Khrushchev discusses the Soviet Union's new economic program and revolutionary history with Sudanese Prime Minister Ibrahim Abboud, emphasizing the USSR's achievements and its commitment to peaceful, cooperative relations with Sudan. He critiques Western imperialism and urges Sudan to allow Soviet aid flights to the Congo, arguing that supporting anti-colonial movements is a moral duty. The conversation also touches on Sudan's domestic policies, its cautious approach to socialism, and opportunities for expanded economic and technical cooperation between the two countries.

Brezhnev assures Nasser that the friendship between the Soviet Union and Egypt is a powerful factor in the fight against imperialism in the wake of a slanderous campaign waged against Egypt. 

Brezhnev congratulates Nasser on strengthening Egypt's national independence and rebuffing against imperial actions in the Middle East. Brezhnev clearly states the Soviet Union's commitment to supporting Egypt against Israeli aggression.

Brezhnev states his satisfaction with the USSR's and India's shared fight against imperialism. He ensures that the USSR is committed to deterring American and Israeli interference throughout the Middle East.

On this second day of the talks, international affairs were the main topic of conversation. From the Soviet record, which like those of the first and the next discussion, was made by Fedorenko and the third secretary of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs Anatolii I. Filyov, it is evident that the atmosphere was fully relaxed, anti-imperialism brought the communist leaders together. Both hated America, Great Britain, France, West Germany, Japan, and their leaders. They discussed the situation in the Near East in detail and were heartened by the victory of leftist forces in Iraq. They joked a lot. And only at the end did Mao lightly touch upon his claims to Khrushchev, who at once reminded the Chinese leader of the Soviet advisors. It was obvious that this question continued to bother him, and Khrushchev exacerbated his grievance.

Eighty-seven years after the Suez Canal’s completion in 1869 and less than two months after the last British troops had left it in June 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970) on July 26, 1956, nationalized the Suez Canal Company.

Nasser announced the step in the text printed here: a speech that would become a classic in the annals of twentieth-century decolonization worldwide. The English translation used here is included in a documentary publication printed in 1956 by the US State Department in Washington, DC, titled The Suez Canal Problem; it is an excerpt of the whole speech.

Nasser pronounced the speech in the Egyptian Mediterranean city of Alexandria in front of a crowd of tens of thousands, during which he also uttered the code word signaling his security forces to occupy the company’s assets and offices in Egypt. Nasser’s step took the world by surprise. The French government, the Suez Canal Company’s Paris headquarters and its many French shareholders, and the British government that was the company’s largest shareholder and that on July 23, following Washington’s lead, had retracted a 1955 offer to back a World Bank loan to Egypt: all they were outraged. (France and Britain would fail to reverse nationalization in court; the outcome, in Britain, of the ensuing Franco-British-Israeli attack is the focus of another document dated 1956 in this collection). Diametrically opposed was the dominant reaction among Egyptians, other Arabs, and people in newly independent and still colonialized countries. They were ecstatic. The reason was not so much that Nasser nationalized the canal in order to find a new way to finance a dam at Aswan, on the Nile, although that project was a linchpin of Egypt’s modernization, a history analyzed in Guy Laron’s Origins of the Suez Crisis (2013). The reason was more existential. Nasser’s act turned himself, Egypt, and by proxy the entire non-white world from a passive object of history into an active subject. “Die of your fury,” Nasser told the Americans, and by extension Europe’s descending imperial powers. And by calling the shots—“Today, citizens, the Suez Canal Company has been nationalized. This order has been published in the Official Journal. It has become a matter of fact”—he symbolically subjugated Britain and France, humiliating those once so powerful empires as only a non-white ex-colonial subject could. Even a cut as historic as India’s independence, in 1947, had not hurt Britain this much. Technically speaking Britain had co-initiated that final act of the British Raj, and it was a loss of a limb, however crucial. Nasser, by contrast, had stabbed the empire in its very heart—a story classically narrated in Keith Kyle’s Suez (1991).

Khrushchev and UAR Prime Minister Ali Sabri met to discuss recent developments in Africa, the Middle East, and global imperialism. They reviewed efforts to strengthen Arab and African unity, the ongoing conflicts in Cyprus, Yemen, and the Congo, and growing US military interventions, particularly in Vietnam. Khrushchev affirmed Soviet support for Arab states in their struggle against imperialism, while the two leaders also explored expanded Soviet assistance for agricultural development in the UAR.

On May 3, 1961, Nikita Khrushchev met with a delegation from the United Arab Republic (UAR) led by Anwar Sadat. The meeting began with expressions of gratitude and solidarity, highlighting Soviet support for UAR independence and its struggle against imperialism, particularly in relation to the construction of the Aswan Dam and resistance to Western aggression in the Middle East. Khrushchev emphasized the superiority of socialism and communism, advocating the Soviet model as an example for nations striving for independence and progress. Sadat expressed appreciation for Soviet assistance and raised concerns about the financial burden of purchasing weapons from the USSR. He requested a reduction in the price, citing UAR’s commitments to supporting anti-imperialist struggles across Africa and Asia. Khrushchev acknowledged the UAR’s vital role in the global anti-colonial movement but maintained that the USSR could not lower its weapons prices due to its own economic constraints and the need for consistency in its aid policies. Despite these limitations, Khrushchev promised to explore alternative ways to assist the UAR. The conversation concluded with mutual respect and reaffirmation of Soviet-UAR solidarity.

This document summary was generated by an artificial intelligence language model and was reviewed by a Wilson Center staff member.

This document is a letter from the United Arab Republic President Gamal Abdel Nasser to Haxhi Lleshi, the Chairman of the Presidium of the People’s Council of the People's Republic of Albania. President Nasser appreciates the support of the People’s Republic of Albania for the UAR struggle against imperialism and Zionism. Nasser reveals that the policy of the UAR is based on the principle of non-alignment in order to decrease the chance of hostilities between the two blocs and to increase the prospect of peace. In addition, the UAR objects having foreign bases or foreign troops on its territory and asks for their liquidation elsewhere. In the case of a Soviet ship anchoring at a UAR port, this does not imply that the Soviet Union uses that port as its own base. Nasser also adds that the United States openly supports Israel and its 6th Fleet is a sign of an American guarantee to Israel in its ventures directed against the UAR. On the other hand, the presence of Soviet fleet units in the Mediterranean has hindered the transformation of the region into an American lake. As a consequence, the Soviet presence in the Mediterranean establishes equilibrium there. This document contains both the original Arabic letter and the Albanian translation of the original.

Polish document describing the speech given by Soviet Leader Leonid Brezhnev to the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU) on the actions undertaken by the Soviet leadership before and during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Brezhnev tells the CC CPSU plenum that the Arab struggle in the Middle East has both a class struggle and a national liberation dimension. Brezhnev blames Israeli aggression for the start of the war and Arab blunders and low morale for the humiliating defeat of the UAR forces. Given the success of the Israeli Defense Forces, the Soviets were forced to consider diplomatic and political methods for saving the Arab leadership. When Israeli forces did not stop their aggression against Syria, threatening to overrun the Syrian capital of Damascus, Brezhnev claims tells the CC CPSU that Soviet leadership warned the Americans that the Soviet Army would have to intervene and, at the same time, threatened the Israeli that any further actions would result in Soviet involvement in the war. Brezhnev claims that, since the war ended just hours after the Soviets had made their threats, the imperialist powers acquiesced to Soviet demands. This documents is a translation of the version the Soviet leadership sent to the United Polish Workers’ Party for the information of the Polish leadership.