Lesson 25: The Revolution of 23 July 1952 - Factors, Events and Principles

01The factors that led to the revolution

• Freeing Egypt from the British occupation: this was the central aim around which the ideas of the young nationalist officers concentrated, after events proved that the 1936 treaty had not brought real independence to the country.
• The Palestine war (1948): one of the greatest factors arousing resentment among the young officers. They saw with their own eyes on the battlefields the scale of the crime committed by the ruling regime, headed by King Farouk, when the army was sent without training or readiness and without sufficient weapons, ammunition or equipment.
• Political corruption: in the late royal era the political situation reached the utmost degrees of corruption and decay — the country groaned under the British occupation, the system of government was dictatorial, and corrupt parties fought fiercely over the seats of power.
• The corrupt arms affair: one of the main causes of the revolution. The inquiry proved that some of the men of King Farouk's court took part in the arms deals.
• Unequal ownership of agricultural land: a clear imbalance in the distribution of land. The majority of peasants became landless, working as small tenants or agricultural labourers in poverty and want — the phenomenon known as feudalism.
• The absence of workers' rights: there were no laws protecting them — no pensions law, no social insurance, and no fixed compensation in the event of injury.
• The phrase of the martyr Colonel Ahmed Abdel Aziz before he was killed — "the real arena of jihad is in Egypt" — was the truest expression of the psychology of the Egyptian army.

02The Free Officers organisation

• From the beginning of the 1940s the Egyptian army was exposed to a number of political influences that drove its nationalist officers, especially the young ones, towards political work.
• Because army laws forbade soldiers from engaging in politics, political work inside the army took a secret character, so that the officers would not fall under the penalty of the law.
• The affair of 4 February 1942 made the officers feel their dignity had been insulted, and they held several meetings at the officers' club in Zamalek.
• The defeat of the army in Palestine and the exposure of the scandals of the royal regime created a shared intellectual bond among a large number of young nationalist officers of different political trends.
• This national bond was the foundation on which Bakkbashy Gamal Abdel Nasser built the Free Officers organisation after the return of the Egyptian army from Palestine.
• In a few years Nasser gathered the conscious national vanguard of the army's officers — men who believed that the army is not a guard for the king but for the nation.
• Nasser's plan and that of his colleagues was to strip the army of its loyalty to the king so that its loyalty would be to the people.

03The officers' club elections (December 1951 - January 1952)

• The battle of the army officers' club elections drew the attention of public opinion inside and outside the army; people felt it was an open clash between the young nationalist officers and the agents of the palace among the army's commanders, headed by Major-General Hussein Sirri Amer, director of the Border Weapons arm.
• King Farouk had moved Major-General Muhammad Naguib, who had held that post, aside so that his creature Hussein Sirri could take it.
• Muhammad Naguib — by then director of the Infantry arm — was nominated for the chairmanship of the club's board, by agreement between him and the leadership committee of the Free Officers organisation.
• The leadership committee decided to fight the election as a way of testing the strength of the organisation and its influence on opinion among the officers, and made the best use of Naguib's name by placing him at the head of the Free Officers' list of candidates.
• Major-General Muhammad Naguib won the chairmanship of the board by a huge majority over his rivals in the first minutes of 1952 — and this was the first victory of the Free Officers.
• Because the king insisted that the Border Weapons arm must be represented by a member on the board, a meeting was held in June — a witnessed meeting that some historians consider the most dangerous military gathering since the Urabi Revolution.
• The extraordinary general assembly unanimously rejected the proposal to represent the Border Weapons arm. It became clear that the king had lost control of the army and that the army had dropped its loyalty to the king — so the revolution passed from secrecy into publicity.

04The outbreak of the revolution of 23 July 1952

Hastening the date of the revolution

• The leadership committee had intended the revolution to come in 1955, so that the organisation could complete its building-up inside the various arms and units — no easy matter given the multiple security apparatuses and the fact that British and American intelligence never stopped searching for the Free Officers.
• After the Cairo Fire (January 1952) the committee turned to advancing the date by three years, and November 1952 was chosen for the outbreak.
• The chaos that followed the Fire until the revolution forced King Farouk to form four successive ministries without elections, all of them from people not belonging to parties.
• The decision of 16 July 1952 to dissolve the board of the officers' club was among the factors that hastened the date. The leadership committee, chaired by Nasser, held three successive meetings in July to study the situation — especially since the purpose of appointing Ismail Shireen as minister of war was to victimise the officers by every means: dismissal, arrest or displacement.
• An attempt was made to move the date to the night of 22 July, so that the new ministry (the Naguib Hilal ministry of 22/23 July), including the minister of war, would be destroyed before it took its constitutional oath. When that was not possible, the night of 23 July was fixed for the outbreak.

The First Proclamation

• At 7:30 in the morning of 23 July 1952 the First Proclamation of the revolution was broadcast from the Egyptian Radio House. It was read by Bakkbashy Anwar Sadat in the name of Major-General Muhammad Naguib, commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
• It stated that Egypt had passed through a grim period in its recent history of bribery, corruption and instability of government, and that these factors had strongly affected the army, while the bribed and the malicious men caused its defeat in the Palestine war.
• The proclamation declared that the army had taken its own affairs into the hands of men it trusts for their competence, character and patriotism, and that the whole of Egypt would receive the news with joy and welcome.
• All military units in Cairo and in the outlying regions hurried to declare their adherence to the revolution of the army, after the young officers belonging to the Free Officers and their sympathetic colleagues set the old commanders aside from their commands and took the reins themselves. The whole army came under the full control of the revolution's leadership, represented by Major-General Muhammad Naguib.
• From its first hours the revolution enjoyed overwhelming popular support with no precedent, and the crowds gathered around the radio sets to listen to the First Proclamation.

05The departure of King Farouk from Egyptian soil

• After Naguib Hilal's ministry resigned, the former king Farouk formally entrusted Ali Maher with forming the ministry, in response to the demand of the revolution.
• On the evening of the same day a meeting was held at the headquarters at Qubba bridge, attended by most of the leaders of the revolution, and it was decided to depose King Farouk and to send military units from various combat arms to Alexandria to reinforce the garrison there in preparation for the deposition.
• The document of abdication was presented to Farouk, and he signed the royal decree ceding the throne to his heir Prince Ahmed Fuad at Ras el-Tin palace (July 1952).
• Farouk left Egypt on the same day — 26 July 1952.

06The six principles of the revolution

07Exam traps and key takeaways

• The 1936 treaty is a factor only because it proved no real independence — never write that it caused the revolution by being too generous.
• Palestine 1948 radicalised the officers through the regime's crime in sending an untrained, ill-equipped army, not through the strength of the enemy.
• Political work inside the army was secret because army law forbade it — the secrecy has a legal cause, not a foreign one.
• The Free Officers organisation was built by Nasser after the army's return from Palestine; the Zamalek club meetings came earlier, from 4 February 1942.
• Elections sequence: nomination and the win in the first minutes of 1952 (December 1951 campaign) → the extraordinary general assembly in June 1952. The June meeting — not the election — is the one called the most dangerous military meeting since the Urabi Revolution.
• Naguib was director of the Infantry arm when nominated; Hussein Sirri Amer, the palace's man, headed the Border Weapons arm.
• Date plan: 1955 → November 1952 (after the Cairo Fire) → the night of 23 July 1952. The attempt to move it to 22 July failed because it aimed to destroy the ministry before its constitutional oath.
• The trigger that made the date urgent was 16 July 1952: dissolving the club's board and appointing Ismail Shireen minister of war to victimise the officers.
• The First Proclamation: 7:30 a.m., 23 July 1952, read by Anwar Sadat in the name of Muhammad Naguib as commander-in-chief — mixing the two names is a common wrong option.
• Farouk abdicated at Ras el-Tin in favour of his heir Ahmed Fuad and left on 26 July 1952; Ali Maher's ministry came after Naguib Hilal's resignation and at the revolution's demand.
• The six principles: colonialism and its agents · monopoly and capital's control of government · feudalism · social justice · a strong national army · sound democratic life. "Republic", "socialism" and "land reform" are not among them.