The Communist Party’s activities among the peasantry

Abstract

Abstract Although the activities of the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) were primarily centred in the major cities, the party did not neglect the countryside. During the 1940s and 1950s, the ICP’s cadres played a central role in forming peasant associations in several regions of the country particularly in Kurdistan and the Middle Euphrates. Communist-led peasant movements tended to focus on legal rights and economic demands, scoring some impressive gains for Iraq’s most destitute classes. These activities also helped spread general notions of social and political justice, democracy, citizenship, class-consciousness and socialism. This form of activist education would play a significant role in the success of the anti-Monarchic revolution of 1958 and the subsequent agrarian reform programmes.