Al Ahram printed excerpts from a declaration made by the central committee of the Egyptian Communist party. For some months the organization had refused to dissolve. Party members had criticized a "bureaucratic right wing" which, they said, was slowing down if not sabotaging the "socialist policy of Nasser." But, the declaration continued, the central committee had decided that the "Arab Socialist Union," that is, the political organization set up by Nasser, could carry out all the tasks of constructing socialism, Therefore the central committee was dissolving the party and inviting all the members to join the Arab Socialist Union individually.
So far as we know, this makes the second Communist party to commit hara-kiri, the first one being the Algerian Communist party which gave up existence last year, its members joining the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale individually. There have been plenty - of fusions between Communist parties and other political organizations; for example, in’€uba. This-has- always involved an operation organization to organization, the Communist party generally gaining in the process, This time we witness the dissolution of the party pure and simple, the members being released from discipline.
The first question that arises is whether this is not a ruse, a dissolution in words only, the Communist party members maintain~ ing a secret organization. Although this hypothesis cannot be com-= pletely ruled out, it is not very likely. Even under extremely difficult conditions, even under the worst repression, it is well known that the Communist parties have traditionally rejected any kind of move that would have brought their existence to a formal end. What the Algerian and Egyptian parties have done is primarily a consequence of special political situations in which they reached an impasse.
In Algeria two things in the record of the Communist party barred it from any perspective in liberated Algeria, It played practically no role in the revolution; it never cut the umbilical cord tying it to the French Communist party whose traitorous role in the freedom struggle is well known to the Algerian people.
In Egypt the problem is more complex. The Egyptian Communists began by denouncing Nasser as a fascist, which is politically absurd, Then in face of the considerable social transformations which have occurred in Egypt and Khrushchev's baptising Nasser a
"socialist," the: party was caught short. and without. an independent program.
In this trap, ‘having neither a domestic nor an international program of their own, they found themselves with no choice but to fall into line behind the government. The Stalinist concept of a single party, in which they had been brought up, left them with no Justification for any party except the one holding government’ ‘power,
Finally, all this occurred at a time when the unity of the official Communist movement is shattered, when the concept of. a Communist International is flouted by the main leaders on both sides in the Sino=Soviet dispute, each of the contestants putting national . interests above international considerations.
Lacking deep roots in their own countries, finding themselves by-passed and without perspectives, aware of the tendencies toward Liquidation even in the big Communi st parties (for example,. Amendola in Italy), left only to themselves and lacking cadres with a good Communist education -- under these conditions the two Communist parties had no solution but to proceed with the ceremony of harakiri,.
We can thus note a new form in the decomposition of international Stalinism, Up to now the main feature has been the break up of monolithism on an international scale with attempts to retain a more or less monolithic structure on a national level. Now some of the weaker parties are addressing themselves to conducting their own funerals, Until the tendency. toward the rebirth of the Commun~ ist movement appears in a powerful way, we will most certainly be provided with other instances of disintegration due to Stalinism,
BUIGARIAN