A report on conditions in the aftermath of 1929’s Arab Revolt and the effort to make the multi-national Communist Party of Palestine reflect the Arab majority of the Mandatory state.

‘The Communist Party and Arab Masses’ by Bob (Joseph Berger) from The Daily Worker. Vol. 7 No. 343. April, 1930.

WITH the great advance of the revolutionary mass movement in Palestine after the August insurrection, a growing differentiation within this movement has taken place. The nationalist leadership of the movement, before all the clergy and the commercial bourgeoisie—under the pressure of the British officials and out of fear of the further development of the mass movement—are inclined more and more to the Right. There is no doubt that the nationalist leadership, in spite of its big phrases, has in reality already capitulated to British imperialism, and that the journey of the Arab delegation to London only serves the purpose of sealing this capitulation by the betrayal of the interests of the peoples not only to the imperialists but even to the Zionists. Hence it is not to be wondered at that the bitterness of the masses towards the nationalist leaders is increasing, and that the toilers, before all the fellaheen, the town workers, and the poor handicraftsmen, are beginning to realise the treachery of the aristocratic leaders. In this process of regrouping of the Arab revolutionary movement the Communist Party of Palestine is playing a not insignificant role. It is showing the workers and peasants that the national emancipation of the toiling masses must be closely linked up with their social emancipation: the enactment of labor legislation, the distribution of the big landed estates to the Fellahin are connected with the fighting slogans against imperialism and Zionism and in this way every worker and peasant, even the most backward, can realize that the C.P. is not only fighting for national emancipation, but is aiming at the emancipation of the Arab masses from the hard yoke of economic exploitation.

These slogans of the C.P. of Palestine, as well as its fundamental turn to the Arabisation of the Party from below, in the sense of the resolution of the E.C.C.I. on the Arab insurrectionary movement of October 16th, 1929, are serving to increase the influence of the Communists among the Arab masses. This fact is admitted not only by the pro-imperialist hat, on the one hand, the imperialist and Zionist terror has been enhanced and not only Jewish but also Arab workers are being imprisoned and tortured on the charge of being Communists, and, on the other hand, also the nationalists are placing their press and their apparatus in the service of anti-Bolshevist propaganda. Also the trade unions established after the Haifa Arab workers’ Congress are the scene of constant fights between the agents of the treacherous nationalists and the Communists. But neither the fiercest reprisals nor the anti-Communist campaigns can hinder the growth of the Communist influence and the decline of the nationalist influence in the trade unions, the growth of Arab Communist I literature and the organizational strengthening of the Communist Party by the influx of Arab workers into its ranks. In the few months that have passed since the August upheaval many Arab comrades have entered the Party; purely Arab local branches have been formed. Arab comrades have been elected to all leading Party bodies, both local and central. Thereby a trump card of the nationalists which they used to play against the C.P. of Palestine—the assertion that the Party is a “Jewish” Party—is taken out of their hands. This development of the C.P. of Palestine will clear the path for fruitful and effective work of the Party not only among the Arab masses in Palestine, but also in the neighboring Arab countries.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924. National and City (New York and environs) editions exist.

PDF of full issue:https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n358-NY-apr-30-1930-DW-LOC.pdf