Unholy Alliance: Muslims and Communists – An Introduction

With the victory of the Bolsheviks in October 1917 strategic choices had to be made. Many of the pre-revolutionary Muslim reformers, the Jadids, endeavoured to work within the Soviet system. This was made possible by the moderate policies pursued by the Bolsheviks. They also called on Muslims to engage in a ‘holy war’ against Western imperialism. The 1920s were the heyday of co-operation between the two sides. In Indonesia the revolts of 1926 were both communist and Islamic in inspiration. But the alliance between communism and Islam did not last. After the death of Stalin the way was open for a renewal of the alliance between communists and Muslim movements which secured some temporary successes, in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Indonesia followed everywhere by the anti-communist coups of the 1960s. The war in Afghanistan in the 1980s forced communist parties into isolation and stimulated the rise of political Islam. The collapse of the Soviet Union set communist parties adrift, with the freedom to decide their own policies.