Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:24:44.605Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Egypt's Socialism and Marxist Thought: Some Preliminary Observations on Social Theory and Metaphysics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Shahrough Akhavi
Shahrough Akhavi
Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Since 1952 the elaboration of Egyptian ideology has constituted a source of conflict between the regime and the left/right opposition. In trying to capture the ideological center, the regime has inevitably drawn itself into the maelstrom of public contention characterized by mass conformity, intimidation, purges, arrests, show trials and incarceration of all who fundamentally question the principles of the leadership. Democratic cooperative socialism (‘Arab socialism’) is the official ideology, and a spate of books and articles have been published on its significance for Egyptian politics. Despite all these efforts, confusion still tends to reign over this concept, both among Egyptians themselves, and outsiders studying it.

Type
Traditional Beliefs and Modernizing Change
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 190 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 ‘Sayf al-Dawlah, Ismat, Al-Tariq ila al-hhtirakiyyah [The Path to Socialism] (Cairo: Dar al-Nahdah al-’Arabiyyah, 1968), pp. 5–8. In a revealing passage the author writes: ‘The point of departure of nationality for [Arab] socialism means that the objective of the Arab socialist revolution is the liberation of all the Arab masses from exploitation’, i.e. nationality effects equality. Cf. the traditional Marxist position that the point of departure for all analysis is contradiction—i.e. contradiction effects equality.Google Scholar

1 The term ‘Arab nation’ [al-watan al-'arabi] signifies a unitary political and social system for all Arabs from the Atlantic to the Gulf. The notion of its existence in reality illustrates the fallacy of reification or misplaced concreteness. As a concept, Arab nation carries a potent appeal. But the transformation of concept into praxis is a task that still waits to be done.

3 Sayf al-Dawlah, p. 8. Emphasis supplied. Division is abhorrent, in short, because it is that upon which capitalism thrives. Unity, on the other hand, is laudable because it comprises the nourishment for socialist construction. Sayf al-Dawlah is of course echoing exactly the sentiments of Michel ‘Aflaq, co-founder of the Ba'th Party (a source of profound inspiration for Egypt's socialism), when he wrote that ‘any viewpoint or remedy of the vital difficulties of the Arabs, either in part or in tow, which does not emanate from the axiom “The Unity of the Arab People” is an erroneous outlook and an injurious cure’. ‘Aflaq, , Ma'rakah al-Masir al-Wahid (Beirut, 1953), p. 19,Google Scholar cited in Gordon Torrey, H., ‘The Ba'th-Ideology and Practice,’ The Middle East Journal, Vol. 23, 4 (Autumn 1969), p. 448.Google Scholar

4 For an excellent discussion of the reaction in the Arab world to the Marxist explanation of historical development as a function of class struggle and the Arab preference for explaining this development in terms of ‘the external confrontation of nationalitarian groups’, see Rodinson, Maxime, ‘Dynamique interne ou dynamique globale: l'exemple des pays musul- mans’, Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, XLII (01.-06 1967), pp. 27–47.Google Scholar

5 For these remarks, published by the Egyptians (albeit inconspicuously, on the obituary page), see al-Ahram, May 17, 1964.

6 Here, Arab unity becomes, like religion for Marx, the opiate of the masses, as it were.

7 See Lenin's What the ‘Friends of the People’ Are and How They Fight Social Democracy (1894) in his Works, numerous editions. Although later in his life (say 1915), he felt Russia to be ripe for revolution because of its backwardness—in itself a paradox—he did not feel that a Russian revolution by itself could survive. Cf. his article, ‘On the United States of Europe Slogan’, August 23, 1915, in Selected Works (London: 1947), Vol. I, pp. 630 ff.Google Scholar

8 Marx and Engels, joint preface to the second Russian edition of the Communist Manifesto, 1882: ‘if the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for communist development’. Cited in Lichtheim, George, Marxism: An Historical and Critical Study (New York: Praeger, 1965), pp. 327–8.Google Scholar

9 See, for example, Tiagunenko, V. L., ‘Sotsialisticheskie Doktriny Obshchestvennogo Razvitiia Osvobodivshikhsa Stran’ [Socialist Doctrines of Social Development in the Liber ated Countries], Mirovaia Ekonomika i Muzhdunarodnye Otnosheniia, No. 8 (08. 1965), pp. 79–86;Google Scholar G. Mirskii and T. Pokataeva, ‘Klassy i Klassovaia Borba v Razvivaiushchikhsa Stranax’ [Classes and the Class Struggle in the Developing Countries], ibid., nos. 2 and 3 (February and March 1966), pp. 38–50; 57–70 respectively.

10 Bottomore, Tom B., Classes in Modern Society (New York: Pantheon Books, 1966), pp. 23 ff.Google Scholar As examples, he cites ‘office workers, supervisers, managers, technicians, scientists, and many of those who are employed in providing services of one kind or another ….’. For a discussion of the utility of the concept of‘new middle class’ (originally proposed by Halpern, Manfred, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963]),Google Scholar see Perlmutter, Amos, ‘Egypt and the Myth of the New Middle Class’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, IX, 4 (10 1967);Google ScholarHalpern, Manfred, ‘Egypt and the New Middle Class: Reaffirmations and New Explorations’, CSSH, XI, 1 (01 1969);Google ScholarPerlmutter, , ‘The Myth of the Myth of the New Middle Class: Some Lessons in Social and Political Theory’, CSSH, XII, 1 (01 1970);Google Scholar Halpern, ‘The Problem of Becoming Conscious of a Salaried New Middle Class’, ibid. For another approach, utilizing the concept of neo-patrimonialism and rejecting the concept of class as inapplicable in Egypt‘s case, see Akhavi, Shahrough, ‘The Egyptian Political Elite’, in Comparative Political Elites in the Middle East: Seven Cases, ed. Tachau, Frank (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman. 1975), pp. 70–117.Google Scholar

11 The Egyptian socialists facilely place these categories into the ‘alliance of the popular working forces’—a formula indicating a broad coalition of‘progressive’ elements in the society. Excluded from the alliance are members of the former royal house, landed magnates, comprador and grand bourgeoisie.

12 ‘A priori points to notions, propositions, or postulates that are considered true or necessary irrespective of experience or anterior to it; in other words, not derived from experience and yet considered valid’. Brecht, Arnold, Political Theory: The Foundations of Twentieth Century Political Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), p. 99.Google Scholar Good sociological analysis and a priori thought are not necessarily mutually exclusive. But the process must be rigorous; this is why the famous Egyptian man of letters, Dr. Louis ‘Awad, has characterized post-1952 Egyptian social theory, political thought, economic analysis and moral philosophy as shabby. See his essay, ‘Cultural and Intellectual Developments in Egypt Since 1952’, in Egypt Since the Revolution, Vatikiotis, P. J., ed. (New York: Praeger, 1968), p. 156.Google Scholar

13 Consider the following: ‘The first step in Arab socialism is justice and sufficiency, plus the possibility of measures of revolutionary interaction in a peaceful atmosphere, unsullied by the violence of blood and not made insomniac by the spectors of executions! The first step in communism is punishment and revenge, because the bloodiness of the struggle among classes, in communism's view, is an inescapable necessity’. Haykal, Muhammad Hasanayn, ‘Nahnu wa al-Shuiu‘iyyah’ [We and Communism], al-Ahram, 08 4, 1961. What one wants to know is why and how socialism for the Arabs consists from the very start of justice and sufficiency.Google Scholar

14 The term has been borrowed, without acknowledgment, apparently, from a widely circulated lecture given by the Iraqi professor of history, Dr. ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Bazzaz, to the Arab Renaissance Club in Baghdad in January 1952. Bazzaz contended that the Arab nationalist movement of the 1930s and 1940s already contained its ‘democratic’, ‘socialist’, ‘popular’ and ‘cooperative’ elements. For English translation of this lecture, see ‘Islam, and Nationalism, Arab’ [Al-Islam wa al-Qawmiyyah al-'Arabiyyah], in Die Welt des lslams, n.s. III (1954), pp. 201–18, esp. p. 214. The first official use of the term, democratic cooperative socialism, came on November 1, 1957, in the decree of the President of the Republic establish ing the National Union.Google Scholar

15 Binder, Leonard, ‘Nasserism: The Protest Movement in the Middle East’, in The Revolu tion in World Politics, Kaplan, Morton A., ed. (New York: John Wiley, 1962);Google ScholarKerr, Malcolm, ‘Arab Radical Notions of Democracy‘, St. Antony's Papers, No. 16 (Middle Eastern Studies, No. 3; London: Chatto and Windus, 1963), pp. 9–40.Google Scholar

16 Binder, , ‘Egypt: The Integrative Revolution’ in Political Culture and Political Development, Pye, Lucian and Verba, Sidney, eds. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 445.Google Scholar

17 Is this the typical attitude of the military in general? Napoleon's contemptuous sobriquet of ‘ideologue’ that he attributed to the French intellectuals of his time comes to mind. He meant to distinguish men of action from others. Thus, the term ‘ideology’ was coined with the stigma that a military leader attached to it as the idle activity of do-nothing civilians. On the genesis of the term, see Lichtheim, George, The Concept of Ideology and Other Essays (New York: Vintage Books, 1967), esp. pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

18 This is clearly implied in the following passage in President ‘Abd al-Nasir's address to the opening session of the Preparatory Committee of the National Congress of Popular Forces, Nov. 25, 1961: ‘Many people say we have no theory, we would like you to give us a theory. What is the theory we are following? We answer, a socialist democratic cooperative society. But they persist in asking for a clearly defined theory. I ask them, what is the object of a theory ? I say that I was not asked on July 23rd to stage the revolution with a printed book including my theory. This is impossible. If we had stopped to write such a book before July 23rd, we would never have succeeded in carrying out two operations at the same time. Those who ask for a theory are greatly complicating matters. This is torture’. Cited in Nasser, Gamal Abdel, President Gamal Abdel Nasser's Speeches and Press Interviews, 01.-12. 1961 (Cairo: Information Department, 1961), p. 389. Emphasis supplied.Google Scholar

19 For a major exposition, see Fahmi, Mustafa Abu Zayd, Fi al-Hurriyah wa al-Wahdah wa al-Ishtirakiyyah [On Freedom, Unity and Socialism] (Alexandria: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1968), pp. 17–264.Google Scholar

20 ‘al-Dawlah, Ismat Sayf, Usus al-Ishtirakiyyah al-'Arabiyyah [Foundations of Arab Social ism] (Cairo: al-Dar al-Qawmiyyah li al-Taba'ah wa al-Nashr, 1965), p. 133. The title of this work suggests that it was meant to be the Egyptian Arab socialist response to the Soviet guide, Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism (first edition 1959). Reinforcing this impression is the author's constant reference to the Soviet work.Google Scholar

21 al-Mistikawi, Mustafa, Fi I‘dad al-Insan al-Ishtiraki al-’Arabi [On Rearing the New Arab Socialist Man] (Cairo: al-Dar al-Qawmiyyah li al-Taba'ah wa al-Nashr, 1965), pp. 14–5.Google Scholar The emphasis of Egypt's Arab socialism is on serving free man, a theme reiterated time and again. For full treatments, see Mursi, Sayyid 'Abd al-Hamid, Insaniyyah al-Ishtirakiyyah al-‘Arabiyyah [The Humanism of Arab Socialism] (Cairo: Maktabah al-Qahirah al-Hadithah, 1966);Google Scholar‘Hatim, Abd al-Qadir, Ishtirakiyatuna Insaniyyah Akhlaqiyyah [Our Socialism is Humanist and Ethical] (Cairo: al-Dar al-Qawmiyyah li al-Taba'ah wa al-Nashr, 1964);Google ScholarFakhr, Majid, Al-Kamal al-Insani Manba' al-Mithaq wa Ghayatuhu [Human Perfection is The Source and Objective of the Charter] (Cairo: al-Dar al-Qawmiyyah li al-Taba‘ah wa al-Nashr, 1965);Google Scholar‘al-Khayr, Abd al-Rahman Abu, Al-Ba‘ith al-Insani li al-Ittijah al-Ishtiraki al-Ta‘awuni al-Dimuqrati [The Human Causal Factor for the Orientation of Democratic Cooperative Socialism] (Cairo: Kutub Qawmiyyah, 1961).Google Scholar

11 al-Razzaz, Munif, Ma'alim al-Hayat al-Arabiyyah al-Jadidah [Benchmarks of the New Arab Life] 4th ed. (Beirut: Dar al-‘Ilm li al-Milayiin, 1960), pp. 164 ff., 40 ff., 59 ff.Google Scholar

23 Ahmad, Atif, ‘The Individual and Society,’ in Political and Social Thought in the Contem porary Middle East, Karpat, Kamal, ed. (New York: Praeger, 1968), p. 226.Google Scholar

24 ‘We are assured from authoritative sources that [al-Siba‘i's book] is considered to be of the utmost importance in providing form, direction and legitimacy to the social system emerg ing in present-day Egypt. It is considered to be, in brief, a major statement of ideology for Egyptian socialism’. See Gardner, George H. and Hanna, Sami A., ‘Islamic Socialism’, The Muslim World, LVI, 2 (04 1966), p. 73.Google Scholar

25 al-Siba'i, Mustafa, Ishtirakiyyah al-Islam [The Socialism of Islam] (Cairo: al-Dar al- Qawmiyyah li al-Taba'ah wa al-Nashr, 1960), pp. 35 ff. While he is a Syrian, Egypt claims his thought for Egypt's socialism.Google Scholar

26 Rimawi, , Al-Qawmiyyah wa al-Wahdah fi al-Harakat al-Qawmiyyah al-'Arabiyyah al- Hadithah [Nationalism and Unity in the Modern Arab Nationalist Movements] (Cairo: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1961), p. 463, cited in Karpat, p. 151.Google Scholar

27 ‘ Idem.

28 Sayf al-Dawlah, Usus al-lshtirakiyyah, pp. 133–4.

29 For Kant ‘freedom meant “autonomy”. It is the expression of the principle that the moral subject has to obey no rules other than those which he gives to himself’. Cassirer, Ernst, The Myth of the State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1946), p. 235.Google Scholar

30 Kuusinen, O. V., et al. , eds., Osnovy Marksizma-Leninizma, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Gosudar-stvennoe Izdatelstovo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1962), pp. 113–14. Among the determinists are listed Islam and Holbachs (the French materialist philosopher); among the idealists, of course, Hegel.Google Scholar

31 Sayf al-Dawlah, Usus al-Ishtirakiyyah al-'Arabiyyah, p. 149.

32 Ibid., pp. 149–50.

33 Ibid., pp. 158–9.

34 Ibid., p. 171. Here, Sayf al-Dawlah slips into apologia. Does he have in mind the Qur'an's prescriptions and the traditions and sayings of the Prophet, Muhammad? Or does he mean rather the precedents set by the first four Caliphs and the four great jurisprudents of Islamic law, Hanbal, Hanafi, Shafi‘i and Maliki? Or does he really mean the 1,300 years of political and social experience of Muslim civilization ? From the language, he seems to mean basically the last. It seems he feels that freedom has been glorified all along the line of Islam's existence. But can we really take him seriously ? Thirteen hundred years is a long time, and many tyrannies intervened along the way. Since freedom has already been denned by him in terms of man's ability to develop based on unhindered and unrestricted existence, choice, opinion, argumentation, action, has Muslim man according to these criteria, really been free? To take one aspect of Islamic theory, how can Sayf al-Dawlah take this position in view of the ‘closing of the gates of ijtihad’ (independent judgment) at the end of the third century A.H. And what about the decision long ago adopted in favor of orthodoxy and against the mu'tazilah on the issue of predetermination and free will? ‘The self-responsible architect of one's own life’ idea that best describes freedom as an ethical component is completely alien to thirteen centuries of Islamic civilization. [The term is that of Herbert Marcuse, Soviet Marxism (New York: Vintage Books, 1961), p. 181.] If Sayf al-Dawlah means, by contrast, that Islam has glorified the freedom of man in a ‘civil liberty’ sense (Marcuse), an examination of the legal and social systems of Muslim theorists will show that this is at least moot. Obviously, Islam does not advocate slavery and does champion the right of man to be his own spokesman in his relationship to God. But it is not here a question of such matters. Islam never experienced a separate freedom function as civil liberty (‘being able to do what is not prohibited by law’-Marcuse) since there was never any truly autonomous political system in Islam.Google Scholar

35 Kamenka, Eugene, The Ethical Foundations of Marxism (New York: Praeger, 1962), p. 23.Google Scholar

36 Avineri, Shlomo, The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), p. 92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 Kamenka, Ethical Foundations, p. 24.

38 Sir Berlin, Isaiah, Karl Marx: His Life and Environment, 3rd edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 128, emphases supplied.Google Scholar

39 ‘To be radical is to grasp things by the root. But for man the root is man himself’, Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, cited by Garaudy, Roger, Marxism in the Twentieth Century (Tr. René Hague; New York: Charles Scribner‘s Sons, 1966), p. 76. Marx begins and ends with man in his thinking about the establishment of socialist society. It is misleading and wrong, therefore, to claim that Arab socialism stands out in contrast to Marxism in the sense of humaneness and humanism.Google Scholar

40 Kamenka, Ethical Foundations, p. vii.

41 Not that the radical Left does not unhesitatingly cleave to the Soviet Marxist version. In fact, very few intellectuals in Egypt have sought to distinguish themselves as Marxists, rather than Marxist-Leninists.

42 But cf. St. Simon and his ‘New Christianity’. ‘The association of socialism with demo cracy took time to establish itself; that of socialism with republicanism (let alone atheism) was far from obvious, at any rate to radicals outside France…. By [the 1890s], however, socialism as a doctrine was already fully formed, and the attitudes it encouraged, although tinged with religious sentiment, were subversive of the social teachings which the churches had traditionally made their own’. Lichtheim, George, The Origins of Socialism (New York: Praeger, 1969), p. 8.Google Scholar

43 Rodinson, Maxime, Islam et capitalisme (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1966), p. 112.Google Scholar

44 Siba'i, Ishtirakiyyah at-Islam, pp. 5 ff.

45 von Grunebaum, Gustave, Modern Islam: The Search for Cultural Identity (New York: Vintage Books, 1964), p. 246.Google Scholar

46 Rodinson, Islam et capitalisme, passim.

47 This right of expropriation established itself with the onset of the dynastic principle, especially in the Ottoman Empire. There, it became a potent political weapon against the Sultan‘s opponents.

48 Rif'at, ‘Al-Tajribah al-Ishtirakiyyah fi al-Jumhuriyyah al-'Arabiyyah al-Muttahidah’, [The Socialist Experiment in the UAR], al-Katib, special supplement, No. 75 (June 1967), pp. 5, 9. ‘Free man is the basis and capable builder of the free society’ is an idea directly from the National Charter, the official programmatic statement of Egypt's socialism. The literature is voluminous on this subject but tends to be didactic. For another view, see Dr. Yahya al-Jamal, ‘Al-Ishtirakiyyah bayna al-Wahdah wa al-Ta’addud' [Socialism Between Unity and Diversity], al-Fikr al-Mu'asir, No. 10 (Dec. 1965), pp. 40–7.

49 Speech commemorating the fourth anniversary of the UAR, cited in al-Ahram, February 23, 1962. This brings to mind Lichtheim's plaint that to be a Christian, a Buddhist (a Muslim) and to profess belief in socialism does not make it true that the religions—Christianity, Buddhism (Islam)—are inherently socialist. Origins of Socialism, p. 221, n. 5.

50 Al-Razzaz, Ma'alim al-Hayat al- Arabiyyah al-Jadidah, pp. 48 ff.

51 See his disparaging comments about communism and the U.S.S.R., Ishtirakiyyah al- Islam, pp. 10–13.

52 Kuusinen, et al, Osnovy Marksizma-Leninisma, p. 15.

53 Muhammad Tal'at ‘Isa, ‘Al-Nuzum al-Diniyah wa al-Ishtirakiyyah: Dirasah li al- Muqawwimat al-Ruhiyyah li al-Ishtirakiyyah al-'Arabiyyah muqaranah li al-Ishtirakiyyah al-'Alamiyyah’ [Religious Systems and Socialism: A Study of the Spiritual Elements of Arab Socialism Compared to International Socialism], al-Majallah al-Misriyyah li al-‘Uium al-Siyasiyyah, No. 49 (April 1965), pp. 61–96.

54 United Republic, Arab, The Charter (Cairo: Information Department, 1962), p. 8.Google Scholar

55 Skolimovski, ‘Polish Marxism’, paper delivered at the University Seminar on Com munism, Men's Faculty Club, Columbia University, New York, New York, December 17, 1969.

56 ‘History does nothing… rather, it is man, actual and living man, who does all this’. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Holy Family, cited in Schaff, Adam, Marxism and the Human Individual (New York: McGraw Hill, 1970), p. 139.Google Scholar

57 Marx, Karl, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, O'Malley, Joseph, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 131.Google Scholar

58 Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, The German Ideology, Pascal, R., ed. (New York: International Publishers, 1947), p. 15.Google Scholar

59 Marx, Karl, ‘Theses on Feuerbach”, in Marx and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, Feuer, Lewis S., ed. (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1959), p. 245.Google Scholar

60 Claude Lévi-Strauss, who meant by this phrase that if religious belief depends on social structure and processes, nonetheless there is such a dense interplay between the two that ‘it is not simply a matter of one level “determining” the other…’, Yalman, Nur, ‘Some Observations on Secularism in Islam: The Cultural Revolution in Turkey’, Daedalus, CII, 1 (Winter 1973), p. 143.Google Scholar

61 Marx's preference for Prometheus over Christ because Prometheus defended man against the gods, whereas Christ defended God against man, is worthy of note here. See Easton, Lloyd D. and Guddat, Kurt H., eds., ‘Introduction‘, Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1967), p. 5.Google Scholar

62 Binder, Leonard, The Ideological Revolution in the Middle East (New York: John Wiley, 1964), p. 108.Google Scholar