Palestine Communist Party

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The Palestinian Communist Party (in Yiddish:פאלעסטינישע קומוניסטישע פרטיי, Palestiner Kumunistishe Partie, abbreviated PKP) was a political party in British Mandate of Palestine formed in 1923 through the merger of the Palestinian Communist Party and the Communist Party of Palestine. In 1924 the party was recognized as the Palestinian section of the Communist International.[1]

In 1923 the party congress a position of support was adopted in favour of the Arab national movement as a movement "opposed to British imperialism and denounced Zionism as a movement of the Jewish bourgeoisie allied to British imperialism", a move that won it membership of the Comintern (Younis, 2000, p. 117). The Party was also opposed to Zionist settlement in Palestine and to the Histadrut and its Jewish labor policy (Bernstein, 2000, p. 218).

During the mid-1920s the party began recruiting Arab members. According to British intelligence sources, the first Arab joined the party in 1924. By 1925 the party had 8 Arab members. In that year the party was in contact with the Arab-Palestinian Workers Organization. Simultaneously the party establish relations with elite sections of the local Arab society. According to Halliday, many Christian Arabs were attracted towards the party since they, being Orthodox, felt emotional bonds with Russia. However, when the Comintern made its ultra-left turn in 1928 and denounced cooperation with national bourgeoisies in the colonies, the process of strengthening of the party amongst the Arab population was stalled. In 1930 the Comintern did yet another sharp turn, urging its Palestinian section to speedily increase the Arab representation amongst its cadres and leaders.[1]

During Stalin's time, the party militants in the USSR suffered from heavy purges, including numerous people close to party leader Leopold Trepper. Daniel Averbach, one of the founders of the party, was so brutally beaten that he went mad. (Radzisnki, 1996)

The party was dissolved by the Comintern in 1943. The majority of the Arab members formed the National Liberation League (Usbat al-Taharrur al-Watani), which would in 1947 be the only Arab Palestinian party to support the 1947 UN Partition Plan, in line with the official position of the Soviet Union. After the formation of the State of Israel, the Communist Party of Israel was founded within its boundaries in 1948, by former PKP members and the branches of the National Liberation League within the areas of the new state.

From 1951 the Jordanian Communist Party organized Palestinians in the West Bank while a new Palestinian Communist Organization mobilized members in Gaza. In 1975 a Palestinian Communist Organization was also formed in the West Bank as a branch of the Jordanian party and in 1982 this severed ties with Jordan and merged with the organization in Gaza to become the new Palestine Communist Party (Connell, 2001, p. 61). This Party later became the Palestinian People's Party and joined the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1987 (Kawar, 1996, p. xii).

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Early Communism in Palestine, Fred Halliday, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Winter, 1978), pp. 162-169
  • Bernstein, Deborah S. (2000). Constructing Boundaries: Jewish and Arab Workers in Mandatory Palestine. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-4539-9
  • Connell, Dan (2001). Rethinking Revolution: New Strategies for Democracy & Social Justice: The Experiences of Eritrea, South Africa, Palestine and Nicaragua. The Red Sea Press. ISBN 1569021457
  • Kawar, Amal (1996). Daughters of Palestine: Leading Women of the Palestinian National Movement. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-2845-1
  • Younis, Mona M. (2000). Liberation and Democratization: The South African & Palestinian National Movements. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-3299-5
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