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PREFACE
The work here presented is arranged in three books. The first comprises a study of the landowners and the men of money and commerce of prerepublican Iraq. The accent of the discussion is on the wealthier or more influential layers of these classes in the period of the monarchy, that is, in the years 1921-1958. However, as some of the traits of the social structure in monarchic days had their roots in the more distant past, the analysis ranges, at certain points, back to Ottoman times.
Apart from throwing some light on the circumstances, the power, the function, the way of thought, the political behavior, the social standing, and the origin of the position or of the wealth of the landed, commercial, and moneyed elements, the aim of this part of the study is to find out whether a class approach would open to view historical relations or social features that would otherwise remain beyond vision or, to put it more generally, whether such an approach, when applied to a post-World War I Arab society, is capable of yielding new insights or valuable results.
Anyhow, it is hoped that the first book will render it easier to understand the second and third books, which deal with the Communists, Ba'thists, and Free Officers, that is, with the movements that have been, in their leading layers, the chief expressions of Iraq's intermediate classes, the laboring people being of real importance only in the Communist ranks and merely in some areas or at certain points in the past. To trace the origins of these movements, seek out the roots of the thoughts and emotions by which they were impelled, describe their organizational forms and social structures, reconstruct their internal life in its significant moments, follow them through the ebbs and flows of their fortunes, and assess the impact they had on their country and its history-such have been the main preoccupations in the second and third books.
Though in these pages adequate consideration is given to the Ba'th party and the Free Officers, the history of the Communists is represented on a larger scale. One reason is that this history forms the original nucleus out of which the books in question have grown. But the Communists also long anteceded the other forces, and have had deeper influence upon the intelligentsia and at the mass level of society.
Perhaps the exposition lapses here and there into minutiae or verges on a scholarly overkill. Particularly in the chapters relating to the early phases of communism, when the party was composed of a small number of isolated figures, too much attention may have been given to individual characteristics; but the patient reader will realize that then-in the thirties-much depended on personal and accidental factors, the movement having become objectively grounded only in the succeeding decade. Moreover, even in these chapters care was taken not to lose sight of the wider context, and to bring to the surface-except where otherwise necessary-only the private details that could simultaneously throw light upon the condition of society. At the same time, the premises of the discussion throughout have been real living Communists and Ba'thists and Free Officers-in their real concrete circumstances and interactions.
The present work draws in part upon the secret records of Iraq's Directorate General of Internal Security, that is, among other things, upon: (a) the files of the Iraqi political police on the various parties and on every active political figure in the country in the period of the monarchy; (b) papers and records seized by the police and belonging to the leading committees of the Communists and Ba'thists; (c) Communist manuscripts found in the prisons of Kut and Ba'qubah; (d) verbatim records of the investigation of the important members of the Communist cadre captured by the Ba'thists in 1963; (e) the secret British Intelligence Reports, Abstracts of Intelligence, and Supplements to the Abstracts of Intelligence referring to the period 1917-1931; and (f) the confidential files of Major J. F. Wilkins, one-time head of the "Criminal Investigation Department" and of the "Special Branch," and "Technical Advisor'' of the Iraq government.
The work is also based upon the British public records, Arabic printed sources, the unpublished and detailed memoirs of Engineer Colonel Rajab 'Abd-ul-Majrd, secretary of the Free Officers' Movement, and on a mass of interviews with Iraqis of various colorings and in different areas of life, including activists and leading figures.
The vast amount of data in the police records was in part arid and unimaginative. Much of the rest was unwieldy and not easily reconcilable nor readily woven into a meaningful sequence. I used these records, to be sure, with caution, and took account only of the evidence that appeared incontrovertible or was least open to doubt. I also checked and counterchecked with the better informed of eyewitnesses and participants, and took extreme care not to commit errors or injustices. But I am aware of my limitations, and hope that knowledgeable Iraqis will call to my attention mistakes or shortcomings that I could not avoid.
In the course of my research, when I met in the prison of Ba'qubah one of the leading Communists, I began, as was my wont with the political prisoners I interviewed, by making clear that I had read his personal police file and wanted only to acquaint myself with his own version of his personal history. I also assured him that, in undertaking the study of the party to which he belonged, I was impelled by no other motive than the desire to understand it and that, to the extent that my limited vision permitted, I would be faithful to the facts and would publish the results whether they be to the advantage of the Communists or to their disadvantage. The Communist leader wondered whether, in view of my connection with an American university, detachment on a subject like communism was at all possible.
I recall this incident to emphasize the standpoint from which the present account has been written. It has not been my intention to make a partisan or polemical contribution, or to add to the controversies that torment Iraq. Far from it. Perhaps it is not possible to write a history of a Communist party that is neither pro-Communist nor anti-Communist. But this is, anyhow, what I have sought to do. This has also been my guideline with regard to the other political and social forces. Of course, it does not follow that my way of looking at things is not involved in these pages. In any historical work one does, there is history, but there is also always something of oneself. This is unavoidable. One if only unwittingly, bares one's own narrowness of experience and one's intellectual and temperamental inadequacies.
Many years ago, when I was a student in the United States and, on account of the lack of source material, came to a standstill in my work on Iraq, 'Abd-ul-Hamid Damirchi, a friend from Baghdad, offered to advance me the cost of a trip to his country. His generous loan, which I was only able to repay after four long years, subsequent research fellowships or grants from the Harvard Russian and Middle East Centers and the Center of International Studies at M. I. T., and a nine months' residence as a Senior Research Fellow at Princeton made possible the study I now present.
At one point or another in the course of this undertaking I received courteous encouragement from the late Professors Merle Fainsod and H. A. R. Gibb, and from Professors Adam Ulam, Charles Issawi, Elie Salem, George Kirk, L. Carl Brown, Robert A. Fernea, and Nadav Safran. I have been especially fortunate in the unfailing patience and interest of Professor William E. Griffith, the sympathetic understanding of Professor A. J. Meyer, and the consistent support of my department at the American University of Beirut. The much appreciated kindnesses of Professor Abram Udovitch and Sanford G. Thatcher and a generous subsidy from the Earhart Foundation, obtained through the invaluable help of Professors William E. Griffith, A. J. Meyer, and Harold Hanham, facilitated the publication of the manuscript. To Professors Gil Gunderson, Samir Khalaf, and Gerald Obermeyer I am very grateful for their comments on Chapter One, and to Margaret Case for the care and conscientiousness with which she prepared the book for the press. I would also like to thank Laury Egan for the design, Trudy Glucksberg for the maps and artwork, and Helen Mann for varityping the tables and the manuscript.
The photographs were obtained from the Public Security Division of Iraq's Ministry of Interior, or from the persons portrayed or their families, or through the courtesy of Michel Abu Jawdah, editor-in-chief of An-Nahar (Beirut), and Dr. Ahmad Chalabi of Iraq, or reproduced from the publications of the Iraq Government; Pierre Ponafidine (Tsarist consul general in Istanbul), Life in the Moslem East (London, 1911); Sir Arnold T. Wilson (one-time civil commissioner of Iraq), Mesopotamia, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1930-1931); and Great Britain, Naval Intelligence Division, Iraq and the Persian Gulf (London, 1944).
The maps are based on Dr. Ahmad Süsah's Atlas-ul-'lraq-il-ldari (The Atlas of Administrative Iraq), Baghdad, 1952, with information that relates to this book added by the author.
I am also greatly indebted to those very many Iraqis in the government, the opposition, the army, the universities, in the business and tribal worlds, and in the prisons and the underground, who are cited in the footnotes or in the text or must remain nameless, and who never denied me a helping hand and contributed so much to my understanding of their country and their people . |
