ABSTRACT
The challenge of the USSR and other Communist states to the West's hegemony in the Middle East up to 1955–1956 lent an attractive luster to the ideas of socialism. In Egypt, the term socialism has commonly been applied to state ownership and management of the means of production. The ideological development, not only of Egypt but of most Asian and African countries, has been shaped by the power, the wealth, the social institutions, and the ideas of Western Europe and North America. The formation of the United Arab Republic in 1958 brought Gamal Abd al-Nasir and his fellow officers into contact with a more articulated socialist ideology than any they had ever known before. Even Ali Sabri, who was often linked to these power centers and seen as pro-Communist, had been limited to working with the Arab Socialist Union. Most historians and observers see Cairo's shift from Arab socialism to an Egypt-centered nationalism and capitalism as having begun when Nasir died.
