"The Great Deception"

Abstract

This chapter examines how the relations between the military junta and its allies, particularly communists and the Muslim Brotherhood, deteriorated. The Democratic Movement for National Liberation (DMNL), the largest and least doctrinaire communist movement in Egypt, and Muslim Brotherhood had collaborated with the Free Officers and played significant supporting roles in their coup. The officers were thus confronted with two crucial questions: First, what debt, if any, did they owe their allies? Second, what ideological influence would these movements exert on the course of social and political reform? The chapter shows that the Free Officers gradually distanced themselves from the Muslim Brotherhood and abruptly turned on the communists. It considers the Command Council of the Revolution's (CCR) decision to outlaw the Muslim Brotherhood as well as its campaign against communism. It argues that the CCR's relations with the Muslim Brotherhood and the communist movements were influenced more by power politics than by ideology.