Democratic Palestine : 3 (ص 51)
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- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 3 (ص 51)
- المحتوى
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ing the working class and its vanguard parties of democratic
liberties. Overt and covert attacks on communism were
launched. There were the prevailing petit bourgeois illusions
concerning what is termed «the unity of the working people»,
«social harmony» and different. modes of «national and local
socialism».
In contrast, the revolutionary experience in Democratic
Yemen represents a different model, which shows the possibil-
ity of petit bourgeois, revolutionary democratic forces leading
the national democratic revolution towards the socialist
perspective. This is because this experience occured in dis-
tinct economic, social and political conditions related to the
specific balance of class forces in South Yemen.
Besides British colonial domination, the economic situa-
tion in South Yemen was characterized by the domination of
feudal and semi-feudal relations of production, manifest in the
sultanate system. Capitalist relations of production were insuf-
ficiently developed, and the bourgeoisie had not crystallized as
a class. Meanwhile, the other exploiting strata, such as mer-
chants, comprador and the agents of foreign companies, were
subordinate to international monopoly capital; their economic
and political interests were intertwined with international
monopoly capitalism. They were thus a class force hostile to
the dynamic classes and strata in the national democratic
revolution.
The Yemeni working class, however, had achieved a cer-
tain level of growth and acquired class and national experience
while fighting the capitalist exploitation in the British installa-
tions. The class alignment in South Yemen before the victory of
the national democratic revolution had a unique character, not
present in many countries prone to national democratic libera-
tion: The emergence of a working class possessing class and
national experience, while its class opponent, «the Yemeni
bourgeoisie», was not definitively constituted. This created
one of the objectives for the accumulating role of the Yemeni
working class, and its immense influence on the subsequent
development of the revolution in a progressive direction. This
enabled the achievement of the tasks of the national democra-
tic revolution and created economic, social and ideological
prerequisites for developing the revolution towards its socialist
perspective.
There is another characteristic which distinguishes the
development in Democratic Yemen from the other Arab coun-
tries where the national democratic revolution was led by the
petit and middle bourgeoisie: The revolutionary democratic
elements that led the revolution were from the toiling social
strata, more closely connected with the masses. They were
removed from the influence of bourgeois ideology, which was
and remains to be the prevailing ideology in Arab societies. For
the leadership of the revolution, this simplified the gradual
transition, without great obstacles, towards Marxist-Leninist
thought and the relatively rapid break with bourgeois ideology.
The victory of the national revolution, and the declaration
of independence on November 30, |967, put the southern part
of Yemen at a crossroads between capitalism and socialism;
between limiting the revolution to the bourgeois domain, or
unleashing its consequent development. Achieving political
independence and directing a blow against feudalism is
nothing other than the beginning of the achievement of the
tasks of the national democratic revolution. The question was
now posed how to develop it. This question led to a hard strug-
gle between the revolutionary and the conservative forces, and
between the most revolutionary elements and the reformist
leadership. The revolutionary democratic leadership was able
to decide this question in favor of the revolution and the toiling
masses in the Corrective Move of June 1969. This set the
country on the path of achieving the tasks of the national demo-
cratic revolution with a socialist perspective.
Instead of slackness, letting the revolution develop spon-
taneously, the leadership of the revolution and the state aimed
at laying an overall plan for developing the country, overstep-
ping capitalism and creating the economic, social and ideolog-
ical prerequisites for moving towards socialist development.
An organic part of this plan was restricting the growth of the
emerging national bourgeoisie, i.e. securing the required con-
ditions for preventing capitalist elements from becoming a
class, and their institutions from becoming economically inde-
pendent structures. Thus, the revolution neither allowed the
automatic growth of the capitalist elements, nor made conces-
sions to them.
Through the first three-year and five-year plans for
development, the revolutionary government created progres-
sive economic models in the different sectors of production.
After a radical agrarian reform to the benefit of the toiling peas-
ants, state and cooperative sectors emerged alongside the pri-
vate and mixed sectors, all operating under the supervision of
the state. Moreover, blows were dealt to the comprador and big
land owners; foreign enterprises were nationalized, in particu-
lar the oil refinery. The revolution aimed to follow the principle
of scientific economic planning, which played a big role in
resolving many economic, social and cultural tasks.
The following measures were enacted: a comprehensive
program for the development of national industry and for
rebuilding agriculture, free of the exploitative relations of
feudalism and capitalism; spreading cooperative production in
the rural areas; the state’s establishment of a national system
of trade and finance in order to provide funding for investment
in the productive sectors; the advancement of national culture
and educational programs.
These measures dealt a gigantic blow to the economic
and political influence of the exploiting classes and strata.
They thus created conditions conducive to the formation and
growth of new social forces with deep interests in furthering the
revolution: the national working class, agricultural laborers and
peasants of the cooperatives, side by side with a broad strata
of revolutionary intellectuals. Together, they form the base for
the transition to socialism.
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51 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 3
- تاريخ
- مايو ١٩٨٤
- المنشئ
- الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين
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