Agwani Mohammed Shafi. Communism in the Arab East

Asia Publishing House, 1969. — 265 p.Communism reached the Middle East shortly after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. Armenians, Azeris, Greeks, Jews, and Kurds were among the first to form trade unions and organize communist parties. But the transmission of Marxism was not purely an intellectual project of minorities, nor did minorities ultimately comprise the majority of communists in any country. Turkish workers and students in Germany participated in the uprising of the Spartakusbund in January 1919. Some of them subsequently established the Workers' and Peasants' Party of Turkey. The first Iraqi Marxist, Husayn al-Rahhal, was a student in Berlin at the time and discussed the events with children of the participants. Iranian migrant workers became familiar with socialist ideas in Russia. The first communist parties in the Middle East were in Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran.