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foreign policy followed by the gradual emergence of Nikita Khrushchev as the new

Soviet leader. According to Khrushchev, Stalin avoided any major interference in

the Middle East as ‘he realistically recognized that the balance of power wasn’t in

our favor and that Britain wouldn’t have stood for our interference’. But the new

Soviet leadership saw in the Egyptians a possible penetrating point into the Arab

World in order ‘to weaken the influence of English colonialism in the Near East –

and that was in the interest of the Soviet Union’. 129 It was at this time, in the

summer of 1953, that the Russians conducted their first successful test of the

hydrogen bomb, only four years after developing the atomic bomb. 130

In September 1953, the annual two-day Shi’ite religious festival of Ashura

was due. The festival is observed by Shi’ites worldwide on 9 and 10 of the month of

Muharram of the Islamic Hijri lunar calendar, and that year it fell on 19 and 20 of

September. The occasion marks the martyrdom of Hussain, Prophet Mohammed’s

grandson. The rituals were not limited to Ma’tems, 131 but took on the form of

processions marching down the streets and parading. Usually crowds of people

(including Sunnis) gathered on the roadside as curious observers. These parades

featured men beating their chests in sorrow, others beating their back and

shoulders with chains as a form of self-flagellation, a display of black flags, and at

129 N. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (London: 1971), 431-32.
130 The Soviets officially announced their first successful test of the hydrogen bomb on 12 August
1953. See ‘Russia’s Hydrogen Bomb: Premier Questioned’, The Manchester Guardian, 11 November
1953, 2; and P.G. Boyle (ed.), The Eden-Eisenhower Correspondence, 1955-1957 (Chapel Hill, NC:
2005), ‘The Issues’, 53-78 (53).
131 Ma’tem: Also known as a Hussainiya, is a religious structure similar in appearance to a mosque but
is considered to be a multi-task building more like a church hall, utilised only by Muslim Shi’ites. In
the Ma’tem religious occasions are observed including the births and deaths of Shi’ite saints, funeral
gatherings, wedding receptions, Qu’ranic recitation, religious sermons, and other public functions.
For information on Ma’tems and their history in Bahrain see A. Saif, Al-Ma’atem fi Al-Bahrain: Dirasah
Tawtheeqiyah [Ma’tems in Bahrain: A Documentary Study] (Manama: 1995).

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