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[introduction.]

In the 1950s, the disintegration process in the imperialist colonial system entered a new phase. The national liberation struggle waged by the peoples of the colonies and dependencies was greatly influenced by the achievements of the Soviet Union, which in a short space of time had completed its post-war programme of reconstruction and scored important gains in the economic, scientific and cultural fields. Thanks to the efforts of the Soviet people the American monopoly on the possession of atomic weapons had been broken. The achievement of independence by India and other countries in Southeast Asia had dealt the cause of imperialism and colonialism a very heavy blow; and the military defeats of the colonial powers in Korea and Indo-China clearly showed that any attempts to maintain the regime of colonial subjugation by armed force would be doomed to failure.

Upsurge of Liberation Movement in Arab Lands

p Unlike the second half of the 1940s, when Southeast Asia was the principal theatre of the national liberation movement, in the 1950s the centre of the movement shifted to the Middle East and North Africa. Here the struggle for independence began close upon the end of the Second World War. Thus, the peoples of Syria and the Lebanon demanded outright withdrawal of all foreign troops. On May 17, 1945, a general anti-imperialist strike began in both countries. In the cities, clashes took place between the patriotic elements and French troops. French warplanes bombed Damascus. In February 1946, the question of Syria and the Lebanon was debated in the UN Security Council, where the Soviet Union strongly supported the demands of both. The French were finally forced to beat a retreat, and on April 17, 1946, withdrew their troops from Syria. The withdrawal of the forces of occupation from the Lebanon was completed by December 31 of the same year. Syria and the Lebanon thus became independent states.

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In March 1946, Great Britain granted independence to Transjordan. Yemen, too, adopted an independent policy. A strong tide of national liberation activity mounted in Egypt and Iraq. Thus we see that already in the immediate post-war years the positions of the colony-owning states in the Middle East were seriously weakened. Yet the imperialists still thought that they would be able to maintain their control over the region.

The War in Palestine

p The population of Palestine, Arab and Jewish alike, was determined on ousting the British colonialists. In 1947, the problem of Palestine was discussed in the UN, where the Soviet representatives urged a withdrawal of the British “trustees” and the creation in Palestine of a democratic Arab-Jewish state. The formation of such a state, however, was rendered impossible by imperialist subterfuges and the chauvinistic intransigence of the Zionist leaders, as well as by the policy followed by the reactionary feudal elements in the Arab countries.

p In November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution providing for the division of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish states and the constitution of Jerusalem as an international city. In May 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed at TelAviv.

p Warfare between Israel and the Arab countries, namely Egypt, Iraq, Syria, the Lebanon, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Transjordan, broke out right away. The Israeli rulers claimed all of Palestine for themselves, while the Arab states claimed the country for the Arabs. British and American imperialism hoped that the war would divert the peoples of the Middle East from their struggle against imperialism.

p It was not long before the Arab countries began to suffer reverses. The reason must be sought both in the sharp contradictions that rent them and in the inability of their venal pro-imperialist rulers, such as King Farouk of Egypt, King Abdullah of Transjordan, and others, to wage war in an efficient manner. The Israeli army occupied a considerable stretch of the area which it was proposed to incorporate into the new Arab state. During the period February-July 1949, armistice agreements were signed by Israel and its opponents, and in April 1950, Israel and Transjordan reached an agreement, with the tacit approval of the United States and Great Britain, on the partitioning of the territory of the projected Arab state of Palestine, whereby Transjordan encompassed territory both east and west of the river Jordan and took the name of Jordan.

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More than 900,000 Palestine Arabs were forced to leave their homeland and there thus arose the knotty problem of the Palestinian refugees, while Arab-Israel enmity became a permanent source of international tension.

1952 Revolution in Egypt

p The greatest stumbling-block to the achievement of Egyptian independence had been the presence of British forces of occupation in accordance with the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936. This imperialist domination had a parallel in the oppression exercised by the landlords in the rural areas. A venal feudal clique ruled the country. Egypt’s industrial development, meanwhile, had shown a marked advance during the Second World War: the industrial labour force numbered 367,000 in 1947, as against 273,000 in 1939.

p When the war ended the country was swept by a mass movement calling for the immediate withdrawal of British troops and the abrogation of the 1936 treaty. Workers went on strike. Students took an active part in the initiative. Peasants, artisans and the petty bourgeoisie joined in the national movement. Unfortunately, the various anti-imperialist actions were poorly organised. Within the Wafd Party, which led in respect of prestige and popularity among the masses, there formed a strong Right wing which represented the interes-ts of the big bourgeoisie and the landlords. The working class was still insufficiently mature to head the liberation struggle. Nor were the Communists able to maintain their organisation in the face of the persecution and terror to which they were subjected. Nevertheless, they made a substantial contribution to the national liberation struggle.

p As the struggle went on, the revolutionary democratic forces began to wield greater and greater influence. The Confederation of Egyptian Trade Unions, created soon after the end of the war, set up a Working Committee for National Liberation. Early in February 1946, the Cairo Students’ Committee published a National Charter demanding the "complete withdrawal [of British forces] from land, sea and air, from every inch of the Nile valley”. A National Committee of Workers and Students was set up, which called for a general strike to demand the immediate evacuation of British troops.

p On February 21, 1946, a giant demonstration in Cairo was fired upon by British troops. Patriots draped the bodies of their dead in the national colours and carried them through the streets of the city. And patriotic demonstrations continued, undaunted by the terror.

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p In an effort to restore calm among the masses the government initiated talks with the British on the withdrawal of troops, but these brought no tangible results. A similar fate overtook an appeal to the United Nations: only the Soviet Union, Poland and Syria supported the just demands of the Egyptian people when the Egyptian problem came up for discussion in the Security Council, in January 1947.

p With the Palestine war of 1948-49 over, the situation in Egypt once again became aggravated. Revolutionary ideas won over a section of the officer corps of the Egyptian army, and a secret organisation emerged here, known as the Society of Free Officers, headed by Lieutenant-Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser.

p In January 1950, a Wafdist government came to power in the wake of parliamentary elections, which, however, failed to satisfy the aspirations of the electorate. For in contravention of the will of the majority of the people the Wafdist government undertook new diplomatic talks with Great Britain.

p Throughout 1950 important strikes broke out in Egypt’s industrial towns and mass anti-British demonstrations continued all over the country. Anti-feudal peasant uprisings occurred at Qufur Nadjm and Buhut. In 1951 the situation became even more strained. Increasing pressure from below forced the government to pass, in October 1951, a law abrogating the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936 and the Sudan condominium agreement of 1899.

p The British countered with savage repressions. Serious clashes between demonstrating crowds and British troops occurred at Ismailia and Port Said on October 16. Over 500 Egyptians were killed or wounded by the British between October 16 and November 5. Partisan warfare flared up in the Suez Canal zone. Patriots gathered to form "liberation units”, which blew up British army depots and cut communication lines. Armed clashes with the British increased in number. Cypriot soldiers revolted at Port Said. According to a report appearing in The Times in December 1951, the nerves of British soldiers were on edge, they saw less and less sense in holding on to a base which had lost all military value in view of the hostility of the local population.

p On January 25,1952, atlsmailia, the British destroyed a detachment of police who had joined the patriotic forces, leaving 68 dead. In the early hours of the following morning 330 Egyptian soldiers left their Cairo barracks and demanded weapons to fight the British. The populace flocked in to join them. Demonstrating crowds called out "Down with the Government of Cowards!”, "Down with the Traitorous King!”, "Down with the British!" Agents provocateurs, merging with the crowds, began starting fires, and some 700 buildings were soon in flames. Thirty persons perished and hundreds were hurt. For some reason or other the police took no 428 notice. The conflagration gave King Farouk a pretext for dismissing the Wafdist government and giving the prime minister’s post to Ali Maher, a reactionary extremist. Wholesale arrests of patriots began, and courts martial went to work.

p In 1952 the Egyptian people’s national liberation struggle entered a new and decisive phase. The monarchical regime found itself powerless to act. Partisan warfare in the Canal zone, mass demonstrations and strikes gave plain evidence that the revolution was gaining momentum. On the other hand, the working class proved incapable of guiding the masses, owing to lack of proper organisation. The Egyptian national bourgeoisie, moreover, was in a quandary: for while it was interested in ousting the colonialists and putting an end to the thoroughly corrupt monarchic regime, it feared the prospect of a people’s revolution. The influence of the bourgeois-landlord nationalist parties, including the Wafd, was rapidly dwindling. In this political climate the bourgeoisie was beginning to turn hopefully to the officer cadres. And the activities of the Society of Free Officers grew in importance.

p Most members of this organisation belonged either to the petty bourgeoisie or to the well-to-do strata of the peasantry. They were devoted to the purpose of winning national independence, rooting out the hated monarchy, and introducing democratic reforms. Their leaders were not yet quite clear in their mind as to what pattern of development the country would follow when independence had been won. Most of them expected that an independent Egyptian state would be fashioned on the capitalist pattern. For all that, they were sincere patriots, revolutionary nationalist-democrats.

p On July 23, 1952, the Society of Free Officers, backed by the entire Egyptian army, launched its coup. The success of the coup must be attributed to the struggle that had been waged by the people, which had undermined the positions of the colonialists and their local agents. The state power was taken over by the Revolutionary Council, in which Nasser played a leading role. Initially, however, a government headed by the former prime minister Ali Maher was formed, while all statements on behalf of the Revolutionary Council were issued by General Muhammad Nagib in his capacity as chairman. On July 26, King Farouk abdicated and, accompanied by 204 valises, left the country never to return. Jubilation ran high at the news of the overthrow of the corrupt monarchy.

The events of July 23, 1952, were merely the beginning of the revolution. On September 7, Ali Maher was dismissed from the post of prime minister in favour of General Nagib. In accordance with a Revolutionary Council decision, on September 9 the new government passed a law on the confiscation of the royal lands, and on the partial expropriation of landlord estates for 429 distribution among short-of-land peasants, subject to redemption over 30 to 40 years. On June 18, 1953, Egypt was proclaimed a republic. Nasser became president as from November 1954. The Egyptian Government demanded the withdrawal of the British troops from the Canal zone, and after strenuous negotiations obtained an agreement to that effect, signed on October 19, 1954. On June 13, 1956, the last contingent of British troops sailed from Egypt.

Libya, Morocco,
Tunisia and Sudan Win Independence

p The courageous anti-imperialist struggle of the Egyptian people provided a strong stimulus for other North African countries, and there, too, the national liberation movement grew in scope. In Libya, which used to be an Italian colony, British and French troops stayed on after the end of the Second World War, and a military base was set up by the United States. The imperialist powers planned to partition Libya and to perpetuate foreign control over the country. But the people of Libya demanded independence and unity. At the 1949 session of the UN General Assembly the Soviet Union submitted a proposal providing for immediate independence for Libya, withdrawal of foreign troops and dismantling of foreign military bases on its territory. Crowds demonstrated in Tripoli, carrying such slogans as "Down with Anglo-American Imperialism!”, "Long Live a United Libya!”, and "Long Live the Soviet Union—Defender of Peoples’ Independence!”

p Faced with this situation, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution granting Libya independence as from January 1, 1952. Proclaimed a sovereign state, the country became known as the United Kingdom of Libya.  [429•1 

p In Sudan, too, where the British colonialists had been exploiting the country’s resources since the end of the 19th century by virtue of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium convention, the Egyptian revolution had had a strong impact. Along with the Al Ashigga and the Al Umma parties, which reflected the interests of the propertied classes, workers’ organisations had been coming to play an increasingly active part in the country’s political life. The trade unions now represented a force to be reckoned with; a Sudanese Federation of Workers’ Trade Unions was formed in 1950, whose membership now totalled 150,000. The Sudanese Communist Party, founded in 1946, operated underground.

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p After Egypt’s denunciation, on October 15, 1951, of the condominium convention the British authorities had hoped that certain manoeuvres of a constitutional nature would enable them to maintain their control over Sudan. These hopes, however, were shattered as a result of the anti-imperialist struggle in Sudan and the victorious revolution in Egypt.

p The Anglo-Egyptian agreement on Sudan, signed on February 12, 1953, abrogated the condominium regime and recognised the right of the Sudanese people to self-determination at the end of a transitional period of three years. Parliamentary elections held in November 1953 brought a national government to power. The last of the British troops were out of Sudan by the end of 1955; and on January 1, 1956, the country was proclaimed a republic.

p In Morocco, the people’s movement for independence and reunification of so-called “French” and “Spanish” Morocco, became general after the war. Sultan Mohammed V, who viewed with sympathy the aspirations of the national bourgeoisie, presented to the French Government, in the autumn of 1950, an official demand for independence. A conflict between the Sultan and the French authorities ensued, which proved favourable to an upsurge of the people’s struggle. The Moroccan Communist Party had been taking an active part in that struggle. Fighting for national independence was also the Moroccan National Front, a bloc of bourgeois-nationalist parties which wielded paramount influence in the country.

p The French hoped to be able to crush the movement by force, and looked to the feudal elements for aid in this respect. In 1953, they dethroned Mohammed V with the aid of those very elements, exiled him to Madagascar, and hoisted a puppet of their choosing on the throne. The coup d’etat was followed by ferocious persecution of the patriotic elements, which, however, failed to bring the expected results: the patriots joined to form armed groups, which attacked troop trains and military supply depots. In October 1955, the tribes of the Er Riff and Atlas highlands rose against the French. Forced to come to terms, the latter recalled Mohammed V from exile and put him back on the throne. On March 2, 1956, a Franco-Moroccan declaration on Moroccan independence was signed. On April 5, the country’s independence was recognised by Spain. And thus the former French and Spanish zones reunited to form the state of Morocco.

p The people of Tunisia achieved independence just about the same time. Patriotic feeling was at high tide after the war, and the government, which included members of the influential bourgeois-nationalist Neo-Dastur Party, initiated negotiations with France. Begun in August 1950, they continued for eighteen months, but failed to achieve any results. A general strike took 431 place in December 1951, on the initiative of the Neo-Dastur, the Tunisian Communist Party, the trade unions and other organisations. In January 1952, the French fired on a Tunisian demonstration; the Neo-Dastur leaders, headed by Habib Bourguiba, and the leaders of the Communist Party, headed by Mohammed Ennafaa, were arrested and exiled in the desert.

Tunisian patriots began to arm. Partisan detachments were organised, which, joining forces, formed the National Liberation Army. Two years of war convinced the French that they couldn’t win, and in September 1954, a new round of Franco-Tunisian negotiations was begun. Despite all France’s efforts to draw them out she found herself compelled first to grant Tunisia autonomy and finally, on March 20, 1956, to recognise its independence.

The Suez Canal Crisis

p The successes scored by the liberation movement of the Arab peoples by the mid-fifties posed a threat to the positions of the imperialist powers in the Middle East. Egypt, since the revolution of 1952, followed an independence line in its foreign policies. It refused to adhere to the Bagdad Pact. When Great Britain and the United States suspended the sale of arms to Egypt, the Nasser government began to buy them from the socialist countries. The Egyptian army came to be equipped with modern materiel; and this was a substantial aid to the national liberation movements of the Arab peoples.

p In July 1956, the Egyptian Government passed a law on the nationalisation of the Suez Canal. The colonialists retaliated with an armed attack. First to attack, on October 30, 1956, was Israel; and on the following day Great Britain and France joined in the aggression. Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and other towns were bombed.

p The joint British, French and Israeli aggression against Egypt was an effort to halt the disintegration of the colonial system, mount a counter-offensive, and strike a telling blow at the national liberation movement. The colony-owning states had overlooked the fact, however, that the balance of world forces had radically changed since the Second World War. The Soviet Union and the socialist countries had become a mighty buckler well able to shield and protect the just aspirations of oppressed peoples. On November 5, the Soviet Government addressed a serious warning to Great Britain, France and Israel. "We are fully resolved,” read the message of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, "to use force in order to crush the aggressors and restore peace in the East.” The warning was taken, and on November 6 432 the aggressors announced the cessation of military operations in Egypt.

The Egyptian people displayed great courage in righting back the British, French and Israeli aggressors, as in the case of the heroic defence of Port Said. Workers volunteered for service in the army by the thousands, and formed the backbone of the national guard assigned to the defence of industrial plants and public buildings. This active participation of the masses in fighting off the aggressors gave a more profound meaning to the Egyptian revolution. As President Nasser pointed out later, "the battle of Suez helped disclose the meaning of patriotism by stressing with particular force the link between the political revolution and the social".

The United Arab Republic

p The Egyptian revolution of 1952, and even more so the defeat of the imperialist aggression in the Suez Canal zone, had the effect of bolstering the influence of the democratic forces in Syria. Imperialist pressure on that country was particularly heavy during 1957, the United States Government exerting this pressure through Turkey and Israel. This imperialist threat engendered among the Syrians a desire for closer ties with Egypt. The Syrian landlords and big capitalists saw cause for alarm in the successes of the democratic forces and counted on union with Egypt to strengthen their position. In February 1958, the union became a reality, and the two countries formed a United Arab Republic. Yemen was later admitted into the UAR with the status of an independent member of the confederation.

Actually it turned out that this rather precipitate union did not work. A revolt in the Syrian army broke out in September 1961, which led to the withdrawal of Syria from the UAR, after which she took the name of the Syrian Arab Republic. The UAR-Yemen alliance was also abrogated, in 1963. Egypt nevertheless retained the official appellation of the United Arab Republic.  [432•1 

July 1958 Revolution in Iraq

p In Iraq, the revolutionary movement moved rapidly to a climax after the failure of the Anglo-Franco-Israeli military venture. This Arab state had been under a British mandate and thus had formed part of the British colonial empire. Although the mandate 433 had actually been annulled in 1922, Britain continued to exercise control over the country by virtue of certain unequal treaties, specifically, as from 1930, under a "treaty of friendship and alliance”. In 1955, under the pressure of a growing mass movement in Iraq, the British Government was constrained to revoke the 1930 treaty. But Britain remained Iraq’s ally under the Bagdad Pact and therefore continued to control the Iraqi army, air bases, and strategic communication lines.

p The British fostered a reactionary regime in the country, supported mainly by the big feudal landlords and comprador bourgeoisie. From 1930 on, Nuri al-Said, reactionary extremist and British figurehead, was to play a leading role in the Iraqi governments.

p There were popular uprisings against foreign colonialists and local reactionaries in 1948 and 1952. Mass demonstrations, which finally assumed the proportions of an uprising, occurred at the time of the Anglo-Franco-Israeli assault on Egypt. That uprising was put down, but a revolutionary situation continued inexorably building up. In the beginning of 1957 a National Unity Front was formed by the Communist Party and three bourgeois-nationalist parties, namely, the National Democratic Party, the Istiqlal ( Independence) Party, and the Arab Socialist Renaissance Party (Baath), all operating underground. A secret organisation known as the Free Officers, formed in the Iraqi army on the Egyptian pattern, co-operated with the new front.

p On July 14, 1958, army units commanded by members of the Free Officers organisation and headed by General Abdal-Karim Kassem entered Bagdad. They seized the government buildings and the king’s palace. King Faisal and Nuri al-Said were killed and a new government was formed headed by Kassem.

p Great Britain and the United States made a move to intervene against the Iraqi revolution. On July 15, American troops were put ashore in neighbouring Lebanon, and on July 17 British troops entered Jordan. Faced with the determination of the Iraqi people to fight for their revolution, as well as with the support given to the Iraqi people by the nations of Asia and Africa, and especially in view of the energetic representations of the Soviet Government on behalf of the Iraqi revolution—the imperialists were forced to back down.

p Thus Iraq became an independent sovereign state. In March 1959, the Iraqi Government officially announced the country’s withdrawal from the Bagdad Pact. Important democratic reforms were introduced; a republican system of government was adopted; and equal rights for Arabs and Kurds were proclaimed. The workers could henceforth join trade unions and peasants form their associations. It became lawful for political parties, including the 434 Communist Party, to publish their newspapers. And on September 30, 1958, a law was passed on agrarian reform, which provided for the restriction of landlord ownership.

p From the middle of 1959 onward, however, the Kassem government began to abandon the policy on the unity of all patriotic forces and on the support of the masses. The united national front disintegrated, and Kassem turned to strengthening his own personal dictatorship. This could not but weaken the government’s position, and a military putsch followed on February 8, 1963. The Right wing of the Baath Party, which seized state power, proceeded to establish a reactionary regime and unleash a reign of terror directed against the democratic forces and, above all, the Communist Party. It proceeded to make war on the Kurds with the intention of depriving them of all of their national rights. In November 1963, a military group headed by Aref operated a takeover of state power, and shortly after the coup Aref became president. The new regime took some action to normalise the internal situation, notably to regulate relations with the Kurds.

Nevertheless the new government’s policies were insufficiently consistent, especially after the president’s death and the accession of his brother, a professional soldier, to that post. In June 1968, President Aref was removed from office by the Revolutionary Headquarters Council, and L. Bakr was made president.

National Liberation War in Algeria

p During the war years the French Committee of National Liberation set up its headquarters in Algeria, and this circumstance contributed to the growth of national self-consciousness among the Algerian people. In the days that followed hard upon the end of the war mass demonstrations swept across the country to demand immediate independence. In the communes of Setif and Guelma the demonstrators were fired upon, and this provoked great indignation among the people, which developed into an uprising. As sooften before, here and elsewhere, the rebels were practically unarmed and lacked proper organisation, and the French had nodifficulty in putting the uprising down before the end of May and to initiate harsh repressions, disband the various national organisations or drive them underground, and send many of their leaders to prison. Nevertheless, the struggle against the French colonialists went on, headed by the Algerian working class, in which the indigenous population had begun to play an increasingly important role, alongside people of European origin. The Communist Party started a mass movement against lawless police action, demandingthe liberation of those who had taken part in the uprising and been 435 sent to prison. The Algerian patriots were actively supported by the French Communist Party.

p In 1947, after the governing circles of France had begun to pursue a pro-American line in their policies and Communists had been removed from participation in the government, a so-called statute of Algeria was foisted on the country, which, though granting some concessions, actually perpetuated its colonial status. That served to convince the broadest sections of the Algerian people that only a determined struggle could end the hateful colonial regime, their oppression as a nation, and the terror practised by the French authorities. Such, too, was the conclusion reached by the leaders of the re-activated nationalist organisations that represented the interests of the national bourgeoisie, bourgeois intelligentsia, small traders, artisans, employees and students. The early 1950s saw the beginning of an armed struggle for freedom in the adjacent French colonies of Tunisia and Morocco; and partisan units began to operate in the mountainous areas of Algeria itself. The Algerian patriots had taken into account the rising victorious national liberation movements of the peoples of Asia and Africa, as a whole, as well as the fact that the French had become deeply mired in the dragging "dirty war" with the people of Vietnam.

p On November 1, 1954, the Revolutionary Committee for Unity and Action, then operating underground, summoned the Algerian people to an armed struggle for independence. Early fighting took place south of Constantine, then in Great Kabylia, a highland country east of Algiers, from where it soon spread all over the country. This was a people’s revolution, an anti-imperialist revolution headed by the National Liberation Front, or FLN, a mass organisation in which the leading role belonged to revolutionary intellectuals closely allied with the masses, especially the peasantry. The country was subdivided into districts, within each of which a local partisan army waged war more or less independently, inasmuch as the conditions of guerilla warfare made it difficult to ensure centralised military leadership. All these forces battling the French colonialists formed, taken together, the Algerian National-Liberation Army, which numbered, as early as 1958, over 130,000 fighters. This army struck hard, when least expected, acquiring weapons in battle, severing French communication lines, blowing up important military installations, wiping out enemy units, etc.

p The French countered with a regime of terror throughout Algeria, subjecting to persecution all those who they believed associated with armed resistance or even suspected of being in sympathy with it. Algerian patriots were mercilessly tortured and killed by the thousands. At the end of nearly eight years of war loss of life among the people of Algeria had reached the incredible figure of 436 1,500,000—out of a population of 9,000,000. This heavy sacrifice of lives, instead of intimidating the Algerians, merely embittered them and strengthened their determination to win the war. In their struggle the Algerian patriots were supported by progressive forces all over the world, notably by the Arab states, the Soviet Union and the socialist countries.

p Through the efforts of the French Communist Party a mass movement for a just peace and independence for Algeria developed in France. Its significance was particularly great in view of the fact that chauvinistic tendencies were marked not only among the French bourgeoisie, but also among other sections of the population, and above all the military. This chauvinism was fanned by leading capitalists financially interested in holding on to Algeria as a French colony and interested also in a victory in the war as a sure means of strengthening the reaction in France herself. These elements within the ruling class came to be known as the “ultras”, or extremists. These “ultras”, joined by general Salan, in command of the French forces in Algeria, raised in May 1958, a revolt against the government when the latter broached the subject of possible negotiations with the Algerian patriots.

p In September 1958, the National Council of the Algerian Revolution, the governing body of the FLN, proclaimed the formation of an independent Algerian Republic. A Provisional Government was set up, with headquarters initially in Cairo and then in Tunis. This government offered to start peace talks with France, but met with a rebuff. The creation of a Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic marked a new phase in the Algerian people’s liberation struggle. A number of countries announced their recognition of the new government. And friendly nations increased their aid to fighting Algeria, notably by providing modern weapons, of which the Algerian patriots stood in great need. Meantime the National Liberation Army delivered increasingly effective blows against the French, in spite of the fact that French reinforcements and materiel continued to arrive in Algeria.

p The realisation that the war against the Algerian people could not be won finally forced the French Government to recognise Algeria’s right to self-determination and to agree to negotiate. Other contributing factors were: the growing movement in France in favour of granting Algeria independence; and a general shift to neo-colonialist conceptions on the part of quite a few French monopolists, which meant that an effort would be made to maintain French domination in Algeria by economic methods. Negotiations began in June 1960, but the desire of the French representatives to force the Algerians to what would have been tantamount to surrender caused a breakdown of the talks. This served to strengthen the determination of the Algerian patriots to achieve independence. 437 In the spring of 1961 France was compelled to renew negotiations with the representatives of the Provisional Government. This caused a new revolt of the “ultras” in Algeria, instigated by the Secret Armed Organisation, or OAS, created early in 1961 by extremist military leaders. The coup was suppressed by the army, which remained loyal to de Gaulle, but the OAS refused to submit to presidential orders and unleashed a campaign of terror against those who favoured Algerian independence.

p Negotiations between France and Algeria were conducted in the French town of Evian in greatest secrecy. Twice they were broken off again. Renewed in February 1962, they resulted by March 18 in an agreement whereby the government of the country (during an interim period of from three to six months) was to be entrusted to a Provisional Executive Body of French and Algerian representatives. This body was to operate a popular referendum which would establish whether the Algerian people desired national independence and co-operation with France; in the event of an answer in the affirmative (of which there could hardly be any doubt) France was to immediately recognise the independence and sovereignty of Algeria (including Sahara) and withdraw her troops from the country within three years. The European residents of Algeria were to be given a like period of time to choose between Algerian or French citizenship. Full amnesty was announced for all Algerians sentenced for participation in the liberation movement.

Though implying a measure of compromise, the Evian agreements meant an important victory for the Algerian people, won in relentless and bitter fighting at enormous sacrifice of life. The referendum of July 1, 1962, returned a practically unanimous verdict in favour of independence, and Algeria became an independent state. And the Algerian revolution would hence be spearheaded against internal feudalism and foreign imperialism.