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1975

Fu’ad Mursi, 'The Economic Opening' (Excerpts)

Fu’ad Mursi (1925-1990), the author of the text printed here (an English excerpt translated from an Arabic-language monograph), was an Egyptian economist trained in Alexandria and the Sorbonne. While in Paris, he joined the French Communist Party. Back in Egypt, he in 1949 co-founded al-Hizb al-shuiu‘i al-misri, or the Egyptian Communist Party (ECP).

Born 27 years after a communist party had first been opened in the country, the ECP, also known as Rayat al-sha‘ab (The People’s Banner) after the title of its organ, was the smallest, most clandestine, and most intellectual communist group then operating in Egypt. It favored a two-state-solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, was opposed to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970), and in 1958 initiated the merger of Egypt’s communist parties (under the condition that Jews would be excluded), a story told e.g. in Joel Beinin’s Was the Red Flag Flying There? Marxist Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Egypt and Israel, 1948-1965 (1990). Nasser’s regime, which from the start had a difficult relationship with domestic communists, turned to open repression in 1959, locking up many party members in brutal desert prisons until 1964. The next year the party dissolved itself under pressure from the regime, which, however, also co-opted some individuals. Mursi was one of them.

Moreover, after Nasser’s death, Mursi early on continued a government career under the new president Anwar Sadat (1918-1981). In 1971, he became director of the state Industrial Bank and member of the Central Bank board, and in 1972 Minister of Supply and Domestic Commerce. The following year he resigned, however. Still a Marxist, he disagreed with Sadat’s policy of economic opening, infitah. While prepared from 1971, this policy became official in 1974—a story whose classic treatment is John Waterbury’s The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes (1983) and whose social dimension is told by Relli Shechter’s The Rise of the Egyptian Middle Class: Socio-Economic Mobility and Public Discontent from Nasser to Sadat (2019).

The text printed here reflects a key component in Mursi’s analysis of the infitah. He diagnoses a cooperation between private Egyptian capitalists—who were now on the rise again after the decline of Nasserite state capitalism (aka socialism)—and foreign capitalist colonialism that, while not any more occupying Egypt, again wishes to exploit the country

October 12, 1970

Memorandum for the President, "The UAR Presidency"

Kissinger provides an overview of Anwar Sadat, why he believes Sadat will likely be the next president of the UAR, and Sadat's main supporters.

April 6, 1972

Minutes of Conversation of the Seperate Discussion between Nicolae Ceausescu and Anwar El-Sadat, in Cairo, 6 April 1972 [Excerpts]

Nicolae Ceausescu and Anwar El-Sadat discuss Egypt's relations with Israel and the new boundaries of Israeli and Arab lands.

April 3, 1972

Note regarding the Personal Conversation that took place between Nicolae Ceausescu and Anwar El-Sadat, Monday, 3 April 1972, in Cairo

Nicolae Ceausescu and Anwar El-Sadat discuss foreign policy with relation to Israel, the United States, and the USSR. Sadat discusses future relations with Israel and strategic closure of the Suez Canal.

May 21, 1973

Sixth Interkit Meeting, Record of Meeting with Boris Ponomarev and Konstantin Katushev

This record of a meeting with the secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Boris Ponomarev, and with the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Konstantin Katushev, addresses the anti-Soviet course adopted by Beijing. The discussion specifically refers to relations between China and the Communist parties of Albania, Romania, Australia, France, Italy, and New Zealand. The document also assesses the situation in Anwar el-Sadat's Egypt, in Hafez al-Assad's Syria, in Iraq, and in Yemen, the main idea being that the Socialist countries should support the development of progressive Arabic states.

March 27, 1979

Revolutionary Command Council Meeting after the Baghdad Conference of 1979

Saddam and his executive Revolutionary Command Council discuss the March resolutions of the Arab League, which included the expulsion of Egypt and the cutting diplomatic ties due to its peace treaty with Israel.

March 23, 1955

Journal Entry of Ambassador Zhukov: Visit of the PRC Ambassador to Indonesia, Huang Zhen

Journal entry from D.A. Zhukov, the Soviet ambassador to Indonesia, on a March 14, 1955 visit from Huang Zhen, the PRC's ambassador to Indonesia. Zhen relayed to Zhukov that he had been visited by the Egyptian ambassador to Indonesia, Ali Fahmi Al-Amroussi, and that the Egyptians were upset that the PRC was reportedly considering trade with Israel. Zhen sought Zhukov's advice on whether or not to meet with the Egyptians.

June 2007

The Cairo Residency, 1972-76. Folder 82. The Chekist Anthology.

Information on the results of an analysis of the activities of the KGB residency in Cairo, Egypt from 1972-1976, conducted by KGB Service R. Starting in January 1973, the KGB leadership prohibited the residency from using Egyptian citizens as agents; however the resident in Cairo initiated restrictions on penetration operations earlier, in 1967 and 1968. As a result, by 1977, the residency had no agents in the majority of its intelligence objectives.

In May 1971, after the defeat of the anti-Sadat opposition group “left Nasserists,” the KGB’s leadership role in the organization came to light. In response, President Sadat took steps to curtail the activities of Soviet intelligence in Egypt. The KGB resident in Cairo was forced to strengthen his efforts to obtain information on the intentions of the Egyptian leadership, while improving security for clandestine operations. In 1967, the Centre decided not to task the Cairo residency with collecting information on the United States or China, because its limited resources permitted it to focus only on Egypt’s internal politics, and its relations with the USSR, the United States, Israel, and other Arab states. The prohibition against using Egyptian citizens as agents meant that the residency often had to rely on operational-technical means of collection; however by June 1977, the KGB’s leaders instructed the Cairo resident to select and recruit a well-known Soviet-Arab for use in gathering political information, and active measures.

July 18, 1972

Report from the Yugoslav Embassy in Cairo following the Soviet Union's removal of experts from Egypt

Report from the Yugoslav Embassy in Cairo on the situation in Egypt following the Soviet Union's withdrawal of experts and end to aid projects. Included are an Egyptian diplomat's explanation of the reasons for the change in relations and how this development affects the plans for resolution of the crisis in the Middle East.

June 2007

About the Middle East. Folder 81. The Chekist Anthology

Information on the situation in the Middle East prepared by KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov in April 1973, prior to a 7 May 1973 discussion in the Politburo.

Andropov stated that given the increase in anti-Israeli propaganda in Egypt and Syria, as well as the heightened state of readiness of their armies, it was possible that a coalition of Middle Eastern states could resume military operations against Israel before, or during the upcoming Nixon-Brezhnev summit.

To prevent this, the KGB initiated a series of active measures. Specifically, they dispatched KPSU Politburo Candidate Member K.G. Mazurov to speak with Egyptian President Sadat and Syrian President Assad on the USSR’s behalf; informed the United States government through unofficial channels that a resumption of hostilities in the Middle East was not in Moscow’s interests; delayed the delivery of new Soviet surface to surface missiles to Egypt; and dispatched a well known Soviet journalist specializing in Middle Eastern affairs to Cairo and Damascus to study the situation.

Pagination