Australian Left Review
Article Title
Issues in the Middle East
Abstract
THE ANTI-FEUDAL and anti-colonial revolutions of Egypt and Syria of the early 1950’s which came in the wake of the defeat of the feudal Arab armies, were the starting point of the still developing socio-political revolution in the Arab world. Today this revolution has reached in some Arab countries the stage of expropriation of big landlords and nationalization of foreign and big Arab-owned enterprises. The changes of the progressive Arab states, notwithstanding their weaknesses and harmful crosscurrents, are an important factor in the developing countries’ struggle for liberation and in mankind’s struggle against neo-capitalism. The Western powers, to safeguard their huge oil profits, strove to strangle the Arab revolution by the use of coups, direct military intervention and military actions by the Middle East pro-Western countries. These policies have time and time again failed because of the opposition of the Arab, neutral and socialist countries, and the Soviet assistance to the progressive Arab states.