Nasser, 1962
By ERSKINE B. CHILDERS As I drove out to his house in a Cairo suburb the other night, I was already fairly certain from talks with his colleagues that Gamal Abdel Nasser was not the depressed, bitter figure of so many Western assessments after the Syrian seces- sion. In more than three hours of close conversa- tion with him, I sensed very strongly that he now feels a whole new phase of the Arab movement is beginning. 1 found no depression: Nasser is as full of dynamism as when I met him in 1958.
The springs of this new spirit lie in the UAR's new Arab Socialist -programme, and it is with this—and Nasser's ideas on economic structure as distinct from political institutions—that this report should begin. The question has been widely canvassed whether Nasser has espoused Marxism and/or a kind of Titoism, in the large- scale nationalisation, income and shares ceilings, and deeper land reform since July, 1961. We talked at great length about all this. Nasser's words should speak for themselves.
'I am against Marxist-Leninism: I have studied it for years, as a doctrine, and in the actual Soviet system. Firstly, I am against its atheism, which strikes at my religion. When I speak of religion, I do not mean necessarily, going to the mosque, and prayers. I mean that our religion here'—and he tapped his heart—`gives us principles to guide our lives and our social action. Without it, where can I get spiritual guidance?'
-Nasser spoke at length, as does the scientifi- cally reconciled and modernised Al-Azhar (Islamic) University faculty, about the original `socialist' basis of Islam. Did you know that originally it was proclaimed that every believer should give up 21 per cent. of his capital— capital, not income—to the community each year?' He has launched what amounts to a his- toric Islamic theological debate, by radio,- with King Saud's Mecca Radio—which is not sur- prisingly stressing that the Koran merely enjoins giving 'alms to the poor.' The effects of this harnessing of the major Arab religion, so long socially inert, may yet be tremendous: the whole Arab world is listening. Nasser chuckled: 'King Saud is defeating himself: he is making his own people think about socialism.'
He continued: 'I am also against Marxist- Leninism because I do not believe in the liquida- tion of classes by force.' He spoke of the hideous fate of the kulaks (`the idea of collective farming is completely foreign to us'). He said that one of the first books he had read on revolution, as a boy, was A Tale of Two Cities. 'I have never forgotten it—those rivers of blood, in the name of social revolution, even after great men like Rousseau and Voltaire.'
He recalled his ideas about class at an earlier stage after the 1952 Revolution. 'When we began, I had the idea that every citizen should join in national unity, a kind of framework in which class confficts and inequity of income might be solved peacefully, by mutual consent. But this really meant that the capitalists must accept giving up something, themselves, for the nation as a whole. And they didn't.
`We should have realised this earlier. They couldn't. It is not always their fault: if you are born into that wealth and that outlook, you will not think of sacrifice.'
The union with Syria, he said, slowed down all their thinking and rethinking, because they 'Great White Father in Washington wants us to build big tepee underground!' felt they could not 'move as fast' in the Syrian Region as in Egypt, and must not throw the two regions even more out of balance. But at the very beginning of 1961 he asked fors special . studies of income structure and ownership of wealth. And both from him and his colleagues one senses that the results brought genuine shock.
'We found that while workers in industries were taking only 27 per cent. of the profits, the number of people earning over £10,000 had doubled from 1959 to 1960. We found people who had actually become millionaires—million- aires—since the Revolution, while our per capita income is only £52. Corruption was increasing. And we learned that, in 1960, the population incipased by 600,000.
'How could we. tackle this—all these backward steps—by piecemeal methods? It would take us years—and a different civil service. And we do not have years to lose. And we could not even freeze the situation : the problem would get worse even while we tried to tackle it piece by piece, sector by sector. By July we had decided: we must make a complete, comprehensive re- adjustment.'
This was the Arab Socialist programme announced in July, 1961. It is immensely com- plicated but, telegraphically, it embraces: public ownership of heavy industry; medium, semi- public; light, private; all export-import public, but not retail outlets; individual share owner- ship limited to £10,000; net private income to £5,000; fixed land-rent ceilings; land ownership cut from 200 to 100 acres, the difference to be redistributed in small plots which are farmed in rotation belts through co-operatives. As parallels to agricultural and consumer co-operatives, all industrial workers—in both public and private sectors—are to receive 25 per cent. of annual profits, in the form of 10 per cent. cash (but an annual limit of £50) and 15 per cent. contribu- tion to social services for the workers. Factories inherently or temporarily with low surplus are to benefit by pooling funds from 'richer' factories.
Nasser stressed to me: 'We believe in owner- ship, but not in exploitative ownership, and our challenge is to guarantee the difference.' He and his colleagues have reiterated that the programme must positively prevent 'State capitalism' domi- nating the community.
Nasser in 1962 is a different man in this sense: he has thought out the application of earlier principles; his brain is packed with statistics, his mind seems to be ranging back and forth across history in search of ideas and useful evidence.
He is not an intellectual (and here there are prob- lems, to be discussed later); he is not a Marxist by any doctrinaire definition that could possiblY help in analysing and criticising this Arab socialism. He does reject the concepts and the practices which we identify as Marxist-Leninist. One statistic helps to explain Nasser's urgency: the share-limit law involves relinquishing some £54 million (compensated in bonds)!Ihe nuny ber of individuals holding this vast sum is onlY 1,200, among 26 million people. In tackling in- equity like this, Nasser has in effect launched a second revolution not only in the UAR but by example all over the Arab world. He knows it; the Arabs know it; and the meaning of this, sense, is far deeper than the 'loss' of Syria.
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