The Growth of the Left in Morocco, Demographic Upheaval and Jewish Reactions

• In Event: Works in Progress Group in Jewish Studies

Abstract

This chapter, part of my manuscript-in-progress entitled Radical Nationalists: Moroccan Jewish Communists, 1925-1975, focuses on the roots of the Communist party in Morocco through examining labor unions and leftist organizing in Morocco during the 1920s and 1930s. Such political efflorescence was rooted in the industrialization of Casablanca in the 1920s and the explosion of infrastructure projects, notably the railway and mining industries, across French controlled Morocco. During the same period, Moroccan Jews and Muslims were migrating from rural Morocco to Casablanca and other burgeoning cities. This movement put them in touch with the Spanish, Italian and French workers in Moroccan labor unions. The chapter weaves a tale of industrialization, union activism and demographic shifts alongside the story of the French Communist Party's support of Abd el-Krim's rebellion in the middle of the 1920s, and thus the origin of French Communist Party activity in Morocco. Finally, it addresses contemporaneous Zionist efforts to reach Moroccan Jews and the influx of radicalized Spanish Civil War refugees into Morocco’s increasingly heady political firmament.

Author

• Alma Rachel Heckman, University of California, Santa Cruz