A leftist labour movement in the Sudan in the early 1920s: fact or fiction?

Abstract

A striking view which has recently gained some popularity in the Sudan is Ja'far Muhammad Ali Bakhit's1 assertion that the Sudan experienced in 1924 a strong leftist trade union movement. This movement, it is claimed, was very much behind the agitation of that year which was led by the White Flag League (WFL),2 and which, after a bloody armed confrontation with the Sudan Government, failed in its bid to dislodge the British mainly because of the failure of the Egyptian Army in the Sudan to fulfil its promise to come to the support of the Sudanese rebels at the decisive moment. According to Bakhit a Sudanese by the name of Ali Ahmad Salih (1883?1975)3 was responsible for setting up a labour movement in the town of Atbara the headquarters of the Sudan Railways and later on in Khartoum itself. That labour movement, Bakhit further claims, managed to rally behind the 1924 leadership the whole of the working class; and together with the immense organising abilities of Salih, had the effect of making the WFL a power to be reckoned with when the rebels brandished their guns in November 1924 and fought a losing battle against the British in the streets of Khartoum. Now, it would have certainly been most gratifying for Bakhit had he heard Salih himself telling the story of how he set up that trade union movement, and who had influenced him most in this respect. Salih opened his heart to the first Sudanese ambassador to be accredited to Cairo (where Salih had been living since 1946) following the overthrow of parliamentary democracy in the Sudan on 25 May 1969. He entrusted the ambassador with his memoirs from which the relevant parts for our purpose here will be given in full before any comment is attempted to be passed on them. 'Three Armenians', Salih is said to have revealed,