[4] Hatata, who was raised in his home village in the Nile Delta region,[7] was taught little about agriculture, the sector his family relied on for income.
[5] In his 20s, Hatata became appalled at the impoverished conditions in which the fellahin that worked his father's lands lived and expressed resentment that he was "the heir of feudalism and one of its sons.
"[8] In the years immediately following World War II, Hatata was invited and accepted to join Iskra,[4] one of Egypt's major communist movements, founded in 1942 by Hillel Schwartz.
Upon his release, Hatata was among some of the ex-DMNL members who believed Egyptian communists could united with Nasser's Arab Socialist Union (ASU), the only official party in the country.
[12] Nasser grew critical of the ASU at the time, claiming it was falling short of mentoring "socialist democracy" in Egypt.