On the Movement of National Liberation Among the Peoples of the Near and Middle East

Due to the universally historic victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War, the movement of liberation among the peoples of the colonial and dependent countries has acquired an unprecedented impetus. World War II and especially the defection of the people’s democratic countries in Europe and Asia from the ranks of capitalism marked the second stage in the general capitalist crisis. The war and the new upsurge in the struggle for national liberation within the colonial and dependent countries actually wrought the disintegration of imperialism’s colonial system. The great victory of the Chinese people over the combined forces of internal reaction and American imperialism shattered the foundations of imperialism in Asia, exerted a still greater revolutionizing effect upon the East, and stimulated the struggle of the oppressed peoples for liberation. For more than two and a half years now, the heroic people of Korea have been defending their freedom and independence in armed struggle against American imperialism. The Vietnamese people are waiging war against the alien imperialists. The movement of national liberation is spreading among all the peoples of the colonial East. “The peoples of the colonial and dependent countries,” said Comrade G. M. Malenkov in the official report of the Central Committee of the ACP(b) at the nineteenth Party Congress, “are offering stiffer and stiffer resistance to the imperialist enslavers. The spreading movement of national liberation is demonstrated by the struggle of the peoples of Vietnam, Burma, Malaya, the Philippines, and Indonesia, and by the growth of national resistance in India, Iran, Egypt, and other countries.”¹

The great doctrine of Lenin and Stalin, like a bright beacon, illumines the path of the colonial and dependent peoples in their struggle for freedom and independence. “The ideas of freedom and national independence, the ideas of socialism have pierced the farthest reaches of the enslaved countries,”² said Comrade L. P. Beria in his address at the nineteenth Party Congress. In their struggle for liberation from imperialism and internal reaction, the peoples of the Near and Middle East, like the peoples of the entire colonial world, look to the universally historic experience gained in revolutionary struggle by the peoples of the Soviet Union, and also to the experience of the great Chinese people in their successful struggle for national liberation; and they are utilizing the experience acquired in the struggle for national liberation by the peoples of other colonial and dependent countries, as well as their own experience.

Leninism teaches that the proper appraisal of the motive forces in the movement of national liberation in the colonial East necessitates strict consideration of the economic and political development of these countries, a sharp distinction between the specific features of the revolution in the colonial and dependent countries and the revolution in the imperialist countries, and an appreciation of the disparity between the revolution in the oppressed countries and the revolution in the oppressor countries.

V. I. Lenin, in his article “The Socialist Revolution and the Right of the Nationalities to Self-Determination,” which was written in 1916, divided the countries of the world into three main categories. To the first group belong the leading capitalist countries of Western Europe and the United States; and he emphasized that here the progressive national movement of the bourgeoisie had long been spent; each of these “great” nations oppresses foreign nationalities in the colonies and within the country itself. In the second group of countries, he listed Eastern Europe: Austria, the Balkans, and particularly Russia; here the twentieth century saw the rise of the national democratic movement of the bourgeoisie and the intensification of the national struggle. In the third group of countries, V. I. Lenin listed the semi-colonial countries—China, Persia, and Turkey—and all the colonies; here the democratic movement of the bourgeoisie had barely begun in some places, and in others it was far from completed. From his study of specific conditions in these countries, V. I. Lenin pointed out that the “Socialists must offer the firmest support to the more revolutionary elements in the bourgeois-democratic movements o national liberation in these countries; they must help them to rebel, and if necessary to fight a revolutionary war, against the oppressive imperialist powers.”³

Analyzing the issue “of separate national movements, of a possible reactionary tendency in these movements,” Comrade Stalin points out that “it is a question of supporting those national movements which tend to weak and to overthrow imperialism, not those which tend to strengthen and to prserve it.”⁴

This is also the basic criterion in determining the objective revolutionary aspect of the movement for national liberation. “The revolutionary character of the national movement under circumstances of imperialist oppression,” points out J. V. Stalin, “does not necessarily presuppose the presence of proletarian elements, the presence of a revolutionary or republican program of action, or the presence of democratic principles in the movement.”⁵

Comrade Stalin teaches that the major tactical principles of Leninism, without which it would be impossible to direct the revolution correctly, are as follows: mandatory consideration of what is specific and peculiar to the nationalities in each separate country; mandatory utilization of every chance to provide the proletariat with a mass ally, even though it be temporary, vacillating, unstable, and unreliable; and mandatory consideration of the truth that propaganda and agitation are alone inadequate for the political education of the millioned masses, that the masses themselves must acquire their own political experience.

Comrade Stalin emphasized in 1925 that diverse conditions in the colonies and dependent countries at the given moment make it impossible to speak of a united and all-embracing colonial East. Comrade Stalin pointed out that there are at least three categories of colonial and dependent countries. First, countries like Morocco, which have no, or virtually no, proletariat of their own and which are altogether undeveloped in the industrial sense. Second, countries like Egypt, which have little industrial development and a comparatively small proletariat. Third, countries like India, which have a certain degree of capitalist development and a more or less numerous national proletariat.⁶ Comrade Stalin made it clear that there is no possibility of lumping all these countries toggether. Proceeding from the concrete disposition of class forces in each of these groups of countries, Comrade Stalin charged the Communists of these countries with various missions, all subordinated to a single goal: to liberate the oppressed peoples from the yoke of imperialism and local reaction.

Comrade Stalin’s brilliant pronouncements on the strategy and tactics of the proletariat and its Communist vanguard in the struggle for national liberation constitute the greatest theoretical contribution to the cause of Marxism-Leninism; and they are of enormous practical significance. They arm the toiling masses in the struggle for national liberation with the concept of their objectives, clarity of orientation, and the key to victory.

During the struggle for national liberation among the peoples of the colonial and dependent countries, changes occurred in the disposition of the class forces; and the motive forces of the liberation movement took clear shape—as well as the policy of those classes, groups, and political parties which wage a consistent struggle against imperialism and the policy of those classes, groups, and parties which either display vacillation in the struggle against the foreign enslavers or come to terms with them. Consideration of the specific situation prevailing in any colonial or dependent country and the proper assessment of class forces enable the working class and its Communist vanguard to successfully direct the struggle of the great masses against imperialism and local reaction, to enlist the support of all democratic forces in the country, to reduce the vacillation of the fellow-travelers to a minimum, and to mass their fire against the foes of the liberation movement.

In their pronouncements on the specific features of development in the movement of national liberation in the colonial and dependent countries, Lenin and Stalin underscore the all-important fact: the toiling masses of these countries are oppressed by a double yoke—the internal yoke (”native” landlords and capitalists) and the foreign yoke (the imperialist bourgeoisie). The toiling masses of the colonial countries are victimized not only by economic oppression, but also by political and national oppression, which intensifies and aggravates the revolutionary crisis in these countries.

The remnants of feudalism in the colonial and dependent countries exert merciless pressure upon extensive elements of the workers in these countries. But the movement of national libration and the bourgeois-democratic revolution in the colonies are aimed not only against feudal vestiges, but primarily against imperialism, which subjects the oppressed peoples to monstrous exploitation and supports and cultivates these vestiges. Noting this aspect of the liberation movement in China, Comrade Stalin emphasized that “imperialism, with all its financial and military power in China, is that force which supports, inspires, cultivates, and preserves the feudal vestiges with all their militaristic-bureacratic superstructure.”⁷ For this reason, the struggle of the peoples in the colonial and dependent countries against the remnants of feudalism is indissolubly linked with the struggle against imperialism. As Comrade Stalin teaches, the Chinese revolution is verily “the confluence of two revolutionary currents—the movement against feudal vestiges and the movement against imperialism.”⁸

Analyzing the motive forces in the movement of national liberation in the colonial and dependent countries, Lenin and Stalin underscore the dominant role of the working class and the Communist Party in this struggle. The power of the working class is incomparably greater than its numerical proportions within the population at large. The working class is the vanguard in the movement of liberation, and it epitomizes the vital interests of an overwhelming majority of the workers. Comrade Stalin teaches that “The October Revolution opened a new epoch, an epoch of colonial revolutions in the oppressed countries of the world, revolutions which are aided and directed by the proletariat,” that the era of liberating revolutions has come for the colonies and dependent countries, an era in which the proletariat of these countries is awakening and winning hegemony in the revolution.”⁹

In the struggle for the attainment of its historic mission, the working class is not alone; it has allies. One loyal ally of the proletariat is the disinherited peasantry, which constitutes an overwhelming majority of the population in the colonial and dependent countries. Comrade Stalin teaches that the oppressed nationalities represent nine-tenths of the middle segments—that is, the peasantry and the petty urban working class; that “whereas the struggle for the middle segments of a given dominant nationality is the struggle for the nearest reserves of capital, the struggle for the liberation of the oppressed nationalities must necessarily become the struggle for the attainment of certain basic reserves of capital, the struggle for the liberation of the colonial and underprivileged peoples from the yoke of capital.” The working class is striving to win the middle segments—and primarily the peasantry—to its own side, to snatch them away from the capitalist class, and “to convert them from reserves of capital to reserves of the proletariat.”¹⁰

Comrade Stalin stresses the tremendous role which is being played by the revolutionary intelligentsia and youth in the movement for liberation among the colonial and dependent peoples. The young people have a particularly deep and vital sense of imperialist bondage, and they are keenly and painfully aware of the necessity of combating it. “The student youth (the revolutionary students), the working youth, and the peasant youth all represent a force which could advance the revolution in gigantic steps, …”¹¹ writes Comrade Stalin in his work “On the Prospects of the Revolution in China.”

In contrast to the national bourgeoisie in the imperialist countries, the national bourgeoisie in the colonial and dependent countries can, at certain stages and certain periods, support its country’s revolutionary movement against the yoke of imperialism. In imperialist countries the bourgeoisie oppresses both the workers and other peoples; and at every stage of the revolution it plays a counterrevolutionary role. There the national factor as the factor of the struggle for liberation is lacking. In the colonial and dependent countries the foreign monopolies not only exploit and oppress the toilers of these countries, but also infringe upon the interests of the national bourgeoisie. Here the colonial and national yoke of imperialism plays the revolutionizing role.

Experience, however, shows that the national bourgeoisie in colonial and dependent countries which are more developed in an industrial sense is, during the struggle with imperialism, “split into two parts” due to the growth of the revolutionary movement: “the revolutionary (petty bourgeoisie) and the conciliatory (big bourgeoisie); the first of these carries on the revolutionary struggle, while the second joins the imperialist bloc.”¹² Even in 1925 Comrade Stalin pointed out that the national bourgeoisie in countries like Morocco is not yet ready to split up into revolutionary and conciliatory parties, but the conciliatory segment of the bourgeoisie has not yet had an opportunity to coalesce with imperialism. As for countries like India, not only has the cleavage occurred within the national bourgeoisie, but the conciliatory element of this bourgeoisie has already managed, for the most part, to come to terms with imperialism. These remarkable precepts of Comrade Stalin help us to find our bearings amid the events unfolding daily in these and other colonial and dependent countries.

Comrade Stalin teaches that “it is impossible to promote the revolution and to win full independence for capitalistically developed colonies and dependent countries without isolating the conciliatory national bourgeoisie, without eradicating the influence of this bourgeoisie over the petty-bourgeois revolutionary masses, without prosecuting a policy of proletarian hegemony, and without organizing the progressive elements of the working class into an independent Communist Party.”¹³

The compradore bourgeoisie in the colonial countries—the agent of foreign capital—cannot, at any stage in the movement for national liberation, support the struggle against imperialism. The progressive elements in the colonial and dependent countries work tirelessly to expose the traitorous policy of the feudal lords, compradores, and conciliatory elements of the national bourgeoisie, who have betrayed the interests of their motherland to foreign imperialism; and they are striving to isolate them from the middle segments and to win over the great masses of the workers.

The fundamental economic law of modern capitalism, as discovered by Comrade Stalin, is exceptionally important for the proper conception of the economic situation in all capitalist, colonial, and semi-colonial countries. It helps to clarify both the policy of the imperialist oppressors and the policy of the local reactionaries who cooperate with the imperialists in the enslavement and systematic despoilment of the peoples in the backward countries. In his historic speech at the nineteenth Party Congress, Comrade Stalin gave a profound analysis of the reactionary role of the modern bourgeoisie in the capitalist countries. The reactionary bourgeois leaders of the colonial and dependent countries, fearful of the rising movement of liberation among “their own” peoples, are, in the rage for profits, playing the provocative game of the Anglo-American warmongers, suppressing the democratic liberties, and pricing dollars higher than national independence.

Comrade Stalin teaches that the imperialist bloc in the capitalistically developed colonial and dependent countries is accompanied by yet another bloc—”the bloc of the workers and the revolutionary petty bourgeoisie, the bloc of the anti-imperialists, which seeks absolute liberation from imperialism.”¹⁴ The Communists, as Lenin pointed out, must “form a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonies and backward countries; but they must not merge with it, and they must categorically preserve the independence of the proletarian movement even in its most rudimentary forms.”¹⁵

Comrade Stalin teaches that the revolution in the colonial and dependent countries passes through different stages of development, that there is no revolution which does not present certain developmental stages. Analyzing the course of the revolution in China, Comrade Stalin noted in 1927 that the Chinese revolution displays three stages of development. From the example of China, Comrade Stalin showed that the edge of the revolutionary movement in the first stage of the colonial revolution is aimed mainly against the yoke of foreign imperialism. During the second stage, the edge of the revolutionary struggle is aimed chiefly against internal enemies, primarily the feudal lords and the feudal system. The first and second stages of the Revolutionary movement in the colonial and dependent countries are distinguished by the fact that the first stage produces no strong agrarian movement, while the agrarian movement of the second stage develops into a powerful agrarian revolution. The second stage of the revolution consummates the unresolved objectives of the first stage—the power of foreign imperialism is overthrown.

Noting this distinction between the first and second stages of the colonial revolution, Comrade Stalin made this point in 1927: “A characteristic feature of the Chinese revolution is the fact that it has passed through the ‘first phase,’ the first stage of its development, that it has outlived the period of the nation-wide revolutionary united front and has entered the second stage of its development—the period of agrarian revolution.

“On the contrary, the characteristic feature of the Turkish revolution (Kemalist), for instance, is the fact that it is stalled in the ‘first phase,’ the first stage of its development, the stage of the bourgeois-liberation movement, without even attempting to pass into the second stage of its development, the stage of agrarian revolution.”¹⁶

The characteristic feature of the Near and Middle Eastern countries is the fact that they are agrarian countries, with very little industry. Only in Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, and Israel are there a few industrial enterprises, and most of these belong to foreign companies. Almost 85 percent of the population in these countries live in rural areas, and only 15 percent in cities. In many of these countries a great part of the population still lives a nomadic life and has a tribal society.

The basis of agriculture in the countries of the Near and Middle East is the landlord system of feudal proprietorship. An overwhelming portion of the agricultural population in these countries is composed of agricultural proletarians who work for hire, semi-proletarians who rent land, and petty peasants—that is, landowners with small plots of land. Seventy to eighty percent of the arable land belongs to landlords and big proprietors, while 90 to 95 percent of the peasant population possesses only 20 to 30 percent of the land. Peasant with little or no land rent it from big proprietors and are subjected to brutal exploitation. To this day the landlords in many countries of the Near and Middle East have the power of life and death over the peasants, just as they did in the Middle Ages.

According to Egyptian statistics, 94 percent of Egypt’s peasant economies possess only one-third of all the cultivated land. Twelve million Egyptian peasants—the fellahin—own about as much land as 12,000 big landowners. Approximately 70 or 80 percent of Egypt’s peasants are landless or virtually landless. There are more than 3,000,000 hired farm hands in this country. Egypt’s most downtrodden peasants, who are called tamili, are bound in perpetual servitude to the landlords.

More than 80 percent of Iran’s arable lands belong to landlords, big proprietors, the state, or the clergy—and only 17 percent to the peasants. Almost 60 percent of the peasant households are landless, and 32 percent own small plots of land. Eighty to ninety percent of the peasants rent land from landed proprietors and live from hand to mouth. The tenants receive from one-sixth to one-third of their harvests, and the rest is appropriated by the proprietors. In May 1952 the Tehran newspaper Entekad wrote that such big Iranian landlords as Zolfagari (the Zenjan district), Kashkai (Fars), Sarem-ed-Doule (Isfahan), and many others own hundreds of villages and keep their own “courts,” gendarmerie, and police; they mercilessly plunder and brutally exploit millions of toiling peasants.

In Turkey two-thirds of the arable land belongs to 33,000 big landed economies. Four hundred and fifty-six thousand, six hundred landlord and kulak economies (i.e., 13 percent of all agricultural economies) possess 77 percent of the cultivated land, while 2,900,000 peasant households (86.4 percent of all peasant economies) own only 23 percent of the cultivated land. The country is estimated to contain 2,500,000 peasant families with little or no land, or about 12,000,000 persons. In Turkey’s eastern vilaiyets, the magazine Yarmur ve Toprak wrote that “there are big landlords who own thirty or forty villages apiece. In these villages the landlord call sell the peasants along with the land at auction (and this in the middle of the twentieth century!).” No better is the plight of the peasants in the other regions of the Near and Middle East.

For many decades the lands of the Near and Middle East have been harnessed to the colonial yoke of the imperialist powers, which have established their colonial “rights” and “privileges” with fire and sword and have divided these countries into “spheres of influence.” The imperialists of England, France, and the USA have usurped the key assets of economic and political life in these countries, have appropriated their enormous natural resources, and have seized control of industry, agriculture, foreign trade, finances, transportation, etc. They have converted these countries into appendages for the production of raw materials, markets for the sale of their products, and fields for the investment of capital. The enslavement and systematic despoilment of the peoples of the Near and Middle East is one method used by the English, French, and American imperialists to secure maximum profits.

At the present time Egypt, Iraq, and Transjordan are occupied by English troops and are actual colonies or semi-colonies of England, which has saddled them with unequal treaties and grasping concessions. In the status of unfranchised colonial possessions or “protectorates” of England are Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and Hadhramaut, among other sultanates on the Arabian peninsula or in the Persian Gulf, whose peoples are prey to the merciless exploitation of the English monopolies and local feudal lords. Prior to the spring of 1951, England was the uncontested master of southern Iran—where the predatory Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), created in 1901, held sway. A tremendous role in the exploitation of the Iranian people was also played by the English Shahinshah Bank, which was subsequently named the British Bank of Iran and the Middle East. The English monopolies control many other concessions in the Near East. They own 44 percent of the stock in the company that runs the Suez Canal, 47 percent of the stock in the Iraq Petroleum Company, 50 percent of the stock in the Kuwait Oil Company, etc. On the eve of World War II, England’s investments in the Near and Middle East totaled more than $565,000,000; and during the past decade they have soared to still greater heights.

American monopolistic capital is fast penetrating the economy of the Near Eastern countries. Even prior to World War II the American monopolies seized control of a number of rich oil-producing regions in the Near East. In 1927–1928 they owned 23.75 percent of the stock in the Iraq Petroleum Company, and in 1930–1931 they obtained the oil concession on the Bahrain Islands. Later they formed the Bahrain Petroleum Company (Bapco). In 1934 the American monopolies, in conjunction with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, founded the concession in Kuwait (the Kuwait Oil Company). In 1933–1939 they acquired the concession in Saudi Arabia, and later they founded the big Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco), which became the unchallenged master of this country and which began to compete successfully with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

After the end of World War II, the American imperialists intensified their inroads into the countries of the Near and Middle East; the increasing weakness of England and France and their conversion into “junior partners” of the USA contributed to this end. In 1946 the American monopolies obtained a share (20 percent) in the processing and sale of Iranian oil. In 1947 they received a concession in one part of the so-called neutral zone, and in 1949—another section of this zone. In November 1950 the American monopolists completed the construction of a large pipeline from Saudi Arabia to the Lebanese port of Said (with an annual capacity of 15,000,000 tons of oil), which cuts the cost of exporting oil from Saudi Arabia and serves to swell the profits of the American monopolies.

As their criminal plans to unleash war against the camp of peace and democracy matured, the American aggressors stepped up their shipments of oil and other valuable and strategic raw materials from the countries of the Near and Middle East. To this end, they increased their investments in the oil industry of the Near East, crowding out their English competitors. Whereas the Near Eastern investments of the American oil companies totaled $242,000,000 in 1945, they had soared to $853,000,000 by the end of 1950—that is, they had increased by 252 percent in the five postwar years. Whereas Near Eastern oil production totaled 17,000,000 tons in 1939, with only 2,600,000 tons going to the American monopolies, the American share had already reached 40,200,000 tons out of the 87,600,000 tons of oil produced in these countries by 1950. In 1951 the American monopolies obtained more than 56,000,000 tons out of the total figure of 97,500,000 tons of oil. In 1951 the American monopolies shipped 38,000,000 tons of oil out of Saudi Arabia alone; and in Kuwait the American and English monopolies raised their output to 28,500,000 tons. In 1951 oil production in this region constituted approximately one-sixth of the figure for the whole capitalist world. Whereas 80.9 percent of oil production in the Near and Middle East was controlled by English companies in 1937 and only 12.8 percent by American companies, the American share in this region mounted substantially when English was deprived of Iranian oil in the latter part of 1951. In 1952 oil production in these countries (with the exception of Iran) had reached, according to preliminary figures, 105,000,000 tons; and the share of the American monopolies came to approximately 67,500,000 tons.

In their pursuit of maximum profits, the Anglo-American imperialists are burdening the peoples of the Near and Middle East with monstrous exploitation: they are plundering the natural resources of these countries and ruining their economy. During the fifty years of its sway in Iran, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company alone reaped more than $5,000,000,000 in pure profit. The profits of the Suez Canal from 1870 to 1930 totaled 3,500,000,000 gold francs. In 1944–1945 the American oil companies obtained $100,000,000 in clear profit from the exploitation of the oil fields in Saudi Arabia and the Bahrain Islands; and in 1948–1949 they received $155,000,000 from Saudi Arabia alone. The profits of Aramco came to $300,000,000 in 1951.

The American imperialists have also strongly entrenched themselves in the economic life of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and other Arabic countries. One weapon of American expansion in the Near and Middle East, and likewise in the other countries of the colonial world, is Truman’s “Point Four Program.” Others are the slavish agreements on military and economic “assistance.” The American imperialists are turning Turkey and Greece into military bases. They are lording it over Israel—that American patrimony in the Near East. Recently the American imperialists have been displaying increased activity in Iran: they are making insistent inroads into the economic life of this country and extending their control to the Iranian army. They are striving to enlarge and strengthen their position in Iran and to crowd the English imperialists out of this country.

The increased inroads of the American imperialists into the countries of the Near and Middle East, which are designed to crowd their competitors in imperialist plunder—primarily the imperialists of England and France—out of this region and other parts of the colonial world, serve to aggravate the contradictions among the imperialists. Can we assume, asks Comrade Stalin, that England and France “will indefinitely endure a situation in which the Americans are, under the guise of “aid” along the line of the “Marshall Plan,” worming their way into the economic life of England and France, in the attempt to turn them into economic appendages of the United States of America, a situation in which American capital is engrossing the raw materials and markets of the Anglo-French capitalists with catastrophe? Would it not be truer to say that capitalist England, followed by capitalist France, will ultimately be forced to break away from the embraces of the USA and to engage in conflict with this country in order to insure its independence and, of course, its fat profits?”¹⁷

The imperialist predators are, despite the contradictions rending them, cooperating in their preparations for war against the USSR and all the Soviet-led camp of peace and democracy, and also in their suppression of the movement of national liberation among the oppressed peoples and their maintenance of colonial bondage. The Anglo-American imperialists are assiduouslyl converting the countries of the Near and Middle East into springboards of aggression to be used in their war against the Soviet Union and the whole democratic camp. As Comrade G. M. Malenkov noted in the official report of the CC of the ACP(b) at the nineteenth Party Congress: “The territory of many colonial and dependent countries (Egypt, Iran, Syria, Morocco, Tunis, etc.) is being used for military bases, and their populations are being groomed for the role of ‘cannon fodder’ in a future war.”¹⁸ The Anglo-American colonizers have girdled the Near Eastern countries with a network of air and naval bases; they are militarizing the economies of these countries; and they are endeavoring to hitch these states to their military chariot wheels. Under the guise of “mutual defense” for the Near Eastern countries, they are attempting to bring them into the so-called “Middle Eastern command,” to occupy them lock, stock, and barrel, and to use their human and material resources—oil, cotton, etc.—for purpose of aggression.

The long years of foreign imperialist rule in the Near and Middle East, with the militarization of these countries and the appropriation of their natural resources, have exerted a baneful influence upon the already weak economies of these countries and have brought still more hardships for the workers. The prices of basic consumers’ goods and products in the Near and Middle East countries have risen from four to six times above the prewar figures, while the average wage of the workers has dropped below the prewar level. Inflation has soared to unprecedented heights. For the hard exhausting labor of a twelve-to-sixteen hour working day, the workers receive a miserly wage which fails to insure them even a meagure subsistence minimum. The standard of living among the workers of these countries is one of the lowest in the world.

The Egyptian newspaper Al Akram wrote that an overwhelming majority of Egypt’s population of 20,000,000 “now live just as their forefathers lived 3,000 years ago.” Eighty-five percent of the population are illiterate and 90 percent are victims of trachoma. The death rate is one of the highest in the world. The average span of human life is not more than thirty-one years.

Conditions of life among the masses of Iran are no better than they are in Egypt. Here the workers are also victimized by brutal exploitation, and they live in shocking poverty. More than 80 percent of Iran’s population are illiterate. Hundreds of thousands of Iranian workers, tradesmen, and urban paupers live in slums, and this goes for Tehran—the capital of the country. Life is still worse for the Iranian peasants. As Mossadegh, the Iranian Premier, was forced to admit in 1951: “the Iranian people lack even the items of prime necessity, and their standard of living is perhaps the lowest in the world.”

The Economic and Social Council of the UN was compelled to note in its “Survey of Economic Conditions in the Middle East” for 1951 that there is “a striking contrast between the Middle East’s enormous potential resources of oil and the income of the countries that own these resources.” Even two reactionary American journalists, the Alsop brothers, were forced to admit, after taking a trip through the countries of the Near East, that “in many places here the animals live better than the people, and animals bring a higher price than people.”

The struggle for freedom and national sovereignty, for the liquidation of foreign military bases and the withdrawal of the imperialists’ occupation troops, for the abrogation of slavish treaties and grasping concessions, for the destruction of feudal zestiges, and for democratic reforms—has become the basic theme of the movement of national liberation among the peoples of the Near East. The peoples of the Near Eastern countries are taking an ever more active and decisive part in the struggle against feudal and imperialist oppression—the struggle for peace, national independence, and democracy.

The struggle for national liberation among the peoples of the Near and Middle East is being waged by workers, peasants, artisans, small and medium-scale merchants, and enterprisers. The working class of these countries is attracting broad segments of the people, all patriotic and progressive forces, around itself; and it is fighting for leadership in the movement of national liberation. The working class and its ally—the peasantry—represents the basic core of the movement of national liberation among these peoples.

Active participants in the struggle for liberation are the revolutionary intelligentsia, the revolutionary student youth, and the students as a whole. The revolutionary demonstrations of students and revolutionary student youth in Tehran and Cairo, in Beirut and Damascus, are graphic evidence of the great role being played by youth in the struggle for liberation among the oppressed peoples of the Near and Middle East.

The national bourgeoisie in the countries of the Near and Middle East has already split up into two parts. One part has compromised and come to terms with the imperialists, while the other part, whose interests are impaired by foreign capital, are carrying on—inconsistently it is true—the struggle for the independence of their countries.

The working class and its vanguard, as well as all progressive elements in these countries, are waging an implacable struggle against the conciliatory big bourgeoisie, in the attempt to isolate it from the great masses and to swing the peasantry and all the middle segments into the struggle against imperialism. The working class and its Communist vanguard in the countries of the Near and Middle East are striving to strengthen their alliance with the peasantry, to link up the anti-feudal and anti-imperialist movements in the common struggle for national liberation.

The distinctive feature of this movement for national liberation among the peoples of the Near and Middle East is the fact that this movement is still passing through the first stage of its development, and the edge of the revolutionary movement is aimed chiefly against foreign imperialism. The agrarian movement in these countries has not yet outgrown the stage of violent clashes between peasants with little or no land and the landlords and gendarmes; it has not yet turned into a powerful agrarian revolution.

Taking an active part in the people’s movement of liberation, the working class of the Near Eastern countries is adopting such forms of class struggle as strikes and walk-outs, meetings and demonstrations; and when it comes to armed clashes with imperialism, it is participating in armed struggle. In 1951 alone more than 500,000 Iranian workers figured in strikes, and many more than this—in political meetings and demonstrations. At certain times the number of striking workers in Abadan reached 20,000 or 30,000. Tens and hundreds of thousands of workers take part in political meetings and demonstrations, as well as a great many artisans, craftsmen, students and revolutionary student youth.

Egypt’s working class is also actively engaged in strikes, demonstrations, and anti-imperialist meetings, voicing its will to freedom and independence. The workers, artisans, and students of Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, and other cities in the Nile valley are staging demonstrations in defense of their vital rights and in opposition to foreign imperialism. Thirty thousand workers of the Misr Spinning Mill in Kafr-ed-Dovar (a suburb of Alexandria) staged a strike which was set for August 13, 1952. During the ensuing clash with the police, ten persons were killed, 200 wounded, and more than 500 arrested.

Turkey’s working class is fighting, under conditions of savage terrorism, for its political and economic rights. The workers of Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa, and other cities in the country are taking an active part in strikes and political dmonestrations. The workers of the Zonguldak coal basin and the Karabiuk Metallurgical Combine and the textile workers of Ismir and other cities are fighting staunchly for improved living conditions and for deliverance from the American occupation regime. In the spring of 1952 more than 2,000 chauffeurs of Ankara declared a strike. The police arrested many of their leaders but could not break their will for resistance.

The workers and employees of Syria and Lebanon are demanding an eight-hour day, higher wages, and improved working conditions. According to reports in the Syrian press, the ranks of the strikers in the Syrian cities of Damascus, Aleppo, and Homs among others, were brought to 23,000 in May 1951. Approximately 30,000 employees walked out in July; all the institutions in the country were closed. On September 15 and 16, 1952, the opposition parties of Lebanon declared a general strike, which was joined by all workers and employees in Beirut, Tripoli, Said, and other cities.

The peasantry, which is awakening to political life, is also taking an active part in the movement of liberation among the peoples of the Near and Middle East. The peasant movement which has recently developed in the countries of the Near and Middle East attests to the momentous chain of events now unfolding in the Near Eastern countryside and to the increasing enlistment of rural workers in the liberation movement. The agricultural proletarians, semi-proletarians, hired laborers, and small peasant landholders are offering more and more opposition to the feudal system of proprietorship, to the vestiges of feudal and patriarchal relations, and to local reaction and its imperialist patrons.

Spontaneous peasant demonstrations are occurring in a number of regions of Turkey, Iran, and Egypt, among other countries, in which peasants with little or no land seize the properties of the landlords and divide them up among themselves. Clashes between the peasants and the police and gendarmes frequently develop into bloody battles.

The struggle of the Turkish peasants for land and freedom has taken an acute turn. In many vilaiyets of this country, landless peasants have more and more frequently seized the properties of the landlords. According to the Turkish press, 323 cases of the peasant seizure of landed estates, the burning of granaries, and the stealing of cattle were recorded in twenty-two vilaiyets of Turkey for the first half of 1949 alone. These demonstrations of the Turkish peasants have not ceased during subsequent years. The Turkish newspaper Zafer wrote that 718 cases of “peasant violation of public orsder” were noted in Turkey during six months of 1951 alone. In the first four months of 1952 alone, there were dozens of clashes between the peasants and the landlords and gendarmes in various parts of Turkey. The newspaper Eni Istanbul wrote that peasants from the towns of Shiukrone and Pazarcik seized part of the state lands and plowed them on June 2, 1952. In 1951, 300 peasants banded together to seize the landlords’ properties in the village of Bakyrkei (Bursa Province). In 1952, 200 peasants engaged in clashes at the villages of Karayatak and Mekhmedadil (Ankara Vilaiyet), and 800 peasants helped to seize land in the village of Olmulu (Keskin district). In March 1952 large-scale clashes occurred between the peasants and the gendarmes in nine villages of Coruh Vilaiyet.

This peasant movement, with its continual expansion and continual assumption of new forms, has stirred fear and confusion among the reactionary ruling circles of Turkey. The reactionary Yalchin wrote fearfully in the newspaper Ulus that Turkey’s ruling circles are now “faced with peasant opposition. The peasant masses have risen to the struggle against the all-powerful landlords.” The newspaper Vatan noted that “armed peasant clashes are not isolated phenomena; they are occurring in all provinces of the country.” The nwspaper Ulus emphasized that “the Turkish peasant takes no heed of the Turkish gendarmerie and resorts to armed resistance…. He has become a poor taxpayer, and he offers resistance to the measures of the government.” The newspaper Cumhuriet wrote on February 18, 1951 that “the people in the southeastern regions are not only in a state of ferment, but are also taking up arms.”

Comrade Bilen, the representative of the Central Committee of the Turkish Communist Party, noted, in his speech of greeting at the nineteenth Congress of the ACP(b), that “the struggle of millions of landless peasants for land is day by day becoming more closely integrated with the struggle of the entire people against American slavery and for national independence. The landless peasants are not only seizing the properties of the landlords in armed conflict, but they are protecting those who do not want to go to Korea, who have fled from the army; and in cases of necessity they are offering armed resistance to the gendarme forces.”¹⁹

Peasant demonstrations against the landlords are also occurring in Iraq. The unprivileged poorly organized peasantry of Iran is rising up more and more frequently against its oppressors. The newspaper Nabard reported on June 17, 1952 that the peasant movement in Iran was acquiring greater and greater proportions. Thus in mid May “the peasants from a number of villages in Kurdistan rebelled against the landlords and seized their lands, which they are now cultivating.” According to the newspaper Setare, the peasants in the western regions have risen in rebellion and have divided up the land on which they were working; the landlords in these villages have called on the government for help. The peasants in other localities too have begun to share the properties of the landlords. As the newspaper wrote, the peasants in not less than fifty villages have already begun to apportion the landlords’ properties among themselves. The newspaper Dadh wrote that the peasants of many villages in Kurdistan have risen up against the proprietors and managers and have dirven them out. The peasants of these region are refusing to pay rent to the landlords—the “proprietor’s share”—and are demanding a larger part of the harvest and the abolition of all levies. The Iranian press reports that peasant unrest in these regions has assumed such proportions that the Tehran authorities have been compelled to dispatch a government commission “to investigate the events that have occurred in Kurdistan.”

The Egyptian newspapers have likewise begun to carry periodic reports of clashes between tenants and hired laborers on one hand and the landlords on the other. Thus the newspaper Al-Jumkhur al-Misri wrote that the Egyptian peasants have heretofore borne every type of deprivation and that they have suffered from disease and poverty with patience. But now the Egyptian peasants are weary of further oppression by foreign and domestic tyrants. The Egyptian peasant, “who has been prey to exploitation for centuries, has suddenly awakened and realized that he is not, in the final analysis, nearly so helpless as he was formerly represented.”

The broad sweep of the peasant movement in a number of Near Eastern and Middle Eastern countries has induced the ruling circles in these countries to take, under the guise of agrarian “reforms,” a number of measures which are purely demagogic in character and which are designed to pacify the unruly peasantry. For instance in 1945 a law on so-called land reform was adopted in Turkey. This law, needless to say, did nothing for the toiling peasantry. It was intended to curb the interests of the landlords and kulaks. According to this law, landless peasants could obtain land by purchasing it at high prices which were out of reach for an overwhelming majority of the peasants. The lands to be sold to the peasants were lands belonging to the state and “surplus” lands belonging to proprietors, over and above the 500 hectares (!) established by the law and in some regions with little land—over 200 hectares. The best evidence of the reactionary anti-popular nature of this “reform” is the fact only several tens of thousands of peasants have managed to obtain small pieces of land during the seven years in which this law has been effective. But even to buy these insignificant patches of land, the peasants had to go into debt, to make loans in the banks, and to become the perpetual serfs of the banks, the landlords, and the kulaks.

Following the events of July 1952, the Iranian Majlis began to resound with voices calling for agrarian reform. The Iranian government, however, confined itself to the passage of a law which entitled the peasants a little larger share of the ahrvest. As formerly, four-fifths of the peasants’ income will go to the landlords and big proprietors. In conformity with the new Egyptian law on agrarian reform which was adopted in September 1952, landed estates are limited to 200 feddans (one feddan equals 0.42 hectares). The law provides that landed estates larger than this shall, in the next five years, be confiscated, with appropriate compensation to the proprietors. The state will sell these lands to the peasants. It goes without saying that this “reform” too has nothing to offer most of the toiling peasants. Suffice it to say that the land subject to sale in conformity with this law constitutes not more than 700,000 feddans, while the millions of peasants without land in this country have no means to acquire it.

The struggle of the masses in the countries of the Near and Middle East for political and economic rights and national independence, and also the struggle of the peasants against their feudal lords and foreign patrons are converging in the common movement of national liberation among these peoples, which is aimed against these feudal vestiges and against the yoke of imperialism.

Reactionary circles in the Near and Middle East are, along with their imperialist patrons, taking feverish measures to suppress the movement of liberation among the peoples of these countries and to preserve the system of colonial condage that prevails here. This is particularly true of Iran, Egypt, and Iraq, where the anti-imperialist movement of liberation has made the most headway in recent years.

For a long time, the masses of the Iranian people have sought the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) and the liquidation of the English Shahinshah Bank. Under mass pressure, the Iranian government decided to nationalize the AIOC in the spring of 1951. Soon after this, it banned the English bank from engaging in currency operations in Iran; and on July 31, 1952 it officially announced the closure of this bank.

Tha main motive forces in the movement of national liberation in Iran are the workers and peasants, but the movement is enlisting the support of artisans and craftsmen, small and medium-scale merchants, and enterprisers. In the vanguard of the Iranian people’s struggle for liberation marches the working class of Iran. The working class has formed a revolutionary bloc with the petty bourgeoisie, in order to deliver the country from the toils of imperialism. The Iranian national bourgeoisie has split up into two parts: one part opposes the Anglo-American imperialists, while the other part seeks compromise with them.

The English imperialists are loath to accept this upsurge of revolution in Iran and the loss of Iranian oil. They have, in essence, clamped an economic blockade upon Iran, expecting thereby to drive the Iranian government to capitulation and compromise and thereby to neutralize the gains of the Iranian people. American ruling circles are openly intervening in the Anglo-Iranian conflict under the pretext of “mediation” and settlement of the “oil crisis”; and they are trying to get their hands on Iran’s oil resources. This is eloquently attested by the attempts of the so-called International Bank of Reconstruction and Development to gain control of oil production in Iran, and also by the recent negotiations between Alton Jones, an American oil official, and the Tehran government. The American imperialists have resumed their military assistance to Iran, and have concluded a military agreement with this country which, as the note of the Soviet Government to the Government of Iran on May 21, 1952 points out, “places the Iranian army under the control of the US Government.” A fierce struggle is raging between the English and American monopolies for sources of Iranian oil, for the further despoilment of the country’s resources, and for the exploitation of its workers. Each of these imperialist predators is striving to gain the upper hand in the country. The events that occurred in Iran in connection with the attempts to place Qavames-Sultane, a millionaire and big landlord, in power, attest clearly to this. Qavam openly voiced his opposition to the policy of nationalizing Iran’s resources, and he expressed his readiness to do the will of his foreign patrons.

In his speech of greeting to the nineteenth Congress of the ACP(b), Comrade R. Radmanesh, Secretary-General of the Central Committee of the Iranian People’s Party, declared: “The English colonizers have long subjected our country to monstrous exploitation and have brutally suppressed the movement of national liberation among the Iranian people. As an example of this grasping policy, we cite the former Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which has plundered the national resources of our people for fifty years and which has meddled, and continues insolently to meddle, in the internal affairs of Iran.

“By its imposition of onerous military and economic agreements and by its dispatch of economic and military missions, American imperialism is looting the wealth of our country, glutting the Iranian markets with its stale products, meddling openly and cynically in the internal affairs of Iran, obstructing the development and progress of the Iranian people, and making every effort to suppress the struggle for national liberation.

“The imperialists of America and England regard our country as a colony.”²⁰

But events have shown that gone are the times when the Anglo-American imperialists could intervene with impunity in the internal affairs of Iran and could enforce their will. Today the masses of the people are taking an active part in Iranian political life. To the attempts of Iranian Iranian reaction to make a deal with foreign imperialism behind the back of the Iranian people, the workers of Iran retaliated with mighty demonstrations on July 19 and 20, 1952, and with a general strike on July 21. By their firm actions, they thwarted the new plot of the imperialists in Iran, and they forced Qavam-es-Sultane to resign. This time too, Iranian reaction answered these demonstrations of the great masses with savage persecution. During clashes with the police on July 19 and 20, ninety demonstrators were killed and 800 injured. But this could not break the will of the Iranian masses to fight for independence.

An anti-American, as well as an anti-British, temper is sweeping the country over this outright imperialist intervention in the internal affairs of Iran. The great masses are voicing opposition not only to the plots of the English, but also to the enslaving “assistance” of the Americans, to the oppression of American advisers in the country. As the Associated Press reports, “the USA is fast becoming as hated in Iran as England.” The masses of Iran—all democratic elements of the country—are offering firm opposition to the plots of the imperialists and their agents in the country. They are demanding that the government pursue an independent policy and deliver the country from the toils of foreign “trusteeship” and exploitation.

During recent years the anti-imperialist movement has also assumed great proportions in Egypt. The demands for the abrogation of enslaving treaties and for the withdrawal of English troops from the country have become the chief slogans of the liberation movement among the Egyptian people. This movement embraces workers and peasants, artisans and small-scale merchants, and small and medium-scale enterprisers. Egypt’s working class is marching in the vanguard of the movement for national liberation and fighting for the dominant role in this movement.

In October 1951 the government of Nahas Pasha (the leader of the Wafdist Party), under pressure from the masses, annulled the onerous Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 and called for the evacuation of English troops from the Suez Canal Zone. The English imperialists answered this act with a colonial war against the Egyptian people. Then the masses of the people rose in unselfish struggle against the English occupiers. The Egyptian patriots began to form detachments and battalions for the “liberation of Egypt.” A partisan war flared up in the Canal Zone against the interventionists.

The government of Nahas-Pasha refused to participate in the forging of a “Middle Eastern command,” and it recalled the Egyptian ambassador from London. But the Wafdist Party showed no inclination, and was actually unable, to wage a vigorous struggle against English imperialism; and it confined itself to much publicized utterances. At the same time, it took repressive measures against the democratic elements in the country, obviously frightened by the rising movement of liberation.

For the purpose of suppressing the liberation movement among the Egyptian people, the Anglo-American imperialists and their agents within the country committed provocative acts of arson in Cairo on January 26, 1952; and after they had incited “disorders,” they demanded the resignation of the Nahas Pasha cabinet from King Farouk. By removing the cabinet of Nahas Pasha and then dissolving the Egyptian Parliament, which had an overwhelming majority of Wafdist members, Egypt’s ruling circles attempted, behind the back of the Egyptian people, to make a deal with the imperialists. But due to the rising movement of national liberation within the country, these attempts had hard going. The government of Nahas Pasha in Egypt was succeeded by six cabinets, but the Anglo-Egyptian conflict still remains “unsettled.”

In Egypt, as in Iran, the contradictions rending the Anglo-American imperialists are becoming more and more acute. Under the guise of “mediation,” the American imperialists are endavoring to entrench themselves in the Nile Valley and to crowd out the English imperialists. They are striving to involve Egypt in their aggressive plans to create a “Middle Eastern Command,” to use Egyptian territory as a military springboard, and to replace the English occuptation of the Suez Canal Zone with an Anglo-American occupation. Due to the plots of the Anglo-American imperialists, a military coup d’etat was staged in Egypt on the night of July 22–23, 1952 by a group of officers in the Egyptian army, headed by General Naguib Pasha. King Farouk was forced to elevate Ali Maher Pasha to the post of premier, and then to abdicate his throne and to quit the country. The government of Maher Pasha proclaimed Ahmed Faud II (the seven-month-old son of former King Farouk) “King of Egypt and the Sudan,” and it attempted to reach a compromise with imperialism. Early in September 1952, Ali Maher resigned. General Naguib decided to head the Egyptian government himself. He was proclaimed Governor-General of Egypt, and he gathered the reins of government into his own hands. The first measures of the new government were the announcement of a purge of all political parties and the adoption of a law on agrarian reform. On January 17, 1953 it announced the dissolution of all political parties and the confiscation of their properties.

The situation that had arisen in Egypt indicates that the reactionary element of the national bourgeoisie, the feudal lords, and compradores will—as the working class, in league with the peasantry and the revolutionary segment of the national bourgeoisie, step up the struggle against imperialism to achieve the realization of national aspirations—strive to suppress the movement of liberation among the people and come to an agreement with imperialism. The masses of the Egyptian people are opposed to compromise with the occupiers and to the involvement of Egypt in the adventuristic plans to create a “Middle Eastern command.” They are carrying on their unselfish struggle for independence.

After World War II a sweeping people’s movement developed in Iraq for the liquidation of England’s colonial yoke, for the abrogation of the onerous Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930, and for the nationalization of the country’s oil industry. In November 1952 strong anti-imperialist demonstrations were staged in Baghdad under these slogans: “Down with the Anglo-American imperialists!” “Down with the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty of 1930!” During the ensuing clashes with the police, fifty persons were killed, 300 wounded, and several thousand arrested. Baghdad was placed under martial law. In spite of this savage terrorism, the workers of Iraq continue to fight for freedom and the national independence of their homeland.

The events that have occurred in Iran, Egypt, and Iraq indicate the strength of the anti-imperialist movement among the great masses in the countries of the Near and Middle East. The attempts of reactionary circles in these countries and their imperialist patrons to suppress the peoples’ movement of liberation and to involve them in the military measures of the imperialists are meeting stiffer and stiffer resistance. The policy of concession and agreement with the imperialists is extremely unpopular among the peoples of these countries.

The struggle for liberation among the peoples of Iran, Egypt, and Iraq is evoking a wide response among the peoples of the Near and Middle Eastern countries and the entire colonial world.

In their righteous struggle for liberation against alien imperialism, the peoples of the colonial world, which includes the countries of the Near and Middle East, have the sympathy and constant support of the camp of peace and democracy, headed by the Soviet Union, which invariably figures as a consistent champion of the interests of the peoples in the colonial and dependent countries. As stated in the notes of the Soviet Government to the governments of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Israel, dated November 21, 1951, “the Soviet Government has had, since the inception of the Soviet State, an attitude of understanding and sympathy toward the national aspirations of the Eastern peoples and toward their struggle for national independence and sovereignty.”²¹

Comrade Stalin points out that the Soviet Union “understands the spirit of the oppressed peoples.”²² The movement for liberation among the peoples of the East is regarded with the utmost sympathy among the peoples of the Soviet Union. The noble stand of the Soviet Union has won the love and gratitude of the peoples in the colonial and dependent countries.

In his speech at the nineteenth Congress of the ACP(b), Comrade L. P. Beria noted that the “peoples who are fighting for liberation know that the great camp of peace and democracy is on their side; that the Soviet Union, the Chinese People’s Republic, and the people’s democratic countries are defending the cause of peace, freedom, independence, and truly equal rights for all races and nations; and that the very existence of these states gives pause to the black forces of reaction, facilitating the struggle of the oppressed peoples.”²³

Inspired by this support from the camp of peace and democracy, the masses of the people in the Near and Middle Eastern countries are growing stronger in their opposition to colonial oppression. The struggle for liberation among the peoples of the Near and Middle East is coalescing with the struggle of all the peace-loving peoples of the globe against the warmongers, the struggle for peace and democracy.

The peace partisan movement is spreading in the Near Eastern countries. People of good will—all who cherish national sovereignty and peace—irrespective of political and religious convictions or national and party affiliations, are flocking to the banners of the struggle against imperialism, the struggle for national liberation and peace in the countries of the Near East. Whereas approximately 1,000,000 signatures were collected here for the Stockholm Petition, there are already more than 3,000,000 signatures to the Petition of the World Peace Council on the conclusion of a peace pact among the five great powers. Preparations are being speeded for the convocation of a regional congress of peace partisans from the countries of the Near and Middle East and North Africa. On November 26 and 27, 1952 a conference of representatives of the national committees of Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Transjordan was held in Beirut for the convocation of a regional peace congress for the countries of the Near and Middle East and North Africa. The conference unanimously adopted a message to the peoples of these countries, which stated that “the countries of the Near and Middle East are threatened with the danger of war, and the peoples of these countries are faced with total destruction.” The peoples of these countries, the message goes on to say, can deliver their countries from the threat of war and conquer the forces of imperialism only through increased “cooperation and increased solidarity with the international forces fighting for peace, since these forces are extending all-out support to the struggle of the peoples.”

The delegates of the Near and Middle Eastern countries likewise took an active part in the work of the Peoples’ Peace Congress, which was held at Vienna in December 1952.

The masses of the people in the countries of the Near and Middle East are no longer willing to be the hapless slaves of the imperialists. They mean to take their fate into their own hands, to become the master in their house. The struggle of the peoples in the Near and Middle East against oppressors foreign and domestic is receiving the all-out sympathy and support of all progressive mankind.