THE REVOLUTION IN IRAQ Under the powerful drive of the country's revolutionary masses, Iraq is engaged in gradually getting rid of the after-effects of imperialism. After the country's withawal from the Bagdad Pact, it is announced that th oyal Air Force will soon leave the big British base o Habbaniya.
Kassem has moreover let it be understood that his government is studying the expropriation of French capital's 233% share in the Iraq Petroleum Company. This company is currently producing 35 million tons of oil per year and is the third largest oil company in the Middle East.
the shares held by American, British, and Dutch capital, or to a redistribution of the shares, after a previous expropriation, this time excluding French participation.
In any case, Iraq is little by little leaving the imperialist orbit, which cannot fail to arouse the greatest worries among the imperialists.
At the same time we are witnessing the beginning of a violent "anti-communist" campaign by Nasser, aimed mainly against Iraq. It was indiscutably the
regime which fomented Colonel Chawaf's Party is now unquestionably ruling. Imperceptibly Kas-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL Egyptian abortive coup d'état last March.
To understand these developments, it is necessary to get a better grasp of the meaning of events in Iraq since the outbreak of the 14 July 1958 revolution which overturned the pro-imperialist regime of Nouri el Sa'id, "the Englishman.
The July revolution was headed by a team of "Nas-
"national," "anti-imperialist" officers, with ideological if not directly social links with the bour-
These officers dreamed - in confused terms, naturally - of a regime capable of enabling the industrial bourgeoisie to develop, by shaking off, at least partially, the shackles that imperialism and the native feudalists had been able to impose on the country's progress.
Among, them, was a good proportion of advocates of immediate union with the U A R, the most eminent representative of whom was Colonel Aref, since then arrested and sentenced to death.
But the ranks of the revolution - the proletarians and the impoverished petty bourgeoisie of the cities, and the mass of the landless poor peasants or share-croppers working for a few thousands of big feudal proprietors -were infinitely more to the left than this "head
Under the pressure of these ranks, and faced with the weakness of the Iraqi bourgeoisie, the stubborn resistance of the feudalists, and the plots of the proNasserist elements in the army driving for unification with the U A R, the military regime of Kassem soon developed into a Bonapartist power.
The Iraq Communist Party, the CPs in Arab countries, with cadres tempered by long and sanguinary experience in the underground, had received the order from the Kremlin to proclaim its support for the country's bourgeois strata, holding out to them the bright prospect of an autonomous development, owing to Iraq's oil resources, and to "social peace guaranteed by the CP.
At the first stage the whole operation was aimed at encouraging the bourgeois strata their representatives in the government, first of all Kassem himself, to resist the temptation of fusing Iraq with the UAR. The support of the strong Kurdish minority, organized by nuclei of leading elements won over by the Kremlin, operated in the same direction. There can be two explanations for this policy of the Kremlin: either the Kremlin might simply be trying to bring pressure on Nasser, suspected of moving away toward the West, or even to bring him back into the Kremlin's orbit; or else the Kremlin was convinced that it could, without great risks, direct Iraq along the road to a genuine "Popular Democracy."
We shall come back to this aspect.
Let us for the moment limit ourselves to noting that the policy followed by the CP, the genuine master of hasm send the patriotic bourgeoisie, has effectively of unconditional support to stimulated resistance to Nasserist pressure - all the more so in that the successive plots of the feudalists, in revolt against the agrarian reform (however timid it may be) promulgated by the regime, of pro-imperialist elements, and of pro-Nasser officers, have in fact rendered the Bonapartist government more and more dependent on the support of the masses, over whom the Communist sem has become the super-Kerensky of the Irag revolution. The Mosul coup d'état caused the revolution to take a gigantic stride forward, by facilitating the revolutionary irruption of the masses into the political arena and by disorganizing the reactionary forces even further. It is now known that Colonel Chawaf's Mosul uprising, which tor some hours turned into a massacre of Communist elements, later ran up against strong popular resistance.
The thousands of workers of Mosul and of peasants from the neighboring countryside, the Communist newspaper Ittishad el Chaab reports, took arms and fought against the insurgents. They occupied the principal centres of the city, and penned in, captured, and executed the chiefs of the rebellion.
At Bagdad itself gigantic demonstrations, accompanied by general strike actions, led by the Iraq Cl, developed as a sign of sympathy for the victims of the Mosul rebellion and of solidarity with the proletarian fighters
"The Mosul rebellion, "THumanité of 12 March 1959 admits, "was crushed by armed workers' militias."
These militias in fact exist and are developing in Iraq. Kassem had to reauthorize them. They more and more form one of the essential forces of the country, a "dual" power, side-by-side with other organizations of a soviet nature, and facing the Bonapartist government of Kassem, who finds himself obliged to resort to their protection.
In this connection, the most important development in April was the formation of the first Federation of Agricultural Unions, which Kassem was forced to authorize. The resolutions adopted at the constituent congress of this federation advocated, among other things: the execution of "traitors, both old and new the tormation of peasant militias, and the general arming of the people.
Under these conditions it is becoming clear that the further evolution of Iraq is now in the hands of the Iraq CP and the Kremlin.
The path to total revolutionary power is possible and even necessary. In lack of this alternative the danger that is now lying in wait for the Iraq revolution is the following: either the Kremlin sacrifices it as a bargaining counter in a new compromise with Nasser; or else the latter - profiting by the dislocation of the conservative forces that support Kassem and by a disorientation of the masses in case of a prolonged wait that does not end in the complete victory of the revolution - succeeds in bringing off a new coup d'état, unexpectedly overthrowing Kassem.
It is to be hoped that the vigilance and dynamism of the masses, possibly whetted by a new reactionary at tempt, will be able to push the Iraq CP further thar the Kremlin now wishes.
In this case the proletarian revolution can be victorious in one of the most important Arab countries ot the Middle East, which would not fail to have incalculable repercussions on the development of the revolution throughout this whole region. Nasser is raging against the Iraqi revolution, for he is conscious of its proletarian character and of its dynamism.
The contradiction between the present development of the Iragi revolution and the historic task of the unification of the Arab nation is only an apparent one.
The Iraq CP, instead of defending itself against Nasser by becoming the champion of thindependence" of Iraq, ought to have worked up a concrete programme for the unification of the Arab nation which could not be in opposition to the imperative needs of the Arab social revolution. When what is in question is a unification between two Arab countries of the same social system, the imperative need of unification takes precedence over the political character of the regime under which the unification would be carried out. But when it is a question of a unification between an Arab ountry engaged in carrying out simultaneously its antimperialist and its social revolutions, and a country still under a feudo-capitalist regime, the imperative need
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL of carrying out its social revolution can postpone the hour of unification into the same national whole. This is the case at present with Iraq and the UAR, countries between which, however, there must not be the slightest difficulty about immediately establishing relationships, of federative union, for example.
Events are showing that a total, lasting, and progressive Arab national unification, the aspiration of the Arab revolutionary masses, in reality will be brought about only by themselves in the carrying out of their social revolution. April 1959