http://kabulpress.org/my/spip.php?article53290
U.S. May Regret Crushing the Communist Party in Egypt
Acting in ignorance, not caring who filled the void
Tuesday 1 February 2011, by Matthew J. Nasuti
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The American Government has a history of acting out of ignorance. In Egypt,
across the Middle East and throughout southern Asia, the United States, as part
of its larger struggle with the Soviet Union, spent almost fifty years on a
quest to crush all the local Communist party organizations. It largely
succeeded. The Obama Administration now presumably wishes that those secular,
organized and largely middle-class organizations had not been shattered. They
represented amazing experiments in many countries because they successfully cut
across tribal, religious and cultural boundaries, and promoted gender-equality.
Despite the failure of their economic programs and their repressive features,
many of their attempted social changes were truly revolutionary. The Americans,
despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars on vast intelligence services
at the CIA and within the Departments of State and Defense, were oblivious to
the consequences of destroying these local Communist organizations.
The local Communist parties were formed largely by those who had legitimate
grievances against Western-supported dictators who ruled their countries. When
those parties were exterminated, their grievances remained and their causes
were adopted by a mix of violent and nonviolent Islamic organizations.
It is too early to declare the Cold War over and too early to declare the
United States the victor. To some degree the Cold War is still being fought as
the United States must face the consequences of its decades-long effort to
destabilize dozens of developing nations.
The Communist Party of Egypt was founded in 1921. It was one of many Marxist
organizations that flourished in Egypt. One such group, formed in 1948, was the
Egyptian Communist Organization. Its leadership was composed almost entirely of
Jewish (anti-Zionist) communists. After the 1952, revolution, which toppled the
Egyptian monarchy, Marxist groups were outlawed and imprisoned under the
rationale that they were a threat to Arab nationalism. A new wave of arrests
began in 1971, after Anwar el-Sadat expelled his Soviet advisors at the urging
of the United States. That repression continued under American ally Hosni
Mubarak, who exercised such powers through his security apparatus and through
the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity.
Throughout this period, foreign interference compounded Egypt’s problems. In
1954, Israeli intelligence launched Operation Susannah. Its goal was to
assemble a terror squad within Egypt called Unit 131 which would attack Western
targets. Those attacks would then be blamed on Egyptian communists and the
Muslim Brotherhood. Unit 131 (which may still exist) carried out several
bombings, including the July 14, 1954, attack on the U.S. Information Agency
libraries in Cairo and Alexandria. The terror campaign was eventually exposed
causing Israeli Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon to resign. The scandal became
known as the “Lavon Affair.”
While the above is all history, the concern for the future is that the United
States does not appear to have learned any lessons. In Egypt and elsewhere the
American Government has reattached its blinders and is once again obsessively
focused on groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, rather than focusing on the
underlying problems. American television is awash with pseudo-experts issuing
dire and hysterical warnings about the Muslim Brotherhood taking over Egypt.
None of that is helpful.
President Obama should think twice before creating more enemies for the United
States. It may be that the “radical” Muslim Brotherhood (it is not clear what
makes it radical), is in reality more moderate and reasonable than what might
come after it, were it to be decimated like the Communist Party of Egypt.
The crisis in Egypt seems to have taken the Obama Administration by surprise,
which is incredible as it has more than 1000 diplomats, support personnel and
dependants at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, presumably with a large CIA station.
Part of the problem is that U.S. diplomats tend to live in protective
“bubbles,” with limited access to the local population. These measures are
counter-productive because the main purpose for a foreign mission is to
interact with the citizens of the host-nation. Some risks are inherent in the
job if it is to be competently performed. The current crisis is one of a
seemingly endless series of diplomatic and intelligence failures regarding
which no one will be held responsible, so the scandals will continue.
The U.S. Government should not lecture the Government of Egypt about reforms
unless it is willing to implement its own. It would require an entire book to
detail the reforms that are needed within the near comatose Senior Foreign
Service and Senior Intelligence Service. President Obama should review the
performance of the CIA’s predecessor agency, the Office of Strategic Services
(OSS). The OSS was out in front of most of the progressive liberation movements
of its time. Its operatives lived alongside the people and were well received
by them. Much of the conflict of the past half century might have been avoided
if the U.S. Government had listened to its expert dissidents such as the OSS’s
Bill Donovan, the State Department’s John S. Service, and the Pentagon’s Edward
Landsdale and John Paul Vann. It needs to start listening now.
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http://peoplesworld.org/communist-party-of-egypt-resumes-open-political-activities/
Communist Party of Egypt resumes open political activities
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by: Emile Schepers
March 24 2011
tags: commuism, Communist Party, socialism, Egypt
On March 15, the Communist Party of Egypt announced that after many years
underground because of repression, it will be assuming open, public political
activities once more.
The announcement came after "an extensive meeting with all of its bodies" and
was unanimous.
The original Communist Party of Egypt, the Hizb al Shuvuci al-Misri had been
founded in 1922, when Egypt was still a monarchy and very much under the thumb
of British imperialism. The last king of Egypt, Farouk, was overthrown by an
uprising of young army officers in 1952. Out of that revolution came the
14-year regime of Colonel Gamel Abdel Nasser, a radical nationalist who worked
to break Egypt away from subservience to Western capitalist powers. In 1965,
the Communist Party of Egypt merged into Nasser's own movement, the Arab
Socialist Union.
A number of former Communist Party activists dissented from this merger and
formed their own independent journal, Al-Inisar (Victory), starting in 1973,
which led to their re-founding the Communist Party in 1975. Under the
governments of Anwar Al Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, the re-founded Communist Party
of Egypt faced repression and was not allowed to run in elections. However, it
did not disappear and did not abandon the struggle for democracy and socialism.
When the demonstrations against the Mubarak regime began earlier this year, the
Communist Party of Egypt, working in unity with other left-wing dissident
groups, quickly gained public visibility as a key voice in the secular
opposition. Its Feb. 1 proclamation read as follows:
The revolution will continue until the demands of the masses are fulfilled
Statement issued by the Communist Party of Egypt
February 1, 2011 -- The moment of truth is approaching. This is the decisive
moment for the Egyptian popular forces for change; to topple the Mubarak
regime. It seems that the imperialists, and their American masters in
particular, are lifting their hands from him after the continuation of
revolution everywhere in Egypt.
Today millions emerge to demand the departure of Mubarak. They will prevent
all the conspiracies of the dictator and his gang of spies to thwart the
revolution and overcome them.
The formation of a committee, which enjoys the confidence of the people and
the demonstrators, is crucial to achieve the demands of the political, economic
and social revolution, and we emphasise the basic demands presented by the
national forces to the deputies of the people's parliament:
1. Dismissal of Mubarak and the formation of a presidential council for a
transitional period of limited duration.
2. Forming a coalition government to administer the country during the
transitional period.
3. To convene the election of a constituent assembly to draft a new
constitution for the country based on the principle of the sovereignty of the
nation and ensure the devolution of power within the framework of a democratic
just civil state.
4. Prosecute those responsible for hundreds of deaths and injuries of
revolutionary martyrs and victims of oppression as well as ensuring the
prosecution of those responsible for plundering the wealth of the Egyptian
people.
5. Long live the revolution of the Egyptian people!
Although some of these goals have been achieved, such as the dismissal of
Mubarak, obviously others will have to be the focus of intensive struggle, and
the situation in Egypt is hardly stable. This is why the Party has decided to
reorganize itself as a public political force. The Communist Party of Egypt is
involved in various discussions with other democratic parties and organizations
about the future of the Egyptian nation
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
