The Massacre of the Communist Party (Part 3 of 3)

Rashid Abdel Rahim
What Did the Communist Party Gain from the Coup of 19 July 1971?
The July coup was a genuine test of the philosophical and political principles upon which the Sudanese Communist Party claimed to be founded.
It tested the Party’s position on socialism, democracy, the working class, justice, and individual freedoms.
The Communist Party participated directly in the 25 May 1969 coup, both operationally and through explicit political support. Its influence extended from membership of the Revolutionary Command Council to ministerial appointments and mass organisations, including the Socialist Forces, the Vanguard movement, and the Revolutionary Guard.
The Party offered what the author regards as a simplistic and naïve justification for its involvement in the May coup, arguing that it was a response to the expulsion of its two Members of Parliament following the Teachers’ Training Institute incident, in which a Communist student was accused of insulting Aisha, the Mother of the Believers (may Allah be pleased with her) in connection with the Qur’anic account of the Hadith al-Ifk (the Incident of the Slander).
The expulsions were the result of a parliamentary decision. In the author’s view, they should therefore have been opposed through parliamentary procedures, protest within the legislature, mobilisation of sympathetic members, or broader public campaigns defending freedom of religion. Responding to a parliamentary decision with armed force, the author argues, was incompatible with parliamentary principles and constituted an unmistakably authoritarian act.
The Communist Party supported the May regime throughout its period in power and, according to the author, endorsed many of its undemocratic and repressive policies, including the dissolution of political parties, confiscation of property, nationalisation of companies, and other measures.
The author further contends that the Party bore responsibility for the government’s actions during the Wad Nubawi and Aba Island operations against the Ansar movement, which resulted in significant violence.
Among the actions the author describes as particularly objectionable were allegations directed against Imam Al-Hadi Al-Mahdi, accusing him of drunkenness and immoral behaviour. Photographs of bottles of alcohol and women’s undergarments were reportedly displayed and presented as having been found in his bedroom in an attempt to justify the government’s military actions.
According to the author, Imam Al-Hadi was entirely removed from such conduct, and these allegations represented behaviour incompatible with honour, ethical standards, and the proper conduct of political disagreement.
The author argues that the Party’s greatest departure from the principles of justice and humanity occurred during the Guest House Massacre, discussed in previous instalments of this series.
In the author’s assessment, these actions reflected the conduct of the Communist Party, which had played a central role in establishing the May regime and defending many of its major policies through its influence over the media. The Party, he argues, exercised considerable control by placing its members in senior positions within the Ministry of Information, newspapers, the Sudan News Agency (SUNA), radio, and television.
The May government, encouraged by the Communist Party, also sought to replicate aspects of communist political organisation by establishing semi-military youth and women’s organisations. These included the May Vanguard movement for children and the National Guard for women, which, according to the author, were intended to mobilise and militarise Sudanese society.
The author concludes that this historical record does not support describing the Party as either socialist or democratic. Rather, he argues that its conception of freedom, democracy, and justice extended only to itself and its supporters, while denying those same rights to its opponents. In support of this argument, he cites the lawyer and poet Kamal Al-Jazouli, referring to one of his well-known expressions.
Attempts to deny the Communist Party’s involvement in the July 1971 coup, the author argues, are unconvincing. Explanations claiming that the coup was carried out solely by Communist officers and their supporters within the armed forces, or Mohamed Ibrahim Nugud’s assertion that the Party’s Central Committee had taken no decision, are, in the author’s opinion, inconsistent with the Party’s reputation for organisational discipline and cohesion.
He asks how a party widely regarded as one of the strongest communist organisations in the region could have failed to exercise control over such a strategically important military sector, particularly one that it had helped establish and over which civilian Party leaders exercised influence.
The Communist Party has consistently described itself as a class-based party committed to securing the rule of the working class. The author asks whether this objective was ever realised.
According to Marxist-Leninist theory, history is driven by class struggle and the working class is destined ultimately to assume political leadership throughout the world.
The author argues that contemporary economic development has fundamentally altered these assumptions. Technological progress and automation have transformed many forms of manual labour into technical and mechanised occupations, while the numerical size and political influence of industrial workers have continued to decline.
He further argues that international communism eventually divided into two principal schools of thought. One, led by the Soviet Union, maintained that the industrial working class would lead the socialist transformation of society. The other, led by China, placed greater emphasis on the revolutionary role of the peasantry.
The Soviet Union ultimately collapsed from within during the period of Perestroika and, in the author’s view, failed in its long-standing confrontation with what it regarded as imperialism, represented primarily by the United States.
China, by contrast, has emerged as a major global power, achieving remarkable advances in agriculture, industry, and technology while becoming a formidable competitor to the United States.
The author further contends that the Sudanese Communist Party has itself become aligned with what it once described as imperialism. He argues that many of its former members relocated to the United States, where they joined research institutions, some of which he characterises as organisations with political objectives operating under academic cover.
According to the author, these individuals subsequently embraced Western policy positions and became active in Sudanese political affairs.
The author concludes that Marxist theory has steadily declined in intellectual influence. Even within universities and academic institutions, he argues, Marxism no longer occupies a significant place. He doubts that, in contemporary Sudan, more than a handful of university theses have been devoted to Marxist philosophy or dialectical materialism.
In his closing assessment, the author argues that communism has become more a subject of historical reflection than a viable political project—struggling merely to survive rather than aspiring to govern or dominate.

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