On “Sultat al-Majalis”

The Arab Communist Grouping, which published the magazine Sultat al-Majalis (The Power of Workers’ Councils), was a revolutionary organization that adopted the ideas of council communism, drawing inspiration from the experiences of workers’ councils in Europe. The group was active in the early 1970s and consisted of intellectuals and workers of Maghrebi (North African) origin living in France. Its members were influenced by the events of May 1968 in France and by the left-wing critique of the existing socialist regimes of the time.

The group focused on the idea that revolution should be led by workers’ councils elected directly by the workers themselves. It rejected the traditional Leninist party model and centralized bureaucratic authority. It regarded Soviet communism, as well as its Chinese Maoist counterpart, as systems that had nothing to do with socialism. In its view, both were forms of state capitalism, owned and controlled by a new class known as the bureaucracy, which, like the bourgeoisie, was hostile to the working class and its independent movement.

The organization also launched a scathing critique of existing Arab regimes, whether self-proclaimed progressive or conservative, as well as all Palestinian organizations and the very idea of a Palestinian revolution, insofar as it remained detached from an all-encompassing Arab revolution aimed at overthrowing the existing state structures across the various Arab countries.

The first and only issue of Sultat al-Majalis was published in January 1974. Its purpose was to promote awareness of the self-organization of workers and peasants, free from the tutelage of political parties. The magazine included translations of texts by leading international theorists of council communism, articles analyzing the Arab-Israeli conflict from a class-based perspective that rejected nationalism, and studies of Arab labor movements.

Despite its limited organizational base, the group had a notable intellectual influence in independent left-wing circles and helped introduce concepts of workers’ self-management. It remains one of the distinctive experiments in the history of the Arab Left, representing an attempt to offer a third alternative outside the frameworks of Arab nationalism and official communism aligned with Moscow.

The group operated clandestinely, which meant that some of its contributors wrote under pseudonyms while others remained behind the scenes. Its initial core included young university graduates from Beirut who had been influenced by the global New Left movement but chose to work under the umbrella of the group in order to distinguish themselves from the official communist parties and the Organization of Communist Action in Lebanon.

The relationship between Lafif Lakhdar (1934–2013) and Mustapha Khayati was central to the establishment of this tendency. In his writings, Lafif Lakhdar confirmed that he and Mustapha Khayati had overseen the publication of Sultat al-Majalis.

Mustapha Khayati, 1969

Mustapha Khayati was a Tunisian activist and intellectual, a prominent member of the Situationist International in France, and the author of the famous pamphlet On the Poverty of Student Life. Khayati brought Situationist thought and the critique of the “Society of the Spectacle” into the Arab context, an influence that was reflected in the pages of Sultat al-Majalis.

Lafif Lakhdar, 2006

Lafif Lakhdar was a radical left-wing Tunisian intellectual and one of the most outspoken critics of state capitalism in the Soviet Union and the Arab regimes. He argued that the genuine alternative lay in the “power of workers’ councils,” exercising self-management. This position formed the central ideological identity of the group.

The magazine served as a platform through which Khayati and Lakhdar translated unorthodox Marxist texts and analyzed Arab conflicts from an internationalist perspective.

Regarding the joint activities of three members of the group in early 1970, before its formal establishment, the Palestinian journalist Bilal al-Hassan wrote the following in an article discussing the book Nayef Hawatmeh Speaks, published in Beirut in 1997:

“... After the name of the Democratic Front [for the Liberation of Palestine] became widely known, along with its Marxist orientation, large numbers of Arab and foreign Marxists and communists began joining its ranks.

Among the most prominent figures who joined the Front at the time were three individuals distinguished by their extensive Marxist knowledge and familiarity with the European critical debate on Soviet Marxism: Lafif Lakhdar (Tunisia), Mustapha Khayati (Tunisia), and Hakima Barada (Morocco).

These three engaged extensively with the Democratic Front and spent time with its cadres and fighters in their military bases. They also proposed establishing a school for cadres, developed its educational curriculum, and participated in the educational process.

The three adopted the Marxism of Rosa Luxemburg as the foundation for educating the Front's cadres. They explained the theory of popular councils to these cadres at length, with their explanations ultimately leading to a critique of Lenin's theory of the party.

This experiment came to an end only when a member of the leadership visited the school and raised the issue before the Political Bureau, criticizing and warning against it.

These examples make it clear that what was known as the Marxism of the Democratic Front was subject to competing ideological currents, reflecting a state of intellectual disarray within the Front, concealed beneath an exceptionally vibrant and energetic political environment...”

(Al-Safir, Lebanese newspaper, February 24, 1998.)

In April 2026, in response to a request from an editor at the electronic website Matzpen, Mustapha Khayati provided the following details about the prominent activists in the group:

“The Sultat al-Majalis group consisted of a small circle of intellectuals who worked for a living. We had nothing beyond what we earned through our own labor.

Here are the names of our comrades:

Hakima Barada: A student working toward her doctorate. I used to share with her what I earned from writing for some obscure encyclopedias. She came from a well-known family that had fallen on hard times, forcing her brothers and sisters to find work in various service-sector occupations.

Kamal Lhbabi: An architect who refused to practice his profession even for a single day. Instead, he learned the craft of pottery and continued working as a potter until he developed kidney failure, from which he still suffers. He was born in 1946 and, like Hakima, was Moroccan.

Saleh al-Mathlouthi: At the time of Sultat al-Majalis, he was teaching in French secondary schools after graduating from the Faculty of Law. He is the father of the singer Emel Mathlouthi, known for her revolutionary songs in three languages: Arabic, French, and English.

Mohamed Chaïrat: At the time, he was working in factories. He later became an Arabic-language teacher and translator. He passed away several years ago.

Najib Ayad: A fellow factory worker alongside Chaïrat. He fled Tunisia with him during the Bourguiba era, subsequently completed his education, and returned to Tunisia under Ben Ali, where he worked at one of its universities. He was the cause of a disagreement between Lafif and me. He was the first among us to pass away.

That, in brief, was the Sultat al-Majalis contingent.

After years of estrangement, I met Lafif in Cairo while I was working as the director of a library at a French research center. We greeted one another warmly, bringing the estrangement to an end and restoring our friendship, although it was never quite what it had been before.

The group ceased to exist in 1976, and the revolutionary tide came to an end as well. Hakima and I returned to Morocco, where I stayed for ten years before moving to Aix-en-Provence to teach the history of political thought in the Islamic world.”

This is Mustapha Khayati's account.

Because of their ideological affinity, connections developed in Europe between members of the Sultat al-Majalis group and the Israeli socialist organization Matzpen.

During the October 1973 War, the two organizations signed a joint statement, which was published in both Sultat al-Majalis and Matzpen magazines.

The magazine Sultat al-Majalis also published an article by Lakhdar calling for dialogue with Matzpen.

In early May 1976, revolutionary socialists from several Arab countries and Israel, including members of both Matzpen and the Sultat al-Majalis groups, met and issued a joint appeal addressed to Arab and Israeli workers and revolutionary youth. It was entitled:

“No to War, Yes to Proletarian Revolution!”

Matzpen published the appeal in its bulletin, From Our Struggle Against Zionism and for Socialism.