'The present Government of Egypt', wrote Doreen Warriner in 1957, 'has ideals but no ideology, as revolutionaries nowadays are expected to have. No single intellectual influence has been predominant. It combined pure nationalists and revolutionaries, held together by Colonel Nasser in a tense union for action.' Today, these words no more reflect the true situation in Egypt. Since 1961 the Egyptian rdgime has increasingly committed itself to 'Arab socialism' as the ideological basis of its policies, and has embarked upon a vigorous, if somewhat tortuous programme of socialization. This conversion to socialism was occasioned primarily by certain facts and developments in the internal life of Egypt. Her long tradition of central government, the consequences of growing contacts and dealings with the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and East Europeans, the Egyptianization of large British and French interests after the Suez War, the formation of the United Arab Republic in 1958 requiring co-ordination of economic policies bycareful planning, the Revolutionary rdgime's resentment at the aloofness of the rich classes from the national struggle for progress, and, finally, the disappointment which set in after the dissolution of union with Syria, have all been among the major factors prodding Egypt along the road to socialism.2