early history of the Iraqi working class – the 1931 General Strike against the Municipal Fees
Law. This event transformed the apparent setbacks of the railway strike into more concrete results
cementing them further into the broader context of the early nationalist struggle. The general strike lasted for fourteen days bringing Baghdad to a complete halt. It was described by British officials as ‘a frenzy’ and ‘a fanfare of riffraff,’234 while the Iraqi historian and chronicler Abdul Razzāq al-Hasani captured the feelings of the Iraqi plebian when he called it ‘the silent revolution of the people.’235 As mentioned earlier, the government hastily passed a law in June 1931 increasing municipal taxes by threefold. Debate in Parliament was overridden by PM Nuri al- Saīd, and the law was ultimately passed after its third reading.236 The law itself was bordering on the absurd as it affected everyone from the laboring masses. Not one craft, industry or profession was spared. A revised scale of around 119 different taxes was levied on all aspects of everyday
233 V.I. Lenin, “On Strikes,” in Collected Works, Volume 5 (Moscow: Progressive Publishers, 1960 [1899]), 310-19, my emphasis.
234 al-Humaid, supra, ft. 219, at 14
235 Abdul Razzaq al-Hasanī. Tarikh al-Wizarat al-Iraqiya (the history of the Iraqi Cabinets), Vol. 3, at 152.
life.237 All workers had to pay a percentage from their income. The taxes were so high that it was impossible to expect any worker to pay them and still have enough for his daily needs.238
The Jamʿīyat began to organize against this law, and after a petition led nowhere, a
general strike was called on June 30, 1931.239 The Baghdadi public responded enthusiastically to this call and workers stopped working – all the coffee shops, artisan workshops, and pharmacies shut. Public transportation came to a complete halt. There was a deafening silence in the ordinarily busy streets of Baghdad.240 The government baffled by this unprecedented course of events responded with threats reaffirming the individual’s liberty in operating his business, while cautioning that it would not allow anyone to ‘threaten the freedoms of others’ with their actions.241 The government deployed the police (some on horseback) to the streets of Baghdad to intimidate people to get back to work.242 The main demands of the strikers were not merely the annulment of the current law, but the reduction of the taxes in the previous law, coupled with the workers’ demand for dealing with the issue of unemployment and the release of all those who had been imprisoned for striking.243
The leaders of the strike, including al-Qazzāz, Mohammed Makī al-Ashtārī244, Abdullah al-Badrī245 and others were all arrested for incitement under the Baghdadi Penal Code.246 Yet the authorities began negotiations with them in prison, where al-Qazāzz insisted that the annulment of the law was a precondition for ending the strike.247 The government made a promise that it would eventually revoke parts of the law, which the strike leadership ultimately endorsed. Nevertheless, the strikers, weary of empty promises, refused to end the strike that rapidly spread to other cities, including Basra and Nasiriya.248 It was at that moment that the strike was transformed into a much broader ‘national movement,’ that called for the fall of the government
237 Ibid, at 203. 238 Ibid. 239 Ibid, at 205. 240 Al-Humaid, supra, ft. 219, at 47. 241 The statement could be found in Sadā al-ʿAhd, July 6, 1931, referred to in Ahmed, supra, ft.189, at 207. 242 Ibid, at 207, and al-Humaid, supra, ft. 219, at 49. 243 See al-ʿAlim al-ʿArabī, July 9, 1931 as referred to in al-Humaid, ibid, at 67. 244 The leader of the Barbers’ Association. 245 The leader of the Printers Union. 246 See al-Humaid, ibid, at 146 for the complete list of those arrested. 247 Ahmed, supra, ft. 189, at 208. 248 Ibid, at 209.
and the end of social injustice.249 The British High Commissioner described the anger on the street in a memo to London: ‘Republican cries have been openly raised in the streets … there has been no sign of loyalty to King or support for the Government.’250 The government turned to repressive tactics to quell dissent and violence ensued, especially in Basra.251 A Royal Decree amended Article 83 of the Baghdadi Penal Code making it a criminal offence for a gathering of five or more people in public.252 Police armed with machine guns guarded ‘sensitive’ areas in the city, and the military was put on emergency alert.253
As King Faisal and Prime Minister Nurī al-Saīd were both abroad in Europe during the strike, the viceroy warned that if they did not return immediately, the general strike would most likely turn into ‘a great revolution.’254 So, Nurī decided to return to Baghdad, released the strike leaders from prison, and began to negotiate with them directly. The government ultimately agreed to rescind taxes on nineteen different groups of workers but refused to resign.255 Moreover, a statement was made in a government newspaper that directly addressed the workers, claiming that the government plans to “[m]onitor the conditions of labour…for the acheivement of the workers' well-being, and monitor the implementation of the provisions of laws relating to the organization of work.”256 The reality however was that Nurī blamed the strike on a ‘handful’ of ringleaders and ‘secret associations’, an obvious reference to the Jamʿīyat and other trade union
associations.257 The 1931 General Strike was the first attempt by the Iraqi working class to directly confront the state using the economic weapon of strike action with the attempt to reform state policies and shape the law. The workers brought their specific labour concerns into the national and political arena. This explains why the parliamentary opposition felt that they had to rally behind them if they were to gain any credibility.
249 al-Hasanī, supra, ft. 236, at 143
250 TNA. Acting High Commissioner, Baghdad, to Secretary of State for Colonies, London, July 11, 1931. Delhi, National Archives of India, Baghdad High Commission File 7/4/22, Part II, as quoted by Farouk-Sluglett, M, and Sluglett, P, supra, ft. 194, at 148.
251 For nearly two days, protestors were in control of Basra. The British under the guise of protecting British lives and property decided to send their forces to retake control of the city. This led to shots being fired into the crowd and the violent death of several protestors. The future secretary general of the communist party (the young Fahad) was one of those leading protests. In the mean time, the TCCDR was used by the government to exile some strike leaders and protestors from Baghdad and other cities. See Muhadir Majlis al-Nuwab, (1931), at 253. 252 Ahmed, ibid, at 210. 253 Ibid. 254 al-Hasanī, supra, ft. 236, at 146-147. 255 Ahmed, supra, ft. 189, at 211. 256 See the opening of al-Iraq, July 27, 1931, as referred to in Ahmed, ibid, at 212. 257 Muhadhir Majlis al-Nuwab (1931), at 47.
The narrative above refutes the analysis in the historiography that disregards the role of the workers in leading the strike, preferring the explanation that it was the parliamentary opposition that sustained the strike. Workers were generally presented as being led, influenced or organized by oppositional parties and interests. There has been no attempt to focus on the workers’ own independent role in organizing against the state. A good example is Peter Sluglett’s claim that the opposition joined the strike, because it was the only way that the cabinet could be ousted at the time, as there were no ‘legal’ mechanisms to do so in Parliament.258 Sluglett seems to suggest that it was in reality the party leaders who ultimately ‘took charge’ of and organized the strike, coordinating its spread into other cities, rather than the workers themselves. Even Hanna Batatu inexplicably remarks that the opposition party, al-Ikha’ al-Watanī ‘led’ the 14-day General Strike.259
This type of analysis reduces workers’ struggle to political maneuvering between oppositional parties and the cabinet, and neglects Iraqi workers’ agency. The reality was the complete opposite – it was the workers and their leaders who planned, organized, executed and ended the 1931 strike. It was the workers and their leaders who were put on trial and imprisoned – not the leaders of the opposition. Although some MPs resigned after the strike broke, they did so for strategic purposes. Politicians took advantage of the situation. This was evident in the manner by which they politicized the strike in advocating for the necessity of overthrowing the cabinet rather than dealing with the specific underlying issues that concerned the workers.260 Abū al-Timman, on the other hand, could be considered as an exception; especially seeing that al- Qazzāz himself continuously consulted him during the strike.261 However, his party did not have a leadership role as is generally assumed, for it lacked the necessary popular base needed to make a long-term contribution to the working-class struggle.262
258 Sluglett, Britain in Iraq, supra, ft. 87, at 149.
259 Batatu, supra, ft. 41, at 200. He also states that Abū al-Timman’s al-Hizb al-Watanī al-
ʿ
Iraqī had an ‘initiatory role’ in founding the Jamʿ
īyat, and that it had an ‘active guidance’ role in the 14-daygeneral strike of 1931. Even though this has some truth, the focus always seems to be steered away from the workers themselves. See Batatu, ibid, at 295.
260 One merely needs to recall that al-Hashimi and al-Gilani were involved in drafting the first municipal fees law of 1926, and that they did not oppose the hiring of foreign workers when they were in power. In fact, al-Gilani made a statement in 1935 when he was a member of cabinet that ‘there is no workers’ problem in this country, because the majority [of people]…are farmers.’ Ahmed, supra, ft. 189, at 229. 261 Ahmed, ibid, at 227, 231. 262This party was so inextricably tied to Abu al-Timan’s person (he was its major financier) that when he turned his back on it in 1933, it perished. Batatu, supra, ft. 41, at 200.
In that sense, even if the workers and the opposition were coordinating at times, it would be far from the truth to argue that the opposition led rather than guided certain aspects of the strike. The opposition did make an attempt after the strike to co-opt the labour movement. This occurred when the leaders of the Ikha’ party approached al-Qazzāz with the suggestion that he re- open a permanent association under their auspices. al-Qazzāz refused the offer realizing that this new association ‘would have put the labor movement under the control of the opposition leaders’.263This was one reason why this general strike did not accelerate further into a revolutionary moment, for the so-called ‘nationalist movement’ was still under the clout of the (bourgeois) oppositional parties.264 The fact was that the Jamʿīyat did not have a wide or comprehensive political program nor did it see itself as a political organization, but merely as a labour union with a narrow economic and social reformist agenda.265
The slow demise of the Jamʿīyat began when the government instigated its campaign to
shut it down soon after the strike ended by bribing some of their members, who in turn accused al-Qazzāz of rigging the elections of its administrative committee.266 Based on this fabricated accusation, the government ordered the Jamʿīyat shut down.267 al-Qazzāz was arrested on allegations of rigging the elections of the Jamʿīyat.268 At this point, there was an attempt to co-opt the working-class movement by manufacturing a complicit leadership and an alternative organization – Jamʿīyat ʿUmmal al-Mīkanīk (Mechanic Workers’ Association). However, this tactic eventually failed as most workers refused to join this organization and instead called for the release of al-Qazzāz and the reopening of their union.269 After al-Qazzāz was released from prison, he succeeded in reclaiming this organization from its government-sponsored leadership by overwhelmingly winning the elections in 1932; after which he decided to merge it with the (now illegal) Jamʿīyat, forming the Itihād al-ʿUmmal fi al-ʿIraq (the ‘Iraq Labour Union).270 This new trade union continued the same work that the Jamʿīyat was known for271, and in particular 263 Marr, supra, ft. 212, at 53. 264 See Editorial, ‘Mūsāhama fī Kitabat Tarīkh al-Haraka al-Niqābīya fī al-‘Iraq’ [An Attempt at writing the history of the labour movement in Iraq], in Thaqāfa al-Jadīda, Issue 39, August 1972, at 17. 265 Ibid. 266 Ahmed, supra, ft. 189, at 214. 267 Muhadhir Majlis al-Nuwāb of 1931, at 44. 268 Marr, supra, ft. 208, at 53; Ahmed, supra, ft.189, at 215. 269 Ahmed, ibid, at 221. 270 Sassoon, supra, ft. 141, at 256. 271 TNA. ‘Extracts from Iraq Police Abstract of intelligence No. 6 dated the 11th of Febuary, 1933’. FO 622/1/155. In one union meeting, al-Qazzaz described the utter contempt that some government officials had of workers, whom he said regarded them as ‘inferior beings’. He said that ‘these
continued to call for the provision of special legislation for the protection of workers’ rights.272 The Iraq Labour Union was permanently shut down by the government in 1935, and the labour movement remained underground, disorganized and fragmented until its revitalization by the communists in the 1940s and the 1950s.273
V. The appropriation of legality by the working class: the Labour Law of 1936 & its