Leaders of Sudan's Umma-dominated legislature negotiate the Self-Determination Agreement with Britain in 1952.

The legislators now enact a constitution that provides for a prime minister and council of ministers responsible to a bicameral parliament.

The new Sudanese government will have responsibility in all areas except military and foreign affairs, which will remain in the British governor general's hands.

Cairo, which demands recognition of Egyptian sovereignty over Sudan, repudiates the condominium agreement in protest and declares its reigning monarch, Farouk, king of Sudan.

Colonel Muhammad Naguib, after seizing power in Egypt and overthrowing the Farouk monarchy in late 1952, breaks the deadlock on the problem of Egyptian sovereignty over Sudan.

Cairo previously had linked discussions on Sudan's status to an agreement on the evacuation of British troops from the Suez Canal.

Naguib separates the two issues and accepts the right of Sudanese self-determination.

The RCC also deals with labor legislation and education.

Initial legislation raises minimum wages, reduced working hours, and creates more jobs to reduce unemployment.

Enforcement of these measures will be lax until the early 1960s, however.

In another effort to reduce unemployment, the RCC institutes a policy of providing employment in government service for all university graduates, a practice that will swell the ranks of the bureaucracy and leave many skilled people underused.

The government increases its spending on education with the goal of educating all citizens.

Rent control is established, and the government undertakes construction of housing for workers.

These programs will be expanded in the 1960s.

After the coup, the Free Officers ask Ali Mahir, a previous prime minister, to head the government.

The Free Officers form the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), which dictates policy to the civilian cabinet, abolishes all civil tides such as pasha and bey, and orders all political parties to purify their ranks and reconstitute their executive committees.

The RCC elects Mohamed Naguib president and commander in chief.

He is chosen because he is a popular hero of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and an officer trusted by the army.

In 1951 the Free Officers had elected him as president of the Egyptian Army Officers Club over the candidate chosen by Farouk

It had been extremely important for the Free Officers to ensure the loyalty of the army if the coup were to succeed.

Naguib is fifty-one years old; the average age of the other Free Officers is thirty-three.

Naguib heads the RCC and Mahir the civilian government, but Nasser is the real power behind the RCC

The years between 1952 and 1954 will witness a struggle for control of the government that Nasser will ultimately win.

The first crisis to face the new government comes in August 1952 with a violent strike involving
more than ten thousand workers at the Misr Company textile factories at Kafr ad Dawwar in the Delta.

Workers attack and set fire to part of the premises, destroy machinery, and clash with the police.

The army is called in to put down the strike; several workers lose their lives, and scores are injured.

The RCC sets up a special military court that tries the arrested textile workers.

Two are convicted and executed, and many others are given prison sentences.

The regime reacts quickly and ruthlessly because it has no intention of encouraging a popular revolution that it cannot control.

It now arrests about thirty persons charged with belonging to the outlawed Communist Party of Egypt (CPE).

The Democratic Movement for National Liberation, a faction of the CPE, reacts by denouncing the regime as a military dictatorship.

Ali Mahir resigns on on September 7, and Naguib becomes prime minister, minister of war, commander in chief, and president of the RCC.

This same month, the RCC passes its first major domestic measure, the Agrarian Reform Law of 1952.

The law is intended to abolish the power of the absentee landlord class, to encourage investment in industry, and to build support for the regime.

The law limits landholdings to two hundred feddans with the right to transfer another one hundred to wives and children.

The owners of the land requisitioned by the government receive about half the market value of the land at 1951 prices in the form of government bonds.

The land is sold in lots of two to five feddans to tenants and small farmers owning less than five feddans.

The small farmers have to buy the lots at a price equal to the compensation paid to the former owner.

London and Cairo sign an Anglo-Egyptian accord, which allows for a three-year transition period from Sudan's condominium rule to self-government, in February 1953.

During the transition phase, British troops will withdraw from Sudan.

At the end of this period, the Sudanese will decide their future status in a plebiscite conducted under international supervision.

Naguib's concession seems justified when parliamentary elections held at the end of 1952 give a majority to the pro-Egyptian NUP, which had called for an eventual union with Egypt.

All Egyptian political parties are dissolved and banned on January 17, 1953.

A three-year transition period is proclaimed during which the RCC will rule.

On February 10, the Liberation Rally headed by Nasser is launched to serve as an organization for the mobilization of popular support for the new government.

On June 18, Egypt is declared a republic, and the monarchy is abolished, ending the rule of Muhammad Ali's dynasty.

Naguib becomes the first president and also prime minister.

Nasser becomes deputy prime minister and minister of interior.

Other officers take over other ministries.

The Muslim Brotherhood has a long history of anti-British and antiregime activities, but its leaders stipulate that they will work with the Free Officers only if the officers will agree to Brotherhood objectives.

Because the Brotherhood would not refrain from opposing the RCC, Nasser had outlawed the organization in February 1954.

Naguib had always had a certain sympathy for the Brotherhood, and its leaders implicate him in the
attack on Nasser.

It is doubtful that he had any connection with the attack, but it gives Nasser the pretext he needs to remove Naguib from the presidency, and he does so in November.

There has been a struggle between Naguib and Nasser and his colleagues on the RCC between 1952 and 1954 for control of the government and over the future form of the government.

Naguib is to have one vote on the council and is responsible for carrying out council decisions.

He enjoys considerable popularity, and he had developed his own following after conflicts involving policies arose between him and the RCC.

The conflicts come to a head on February 23, 1954 when Naguib resigns.

The RCC may have been relieved at this decision, but the popular outcry is so great that Naguib is reinstated as president of the republic.

Nasser, however, takes the position of prime minister, previously held by Naguib, and remains president of the RCC.