Dr. Abdullah Turkemani

Yassin Al-Hafiz distinguished between ideology and scientific knowledge when he introduced the ideas of the French thinker Althusser into the discursive realm of Arab thought. This contributed to giving his discourse a unique methodological and scientific character, revealing how filled the prevailing Arab Marxist consciousness was with ideological illusions. The comparison between the two approaches allowed Al-Hafiz to identify the essential features of correct policies toward Arab issues, which he summarized in three points: the Umayyad period, the construction of democracy, and a consciousness aligned with its three levels (universal consciousness, modern consciousness, and historical consciousness). 

It is clear that he adhered to the Marxist method in analysis, but he called for deriving an Arab Marxist structure, without which "Marxism will remain something foreign to the Arabs, not penetrating into the depths of the Arab mind." He emphasized the necessity of developing tangible Marxist research on Arab reality, to ensure "the transformation of Marxism in Arab society from something external to something internal," i.e., "from Marxism to Arab Marxism. This would grant this methodology the full effectiveness to modernize Arab thought and Arab ideology — as one of the most important goals of the Arab revolution."

From a democratic Marxist perspective, he condemned Arab communism, which fought the Soviet-Stalinist Marxism against liberalism without understanding that criticizing liberalism from a backward position—belonging to a society that had not achieved its own accomplishments—would not be a socialist critique but a "delayed" one. This was a trait that distinguished his Arab Marxist discourse from traditional Marxism. Especially after World War II and the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazism, he was disturbed by this triumph, which pushed him further to align with Stalinist discourse, if not to become more submissive and assimilated to the Western-centered discourse that was fighting Stalinism against Western bourgeois democracy, its derivatives, and its liberal equations. 

While Stalinism had an interest in ideological wars against bourgeois and socialist democracy because they served its authoritarian, bureaucratic status quo, where was the interest of communist parties in underdeveloped countries mired in medieval ideologies, enchanted by a world still haunted by collective memories? Pre-capitalist countries, or pre-state societies filled with illusions of high metaphysics, saw their struggle against democracy as a futile, gratuitous war, disconnected from the Marxist historical consciousness, which is an objective product of societies rooted in rationality, democracy, and modernity.

Al-Hafiz criticized Arab communism for lacking a universal consciousness that would represent the highest synthesis of rational development. It was "submissive and confident" in its historical context, unable to confront its specific realities, which prevented it from producing a creative and innovative Marxism intimately connected with its time and history, like the Vietnamese and Chinese intellectuals. Instead, it was dominated by dogmatic compliance with Stalinist texts and the minority composition of its social formation, producing concepts that became ideological barriers in the hands of enemies of unity, justifying ongoing fragmentation under the pretext of a distinct national character recognized by scientific theories and regional sovereignty.

He also analyzed the causes of the isolation of Arab communist parties, finding they were "non-critical" and "politicized," completely neglecting the central issue in the Arab reality: backwardness. To impose the fallacy of backwardness would inevitably distort democracy and reduce it to "agrarian reform," which, in the Arab experience, did not do what it should have—liberating peasants from the values and constraints of oppressive traditional society—thus ending up with mere "rural kinship". Consequently, he labeled Arab Marxism as "lagging Marxism."

He then questioned why Arab institutional Marxism ignored the notion of backwardness and instead prioritized developmental systems:

1. Because it "parroted Soviet Marxist slogans," ignorance of the actual Arab problems on the one hand, and the Soviet Marxist imposition of issues and worries unrelated to Arab reality on the other, helped it neglect Arab backwardness and adopt developmental perspectives. 

2. Because it ignored the historical dimension of Arab reality, leaving aside Marxist notions of "Eastern tyranny," which offer tools for recognizing weaknesses and deficiencies accumulated over history in Arab society, and thus emphasize the central role of the democratic nationalist revolution in societal progress.

3. Because it was "economistic," denying the social, ideological, and political dimensions of Arab backwardness, thus failing to recognize their negative and inhibiting impacts on development efforts in the Arab world after WWII.

Al-Hafiz concluded that the shortcomings and delays of Arab communism stemmed from its inability to overcome the problematic traditional and modern intellectuals, lacking prudence and depth in its view and confrontation of traditional Arab reality. It also lacked radicalism in its