Ghassan Kanafani and the Leninist Warriors of Palestine

Abstract

Inspired by the broad reading of the works of Ghassan Kanafani, necessitated through the collective process of translating his Selected Political Writings, this article charts the influence of Leninism among a key group of Palestinian revolutionaries. It defines the process of radicalization among activists of the Arab Nationalist Movement, locating an engagement with scientific socialism that pre-dates the June 1967 defeat of Nasser-led forces – often seen as the watershed of Palestinian recruitment to Marxism-Leninism. This article explores publications where Kanafani played a leading editorial role, including al-Hadaf newspaper and other works he developed as a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Here, Kanafani is seen as the main theoretician of the Front, in a period where questions of organization, theory, and military action formed a Lukácsian totality in his reading. It is argued, moreover, that the trajectory of Kanafani, George Habash, Leila Khaled, and other activists shared similarities to the embrace of Marxism by socialist-led national liberation movements in China, Cuba, and Vietnam, among other examples.