MER Article Mao in a Muslim Land In the coming years, China is expected to invest some $18 billion in an “economic corridor” crossing Pakistan to the Arabian Sea at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. The latest installment is the development of the Pakistani port of Gwadar. The port scheme is a strategic move linked to the restoration Kamran Asdar Ali • 4 min read
MER Article Iranian Maoism As in most other countries, Maoism in Iran emerged in the mid-1960s when Sino-Soviet disputes split the ranks of international communism. But Iranian communism and its Maoist variant were also rooted in domestic developments. During the 1940s, the pro-Soviet (Tudeh) communist party had made signific Afshin Matin-Asgari • 4 min read
MER Article Hadi al-`Alawi, Scion of the Two Civilizations In the 1950s, the People’s Republic of China began to host a small community of Arab scholars and journalists, recruited mostly through “revolutionary” channels like the FLN, the PLO, and the Iraqi and Sudanese Communist Parties. These experts were brought to China with the explicit purpose of editi Mohammed al-Sudairi • 6 min read
MER Article Maxime Rodinson Looks Back Maxime Rodinson (1915-2004) was a pioneering scholar of Islam and the Middle East, as well as a prominent Marxian public intellectual. A product of classical Orientalist training, he was professor of Old Ethiopic and South Arabian languages at the Sorbonne. His scholarly sensibility was historical-m Joan Mandell, Joe Stork • 23 min read
MER Article Editor's Bookshelf Although the Congressional investigating committee did everything in its power to minimize Israel’s role in the Iran-Contra scandal, the hearings and their fallout did suggest that Israel played a major, and very likely initiating, role in the sordid affair. This and other matters skirted by both th (Author not identified) • 4 min read
MER Article Botman, Rise of Egyptian Communism Selma Botman, The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970 (Syracuse, 1988). The Rise of Egyptian Communism, 1939-1970, one of several recent books that offer new insights on the experience of Marxism in Egypt before and during the Nasser era, provides an extensive account of the membership, organizat Marsha Pripstein Posusney • 1 min read
MER Article Palestinian Communists and the Intifada Maher Al-Sharif, Al-Shuyu‘iyun wa Qadaya al-Nidal al-Watani al-Rahin [The Communists and Issues in the Current National Struggle] (Damascus: Center for Socialist Research and Study in the Arab World, 1988). The role of the Palestinian Communist Party (PCP) is one of the most important and least und Alain Gresh • 9 min read
MER Article A Split in the Iraqi Communist Party? In the aftermath of the party’s fourth congress in October 1985, a group of 11 members led by an ex-alternate member of the central command of the party were expelled from the party. They had violated the party’s constitution by publicly circulating a memorandum attacking the new policy adopted by t Isam al-Khafaji • 2 min read
Gabbay, Communism and Agrarian Reform in Iraq Rony Gabbay, Communism and Agrarian Reform in Iraq (London: Croom Helm, 1978). Modern Iraqi history suffers from a lack of monographs and case studies on subjects such as rural affairs. Rony Gabbay’s research helps to fill this vacuum, at least in the area of social and political developments in th Tom Nieuwenhuis • 2 min read
MER Article Marxism, the Third World and the Middle East It has become common in the West to question the relevance of Marxism to advanced capitalism, and to suggest that, as a theory, it is in “crisis” and requires substantial revision. Paradoxically, more orthodox versions of Marxist theory and politics seem to retain an appeal in the Third World. Since Maxine Molyneux, Fred Halliday • 12 min read
MER Article Palestinian Communists and the National Movement George Hazboun is a leading Palestinian trade unionist. He was dismissed from his elected position as deputy mayor of Bethlehem by a January 22 municipal council decision, spearheaded by Mayor Elias Freij, for his alleged abstention from attending council meetings since May 1982. Coming as it did th (Author not identified) • 9 min read
MER Article "Tudeh's Policy Is a Betrayal of the Working Class" Fereidun Keshavarz was elected to the Tudeh politburo at the Party’s first congress in 1942. He was elected to the Iranian parliament in 1944 and in 1946 served as minister of in the short-lived government of Prime Minister Qavam. In 1958 he resigned from the Tudeh politburo and central committee. H (Author not identified) • 7 min read
