never allowed to participate in it. Now firmly in power, the party had no intention of being left out this time. It is in this context that Nahhas’ Arab policy should be reassessed. In fact, Nahhas never even pretended to become an ‘Arab nationalist’, in the sense of submerging Egypt’s identity within a wider Arab ‘nation’. What he set out to achieve—and indeed succeeded in bringing about— was rather limited and well defined from the start. He spoke in the plural. The day would come, he told the Wafd congress in November 1943, when Egypt, ‘à la tête la tête des nations Arabes [emphasis added], et aux côtés de son allié Britannique et des autres pays démocratiques et libéraux, would take her rightful place in the world community.15 This implied, in turn, an image of formal Egyptian participation in the postwar discussions which would redefine the global order. The notion that this world war, even more so than that of 1914–18, would lead to such a redefinition, had been clearly stated before. The war, Nahhas had said in March 1942, was not unlike a worldwide revolution.16 By implication, ‘the Democracies’ were expected to restructure the global order—once they had won the war—in a revolutionary manner; Nahhas, having been brought to power to secure Egypt (politically) for the Allied cause, closely identified himself with this expectation. ‘The English’, he reportedly stated on the eve of the 4 February incident, ‘had entered this war for the sake of democracy, and the Wafd is the majority [party]. The English want democracy here, and democracy means—Nahhas!’17 But what would the Allied victory mean? The answers varied with the political interests involved. Belief in the ultimate victory of the democratic powers over fascism was by no means confined to the Wafdist leadership; perhaps the sharpest arguments in favour of identification with the Allies, even to the point of declaring war on the Axis, came from the Sa’dist Party, which split from the Wafd in 1937 and joined the palace-backed coalition of minority parties, while still laying claim to the true spirit of Sa‘d Zaghlul, the Wafd’s founder.18 For them, as for other Egyptian nationalists, the remembrance of the aftermath of the previous Great War—and of Egypt’s own 1919—heightened their sense of anticipation and opportunity. Yet in political terms, for Nahhas as for his rivals, such expectations were no longer simply a matter of reviving the tactics of popular mobilization used by Zaghlul at the time. Over the years the

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British Embassy had become the necessary arbiter in the long-running feud between the Wafd and the palace, and the ability to manipulate London became central to the Egyptian political game. It was, therefore, vital for all parties to present themselves as authorized, or entitled, to speak in Egypt’s name to the Great Powers—and vice versa, to interpret into the Egyptian political context the Allies’ projects for a new world order. The degree of any party’s ability to ‘work’ the postwar ‘peace conference’ (which ultimately did not take place as planned) was, thus, assumed to be the key to future political survival. British officials had reasons of their own to discuss their visions for the postwar order with their Egyptian interlocutors. The evolution of British postwar strategic requirements rests largely outside the scope of this chapter. In terms of their impact on Egyptian thinking, their most significant aspect was the inherent contradiction between these requirements and the familiar set of Egyptian ‘national aspirations’, such as full evacuation of all British forces. (In fact, some British planners felt that the lessons of the war made it necessary to ask for a larger military presence in Egypt—certainly not to agree to its elimination.) Hence the systematic effort to ‘educate’ the Egyptians to the ‘fact’ that in the postwar world, nationalism (i.e., their national ambitions) would be superseded by notions of ‘responsibility’, international cooperation and regional security. The Egyptians already knew, however, that such features of the postwar order would not be determined by the British alone. The joint Anglo-American declaration of 14 August 1941–known as the Atlantic Charter—offered some general indications of what the postwar order might be (with an emphasis on the liberation of subjugated nations). It thus came to be seen, early on, as an indication of the extent of American influence over these issues. Echoes of the previous postwar situation, namely, of Wilson’s pronouncements on selfdetermination, and their impact on the revolution of 1919, informed the emerging debate over the shape of things to come. Almost immediately after the British breakthrough in al-‘Alamayn, which for many Egyptians already seemed to determine the course of the war, Husayn Haykal (the well-known writer and leader of the Liberal-Constitutionalist Party) and other senators initiated a debate in the Upper Chamber on Egypt’s role in establishing the rules of the ‘organization of the world’, in conformity with the Atlantic Charter.19 It quickly became, as might have been expected, another vehicle for a heated exposition of Egypt’s national aspirations, and drew a derisive reaction from London. It did reflect, however, an increasingly lively interest in the issues of world reconstruction and reorganization. Both al-Hilal and al-Ithnayn dedicated much attention to postwar questions, and so did many other newspapers and periodicals. Wafdists, Sa‘dists, Liberals, independents; politicians, writers and journalists—all offered their views, and in some cases, even revealed a willingness to reexamine nationalist principles. Zaghlul’s nephew, Bahi al-Din Barakat, went so far as to warn against the destructive potential of the principle of self-determination (as implied in Hitler’s claim to every German-speaking territory), and predicted the rise of large and

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diverse coalitions, based on ideology and economic affinity.20 A similar look beyond the nationalist phase—cast in more ambiguous terms—was to be found in the writings of ‘Abbas Mahmud al-‘Aqqad. The latter’s eloquent attacks on Hitler (Hitler fi al-Mizan, 1941), as well as on Mussolini and the fascist system, served to bolster the Sa‘dists’ commitment to help pursue the war. Significantly, ‘Aqqad wove into his argument a vision of postwar transnational loyalties and of future cooperation among sovereign states. Other intellectuals— writing, like ’Aqqad, in al-Hilal—went further and depicted global solidarity, international human brotherhood, perhaps even a world state.21 What would Egypt’s role be in this scheme of things? Hifni Mahmud, an independent-minded Liberal-Constitutionalist (brother of the late party leader, Muhammad Mahmud), warned against the common assumption that Egypt could pretend to any leading role in the new global order. But such sobriety was rare. Rather more typical was a statement by Nash’at, Egypt’s ambassador in London, to the effect that the tasks of postwar reconstruction could not be achieved without Egypt’s involvement—and by implication, that such necessary contributions would entitle her to an equal place in the community of victorious allies.22 Thus, side by side with the transnationalist interpretation of the Atlantic Charter, Egyptian politicians put forward a nationalist agenda. Some phrases in the charter offered a prospect of independence to all nations alike. The Wafd seized upon this and sent in November 1943 an ardent letter to Eden and his American counterpart, Hull. The charter, the Wafd asserted, was ‘pour l’Occident, comme pour l’Orient, pour le Nouveau Monde, comme pour l’Ancien, le message solennel des temps nouveaux’.23 Similar views were held by the opposition parties. The inclination to impose upon the charter a ‘Wilsonian’ aspect was assessed by the US Legation to be a widespread Egyptian faith. In fact US Minister in Cairo Pinkney Tuck grew worried that unrealistic hopes were being pinned upon his country’s role in the postwar settlement, and saw fit to remind the Egyptians that Secretary of State Hull—on 23 July 1942—had made US support for other nations’ freedom ‘contingent upon their worthiness and preparation therefore’.24 Tuck’s caveat was bound to vindicate those Egyptians who already harboured grave doubts as to the Great Powers’ real intentions. Egypt had endorsed the charter, complained Ruz al-Yusuf in April 1944, on the hope that it would be ‘an important step in amending international politics in favour of the smaller nations’. This no longer seemed certain. The Sa‘dists’ leader, Ahmad Mahir, offered a similar thought at about the same time: ‘1’avenir est plutot sombre pour les petits etats’. The writer Taha Husayn offered a polite comment, to the effect that the charter, like a lamp, shone through only in settled weather. King Faruq was less polite. The charter, he told Tuck on their first meeting (June 1944), is little more than a ‘papier de necessite’—since ‘one of the contracting parties [i.e., the British] had no intentions of carrying out the ideals expressed in

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the Charter’, and the US would not always be there to counterbalance London’s ambitions.25 If idealist schemes were not enough, and the Great Powers could not be trusted, what could ‘les petites etats’ do? Some Egyptians had radical suggestions. In the summer of 1944, Fikri Abaza—the mercurial, nationalist editor of al-Musawwar—provoked a debate on a delicate question: how could Egypt impose her will and her aspirations upon the postwar world? Egypt, he claimed, had five trump cards in any power play (a list which drew to him the attention of several allied intelligence agencies): 1. The ability to control or even block up the Suez Canal (‘Idiot!’, exclaimed a senior British official in London on the margins of the intelligence report). 2. Egypt’s importance as a centre of air transport. 3. Leadership in the Arab world. 4. Strategic importance in any future war. 5. Egypt’s suitability to serve—like Switzerland—as a ‘police station’ (nuqtat bulis) for a future international force (a creative way of ‘rephrasing the call for al-Gala’ i.e., British evacuation, in favour of such a force).26 Opposition journalists and leaders could—and did—toy with such radical ideas as regards Egypt’s role in the postwar order.27 Nahhas and the Wafd saw things from a different perspective. The close association with British power—which caused Faruq so much worry—was for them the very basis for their expectations of postwar rewards. Nahhas had stood with the British with fortitude and loyalty during the ‘flap’ months of Rommel’s advance in 1942. He now felt himself entitled to claim from the British a recognition of his postwar role—in pursuit of personal and national ambitions. Central to his designs, and the key to his wartime diplomatic activity, was his quest for a seat at the putative ‘peace conference’. This had been one of the Wafd’s demands in 1940, and Nahhas raised it again in June 1942. Not surprisingly, at that crucial moment Britain was disinclined to argue with her Egyptian ally. Killearn was instructed to submit a formal notice to Nahhas, to that effect, at the suitable moment. For Nahhas, this moment came shortly after al-‘Alamayn. He spoke at the Anglo-Egyptian Union (4 November 1942) in glowing terms about his commitment to the cause of the democracies. His references to postwar reconstruction left no doubt as to his expectations. No one has the right to forego his duty, as it is of primary interest for everyone to help the world pass from a past regime to one that is better… I know that here and everywhere else, in all the democratic countries, we are at present preparing ourselves to face postwar problems, thus fulfilling our duties to ourselves and to our neighbours.28

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Killearn’s response was swift. Within days a note was prepared and handed to Nahhas on 16 November 1942. It was used by him, to some effect, at the Speech from the Throne three days later (the quote is from the official version of the speech as printed by the Egyptian government). Je suis maintenant autorisé à informer Votre Excellence que le Gouvernement de sa Majesté emploiera ses bons offices en vue d’assurer que l’Egypte soit représentée sur un pied d’égalité dans n’importe quelles négociations de paix qui affecteraient directement ses intérêts. De plus, le Gouvernement de sa Majesté, au course de pareilles négociations, ne discutera aucune question affectant directement les intérêts de l’Egypte sans consultation avec le Gouvernement égyptien. Privately, Nahhas professed to being disappointed with the limited scope offered for Egyptian participation. Publicly, he put up a spirited defence of the document against attacks by the opposition (which raised the very same point). Using strikingly modern concepts, he argued that the limiting clauses meant little. Egypt could not be prevented from discussing any of the questions which really interested her, because the Atlantic Charter safeguarded the interests of small countries above all. Every country was inevitably concerned with the economic, social and humanitarian problems of the world. With regard to the interests of the Oriental and Arab countries, it was better for them that one of their number should take part in the peace negotiations than that all should be excluded. [emphasis added]29 Here, in a nutshell, were Nahhas’ interpretation of the new order and the Atlantic Charter, as well as the essence of his foreign policy initiatives (and to some extent, that of most Egyptian governments since then). At the ‘peace conference’, and the general process of global settlement, Egypt’s leaders sought to play a substantial role. They would come not only as Britain’s allies, but as a nation associated with the democratic community bound together by the Atlantic Charter, and as the representatives of a much broader ‘oriental’—or at least Arab —bloc of states. Both fields of endeavour—international and regional—were closely interlinked, and in both Nahhas pursued an activist line. In international affairs, Egyptian activism led to the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union in 1943; the emergence of complex new relations with Washington; and Egyptian association with various new Allied institutions. In regional affairs, it was this strategic drive—rather than any ideological impulse or ‘identity crisis’—which best accounts for Egypt’s role in the emergence of the Arab League. The strength of the notion of Arabism among some sections of Egyptian opinion did suggest the Arab states as a choice for the establishment of an Egyptian-led ‘bloc’. So did the existence of an active pan-Arab drive in Fertile

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Crescent politics, and the obvious dictates of geography and language. Still, Nahhas (not unlike another Egyptian leader, a decade later) had in mind a wider circle as well: the ‘Orient’, or East—i.e., the emerging nations of Asia—with whom Egypt shared the experience of confronting colonialism. (African nations were not yet thought of as such; but the concept carried with it some of the baggage now implied by the terms ‘South’ or ‘Third World’.) The popular slogan of the Wafdist press and propaganda was ‘ya’ish Nahhas, za’im al-sharq! [Long live Nahhas, the Leader of the Orient!]’; and his support for ‘the unity of the oriental countries’—as contrasted with an ‘Arab’ terminology—did not escape the notice of Iraqi observers. A typical example was provided by the coverage, in the adoring Wafdist press, of Nahhas’ visit to Palestine in June 1943 (undertaken for family reasons). He showed himself, wrote al-Shu’la, to be the leader of the Orient: When it will be possible for history to depict the truth, you will see, Palestinian cousins, how much the leader of Egypt and the Orient has done for the cause of Palestine, Syria, Iraq and India. [emphasis added]30 Unfortunately, the concept of ‘oriental’ leadership lacked, at the time, any practical vehicle to ride on. Not so in the case of the Arabs as a collective — already addressed as such by British policy, and thus more available for Nahhas’ purposes. As early as April 1942, he suggested to the British Embassy that Egypt might take the lead in arranging an Arab declaration of support for the democratic powers. The oriental secretary at the embassy, Sir Walter Smart—an experienced but biased observer, married into the Egyptian upper class, and never very happy with Killearn’s preference for the Wafd —was not impressed: ‘If we bring Nahhas into a collective action with the Arab states, for a declaration in favour of democracy, we shall be facilitating collective action…for other purposes, e.g. federation, independence, liquidation of Zionism etc.’ Moreover, neither Iraq nor Saudi Arabia—the only partners of much value for such a venture—were likely to accept Egypt’s lead. The Foreign Office seemed more willing to let Nahhas try his hand; but it seems that some kind of restraining action, apparently of a sensitive mature, was taken (the file is closed until 2018) and the initiative, in any case, came to naught.31 Nahhas, however, was not put off for long. In his response to Killearn’s note of 16 November, he quite specifically envisioned Egyptian leadership of a ‘solid Arab bloc’ in the peace talks; and while Killearn thought that he ‘rode him off it as irrelevant’, the Egyptians continued, in fact, to busy themselves with joint educational and cultural projects with Iraq. Events in early 1943 increased Nahhas’ active interest: on 13 January, Iraq declared war on the Axis, ‘causing ripples in the Middle East duck-pond’, as one senior official in London put it. Nahhas was stung. Nuri had failed to inform him of his intentions, and was clearly trying to secure for Iraq the coveted position of the leading Arab ally. The

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Wafd was too deeply committed to the doctrine of ‘tajnib Misr waylat al-harb’ (keeping the ‘horrors of war’ away from Egypt’s door) to be able to reverse course, join the Allies formally, and beat Nuri at his own game. But Nahhas was determined to regain his prominence by other means.32 Soon after, he wrote a sharp letter to the French criticizing their policy in Lebanon. It may have been, as the US Legation complained, ‘a masterpiece of either poor drafting or confused thinking’. In effect, it was (as Smart had predicted) a sign of Nahhas’ counterbid for regional leadership, rather than of any keen interest in Lebanon or Syria. Nahhas again stressed that Egypt’s ‘preeminent position amongst the Arab states’ obliged her to act on their behalf, and seek possible assistance from any side, including the Soviets.33 A pattern emerged. Nahhas not only presumed to speak for the non-independent Arab nations; he took the opportunity that their plight provided, so as to present himself to all Allied leaders as the Arabs’ spokesman. He addressed the US, berating Washington’s pro-Zionist position on Palestine; and in 1944 he wrote to de Gaulle to demand that North African African leaders should be released and Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia be granted their independence. (Copies were sent to the US and USSR Legations, causing confusion in the latter as to the ‘hidden imperialist hand behind all this’.) In London, Eden was livid. The Egyptian Ambassador, who came bearing these ‘desiderata des peuples de l’Afiique du Nord’, was treated to some unpleasant comments about Egypt’s presumption to speak ‘en accord avec tous les peuples Arabes’, and in fact, about ‘les peuples Arabes’ in general.34 Eden, however, was hoist with his own petard. He had twice reiterated, as already mentioned, that Britain would welcome any effort by the Arabs themselves to promote their unity, and his speeches aroused considerable interest in Egypt. The planners of these speeches may not have had any Egyptian role in mind. But the law of unexpected consequences was soon at work, forcing the British to reverse their confident assertion that Nahhas would ‘wound Iraqi conceit long before he does anything that could damage British interests’. In March 1943 Iraqi envoys —Jamil al-Madfa’i and Tahsin al-‘Askari—came to Egypt to promote the prospect of a ‘popular’ pan-Arab conference, favoured by elements of the Egyptian opposition. They were treated, however, to a fierce lecture by Nahhas, despite his bad health at the time, about the need to confine all such activities to the governmental level. A day later, on 30 March, Sabri Abu Alam—the Wafdist Minister of Justice—formally announced Egypt’s intention to convene an Arab conference. A curtain of censorship fell upon all unofficial initiatives. Iraqi conceit was indeed wounded, but Nuri was faced with a fait accompli.35 London, and the embassy, were caught off-balance and were slow to respond. An additional reason for the lack of any effective British effort to derail Nahhas’ ‘bloc’ project may well be that another set of players in Cairo—the Minister of State, Richard Casey, charged with the management of the regional economy for wartime purposes; and the Americans, deeply involved with the Middle East

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Supply Centre and impressed with its potential as a model for peacetime development—were engaged in promoting their own visions of regional economic integration, and indicated to Nahhas that his initiatives might fit in.36 Arab economic integration (even today, a highly problematic proposition) was of little value, if at all, in the context of Nahhas’ ‘bloc’—a political and manipulative instrument; yet it should be noted that the Egyptians left this option open for discussion—perhaps so as to keep the allied ‘integrators’ happy—and gave no indication, for a long while, as to their own preferences. The consultations with the Arab states—first Iraq, in July 1943; then Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon; finally, in February 1944, Yemen —quickly fell into a set pattern: Nahhas usually refrained from expressing any opinion. He encouraged his Arab interlocutors to describe the type and scope of the Arab unity scheme they favoured, ranging from a centralized political union, through a looser confederation, a simple framework of political and/or economic cooperation, to a merely cultural association. He kept the British (who had their own sources anyway) and the Americans well informed, and may well have done so with the Soviets. When speaking to the Allies, he openly referred to the need for a regional bloc, in the context of the postwar order—yet worked hard to create the impression that Egypt was acting as an agent of economic, rather than political, integration. The Lebanese, in fact, came away convinced that the Egyptians were ‘determined not to be drawn into the orbit of a pan-Arab consortium of Asiatic states’.37 This impression served Nahhas well. Some form of unity among Asian (Mashriq, i.e. eastern) Arabs was considered by many in London to be inevitable: ‘Separatism’, argued H.A.R.Gibb, ‘is impossible as a permanent solution to the Arab question’. It may well be true, as Professor Kedourie has written in this context, that ‘the inevitable is the ally of nobody ’,38 but for the British Empire at wartime, the overriding concern was to avoid having the inevitable as an adversary. Like Machiavelli on his deathbed, refusing to renounce the devil (as the story goes), they did not think this was the time to make new enemies. Among Foreign Office professionals, such as Sir Maurice Peterson—an old Egypt hand himself, and now the senior official superintending Middle Eastern affairs—and his department heads, Scriverner (Egyptian) and Baxter (Eastern), there was a strong inclination to take a firm line against Nahhas’ venture into Arab issues. Reservations and calls for caution came also from Cairo. Killearn, while still a proponent of the Wafd’s political interest in Egypt, was unhappy with some of Nahhas’ nationalist actions; and even Casey, despite his quest for regional cooperation, grew worried about the emerging Egyptian role. Foreign Secretary Eden, however, was too deeply committed, reluctant to be seen as reversing his own policy pronouncements and curious about the value of some (eastern) Arab unity schemes, which might help solve the thorny Palestine question. He made it quite clear, during his October 1943 visit to Egypt, that no overt action should be taken that might contradict his previous policy statements.39

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Sensing this timidity, Nahhas pressed ahead with the proposed rounds of oneon-one consultations with his Arab colleagues. What British officials could do— and apparently did—without contradicting Eden’s directives was to resort to delaying tactics, which proved to be quite effective for a while. One such excuse for delay was Nahhas’ own demand that Jamal Husayni and Amin Tamimi—two nationalist Palestinian Arab leaders, associated with the Mufti’s party and detained as a security threat —must be released from detention in Rhodesia and brought into the cycle of consultations. To this the British, particularly MacMichael in Jerusalem, were strongly opposed, which in turn served to hold up Nahhas’ initiative. Meanwhile, King Ibn Sa‘ud readily provided further obstructions, and even toyed with the idea of an alternative conference in Mecca; later, when he dropped that notion, he nevertheless made it clear that he would not be drawn into any type of federative scheme.40 Still, the Cairo consultations could not be held up forever; and by early 1944— as the first round was drawing to a close—British officials were once again obliged to make up their minds as to the proper attitude towards Nahhas’ project. An interesting and revealing debate ensued. London—namely, Peterson and his department heads—wanted to restrain Nahhas: ‘The project will clearly require careful consideration’, Killearn was told on 10 February 1944. The ambassador, however, grew nervous about restraining a government which he was also straining to keep in office—against Faruq’s will (and with what he felt was insufficient support from London; there was no love lost between him and Peterson). The Iraqis were now pushing for an early Arab conference, and Killearn did not like the idea of having to control Nahhas’ counter-manipulations. He wrote back to Eden to warn against any attempt ‘to prevent the proposed conference’, thus overstating what he had been asked to do (an old trick, which he used regularly when he did not like his instructions). Eden rose to the bait: ‘Why do we want to prevent it?’, he queried. The Eastern Department hastened to explain that they had only meant that the conference should be delayed, not cancelled. Indirect Saudi pressures and delay tactics could derail the project without any overt British interference; and in any case, ‘Lord Killearn should not have much difficulty in riding off the conference till the summer, by which time there will be other things to occupy people’s minds’.41 Therein, precisely, lay the root of their failure to reckon properly with Nahhas’ abilities and intentions. Implied in such calculations was the assumption that Nahhas was merely playing popular politics, as long as pan-Arab projects catch peoples’ fancies, and would as quickly drop them when ‘other things’— presumably, dramatic developments on the war front—would turn his thoughts to postwar issues; as well as the understandable expectation that Killearn could always control Nahhas by right of having kept him in power. Both were off the mark. For Nahhas, Egypt’s posture in world affairs, and his own political standing in Egypt (vis-à-vis a monarch he was vainly trying to get London to depose for him), already were, in essence, postwar issues, greatly dependent on his bid for regional leadership. Thus, the much awaited ‘other things’—the

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momentous news of the Normandy landings—actually spurred him into frenzied action, so as to have his ‘bloc’, and his personal options on the domestic and the international fronts, ready in time for the new era of reconstruction (as it was still expected then to be). On 14 June 1944, Amin ‘Uthman, the loyal go-between, informed Killearn that Nahhas now intended to summon a ‘preparatory committee’ for the Arab conference. It was to be attended by Iraq, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. The Egyptians had cast aside, almost overnight, thorny and time-consuming issues such as the participation of Palestinian or North-African Arabs. London’s other card—Saudi-induced delays—was soon lost as well. Nahhas did not hide his reasoning: ‘Public interest’, he wrote to the Arab leaders on 14 June 1944, ‘necessitates acceleration of [the] Arab Unity scheme, so that events, which today quickly succeed one another, should not outstrip us’.42 [emphasis added] And yet the British, once again, were slow to comprehend the link, as Nahhas saw it, between the decisive turn in the war and the urgent need to transform regional politics. The embassy was planning to tell Nahhas that the timing of his action ‘is likely to prove inopportune in the present war conditions’. It was a timid message, which skirted the broader policy issues. Even so, it took London five days to approve it. On 22 June, Nahhas was finally told that his initiative was not quite welcome, at least for the time being. By then, however, Nahhas could sense the British confusion. In fact, he knew with some certainty that the embassy would not confront him on this issue. Killearn, in a burst of amity with Amin ‘Uthman, had shared with him his misgivings about being accused of obstructionism: ‘Much better—let the idea quietly peter out.’ The ambassador may have believed that Nahhas would share his preferences on this side issue, when greater things were at stake. Nahhas did not. Within hours, on June 22, Amin ‘Uthman telephoned Smart to say that Nahhas, regrettably enough, had gone ahead and sent the summons to the Arab leaders.43 The most that the Foreign Office was willing to do, once faced with this fait accompli, was to instruct Killearn to secure further delay. He was also asked to keep Palestine off the agenda, and to direct Nahhas’ efforts towards economic and cultural unity—one more indication that London grasped only vaguely what was at stake. Killearn now compounded his earlier error by trusting ‘Uthman with the precise text of these instructions —thus letting Nahhas know that London had already reconciled itself to the inevitability of an Arab conference. Still, the prime minister moved cautiously (and the painfully slow rate of advance in Normandy gave him no cause to hurry). The proposed gathering was shifted from July to August, and then delayed again. On 6 August, Nahhas gave Ibn Sa‘ud’s envoy the impression that he would agree to postpone even further, perhaps beyond the US elections in November—in itself, a sign of the close link between his project and the broader patterns of international affairs. Within days, however—with war news once more gaining momentum—Nahhas switched gear

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again, catching the British, and his Arab rivals, unprepared. On 10 August he finally decided to convene the preparatory summit in Alexandria, on 25 September 1944. Ibn Sa‘ud was furious. Nahhas wrote to him to stress, once again, what justified his actions: ‘Events are now hastening fast and overtaking us… we may miss the bus.’ Yet even at this point the British remained complacent. Killearn, when he took Nahhas to task over several issues on 5 September, simply forgot to mention the Arab conference; and the Eastern Department was confident that Nahhas was heading towards failure, ‘an unedifying dog-fight’ of Arab rivalries, which Britain need not bother to avert.44 Nahhas, however, now had his chance to bring to fruition a design he had been pursuing since November 1942–not ‘Arab leadership’ in some abstract sense, but the establishment of a bargaining lever for the postwar world. His speech at the opening session of the ‘committee’ in Alexandria (as quoted officially in the Journal d’Egypte, 26 September 1944) came back to this familiar theme. Nous voyons avec quelle rapidité se succédent les événements de la guerre. L’avenir peut nous apprêter bien des surprises et nous mettre en face de multiples problèmes. Aussi devons-nous nous presser pour ne pas être devancés par les événements… En effect, cette guerre a révélé l’importance vitale de l’Orient Arabe dans les crises mondiales. Renové et rendu puissant, il deviendra un des plus grands piliers de la paix dans l’Universe. With this in mind, he unveiled in the fourth session, on 2 October 1944, his own unity scheme. Contrary to what Killearn and Moyne had been led to believe, it was an essentially political vehicle. Social and economic issues were buried (as it turned out for two generations) in a subcommittee. Contrary to some later assessments, it was by no means a minimal compromise between vying Arab factions. It was, almost without modification, an Egyptian plan, designed to secure Egyptian interests, and more or less imposed by an Egyptian leadership with a clear sense of purpose. Contrary to the expectations of the pan-Arabists, in Egypt and elsewhere, Nahhas’ ‘League of Arab States’ was neither a union nor a federation. Yet it was ambitious enough to offer the prospect of political gain to all members.45 Nahhas, in other words, had managed to place Egypt ‘à la tête des Nations Arabes’—just in time for the postwar settlement. The relevant Foreign Office departments were quite impressed. This went ‘very much further than anything we had hitherto been led to expect’.46 The Soviets seemed to have a clearer grasp of what had happened. Already in the summer of 1944 (according to an American intelligence report) Soviet officials had approached the Egyptian Legation in Moscow and encouraged Nahhas to persist: ‘If the Arab countries have leaders who are aware of the world of tomorrow’, the Egyptian minister, Kamil ’Abd al-Rahim, was told, ‘they will not hesitate for a minute to unite and to discuss and decide their fate’. This would

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free the Egyptians from their economic bondage to Britain and the US, and a man of Nahhas’ nationalist credentials, with ‘the determination of the leader, his patriotism and his integrity’, could bring this about.47 In embryonic form, the future pattern of Egyptian policies and politics in the following two decades already lay therein. It was the palace, however, which within hours of the signing of the Alexandria Protocol managed to outwit Nahhas in his own game and remove him from office, denying him the chance to consolidate his position and perhaps issue an open challenge to the throne over constitutional powers. (Nahhas, perhaps still hoping for British support, had embarked since mid-September on a domestic collision course over a trivial and unrelated issue.) At first the new government—under the Sa‘dist prime minister, Ahmad Mahir—toyed with alternative models of regional cooperation, perhaps bringing Turkey and Greece into some sort of entente in the eastern Mediterranean. But Ahmad Mahir held no real power, and the conduct of Egypt’s regional strategy passed into the hands of Faruq’s prime agent in Arab affairs, ’Abd al-Rahman ‘Azzam. Having gone to Mecca as Amir al-Hajj in November 1944, he was well positioned to put together an informal Sa’udi-Egyptian alliance, with distinctive anti-Hashemite overtones, to the dismay of the British. And it was this alliance that secured ‘Azzam’s election, in March 1945, as the first secretary-general of the Arab League.48 Verbose, inflexible and doctrinaire, Azzam later led the Arab League to disaster over the Palestine issue. But in the immediate postwar period he shaped it into an instrument of Faruq’s (and Sa‘ud’s) preferences in the impending cold war, as well as a personal vehicle for the king’s ambitions. Ironic twists dominate the aftermath of this story. The anticipated ‘Versailles’ never materialized; postwar reconstruction was overtaken by postwar conflict; and Egypt’s Arab position, constructed by his rival, Nahhas, now enabled Faruq to present himself to the British and the Americans as a valuable regional pawn, while allowing him to strangle the Wafd at home. Nahhas’ ‘bloc’ had become ‘Azzam’s League. NOTES 1. The best available work on the origins of this policy (which was, to some extent, designed to encompass a solution to the Palestine problem) is Yehoshua Porath, BeMivhan ha-Ma’ase ha-Politi: Eretz Yisra’el, Ahdut ’Aravit u-Mdiniyut Britaniya, 1930–1945 [Tested by Political Action: Palestine, Arab Unity and Britain’s Policy, 1930–1945] (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 1985) (later published as In Search of Arab Unity, 1930–1945 (London: Frank Cass, 1986). 2. UK, Public Record Office (PRO), ME (O) (42), 9 January 1942, CAB95/1; Federation schemes in FO371/31388; Clayton’s staff correspondence, FC314 1 / 840/365. 3. Ahmed Gomaa, The Foundation of the League of Arab States (London: Longman, 1977).

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4. Porath, Tested by Political Action. 5. PRO, FO371/35539/.14741, Notes of Professor Heyworthe-Dunne’s lecture, November 1943. 6. Yisrael Gershoni, Mitzrayim beyn Yihhud le-Ahdut. Hahippus Ahar Zehut Le’umit, 1919–1948 [Egypt Between Particularism and Unity. The Search for a National Identity, 1919–1948] (Tel Aviv: Ha-Kibbutz ha-Me’uhad, 1980). 7. Al-Ithnayn, 18 January 1943. 8. PRO, FO/141/866/39 and 2, Albert Hourani’s report, March 1943, and Smart’s memorandum, ‘Egypt and the Arab World’, 3 May 1943, respectively. See also M.E. (O.)(43)5, 11, June 1943, CAB95/1. Both Hourani and Smart—the latter married to an Egyptian of Lebanese origin—were well placed to make these generalized statements, at least as an indication that there was no overwhelming trend of public sentiment flowing the other way. 9. US, National Archives (NA), Record Group (RG) 226/42402, JCAME (Joint Intelligence Center, American [Forces] Middle East) Report 486–43 (‘Possible Reactions in Egypt and Libya to Armed Conflict in Palestine’), 13 July 1943. 10. PRO, FO/866/81, Killearn’s report, 27 July 1943. 11. PRO, FO/866/138, Report by Col. Newcombe, September 1943; Killearn had a conversation with Freya Stark at about the same time. 12. PRO, 17 July 1943, FO816/43, FO/866/46 and 59, reports by Jama’ti, 9 April 1943, and Mahmud ‘Azmi, 9 June; Secret report 432/787 (Jerusalem). For the American angle, see also Raymond Hare’s memorandum of the conversation with ‘Azzam, 10 September 1943, RG84 (Cairo files)/Box 88/710. 13. Al-Ithnayn, 13 January 1943. 14. I owe this quote to Ambassador Faruq Ghunaym of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. 15. Journal d’Egypt, 15 November 1943. 16. Quoted in NA, RG59/883.00/1252, Kirk’s telegram no. 378, 8 March 1942. 17. Jamal al-Ghaytani, Mustafa Amin Yatadhakkar [Mustafa Amin remembers] (Cairo: Madbuli, 1983), p. 127. 18. For a broader discussion of Egyptian attitudes towards the warring ideologies of Europe, see Israel Shrentzel, ‘Democracy and Dictatorship in the Thought of Egyptian Intellectuals, 1933–1944’ (unpublished M.A.thesis, Tel Aviv University, 1986, particularly pp. 108–17. 19. PRO, FO371/35528/.1120, Killearn’s despatch 1189, 9 December 1942. 20. See Barakat’s articles in al-Ithnayn, 11 September 1944, and al-Musawwar, 17 November 1944. 21. Shrentzel, ‘Democracy and Dictatorship’, pp. 94–6, 101–7. 22. See al-Ithnayn, 27 December 1943 and 5 January 1944. 23. PRO, FC3371/35540/J4759, Nash’at’s letter to Eden, 19 November 1943. 24. NA, RG84/108/800-Egypt, Tuck’s despatch no. 10,17 June 1944, and his airgram no. 5021, 6 September 1944. 25. NA, RG59/I23 T 79 (Tuck’s personal file)/587, Tuck’s despatch no. 11, 17 June 1944. 26. Al-Musawwar, 16 April 1943 and 23 June 1944. For the intrigued reaction of the British, French and American intelligence services, see PRO, FO371/41317/J2464 as well as NA, RG226/81658 and 115779. On Fikri Abaza, see ‘List of personalities, 1945’ in Lord Stansgate’s papers, House of Lords Record Office (HLRO)/ST/188/11(2).

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27. See also 1944, NA, RG/L-44649, OSS report 28184—‘The Opposition’, 17 August; and the Kutla Party resolutions, as quoted in PRO, FO141/937/1/119. 28. NA, RG59/741.83/277, Kirk’s despatch no. 691, 11 November, enclosing a clipping from the Egyptian Mail, 5 November 1942. 29. Royaume d’Egypte, Discours du T rone, 10 Zul Ke’da 1361–19 Novembre 1942 (Cairo: Imprimerie Nationale, 1942), pp. 33–4; PRO, FO371 /31575/J4692 and J4940, Killearn’s telegram no. 2591, 16 November, and despatch no. 1109, 19 November 1942. 30. PRO, FO141/840/356/1,Tahsin al-‘Askari’s letter (British Censorship intercept), 5 April 1942; NA, RG59/883.00/1240, Kirk’s despatch 1123, 25 June 1943; PRO, FO371/35536/J3 115, MacMichael’s letter to Killearn , 25 June 1943. 31. PRO, FO141/840/356/6 and 11, Smart’s minute, 18 April 1942, FO telegram no. 1436 to Cairo, 27 May, and Smart’s minute on it; FO371/31338/E3420 is still classified. 32. PRO, FO/35528/J290 and J398, Cornwallis’ telegram no. 37 (from Baghdad), 13 January, FO minutes and Killearn’s telegrams nos. 87 and 132, 14 and 22 January 1943. 33. NA, RG59/883.00/1314, Kirk’s despatch no. 193, 29 January 1943; PRO, FO141/ 897/633/3, Killearn’s telegram (Shone’s draft), 3 March 1943. 34. NA, RG84/Box 108/800-General, Hare’s (of the US Legation) memorandum of conversation with Solod (his Soviet colleague), 4 May 1944, enclosing a copy of Nahhas’ letter to Hull, 16 April; PRO, FO 954/5d, Eden’s despatch no. 220 to Cairo, 5 May 1944. 35. PRO, FO371/31575/J4665 and FO371/35529/J744, FO minutes on Killearn’s telegrams nos. 2576, 13 November 1942 and 334, 15 February 1943; FO141/866/ 149/37 and 39, Agent (Habib Jama‘ti) reports, 30 and 31 March 1943. 36. PRO, W0201/2060, Casey’s memorandum, MEWC (43)3, 24 April 1943; NA, RG59/783.00/6 and RG84/Box 88/710, Kirk’s despatch no. 1252, 26 August 3, and his memorandum of conversation with Nahhas, 3 November 1943. 37. Nahhas provided Killearn, through Amin ‘Uthman, and Kirk, directly, with the processverbal of each meeting—PRO, FO141/866/149 and NA, RG84/Box 88/710. 43 respectively; See also PRO, FO371///39987/E871, Furlonge’s letter (Beirut), 21 January 1944. 38. PRO, FO371/39988/E2768, Gibb’s paper, 5 November 1943; Elie Kedourie, ‘Pan Arabism and British Policy’, in Elie Kedourie, The Chatham House Version and Other Middle Eastern Essays (London and Hanover: University Press of New England, 1970). 39. PRO, FO141/866/149/140, FO telegram no. 1573 to Cairo, 9 October 1943, and Eden’s minutes. Cf. FO371/35540/J4799, Shone’s letter, 16 November, and minutes. 40. PRO, FO141/866/149/156 Eden’s conversations with Nahhas, 7 November 1943, minutes. See also FO141/866/I49/142, 163, 170 and 171. 41. For the detailed correspondence and minutes on this issue, see PRO, FO371/39987/ E915, E1264, E1330, E1627, E1924 and E2223. 42. Quoted in PRO, FO371/39988/E3516, Killearn’s telegram no. 1202, 14 June 1944. 43. PRO, FO371/39988/E3374, E3675 and E3686, Killearn’s telegrams nos. 1142, 1252 and 1253, 5 and 22 June, minutes and FO telegram no. 843 to Cairo, 19 June 1944. See also Gomaa, Foundation of the League, p. 201, and Thomas Mayer,

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44.

45.

46. 47. 48.

Egypt and the Palestine Question, 1936–1945 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1983), pp. 245–7. For the extensive correspondence between July and September 1944, see PRO, FO371/39988/ E3686, E4006, E4008, E4015 and E4154; FO371/39989/E4862, E5567, E5617, E5683 and E6026; NA, RG84/Box 108/800, Tuck’s airgram no. 502, 6 September 1944. Journal d’Egypte, 26 September 1944; See also the Wafdist al-Misri, 9 October 1944. For more on the conference itself see Gomaa, Foundation of the League, pp. 205–31. PRO, FO371/39990/E6137, FO minutes, 10 and 11 October 1944. NA, RG226/104259, US Military Attaché report no. 5131, 1 November 1944. For an account of ‘Azzam’s ascendancy, see PRO, FO921/199/34/33 and FO371/ 40266/ E6646, Shone’s telegrams nos. 2160 and 2210,24 and 29 October 1944, FO141/1010/32/65, 67 and 103, Clayton’s report and Killearn’s saving telegrams, nos. 56 and 80, 2 and 23 March 1945; NA, RG84/Box 133/800.1-KF, RG226/1 13427, Tuck’s airgram no. 72 (conversation with ‘Azzam), 1 February; OSS Cairo report g-7030, 2 February 1945.

9 The Causes of the Failure of Democracy in Iran, 1941–1953 MASSOUMEH TORFEH

The twentieth-century history of Iran has witnessed three major movements, the central aim of which was to persuade the ruling, often dictatorial, monarch to hand over part or all of his power to the elected representatives of the people and thus to create a more democratic society, free also of foreign domination. These were the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, the Mosaddeq era of 1941–53, and the Islamic Revolution of 1979. While the details of events in these movements differ greatly and as such each one requires specific analysis, there are nevertheless important correlations in these events that could be significant in any study of Iran’s modern history. The two most readily observable correlations are that, on the one hand, the aspiration of these movements, if it could be expressed in one sentence, has in each case been the achievement of democracy1 and independence, yet on the other hand, the final outcome of these events has always been the failure to achieve their aim. Dictatorships have been reinstated, each time more organized and structured than before. These correlations pose important theoretical questions as to why it is that major and significant movements for democratization take shape in a country, gain momentum and are initially successful, but fail in the final analysis to obtain power. What are the basic peculiarities or weaknesses of a society in which such occurrences are repeated? Why is it that, on the one hand, the society expresses an apparently popular desire for democracy, for a more active participation in politics and for more political freedom, but, on the other hand experiences such drastic and often tragic failures? It is outside the boundaries of this chapter to ask whether democracy is the most suitable form of government in general, or for Iran in particular. Rather, the central question is what were the main elements in the social, cultural, and political structure that made the final achievement of democracy so difficult in Iran? In other words, what were the weaknesses of those sections of society who wanted to establish democracy, and the strengths of those elements that blocked liberalization? Was it the underlying value system that did not allow social liberalization? Was it the long history of authoritarian rule in Iran? Or was it the influence of foreign powers? Bearing these questions in mind, this chapter looks

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at the middle period—1941 to 1953—in which Iran experienced the most prolonged period of democratization. INTRODUCTION In the latter years of the 1930s, when international politics were haunted by the coming world war, Iran, traditionally considered by Britain as strategically significant, became of even more vital concern. For Iran was not only potentially the most suitable supply route to the Soviet army; it also posed a possible threat as a corridor for German expansion into South Asia, since Reza Shah, Iran’s dictatorial leader, was believed to be pro-German. Thus, on 25 August 1941 Allied forces had, according to the Iranian premier ‘Ali Mansur, ‘attacked by sea and air’.2 On 20 September British and Soviet troops advanced to Tehran. Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, wrote to the British Legation in Tehran that, ‘HMG have no wish to intervene unnecessarily in Persia’s internal affairs but it is clearly difficult for them to cooperate fully with a government that has long ceased to represent the wishes and interests of the people of Persia’.3 (Significantly, in the past, the question of Reza Shah’s dictatorial rule, against ‘the wishes…of the people of Persia’, had never been remarked upon by the British.) Consequently, Reza Shah, under military and economic pressure, abdicated on 16 September 1941 in favour of his young son, Muhammad Reza. This series of events created a vacuum at the level of the political leadership, and intense confusion in the political structure of the country. Muhammed Reza Pahlavi, the young shah and nominal head of state, was neither powerful nor experienced enough to take control of the country. The already weak Iranian state had now to adjust to receiving directives not from one source alone, as it had done in the years of Reza Shah’s rule, but from several sources; from influential political figures, from the British Legation, from Soviet representatives, and also from American financial and military advisers. While many of the directives from these sources were reasonably well co-ordinated with regard to the war effort, they were highly destabilizing when it came to Iran’s internal politics. The traditional balance of forces between the British and the Soviets was now further complicated by the relatively recent arrival of the Americans. The US government was increasingly interested in Iran for two main reasons: first, the increased petroleum output of the Persian Gulf and the desire to establish strong economic links with Iran; and second, the increased threat of Soviet influence in Iran and the threat of Soviet military expansion southwards. All this, however, had to be achieved in line with President Roosevelt’s wartime policy of ‘standing against dictatorships and promoting democracy’. Also the USSR was speaking of wanting ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ for Iran. Despite their claims of having only wartime aims in Iran, the events that followed proved that the three powers had long-term goals. They cooperated

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relatively well under wartime conditions, but afterwards they became each other’s fiercest rivals. At the same time local politicians saw the easing of pressure in the early 1940s as their first chance since the 1920s of expressing their beliefs and gaining some advantage. The advocates of democracy, liberalism, socialism, or communism, that is, mainly the educated middle-class elite, saw in the years that followed their chance to establish what they saw as best for Iran. Therefore, apart from the three foreign powers, there were two internal powers competing for the upper hand, namely the Shah and his army and the Majles and its deputies. Thus, the existence of a multitude of sources of power created a maze of rivalry among politicians and factions, as well as among five major sources of power—all claiming to want to establish democracy. THE MAJLES AND ITS DEPUTIES Known as the House of Justice during the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, the Majles was regarded by the liberalizing classes4 as the centre of expression of political opinion and for establishing relative freedoms and democracy. They believed that if the Majles was put to proper use, all injustices could be rooted out and a freer, more democratic form of government would prevail. Now that such a chance had been created, the liberalizing classes wanted to ensure that, as stipulated in the constitution, the shah indeed lost part of his power to the elected members of parliament and that the total separation of the legislature, the judiciary, and the executive was adhered to meticulously.5 From the fall of Reza Shah’s military monarchy in August 1941 to the rise of Muhammad Reza Shah’s military monarchy in August 1953 account and consulted in decision making. The documents clearly show that it was indeed the Majles (and its deputies) that managed to frustrate (a) Britain in its efforts to renew the AIOC (Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) the Majles managed to become the power that had to be taken into oil agreement of 1933,6 (b) the Soviet Union and the Tudeh Party in their efforts, first, to create independent republics in Azerbaijan and Kurdestan and, second, to obtain oil concessions for the Soviet Union in the north, (c) the shah and his army in controlling the politics of Iran as in the past, and (d) the US in its economic and military designs on Iran. The Majles, however, seems to have owed this mainly to the tireless efforts of some 30 to 40 deputies (out of a total of 169), who were determined to take advantage of the changing conditions and to assert the authority of the nation at large. The actions of the majority of the deputies seem to have been still dominated by intrigue, favouritism, nepotism, inefficiency, the rigging of elections, local interests, and a lack of understanding of, or experience in, democratic norms. With the exception of the Tudeh Party (see below), the deputies (including those of the National Movement) did not have a clear line of policy preferences and would vote according to group interests.

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Even Mosaddeq,7 who spoke a great deal about democracy for Iran, seemed to have vacillated between being a parliamentarian and relying on the popular will. He did not have a clear vision of the type of democratic government he favoured. His suggestions for the electoral law excluded the majority of the population and women. After receiving full powers from the Majles in 1952, he no longer consulted his colleagues or even credited the Majles with any say in running the affairs of the country. When he could not get his way with the Majles, he appealed to the shah (despite his attempts to reduce the monarch’s power) and when refused, appealed to the population at large.8 In spite of the foregoing criticisms, Mosaddeq was undoubtedly one of the most influential figures in the process of oil nationalization and indeed was always at the forefront of actions to prevent the other power sources from exerting overdue influence over the Majles. It was Mosaddeq who suggested in 1944 the bill to stop official negotiations with foreign powers which led to the blocking of negotiations with the USSR; it was Mosaddeq who stood firmly against the interference of Britain and the US in Iran’s politics; it was Mosaddeq who objected publicly to the rigging of the 1949 elections to the sixteenth Majles and led demonstrations and protest sit-ins for free elections. Yet when he was prime minister, there was much rigging reported in the elections for the seventeenth Majles, and in the period of his premiership he turned into a virtual dictator. A careful study of the proceedings of the fourteenth to seventeenth Majles,9 as well as of the constitution of Iran and of the Book of Majles Procedure indicates that basic structural shortcomings hindered the operations of Majles deputies. Problems related to the constitution The constitution of 1906, and later the Supplementary Fundamental Laws (SFL) passed by the Second Majles (1909–11), took away much of the traditional total power of the shah. In fact, the Majles had to give its approval to any actions signed by him. The shah was no longer a divine ruler, rather ‘the sovereignty is entrusted (as a divine gift) by the people to the person of the king’. Yet even this relative reduction in the shah’s power left him with enough of it to interfere in the workings of the Majles. The roots of many problems could be said to lie in the contradictions between Article 28 of the SFL (which required the separation of the three executive, legislative, and judicial powers) and Articles 35, 36, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, and 51 (which gave the shah as the head of three powers the right to interfere in all affairs). As the head of the executive, the prime minister and his cabinet were subordinate to him and all their decisions had to get his authorization. Furthermore, according to Article 48 of the SFL, the shah had the right to appoint and dismiss ministers, prime ministers, and civil servants. According to Article 28 of the constitution, each minister was answerable to the shah and the Majles could, according to Article 29, ask the shah to specify his punishment. At the same time, Article 44 of the SFL specified

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that ministers were responsible to the Majles and the shah had no responsibility for their actions. Moreover, according to Article 15, any decisions by the two houses— the Shura-i Melli (National Council) and the Sena (Senate)—had to get royal ascent before they could be implemented. And since decisions of the Majles had no significance until the executive implemented them, the shah, as head of the executive, had the power to paralyze the Majles. If he refused to countersign a policy decision by the Majles, the legislature had to wait three months before it could pass it again for signing. The only way that the legislature could block the actions of the executive was through questioning, warning, or impeaching ministers—including the prime minister—and a vote of no confidence against a specific minister or the entire cabinet. Another means open to the deputies was to ask questions about the budget, which could be used destructively to block the government. Naturally, whenever this tool was used the whole working of the country was paralyzed. After the assassination attempt on the shah’s life, on 8 February 1949, he managed to manipulate the Majles into giving him even more powers under the constitution. Article 48 was amended to give the shah the right to dissolve one or both houses. This naturally gave him tremendous leverage over the parliament. Combined with his being the head of the three powers as well as the commanderin-chief of the armed forces, the shah had plenty of room to play within his constitutional rights. Moreover, he had all this power without the burden of responsibility. According to the constitution, the Majles and the government were responsible for decisions that might have in fact been taken by him. No less important, according to Articles 1 and 2 of the SFL, the official religion of the country was twelver Shi‘i Islam and all laws had not to contradict the rules of Islam. Moreover, five members of the mujtahedun or ulema had the right to veto the decisions of the Majles. Since religious leaders in Iran have never been willing to stay aloof from politics and have been seeing themselves as the true guardians of morality, the room for interference of religion in political life opened by these two articles is obvious. The most serious possibility could, of course, be if the shah and the religious leaders used their constitutional rights simultaneously and/or jointly. In such a case the Majles would have been completely paralyzed.10 The traditional influence of powerful families A few highly influential landowning families dominated Iranian politics in the twentieth century up to the Islamic Revolution. The Qavvam, Mosaddeq, Amini, Eqbal, Bayat, Farmanfarma, and Firuz were some of the most prominent of these families, together with a few more closely connected with the Pahlavis, like the Hakimi, Sadr, ‘Ala and ‘Alam, as well as some tribal leaders such as the Bakhtiaris and Qashqa’is. Recent research conducted in Iran on the background of ministers, prime ministers and Majles deputies has revealed that almost 55 per

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cent of the ministers in the first half of the twentieth century were related to one another, 41 per cent were brothers, 32 per cent were cousins and 29 per cent— fathers and sons. In the period under analysis, 36.7 per cent of ministers also had their brothers in ministerial jobs, 26 per cent—their cousins.11 Anyone willing to reach positions of power had, therefore, to either be well connected or married to at least one of these families. The above-mentioned research shows that those who intermarried with these powerful families were almost 29 per cent more likely to reach top ministerial jobs.12 Since a great many deputies were from among the members of these families, groupings and divisions within the Majles were based on family and local ties rather than political ideology or policy. As an American intelligence report indicated at the beginning of the sixteenth Majles: It is unfortunately true that the Iranian parliament rarely has shown understanding of its constitutional role as a legislator to promote the nation’s welfare. On the contrary most deputies spend their terms in petty intrigues to further personal or local interests.13 Problems pertaining to Majles protocol The rules defining the procedure of the Majles were also an important element in delaying legislation. An added factor was the lack of experience of the deputies in political conduct and their unawareness of the importance of their duties as the formulators of laws and policies. From the proceedings of the fourteenth to seventeenth Majles it is clear that a great deal of time was wasted on approving the credentials of deputies. (It was widely held that because powerful magnates could buy their way into the Majles, the approval of their credentials was an important element in ensuring the integrity of deputies. But as Dr Rezazadeh Shafaq, one of the most prominent deputies of this period,14 asserts in his book, a deputy who had just been elected to the Majles was not really in a position to judge other deputies.15 Another time-consuming and irrelevant procedure was the long time allocated to deputies for their speeches. Once aware of it, some deputies would deliver lengthy, decorative, complementary, emotional, and personal speeches with little useful content. A third procedure slowing the Majles was the need for a quorum. According to Article 7 of the constitution, Majles sessions could begin only if two-thirds of the members were present; and voting could take place only with the presence of at least three-quarters of the deputies. Thus, the method of ‘obstruction’ was devised, mainly by Mosaddeq and the Jabhahah-ye Melli (National Front) when they were in a minority, to make sure that there was no quorum for voting. Mosaddeq argued that, as a minority voice, he had no choice but to cause obstruction. Later the opposition to his government blocked his demands by the same tactics. In fact, the shah, as well as Qavvam and Mosaddeq all used

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extraparliamentary and extra-constitutional methods to break the effect of obstruction. Mosaddeq, for example, continually resorted to a referendum— although no provision was made for such action in the constitution, to which he had sworn allegiance. A fourth cause for delays was the workings of special commissions. These were intended to be a useful tool to speed up parliamentary decisions. In Iran of the 1940s and early 1950s, however, these commissions, like many other political gatherings, were not taken seriously by their members or the so-called experts. Rezazadeh Shafaq gave a vivid account of the way these commissions operated. After several telephone calls to ensure the members would remember the date of the commission, they would arrive 10, 15, 20 or 25 minutes late. Then each would chat to friends for another 10 minutes. Then they had to have tea and a smoke and a gossip. After about one hour the chairman would announce what the topic was…they discussed it for 10 minutes and it would be time for tea again. Some people would request a bit of music, some would keep leaving to make telephone calls…and most members would not really listen or care.16 Inefficiencies in the political structure It is reasonably well established and documented that all the elections were rigged. Most deputies found their way to the Majles by buying their seats or by being connected to the right people. Deputies mainly chosen on this basis, or through nepotism, could not be expected to have an interest in matters other than those relating to their family, sector, or person. Another major problem was that the parties or the parliamentary factions had no set policy or consistent political line. Decisions would often be made spontaneously and according to factional emotions and rivalries.17 Thus neither the deputies, nor their parliamentary factions, nor the parties they were affiliated to, nor even the newspapers that supported them exhibited any consistency. The more experienced political players such as Qavvam18 and Mosaddeq would change position to ensure their post remained intact. Could one establish, for example, whether Qavvam and Mosaddeq were pro- or antishah? Could one ascertain whether they were pro- or anti-Tudeh? Could it be said whether they were more prone to befriend the USA or the USSR? If their actions during the fourteenth to the seventeenth Majles were to be the yardstick, one could establish a firm answer to none of the above questions. Moreover, this constantly changing outlook cannot be considered as a sign of extraordinary diplomatic skills. The reality is that they did not have any clear ideas as to where they were going. Mosaddeq was very clear about wanting to nationalize oil. There one can see how consistent and effective his actions were because of that clarity of purpose. But this was only one idea and does not reflect on his overall performance.

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THE BRITISH In the 1940s Britain was doubtless the most influential power in Iran after the Majles and its deputies and its actions greatly affected the internal political scene. Among the three foreign powers trying to influence Iran, Britain had by far the greatest knowledge of social and political conditions in the country. Britain had influenced Iranian politics for decades and was well aware of the way the political structure operated.19 The British had well-established methods and contacts in Iran and realized from the beginning that the establishment of democracy would be next to impossible. Their dilemma was that official British policy was to support the form of government most conducive to liberalization. However, in the years after the victory over Hitler, Britain felt threatened by Soviet expansion east and south. When the British invaded Iran in 1941, they stated that they had no intention of occupying the country or failing to respect its sovereignty. Yet, in practice, Foreign Office documents clearly show that the British tried to influence the local politics to the smallest detail. The British also often stated that they would prefer a government that favoured reforms, but in effect supported mainly those politicians who best represented their point of view. The stated Foreign Office policy was that the embassy staff and the British Council members should influence the pro-British politicians in Iran to advocate the British point of view in the Majles. But the British government’s actions aimed at influencing the Majles often hampered and paralyzed the workings of this institution. Relying to excess, however, on their previous advantages in Iran, the British could not come to terms with the changing internal political scene. They appear to have been greatly angered in the early 1940s by being criticized and mistrusted in the Iranian press, who rejected the presence of British troops in Iran; they were disappointed at not having their choice of premiers accepted by the Majles; and most of all, they were furious at their inability to convince the parliament during the late 1940s of the variety of deals they were offering for an oil settlement. The British seem to have failed to recognize the dominant nationalist atmosphere, seeing the nationalists as extremists, Mosaddeq as a megalomaniac, and the Majles as totally incompetent. In handling the oil crisis, the documents of the Foreign Office give the strong impression that the British considered themselves the masters of the Middle East, assuming that Britain had so much power that ‘the Persians’ would finally agree. Right up to the final days of the Mosaddeq government, they insisted on sending junior ministers and officials to try to solve the oil crisis. They also insisted on renewing the 1933 Agreement, which was one of the most hated documents in the Persian collective memory. To this end the British often resorted to all forms of intrigue and vote rigging to get their favoured representatives elected to the parliament. Moreover, it is now well-documented that the British played a very effective role in convincing the Americans to stage a coup to remove Mosaddeq. But Mosaddeq was the elected prime minister of Iran, and despite his difficulties and

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the criticism that could be made of his actions, he had shown on several occasions that he had the support of the population. If the British were, as they had claimed, truly in favour of a democratic system of government in Iran, they could have allowed Mosaddeq’s fall to take its ‘democratic’ course. Anne Lambton had suggested to the Foreign Office in January 1952 that ‘the opposition would succeed in overthrowing Mosaddeq’.20 As it happened the British chose the military solution for their own purposes and cooperated closely with the US in the coup of 1951. THE SOVIET UNION AND THE TUDEH PARTY The question of the development of democracy in Iran had little or no significance for the Soviet Union. Stalin was keen to export the communist revolution to Iran and this he tried to do by way of the Tudeh Party. The activities of the Tudeh Party did not aim to promote democratization. Nevertheless they were quite effective in the formation of trade unions, workers’ organizations, workers’ politicization, and the changes in labour law and labour rights in general. The Communist Party of Iran was formally formed in June 1920 and published its policy document in 1921. First and foremost it advocated the ‘annihilation’ of the monarchy, the formation of a revolutionary government, and the establishment of a parliament for which free elections as well as freedom of speech, press, language, gatherings and formation were deemed necessary. It advocated equality of wealth and rights and government investment for the development of industry.21 The Communist Party organized many labour strikes among textile workers, publishers, postal workers, and teachers and its main centres of influence were Rasht, Bandar Pahlavi, Qazvin, and Mashhad.22 At the end of its first congress, held on 23 June 1920 in Enzeli, the Communist Party announced that it had formed with the Jangalis in Gilan a Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran.23 By the end of 1920, the Soviet Socialist Republic—reinforced by the Red Army—was preparing to march on Tehran. It was to combat the growing power of the communists that Reza Khan, with the aid of the British, took charge as army commander and then later consolidated his power to become Reza Shah. It was therefore not surprising that Reza Shah banned all trade unions set up by the Communist Party and jailed many labour organizers and activists. The most important arrest, in May 1937, was of 53 leaders accused of clandestine activities, of organizing labour strikes, and of translating ‘atheistic tracts’ such as Marx’s Das Kapital. Thirteen days after the abdication of Reza Shah, in September 1941, 27 of the younger members of the famous ‘Fifty-Three’ announced the formation of the Tudeh (Masses) Party of Iran. The Tudeh published its provisional programme in late February 1942: it called for the elimination of ‘Reza Shah’s dictatorship’, for the protection of constitutional laws, human rights, civil liberties, rights of

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the masses, as well as participation in the world-wide struggle for democracy, equality, and workers’ and women’s rights.24 The Tudeh did not lose any time in organizing itself and beginning its election campaign for the fourteenth Majles. By November 1943, when the elections were approaching, the British minister reported that the Tudeh was ‘the only organized and disciplined party’.25 In October 1942 it convened its First Provincial Conference, which drafted the party programme in detail. This adopted ‘democratic centralism’26 as the basic principle on which the party operated and spelled out proposals to attract workers, peasants and women, as well as members of the middle class such as small landowners, tradesmen, intellectuals, and low-ranking government employees. The main policy document published by the Tudeh stated in its first article that the ‘independence and sovereignty of Iran, i.e. the running of the affairs of Iran, should be in the hands of Persians and the way for this should be chosen by the people of Iran’.27 The second article dealt with the establishment of a ‘democratic regime’ and all the freedoms that accompany this form of government. By this, it was explained, the Tudeh Party meant that the people of Iran must be directly involved with the running of the politics of their country.28 The years between 1942 and 1945 witnessed a great increase in the power of the Tudeh. It had managed to secure wide support among intellectuals and students, as well as amongst the workers in Esfahan and Mashhad, where it had organized trade unions. The main stronghold of the Tudeh, however, remained the areas which were occupied by the Soviet forces. In the elections to the fourteenth Majles, the Tudeh Party won eight seats, all in the areas under Soviet occupation.29 The Tudeh reached its zenith in August 1946; not only did it control most of the labour movement, but three of its members had been given cabinet posts by Qavvam. Qavvam also passed on 18 May 1946 a labour law, that for the first time gave the workers the right to organize their actions through labour unions. By mid-1946 the Tudeh claimed a membership of some 100,000 and the CCFTU (the Central Council of Federated Trade Unions, set up by the Tudeh in 1941, but hitherto unrecognized by the government) also claimed a considerable following and 355,000 members.30 While the Tudeh had been very successful in the labour movement and in organizing strikes, it had alienated many intellectuals, students, and great sections of the general public by what appeared to them as a ‘revolutionary’ rather than a ‘democratic’ approach to politics. Already by mid-1944 signs of a split as to whether the political infiltration of Iran should be through parliamentary or revolutionary ways came into the open. Fereydoon Keshavarz31 argued that this split resulted in many members leaving the party and thereby undermining its potential.32 Another major setback for the Tudeh appears to have been its clandestine military actions and its organizing of near revolts in major cities such as Esfahan and Mashhad during 1945 and 1946.33 But the biggest

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problems were caused by the Tudeh’s demand for concessions to be given to the USSR to explore for oil in the north of Iran, in areas under Soviet occupation. By the end of May, after the war against Germany had formally ended, the Iranian government had sent a note to the Soviet, British, and American embassies requesting them to withdraw their troops. The Soviets announced that they did not intend to leave Iran before 21 March 1946. At this stage they started handing over some of their posts to Tudeh organizations in the north. In September 1945 the formation of a new Democratic Party of Azerbaijan was announced in Tabriz. The new party demanded the establishment of provincial councils and the use of the Azeri language in schools and offices in Azerbaijan. It announced that it was preparing for an armed uprising against the politicians in Tehran, who were ignoring the provincial grievances. Soviet troops still in Azerbaijan stopped Iranian military reinforcements from entering the province. A similar Soviet-supported party was formed in Kurdestan. It demanded an autonomous Kurdestan within the frontiers of Iran.34 The two parties gave full support to each other but distinguished themselves from the Tudeh. The Soviets demanded Iranian recognition of the governments of Azerbaijan and Kurdestan as well as concessions for oil exploration in the north. Their list of demands also included the employment of military personnel to be under the control of USSR. Moreover, they had asked that the Iranian government invite Soviet forces to stay in Iran until acceptance of the above was achieved.35 This is where the Soviet Union and the Tudeh seem to have lost much popular support. While a great deal of support might have been offered by Iranian intellectuals and the working population for Marxist ideology and even to a revolutionary approach to politics, very few Iranians looked kindly on an invading force. The fact that Tudeh appeared to always support Soviet policy created serious splits within the ranks and leadership of the party and led to deep mistrust of the Soviet Union among the tudeh (masses) that it was trying to attract. With hindsight, the party admitted that its support of oil concessions for the Soviet Union at a time when the mood of the country was predominantly in favour of the nationalization of oil had been a major cause of its downfall. Furthermore, these actions gave the government and the shah, as well as the British and the Americans, the justification they were looking for to suppress the Tudeh and communism in Iran. In October 1946 Soviet troops left Iran. By the end of 1946 the autonomous governments in Azerbaijan and Kurdestan had been crushed. Tudeh branches and organizations throughout the south and north were attacked and activists imprisoned. In Tehran the government announced martial law, banned all outdoor meetings, broke a general strike called by the Tudehcontrolled CCFTU, and issued warrants for the arrest of important Tudeh activists. The government, however, stopped short of banning the Tudeh altogether. Having failed to introduce the reforms formulated by the Soviet Union, having met with repeated rejection of the proposed Soviet oil concessions, repeated attacks on party offices and repeated imprisonment of its members, and having

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finally been banned, in February 1949 the Tudeh Party also joined in the intrigues. It organized workers through an underground organization, it took part in strikes and demonstrations under different names, it operated under different front organizations in elections, it published underground newspapers, it sabotaged oil installations, and tried to infiltrate the army. Under the pressure of traditional forces, Tudeh plans for the process of democratization (albeit for their own ends) had all turned into revolutionary methods. THE SHAH AND HIS ARMY Of the two internal powers discussed in this chapter, the shah might appear less important than the Majles, but despite his youth and inexperience, he played a crucial role in blocking the process of democratization. On 19 September 1941, when the young Muhammad Reza Pahlavi ascended to the throne, he was a Swiss-educated prince, well trained in royal etiquette, and an enthusiastic sportsman who had also finished his studies at the Imperial Military Academy and received his second lieutenant’s insignia from his father’s hand. He had a good knowledge of Iranian history and literature and, like his father, was deeply patriotic and intensely proud of his country’s great past. When the shah was formally sworn in he chose to do it, unlike his father, in the Majles, out of respect for parliamentary democracy, and made this promise to the nation: I call upon Almighty God as witness and I swear upon the Holy Qur’an and all that is respected by God to use the best of my power for the preservation of the independence of Iran and for defending the frontiers of the country… I swear to be the guardian of the Constitution of Iran and to rule according to its contents.36 In his first broadcast to the nation the shah said: ‘The form of government conducive to unity and progress is a democratic government.’37 The shah tried to obtain the support of wider sections of the population. To please the traditional and religious classes, he decreed the return of waqf lands to the religious foundations. He also transferred much of his inheritance to the state for eventual redistribution among the previous owners. To attract the support of the Majles deputies, he reintroduced parliamentary immunity for the deputies and invited the parliament to participate again in the process of forming cabinets and making decisions. Perhaps the shah’s desire to rule the country democratically and in a manner somewhat different to his father was quite genuine at first. The conditions in Iran, however, were such that for anyone to enter the game of politics, it was necessary to swim with the dominant tide. The shah had learnt from his father and his father’s close advisers that his most useful ally would be the army. Thus, as Sir Reader Bullard, the British minister, had written in July 1943,

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the Shah, being doubtful of popular enthusiasm for his dynasty, cultivated his ties to the officers, jealously guarding his own control over the military and thereby assuming both the title and the real authority of the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.38 The shah’s political life in the 1940s and early 1950s could be divided into two phases: first, from 1941 to 1949, when he had a less formal presence; and then from 1949 to 1953, when, after an attempt on his life, he insisted on changing the constitution of Iran to give himself extra powers. In the first phase the deputies who had after many years returned to politics were keen to reduce the power of the shah and his army. Mosaddeq, for example, stated clearly that the shah should be no more than a constitutional monarch. First of all I want to state clearly that I love the Shah more than anyone else in this House. He released me from prison and if it were not for him I would not be alive today. But I must stress that according to our Constitution, the Shah has no responsibility. According to articles 46, 64 and 48 the Shah is just a ceremonial figure.39 On 7 February 1948 the shah spelled out the details of changes he wanted to make to the constitution: the right to dissolve both houses, the appointment of prime ministers and cabinet ministers, the appointment and dismissal of army officers and high-ranking civil servants, and the right to declare martial law in order to preserve the public peace or to stop activities prejudicial to the public good. He also requested that prime ministers and cabinet ministers be answerable to him.40 The only limitation to the shah’s power, according to this formula, was in writing the law. However, draft laws presented to the Majles had to be accepted by two-thirds of the house and signed by the shah; if not, six months were to elapse before they could be presented again. The attempt on the shah’s life the following day gave him the excuse he required. He argued that the attempt was a Soviet plot and had immediately ordered the arrest of Tudeh leaders and the imposition of martial law and a curfew in the capital, proscribing the Tudeh Party throughout the country.41 The shah was now in the best possible position to press for constitutional changes. He would have the people’s sympathy, the Majles would not be in a position to disagree and the Americans and British would be relieved that measures had been taken against Soviet influence through the Tudeh Party. In spite of strong opposition from Mosaddeq and Kashani and despite complaints of the shah’s political critics that ‘he wishes to monopolise power for himself’,42 the Constituent Assembly duly changed Article 48 so as to empower the shah to dissolve the Majles and the Senate together or separately. Mosaddeq’s premiership in May 1951 was in fact an ultimatum to the shah and to the army, which had been set up almost exclusively to serve the king. Mosaddeq objected to the army’s interference in political affairs and

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immediately set about purging senior officers loyal to the shah. A series of blows against the shah followed. Mosaddeq excluded royalists from his cabinet, placed royal charities under government control, forbade the shah from communication with foreigners directly, forced Princess Ashraf (the shah’s twin sister) to leave the country, refused to act against the Tudeh, and set up a special parliamentary committee to investigate the constitutional issues in dispute between the government and the shah. The committee reported that under the constitution the army should be under the direct control of the government, not the shah. Mosaddeq immediately renamed the Ministry of War the Ministry of Defence, cut the military budget by 15 per cent and drastically reduced the budget of the secret service. He also set up two special commissions to investigate army corruption, sacked 136 army officers and placed a few generals he trusted at the top. By mid-February 1953 the shah had been stripped of almost all his power as well as control over the army. On 27 February, Mosaddeq went to see the shah and had a four-hour meeting with him to try and persuade him to leave the country. Kashani, who had by this time become an opponent of Mosaddeq, had a meeting with the shah and asked him to remain in the country. He further wrote a formal letter to the shah saying that for security reasons and because of the unstable conditions, he must remain in the country. Moreover, Kashani wrote to the Majles asking deputies to do everything in their power to stop the shah from leaving and appealed to the nation to support him in this demand. Foreign Office documents show that this request was duly answered. People gathered in their thousands at the Shah’s palace, weeping and shouting pro-Shah slogans, begging the Shah to change his mind. The crowd then gathered around the house of Mosaddeq and shouted antiMosaddeq slogans. He had to run away in his pyjamas.43 Despite the shah’s success—mainly because of Kashani’s help—the British analysis was as follows: The Shah, though apparently the centre of dispute, was merely a pawn in the game. The crowd which shouted for him were doing it at the behest of Kashani, who opposed Mosaddeq. There was some sentiment of loyalty to the shah from people and also from the discontented army officers whose support for the shah probably springs from ingrained loyalty and partly from the hope of reinstatement.44 Even though the shah had managed to survive this onslaught by Mosaddeq, he appeared extremely concerned about his position. He virtually begged Henderson, the American ambassador, to find out what the British intended to do with him: ‘If they desire that he should stay and the crown should retain power, he should be informed. If, on the other hand, they wished him to go he should be

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told immediately so that he could make arrangements.’45 This document, never made public before, shows clearly how weak the shah had become at this stage and how deeply he felt that only the foreign powers could decide his destiny. On 30 May 1953 the United States ambassador conveyed the British prime minister’s answer to the shah: ‘While the United Kingdom government does not interfere in Persian politics, they would be very sorry to see the shah lose his powers, or leave his post or be driven out.’46 The shah understood from this message that Britain wanted him to play a more active role than he had done in the past. He [the shah] said that in the past the UK government had endeavoured to persuade him to conduct himself as a constitutional monarch in the European sense and to avoid participation in politics. The UK prime minister’s message seemed to indicate he ought to play a role in the political and military life of Iran.47 On 30 May 1953 Henderson met the shah and talked to him about replacing Mosaddeq with General Zahedi. On 15 August 1953 Imperial Guards arrested many of Mosaddeq’s ministers and presented him with a decree signed by the shah, which dismissed Mosaddeq and appointed General Zahedi as premier.48 Mosaddeq refused to accept the decree and called for a referendum. He also ordered the arrest of Zahedi. While the shah flew to Baghdad to meet an AngloAmerican team of advisers, Mosaddeq dissolved the Majles and the Tudeh Party demanded an end to the monarchy. On 19 August Tudeh demonstrations were followed by royalist demonstrations in Tehran and by nightfall General Zahedi was in control. CIA agents involved in advising the shah and planning the proShah demonstrations, as well as the coup that ensued, have written detailed accounts of how the whole operation had been organized by the United States and Britain during the previous few months.49 Thus, the shah’s power was now re-established with the aid of an AngloAmerican coup. This fact in itself shows that the shah and his army did not independently have the power to control Iran’s political storm after the Second World War. Furthermore, he was such an apprehensive politician that, in his conversations with Henderson towards the end of the period, he really felt the British had to decide whether he should go or stay. The experience of his father being brought in and then toppled by the British was never far from his mind.50 Apart from this, even as an independent political figure, speaking about bringing ‘democracy’ to Iran, the shah never seemed to have any particular plans or course of action. The elements that enabled him to survive the powerful storms of the 1940s and early 1950s were: (a) the historical and sentimental love and respect of the Iranian people and politicians for the person of the shah; (b) the fact that he was quite a useful pawn for powerful players in the centre of Iranian politics; and (c) the limited talent he had in making use of his rights in the constitution and never openly breaking the rules of the game. Other than that,

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during 1941–53 the shah proved to be a weak, isolated, disorganized monarch who was confused about his role and his future aims: one who did not have the courage to remain the constitutional monarch he had aspired to be. His continued use of traditional methods, of intrigues, of favouritism, of nepotism and of misuse of the political structure were the most damaging. If his father, as a dictator, had been at least successful in modernizing Iran, the young shah’s main aim was personal political power and survival. As the liberalizing classes were not prepared to give him that total power, he was prepared to make a deal with foreign powers and destroy the fledgling process of democratization. THE AMERICANS The question arises, therefore, whether in a situation where a vital power position of the United States is at stake, it can afford to apply fully the normal and traditional laws of sovereign self-determination to the control of underdeveloped countries over the oil in their soil.51 Thus the Americans opted for a military coup against the government of Mosaddeq and therefore they could not be said to have been serious or consistent in their aim for implementing democracy in Iran. The United States, fully aware of the influence of its rivals, Britain and the Soviet Union, at the outset approached Iran with fresh policies. The US aimed to preserve Iran’s territorial integrity, but at the same time to change the economic situation, overhaul the military and the police, and reform the bureaucracy. The US was correct in seeing these as among the most essential reforms. Their plans for the gendarmerie and the police worked reasonably satisfactorily. Their economic and military designs, however, faced serious problems, since instead of finding a formula that suited local conditions, they exported an American economic formula and presumed they could apply it to a traditional structure. Disillusioned by the failure of its initial approach and frightened by the increasing influence of the Soviet Union, the US switched its attention to military reforms. This approach coincided with a strong nationalist atmosphere and it also met with an inevitable rejection by the premier, Mosaddeq. The Americans tried right up to May 1953 to be supportive and respectful of the nationalist atmosphere that prevailed in Iran. They also gave serious consideration to other alternatives. Their analysis of powerful political figures such as Kashani and Qavvam as alternatives, however, was that they would be more dictatorial than Mosaddeq and less inclined to liberal democratic government. Here again, the US was faced with traditional political personalities and with traditional tendencies to authoritarianism. Suffering from a phobia about the Soviet Union, considering the interests of American oil companies and the American position in the Middle East, the US overlooked its overall potential sources of support in Iran. First, it ignored the

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fact that many politicians from the National Movement had approached the Americans for help, so they were not initially disliked or mistrusted. Second, the US did not attach enough significance to the fact that, as a modern world power, it was also favoured by the Iranian population at large. In most of their policy analysis, the US State Department had suggested that the American position should be totally independent of Britain (which was distrusted in Iran) and that they should not lose sight of popular support. Indeed, the US had repeatedly advised the shah to be conscious of the need for popular support for himself and the army. But, in the final analysis, the US ignored this significant factor in its own calculations about Iran. Instead of choosing an approach that might have helped the process of democratization in Iran, and instead of siding with the more popular sources of power, the US, led by a new military president in the figure of General Eisenhower, opted for the weakest choice. It made a coalition first with the shah, who was the target of the pro-democracy, pro-constitution movement; and second with Britain, which was the target in the fierce struggle for the nationalization of oil. By organizing the coup of August 1953, the US gave in to the traditional structure of politics and helped to strengthen authoritarianism. Thus it opted for short-term economic and strategic benefits rather than the more long-term, more arduous task of establishing a liberal democratic state in Iran. CONCLUSION The immediate cause of the failure of a process of democratization in 1941–53 appears to have been the coup of 19 August 1953. Of the five sources of power, three—namely, Britain, the US, and the shah and his army—were parties to this action. It can, therefore, be assumed that these three were not powerful enough under the circumstances to confront their rivals in a parliamentary way. The other two power sources—the Majles and its deputies and the Soviet Union and the Tudeh Party—appear to have been unable, whether jointly or separately, to create the social and political conditions that might have rendered a coup impossible. One may, therefore, conclude that the causes for the failure of achieving democracy in Iran in the years 1941–53 were several. First, none of the power sources was consistent in trying to achieve its stated aim of creating democracy in Iran. Second, the foreign powers disturbed the process of democratization by insisting only on their own long-term benefits in Iran. This reached its peak in the Anglo-American coup of 1953, which intentionally blocked the process of democratization. Third, the liberalizing classes suffered from several inherent weaknesses that made their task of achieving democracy very difficult. These weaknesses are as follows:

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1. As the example of successful democracies has shown, democracy needs a philosophical background in order to develop the ideas and ideals preferred for each nation, this being based not only on universal theories of liberal democracy but also on local cultural preferences. The liberalizing classes in Iran had no choice but to rely mainly on the philosophical legacy of the West, as no political philosophy other than perhaps the Islamic philosophy ever developed in Iran. Islamic political philosophy, which by definition stressed the power of God and the holy Qur’an as the final arbitrators, did not help the development of democracy in Iran as it undermined the legitimacy of the power of individuals. 2. There was no consensus on democratic norms among different sections of the liberalizing classes. Most theories of democracy stress that, in order for democracy to strike roots in a society, dialogue, discussion, and practice are necessary to establish a broad consensus on democratic norms. In a country such as Iran—with a long history of despotic shahs or ‘olama’ that prohibited dialogue other than on Islamic thought —such a practice was almost impossible even among intellectuals. The result was that Iran’s liberalizing classes had very unclear ideas about the parameters of what they wanted under the broad terminology of ‘democracy’. This resulted in serious disagreements among different sections of the liberalizing classes—as illustrated in the sessions of the Majles. This lack of unity was one of the main causes of the liberalizing classes’ inability to prevent, or overturn, the AngloAmerican coup of 1953. 3. From the time of the Constitutional Revolution, the Iranian liberalizing classes, influenced by western history, were persuaded that progress was not attainable unless they broke the three chains of royal despotism—the inevitable enemy of liberty, equality and fraternity—religious dogmatism— the natural opponent of scientific thought—and foreign imperialism—the exploiter of weaker countries such as Iran. The tools to break these chains were thought to be constitutionalism, secularism, and nationalism, respectively. However, the liberalizing classes were inconsistent in handling these elements, because they had not thought their ideals through and had not formulated exact policies for the required changes. Thus, sometimes they found themselves allied with the shah against the ‘olama’ at other times with the ‘olama’ against the shah, and at yet other occasions they joined the shah against the foreign powers. These inconsistencies lead to partial and temporary successes only in achieving these goals. Fourth, perhaps as a result of the previous three, the traditional structure of politics in Iran was not challenged sufficiently to allow for this change. 1. For democracy to be introduced, fundamental changes need to be made to the political structure, and the rule of law must be accepted as the norm for the conduct of politics (and life in general). In other words, the corrupt

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bureaucracies must be brought down and the powerful influence of a handful of aristocratic families, or families related to the king, must be eroded. The achievement of this task was extremely hard for the politicians and foreign powers alike, because the traditional political structure was too powerful to be defeated.52 2. Democracy in the West seems to have come, after centuries, to terms with the traditional institutions of the monarchy and religion. It has either disposed of them completely or made them powerless. The latter is almost impossible in Iran. Neither the shahs nor the ‘olama’ have ever accepted a passive role. As far as the monarchy is concerned, its abolition (as finally undertaken during the Islamic Revolution) seems to have been necessary. As for Islam, so far all measures to reduce the power of religion have failed in Iran and its eradication may come about only through a revolution (as it did with the shah), which does not necessarily lead to democracy. Fifth, for democracy to ‘arrive’, the majority of the population would need to have overcome their cultural obstacles about certain traditional institutions such as the monarchy and religion. The long history of combined rule by shah—‘the image of God’—and ayatollah—the ‘vision of God’—has turned the population into worshippers rather than citizens. People in Iran look for powerful leaders and if they do not find them, they turn whoever they trust into a powerful king. It was this need for charismatic leadership that turned Mosaddeq and Khomeini into Godlike figures; into ‘liberating kings’, true, incorruptible champions of resistance to authoritarian monarchs, bestowed by the population with the absolute right to the guardianship of the nation. Thus the population has time and again forgone its own responsibility towards the process of democratization, handing this responsibility to a guardian, who has in turn inevitably become a dictator. This has not been so much because of the people’s belief in either the monarch or the ayatollah, but rather because of their longing for honest and trustworthy government—for the development of which they have felt too inexperienced. In Mosaddeq and Khomeini the population cherished their honesty and appeal to justice (i.e. their true image of God), an image that they had not been able to find in their corrupt leaders. The problem was that once they found such a trustworthy guardian, they then bestowed all their power on this single man. In a broader, theoretical perspective the experience of Iran challenges some of the well-established theories about the way democracy can be brought about in a country. At the same time, it adds new dimensions to the discussion of theories of democracy by adding sociocultural elements that must be taken into account. These theoretical questions may be summarized as follows. (a) The experience of Iran has shown that modernity does not necessarily lead to democracy, that is, that capitalism creates the bourgeoisie who in turn lead the way to liberalism and democratization.53 The modernization of the military, administrative, and economic institutions was accomplished by Reza Shah, and

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an educated class was in fact created who attempted unsuccessfully to liberalize the country’s social and political structure. It might be argued that the process of modernization in Iran was never anything other than cosmetic and that if the economic structure had been properly reformed, political liberalization might have followed. It might also be added that capitalism in Iran was very different to that in the West and that industrialization and an economic transformation were never fully accomplished. It could also be said that due to these incomplete processes, there were never any clearly definable social classes, such as the bourgeoisie or the working class. These may all be valid arguments, but then it must be asked why and due to what weaknesses this process of economic and social modernization was left incomplete. (b) Moreover, as it is extensively argued in the appendix, nationalism, as expressed by the liberalizing classes in Iran, could not be said to have led to democracy. While the strong sentiment in favour of nationalization of oil in the period under review might have helped the process of democratization, one would have difficulty in arguing that on its own this nationalist sentiment was democratic. Demands for non-interference of foreign powers may be combined with democratic policies, but they may also be combined with the most authoritarian forms of government, such as is experienced in today’s Iran. Likewise, it may be argued that the final weeks of Mosaddeq’s nationalist government, a more authoritarian— rather than democratic—form of government was developing. Whether this would have changed if Mosaddeq had been allowed to continue, is a question that may never be answered. However, for the present purpose, nationalism of the type presented by Mosaddeq and his allies during 1941–53 did not lead to democracy. (c) The experience of Iran proves the validity of those theories that stress the necessity of practice in democratic norms.54 A long history of authoritarian shahs has, to use Gramsci’s term, made civil society in Iran ‘gelatinous’ and incapable of defending its rights when faced with severe attacks from the forces of authoritarianism. The performance of civil society in the Islamic Revolution of 1979 was by far the most powerful stand against despotism, but that was not sustained either. (d) Perhaps most important, contrary to the established view that democracy had arrived and reigned in Iran in 1941–53, the changes that occurred in the Iranian political scene were for the most part superficial, because the overwhelming self-interest of each source of power, coupled with the overpowering context of traditional methods of conducting politics, did not allow for any fundamental change. The apparent changes, however, created such a maze of rivalries between the five power sources that they gave an impression of democracy. Democracy, thus, seems to have been confused with a multiplicity of sources of power. Thus, the experience of Iran in 1941–53 proves that pluralism does not necessarily mean the existence of, or lead to, democracy. A major reason for this, in all three periods, was that liberalism had not preceded pluralism. By liberalism is meant, above all, the acceptance of opposition, with

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all its vices. Another major reason was that despite this pluralism, there was little or no consensus at all on democratic norms among the many groups and parties speaking about democracy. Only recently has this been acknowledged by some parts of the opposition, and limited work has begun on finding a consensus on democratic norms. This might prove to be a positive start if systematically followed. The experience of Iran seems to indicate, therefore, that the historical and cultural experiences of a nation can be a determining factor in the process of democratization in that country. As such, it is difficult to accept the view that a universal theory of democracy could be applied everywhere without special formulations to suit the particular needs of specific countries. One must, therefore, ask how the Iranians can break away from the vicious circle of their belief system, their lack of experience in political conduct, and their lack of agreement on what constitutes a fair and just system of government. If they really want to establish democracy—as they have clearly demonstrated three times in strong movements over the course of the twentieth century—they must surely start with an effective break with the past. The liberalizing classes in Iran, though fully awakened to the need for a move forward and for progress, have not as yet made what Barrington Moore calls ‘a revolutionary break with the past’.55 Nor, as Robert Dahl would prefer, have they really proved their ‘belief in the legitimacy of polyarchy’.56 Neither of these are as easy as they may sound. The experience of Iran, and indeed of many other countries especially in the Middle East and Latin America, has proved that the adoption of democracy is a long and arduous task. It must be stressed at this stage that all the arguments that have been presented here do not aim to say that for historical reasons Iranian people are incapable of democratic thinking or culture. On the contrary, the repeated organized insistence of the liberalizing classes on wanting to establish a liberal democratic state in Iran shows how keen and serious they are in this endeavour. The aim here, therefore, is to show the complexities and difficulties of achieving such an aim for the liberalizing classes in Iran. Indeed, the repeated defeat of democracy in Iran during the twentieth century has seriously weakened the liberalizing classes, making them lose confidence in their own ability to bring about change. On the positive side, this repeated experience has proved to them that they must take a more active role, as they cannot rely on a ‘guardian’. They have for long years experienced a dictatorial monarchy and have done away with it through the Islamic Revolution; they are now experiencing Velayat-e Faghih and increasingly losing their belief in that form of dictatorship too. Furthermore, they have, at various stages in the twentieth century, lost faith in communism and leftist ideologies. This all counts as experience in political activity. What appears to be essential at this stage is a thorough critical examination by the liberalizing classes of their own weaknesses, taking into account the wealth of experience of the twentieth century. Following on from that, it appears that the liberalizing classes must formulate their combined preferred system of

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government. This may take several years of painful debate and discussion, but if they want to establish a liberal democratic government, then they must begin by theorizing. Taking full advantage of the wealth of western theories of democracy, they must create their own formula with due consideration for local social and historical values. Only then will the foundations for achieving democracy have been laid, and the most difficult stage, that is reaching consensus on locally adjusted democratic norms, will begin. That will then have to be cemented with years of tireless experience in political conduct—including debate, tolerance of opposition, the legal free expression of opinion, free universal and equal suffrage—if Iran is ever going to achieve what its liberalizing classes have longed for throughout the twentieth century: the creation of a liberal democratic state. APPENDIX: NATIONALISM AND THE IRANIAN EXPERIENCE One of the most regularly used arguments in analyzing the events of 1941–53 in Iran is to regard the nationalist movement of this period, led by Dr Mosaddeq and referred to as the Melli (national) movement, as a movement for the establishment of democracy, and members of the liberalizing classes that supported the Melli movement as champions of democracy. While there is no denying that the nationalization of oil (which was a huge achievement for Iranians) was accomplished by the efforts of these Mellion, this should not be confused with democratization. Nationalism contributed greatly towards the shortlived attempts at democratization in Iran, but some negative aspects of the Melli movement, which, even in its most patriotic and progressive form, was quite elitist and often racist, have been overlooked. Three major strands of nationalism could be said to have developed in Iran since the beginning of the century. (1) The most prominent form of nationalism in Iran developed before and during the Constitutional Revolution. This form of nationalism— inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution and the creation of the nation-state, and to which the most famous of Iran’s roshunfekr (intellectuals) adhered—called for progress and modernity, as well as democracy and liberalism. At the same time, however, it was strongly antiforeign. As such it had a dual character. It praised the West for its philosophical heritage and its ideals of democracy and progress, but it was strongly critical of the West’s political conduct in Iran. This can be easily traced in the writings of the major thinkers of the constitutional movement, Kermani,57 Assadabadi,58 Akhundzadeh,59 and Kasravi,60 as well as the poetry of the nationalist poets of the era such as Farokhi Yazdi61 and Malek osh-Sho’ara-i Bahar,62 who praised Iran’s past glory and blamed the ‘corrupt kings’, the Russians, and the British for Iran’s ailments. Mirza Agha Kermani who, as Adamiyat reminds us, was contemporary with the ultranationalist movements of the late nineteenth century, writes for example in his description of Iran as a ‘bride’:

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All our country is a beautiful bride, But she has an ugly, bad-tempered husband. I don’t want to see the day when this beautiful bride Has fallen under the Russian youth. I hope the world will never see the day When she gets married to an English lord.63 Furthermore, while being patriotic, modernist, and anti-foreign, most of these writings had two other prominent characteristics: they tended to point to the cultural superiority of Iranians in comparison to their neighbours; they also tended to be elitist and at times overtly racist. Aref Ghazvini, for example, reflects strong anti-Arab and anti-Turkish racism in lines, such as From the day Arabs set foot in our land No one heard rejoicing from the land of Sassan.64 or To compare the Iranian race with the Turks Is like comparing a silk carpet with a straw-mat.65 Thus Cottam is right to argue that most of this strand of nationalist elite or intellectuals in Iran ‘believed deeply in Liberalism, in democracy, and in nationalism’,66 but included at the same time members that were ‘Pan-Iranist, resembling very much the fascist movements of Europe’.67 One may also take the example of Kasravi, as one of the leading thinkers in this strand during the period under analysis. He published over fifty books, booklets, and pamphlets during the 1940s dealing directly or indirectly with nationalism or national integration. He developed his ideas based on the assumption that ‘man is born with an inherent desire to progress’. This desire, according to him, took man from nature into civil society. Eventually common languages and urban societies came into being. In an article published in Parcham (‘The Flag’) on 27 April 1942, he argued that ‘the chief reason for under-development in Iran is disunity among the masses’. To remedy this, Kasravi suggested that ‘some superior force’ was needed to join the various parts into a large whole. In an article entitled ‘What Must Be Done Today’, he spoke of fourteen religious sects in Iran, arguing this meant ‘fourteen separate states, fourteen separate goals, fourteen separate interests’.68 Shi‘ism, then tribalism, had, according to Kasravi, done the most damage to Iranian society: he saw tribal people as being ‘disruptive elements’ in a society. He advocated strict censorship and the burning of such ‘unhealthy’ works as Sufi poetry, romantic novels, and religious ‘mumbo jumbo’ to prevent the public from being led astray. Thus, while nationalist and progressive, Kasravi insulted many sections

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of the population and his ideals were to a considerable extent chauvinistic, offending those non-Persian sections of the population that valued their own culture and language. (2) Another strand of nationalism was that of the movements for selfdetermination within Iran. The nationalist movements in Azerbaijan, Kurdestan, and Gilan were probably the most important of these. The history of Iran in the early twentieth century is linked with the names Mirza Kuchik Khan Jangali69 and Shaykh Muhammad Khiabani,70 nationalist figures who fought against foreign influence in Iran and were prominent in the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, and later of Sayed Ja‘far Pishevari.71 These nationalist movements, which received a major boost from the 1917 Russian revolution, organized themselves under the names of the National Democratic Party in Azerbayjan,72 the Komale-i Ziyan-i Kordestan (Committee for the Revival of Kurdestan),73 and the Jangali movement in Gilan.74 Their aim at those early stages was to fight against foreign powers, as well as against the central government in Tehran, which refused to recognize their rights and often used oppressive measures against them. Although from 1941 onwards these movements became far more dominated by the Tudeh Party, their basic demands always remained more or less the same: respect for their distinct national, linguistic, cultural, and traditional characteristics; the desire to remain within Iran; selfdetermination for their area; and democracy for Iran. Their emphasis on the teaching of local languages in schools formed one of the most important components of their demands that highlights the nationalist element in the movements. As Cottam points out, this aspect alarmed many Iranian intellectuals, who saw inherent in it a potential for disunity and for the disintegration of Iran.75 (3) A third strand was the nationalism expressed by Reza Shah and his son Muhammed Reza. This tended to glorify the past, mainly with the aim of overemphasizing the importance of the Iranian monarchs. This view tended to cover up all the atrocities committed by the Iranian kings, and to give a false account of history. The Pahlavis’ nationalism was also coupled with secularism and was designed to follow in the footsteps of Atatürk, whom Reza Shah greatly admired. Reza Shah’s admiration for Hitler, coupled with his severe policy of tribal unification, was also sometimes a reminder of fascism, but there was a wide difference between Hitler’s world and that of Reza Shah or Ataturk. While Reza Shah’s nationalism was far from entailing democracy or freedom, it was nonetheless modernizing. Thus one can see that none of the three brands of nationalism in twentiethcentury Iran can be considered as relating directly to the process of democratization. Whereas the patriotic language used by the nationalists might at times help to push forward some of the demands for democratization—as it did both in the 1906 constitutional movement and Mosaddeq’s era—it would at the same time be divisive, hindering the process of creating consensus on democratic norms. In other words by overstressing nationalist demands and national

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superiorities, it sometimes diverted the focus of political movements from democratization to questions of nationality, race, colour, or language.76 NOTES 1. The term democracy is used here in its most minimalistic meaning, i.e., free, universal and equal suffrage and the legal freedoms of speech, assembly, organization and freedom of the press. 2. Keesing’s Contemporary Archives, 1940–43, p. 4759. 3. UK, Public Record Office (PRO), Foreign Office Archives, FO371-27213/E5518, Eden to Legation in Tehran, 9 September 1941. 4. The term liberalizing classes is used in this chapter to refer to the different sections of the population who repeatedly expressed a desire for modernity, liberalization and democracy. These were a cross-section of society, often including: (a) some members of the modern, educated middle class; (b) some elements of the traditional middle class, such as the Bazaar merchants; (c) some elements of the more modern and moderate Islamic activists, such as those who had been active in the Constitutional Revolution and Ayatollah Kashani in this period; and (d) parts of the working classes who favoured the creation of a more organized labour force, with specific rights of action and organization. 5. In trying to cope with this new role, the Majles experienced instability, confusion and paralysis. In the previous 16 years there had been only 8 premiers, 10 cabinets and 50 ministers filling 198 cabinet posts. In the next 13 years, however, there were to be as many as 12 premiers, 31 cabinets and 148 ministers filling 400 cabinet posts. On average the premiers lasted eight months and cabinets less than five months—E.Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 186. 6. The 1933 agreement between the government of Iran and the AIOC resolved a bitter struggle between the two, as well as that between Iran and Britain which followed the abrogation by Iran of the D’arcy concession. The conflict was solved only after it was nearly brought before the International Tribunal in the Hague and following the intervention of the League of Nations. Even though Iran won on several points and multiplied its income, the 1933 oil agreement remained one of the most hated documents in Iranian collective memory. 7. Dr Mohammed Mosaddeq (1881–1967), a jurist by education, entered politics in 1915 and served as member of the Majles (1915–17, 1926–28), Provincial Governor (Fars 1920–21, Azerbayjan 1922–3), Minister of Justice (1921) and Foreign Minister (1924). Due to tensions with Reza Shah, Mosaddeq left politics and was for a while even placed under house arrest. In 1941 he re-entered politics, was re-elected to the Majles (1944–53) and served as prime minister (1951–3). He is most famous for nationalizing all AIOC installations, which caused a severe crisis with Britain and the US. 8. Mollah Ayatollah abu l’Qasim Kashani—the other influential public figure, who also fought consistently for oil nationalization and always offered strong support to the National Movement—never made any claims to democracy. He always stated that he respected the will of the people and was firmly opposed to imperialism and colonialism, but his aim was the establishment of an Islamic state. Ayatollah

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9.

10.

11.

12. 13. 14.

15. 16.

Kashani was an important religious and political leader known for his anti-British attitude. During the First World War he fought with the Ottomans against the British in Iraq. In 1941 he arrived in Baghdad to support the Rashid ‘Ali al-Kaykani government in Iraq in its confrontation with Britain. Between 1941 and 1949 he was under house arrest and then exiled following the assassination attempt on the Shah. He was a member of the Majles (1950–3) and supported the nationalization of AIOC installations by Mosaddeq. After the pro-Shah coup in 1953, he retired from public affairs. The duration of each Majles was as follows: The thirteenth Majles—November 1941 to November 1943 The fourteenth Majles—November 1943 to February 1944 The fifteenth Majles—June 1944 to June 1949 The sixteenth Majles—July 1949 to May 1951 The seventeenth Majles—February 1952 to August 1953 Another very basic problem with the constitution lay in Article 2, which spoke of the Majles being the representative of the ‘entire’ population, but made no provision for the right of women to vote. As such, the elections and representations during the fourteenth to the seventeenth Majleses never included the entire population. None of the great advocates of democracy and universal representation took any notice of this important factor and when Mosaddeq was asked to consider this element by the women’s organization of the Tudeh, he rejected the necessity and delayed giving his response. One further point that must be mentioned is that the constitutions that were used in Iran never came from within the country. They were copies of European models, with minimal local changes. Europe (especially France, which had been a model for Iranian intellectuals) had experienced a rich philosophical background and a much longer, more meaningful experience of social upheavals before arriving at its constitution. The philosophies and experiences of changes that lay behind the constitutions that were being copied did not suit the local conditions of Iran. Zahra Shajiei, Vizarat va vaziran dar Iran [Prime Ministers and Ministers of Iran]. Mu’assasa’i Mutala’at va Tahqiqat-i Ijtima’i, Intishar 83, vol. II (Tehran: Danishgah, 1976), pp. 234–8. Ibid.,p. 240. USA, National Archives (NA), F770003-2393, Military Intelligence Report for the Year 1950. Rezazadeh Shafaq (1897–?) was Professor of Literature at the University of Tehran. A member of the Democratic Party, he was in 1941–2 among the founders and leaders of the Iran Party allied to Mosaddeq, which he left in 1945. He was a member of the fourteenth and fifteenth Majleses and a senator in the sixteenth. Shafaq is best known for introducing on 22 October 1947 the bill which, inter alia, rejected the oil agreement with the USSR. Rezazadeh Shafaq, Khatirat-i Majles va Demoktasi Chist? [Majles Memoirs and What is Democracy ?] (Tehran: Shafaq Press, 1955), p. 27. Ibid., pp.22–4. It is no wonder that famous poets of the constitutional era, such as Mirzadeh Eshghi, Aref Ghazvini, and Bahar (the latter was still alive throughout the duration of the fourteenth to the seventeenth Majleses) all ridiculed and poured scorn on the Majles and its deputies.

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17. The only party with a clear line and policy was the Tudeh (see note 26 below), but it was often banned from participation in the Majles. It was banned for the sixteenth and seventeenth Majleses. 18. Ahmad Qavvam al-Sultaneh (1874–1960) served several times as prime minister (1922–3, 1923–4,1942–3,1946–7, July 1952). He is best known for his negotiations with the USSR, which resulted in the Soviet withdrawal from Azerbayjan and Kurdestan. 19. British Foreign Office documents offer far more insight into Iran’s politics than do any other source. 20. PRO, FO371–98608, minutes of meeting on the political situation in Iran. 21. Khosrow Shakeri [Cosroe Chaqueri] (ed.), Asnad-i Ta’rikhi-yi Jonbesh-i Kargari, Sosyal Demokrat va Komunisti-yi Iran (1903–1963) [The Historical Documents: the Workers’, Social Democratic and Communist Movement in Iran (1903–1963)] vol. III (Florence: Mazdak Press, 1974), p. 56. 22. [Ardeshir Ovanesian,] ‘Khatirat-i Ardeshir Ovanesian’ [Ardeshir Ovanesian Memoirs], Donya, 3.1. 23. The Jangali (residents of Gilan) movement, headed by Mirza Kuchik Khan, started a rebellion in 1917 against both the ‘corrupt and reactionary’ government and British presence and influence in the country. For a detailed study of this important chapter in Iranian history, see Cosroe Chaqueri, The Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, 1920–1921. Birth of a Trauma (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995). For Kucuk Khan, see below, note 70. 24. ‘What Does the Tudeh Party Say and Want? The Provisional Party Programme, 22 February 1942’, in Shakeri, Historical Documents, p. 177. 25. PRO, FO371–35109/E3588, Sir Reader Bullard, ‘Report for November 1943’. 26. Democratic centralism is the principle introduced by Lenin, according to which Communist Parties are organized. 27. Shakeri, Historical Documents, p. 178. 28. Ibid. 29. Two in Gilan, two in Khorassan, one in Tehran, one in Mazandaran, one in Esfahan, and one in the northern Armenian areas. 30. A CIA report gives the figure of Tudeh membership as being only 69,000 in 1945 and 25,000 in 1949, this being the total including CCFTU members—NA, Central Intelligence Agency, ‘The Tudeh Party: A Vehicle of Communism in Iran’, 18 July 1949. 31. Fereydoon Keshavarz was a practising MD and teacher at the University of Tehran. Not involved in politics (though from a pro-constitutional background— his father was active in the movement) he was introduced into the Tudeh three months after its establishment by his personal friend Soleiman Eskanderi and immediately became a member of the provisional central committee. He remained a prominent leader of the party and of its militant wing until he officially left the Tudeh in 1957. Keshavarz was elected in 1944 to the Majles, where he acquired the reputation of being ‘the Chief Tudeh spokesman’. From 2 August to 17 October 1946 he served as Minister of Education in the Qavvam government. After the banning of the party he was condemned to death in absentia in 1949. 32. Fereydoon Keshavarz, Man Muttaham Mikunam [I Accuse] (Tehran: Ravaq Press, 1979), p. 42. 33. The major incidents were:

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1. the Esfahan upheaval, described by some as a ‘workers' revolt’, which created major reactions in local, national and parliamentary politics in early 1945 2. the Khorassan army revolt in August 1945, in which several officers with connections with the Tudeh Party were arrested, charged with stealing arms and ammunition and organizing a revolt among soldiers and officers in the Mashad garrison 3. mass rallies in support of oil concessions to the Soviet Union, which in the opinion of some created a ‘cold war’ in Iran long before it started in Europe 34. PRO, FO371–45459/E8127, Sir Reader Bullard, ‘Events of 8–14 October 1945’, 30 October 1945. 35. PRO, FO371–52710/E2605, Embassy in Tehran, ‘Events of 4–10 March 1946’, 30 March 1946. 36. Speech of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, Thirteenth Majles Proceedings, 19 September 1941. 37. Ettela’at, 20 September 1941. 38. PRO, FO371–35117, Sir Reader Bullard to Eden, July 1943. 39. Speech of M.Mosaddeq, Fourteenth Majles Proceedings, Session 72, 14 October 1944. 40. PRO, FO371–75464, ‘Proposal to Convene a Constituent Assembly’. 41. The attempt on the Shah’s life took place during his visit to the University of Tehran. A man disguised as a photographer fired five shots at the Shah from close range, but these only grazed him. The assassin was killed, but a search of him and his room revealed that he had connections to both the Tudeh and Ayatollah Kashani’s ‘Fada’iyan-e Eslam’. 42. PRO, FO371–91450/EP1015/207, Sir F.Shepherd to FO. 43. PRO, FO371–104564/134247. 44. PRO, FO371–104563/EP1015/66, A.W.Rothney’s Notes of US Ambassador, March 1953. 45. PRO, FO371–104659/EP1943/105, US Ambassador Henderson to State Department and Foreign Office, ‘Shah’s Request for Advice’. 46. PRO, FO371–104659/134399, US Ambassador Henderson to FO, 6 June 1953. 47. Ibid. 48. General Fazlallah Zahedi (1890–1963), since 1916 an officer in the army. He was exiled by the British to Palestine and India (1942–5) because of his pro-German activities. He served as Chief of Police (1949–51) and was Minister of the Interior (1951–53) under Mosaddeq, against whom he headed the coup in 1953. He was Prime Minister (1953–5) and later Iranian representative to the UN offices in Geneva (1960–3). 49. See, for example, K.Roosevelt. The Countercoup: the Struggle for the Control of Iran (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979); Christopher M.Woodhouse, SomethingVentured (London and New York: Granada, 1982). For details of the coup, see PRO, FO371–104572/EP1015/205; FO371–104569/EP1015/256; FO371– 104659/EP1948/4. 50. There is an on-going debate about the role played by Britain in the rise and fall of Reza Shah.

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51. Walter Levy, Oil, Strategy and Politics, 1941–1981 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1982). 52. By traditional political structure, to which several references have been made, the following basic characteristics are envisaged:

1. traditional institutions, such as the monarchy and religion, remain intact 2. the monarch and the landowning classes are still able to use their full traditional channels of influence, thereby blocking the process of reform and implementation of new laws 3. nepotism and favouritism are the order of the day and important political and administrative positions are filled not on merit but on the basis of contacts 4. there are no mechanisms for political accountability It must be clarified at the outset that by referring to traditional political structure, it is not implied that Iran remained a traditional society, or that Iranians were traditional. Iran had taken some steps towards social modernity both during the constitutional revolution, and in Reza Shah’s period, but the changes were short-lived, and mostly superficial. Apart from the internal factors that hindered the development of democracy in Iran, the designs of foreign powers on the country were also a major external hindrance to democracy. 53. For such views see, for example, J.B.Barrington Moore, Jr, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Harmonsworth: Penguin, 1973); John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (London: Beacon Press, 1967). 54. R.Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1971), p. 77. 55. Moore, Social Origins, p. 431. 56. Dahl, Polyarchy, p. 124. 57. Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani (1854–96), political thinker and revolutionary. 58. Better known as Sayyed Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839–97), Pan Islamic political activist and writer. 59. Mirza Fath ‘Ali Akhundzade (Akhundov; 1812–78), playwrite, writer, colonel in the Russian Army. Regarded as a major intellectual figure by both Iranians and Azerbayjanis of ex-Soviet Azerbayjan. 60. Ahmad Kasravi (1890–1946), lawyer, historian , journalist, political and social thinker. 61. Muhammed Farokhi Yazdi (1889–1939), writer, poet, Mjlis deputy. 62. Muhammed Taqi Bahar (1886–1951), known as ‘Malek osh-Sho’ara-i’ (‘King of the Poets’), poet, political thinker and activist, and Minister of Education. Was the last great poet to use the Khorasani style. 63. Quoted in F.Adamiyat, Andisha’ha-yi Mirza Aqa Khan Kirmani [The Thoughts of Mirza Agha Khan Kermani] (Tehran: Kitabhanah-i Tuhuri, 1346 (1967)), pp. 271–2.

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64. Quoted in M.Ajoodani, ‘Hedayat va Melliyat [Hedayat and Nationalism]’, Iran Nameh, 10.3 (summer 1992). 65. Ibid. 66. R.Cottam, Nationalism in Iran (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1964), p. 28. 67. R.Cottam, ‘Nationalism in Iran in the Twentieth Century’, in J.Bill and W.R.Lewis (eds), Mosaddeq, Oil and Iranian Nationalism (London: I.B. Tauris, 1988). 68. As quoted by E.Abrahamian, ‘Kasravi: the Integrative Nationalist of Iran’, in E.Kedourie and S.Haim (eds), Towards a Modern Iran (London: Frank Cass, 1980), pp. 242–3. 69. Mirza Kuchik Khan ‘Jangali’ (1880/1–1921) started his political activity in a proconstitution Anjoman-i Tollab (students’ union) in Resht. In 1908 he found refuge in Baku, from where he returned to fight with the pro-constitution forces. Wounded in 1910, he was treated in Baku and returned in 1911 to Tehran. After the outbreak of the First World War he founded and led the Jangali movement and conducted guerrilla warfare against Russian and British troops. In 1920 he formed an alliance with the communists and established the ‘Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran’. Abandoned by the Soviets in 1921, he was defeated by the forces of the new shah, Reza Khan, captured and decapitated. 70. Shaykh Muohammad Khiabani (1880–1920) joined the constitutional movement and participated in the Tabriz resistance of 1908. In 1909 he was elected to the second Majles and joined the Democratic Party. From 1917 he began to re-establish the Tabriz branch of the party. In 1920 he rose against the central government and declared local autonomy for Azerbayjan, which he renamed Azadestan (Land of Freedom). Nevertheless, he refused to cooperate with the Jangalis and the communists. He was killed by government forces in 1920. 71. Sayed Ja‘far Javadzadeh Pishevari (1892–1947) joined the Iranian revolutionary movement in the Caucasus and was an influential journalist in Baku, where he lived from 1905 until the Bolshevik Revolution. He was among the founders of the Iranian Communist Party and Commissar of the Interior of the ‘Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran’. He was a member of the Central Committee of the ICP until his arrest in 1930. Released in 1941, he refused to join the Tudeh. In 1944 he established the ‘Democratic Party of Azerbayjan’ and headed the government of the ‘Autonomous Republic of Azerbayjan’, which was officially proclaimed in December 1945. After the Soviet withdrawal and subsequent collapse of the republic in December 1946, Pishevari found refuge in the (Soviet) Azerbayjan SSR, where he exchanged recriminations with the Communist Party secretary, Bagirov (nicknamed ‘Khan of Azerbayjan’). He died in a ‘car accident’ in 1947. 72. The National Democratic Party had no direct connection with the Soviet-backed, Tudeh-affiliated ‘Democratic Party of Azerbaijan’ of 1944–6. 73. The Committee for the Revival of Kurdestan was the basis for the Soviet-backed, Tudeh-affiliated ‘Democratic Party of Kurdestan’ of 1944–6. 74. See note 24 above. 75. Cottam, Nationalism in Iran, p. 30. 76. This chapter is based on the author’s unpublished Ph.D. thesis, ‘The Causes of the Failure of Democracy in Iran—1941–1953’. Professor Elie Kedourie was of the opinion that out of the three periods mentioned below the most important for a study of the causes of failure of democracy in Iran was Mosaddeq’s era, because

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this incorporated the most prolonged and differentiated participation of the population in the political process. The subject was ambitious and the period complicated, for it spanned over 13 years of the most controversial era of the modern history of Iran. Nevertheless, he felt that unless the totality of the period was looked at, it would be difficult to come to a satisfactory conclusion.

10 The Arab Strategy Towards the Arab—Israeli Conflict, January 1964 to June 1967 MOSHE SHEMESH

Following the 1956 Sinai Campaign, and especially since 1959, a deterioration set in in relation to all facets of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the ‘Palestinian problem’ became the focal point of inter-Arab relations in general, and of Nasser’s foreign policy in particular. The year 1959 may be considered the turning point of the Palestinian problem, inter alia, because of the heightened tension between the Arab world and Israel brought about by Israel’s plan to channel the River Jordan’s water into a National Water Carrier (NWC). Israel’s water diversion project now became the foremost issue on the Arab agenda in its struggle against Israel, and for the first time since 1948 to define an Arab strategy towards the conflict. The aim of this chapter is to outline this process of defining Arab strategy. This was achieved during three summit meetings held in January 1964, September 1964, and September 1965. Before examining the first summit, it is necessary to survey the decisions made at the inter-Arab forums between 1960 and 1963, which formed the basis for determining Arab strategy in the first summit in January 1964. PRELIMINARY STEPS On 29 February 1960 the Arab League Council came to the following decisions concerning water diversion: 1. Israel’s attempt at diverting the River Jordan was an aggressive move against the Arab World and justified self-defence by the Arab states. 2. The river’s drainage basin should be put to the advantage of the Arab countries and Palestinian Arabs. 3. The Arab League would set up a special Technical Committee for coordinating and supervising the activities of all member states. 4. The task for preparing a comprehensive plan for all possible contingencies would be handed to a Permanent Military Committee (under Arab League supervision).1

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However, the Permanent Military Committee (composed of representatives of the Arab armies’ headquarters) presented a report to the Arab League Council containing the following points: 1. After a comprehensive assessment of the situation, it appears that any (Arab) move aimed at blocking Israel’s diversion of the Jordan would in all likelihood escalate from limited border clashes to an all-out military confrontation. 2. This contingency (involving all of the Arab military forces) demands that the Arab armies be geared up to meet the challenge. Therefore, a comprehensive, detailed, and unified strategy must be devised for joint military action. This will require at least two years of preparation and planning. 3. The Committee recommends convoking the Chiefs-of-Staff Committee (the Military Advisory Committee) to discuss setting up a special qualified joint apparatus of approximately 100 officers for carrying out this assignment.2 Throughout 1961 discussions centred on possible Arab military responses to Israel’s diversion plan and preparations for repelling Israeli aggression. The talks also sought an alternative solution, a ‘technical response’, in the form of an Arabinitiated diversion project of the River Jordan. This ‘technical solution’ was seriously considered in view of Israeli warnings that any Arab attempt at diverting the Jordan would be regarded as a threat to peace. Against this background, the Arab states assessed that their armies would be drawn into an inevitable military confrontation with Israel. In Cairo (22–6 April 1961), the Arab chiefs of staff considered the possibility of thwarting the Israeli plan by military means. Their assessment was that Israel would begin operating its NWC at the end of 1963. The following secret decisions were reached during the conference: 1. When the Israeli project was completed at the end of 1963, the Arab states would be forced to launch a joint military action. It would have to be taken into account that the Palestinians would also be participants in all the operations. 2. It was expected that Israel would employ all its military resources, military aid from abroad, and nuclear weapons which it may have already developed on its own. Therefore, the Arab states must plan for destroying Israel’ s military power 3. Arab military operation would depend on long-term, top-secret preparations that would enable the Arab states to take the initiative and attack before the end of 1963. This would require establishing a viable joint military apparatus.3

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During the Joint Arab Defence Council, composed of foreign and defence ministers and chiefs of staff, which met in Cairo (10–18 June 1961), the following positions were stated. First, the United Arab Republic (UAR) pressed for setting in motion the ‘technical plan’ for diverting the Jordan’s sources which would be financed by the Arab League. In Egypt’s opinion this was the preferred line of action. Second, it was agreed, in principle, by all the Arab states to set up a Joint Arab Command (JAC). But here a divergence of views emerged over the extent of authority to be granted to it. It was obvious that the UAR hoped to see the Joint Command’s general officer awarded decisive authority. It should be mentioned that according to the Arab Joint Security Pact of 1950, this commanding officer ‘would be chosen from the member state with the largest troop presence’, namely Egypt. Based on ‘military evaluations and information’ presented at the Arab Defence Council’s session in June 1961, it was decided: 1. A Joint Arab Command would be set up composed of Arab forces. 2. The Statute of the JAC was ratified. 3. The chiefs of staff recommendations were ratified: • to set up joint headquarters, or a ‘command nucleus’, within two months • to outline the general lines of the plan • to assess the forces needed and the financial contribution of each state within four months of the headquarters’ set-up • to call on the Arab armies to provide the Joint Command (or the ‘command nucleus’) with all the necessary information and resources for executing its activity 4. To call on the states, through which the River Jordan and its sources flow, to prepare all the technical and financial resources as soon as possible so that the plans could be executed within six months. 5. The Joint Defence Council would determine the practical date to start carrying out these plans.4 Upon the dissolution of the UAR (on 28 September 1961) a bitter dispute broke out between Egypt and Syria over the question of the proper Arab response to Israel’s water project. Thus, in 1962 Israel’s diversion of the River Jordan turned from a common all-Arab issue into an Egyptian-Syrian polemic. Egypt took advantage of the water issue to criticize the new regime in Syria. In early 1962 the Syrians began sending out warning signals of the impending danger inherent in Israel’ s water scheme. Egypt proceeded to lambast Syrian and other Arab leaders for conjuring up imaginary dangers, instead of Arab leaders dealing with reforms in their own countries. In the wake of inter-Arab bickering, the Arab

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League froze all discussions on this and other issues (such as reviving the Palestinian entity). Ba‘th revolutions took place in Iraq and Syria in February and March 1963, respectively. But a counter-revolution in Iraq in November 1963 brought an end to the Ba‘th regime. In the autumn of 1963, as the date for the opening of the NWC approached, the Ba‘th regime in Syria found itself in a deep crisis generated by an internal political struggle and the collapse of the Ba‘th in Iraq. Three challenges faced the Syrian regime: 1. The need to respond to Israel’s soon-to-be-operational NWC in a way that was no less efficient than its response in 1953.5 2. The existence of a radical faction within the Syrian Ba‘th regime that demanded exploiting the NWC issue for launching a military strike against Israel. 3. Egypt’s efforts to topple the Ba‘th regime in Syria. The Syrian president, Amin al-Hafez, believed that if he threatened to initiate a war with Israel to prevent diversion of the Jordan, then he would be able to turn the tables on the Egyptians by presenting them with a challenge they would be forced to deal with. Under these circumstances, the Arab League Council announced in September 1963 the convocation of the Arab Defence Council ‘as early as possible in order to face the challenge of the present decisive stage’.6 The Arab Chiefs-of-Staff (Advisory) Committee convened on 7–9 December 1963 to prepare the Arab Defence Council’s conference. The following topics headed the agenda: 1. Defining the size of the force under the JAC’s authority for carrying out Arab military plans. 2. The amount of troops and material resources each Arab state would furnish the Joint Command in order to guarantee the success of the Arab plan. During the meeting, Egypt announced that it would not launch an attack from across its border, but would send combat units to assist Syria. The Syrians, however, rejected this offer, and discussion on the Arab response to Israel’s NWC ended on an indecisive note. Nevertheless, the Chiefs-of-Staff Committee recommended a number of measures to the Joint Defence Council: 1. To set up either a Joint Military Command, a special headquarters, or a ‘command nucleus’ based on previous decisions. 2. To call on member states of the Arab League to dispatch select officers (approximately 60) to set up the Command or its nucleus. 3. To establish a special apparatus for executing [the Arab’s] immediate and long-range technical counter-operations. The apparatus would start work either before Israel opened its NWC or shortly afterwards.

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4. To present these steps before world opinion, as counter-moves paralleling Israeli activity on occupied territory. 5. An information campaign would be launched to dramatize the damage being caused to the Arab states by Israel’s water diversion project and to justify both the technical and military recourses that the Arab countries would undertake. 6. The Chiefs-of-Staff Committee hoped that a positive atmosphere and spirit of cooperation would dominate inter-Arab relations, so that the realization of the desired goal would be ensured.7 As it turned out, these recommendations were not discussed at the Joint Arab Defence Council. The meeting, scheduled for January 1964, never took place because in December 1963 Nasser convoked an Arab summit instead (January 1964). Nevertheless, the recommendations constituted: (1) the ground plan for setting up the United Arab Command; and (2), the technical decision for the Arabs’ own diversion of the Jordan’s tributaries. FORMULATING THE ARAB STRATEGY IN THE CONFLICT At the time when the Arab Chiefs-of-Staff Committee was convened (7–9 December 1963) the Syrians launched a virulent propaganda campaign against Egypt’s reaction to Israel’s impending opening of the NWC. Despite Nasser’s claim to decided military superiority, the Syrians accused him of lacking the will to stand up to Israel and cowardice in his treatment of the conflict. The Syrians further asserted that the Israeli water carrier was an issue involving all the Arab countries, not only Syria. ‘The dangers inherent in it threaten all of us, a unified Arab military strategy must be designed to thwart the [Israeli] diversion plan which is in reality a military ruse.’ ‘By refraining from an armed confrontation to prevent the diversion of the Jordan’s waters, Egypt has betrayed the Arab cause.’ ‘The technical proposals for an [Arab] diversion scheme of the Jordan’s sources are not a practical solution, but only a trick to deceive the Arab world.’ ‘Nasser’s destructive policy towards Syria is wrecking inter-Arabic relations while encouraging Israel to continue with her own water scheme.’8 Shortly before the Arab Chiefs-of-Staff Committee sat to confer, Radio Damascus called on the generals ‘to arrive at practical and conclusive decisions that would deter Israel and [western] imperialism from their plans to divert the River Jordan’.9 Following the conference, Syria outlined (on 15 December 1963) six strategic threats to the Arab states which would result from the opening of Israel’s NWC. 1. Israel would be able to absorb 4 million additional Jews into Filastin, an influx that would allow a heavier concentration of manpower in order to prepare herself for the decisive campaign in the future.

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2. The project would forever separate the Arab East (al-Mashriq al-’Arabi) from the Arab West (al-Maghrib al-’Arabi) by means of tightly crowded human wall in the Negev, and would thus destroy Arab plans for unity and encirclement of Israel. 3. The project would increase Israel’ s s manpower and economic strength and would place it at an advantage vis-à-vis the Arab forces. 4. The project was likely to bolster Israel’s military potential, thereby encouraging her to launch new hostilities against Arab lands. 5. The River Jordan diversion project was only one link in a series of Zionistimperialist acts of expansionism against the Arab homeland. 6. The River Jordan project was another step in the aggressive policy of Israeli irredentism which defined its borders from the Nile to the Euphrates, and whose goal was to expel the Arabs from the entire region and settle in their place 20 million Jews.10 The Egyptians responded strongly to the Syrian charges and sought to repudiate this anti-Egyptian propaganda. They stated that the Arab world was at a loss in their confrontation with Israel, and that while they masqueraded as ‘the protectors of Filastin’, in reality they had not lifted a finger to oppose the River Jordan’s diversion. Their basic motive was only to plot against Egypt. Two leading activists in defending Egypt’s stature were Nasser al-Din al-Nashashibi, a senior commentator of the official organ al-Jumhuriya and Ahmad Sa‘id, head commentator of radio Sawt al-‘Arab. Nashashibi bitterly criticized Arab leaders for denouncing Egypt as indifferent. He described ‘the empty tumult they make in attacking Israel’s s diversion operations’ as cheap and mindless propaganda, a transparent ploy to shirk away from taking responsible action.11 ‘Syrian leaders are perfectly aware of their own ineptitude and will not dare to forcibly prevent [Israel’s] diversion operations next spring’, Nashashibi charged. ‘What stops you from diverting the Banyas’ waters which flow through your own territory?’, he piqued the Syrians. ‘Why do you not initiate a military campaign against Israel and announce the date, instead of bestowing upon the enemy the luxury of determining his own time schedule?’12 Despite this, the Egyptian media were not remiss in pointing out the implications inherent in Israel’s NWC. The project would invest Israel with new economic powers through the irrigation of the Negev, and the absorption of millions of new immigrants would add decisively to Israel’s military strength. Israel’s enhanced strength would induce it to expansionism over Arab lands.’ Egyptian newspapers emphasized also the importance of the Negev as ‘a springboard into Sinai’. ‘Israel’s diversion of the Jordan would deny water to Syria, and turn the Kingdom of Jordan’s agricultural soils into wastelands.’13 Syrian propaganda diatribes against Egypt multiplied following an article written by Ihsan ‘Abd al-Qudus in the Egyptian weekly Ruz al-Yusuf on 15 December 1963.

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The most lethal weapon that Israel holds in its arsenal for realizing its plans is that of schism in the Arab world. Israel is fully aware that the UAR [Egypt] wields the power and energy to disrupt her plans and annihilate her; however, she also knows that the Egyptian army cannot mobilize its full weight until the regime is absolutely convinced that the countries along Israel’s borders are prepared [to fight]. Yet the regimes on these fronts are looking to ambush Egypt more than Israel! They would prefer Egypt to disappear instead of Israel! The propaganda machinery of these regimes is screaming for Egypt to extirpate Israel…[but] what they really desire is for Egypt to get bogged down [in a war with Israel]…and when that occurs they will withdraw seeing that the moment of truth has arrived to stab her [Egypt] in the back…but Egypt will not fall into that trap, she knows when and how to destroy Israel…the Arab fronts will not unite in a war against Israel unless they are politically united. There is no sense in a joint military command unless it is backed by comprehensive and firm political unity… the UAR takes full responsibility as the Arab leader. She has always taken the lead without getting herself bogged down or falling prey to another country’s intrigues…today [Egypt] knows when and how to destroy Israel. In reaction to this article, published undoubtedly with the Egyptian government’s backing, the Syrian authorities gave this detailed reply. 1. Ruz al-Yusuf deals with two major points: (a) Egypt will not initiate any military action against Israel’s diversion of the River Jordan until a general political unification of Arab countries is achieved; (b) Egypt knows when and how to destroy Israel, and is capable of doing so by itself. This article, in effect, encourages Israel to pursue its river diversion plans and, at the same time, discourages joint Arab efforts from meeting the Israeli challenge. The conflict with Israel today is the struggle against its water scheme because execution of these plans will greatly diminish the chances of winning back Filastin.14 2. The Arab nation regards the Ruz al-Yusuf article as a boost to imperialist circles to continue their stratagems for erasing the problem of Filastin. The battle against diversion of the Jordan is the task of all Arab countries. Every call to divide up the struggle should be seen as a flagrant national betrayal.15 3. It is beyond our comprehension how Cairo can consider a national undertaking as a question of getting bogged down. On the other hand, we well understand why Egypt does not view the opening of the Straits of Aqaba to Israeli navigation and the stationing of UN forces along the borders as falling into a trap. But, we have yet to figure out why Egypt endeavours to befuddle the main struggle, for it is Israel, not Cairo, that day and night threatens to rechannel the flow of the Jordan, whereas the Arabs are stubbornly determined to prevent this. Should we announce to

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Israel: Go ahead, divert the Jordan, we will fight you only after we have become a united county?16 4. Will we face up to Israel’s stratagems and guile with cowardice and fear of getting tied down in a war? If we are afraid of opposing Israel over water diversion today, how will we annihilate her tomorrow?17 5. Cairo’s scheming and plotting are not strange to us. Egypt trades in all that is sanctified to the Arab nation, but we are steadfast in our conviction that the diversion of the Jordan is an Arab problem. Furthermore, it is a question of life and death, as well as a test of the Arab leaders and the Arab nation’s raison d’etre.18 On 23 December 1963, in a speech at Port Sa’id on ‘Victory Day’ (commemorating the evacuation of British and French soldiers from the city in 1956), Nasser called for an Arab summit ‘in order to deal with the River Jordan problem which is part of the question of Filastin’. He also took note of the Syrians’ extremist line regarding the Arab reaction to the opening of Israel’s NWC in the summer of 1964. Inter alia, Nasser stated: Filastin of 1948 will never return. It is impossible to deal with the Palestinian issue in the same way as in 1948. In 1960, during the period of unification, I asked the government, which included members from Syria, what could be done technologically and politically, but in the meantime not militarily, between 1960 and 1964 regarding Israel and the River Jordan Project. At that time we came to the conclusion that Israel must be prevented from [diverting] Arab waters from the Hasabani, Banyas, and Yarmuk rivers. Afterwards we discussed military aspects. The Ba‘th press has stated that the UAR will not participate in a war over the River Jordan. I also know everything that was discussed at the Arab Chiefs-of-Staff Conference [December 1963]. In my opinion, the Arab chiefs of staff should not have a say in this issue because, first and foremost, it is a political problem, and only secondly is it a military one. We in UAR believe that neither the Chiefs-of-Staff Conference nor the Defence Council meeting have been beneficial, and in order to face the challenge of Israel’s threat, there is no alternative but to convene Arab kings and heads of state at as early a date as possible. Conflicting views and opinions must be held in abeyance. We are ready to sit down with those who differ with us, and for the sake of Filastin we would even be willing to talk with them [the Syrians]. The UAR is ready to fulfil all her obligations. If necessary, we will recall our troops from the Yemen and form new combat units. We will dispatch a call to the [Arab] League for convening a [summit] conference at the earliest date. We will enter into serious negotiations; it is not a dishonour to admit we are unable to exercise force if this is the case. The battle for Filastin may extend for a long time, and the question of the River Jordan is part of this problem. [Turning to the Syrians, he said] Either we

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declare that we can forcibly prevent them [the Israelis] from diverting the River Jordan, and our armies are prepared for this, or [we should not be hypocrites] by saying one thing behind closed doors while making public the opposite. From my side I will publish all the discussions. If I cannot fight, then I will say without shame ‘I cannot fight’.19 The Arab summit conference that Nasser summoned was a way out of the quandary he had been stuck in since the end of 1959. He had come to realize that the opening of Israel’s NWC was about to take place, and that he could not keep his 1959 promise that ‘1963 or 1964 would be the year of decision. This would be the time when Israel had completed its plans for rechannelling the Jordan, and Arab armies would be ready for combat’.20 Nasser needed the Arab leaders’ consent for justifying his postponing the military option. He found this legitimacy in statements made by Yusuf Shukur, the Syrian chief of staff. Shukur claimed at the Arab chiefs-of-staff meeting (7–9 December 1963) that ‘Syria cannot divert the Jordan’s waters inside her territory otherwise Israel will attack, wrest away the river’s sources, and we will be helpless to do anything about it’. Therefore, Nasser admitted that Egypt and Syria found themselves ‘unable to act freely in their own countries’.21 Nasser aspired for ‘collective Arab action in facing the Israeli threat’. He thus called for an Arab summit, confident that he would be able to dictate his strategy to the Arab states. He believed that he could enlist the Arabs’ financial and military potential for a long-term strategy that would guarantee sufficient military preparedness for the decisive victory in a total war against Israel. Simultaneously, this would be the Arabs’ immediate response to the challenge of Israel’s diversion of the Jordan’s waters. Two possible paths of action lay before the Arab heads of state at the first summit conference (January 1964): 1. To forcefully prevent Israel from expropriating the Jordan’s waters by means of an Arab initiated military strike. 2. To execute the Arab Plan [for rechannelling the Jordan’s tributaries] within Arab territory, leaving them [the Arab countries] in possession of most of the river’s water, while at the same time making military preparations to safeguard Arab soil from Israeli aggression.22 During preparations for the summit conference and throughout its discussions, Egypt ascertained that the second alternative would eventually be approved. At the conference’s opening, Nasser spoke of the dangers emanating from the Israeli plan and emphasized the importance of creating an Arab deterrent force during the execution of the Arab plan. Nasser supported the Arab Defence Council’s recommendations of June 1961, which had called for the formation of a Joint Arab Command (JAC) to obstruct Israel from engineering its plans to channel the Jordan’s waters to the Negev. He reiterated the Defence Council recommendations that the ‘plan must be drawn up in its general format, assessing

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all available forces, and defining the role each Arab state would take—all this within four months of the creation of the JAC’s nucleus. Arab forces would have to supply the JAC with all the required assistance and information.’23 Nasser complained that ‘despite the 1961 decision, work had not been carried out due to political disputes which allowed Israel to exploit the Arabs’ bickering by speeding up work on the water project’. He added that the Arab Defence Council’s recommendations were reaffirmed by the Arab chiefs of staff in their December 1963 meeting.24 On the other hand, Amin al-Hafiz, President of Syria, demanded total war against Israel and ‘putting an end to the subjugation of Filastin’. In his view, ‘that was preferable to haggling over the diversion of the Jordan’s waters’. Nasser countered that ‘if we are unable to defend ourselves, then how can we cross over to an attack?’ Nasser reiterated Shukur’s own words at the conference of the chiefs of staff, for the need to ‘complete defence arrangements before an attack could be considered’.25 The first summit conference ‘did not distinguish between: (1) Israel’s plan for diverting the Jordan’s waters; (2) the danger [to the Arab countries] by Israel’s existence; (3) the final destruction of Israel’. Instead, it dealt with all these issues en bloc, ‘as a unified strategic concept’. In the preface to the first summit’s resolutions, it was stated: The establishment of Israel is a basic threat, and the struggle against it is entirely agreed upon by the Arab nation. Since Israel’s existence is considered a menace to the Arab nation, diversion of the Jordan’s waters by her [Israel] increases the dangers to the Arab people’s existence. Therefore, the Arab states should draw up the necessary plans for dealing with the political, economic, and social aspects [of this menace] so that if the necessary results are not achieved, there will be as a last practical recourse, collective Arab military preparations to annihilate Israel.26 The first summit conference decided on three major issues. Diverting the Jordan River’s tributaries—creating ‘the Authority for Utilizing the River Jordan and its Tributaries’ . It would be the responsibility of this ‘Authority’ ‘to plan, co-ordinate, and supervize the Arab diversion project’. The project would receive an immediate £625 million (the total cost was £56 million). A detailed plan for diverting the water would be prepared by the ‘Authority’. At the opening discussions on this issue, Ahmad Salim, chairman of the ‘Authority’, surveyed the blueprints of the Arab Plan and pointed out that rechannelling the River Jordan’s tributaries would take up to eight years (the assessment was that the Arab project would require 8 to 12 years). Initial costs would come to £70 million.27 Setting up a unified command—it was decided ‘to set up immediately a United Arab Command (UAC) for the Arab armies. The UAC’s main task would be to defend the Arabs’ diversion of the River Jordan and its tributaries… The structure and authority of the UAC was to be based on the Arab Defence

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Council’s decisions of 1961.’ General ‘Ali ‘Amir (Egyptian Army) was appointed UAC Commanding Officer. ‘Organizing the UAC’s nucleus will take one month, and the entire command will be fully manned within two months… All of the Arab countries are required to set up units according to UAC demands. The major objectives of these unites will be approved by the Joint Defence Council. All the Arab member states are obliged to facilitate the UAC, follow its orders, and carry out its recommendations.’ A total of £154 million was allotted for Syrian, Jordanian, and Lebanese arms procurement.28 In accord with the first summit conference, the Defence Council decided (on 30 January 1965) to define the UAC’s areas of authority: planning and directing operations, preparing forces for war, and coordinating military cooperation among member states. The Defence Council also ratified the UAC’s plan for defending the Arab project for exploiting the River Jordan’s waters and its tributaries.29 The establishment of the Palestinian Entity—the summit conference decided that Ahmad al-Shuqayri, the ‘representative of “Filastin in the Arab League”, will continue his contacts with the member states [of the Arab League] and with the Palestinian people in order to establish the proper foundations for the organization of the Palestinian people, to enable it to fulfil its role in the liberation of its homeland, and its self-determination’.30 This was the first operational decision, ratified unanimously at the highest level, for reviving the Palestinian entity. It paved the way for Shuqayri to set up the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in June 1964. At the first summit, the Arab states tried coping with the challenge of the Israeli’s diversion of the River Jordan while at the same time not getting involved in a war. At the second summit (September 1964) the Arab states ratified the plans for water diversion and its military defence, and the green light was given for initiating operations. At the third summit conference (September 1965) it became apparent that Arab leaders were caught between their desire to continue diverting the Jordan’s tributaries and their inability to prevent Israel from blocking the project due to its military superiority, especially in the air. In this light, it is clear why the UAC commander recommended, at the third summit conference, that each Arab state, unable to withstand Israeli attacks, would have the right to determine whether to continue diversion operations. Faced with these challenges, Nasser dictated a new strategy for the Arab world based on the concept of ‘stages’. The principles of this strategy were endorsed at the second summit conference and its military phases were ratified at the third summit. This strategy ‘defined for the first time a comprehensive battle plan for the campaign against Israel, [and it also defined] the final goal of collective Arab action, and the means and stages for achieving it’.31 The uniqueness of the strategy was its abandonment of the concept of a one-shot solution to the ArabIsraeli conflict by ‘liberating Filastin and returning the Palestinian people’s rights’. Instead, the second summit determined that ‘the Arab goal in the military sphere contains two stages’.

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The first and immediate stage (hadaf awwali ‘ajil)—‘strengthening the Arab defences in order to guarantee the Arab countries, through whose territory the Jordan flows, freedom of conduct on their own soil.’ This meant creating an effective defence force by beefing up the Arab armies, especially building up the confrontation countries—Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Construction of this Arab force would take at least three years, according to the UAC commander, that is, until the end of 1967 or the beginning of 1968. A total of £150 million was earmarked for the task. It was also decided to concentrate the special units from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Syria along the Jordanian and Lebanese borders to aid Jordan and Lebanon and to be ready for rapid deployment in the event of an Israeli attack or even a threat of one. The other Arab states pledged to place their armies on immediate alert for repelling aggression of this sort’. The summit granted the UAC commander ‘full authority to transfer military units from one country to another’.32 In the transitional period of organizing the Arab armies, Arab states had to avoid border skirmishes that could escalate into all-out war. It was Nasser’s intent that the Arab countries would regain freedom of conduct in their own lands at the end of this stage if they established a powerful military presence to deter Israel from aggressive moves and thus pushed it into a defensive position. The second stage, the ‘final Arab national goal’ (hadaf qawmi niha’i) —it was decided that the ‘final goal [in the military sphere] is the liberation of Filastin from Zionist imperialism’, or as Nasser put it, ‘the eradication of Israeli imperialism and the return of Filastin lands’. The UAC commanding officer (the Egyptian chief of staff) was given the task of drawing up a detailed plan for the annihilation of Israel. This was presented at the third summit conference, where it was ratified. At the same summit £200 million were raised for bolstering the Syrian, Jordanian, and Lebanese armies in order ‘to cross over from the defensive stage to the offensive one’.33 In order to realize ‘the final Arab national (qawmi) goal for the liberation of Filastin’, the second summit made the following resolutions: 1. To complete the building up of an Arab force that was designed to realize this goal; and to mobilize all the Arabs’ military, economic, and political resources for this [force]. 2. The UAC will draw up a detailed plan to include order of the battle, equipment, financial resources and the estimated time needed to realize the goal. 3. To require each state to define the amount of aid it could spend on manpower and capital for reinforcing the military units of the Arab states bordering Israel in need of such aid. Each state would also spell out the means by which it could share the burden for reaching this pan-Arab national goal [qawmi].

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4. Within one year the UAC commander will draw up a detailed plan for the liberation of Filastin from Zionist imperialism according to the amount of troops under his command. He will present the plan at the next Arab summit. 5. The UAC commander has the authority to transfer troops from one country to another on condition that he takes into account, prior to the outbreak of war, the existing laws in each state. [This special clause was appended at Lebanon’s request.]34 In Nasser’s opinion, war with Israel was inevitable.35 Nevertheless, at the centre of his ‘stages’ concept stood the desire of not getting caught in a war with Israel until victory was assured. Nasser promulgated this policy publicly, in camera, and during talks with Arab diplomats. His strategy gained increased import in light of Syria’s demands on the UAC (i.e., Egypt) in March 1965 to escalate the Arab reaction along the borders after Israel’s attacks on Syria’s diversion works. THE ARAB PLAN FOR RE-CHANNELING THE JORDAN’S TRIBUTARIES The Arab plan for diverting the Jordan’s tributaries was given the green light at the second Arab summit conference. The following details outline the plan.36 Diversion of Tributaries in Lebanon The upper Hasbani—consisting of two canals, one from the Hasbani springs in the Hasbaya region, and a second canal from Wadi Shab’a. Both of them would flow to the Kawkaba Tunnel and from there to the Litani River. (This project was designed to carry 40–60 million cubic metres of water annually.) The middle Hasbani—two points of diversion; one, along the course of the Hasbani; the second, in Wadi Sarid. The water of the Hasbani and Wadi Sarid would flow in a canal to the Banyas River and from there to the Yarmuk. According to the plan, 20 to 30 million cubic metres of water would flow into Syria annually. If Lebanon did not divert the floodwaters of the Hasbani to the Litani, the Sarid Canal could carry up to 60 million cubic metres of water a year. The Wazani spring along the lower Hasbani—This consisted of three branches: a local Lebanese irrigation canal (16 million cubic metres per annum); an irrigation canal in Syria (8 million cubic metres per annum); and three pumping stations to channel the Wazani’s overflow into Syria via the SaridBanyas Canal at a rate of 26 million cubic metres per annum. All told, the plan was designed to divert 100–140 million cubic metres in Lebanon, flowing from the Hasbani River. This stood in sharp contrast to the 35 million cubic metres allotted to Lebanon in the Johnston Plan of 1955. This part of the project’s cost was estimated at £2 million, and the time scheduled for completion of the work was 18 months. It should be pointed out that the Johnston plan had assigned Lebanon 35 million cubic metres of the Hasbani’s waters, but

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not one drop was earmarked for Syria from either the Hasbani or Wazani. Now, according to the new Arab plan, 85–115 million cubic metres inside Lebanon would be diverted to Syria. Rechannelling in Syria Diversion of the Banyas—according to the Arab diversion plan for the Banyas, a canal would be excavated 73 kilometres in length at a height of 350 metres above sea level, which would link the Banyas with the Yarmuk. The canal would divert the steady flow of the Banyas, as well as the spillover, from the Hasbani (including Sarid-Wazani). With the rechannelling of the Banyas, 90 million cubic metres of water would be diverted for irrigating fields in the river’s vicinity. Eighteen months was considered sufficient for executing the plan, whose cost was estimated at £5 million, in other words £2 million more than in the original Arab Plan. The al-Butayha project—the Syrians were worried that if the Arab diversion plan were carried out, Israel would block the inhabitants of the al-Butayha Valley from pumping out 22 million cubic metres annually from the Jordan as agreed upon in the Johnston plan. In order to supply the needed water to the al-Butayha valley residents, a local project was attached to the Arab plan for the villagers’ needs by incorporating primary and secondary canals from the Sea of Galilee. The plan in Jordan Within the Kingdom of Jordan, the Mukhayba Dam on the Yarmuk was designed to hold 200 million cubic metres of water. The plan entailed 30 months of labour at the cost of £10.25 million. The Mukhayba Dam (and the Makarayn Dam) would be damaging to Israel if they were integrated into the diversion plan of the River Jordan’ s northern sources. In this case, all the diverted water would be channelled to the Yarmuk by rerouting the Jordan’s flow to south of the Sea of Galilee. Excluding this plan, the rest of the project inside Jordan fitted in with the details of the Johnston plan. If the Arab plan was put into effect, Israel would lose three-quarters of its water supply from the Banyas and Hasbani Rivers (including the entire Wazani), as well as a third of the water planned for its NWC (according to the allotment in the original Johnston plan). It was obvious also that siphoning off of such a large quantity of water from Israel would raise the saline level of the Sea of Galilee dramatically. The Arab plan also enabled the local exploitation of the River Jordan’s sources in Syria and Lebanon, diverting the Yarmuk’s water to vast areas inside the Kingdom of Jordan. This plan had two rationales: 1. To create local projects for using the water in nearby areas, that is, projects that did not exceed the Johnston plan’s allotment.

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2. Projects intended to divert the water to greater distances in order to cripple Israel: a tunnel from the Hasbani to the Litani; diversion of spill-overs from the lower Hasbani and the Wazani to the Banyas; and diversion of the Banyas to the Yarmuk. The second Arab summit conference decided ‘to initiate immediate technical works for exploiting the waters of the Jordan and its tributaries’, and ‘to complete the deployment of military units from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Syria to assist Jordan and Lebanon in the event of an Israeli attack’. Other Arab countries were committed to place their forces on immediate alert. According to the UAC commander’s assessment, Israel ‘would take military action either close to the completion of the Arab plan or at its very conclusion’. If it executed an aggressive act, the commander opined, Israel would find itself entangled in a war for which the Arab countries were prepared. CONCLUSION The Arab strategy approved at the first summit, to thwart Israel’s NWC by diverting the Jordan’s tributaries and to get the Arab armies in shape for defending the Arab diversion project, suffered a major upset a few months after the second Arab summit conference. This defeat stemmed mainly from the timing of Israel’s military reaction, which was aimed not only to disrupt the Arabs’ diversion works but also to bring them to a halt. Contrary to the UAC commander and the Arab leaders’ assessment at the second summit conference, Israel responded at the start of the rechannelling operations and not close to their completion. The Israeli military response against the Syrian works, in March and May 1965, forced the Arab world, especially Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon, to face some hard facts. First, the Arab world realized that Israel was determined to prevent the execution of the diversionary works at all costs, and was ready to employ its air force and take the risk of military escalation. Second, Egypt, the initiator of the strategy on the water issue, had not foreseen Israel’s reaction to Syria’s diversionary works as a pretext for allout war. In its estimation the Arabs were not prepared for a worst-case scenario. This view was based on Israel’s uncontested air supremacy proven along the Syrian border. Egypt regarded the border incidents as a matter of local Syrian responsibility that did not require a comprehensive Arab reaction, especially by Egypt, as Syria was demanding. Third, Lebanon was caught in a murderous three-way crossfire between the Arab hammer (Egypt and Syria), the Israeli anvil, and diplomatic pressure from the western powers to stay out of the Arab diversion plan. The President of Lebanon, Charles Helou, and Lebanese Christian leaders were alarmed at the prospect of a military confrontation with Israel or a political showdown with the Arab world, especially one with Nasser in the saddle. In addition, Lebanon’s

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fragile political equilibrium was liable to be upset. The ‘question of Filastin’ could become the focal point of dissension in a deadly internal ethnic conflict with the country’s Muslim population leaning towards the Arab consensus. The Lebanese government was thus obliged to toe the Arab line, while at the same time prudently refraining from fully adopting the summit conference’s decision concerning the Jordan’s tributaries or from carrying out the UAC’s resolutions. Israeli strikes against diversion operations in Syria helped President Helou persuade Nasser and the Arab world of the need to postpone the rechannelling of the Wazani. In fact, Lebanon ceased diversion works in June 1965. Fourth, the UAC, originally set up to defend the diversion works, did not stand the test of the 1965 challenge, due to both the timing of the Israeli response and its inability to do so. Its ineptitude in preparing the Arab armies for battle was rooted in the lack of basic trust among the Arab countries, especially between Egypt and Syria, and the fear of interference in each other’s internal affairs. The UAC never became an operational headquarters with the authority to command Arab combat units and to move them from one front to another. ‘Ali ‘Amir, the UAC commanding officer, in his report to the second summit conference, presented a comprehensive plan of action for arming and training the Arab forces. In his estimate, it would take three years to get them combat ready to defend against an Israeli attack, but only if the Arab countries adhered to the strict timetable of the UAC’s plan.37 However, ‘instead of commanding the armies, the [UAC] became an organ for channelling money, drawing up logistical charts’, exchanging information, intelligence data, and financing weapons deals. Finally, during a meeting of the Arab Defence Council (in January 1967), General ‘Ali ‘Amir proposed either disbanding the UAC or postponing its activities.38 Syria also contributed to the UAC’s failure by stipulating, for example, that an Egyptian air unit stationed on Syrian soil must be placed under direct Syrian command. This reflected the Syrians’ ingrained suspicion that Egyptian military units would interfere with Syrian politics.39 The UAC ‘accomplished nothing of practical or operational importance’.40 Thus, the Ba‘th regime in Syria was divided between its ideological obligation to expound a radical policy (the forceful prevention of the opening of Israel’s NWC) and its inability to realize its strategy due to its army’s objective weakness and the lack of political and military support from other Arab countries. The Ba‘th Party’s problem was characterized by one of its leaders: ‘accomplishments on the theoretical level and failures on the performance level’.41 This assessment is correct regarding the Ba‘th’s decisions on Israel’s diversion of the River Jordan and the opening of its NWC. It is not surprising, then, that in the end Syria accepted the consensus reached at the three summits, although after the third summit conference Syria ‘was solely responsible’ for continuing diversion operations at a further distance from the Israeli border and at a much slower pace. Because of its military disadvantages, especially in the air, and because of the lack of Egyptian backing, Syria was wary not to allow the border

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situation to get out of control and explode in a general flare-up. The Ba‘th regime strove to keep to a minimal response to IDF attacks, occasionally refraining altogether from retaliating, going so far as to pull its diversion operations even further back from the border. The Syrian high command carefully maintained that their response to IDF strikes against their diversionary sites would be undertaken only on direct orders from the highest commanding officer at the front. It may be assumed that the Syrian leadership lapsed into a continuous state of frustration between 1964 and the Six-Day War in all aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the specific issue of water diversion. Egypt and the Arab world also found themselves partners in this frustration due to their failure to cope with the gravest Israeli challenge facing them between 1959 and 1967. Syria, however, discovered an alternative track to strike at Israel; by backing the Fath organization, which began its guerrilla operations against Israel in January 1965. Thus the establishment of the PLO remained the only tangible achievement of this strategy and of the summit conferences. Nasser described the setting up of the PLO—the third element of his strategy—as ‘the turning point in the Arab action for the liberation of Filastin’, ‘the positive and outstanding achievement of the summit conferences’, and as the expression of ‘the failure of Zionism to eliminate the problem of Filastin’.42 NOTES 1. See al-Hayat (Beirut), 1 March 1960; Middle East Record, 1 (London/Jerusalem, 1960), p. 20. See also, Nasser’s speech at the opening session of the first Arab summit, R[adio] Cairo, 13 January 1964. 2. Haytham al-Kaylani, Al-Istirajiyat al-‘Askariya li’l-Hurub al-‘Arabiya al-Isra‘iliya 1948–1988 [The Arab Strategies in the Arablsraeli Wars, 1948–1988] (Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wahda al‘Arabiyya, 1991), p. 261. 3. See Nasser, R.Cairo, 13 January 1964; al-Ahram, 17 April 1961; Kaylani, Arab Strategies, p. 262. 4. Nasser, R.Cairo, 13 January 1964. On the debates of the Joint Defence Council, see al-Jihad, Falastin, al-Manar (all three Amman), 13–15 June; al-Hayat, 15 June; alAhram, 16, 19 June 1961; Kaylani, Arab Strategies, p. 262 5. In both years the Syrians prevented, in a series of armed clashes, Israeli works on the NWC at the River Jordan north of Lake Tiberias. As a result Israel decided to move the location of the starting point of the project Lake Tiberias, away from the range of direct Syrian fire. 6. Kayalani, Arab Strategies, p. 262. 7. See, ibid. On the debates of the Arab Chiefs-of-Staff Committee, see also al-Usbu‘ al-’Arabi, 16 December; al-Safa, 17 December; al-Hawadith, 13 December; alAnwar (all four Beirut), 17 December; Ruz al-Yusuf (Cairo), 15 December 1963. 8. See al-Thawra (Damascus), 5–7 December; R[adio] Damascus, 4 December 1963. 9. R.Damascus, 4 December 1963.

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10. R.Damascus, commentary, 15 December (14:45 Israeli local time). See also alBa‘th (Damascus), 11 December; R.Damascus, 18 December 1963. 11. Nasir al-Din al-Nashashibi, al-Jumhuriya (Cairo), 18 December 1963. 12. Ibid., 5 December. See also, Ahmad Sa‘id, Ruz al-Yusuf, 15 December 1963. 13. Akhbar al-Yawm, 9 December l963. 14. Al-Ba‘th, 17 December, also 18 December; al-Thawra, 18 December 1963. 15. Al-Ba‘th, 17, 20 December; also al-Thawra, 20 December 1963. 16. R.Damascus, commentaries, 18, 19 December 1963. 17. Ibid. 18. R.Damascus commentary, 18 December 1963. 19. Nasser, R.Cairo, 23 December; al-Ahram, 14 December 1963. 20. Nasser, in Hasanayn Haykal, al-Ahram, 18 May 1962, quoting from the UAR Government Protocol. 21. Nasser, speech in Hilwan, al-Jumhuriya, 19 November. See also Nasser, al-Ahram, 12–13 March, 20 November; Hasanayn Haykal, al-Ahram, 18 May 1965. 22. See Mahmud Riyad, Mudhakkirat [Memoirs] (Beirut: Dar al-Mustaqbal al-‘Arabi, 1986), pp. 282–3. 23. Kaylani, Arab Strategies, p. 263. 24. Nasser, al-Ahram, 14 January 1964; Riyad, Memoirs, p. 284. 25. See Riyad, Memoirs, p. 284. 26. Summit resolution no. 11, 17 January 1964, as quoted in Kaylani, Arab Strategies, p. 260. 27. Summit resolutions nos. 12, 13, 14, of 17 January 1964, as quoted in Kaylani, Arab Strategies, p. 263. See also Riyad, Memoirs, pp. 284, 286. 28. Summit resolution no. 12, 17 January 1964, as quoted in Kaylani, Arab Strategies, p. 264. See also Riyad, Memoirs, p. 285. 29. Arab Defence Council, fifth session resolutions nos. 2, 5, 7, of 10 January 1965, as quoted in Kaylani, Arab Strategies, p. 264. 30. Ahmad al-Shuqayri, Min al-Qimma ila al-Hazima [From the Summit to the Defeat] (Beirut: Dar al-‘Awda, 1971), p. 50; al-Ahram, 18 January 1964. 31. Hasanayn Haykal, al-Ahram, 15 September 1964. 32. See second Arab summit secret resolutions nos. 18, 19 of 11 September 1964, as quoted in Kaylani, Arab Strategies, pp. 262, 263. See also, Riyad, Memoirs, pp. 293–4. 33. Second Arab summit resolution no. 18 of 11 September 1964, as quoted in Kayali, Arab Strategies, p. 260. See also Nasser, R.Cairo, 31 May 1965; Shuqayri, From the Summit, pp. 143–4; OCUAC reports to the second and third Arab summits, as quoted in Ahmad al-Shuqayri, ‘Ala Tariq al-Hazima [On the Path to Defeat] (Beirut: Dar al-‘Awda, 1972), pp. 262–9; Hasanyan Haykal, al-Ahram, 15 September 1964. Also al-Ahram, 5 June 1965; al-Hayat, al-Jarida (Beirut), both 10 September 1964. 34. Kaylani, Arab Strategies, p. 260; Shuqayri, From the Summit, pp. 143–4; Riyad, Memoirs, pp. 294–5. 35. See Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasser, Min Aqwal al-Ra’is [From the President’s Speeches] (Cairo: Dar al-Nashr, n.d.), pp. 139–42. 36. The detailed Arab plan was published in al-Jumhuriya, 24 October 1964.

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37. Riyad, Memoirs, p. 294; Kaylani, Arab Strategies, pp. 254–65; Shuqayri, ‘Ala Tariq al-Hazima, pp. 266–8, quoting reports of the UAC commanding officer to the third Arab summit. 38. See General Mahmud Shit Khattab, Al-Wahda al-‘Askariya al-‘Arabiya [The Arab Military Unity] (Beirut: Dar al-Irshad, 1969), pp. 81–96; al-Ahram, 17 January 1967. Also Nasser, in Jozef Abu Khatir. Liqa’at Ma’ a Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir [Meetings with Jamal Abdel Nasser] (Beirut: Dar al-Nahar, 1971), p. 106; see also Abu Khatir’s—then Lebanese ambassador in Cairo—assessment of the UAC, pp. 140–1. 39. Riyad, Memoirs, p. 301. 40. General Muhamad Fawzi, Mudhakkirat: Harb al-Thalath Sanawat, 1967–1970 [Memoirs: the Three Year Long War, 1967–1970] (Beirut: Dar al-Wahda, 1987), p. 47. 41. Nidal Hizb al-Ba‘th al-Ishtiraki ‘abr Mu’tamaratihi al-Qawmiyya, 1947–1964 [The Struggle of the Socialist Ba‘th Party Through its National [=Pan-Arab] Congresses, 1947–1964] (Beirut: Dar al-Tali‘a, 1971), p. 254, introduction by the editor to the report on the seventh Nation Congress of the Ba‘th Party, February 1964. 42. See Nasser, al-Ahram, 1 June 1965; R.Cairo, 22 July 1964; Shuqayri, ‘Ala Tariq alHazima, p. 97, From the Summit, p. 143; Haykal, al-Ahram, 11 September 1964, 15, 22, 29 July, 5, 12, 18 August 1966; Husayn Fahmi, al-Akhbar, 2 June 1967. See also Moshe Shemesh, The Palestinian Entity 1959–1974: Arab Politics and the PLO, 2nd revised edn (London: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 55–62.

11 Elie Kedourie’s Teaching of Middle Eastern History JOSEPH KOSTINER

Sex and power are perhaps the two most potent urges which can seize men and possess them. But the received wisdom of mankind has recognised that ecstatic and ineffable as are the pleasures they can produce, yet they must be approached with fear and circumspection, since they can also unleash chthonic forces and lead to terror and madness. Both Athens and Jerusalem taught this in their different ways, and their legacy was taken up and appropriated by both Muslims and Christians. But in modern times large numbers of westerners have come to disbelieve in the horrors of love or politics, to forget that Venus can be a bird of prey ‘toute entière a sa proie attaché’. Happiness through sexual satisfaction or through political action has been a dominant idea in Europe and America since Sade and St. Just and it has naturally issued in the nihilism which is so widespread among western intellectual classes today. The prestige of the West has ensured the conversion of non-European intellectuals to these beliefs, which the techniques invented by Europe have helped to spread among them. They, too, have come to entertain delusive and exaggerated expectations about love and politics; among them, too, nihilism is, in consequence, rampant.1 Elie Kedourie’s approach to Middle Eastern history reflects a basic understanding that politics, as the main drive of historical evolution, results from human minds. As such, Kedourie cautions, in one of his early articles, ‘against regarding political activity as different from other activities and therefore requiring another standard than that we ordinarily apply’.2 Human beings can formulate policies rationally, according to interests and policy perceptions. The history they produce should, therefore, be analysed and detected by applying reason and rationality. Kedourie’s thinking is rooted in an acclaimed British tradition of political research, upheld by writers such as Michael Oakshott, one of his teachers. Kedourie stresses certain aspects of this method: political actors, behind their rational formulations, are still human beings—they may misapprehend situations and calculate erroneously. They may be guided by

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prejudice and partiality and at worst they can be malevolent and consumed by feelings of selfaggrandisement. Kedourie therefore further cautions us to study political history with scepticism—‘against idolising of action—and of men of action —a weakness to which persons in academic life are, I think, sometimes prone—and consequently the idolising of irrationality, injustice and such other incidental results of action’.3 The study of political action requires humanistic treatment. A historian should carefully assort his facts, so as to understand the policies and actions he is supposed to analyse, then weave them into a valid story. He is continuously called upon, throughout his endeavours, to re-examine the solidity of his story. A solid story, based on assorted facts, is ‘evidence’, Kedourie was wont to argue to his students. It serves as evidence in what should be the historian’s most important mission: to value-judge men of action and their actions. In Kedourie’s view, historical research is not an ‘objective’ narrated chain of events, to which the researcher should not personally relate. Neither should history be analysed only by applying ‘structures’ and ‘functions’ of human behaviour, explained according to ideological or social-science models, which depict an individual actor as a specimen of a wider social category and thereby minimize his role and responsibility. Despite being appreciative of research in the social sciences, the results of which he often published in his edited journal, Middle Eastern Studies, Kedourie was surely a historian who objected to the growing leanings of historical research towards Marxist analyses and social-science theories. Historical research, for him, should focus ad-hominem on each relevant person and related actions, and not on broad social categories. Therefore, the actors and the actions they produce should be value-judged on the full effect of their achievements combined with the full gloomy reflection of their mistakes and failures. In this process, political action should be examined as a result of a human ambition that may turn into an illusion under the impact of the taste for power, or an actor’s delusion that he can affect the fate of a human collective, i.e. lead a society, mould a nation. The illusion of influence, the sense of mission, driven by underlying burning ambitions, often guide political actors to commit themselves to execute an impossible goal and undertake to bring about a promised land, one that is, in fact, unattainable. The process on which Kedourie focuses is the decline of the Ottoman Empire’s ruling institutions that led to its destruction during the First World War, and the rise of new, independent, Middle Eastern states. This process marked the collapse of a long and well-established order that Kedourie calls ‘Oriental despotism’. In his words, this is ‘the regime which most of the Middle East has traditionally known’.4 It was an imperial order which, in variations, characterized each of the different dynasties that ruled the Middle East from the seventh to the twentieth centuries. Oriental despotism formed a complete order, handed down among generations as a legacy. Accordingly, in Karl Wittfogel’s classic formulation, state is stronger than society, as those who rule are stronger than those who are ruled. Kedourie quotes the Damascsene qadi, Ibn Jama‘a

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(1241– 1333), echoing a famous Muslim analogy to illustrate this principle: ‘The world is a garden, the fence of which is the dynasty [dawla]. The dynasty is authority supported by the army. The army is soldiers who are assembled by money. Money is sustenance brought together by the subjects. The subjects are servants who are reared by justice.’5 This was a tyrannical, absolutist order, reliant on religious law. Most jurists decreed that a ruler, even if he was fallible and sinful (according to the Sunni doctrine), could not be compelled to give a deposition. Oriental despotism in the Middle East espoused additional trappings. Kedourie stresses how the embedded relations between economic and political power are diametrically opposed to Marxist views, as it is ‘the possession of military and political power [that] determines who will enjoy the fruits of labour’.6 Moreover, as Oriental despotism was imbued by mutual mistrust, and as the interests of the ruling class and of its subjects were usually diametrically opposed, and their interrelations contradictory, the officials’ prospects for tenure or wealth, and sometimes even for maintaining their lives, were problematic. Mirror books therefore abound in advice to rulers to be wary of officials, wives and friends.7 Even high-ranking officials had to provide for what could become a sudden fall from favour, by exploiting their time in office, indulging in corruption and disregarding, as far as possible, their ruler’s interests. Other splits, of an ecological nature, such as between townspeople and the countryside population, or between settled agricultural fellahin and sturdy Bedouin tribes, prevailed, though at varying levels of intensity. Divisions among religious communities, or millets, was also a central principle in the Ottoman empire. This gave the impression, Kedourie stresses, of a ‘segmented society, all gaps and separations’.8 Despite its splits and despotic government, Kedourie recognised its advantages. Behind the separations loomed the rulers’ interest in remaining aloof from interfering in the subjects’ lives. The concepts of developing either an intervening totalitarian rule, or of mobilizing subjects voluntarily, were unfamiliar in the Muslim empire system. The lack of proper bureaucratic means, and poor communication systems, made continuous government surveillance impossible. Rulers just assumed that their subjects’ daily lives were run by communal leaders, heads of neighbourhoods and professional guilds. Kedourie quotes a telling saying, attributed to the ‘Abbasid ruler (Khalifa) al-Ma’mun: ‘The best life has he who has an ample house, a beautiful wife and sufficient means and who does not know us and whom we do not know’.9 The segmentation provided for a tangible distance, both between ruler and subject and among the different ecological, class-bound, religious and professional groups. Hence segmentation allowed co-existence between ruler and subject and among segments in society. Moreover, a certain pluralism prevailed, manifested in socio-cultural mutual tolerance, and the rulers’ limited intervention in society allowed, in Kedourie’s words, ‘a great deal of elbow-room—no doubt politically insignificant—to the subject, and meant that there was a boundary, implicitly

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recognised on all sides, which divided the public realm from the private, which later comprised a large variety of social activities’.10 The period of the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries signified the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and, with it, the ‘elbow-room’ it had offered to the population. Several processes articulated this reality: the rise of Arab, Turanic and then Turkish nationalism, which superseded the traditional, all-Islamic identity of the empire. Several new, ambitious rulers (such as the Khedive Isma‘il in Egypt and the Sultan ‘Abd al-Hamid) rose to power, and employed modern administrative and technological means to enforce an unprecedented central rule. Finally (and primarily) the First World War, with its diplomatic initiatives, led to the destruction of the Ottoman Empire, a subject that was one of Kedourie’s main research foci. In these processes, the roles of individuals were salient. Kedourie judged their performance with an understanding of the human weaknesses and frustrated intentions affecting their decisions. Thus the Egyptian ruler, the Khedive Isma‘il, in 1869 established a consultative assembly, as part of his ambition to make Egypt resemble one of the ‘civilized states’, namely, as in Europe. Isma‘il hoped, says Kedourie, that the British would be impressed with a body ‘to which they were accustomed if their most cherished institutions were apparently copied in Egypt’.11 Not only were the Khedive’s Europeanizing hopes frustrated, but he personally was deposed by the Ottoman Sultan, who had been so advised by the British. Other Islamic contemporary leaders, such as Jammal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad ‘Abduh, agitated for salvation through Islamic reform and the installation of unity and a new exuberance among the Muslims. In this case, Kedourie shows how Afghani and ‘Abduh were sceptics when it came to their Islamic beliefs, inconsistent and quite adventurous in their performance. They actually attempted to use Islamic reform to carry out a political agenda.12 In discussing these events, Kedourie illustrates what a destructive influence the Islamist modernists wielded on the population. A few were swept into politics, mostly in a radical fashion. Kedourie quotes the British traveller Wilfred Blunt, originally a keen friend of Afghani and ‘Abduh, who stated in 1897: ‘I had made myself a romance about these reformers, but I see that it has no substantial basis.’ Other Muslims were left untouched by change and modernity. Again, Kedourie quotes Blunt, referring to the Bedouins in Siwa, Western Egypt: ‘The Moslems of today who believe are mere wild beasts, like the men of Siwah, the rest have lost their faith.’ Kedourie concludes: ‘Since his [Blunt’s] day, of course a large proportion of the wild beasts, thanks no doubt to the modernists, has been civilised and domesticated. The few survivors are firmly confined to their reservations.’13 In the early twentieth century, the Young Turks tried to salvage the empire by disseminating ideas of equality and constitutionalism. However, this was a mere presumption, ultimately resulting in a deliberate policy of humiliating and frightening the Arab nobility, which proved counterproductive to the Ottoman Empire’s integrity. Moreover, the Young Turks generated a fashion. ‘The Young

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Turk’s revolution’, writes Kedourie, ‘seems in fact the first stage in a process which, over half a century or so, has led to a radical divorce in the Arab world between social position and political power, and to a conjunction between military might and demagogy.’14 Major parts of Kedourie’s book England and the Middle East focused on an analysis of the futile ambitions of the British officials involved in the diplomatic and military operations leading to the Ottoman Empire’s destruction during the First World War. The British official, given an opportunity to redesign the Middle East’s destiny by his own immediate acts, was a major object for Kedourie’s examination of individuals who exerted a crucial impact on the region under the influence of their fears and ambitions. T.E.Lawrence was driven by his own ambition to elevate the Arab Revolt and thereby aggrandise himself. Hoping to become an empire-builder, he led Faysal, the Hashimite Prince, into manipulated operations and connived in the Hashimites’ occasional doubledealing between the British and the Ottomans. Behind his support for the Arab Revolt’ loomed an adventurous mind which influenced the British to condone this Revolt, even though they could not support its over-expansive nationalist aspects and presumptions.15 Lawrence’s deeds in the desert became a legend, extolled and exaggerated by cynical and partisan biographers. This legend reflected a distorted narrative, rather than an accurate commemoration of his deeds.16 Likewise, but in different fashion, Sir Marc Sykes was prone to act upon contradictory premises, to the extent that his ideas in supporting Arab nationalism and the Arab Revolt were undermining his co-signed Sykes-Picot agreement, which rather depended on the Great Powers’ divided influences in the Middle East.17 Quite a few British officials, as well as Arab leaders, were lured by nationalism of diverse varieties. To Kedourie, nationalism was dangerous, as it supposedly bestowed, on any group of people posing as a ‘nation’, eternal rights for statehood and independence and legitimacy to overpower any rival group. Put simply, nationalism fed groups with unfounded illusions about their rights and capabilities and filled them with unrealistic incentives. In this context, ambitious individuals could find suitable outlets for their drives.18 Among those who made judgements under the influence of nationalist ideas were British officials such as Arnold Toynbee, who had developed a typology of more and less potent nations. As director of the influential Royal Institute of International Affairs, he influenced the British government to mismanage some of its policies in the region.19 Hugh Foot (later Lord Caradon), a British regional governor in Palestine in the 1930s, displayed an evident liking for the Arabs and a sense of guilt, typical of some British officials, for being dishonest towards the Arabs during the First World War.20 Fed by nationalistic motivation, the Egyptian leader in the post-First World War period, Sa‘d Zaghlul, showed uncompromising intransigence in the foiled negotiations with the British to reach an agreement over Egypt’s independence. Ironically, as Kedourie shows, there had been earlier fears by British officials in Egypt of this same Sa‘d Zaghlul and

ELIE KEDOURIE’S TEACHING OF MIDDLE EASTERN HISTORY 173

his very real potential of becoming a widely supported nationalist leader. These fears had prompted them to detain and exile him for some months at the end of the Great War. This policy proved counterproductive, as the martyr image, that subsequently clung to him turned him into the radical and popular leader they loathed.21 The destruction of the Ottoman Empire, and the nationalist tendencies that evolved therefrom, prompted a new type of politics, which no longer maintained the old socio-political balance, typical of the empires. The new states were arbitrarily made up and their borders artificially mapped. Deprived of genuine cohesion in the state-based populations, and of experienced governments, these states could survive only through violent struggle. Discussing the kingdom of Iraq, Kedourie noted: The attitude of the ruling classes to the population they ruled was one of disdain and distaste: they were townsmen over a population of primitive countrymen; they were Sunnis ruling Shi’ites, Jews, Christians and other outlandish sects; they were the government in its exalted majesty and boundless power, the others were the subjects who must be prostrate in obedience.22 The new states were marred by political manipulation, uprising and suppression. The enforcement of governmental rule and adoption of pan-Arab ideologies did not prevent inter-Arab rivalries. The millets of the empire, with their pluralistic melange, became ‘minorities’ in the new states, discriminated against by the ruling groups.23 The new unity dimension of inter-Arab relations, while it became a common leading doctrine in the entire Arab world, proved a cause for or rivalries among Arab leaders over regional leadership. Kedourie showed how, over the twentieth century, the leading figures of the contending states and their respective agendas, from dynastic issues to oil, were incentives for continuous rivalries.24 Kedourie particularly lamented the abuse of power and the violation of human rights typical of the post-1920s in the Middle East. The dignity of the individual and his ‘elbow-room’ had evaporated. The Arab revolutionary regimes best exemplified this situation. They developed adequate organizations by employing technological and administrative tools to penetrate society and reach the individual. By adopting revolutionary labels they could indulge in ‘ideological politics’: a revolutionary group could deny the rights of others and exonerate itself, on ideological, legitimate grounds, and do so effectively. The overthrow and elimination, even physically, of rival individuals or groups, became common in the heyday of the revolutionary period, between the sixth and eighth decades of the twentieth century. The chronicles of successive revolutions, of their intimate details of plotting and physical abuse, became a common literary trend. In his Arabic Political Memoirs, Kedourie made some of his most impressive observations about the ironical fate of politics in the Middle East, where the hope

174 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

for independence and nationalism was transformed into lust for power and its abuse. Young men growing up in the Arab middle east between the two world wars fervently believed that if only they could liberate themselves from the power of tradition and control by foreigners, they would create for themselves des lendemains qui chantent, in which public happiness would the crown and guarantee of private bliss. In the quarter of a century since the end of the second world war, they at last took their destiny in their own hands and tasted to the full the disappointments and the disasters of the life of politics… To this [Palestine] defeat at the hand of a hitherto despised group has been added the bitter spectacle of soldiers laying rough hands on the body politic, plotting with and occasionally murdering one another, ranting about liberation, revolution and the other slogans which in an evil hour Europe had let loose over the east, all the while steadily extending their dead hand over a society which may have been in the past ruled by aliens, but which for all its poverty and ‘backwardness’ still had some precious graces, still allowed the individual some elbow room, and mercifully permitted a retreat into privacy.25 Kedourie does not focus on the new states’ difficulties in achieving socioeconomic development (which was the goal many had set) or attaining the ideological aims they had aspired to. Their ideological colours and social or political commitments, which caused both bigotry and rivalry among Arab states, matter less to him. Kedourie was more disturbed by the decline of mutual tolerance, relative pluralism and sufficient space for groups and individuals, typical of the contemporary Middle East. Governments became violent and inhibited in dealing with their subjects, whose suffering grew under the yoke of the new leaders. Constitutionalism could have been a new, though limited, form of brake on the governments. Kedourie was certainly not naïve about the constitutional shortcomings in the Middle East. He discussed at length the artificial, imitative adoption of European constitutional practices and their cynical misuse by politicians. The corruption of political leaders, internal splitting and weakness of the constitutional regimes led to their downfall. The fall of the constitutional regime led to the rise of ‘ideological politics’ legitimizing the hope that revolutionary regimes, fuelled by illusions for total salvation, would take its place. Nevertheless, as such, constitutional arrangements that both somewhat limited the rulers’ authority and made it possible for political groups to compete for power were the last barrier to the rising of violent-ideological politics. The advent of constitutionalism therefore remains a hope for the re-emergence of more tolerant and humane politics.

ELIE KEDOURIE’S TEACHING OF MIDDLE EASTERN HISTORY 175

NOTES 1. ‘Arabic Political Memoirs’, in Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Political Studies (London: Frank Cass, 1974), p. 177. 2. ‘The Study of Politics’, Philosophy (July 1952). 3. Ibid. 4. ‘The Fate of Constitutionalism’, in Arabic Political Memoirs, p. 1. 5. Politics in the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 12–13. 6. Ibid., p. 13. 7. Mirror books are medieval books instructing rulers in the art of government. 8. Ibid., pp. 12–20. 9. Ibid., p. 15. 10. Ibid., p. 21. 11. Ibid., pp. 63–4. 12. Afghani and ‘Abduh, An Essay in Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam (London: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 1–63. 13. Ibid., p. 65. 14. ‘The Young Turks and the Arab Provinces’, in Arabic Political Memoirs, p. 136. 15. England and the Middle East: The Destruction of the Ottoman Empire, 1914–21 (London: Bowes & Bowes, 1956), pp. 88–105. 16. ‘Colonel Lawrence and his Biographers’, in Islam in the Modern World and Other Studies (London: Mansell, 1980), pp. 260–75. 17. England and the Middle East, pp. 75–85. 18. Nationalism in Asia and Africa (New York: New American Library, 1970), Introduction. And cf. Nationalism (London: Hutchinston, 1961). 19. ‘The Chatham House Version’, in The Chatham House Version and Other Middle Eastern Studies (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970), pp. 351–94. 20. Sir Hugh Foot’s Memoirs’, in Arabic Political Memoirs, pp. 231–6. 21. ‘Sa‘d Zaghlul and the British’, in The Chatham House Version, pp. 82–160. 22. The Kingdom of Iraq: A Retrospect’, in ibid., p. 261. 23. ‘Minorities’, in ibid., pp. 286–316. 24. ‘Arab Unity Then and Now’, in Islam in the Modern World, pp. 75–84 25. ‘Arabic Political Memoirs’, in Arabic Political Memoirs, pp. 177–8.

Index

For names beginning with al- see under following element of name. AIOC (Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) oil agreement (1933), 119, 141n6 AUB (American University of Beirut; formerly Syrian Protestant College), 24, 26, 28, 30 Abaza, Fikri, 105 ‘Abd al-Hamid, Ottoman Sultan, 170 ‘Abd al-Rahim, Kamil, 113 ‘Abd al-Qudus, Ihsan, 154 ‘Abdin incident (1942), 99 ‘Abduh, Muhammad, 24, 55, 170 al-‘Abidat, Mahmud Musa, 35n22 Abu Nidal, 54 aesthetic semblance, theory of, 5–15 al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din (also known as Assadabadi), 24, 55, 139, 145n58, 170 ‘Aflaq, Michel, 42, 44–8 Agha, Hajji Abbas, 95 Agha, Babkr-i-Selim, 95 al-‘Ahd (the Covenant), 24 al-Ahram, 46–47, 50n17 Akhulgo, 67 Akhundzadeh, Mirza Fath ‘Ali, 139, 145n59 ‘Ala family, 122 ‘Alam, Sabri Abu, 109 ‘Alam family, 122 al-Alamayn, battle of, 102, 104 Alexandria, 112 Alexandria Conference, 98 Alexandria Protocol, 113 Algeria, 62, 109 ‘Ali, the fourth Caliph, 30 Allies, 101, 103, 109, 110, 118

‘Aluba, Muhammand ‘Ali, 100 Amadiyya, 89 American University of Beirut see AUB Americans see United States/Americans Amin, Mustafa, 101 Amini family, 122 Amir, General ‘Ali, 158, 164 Anchim‘er, 70 Anderson, Benedict, 87 ‘Andi, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78 Anglo-Egyptian Union, 106 Anglo-Iranian Oil Company oil agreement see AIOC oil agreement Aqaba, Straits of, 155 Al-‘Aqqad, ‘Abbas Mahmud, 104 Arab Chiefs-of-Staff Committee, 149, 151, 152 Arab Chiefs-of-Staff Conference (1963), 155, 156 Arab College (al-Kulliyya al-‘Arabiyyah; formerly Young Men’s College), Jerusalem, 28 Arab Defence Council see Joint Arab Defence Council Arab Joint Security Pact (1950), 150 Arab League: and Arab strategy towards Arab-Israeli conflict, 148–3, 150, 151, 152, 156, 158; and Nahhas and the postwar order, 98– 21 Arab Liberation Society (Jam‘iyyat alTahrir al-‘Arabiyyah), 36n31

INDEX 177

Arab nationalism, 21–38, 43, 44, 45 Arab Nationalists’ Movement (Harakat alQawmiyyin al-‘Arab), 36n31 Arab Revolt, 171 Arab socialism, 39, 41, 42–8 Arab summit conference: first (January 1964), 156–3, 163; second (September 1964), 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164; third (September 1965), 159, 160, 164 Arab-Israeli conflict, 148–70 Arabic, 92 Arbil, 89 Ardelani dialect, 92 Argutinskii-Dolgorukii, Prince Moisei Zakhar’evich, 67, 68 art: artistic production, 8–9, 9–10; ideological, 11–12, 13; imitative, 11–12, 13; objects, 5, 6–7, 10, 12; Schiller’s defence of, 13 al-Asas, 47 Ashraf, Princess, 130 al-‘Asima, 25 Al-‘Askari, Tahsin, 109 Assadabadi see al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din Assyrians, 93 Atatürk see Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Atlantic Charter (1941), 104, 105, 107 Axis, 108 Azal, Mount, 70 Azerbaijan, 119, 127, 128, 140 al-Azhar university, 46 al-Azhari, Isma‘il, 25 ‘Azzam, ‘Abd al-Rahman, 100, 101, 102, 113 Baghdad, 30, 32, 88, 89, 90, 91, 94, 95, 132 Bakhtiaris, 122 Bahar, Muhammed Taqi (known as ‘Malek osh-Sho’ara-i’), 139, 145n62 Balfour, Lord, 29 Bandar Pahlavi, 126 Banyas River, 155, 161, 162 Barakat, Bahi al-Din, 104

Bariatinskii, Prince Aleksandr Ivanovich, 70–6, 75 basic popular congresses, 58, 59 Basra, 88, 90 Ba’th: Party, 42, 44–8,151, 164; press, 155 Baxter, head of department at UK Foreign Office, 110 Bayat family, 122 Bearmann, Jonathan, 55 beauty, 5, 5, 6 Bedouins, 171 Beirut, 24, 30, 32 Benckendorff, Count Konstantin Konstantinovich, 76 Benghazi University, 56 Bianco, Mirella, 55 Black Sea line, 67 Blundy, David, 60 Blunt, Wilfred, 170–5 Bowman, Humphrey, 27 Britain: Arab cooperation with, 21–5; in relation to Nahhas, the Arab League and the postwar order, 98–4,100, 102, 103–9, 106, 108, 109, 110–16, 111, 112, 113; and Iran, 118, 119, 120, 124–30,130, 131–7,134; and Iraq, 29, 88, 90, 91, 93, 94, 95; and Kedourie’s teaching of Middle Eastern history, 170, 171 172; and Palestine, 26, 27; mentioned, 31 Bullard, Sir Reader, 129 al-Butayha project, 162 Butsra, pass of (‘Gates of ‘Andi’), 70 CCFTU (Central Council of Federated Trade Unions), 127, 128 CIA, 132 Cairo, 32, 99, 100, 102, 109, 110, 111, 149, 150, 155 Cairo Conference (1921), 89–4, 97nl5 Cairo Court of First Instance, 48 Caradon, Hugh Foot, Lord, 172

178 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

Casey, Richard, 109, 110 Castro, Fidel, 56 Caucasian Independent Infantry Corps, 67, 81n10 Caucausian line, 67 Caucasus, 67, 68, 69, 75, 76, 79 Central Council of Federated Trade Unions see CCFTU Central Secondary School, Baghdad, 30 Chakh Kiri, 68 Charter of National Action (also referred to as National Charter), 42, 43,45, 50nl7, 55 Chechnia, 67, 67, 68, 69, 78 Chiang Kai-shek, 59 Chiefs-of-Staff Committee see Arab Chiefs-of-Staff Committee China, 53, 54, 55, 57, 59, 62 Chinese Communist Party, 53 Chou En-lai, 53–7 Christians, 23, 29, 32, 62 civil condition, concept of, 16–20 Clayton, Brigadier, 99 College of Benevolent Intentions (Kulliyyat al-Maqasid al–Khayriyyah), Beirut, 24, 28 Committee for the Revival of Kurdestan (Komale-i Ziyan-i Kordestan), 140, 147n73 Committee of the Arab Pioneer (Lajnat alRa’id al-‘Arabi), 36n31 communism: in Iran, 125–1; Islam vis- à-vis communism and socialism, 38–52; Qadhdhafi’s ideas on, 61 Communist Party of Iran, 125–1, see also Tudeh party Constituent Assembly (Iran), 130 Constituent Assembly (Iraq), 90 Constitutional Revolution (Iran, 1906), 117, 119, 120, 135, 138, 140 constitutionalism, 174 Cornwallis, Sir Kinahan, 88, 95 Cottam, R., 139, 140 Cuba, 56

Daghestan, 67, 67, 68, 69 Dahl, Robert, 137 Damascus, 24, 25, 26, 27, 32; Colleges of Medicine and Law, 26; Tajhiz, 26; University of, 25 Dargo, 67, 69, 71, 72, 74, 75, 78, 79 Darwaza, Muhammad ‘Izzat, 27, 28 Dawn, C.Ernest, 32, 36n32,38n39 Defence, Ministry of (formerly Ministry of War, Iran), 131 Defence Council see Joint Arab Defence Council democracy: failure in Iran, 117–51; Qadhdhafi’s ideas on, 56, 57–3; Sun Yat-sen’s ideas on, 57, 58, 59–3 Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, 127 Dohuk, 89 Druze, 23 Eastern Department (Foreign Office, Britain), 111, 112 Eden, Anthony, 98, 105, 109, 110, 111, 118 Edmonds, C.J., 87–98; Kurds, Turks and Arabs, 88 education: role in development of Arab nationalism, 21–38 Education, Ministry of (Iraq), 29–3 Egypt: and Arab strategy in Arab-Israeli conflict 150–5,152, 153–8, 155–60, 157, 163, 164; and communism, 47–2; in relation to Nahhas, the Arab League and the postwar order, 98–19; Khedive Isma‘il’s ambitions for, 170; and socialism, 39, 41, 42, 43, 45, 48; Zaghlul’s leadership, 172; mentioned, 25, 51n33,171; see also Nasser (Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir), President Eisenhower, General, 134 Enzeli, 126 Eqbal family 122

INDEX 179

Esfahan, 127, 144n33 European socialism, 44 Farmanfarma family, 122 Faruq, King of Egypt, 98, 100, 101, 105, 111, 113 Fath organization, 165 Faysal ibn Husayn (Hashimite Prince), 171, King of Syria, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29; King of Iraq, 90 Fertile Crescent: development of Arab nationalism, 21– 38 Fichte, J.G., 14 Fifth Infantry Corps (Russia), 67 Filastin see Palestine (Filastin)/Palestinians First World War, 170, 171, 172 Firuz family, 122 Foot, Hugh (later Lord Caradon), 172 Foreign Office (Britain), 98, 99, 108, 110, 111, 112, 124, 125, 131 form, in Schiller’s theory of aesthetic semblance, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 Fort Vozdvizhenskoe, 68, 69 France/French, 21–5, 23, 26, 31, 108 freedom, 10–11 French Revolution, 5, 138 Freytag, Karl Robertovich, 74, 79 Galilee, Sea of, 162 Gaulle, Charles de, 109 Gellner, Ernest, 87 General People’s Congress, Libya, 59 Germans, 118 Gershoni, Yisrael, 101 Gertme, 67, 70 Gerzel-Aul, 74, 79 Ghazi Muhammad, first imam of Daghestan, 67 Ghazvini, Aref, 139 Gibb, H.A.R., 99, 110 Gilan, 126, 140 ‘Golden Square’ (Iraq), 94 Gomaa, Ahmed, 100 Greece, 113 Gumbet, 70

al-Hafez, Amin, 151, 157 Haim, Sylvia G., 38n39 al-Hakim,Tawfiq: ‘Awdat al-Wa’i (Regaining Consciousness), 99–5 Hakimi family, 122 Halpern, Manfred: The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa, 38 Hammadi, Sa‘dun, 44 Hamza Bek, second imam of Daghestan, 67 Harakat al Qawmiyyin al-‘Arab see Arab Nationalists’ Movement Hasbani River, 155, 161, 162 Hasbaya region, 161 Hashimites, 171 see also ‘Ali Hawrani dialect, 92 Haykal, Husayn, 104 Haykal, Muhammad Hasanayn, 42–7, 50n17 Hebrew University, 28, 29 Helou, Charles, 163 Henderson, US Ambassador to Iran, 131–7 Heyworth-Dunne, Professor, 101 al-Hilal, 104 Hitler, Adolf, 104, 141 Hourani, Albert, 101 Hull, 105 Hung Hsiu-ch’uan, 63n5 Hurko, Vladimir Osipovich, 67, 68 Husayn, Ahmad, 48, 49; The Socialism We Preach, 48 Husayn, al-Shaykh Muhammad, 46–47 Husayn, Taha, 105 al-Husayni, Hajj Amin, 94 al-Husayni, Jamal, 111 al-Husri, Abu Khaldun Sati’, 25, 27, 29–3, 31, 92 IDF (Israel Defence Forces), 164 Ibn Jama‘a, 169 Ibn Sa’ud, King of Saudi Arabia, 111, 111– 18 ‘ideological politics’ of revolutionary groups, 173

180 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

Idris, King of Libya, 54, 55 Imperial Guards (Russia), 132 Indonesia, 63n6 Industrial Revolution, 44 Interior, Ministry of (Iraq), 88 invention: of modern Iraq, 87–98; process of, 87 Iran, 93, 117–51 Iraq: and Arab strategy towards Arab-Israeli conflict, 151, 159, 162; and development of Arab nationalism, 28, 29–4; in relation to Nahhas and the Arab League, 108, 109, 110, 111, 111; invention of modern Iraq, 87–98; Kedourie’s comments on, 172; mentioned, 21, 98 ‘Iron Guard’ (Egypt), 101 Islam, 21, 22, 23, 26, 31, 32, 135, 170; vis-à-vis communism and socialism, 38–52 Islamic Revolution (Iran, 1979), 117, 135, 136, 138 Isma‘il, Khedive, 170 Israel: Arab-Israeli conflict, 148–70; mentioned, 98 al-Ithnayn, 101, 104 JAC (Joint Arab Command), 150, 151, 157 Jabhahah-ye Melli see National Front Ja‘farite school of jurisprudence (Twelver Shi’ism), 95 see also Shi’ism, Shi’is Jamahiriyya state, 58, 59 al-Jamali, Fadil, 25 Jam‘iyyat al-Maqasid al-Khayriyyah see Society of Benevolent Intentions Jam‘iyyat al-Tahrin al-‘Arabiyya see Arab Liberation Society Jam‘iyyat al-‘Urwah al-Wuthqa see Society of the Unbreakable Bond Jangali movement/Jangalis, 126, 140, 144n24, 147n70

al-Jawzi, Bendali (Pendali) Saliba, 31; Min Ta‘rikh al-Harakat al-Fikriyyah fi al-Islam (History of the Intellectual Movements in Islam), 31 Jerusalem, 28, 31, 32 Jews, 23, 28, 29 Johnston Plan (1955), 161, 162 Joint Arab Command see JAC Joint Arab Defence Council, 150, 151–6, 156, 157, 158, 164 Jordan, 154, 158, 159, 160, 162 see also Transjordan Jordan River: Arab plan for diverting tributaries of, 152, 158, 161–6; Israel’s diversion project for, 148, 149, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159 Journal d’Egypte, 112 al-Jumhuriya (Egypt), 153 ‘justice’, internationally imposed, 19–3 KMT (Kuomintang), 53, 57, 59 Kant, Immanuel, 8, 13, 14 Karbala, 96 Kashani, Ayatollah abu l’Qasim, 130, 131, 133, 142n8 al-Kashshaf, 30, 31 Kasravi, Ahmad, 139–6, 145n60 Kawkaba Tunnel, 161 al-Kaylani, Rashid ‘Ali, 98 Kedourie, Elie, viii–2, 50, 53, 98n42, 110, 147n76, 167–8; Arabic Political Memoirs, 173; England and the Middle East, 171 Kermani, Mirza Agha Khan, 139, 145n58 Keshavarz, Fereydoon, 127, 144n32 al-Khatib, Muhibb al-Din, 25–9 Khiabani, Shaykh Muhammad, 140, 147n70 Khomeini, Ayatolla Ruholla, 135 Khorassan army revolt (1948), 144n33 Khoury, Philip, 26 Khubar, 67 al-Khuli, Lutfi, 40–4, 42 Khunzakh, 68 Khrushchev, Nikita, 49

INDEX 181

Killearn, Sir Miles Lampson, Lord, 99, 100, 101, 102, 106, 108, 110, 111, 111, 112 King-Crane Committee (1919), 28, 35n21 Kirkuk, 89, 90 Kirmanj dialect, 92 Klüky-von-Klugenau, General Franz, 70, 72, 73, 85n84 knowledge, theory of, 8, 13 Ko’i, 89, 95 Komale-i Ziyan-i Kordestan see Committee for the Revival of Kurdestan al-Kulliyya al-‘Arabiyyah see Arab College Kulliyyat al-Maqasid al-Khayriyyah see College of Benevolent Intentions Kuomintang see KMT Kurdestan/Kurdistan, 119, 127, 128, 140 Kurdi (or Surani) dialect, 92 Kurdish language, 92–7 Kurds, 29, 88, 89, 90, 91–8, 95 Labynstev, Ivan Mikhailovich, 72, 85n84 Lajnat al-Ra’id al-‘Arabi see Committee of the Arab Pioneer Lambton, Anne, 125 Lampson, Sir Miles see Killearn, Sir Miles Lampson, Lord language, 92–7 Laqueur, Walter: Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East, 49–3 Lausanne Conference (1923), 88 Lawrence, T.E., 171 League of Nations Special Commission (1925), 88 Lebanon, 23–8, 62, 101, 108, 110, 111, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163 Lesghian line, 67, 69 Liberal-Constitutionalist Party (Egypt), 104 Libya, 54, 55, 59, 61, 98 Litani River, 161, 162 ‘living form’, 5 London, 99, 102, 103, 104, 109, 110, 111, 111

Lüders, Aleksandr Mikhailovich, 67, 68, 74, 77, 79 Lycett, Andrew, 60 McMichael, Harold, 99, 111 al-Madfa’i, Jamil, 109 Madrasat al-Najah al-Wataniyyah see al– Najah National School Mahir, Ahmad, 105, 113 Mahmud, Hifni, 104 Mahmud, Shaykh, 91, 95 Majallat al-Majma’ al-‘Ilmi al-‘Arabi (Journal of the Arab Scientific Academy), 31, 32 Majdalani, Jubran, 42 Majles (Iran), 119–9, 125, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 141n5, 142n9 and n10 Makarayn Dam, 162 al-Ma’mun (Abbasid Caliph), 169–4 Manchus, 53, 57, 63n3 Mansur, ‘Ali, 118 al-Mansuri, Hasanayn, 39 Mao Tse-tung: Red Book, 56 Marxism, 39–4, 42, 43, 44, 45, 60, 61, 169 Mashhad, 126, 127 Mazrui, Ali A., 55 Mecca, 111, 113 Mehemet Ali (ruler of Egypt), 67, 79 Melchett, Lord see Mond, Sir Alfred Melli (national) Movement, 138 Michikal, 70, 77 Middle East (Official) Committee (Britain), 99 Middle East Supply Centre, 109 Middle Eastern history, Kedourie’s teaching of, 167–8 Middle Eastern Studies, 168 Midfa‘i cabinet, 95 Ministry of Defence (formerly Ministry of War, Iran), 131 Ministry of Education (Iraq), 29–3 Ministry of the Interior (Iraq), 88 al-Miqdadi, Darwish, 27, 28–2, 30–4, 35n24, 36n31

182 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

Mirza Kuchik Khan, ‘Jangali’, 140, 144n23, 147n69 Mond, Sir Alfred (later Lord Melchett), 30, 31 Moore, Barrington, 137 Morocco, 109 Moscow, 113 Mossadeq, Dr Mohammed, 2, 117, 120, 123, 124, 125, 130–6, 132, 133, 135, 136, 138, 141, 141–8n7, 142n 10 Mossadeq family, 122 Mosul, 88–3, 90, 91 Mount Azal, 70 Moyne, Lord, 112 Muhammad, Prophet, 22, 39 Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, 118, 119, 128–8, 140, 145n41 Mukhayba Dam, 162 Mukri dialect, 92 al-Musawwar, 105 Mushtaq, Talib, 29, 30 Muslim Brothers, 46, 51n35 Mussolini, Benito, 59, 104 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, 88–3, 142 al-Muti’i, Lam’i, 41 Nablus, 28 al-Nahhas, Mustafa, 98–21 Najaf, 96 al-Najah National School (Madrasat al– Najah al-Wataniyyah), Nablus, 28 al-Nashashibi, Nasser al-Din, 153 Nash‘at, Egyptian Ambassador to Britain, 104–10 Nasser (Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir), President: and Arab strategy towards Arab-Israeli conflict, 148, 152, 155, 156, 157, 159, 160, 163, 165; and communism,49; and Egyptian nationalist agenda, 100; and socialism, 39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 50n17; mentioned,51n33, 62; The Philosophy of the Revolution, 55 National Democratic Party (Azerbaijan), 140, 147n73 National Front (Jabhahah-ye Melli), 123

National Movement see Melli movement National Pact (1920, Turkey), 89 nationalism: Arab, 21–38, 43, 44, 45; and invention of Iraq, 87, 88, 91, 93, 96; in Iran, 136, 138–7; Kedourie’s views on, 171–6; and process of invention, 87; Qadhdhafi’s ideas on, 56, 57, 62; Sun Yat-sen’s ideas on, 53–7, 57, 62 Nazran, 67, 69 Negev, the, 153, 154, 157 Neidhardt, General Aleksandr Ivanovich, 67, 67–3, 69, 77 Nesterov, Petr Petrovich, 67 ‘New Russia’ (southern Ukraine), 67, 69 Newcombe, Colonel, 101 Nicholasl, Tsar, 67,67, 68, 76 Nietzsche, F., 13 Nile valley, unity of the, 100, 101 Normandy landings, 111 North Africa, 109 Nuqrashi Pasha, 49 Nuri Said, viii, 98, 101, 108, 109 al-Nusuli, Anis, 29, 30; al Dawlah al–Umawiyyah fi al-Sham (the Umayyad State in Syria), 30 OETAS (Occupied Enemy Territory Administration—South), 26, 27 Oakeshott, Michael, 16, 17, 18, 19, 167 Odessa, 69 Oriental despotism, 168–3 Ottoman Empire, 21, 22, 25, 26, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172 PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), 25, 158, 165 Pahlavi family, 122, 141 Palestine (Filastin)/Palestinians: and Arab-Israeli conflict, 148, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 163, 165; and development of Arab nationalism, 26–29, 31; and Nahhas, 108, 109, 111, 111 Palestine Liberation Organization see PLO

INDEX 183

Parcham, 140 party system, Qadhdhafi’s criticism of, 57– 1 Passek, Major-General, 70, 72, 73, 75, 84n30 Patton, Major-General, 69 People’s Conference (Libya), 59 Permanent Military Committee (of the Arab League), 150 Peterson, Sir Maurice, 110, 111 Pishevari, Sayed Ja‘far, 140, 147n52 Pizhdar, 95 plebiscites, Qadhdhafi’s criticism of, 57–1 ‘politics’, idea of, 16 Porath, Yehoshua, 100 Port Sa’id, 155 power, abuse of in the Middle East, 173 Protestantism, 24 psychology, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9 Qadhdhafi, Mu’ammar, 53–64; Green Book, 55, 56, 57, 60, 62 Qashqa’is, 122 Qavvam al-Sultaneh, Ahmad, 123, 124, 127, 133, 142nl8 Qavvam family, 122 Qazvin, 126 Qirq, pass of, 70, 77 Qutb, Sayyid, 46; Ma‘alim fi al-Tariq (Signposts on the Road), 46 Ramadan, naib of ‘Andi, 78 Raniyya, 89 Rasht, 126 Reza Shah, 118, 119, 126, 136, 140, 141 Rodinson, Maxime: Marxism and the Muslim World, 39 Roosevelt, President, 119 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 58, 62 Rowanduz, 89 Royal Institute of International Affairs, 172 Rule of Law, 18, 19 Russians, 67–86 Ruz al-Yusuf, 105, 154–9

SFL (Supplementary Fundamental Laws), Iran, 120, 121 al-Sa‘id, Nuri, viii, 98, 101, 108, 109 al-Sadat, Anwar, 101 Sa‘dist Party, 103, 104, 105, 113 Sadr family, 122 Sa‘id, Ahmad, 153 St Petersburg, 67, 68 al-Sakakini, Khalil, 27–1, 31 Salim, Ahmad, 158 San Remo Conference (1920), 88 Sarid Canal, 161 Saudi Arabia, 108, 110, 111, 111, 113, 159, 162 Sawt al-‘Arab radio, 153 Schiller: Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, 5–15 Schwartz, Grigorii Efimovich, 67 Scribe, 45 Scriverner, 110 Sea of Galilee, 162 Sèvres, Treaty of (1920), 89 Shafaq, Dr Rezazadeh, 122–8, 142n14 Shamil, third imam of Daghestan, 67, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 76, 77, 78, 79 Shi‘is/Shi‘ism, 23, 29, 30, 91, 95–96, 121, 140 Shukur, Yusuf, 156, 157 al-Shula, 108 al-Shuqayri, Ahmad, 24–8, 158 Simon, Reeva, 29 Sinai Campaign (1956), 148 ‘Six Points of 16 June, The’ (1941), 95 Siwa, 171 Smart, Sir Walter, 99, 101, 108, 111 socialism: Islam vis-à-vis communism and socialism, 38–52; Qadhdhafi’s ideas on, 54, 56, 60–4; Sun Yat–sen’s ideas on, 60, 61 Society of Benevolent Intentions (Jam‘iyyat al-Maqasid al- Khayriyyah), 24, 30 Society of the Unbreakable Bond (Jam‘iyyat al-‘Urwah al-Wuthqa), 24–8, 28, 30 Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran, 126

184 POLITICAL THOUGHT AND POLITICAL HISTORY

Soviet Union/USSR: and communism, 43; and Egypt, 49, 107, 109, 113; and Iran, 118, 119, 120, 125–3, 130, 133, 134; penetration of Arab countries in 1950s, 38; mentioned, 50, 110, 124 Stalin, Joseph, 43, 125 Stark, Freya, 101 State Department (United States), 134 Sudan, the, 100 Suez Canal, 105 Sukarno, Achmad, 53 Sulayman, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, 48 Sulaymaniyya, 89, 91 Sun Yat-sen, 53–64 Sunnis, 21, 23, 24, 29, 32, 88, 91, 95, 96, 172 Supplementary Fundamental Laws see SFL Surani (or Kurdi) dialect, 92 Surdash, 95 Switzerland, 58 Sykes, Sir Marc, 171 Sykes-Picot agreement, 171 syndicalism, 59 Syria: and Arab strategy towards Arab-Israeli conflict, 150–5, 152–7, 154–9, 156, 158, 159, 160, 161–6, 163, 164, 165, 165n5; development of Arab nationalism in, 25–9; mentioned, 51n33, 110, 111 Syrian Arab Congress (1920), 27, 28 Syrian Protestant College see AUB Tabriz, 127 Taiping rebellion (1850–64), 53, 63n5 Taiwan, 53, 61 Tajhiz school network, 26 Talabanis, 89 Tamimi, Amin, 111 Tehran, 118, 127, 140 Terengul, 70 Tiflis, 69 Toynbee, Arnold, 172

Training College for Arab Primary School Teachers, 27 Transjordan, 110, 111 Triads, 53, 63 Tuck, Pinkney, 105 Tudeh Party, 119, 120, 125–3, 130, 132, 134, 140, 142n17, 144n30 Tunisia, 109 Turkey, 88–3, 93, 113 Turkmen, 88, 89, 90, 93 UAC see United Arab Command UAR see United Arab Republic UN, 155 USSR see Soviet Union/USSR Uganda, 101 United Arab Command (UAC), 152, 158, 159, 160, 162, 163–8 United Arab Republic (UAR), 46, 49, 51n33, 150, 154, 155, 156 United States/Americans, 104, 105, 109, 110, 113, 118–4, 120, 130, 132, 133–9 Urus Martan, 77 al-‘Urwah, 24 al-‘Urwah al-Wuthqa, 24 ‘Uthman, Amin, 101, 111 Versailles peace conference (1919), 102 Viktorov, Major-General, 72 Vladikavkaz, 67 Vnezapnaia, 67, 77 Vorontsov, Count (later Prince) Mikhail Semenovich, campaign of (1845), 67– 86 Wadi Sarid, 161 Wadi Shab‘a, 161 Wafd, the, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 108, 110 Wafdist press, 107–13 Wahbi, Tawfiq, 92 Washington, 49, 107, 109 Wazani spring, 161, 162, 163 West, the, 57, 135, 139; culture, 22, 24 William, Maurice, 60 Wilson, 104

INDEX 185

Wittfogel, Karl, 169 Yarmuk River, 155, 161, 162 Yazdi, Muhammad Farokhi, 139, 145n62 Yazidis, 88 Yemen, 110, 111, 156 Young Men’s College see Arab College Young Turks, 93, 171 Yuan Shih-kai, 55 Yugoslavia, 62 Zaghlul, Sa‘d, 103, 172 Zahedi, General Fazlallah, 132, 145n48 Zakho, 89 Zibar, 89 Zu‘aytir, Akram, 28, 35n22 Zunem‘er, 70