Mandatory British Palestine was an overwhelmingly Arab, peasant and agricultural, alongside sophisticated communities of the cosmopolitan Levant. With numbers of immigrant Jews arriving after the failed 1905 Revolution and, most importantly, the Balfour Declaration, in its first decade the Communist Party of Palestine was largely composed of Palestinian Jews, immigrant Left Zionists who had become radicalized, and the children of Jewish immigrants. The Party and its activists were vehemently anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist, and suffered terribly–including death–at the hands of both for their ideas and activities, which included attempting to create a multi-ethnic, inclusively Arab union federation to compete with the Zionist Histadrut. The concerted effort to ‘Arabize’ the Party to reflect the country’s majority began after 1928 VI Comintern Congress and became an imperative after 1929’s Arab Revolt against British imperialism and Zionist colonization. Berger reports on the early results of the campaign.

‘The Communist Party of Palestine and the Arab Masses’ by Bob (Joseph Berger) from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 10 No. 16. March 27, 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 inclining 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 C.P. 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 labour 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 realise 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 16th October 1929, are serving to increase the influence of the Communists among the Arab masses. This fact is admitted not only by the pro-imperialist and Zionist papers, but even the Arab nationalists, who up to now have kept silent regarding the Arab Communist movement, must now admit the great Communist advance. The immediate result is that, 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 literature and the organisational 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 neighbouring Arab countries.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1930/v10n16-mar-27-1930-inprecor-Virginia.pdf