¹ The word directly is used here to highlight the fact that since the early 1930s the Sudan had “indirectly”—that is, through non-Communist elements inside it—been made aware of Communism. This was effected through the efforts of the several societies and discussion groups such as the Abū Rof and the Fajr groups, which came into existence as a result of the harsh measures adopted by the Sudanese government in the wake of the failure of the armed uprising of 1924, masterminded by a few Egyptian and Sudanese nationalists in order to drive Britain out of both Egypt and the Sudan.Google Scholar

² Rosenthal was a Russian Jew, and a jeweler by profession. He was considered by the British Intelligence in Egypt to be the person responsible for the propagation of Communism in Egypt in 1919. See PRO/FO 141/779, File No. 9065: Note by Director General of Public Security in Cairo, dated 29 September 1921; File entitled: “Joseph Rosenthal,” No. 754.Google Scholar

³ Henry Curiel came from a rich Italian Jewish family in Egypt. Against the wishes of his father he acquired Egyptian nationality in 1935 at the age of 21. If Rosenthal is considered the father of the early Egyptian Communist movement of the 1920s, for the 1940s this title should go to Curiel. In the early 1950s he was ordered to leave Egypt by the leaders of the 23rd of July Revolution. He left for France, where he was assassinated in his flat in Paris in April 1978.Google Scholar

⁴ al-Saʿīd, Rifʿat, Tārīkh al-munazzamāt al-yasāriyya al-Misrīyya, 1940–1950 (Cairo, 1976), p. 180.Google Scholar

⁵ For a list of the other British Communists who were in the Sudan at that early time, see Appendix 1 (entitled “Communist Personalities”), to note on “Communism in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan,” compiled by the Commissioner of Police in Khartoum (hereafter “Note by Commissioner of Police on Communism in Sudan”), enclosed in Letter No. SCO/36.G.4/4, and dated 17 November 1949, from J. W. Robertson (The Secretariat, Khartoum), to M. N. F. Stewart (African Department, Foreign Office, London), in File No. PRO/FO 371/73471, pp. 1–17.Google Scholar

⁶ Quoted from official sources by al-Saʿīd, Rifʿat, Tārīkh al-munazzamātt, p. 35.Google Scholar

⁷ Quoted from official sources by Warriner, Doreen, Land Reform and Development in the Middle East (London, 1957), p. 25.Google Scholar

⁸ Saʿid, Jamāl al-Dīn Muhammad, al-Tatawwur al-iqtisādī fī Misr mundh al-kasād al-āʿlamī al kabīr (Cairo, 1956), p. 128.Google Scholar

⁹ al-Ghazālī, ʿAbd al-Munʿim, Tārīkh al-haraka al-naqābiyya al-Misriyya 1899–1952 (Cairo, 1975), p. 89.Google Scholar

¹⁰ ʿAfīfī, Hāfiz, ʿAlā hāmish al-siyāsa al-Misriyya (Cairo, 1938), p. 165.Google Scholar

¹¹ Baer, Gabriel, A History of Landownership in Modern Egypt, 1800–1950 (London, 1962), p. 204.Google Scholar

¹² Ibid., pp. 204–5.

¹³ Agwani, M. S., Communism in the Arab East (London, 1969), p. 44.Google Scholar

¹⁴ See a memorandum by Mr. Audsley, Labour Counsellor to the British Embassy in Cairo, entitled “Development of Communism in Egypt” (hereafter, “British Labour Counsellor's Memorandum”) enclosed in Letter No. 1218/ 1357/2/45, and dated 1 September 1945, from the British Embassy in Cairo, to the Right Honourable Earnest Bevin, M.P.… Foreign Office, London, in File No. PRO/FO 371/46003.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Letter No. 1218/1357/3/45, dated 1 September 1945, from Lord Killearn, British Embassy, Cairo, to the Right Honourable Earnest Bevin M.P., Foreign Office, London, in File No. PRO/FO 371/46003.Google Scholar

¹⁶ The British Labour Counsellor's Memorandum, p. 4.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Letter No. 1684 (1357/3/45), dated 27 December 1945, from the British Embassy, Cairo, to the Right Honourable Earnest Bevin, M.P., Foreign Office, London, File No. PRO/FO 371/53327.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Telegram No. 246, dated 12 July 1946, from Sir R. Campbell, Cairo, to Foreign Office, in File No. PRO/FO/371/53327.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Letter No. 1200 (1825/11/43), dated 30 December 1943, from Lord Killearn to the Right Honourable Anthony Eden, Foreign Office, London, in File No. PRO/FO 371/41358.Google Scholar

²⁰ Letter No. 502 (845/4/44), dated 26 April 1944, from Lord Killearn, Cairo, to the Right Honourable Anthony EdenGoogle Scholar, ibid.

²¹ Report on “Communism in Egypt and the Middle East,” by Hasan Rifʿat Pasha, UnderSecretary of State for Foreign Affairs (which was confidentially communicated by its author to the Oriental Minister), p. 6, enclosed in Letter No. J 2764/53/16, dated 21 June 1946, from R. Campbell to Mr. Bevin, in File No. PRO/FO 371/53327.Google Scholar

²² See, for instance, Ghālī, Mirrīt, al-Islāh al-zirāʿī (Cairo, 1945), p. 11 n.Google Scholar

²³ For a typical example of this view, see Saʿd, Sādiq, Mushkilat al-fallāh (Cairo, 1945), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

²⁴ al-Saʿīd, Rifʿat, Tārīkh al-munazzamat, p. 98.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ibid., pp. 104–5.

²⁶ This was a nationalist organization that came into existence in 1938 as a result of the disillusionment of the educated Sudanese with both of the co-domini powers—that is, Britain and Egypt—following their signing of the 1936 treaty. The treaty was regarded by these educated Sudanese as further evidence that those two Countries were prepared, when it suited them, to accommodate each other and pay no attention to the demands of the Sudanese.Google Scholar

²⁷ The Ashiqqa (literally the “full brothers,” so called either because there were a number of full brothers in their ranks or because they were calling for brotherly relations between the Egyptians and the Sudanese) was the largest of all the anti-Britain pro-Egypt unionist groupings inside Congress. Its leader was Ismāʿīl al-Azharī, who in 1954 became the first Sudanese Prime Minister. In 1952 it united with the other unionist groups in order to form, under the auspices of Egypt, the National Unionist Party. Their own leader became the leader of the new party, which managed in the first elections in the Sudan in 1954 to defeat the pro-Britain, pro-Independence Umma-Nation-Party.Google Scholar

²⁸ See note 1.Google Scholar

²⁹ Note entitled: “Communism Among Sudanese Students in Egypt,” from Sudan Agency, Cairo, dated 14 April 1950, and enclosed in Letter No. LO/TSF/13–1 (dated 1 May 1950), from R. C. Mayall, of the Sudan Government Agency in London, to Roger Allen, African Department, Foreign Office, London, in File No. PRO/FO 371/80354.Google Scholar

³⁰ Should there appear in this remark a lack of distinction between color and race, attention should drawn here to the fact that color is not the only–or even the major–determinant of racial origin the Sudan. This is because you find a number of black people and entire black ethnic groups who quite seriously view themselves as Arab, can trace their ancestry back to purely Arab tribes in the Hijaz, and would not take kindly at all to being called otherwise.Google Scholar

³¹ The exact numbers of Sudanese students in Egypt are difficult to come by. But it is probably safe to say that since the early 1940s—that is, when Egypt began to allow the unionists through the Graduates Congress to send students—no fewer than 50 students were sent each year, mostly at university level. If this figure appears small it should be borne in mind that the impact of those students on their country lay more in the ideology they brought back from Egypt (and hence in their eventual defiance of their traditional political leadership) than in their sheer numbers.Google Scholar

³² Ahmad, Hasan Makkī MuhammadHarakat al-Ikhwān al-Muslimīn fī al-Sūdān, 1944–1969 (Khartoum, 1982), pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

³³ Sulaymān, Ahmad, Wamashaynāha khuta: safahāt min mudhakkirāt shurūʿī ihiada (Khartoum, 1983), pp. 27–28.Google Scholar

³⁴ This occurred during an interview in his house in London on 17 July 1978 (see also note 60).Google Scholar

³⁵ Ahmad, Hasan Makkī Muhammad, harakat, p. 4.Google Scholar

³⁶ al-Husaynī, lshāq Mūsā, al-Ikhwān al-Muslimīn: kubra al-harakāt al-islāmiyya (Beirut, 1952), p. 135.Google Scholar

³⁷ al-Rahim, Muddathir Abd, Imperialism and Nationalism in the Sudan (Oxford, 1969), p. 133 n.Google Scholar

³⁸ For more on the two religious leaders, their politics, and their financial standing, see Appendix A to PlC Paper, No. 66, entitled: “Biographical Note on Sayyid Abd al-Rahman El-Mahdi and Sayyid Ali El-Mirghani,” in File No. PRO/FO 371/41363.Google Scholar

³⁹ For a thorough discussion of this aspect of their doctrine, see Mitchell, Richard P., The Society of the Muslim Brothers (Oxford, 1969), pp. 232–36.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ In other instances, such as the attitude toward the British, the Brothers were, unlike Sayyid ʿAbd al-Rahmān and the Ansār, vehemently anti-British.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See, for instance, al-Bannāʾ, Hasan, Daʿwatunā (Cairo, 1952), pp. 15 and 20–21.Google Scholar See also his Risālat al-muʾtamar al-khāmis (Cairo, undated), pp. 45–50.Google Scholar

⁴² Ahmad, Hasan Makkī Muhammad, Harakat, p. 4.Google Scholar

⁴³ This pamphlet was brought to the notice of the British authorities in Egypt through one of their secret channels. A summary of its contents is contained in Lord Killearn's Letter No. 49 (522/1/46), dated 11 January 1946 to the Right Honourable Earnest Bevin, M.P., Foreign Office, London, in File No. PRO/FO 371/53327.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ The EMNL succeeded the Egyptian Movement. When in 1947 the EMNL and lskra (a rival Communist organization under the leadership of Hillel Schwarz) united, the Democratic Movement for National Liberation came into existence. The Umdurmān group (which took its name from the city of Umdurmān, where the Mahdī ruled the Sudan after his defeat of Gordon) was solely made up of Sudanese. It is a mark of the vigor of this group that it used to act as the representative of Curiel's successive groups whenever he or the other Egyptian leaders were in detention.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ In an article in Umdurmān, 21 July 1945, by Muhammad Husayn Khalīl, entitled “Hādhihi al-hayāt al-rakhīsa.”Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Article entitled “People's Struggle,” by al-Hājj Sūdān (a pseudonym) in Unidurmān, 31 August 1945.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ From the second part of his autobiographical notes, entitled “Hayāt dunyā,” in al-Sarāha (an unofficial organ of the Sudanese Communists from its inception in 1950), 1 July 1952.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See note 27.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See Sulaymān, Ahmad, Wamashaynāha, pp. 15–19.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ See, for instance, the editorial in al-Sūdūn (the paper founded by the Ashiqqa in Egypt in order to air their views, to which the Sudanese Communists in the beginning used to contribute occasional articles), 21 June 1945, in which Muhammad Amīn Husayn approved and praised the above resolution of Congress on the position of an independent Sudan vis-à-vis both Britain and Egypt. Mr. Husayn, who died in 1984, was one of two men (the other being Dr. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (see note 62 below) responsible for the leadership of the Sudanese Movement for National Liberation in 1946. A few months after the setting up of that organization he gave up the leadership—and Communism altogether—and joined the ranks of the unionists, with whom he remained until his death.Google Scholar

⁵¹ See the editorial of al-Sūdān, 9 February 1945, entitled “The First Sudanese.”Google Scholar

⁵² Al-Sūdān, 23 March 1945.Google Scholar

⁵³ Editorial by al-Bakrī, Bashīr, in al-Sūdān, 16 March 1945.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Al-Sūdān, 27 April 1945.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Umdurmān, 18 April 1945.Google Scholar See also Sūdān's, al-Hājj article in Umdurmān, 31 August 1945.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ The Legislative Assembly, set up in 1948, was one of the means by which the Sudan government tried to placate the entire country's yearning for independence following World War II. It was limited in powers, did not in any serious or meaningful way represent all the Sudanese, and was designed primarily to achieve what the Advisory Council of a few years earlier was unable to do—that is, to convince all political persuasions in the Sudan that the Sudan government was genuine in claiming that it was gradually preparing the Sudanese for self-rule. However, this policy was dealt a severe blow when the unionists decided to boycott the Assembly.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ See Enclosure No. 1, in Chancery Letter No. 1014/3/5, dated 9 January 1950, in File PRO/FO 371/86354, being the translation of the Egyptian Communist Party's publication entitled “Project [Program?] of the Egyptian Communist Party and its Explanatory Notes,” p. 3.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ See al-Saʿīd, Rifʿat, Tārīkh al-munazzamāt, pp. 306–7.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Ibid., p. 330.

⁶⁰ Ibid., p. 307.

⁶¹ 15 November 1945.Google Scholar

⁶² lnterview with Dr. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (a physician) on 8 September 1978. Dr. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn was the first General Secretary of the SMNL although this was not the official title of the past at that time. He was removed from the job in 1947 on charges of, among other things, having been too sympathetic to the unionist cause as well as having been unable to steer an independent course for the budding movement.Google Scholar

⁶³ al-Saʿīd, Rifʿat, Tārīkh al-munazzarnāt, p. 354.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Ibid., p. 351.

⁶⁵ See Note by Commissioner of Police on Communism in Sudan, p. 11.Google Scholar