The Cairo Forces Parliament was a meeting of

British soldiers The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

in February 1944 which voted for the nationalisation of banks, land, mines, and transport in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. Among those that took part was Leo Abse who later became a Labour MP. Another participant who later became a Labour MP was Henry Solomons, who was appointed the Labour 'Prime Minister' of the Cairo Forces Parliament. Sam Bardell, a member of the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

was secretary and the parliament attracted political activists from the

Common Wealth Party The Common Wealth Party (CW) was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom with parliamentary representation in the House of Commons from 1942 (the middle of the Second World War) until 1946. Thereafter CW continued to function, e ...

and the

Trotskyist Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...

movement. The Parliament was eventually shut down because of the growing support for the revolutionary ideas promoted by members of the Workers' International League. Adopting the tactics of the

Proletarian Military Policy The Proletarian Military Policy was a policy adopted by the Fourth International in response to World War II. It was an attempt to apply transitional demands such as trade union control of military training and the election of officers to transform ...

, they were elected to the positions of Prime Minister and Home Secretary. Their revolutionary work was successful in winning the support of many soldiers, as described by

Ted Grant Edward Grant (born Isaac Blank; 9 July 1913 – 20 July 2006) was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain. He was a founding member of the group Militant tendency, Militant and later Socialist Appeal (UK, 1992), ...

"From the reports of our soldier comrades, the Eighth Army soldiers were saying that after the war they would refuse to disarm, and return to Britain with their guns to ensure that things would change. This was the mutinous mood that was developing amongst these troops. At the 1943 conference of our tendency, I made the point, to illustrate the thing graphically, that the military establishment though it their army, but in fact, the soldiers of the Eighth Army were in rebellion. This reflected the revolutionary developments in the army. It was our Eighth Army in that it was being transformed. It was becoming revolutionary and in the process of moving over to the side of the working class."

Similar parliaments also took place within the British Army in this period of the war. In the British Army in India such parliaments existed briefly at both

Mhow Mhow, officially Dr. Ambedkar Nagar, is a town in the Indore district in Madhya Pradesh state of India. It is located south-west of Indore city, towards Mumbai on the old -Agra Mumbai Road. It is the birthplace of Babasaheb B. R. Ambedkar . ...

and Deolali transit camp, and perhaps others. The Mhow parliament took place six months after the Cairo parliament, with 70-100 members and official blessing, although was soon shut down from above. The original structure of the Mhow parliament had a government and left wing opposition, but due to a larger number of left-wingers in the parliament the government dissolved and was replaced by the left party, with a centre and right opposition parties.Fyrth, Jim. An Indian Landscape 1944-1946. Socialist History Occasional Papers Series No 12. 2001. . Page 19.

References

Bibliography

* Andy Baker, ''The Cairo Parliament, 1943-4: An Experiment in Military Democracy'', Leigh on Sea, Essex : Partizan Press 1989 * Gilbert Hall, ''The Cairo Forces’ Parliament : the inside story'', London : C. A. Smith, a. 1948 * Jim Fyrth, ''An Indian Landscape 1944-1946'', Socialist History Occasional Papers Series No 12. 2001.

External links

Independent Obituary of Leo Abse, a member of the Cairo Parliament who later became an MP
1944 in the British Empire Cairo in World War II British Army in World War II 1944 in Egypt 1944 in politics 1944 conferences 1944 in military history February 1944 in Africa {{UK-poli-stub

See also

References

Bibliography

External links