1952-1962

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For decades, many have compared the "post-independence state" of Algeria to Egypt. The focus of this comparison is the centrality of the army in the country, and the relative cohesion of the latter's institutions compared to other countries in the region. Is that correct? Yes, and no. The Arab Republic of Egypt was established in 1952, but on the ruins of a decades-old monarchy that came from an Ottoman state which "gained independence" from the Sultan, and the army of Egypt was not yet born in 1952. Unlike Algeria, which destroyed its Ottoman Empire and its fleet, its center of power, and lived a full-fledged colonialism that made it build from scratch a state and an army. Its core was formed during the liberation war. But nonetheless, there is some truth to this comparison. As if someone took the pattern on which the officers' republic was sewn in 1952 and created with it - ten years later - the Republic of the Liberation Front; With all the essential additions, from the People's Party program of Masali Hajj on which the Liberation Front relied, to the proposals of Franz Fanon on which Houari Boumediene partially relied. But the idea of ​​the republic with one party, in its heart and in its minds the Military Intelligence (here) and warfare (there), came in one way or another from third world countries that were in the waves of liberation, and Egypt is closer and more relevant than Yugoslavia.