The factors that led to the revolution

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.