The witch-hunt of Communist militants and the suppression of the CP is on the order of the day in Sudan. Anticommunism is now part of the official ideology of the nationalist military regime that came to power on May 25, 1969. And it was with the political support of "the so-called Communist party" that this regime came to power. Statements by the Sudanese chief of state General Nimeiry, broadcast by Radio Omdurman on February 13, 1971, confirm that the so-called progressive Arab states, as a whole, have now entered an open counterrevolutionary course following the defeat of the Palestinian resistance in Jordan in September 1970.
The military have launched a bloody war on Communist militants: "From now on all those who declare themselves Communists or who admit to belonging to a Sudanese Communist organization will be crushed and destroyed. Communists have no place in the revolution and they will be thrown out." It is clear; there is not the slightest ambiguity. Nimeiry's justifications for his counterrevolutionary actions are the traditional ones used by Arab nationalist anticommunism when in power: "for having tried to sabotage the country's economy, for having undermined national unity and for having compromised the foreign relations of Sudan." That accordingly justifies the stand that "the existence of this Communist party is impermissible in any case. The members of this party are in fact isolated from the rest of the country and we intend to purge from all government offices, from all public services and all trade unions any Communist elements wherever they are found."
Above all, as a defender of the economic and political interests of the petty bourgeoisie, General Nimeiry, as a good disciple of Nasserism, knows the importance of the support and of the aid of the Soviet Union for the stabilization of his own regime. He lost no time in declaring that the measures taken by "the revolution" in respect to the Sudanese Communist party "will not in any case affect the close relation of the Sudan with the Soviet Union and the socialist countries."
Nasser accustomed us to such violent and bloody declarations. They are in reality only a pale reflection of the old master, Nimeiry has expanded in imitation, which is always the style of the Sudanese petty bourgeois in relation to his Egyptian senior. But, behind the words and the traditional demagogy of Arab nationalism in state power, the objectives of Nimeiry are clear.
He wants to build a power which is still after two years of existence quite weak, in a difficult period when all the so-called progressive Arab states are veering to the right. So ends the historically anti-imperialist and progressive role of the Arab petty bourgeoisie in those countries where it took power through military coups: in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Sudan. In view of its incapacity to advance in an anti-imperialist direction without risking being swept aside by the motion of the masses, it resorts to a course of eliminating all political forces on the left — notably the Sudanese CP.
Sudan today is not Egypt of yesterday! The Sudanese pettybourgeois military leadership exercises a power of a Nasserite bonapartist type, or rather it tries to. It has had on several occasions in the past two years to call up the Sudanese CP to smash
• several right-wing plots and to eliminate the religious right wing which was directly linked with imperialism. The fact that the regime needed the CP's help was evidence of its grave weakness. Now the regime wants to crush the left which is as a whole embraced by the CP, which has a mass influence in the working class and amongst the peasants thanks to its tradeunion base. The Egyptian CP was never in such a position.
The dissolution of the Egyptian CP into Nasser's Arab Socialist Union occurred during a period of Nasserist strength under the pressure of the Soviet Union, which found it a small price to pay in order to penetrate Egypt. The Sudanese petty bourgeoisie comes to power today after Nasserism has reached its peak. Because of its weakness it was prevented from coming to power earlier - it could only do so thanks to the help of the Sudanese CP.
The Sudanese CP has followed the course of the Egyptian except in a reverse way. The Sudanese CP did not agree to the dissolution of the Egyptian CP. One of the leaders of the Sudanese CP, Mohamed Ibrahim Naqd, openly revealed the position of his party on this question. In his open letter "To a progressive Egyptian" (see Al-Hurriya, No. 554, February 14, 1971) he declared: "The Sudanese CP, despite the importance and the scope of the links that it has with all progressive Arab circles, does not accept the intervention of an authority, even of the Sudanese authority, in its affairs. It regrets any infringement on its autonomy."
Mohamed Ibrahim Naqd reports that liquidationist and dissolutionist tendencies in the "power structure" appeared in 1966- 67, following the dissolution of the Egyptian CP in 1965 into the Arab Socialist Union of Nasser. He adds: "It is possible that our Egyptian Communist friends will understand how much we suffered in 1966 from the right-wing liquidationists' deviation that harmed our party when we tried to learn from their experience. We are still paying the price of this deviation. We thought that it was a mistake to consider the dissolution of the Egyptian CP as a new type of experience." Therefore the line of the Sudanese CP leadership on this point is in complete contradiction to the Soviet Union, which always pushed the Arab CPs to go as far as possible to submit themselves to the Arab nationalist regimes, as in Syria and Iraq.
This Sudanese crisis is of great importance. It puts into question the traditional Stalinist policy of Popular Fronts at the very moment the Arab world sees a general counterrevolutionary offensive against all progressive forces.
It is the implementation of Popular Front politics in Sudan which triggered the crisis. What is locally called the Democratic National Front is largely composed ot two political forces:
(1) The petty bourgeoisie represented by the military government; (2) the CP and its mass organizations, among which are the working-class trade unions. Far from refusing the perspective of Popular Front, expressing through this its Stalinist doctrinal basis, the leadership of the Sudanese CP stands against the maneuvers of the military government to discipline everything.
In his open letter Mohamed Ibrahim Naqd says that "the members of the Sudanese CP are acting to stop the decline and the right-wing offensive in order to open the way to power for the Democratic National Front." And he adds, it is "thanks to their consistent persevering work wherever the forces of the Front are, that these activists are convinced that the origins of the present crisis lie in the monopoly of the authority by a single element among the forces of this National Front."
The Sudanese CP is against the application of Popular Front politics by the Sudanese military government. In his broadcast speech, General Nimeiry said: "The Communist party joined reaction in its opposition to the present revolutionary regime in order to usurp power," and that "this explains why the Sudanese Communists attacked all decisions which were not theirs. They opposed the federation between UAR, Libya, Sudan, and later Syria."
What is at stake in this political struggle are the conflicting interests between the military government and the CP. On the one hand a military power seeks to integrate Sudan in an Arab economic entity (and possibly political, later on) according to the interest of the ruling class of these countries.
To implement this perspective, the government has to gather all the necessary guarantees by liquidating the left political forces which still maintain their independence of action.
On the other hand the Sudanese CP has made public that it won't dissolve itself and that it will act on a contradictory line to that of the Egyptian CP. The left wing is leading the Sudanese CP. It is then possible that a confrontation will occur between the two main political forces in Sudan.
Without presuming the future political positions of the Sudanese CP and of the preparedness of its leadership to go as far as possible in this crisis, we have to understand that in the present context of a right-wing orientation of the so-called progessive Arab regimes, the stand taken by the Sudanese CP expresses in these countries the only answer by the workers movement after the defeat of the Palestinian resistance to the counterrevolutionary enterprises of these regimes.
Although isolated, the Sudanese Communists are involved in a conflict the end of which will have a liberating effect on the working class of these Arab countries if it is victorious.
It is finally the relationship between the leadership of this CP and Moscow that will determine its decision to fight or not.
Behind its silence until now we can easily foresee that Moscow will try everything to strengthen its state and bureaucratic interests to the detriment of the Sudanese CP and the workingclass and peasant masses it leads.
Revolutionary Marxists stand firmly against anticommunist and counterrevolutionary attacks on the Sudanese CP.
More than the fate of the CP is at stake. The fate of the entire independent working-class movement is jeopardized by the threats of General Nimeiry, which may soon be translated into deeds.
Solidarity with the Sudanese Communist party in its principled stand!
Long live the Arab Socialist Revolution!
United Secretariat of the Fourth International