The Struggle for the Middle East

The Soviet Union and the Middle East, 1958-68

Walter Laqueur

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781138655423
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317223177
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book, first published in 1969, surveys Soviet policies and Middle Eastern responses during the turbulent 1960s. It deals with changing moods of Turkey and Iran, the Arab-Israeli conflict in the context of big power rivalry in the Middle East, the Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean, and the new Soviet interest in Gulf oil. The author also reviews the changing orientations of Middle Eastern communism in the new age of polycentrism.

1 Introduction

The present study is devoted to a review of Soviet policy in the Middle East during the last decade and to an analysis of its future prospects. It also deals with developments inside the various Middle East countries in so far as they may influence the outcome of the struggle for the Middle East. It is in some ways a sequel to Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East (1956), and The Soviet Union and the Middle East (1959). The shortcomings of these earlier books were, and are, obvious to the author. They were written at a time when little source material was available, and when it was just beginning to be realized that the topic itself was a legitimate subject of study. The general outlines of Soviet policy in the Middle East could be only dimly recognized at the time. Since then the situation has changed radically; as far as source material is concerned, the danger now is not of drought, but of drowning, and many new problems have appeared. In the nineteen-fifties Soviet relations with Iran and Turkey were much less complex than they are today; Soviet interest in Middle East oil barely existed, and there was virtually no Soviet interest in Cyprus, Sudan, Algeria, South Arabia, and a great many other places. There was no Soviet fleet in the Mediterranean and, on a different level, hardly any Soviet writings on the Middle East; but as the area assumed growing importance in Soviet policy, so has the volume of literature expanded. I was tempted at times to bring my two earlier books up to date, but refrained for a number of good reasons. They summarized the early stages (the 'prehistory') of the Soviet drive towards the Middle East. It was not simply a question of continuing the historical narrative and adding fresh material; the whole perspective has changed. I believe that the basic assumption of these two earlier books was correct: the Soviet drive towards the Middle East was gathering momentum in the fifties; given the weakness of the area as a whole and the domestic situation in the Arab world, the Soviet Union had an excellent chance greatly to strengthen its position in the Middle East and perhaps even to become the dominant power there. These assumptions were by no means generally shared fifteen or even ten years ago. Soviet preoccupation with Europe was taken too much for granted, while the prospects of Nasserist Pan-Arabism as an independent political force were overrated.

It was difficult to foresee in the middle fifties exactly what form the radicalization in the Middle East would take in the years to come. The communist camp was still united; no rival centers had arisen to shake the monolithic bloc. We are much wiser now. During this past decade the importance of communist parties has on the whole decreased; there has been a far-reaching rapprochement between a number of Middle East countries and the Soviet Union, but it has largely by-passed the official communist parties in the area. Military dictators and new political groups (such as the neo-Ba'th) have been of far greater significance in this context. Even in the nineteen-fifties there were reasons to doubt the relevance of the doctrinal discussions in Soviet writings as a key to the understanding of Soviet policy in the Middle East. These books and articles were of some interest because they helped to explain shifts in policy; occasionally they reflected internal dissension. Today I feel even more sceptical about their relevance, for they shed very little light on the real mainsprings of Soviet policy. The interests of Russia as a great power have played a role in Soviet foreign policy from its earliest days, and this was, of course, inevitable. As the years passed their specific weight has steadily increased and that of Leninist ideology has steadily declined. It has declined, but not altogether disappeared. Official Soviet doctrine still survives almost in its pristine state, but the discrepancy between theory and practice is still growing, and it is now very difficult to ascertain to what extent even those making the doctrinal pronouncements believe in them. The Soviet political and military leaders are, of course, communists, and any attempt to explain their foreign-policy decisions solely on the basis of traditional power politics is ultimately futile. But what does it mean to be a leading communist in the Soviet Union today? The writings of Marx and Lenin alone are unlikely to provide a satisfactory answer. For this reason I have dealt with doctrinal disputations in this book only in passing; it is still a legitimate subject of study, though no longer a very important one. I have had to neglect some other aspects of Soviet policies in the Middle East, and of Middle East reactions, in order to concentrate on the central issues. To treat the issues touched upon fully and exhaustively, each chapter would have to be expanded into a separate monograph.

Key sections of this book were written during the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968. All history is contemporary history, and even Western historians of ancient Rome and Greece are known to have been influenced by the impact of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. There was an almost overwhelming temptation to deal with the prospects of the Middle East in the light of the Czech crisis, a temptation which had to be resisted. The historian knows from his own and others' experience that the danger of distortion is greatest at a time of crisis; that events which loom very large at the moment of writing may appear in a different perspective a few years later. He knows about the cunning of reason: a great triumph may be the prelude to disaster and a defeat may eventually turn into victory. Lastly, he knows that the future is a priori unpredictable, that there is no inevitability about it, and that even highly probable events may never come to pass. Nevertheless, with all these reservations, a major crisis such as the invasion of Czechoslovakia has its advantages for the historian: all the quasi-problems suddenly disappear and his perception of the essential issues is sharpened. An event of this kind furnishes a sudden and usually brutal test: it clears away the cobwebs of wishful thinking, of irrelevant theories and spurious explanations. It shows that at a time of decision it is power that matters and the firm resolve to use it.

The Soviet leaders have frequently stressed that the area adjacent to their southern borders is of vital concern to them. They regard it as their legitimate sphere of influence. But the Middle East is not Eastern Europe, and the Soviet capacity to intervene there will probably be limited for a number of years to come. Soviet ties, even with Egypt and Syria, are not nearly so close as those with Poland and East Germany, but Moscow has no intention of giving up the bridgehead established in the Middle East at great cost and with great patience over many years. On the contrary, it will try to consolidate and extend it, and for this reason the critical years are still ahead. The Middle East is not intrinsically one of the most important areas in world affairs. It has long ceased to be a crossroads, its military bases are no longer needed, it has no important natural resources other than oil, but there is no lack of oil elsewhere in the world. And yet, in view of the delicate balance of global power, the Soviet Union attributes great importance to the Middle East, and its presence there may have far-reaching political effects in Europe as well as Africa and Asia. From the Soviet point of view, the area has a great attraction, both because of its nearness to its southern frontiers and because of its internal instability. Among Soviet foreign political priorities the Middle East now takes a high place, not because it is intrinsically important, but because it is so weak. In many ways it seems to present the line of least resistance: in the Far East there is the growing threat of China; in Europe any advance beyond the 'red line' would mean a clash with NATO and the Americans. But the place of the Middle East in the contest between the powers has never been clearly defined, and it is therefore likely to remain one of the main danger £ones in world politics in the years to come.

I have received assistance and advice from many institutions and individuals. I am greatly indebted to Dr David Abshire and Professor Alvin Cottrell of the Center for Strategic and International Studies of Georgetown University, who first suggested this study to me and made it possible for me to write it. I owe much to Mr Zeev Ben Shlomo, who helped me in my research, to Miss Diana Langton, my secretary, and to Mrs C. Wichmann and Mr E. Kahn of the Middle East Documents section at the Institute of Contemporary History (Wiener Library) in London, who within a short period have made this a collection of great help to the student of contemporary history.

June 1969

London/Boston, Mass.

2 Prelude: 1945-58

Russian interest in the Ottoman Empire, its involvement in what was then the Eastern Question, antedates the revolutions of 1917 by about 150 years. In Tsarist foreign policy, throughout the nineteenth century, in the ideology of Slavophils and Panslavists the question of Constantinople and the Straits played a central, almost mystical, role. Turkey was about to disintegrate, the Hagia Sofia was at last to return to its rightful owners. The Russian mission in the Near East was the dynamic centre of Russian history; there its manifest destiny would be fulfilled. But the first world war brought not only the demise of the Ottoman Empire, it also caused the downfall of the Romanovs. With the Bolshevik revolution such imperialist ambitions were solemnly forsworn: communist Russia, the pioneer of world revolution, was to be also the friend and ally of all national liberation movements. The industrialized countries of Central and Western Europe were expected to play the leading role in the coming stage of the world revolution; the hopes of Marx and Engels had been centred in the West, and the eyes of Lenin and Trotsky were turned there too, although they did not entirely neglect Asia and the East. About a decade before the revolution they had begun to realize that there was a revolutionary potential in the East, that the colonies and the semi-colonial countries of Asia would not forever remain quiescent. Bolshevism tried to assist them in their fight; the Congress of Baku, calling on the toilers of the East to rise against foreign imperialists as well as against native capitalists and landlords, was the first important milestone in this struggle. The Soviet leaders followed with a great deal of sympathy the fight of the Turks under Kemal and the national movements in Persia and Afghanistan. Not much attention was paid at that time to events in the Arab world. By the standards of those days, the Arabs were a faraway people; most of their countries were not yet even semi-independent. Nor was there a great deal of interest in Zionism, which at that time had just acquired a Jewish national home. Zionism, in the communist view, was an anachronistic, reactionary movement. The salvation of the downtrodden Jewish masses in the East European ghettoes would come with the victory of world revolution. The Jewish question could not be solved in a distant country under the protection of British bayonets. Moscow and the Communist International also attacked the pan-movements of the day – Panislamism, Panarabism, Panturkism; these too were condemned as reactionary in character. Support for 'progressive' movements in the Near East involved Soviet Russia from the beginning in political and doctrinal contradictions, since they could not be expected to embrace Bolshevik ideology and practice lock, stock and barrel. Islam, for instance, still had deep roots in the East, and a frontal attack against it was obviously out of the question, despite communism's unalterable opposition to religion in general.

The existence of Communist parties outside Russia was for the Soviets, needless to say, a matter of gratification, and in theory their interests could never collide with those of the Soviet state. In practice, alas, clashes occurred all too frequently from the very outset. The policies of Kemal Atatürk, the champion of the Turkish struggle for independence, were warmly supported in Russia, and close relations were established between Ankara and Moscow. But the political and military alliance with Russia did not prevent Kemal from suppressing the Turkish communists and from having their leaders assassinated, once they had challenged his rule. Their fate was deeply deplored in Moscow, but support for Kemal was not discontinued. Russia could not afford to be particular in its choice of allies, nor could it ignore the immediate interests of the Soviet state. This kind of dilemma was to recur many times.

With the ebbing of the first revolutionary wave after the first world war, conditions in Europe and Asia became more stable and the hopes for an early victory of the national liberation movements, let alone of the Communist parties, evaporated. Soviet relations with Turkey and Persia remained fairly close; there were no other independent states in the Near East at the time with whom Moscow could directly deal. Stalin prevailed in the struggle for power in the Kremlin; the construction of 'socialism in one country' got under way, and foreign policy was relegated to second place. Revolution, it was announced, was not for export. The Comintern underwent strange contortions. After 1928, in response to a new world crisis, it preached an ultra-revolutionary course of action, refusing to cooperate even with the left-wing leaders of the national movements in the East. 'National reformism' was now anathema; Kemalism was re-examined and found wanting. Only the Communist parries could be relied upon, but they, too, had to be severely purged before becoming truly Bolshevik in character. Followed to its logical conclusion, such a policy would have brought about a complete rupture between the Soviet Union and the national movements in the East. But extreme radicalism did not prevail for very long; by the middle nineteen-thirties the orientation was again towards a united front of all anti-imperialist forces. There was less warmth now in the relations with Turkey and Persia than in the early years after the revolution, but this was by no means the fault of the Russians alone, for with the changes on the international scene Turkey and Persia needed Russia less than in the early twenties. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was deeply absorbed in its domestic problems, while in its foreign policy Europe all but monopolized its attention as both a promise and a danger.

During the first two decades after the revolution and almost up to the end of the second world war, the Near East, once a central preoccupation of Russian statesmen, did not figure high on the list of Soviet priorities. Seen in retrospect, it does not appear that the Soviet Union missed many chances in this part of the world. Of course, the narrow, sectarian approach of the Communist International towards potential allies was not very promising. It was unlikely that anti-religious slogans, with heavy emphasis on the class struggle and on the leading role of the industrial proletariat, would go down well in Turkey, Persia, and the Arab world. But it is doubtful whether Russia would have made much more headway even if Soviet policy had been more flexible and Comintern slogans less sectarian. A revolutionary situation did not yet exist in the Middle East; Britain and France, though facing some unrest, were still firmly in the saddle. Radical Arabs, Turks, and Persians riding the wave of the future were far more likely to opt for nazi Germany and fascist Italy than for Soviet communism.

From time to time the Middle East cropped up in diplomatic negotiations. When Molotov, then Soviet Foreign Minister, saw Hitler and Ribbentrop in Berlin in November 1940, the 'general direction of the Persian Gulf' was mentioned as one of the obvious spheres of Soviet interest to be discussed at some future stage. But Hitler had different plans; during the first two years of fighting on the Eastern front the survival of the Soviet state was at stake, and Russia's Middle East interests were not energetically pursued. In cooperation with the Western allies, Soviet troops occupied part of Iran, and at the end of the war showed great reluctance to withdraw. But Iran had been occupied primarily to prevent a pro-Axis coup, as had happened earlier in Iraq, and to safeguard the delivery of Allied lend-lease supplies at a time when many other routes had been cut. Turkey was neutral during the war, but as the tide turned the Soviet Union became more and more critical of Turkish policy. Towards the end of the war the demand was pressed both for control over the Straits and for the surrender of certain Turkish provinces. While Russia's main concerns were still focused on Europe, and while the political and military problems of absorbing Eastern Europe preoccupied Soviet leaders, interest in the Middle East also reawakened. The claim for a Soviet mandate over Tripolitania made at the Potsdam Conference was perhaps not meant very seriously and was not pressed strongly when it encountered resistance. But it was indicative of the growing awareness in Moscow that the Soviet Union was now a global power and that there were many new opportunities to strengthen its position in various parts of the world.

The Palestine issue came to the fore as the war ended. Almost six million Jews had been killed in nazi-occupied Europe, and the struggle of the Jewish community in Palestine for national independence came to preoccupy first the powers, and later the United Nations. Soviet policy, which had been violently hostile to Zionism, was modified and favored the establishment of a Jewish as well as an Arab state in Palestine. This pro-Israeli phase in Soviet policy did not endure, but while it lasted it was an important factor in the creation of the Jewish state.

Soon after the war the Arab world entered a period of prolonged crisis. Syria and Lebanon attained independence, and anti-British feeling in Egypt and Iraq became far more intense than ever before. With the downfall of the Axis, many erstwhile supporters of fascism came to regard the Soviet Union as a potential ally in the struggle against the West. They were not necessarily willing to embrace the basic tenets of Marxist-Leninist doctrine, but there was considerable sympathy for an ideology favoring radical change – quite apart from the growing prestige of the Soviet Union as the main champion of anti-Westernism. As the war ended there was in the Middle East a growing reservoir of goodwill towards the Soviet Union. At first, Soviet policy made little use of these new opportunities. The intransigence of the Communist parties at the height of the cold war made it all but impossible for them to collaborate with other parties. Soviet political thinking contemplated a sharpening of the global conflict; the independence achieved by many Asian and African countries after the second world war was 'sham', not real, the leaders of these countries, the 'petty-bourgeois nationalists', were potential traitors – if they had not already betrayed the national interest. Stalin was firmly convinced that in between the Soviet bloc and the camp headed by the United States there was no middle ground; the slogans of positive neutralism, of a 'zone of peace', let alone of peaceful coexistence, were still in the future. In the view of the Soviet leaders communism could make decisive progress only in countries under the direct control of the Soviet army.

There were a few signs of a shift from this rigid position even before Stalin's death, but only after 1953 was there a basic reorientation of policy. Now Turkey was told that Soviet territorial claims had been dropped, and the attitude towards the Arab national movement became much more friendly. The colonels who had overthrown King Farouk, and who had at first been denounced as fascist reactionaries, were now reappraised and upgraded. Syria became of considerable interest to Moscow in view of the growing influence of the extreme left in that country. The idea that only an industrial proletariat could lead a national revolution was tacitly dropped, and the progressive character of 'military socialism' was discovered. There was even a certain improvement in Soviet-Israeli relations. At the height of the anti-Semitic purge, during Stalin's last year, diplomatic relations had been severed by Moscow. They were renewed some months after his death, but relations never again became really close, for in the Arab-Israeli dispute the Soviet Union gave increasing support to the Arabs. The discovery of the revolutionary potential of the Arab world was the great turning-point in Soviet Middle East policy in the post-Stalin period. The great breakthrough came in 1955 – the year of the Bandung Conference, when Bulganin and Khrushchev visited India, and when, perhaps most significantly, the arms deal with Egypt was signed. The initiative for this deal came at least as much from Egypt as from the Soviet Union. Colonel Nasser was committed to Arab unity under Egyptian leadership, yet the Baghdad Pact, the defensive alliance then sponsored by the Western powers, was splitting the Arab camp and jeopardizing his plans. Arms were needed by Egypt for all too obvious reasons; Nasser wanted to reassert Egypt's strength, to forge an Arab bloc which under his leadership would be a real power in world affairs. He realized that economic development, however urgent, would not give quick results; given the backwardness of the Arab world, it would be at best a long-drawn-out process. The mood both among leaders and the public was not one of patient waiting. Building up Arab military power seemed a short-cut, and the Soviet Union offered arms in much greater quantities and on far more advantageous terms than the West. At this stage the Soviet Union probably wanted to keep out of Middle East internal conflicts; the arms deal, it was asserted, had nothing to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict. For the Russians this was a side issue; their main purpose was, of course, anti-Western. But the arms shipments directly affected the political situation throughout the area; tension continued to grow and the Soviet Union gradually became involved in the Arab-Israeli confrontation as well as in other local conflicts. The Suez crisis of 1956 helped to cement the Soviet-Egyptian alliance. On November 5, 1956, Bulganin sent notes to Britain, France, and Israel announcing that the Soviet Union was firmly resolved to use force to destroy the aggressors and restore peace in the Middle East; the possibility of attacking these countries with ballistic missiles was mentioned. As for Israel, the note stated that its very existence had been put in question. Whether these threats really stopped the war is more than doubtful; they came only after American pressure on Britain and France had made it virtually certain that the 'expedition...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Prelude: 1945-58
• 3 The Neutralization of the Northern Tier
• 4 Russia, Zionism, Israel
• 5 The Soviet Union and the Arab World
• 6 Oil for the Lamps of Eastern Europe?
• 7 Trade and Aid
• 8 The Soviet Military Presence
• 9 Communism, Maoism, Arab Socialism
• 10 Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Documents
• Index