Arab Socialist Union
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The Arab Socialist Union ( Arabic الاتحاد الاشتراكي العربي, DMG al-Ittiḥād al-Ištirākī al-ʿArabī , French L'Union Socialiste Arabe ; Abbreviation ASU ) is the name of political parties in Egypt and other Arab states between 1962 and around 1977. Their ideology was Nasserism , a form of Arab socialism that goes back to the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser . Their followers were mostly referred to as Nasserists or Unionists .
From the National Union to the ASU
The Arab Socialist Union was founded in Egypt in December 1962 by the then revolutionary leader and President Gamal Abdel Nasser . It replaced all previous (dissolved or banned) parties in Egypt. Its core was the National Union (Ittihad al-Qaumi) formed in 1957 , which in turn emerged from the Free Officers Movement that had led the revolution in Egypt ten years earlier .
The founding of this party was only part of the National Charter , which was passed by the National Congress of People's Forces . This charter contained an agenda for the nationalization of farms, agricultural reforms and a reform of the constitution, which formed the basis for a secular orientation of the ASU. In April 1964, the Soviet Union finally urged the HADITU Communist Party to dissolve itself and join the ASU, which Nasser had ultimately called for. In return, Nasser released the imprisoned communists.
With the help of the ASU, the people's forces should control parliament. Although the National Charter for Workers and Peasants provided at least half of the seats in both the ASU and the People's Assembly , the Egyptian parliament, this quota was never reached. The establishment of the ASU also made slow progress despite 6888 basic units and 4,871,592 members. It was not until 1965 that a general secretariat was formed under Ali Sabri , and a statute was not adopted until 1968. After the ASU elections in 1968, a Central Committee and a Supreme Executive Committee were formed in addition to the General Secretariat. The national congresses met regularly until 1971.
With the Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party, which was spreading from Syria, Nasser argued about who was more pan-Arab and more socialist, about the leadership role, and about the question of whether national unity or socialist transformation should take precedence. Initially, the Free Officers Movement had "Unity, Freedom, Work" as its mission, followed by the National Union that followed it with "Socialism, Cooperativism (or Corporatism ), Democracy". From the Baath Party, Nasser finally adopted the motto "Unity, Freedom, Socialism", but changed its order for the ASU to "Freedom, Socialism, Unity":
" The strategic fault of Abdul Nasser lay in the technical outlook with which he viewed nationalism and revolutionary belief. It was on account of such an outlook that he did not endeavor to create a clear, ideological theory of work applicable to popular and military organizations. He depended on the extensive popular support which he had gained not from his encounter with imperialism and zionism alone, but also from the 1958 union ... No sooner had the nationalization decisions been made than the said organization ["Freie Officers", after " National Union "] underwent yet another change to become al-I'tihad Al-Qawmi Al-Ishtiraki (the Socialist Nationalist Union). It raised the Ba'th slogans in a consecutive form: "Freedom, Socialism, Unity". Membership in the Socialist Nationalist Union was at once superficial and collective, devoid of any organizing rules and of any struggle-motivated, ideological and party choices. It also lacked popular and struggle-motivated programs of education and discipline. The Socialist Nationalist Union, itself, was established by a government decision. It was not a revolutionary and ideological organization with a past in clandestine work. This explains the civil service nature, as it were, of its personnel: civil-service as opposed to struggle-motivated and struggle-seasoned cadre that been raised in circumstances wherein coercion, want and endurance prevailed. This situation was reflected on the Egyptian armed forces. Thus, the Egyptian army did not change from a professional to doctrinal organ. "
Although a secret political-military organization, later known as the avant-garde, had existed within the ASU since 1964, whose task was to secure the revolutionary orientation in Nasser's sense, this did not prevent Nasser's defeat in the Six Day War of 1967. After the social bottlenecks caused by economic bottlenecks and democratic deficits Protests In 1969, the ASU proved increasingly ineffective. Nasserism, like the ASU, ultimately lacked a clear revolutionary-democratic program for further development beyond Nasser's death.
In September 1969, Sabri was replaced as General Secretary by Schaarawi Dschumaa. After Nasser's death in September 1970, the ASU was involved in the succession struggles for power, which in turn led to disputes over the role of the ASU. Nasser's successor, Anwar Sadat , made Abd al-Muhsin Abu al-Nur as the new general secretary and warned the ASU against patronizing the people. Sadat quickly distanced himself from socialist positions. The thesis of the “unity of classes” (corporatism) - instead of class struggle - which was once propagated but then increasingly dropped by Nasser from 1962 onwards, was taken up again and became the core philosophy of the Egyptian “special path” to “democratic socialism”.
The official program of the Arab Socialist Union therefore remained vague and resembled earlier utopian socialism :
- The state dominates the economy and thus independently promotes economic development
- The Arab nationalism .
- An end to the class struggle.
- Democracy.
- Confession to religion and freedom to practice one's belief.
In 1971, Sadat also had the Executive Committee and the secret political-military avant-garde organization dissolved. In February 1972 he named Saiyyid Marai as the new general secretary. In 1974 Sadat introduced the Infitah (or Open Door Policy ), an economic policy that allowed entrepreneurial activity and tried to establish a consumer society. Then, only in 1976, the political opening was initiated, through which political platforms (centers) were formed within the ASU - left, centrist and right. This is how the left National Progressive Organization emerged within the ASU under the former Free Officer and Commanding Council member Khalid Mohieddin, the centrist Egyptian-Arab Socialist Organization under Prime Minister Mamduh Salim and the right-wing Liberal Socialist Organization under the former Wafd politician Mustafa Kamil Murad. ASU General Secretary Rifaat Maghub, who had criticized this development, was replaced by Mustafa Chalil from Sadat . In 1977 the platforms were allowed to form their own political parties. The successor party to the Arab Socialist Organization was the National Democratic Party of Egypt , which was the ruling party and member party of the Socialist International until the Egyptian Revolution in 2011 and the fall of Hosni Mubarak . The ASU finally disbanded in July 1978.
In 1984 the former left-wing Nasserist ASU Central Committee member Farid Abdel-Karim founded the Arab-Democratic Nasserist Party , although Diya al-din Dawud was party leader until 2010.
Spread at the time of Nasser
Because of the ban on political parties in Egypt, the Arab Baath Socialist Party was unable to assert itself there alongside the Arab Socialist Union. In Syria and Iraq, on the other hand, regional ASU offshoots emerged in 1964 in rivalry with the dominant Baath party with Nasser's support, which in turn mainly comprised former Baathists and activists of the Arab nationalist movement ( Haraka al-qaumiyyin al-arab , or Haraka for short ).
ASU in Yemen
As early as the end of 1963 or early 1964, an offshoot of the ASU had also been founded in North Yemen . Progressive officers around Abdullah as-Sallal had overthrown the monarchy there in 1962 and founded the Yemeni Arab Republic . In the civil war with the monarchists , however, the Republicans were dependent on Egyptian military aid. After the failure of the unification plans with Egypt and as-Sallal's fall, the Union, renamed several times (since 1966 Revolutionary People's Union), no longer played a role.
ASU and DASU in Syria
The ASU in Syria grew out of a splinter party of several Nasserist opposition groups (including the Haraka led by Jihad Dahi and Hani al-Hindi and ex-Baathists) in July 1964 , which since the breakup of the Baathist-Nasserist alliance (1963) and the failure of the The Egyptian-Iraqi-Syrian Union operated illegally under the rule of the Ba'ath Party . The ASU in Syria was founded by the former Ba'ath chief ideologist Jamal al-Atassi as a Syrian branch of the Egyptian ASU.
It was not until 1972 that the party was officially approved and joined the National Progressive Front (FNP). As a governing coalition, the FNP should unite all progressive opposition parties under the leadership of the Ba'ath Party . As early as 1973, many ASU members dissatisfied with the Baath leadership resigned from the FNP and in 1980 founded the Democratic Arab Socialist Union (DASU) as an opposition party. After Atassi's death, Hassan Ismail took over the leadership of DASU as Secretary General.
The original ASU, which remained in the FNP and has been under the leadership of Safwan al-Qudsi since 1984, has very little room for maneuver due to its leadership role in the Baath, but is still present in Syrian politics due to controlled elections. In 2003 it received 7 of the 250 seats in the Syrian Parliament and 8 in 2007, but only 2 in 2012 and 2016 .
ASU in Iraq
In Iraq, after the military coup of November 18, 1963 and the interim overthrow of the Baathists , the ASU became the only party preferred and officially approved by President Abd as-Salam Arif , but was in fact unable to assert itself against the traditionally influential parties and power groups. The Iraqi ASU, founded in July 1964, did not get beyond the establishment of preparatory committees. These committees failed because of the objective of integrating the existing parties as well as the task of promoting the gradual economic, military and political unification of Egypt and Iraq planned by Nasser and Arif. Of all people, the former general secretary of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, Fuad ar-Rikabi, became chairman of the Iraqi ASU . Iraqi ASU General Secretary became General and Information Minister Abdul Karim Farhan . A few smaller parties dissolved and joined the ASU, the most important of which was the Haraka, which was aimed at unification with Nasser's Egypt. In September 1964, the Egyptian and Iraqi ASUs were united in a joint executive committee under Nasser's leadership.
After the coup attempts by the Nassist Prime Minister Arif Abd ar-Razzaq (September 1965, July 1966) and Abdul Karim Farhans (October 1965) and the failure of the Egyptian-Iraqi unification plans , the Iraqi ASU was placed directly under the government in October 1966. A group around ar-Rikabi then split off as the Arab Socialist Movement (ASM). Instead, Arif was overthrown in July 1968 by a coup by the Baathist military, who immediately dissolved the ASU preparatory committee for good and threw ar-Rikabi in prison (where he perished in 1971). As in Syria, the Iraqi Baathists also tied rival progressive and patriotic parties into a coalition of the Progressive Patriotic National Front from 1973 to 1979, but there was no longer a Nassist movement.
Spread at the time of Sadat
In connection with the formation of the Federation of Arab Republics , sister parties based on the Egyptian model of the ASU, which had since been reformed by Sadat, also emerged in Libya and Sudan. (The ASU was also approved in Syria because of the federation.)
ASU in Libya
Many aspects of the Libyan revolution of Muammar al-Gaddafi in 1969 were based on the Egyptian revolution of 1952. Following the Egyptian model, the establishment of an Arab Socialist Union was also decreed in Libya in June 1971 and finally carried out in September 1971. Members of the Gaddafi-led Free Unionist Officers Movement occupied key positions, but half of the members of the ASU committees should be workers and peasants. Similar to its Egyptian counterpart, the Libyan Arab Socialist Union was the only admitted party in the country, but could not fulfill its role as a link between the military leadership and the popular masses, although it is said to have had 322,000 members as early as March 1972. The Libyan ASU was finally dissolved in 1977 and merged into the People's Congress movement led by Gaddafi. In the state system of the Libyan People's Jamahiriya , the General People's Congress was regarded as a parliament-like national assembly after 1977.
Sudanese Socialist Union
An ASU offshoot was also created in Sudan based on the Egyptian model. Out of consideration for the non-Arab population groups, however, it was founded as the “Sudanese Socialist Union” (Ittihad al-ishtiraki as-sudani). As the only authorized unity party, it only pursued the goal of broadening the mass base of the Numeiri regime, allied with Egypt and Libya . The founding congress of the SSU also passed a “Charter of the National Union” in January 1972, which propagated a “Sudanese socialism” based on an “Alliance of People's Forces”. With the integration of oppositional forces into the regime, known as “reconciliation”, z. B. Nationalist and Islamist parties allowed again in 1977. As a result, the SSU lost its importance, at the latest since Numairi's fall in 1985 it no longer played a role, although it still exists today.
literature
- Rainer Büren: The Arab Socialist Union. One party and constitutional system of the United Arab Republic, taking into account constitutional history from 1840-1968. Leske, Opladen 1970.
- Robin Leonard Bidwell : Dictionary of Modern Arab History , pages 46f, 250 and 302. London / New York 1998
Web links
- Al-Ahram Weekly : All the revolution's men
- Al-Ahram Weekly: All is not lost (Interview with Diaaeddin Dawoud, Arab Nasserist Democratic Party)
- Al-Ahram Weekly: Nasserist breakdown
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Rami Ginat: Egypt's Incomplete Revolution: Lutfi al-Khuli and Nasser's Socialism in the 1960s ( English ). Routledge, 1997, ISBN 0714647381 .
- ↑ a b c d e Lothar Rathmann : History of the Arabs - From the beginnings to the present , Volume 6 - The struggle for the development path in the Arab world, pages 102-134
- ↑ Hamid Yousif Hammadi: From 6-day war to 8-year war , pp. 52-54. Dar al-Ma'mun. Baghdad 1988
- ↑ By Socialist Nationalist Union the Iraqi-Baathist author meant "National Union" and "Arab Socialist Union" alike.
- ↑ The avant-garde secret organization within the ASU was under the left-wing Nazi interior minister Schaarawi Dschumaa (Shaarawi Gomaa, Sharawi Jumaa) until 1971
- ↑ Al-Ahram 246/1995: Orthodoxy with twist ( Memento of the original from October 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. and Nasserism, 90s style ( Memento of the original from October 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The Arab Nationalist Movement was originally founded in 1958 by George Habasch , but in 1961 it split into a "Marxist" (Palestinian) and a Nasserist (Syrian-Iraqi) wing.
- ↑ a b Dr. Werner Rosenberg : Die Welt - data, facts, information of the year 1964 , pages 373f and 677-690. Dietz Verlag Berlin 1965
- ↑ Lothar Rathmann : History of the Arabs - From the beginnings to the present , Volume 6 - The struggle for the development path in the Arab world, pages 312
- ↑ Lothar Rathmann : History of the Arabs - From the beginnings to the present , Volume 6 - The struggle for development in the Arab world, pages 37f
- ↑ Lothar Rathmann : History of the Arabs - From the beginnings to the present , Volume 6 - The struggle for the development path in the Arab world, pages 204-208
- ↑ Lothar Rathmann : History of the Arabs - From the beginnings to the present , Volume 6 - The struggle for the development path in the Arab world, pages 183-189
- ↑ Lothar Rathmann : History of the Arabs - From the beginnings to the present , Volume 6 - The struggle for the development path in the Arab world, pages 166-173
