Arab Students in the Soviet Union
- Feb 21, 2025
- 3 min read
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union began actively admitting Arab students as part of its policy of supporting Arab peoples and developing international cooperation. Palestinian, Syrian, and Egyptian students, as well as students from North African countries, studied at leading Soviet universities, including Patrice Lumumba Peoples’ Friendship University — now RUDN University — Moscow State University, Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, and other major educational centres across the country.
An important aspect of Arab students’ lives in the USSR was their political activity. During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, Palestinian and other Arab students in the Soviet Union expressed solidarity with their countries. According to a document sent by Vitalii Fedorchuk, Chairman of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR, to Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, the students closely followed events in the Middle East through radio broadcasts from Cairo, Beirut, and Damascus.
Students at the Lviv and Crimean medical institutes expressed their readiness to return home to provide medical assistance to the army, and even to donate blood collectively for military hospitals. Arab students were especially active in Kyiv. In Dormitory No. 2 of Kyiv State University, they held a meeting at which they drafted a collective statement in support of Egypt and Syria. The document also expressed gratitude to the Soviet Union for its “selfless assistance to the Arab peoples.”
This statement was posted in several student dormitories across the city.
A revealing case is that of El Awad Jawad Hajj, a student at the Kyiv Institute of National Economy, who sent telegrams of greeting to the presidents of Egypt and Syria, as well as a telegram to PLO leader Yasser Arafat with the following message: “We are proud of your actions. Continue the struggle. We await your signal.” He signed the telegrams on behalf of the “General Union of Palestinian Students.”
Despite this public expression of solidarity with Arab countries allied with the USSR, El Awad Jawad Hajj was under active operational surveillance by the state security organs. From 8 October 1973, the KGB opened an operational investigation into his possible ties to the Black September organisation.
The KGB also monitored supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood studying at universities in the Ukrainian SSR who criticised Soviet policy in the Middle East and accused the Soviet Union of pursuing a “policy of restraint.” Some radical Palestinian students shared similar views.
The Soviet security services also meticulously recorded the critical views some students expressed toward Arab leaders. For example, Faisal Mohamed, a Sudanese student at Kyiv State University, criticised Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for not acting independently enough in his decision-making. He accused Sadat of being unprepared for a prolonged war and of pursuing narrow national interests while ignoring the problem of Palestinian refugees and the interests of other Arab countries.
Archival documents clearly show that, despite official Soviet support for Palestinians and other allies from Arab countries, Soviet state security closely monitored even the slightest deviations from the official political line. Even students with evidently pro-Soviet views, as in the case of El Awad Jawad Hajj, could come under suspicion.
Any unauthorised political activity — whether the creation of unofficial organisations or the circulation of critical views on Soviet policy — remained under strict control by the security services.
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Freddy Rotman
