Al-Wathbah uprising

Date	January 1948
Location	Kingdom of Iraq
Result	Restoration of order More demonstrations in spring 1948

Belligerents

Iraqi Police

Student Cooperation Committee (communists)
Progressive Democrats
Populists
Kurdish Democrats
Student wings of the National Democratic Party and the Independence Party

Commanders and leaders

Nuri al-Said

Yusuf Salman Yusuf (Fahd)

Casualties and losses

300-400 killed

Al-Wathbah uprising (Arabic: انتفاضة الوثبة‎‎) or simply Al-Wathbah (Arabic: الوثبة‎‎), which means The Leap in Arabic, was the term that came to be used for the urban unrest in Baghdad in January 1948. The protests were sparked by the monarchy’s plans to renew the 1930 Anglo-Iraqi Treaty that effectively made Iraq a British protectorate. Nuri al-Said, the Prime Minister of Iraq, was planning on renewing, albeit in a revised form, this 1930 treaty that tied Iraq to British interests, allowed for the unrestricted movement of British troops on Iraqi soil, and provided significant protection to the British-installed Iraqi monarchy.

In 1947, the Iraqi monarchy entered into secret negotiations with the British government. The various political parties in Iraq were not informed of the negotiations and instead, heard about them on the radio or read about them in the newspapers the following day. Although the news on the treaty sparked the al-Wathbah protests, it soon became clear that there were elements of unrest that went beyond the opposition to the treaty. The participants in the demonstrations included workers, students, and the urban poor, living in the outskirts of Baghdad. Many of the protests were orchestrated by the Iraqi Communist Party. The al-Wathbah “sprang from the same conditions of existence that had since the first years of the forties been making for the advance of communism.” The rigid boundaries of class in Iraqi society, widespread poverty in the urban centers, a growing student population, all these factors contributed to the events of January 1948. In addition the purchasing power of workers was at a historic low, thus contributing to growing frustrations among salaried workers.

On January 3, the Iraqi foreign minister, Fāḍil al-Jamālī, was reported to have said that the Iraqi people were “sensitive to the merits” of the 1930 Anglo-Iraqi treaty. That night, The Independence Party held a secret meeting in its headquarters. They planned a public protest against the government. They understodd that they may have to use force against the police.

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Wikipedia