The Egyptian Revolution

The Egyptian Revolution

1 February 2011

As mass protests, factory occupations and calls for an indefinite general strike spread against the dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak, the working class is emerging as the driving force of the Egyptian revolution. While news is limited, it is clear that strikes and protests are sweeping cities and towns throughout this country of 80 million people.

The demonstration of the working class’s immense social power has shaken the ruling class and its spokesmen in the mainstream media. As the New York Times decried that the protests are becoming “open class warfare,” CNN explained the collapse in stocks of US oil companies with investments in Egypt by fears that “a new government could expropriate their land concessions.”

The financial aristocracy, however, fears far more than the loss of an oil field—or even of a sea-lane like Egypt’s Suez Canal, which is critical to world commerce. More fundamental political issues are at stake.

The Egyptian revolution is dealing a devastating blow to the pro-capitalist triumphalism that followed the Soviet bureaucracy’s liquidation of the USSR in 1991. The class struggle, socialism and Marxism were declared irrelevant in the modern world. “History”—as in “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels)—had ended. Henceforth, the only revolutions conceivable to the media were those that were “color-coded” in advance, politically scripted by the US State Department, and then implemented by the affluent pro-capitalist sections of society.

This complacent and reactionary scenario has been exploded in Tunisia and Egypt. History has returned with a vengeance. What is presently unfolding in Cairo and throughout Egypt is revolution, the real thing. “The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historic events,” wrote Leon Trotsky, the foremost specialist on the subject. This definition of revolution applies completely to what is now happening in Egypt.

This revolution is only in its early stages. The class forces unleashed by the explosion are only beginning to define themselves in terms of distinct demands. Programs have hardly been formulated. Emerging from decades of repression, the working class has not yet formulated its own program. In these opening moments of the unfolding struggle, it could not be otherwise. Again, to quote Trotsky, “The masses go into a revolution not with a prepared plan of social reconstruction, but with a sharp feeling that they cannot endure the old regime… The fundamental political process of the revolution thus consists in the gradual comprehension by a class of the problems arising from the social crisis—the active orientation of the masses by a method of successive approximations.”

As always in the opening stages of a revolutionary convulsion, the slogans that predominate are of a generally democratic character. The ruling elites, fearing the approach of the abyss, seek desperately to maintain what they can of the old order. Promises of “reform” slip easily from their lips. The upper layers of society desire change only to the extent that it does not threaten their wealth and social status. They ardently call for the “unity” of all democratic forces—under the political control, of course, of the representatives of the capitalist class. The personification of this “unity”—at least for the moment—is Mohamed ElBaradei.

However, the sort of democratic unity proposed by ElBaradei will offer nothing of substance to the working class, the rural poor and broad sections of the youth who have come out into the streets. The vital needs of the broad masses of Egyptian society cannot be realized without the most far-reaching overturn of existing property relations and the transfer of political power to the working class.

The New York Times, in one of its rare instances of political lucidity, called attention to the underlying social conflict in Egypt: “The widening chasm between rich and poor in Cairo has been one of the conspicuous aspects of city life over the last decade—and especially the last five years… But as the Mubarak administration has taken steps toward privatizing more government businesses, kicking off an economic boom for some, rich Egyptians have fled the city. They have flocked to gated communities full of big American-style homes around country clubs, and the remoteness of their lives from those of average Egyptians has become starkly visible.”

But is this state of affairs a purely Egyptian phenomenon? The New York Times’ description of the social chasm in Cairo could apply just as well to virtually every major city in the capitalist world, including the United States. Consider, for example, the situation in New York City. According to a recently released report of the Fiscal Policy Institute, the richest one percent of New York City residents received 44 percent of the total income paid to all residents.

Throughout the world social inequality has reached staggering proportions. Indeed, according to some reports, income inequality in the United States is greater than that which exists in Egypt and Tunisia. Moreover, throughout Europe and the United States, governments are demanding and implementing massive cuts in social expenditures. Ever-wider sections of the working class are falling into poverty.

The political regimes that exist in the advanced capitalist countries—though doubtlessly equipped with more sophisticated propaganda agencies—are as ossified and impervious to the discontent of the broad masses as the Egyptian government. Only last week, the president of the United States delivered a “State of the Union” address in which he failed to mention that nearly 10 percent of the country’s population is unemployed. For Mr. Obama, a more important indicator of the State of the Union is the “soaring” share values on Wall Street.

What is unfolding in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and throughout the country is of world historical significance. The events in Egypt reveal the form that social change will take in every country, including the most advanced. We are witnessing in this ancient land the first stirrings of a new epoch of world socialist revolution.

David North

The Egyptian working class needs new forms of mass organization

2 February 2011

With his announcement that he will not step down and intends to serve out his term until September, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has thrown down the gauntlet before the millions opposing his regime.

Mubarak could not hold onto power without the support of substantial sections of the military and his paymasters in Washington, DC. The Obama administration has been in constant contact with the Egyptian high command, which it funds to the tune of $1.5 billion a year.

Mubarak’s promise not to contest the next election is meaningless. Its only purpose is to provide Washington and the Egyptian military with the necessary time to disorient, disperse and repress the mass opposition to the regime. During the past 24 hours, even as tens of thousands of protesters occupied Tahrir Square, Mubarak, the military and their US advisors have been huddled in intense strategy sessions on how to formulate a political response to the outpouring of opposition that will ensure the survival of the regime.

Initial reports spoke of Mohamed ElBaradei, a man with no substantial support in Egypt, being in discussions with former intelligence chief and newly named Vice President Omar Suleiman and representatives of various opposition parties. The aim of the discussions was reportedly to establish a “board of trustees” made up of Suleiman; Sami Anan, the chief-of-staff of the armed forces; ElBaradei himself and Ahmed Zeweil, a Nobel chemistry prize winner. It now appears that this course of action has been rejected, with the US fearing that ditching Mubarak too quickly would create a power vacuum.

Mubarak’s defiant stand underscores the reactionary and two-faced role that has been played by the military. Its pledge “not to resort to the use of force against our great people,” presented as a sign that it stands behind the protests, is nothing of the sort. The military remains in charge of the country. Tahrir Square is still surrounded by tanks and troops.

Egypt’s rulers have depended directly on the military and drawn their leaders from its ranks ever since Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser led the Free Officers Movement in overthrowing King Farouk in 1952. Mubarak emerged from the army to become president in 1981 following the assassination of Muhammad Anwar El Sadat.

The army remains Mubarak’s power base. His initial effort to secure his rule in the face of the protests that erupted last week involved appointing a cabinet even more openly dominated by the military. He named Suleiman, a former general, as vice president, Ahmed Shafiq, former air force commander, as prime minister, Defence Minister General Mohamed Hussein Tantawi as deputy prime minister, and General Mahmoud Wagdy as interior minister.

This is what is really meant by the army’s declaration that it is “keen to assume its responsibility in protecting the nation and the citizens.”

Time magazine said of Suleiman: “Finding himself at the fulcrum of a fast-changing power equation could put the intelligence chief turned vice president in a strong position to script the denouement of the rebellion.”

The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall was clearer still, noting that the Egyptian regime’s “survival plan” centres on Suleiman: “At this point, Suleiman is the most powerful man in Egypt, backed by the military (from whence he hails), the security apparatus and a frightened ruling elite hoping to salvage something from the wreckage.

“Suleiman is, in effect, heading a military junta at this point, with all the principal civilian power positions—the presidency, the vice-presidency, the premiership, the defence and interior ministries—held by former senior officers, and with the military itself in full support.”

The claim by the Muslim Brotherhood that the army is “the protector of the nation” is false to the core. The army is the protector of the capitalist class.

The role of the Brotherhood is to politically disarm the working masses. Presently its propaganda lends credence to the political manoeuvres aimed at preserving the monopoly of power and wealth enjoyed by the ruling elite. Ultimately, however, should real change be posed, bloody experiences such as Chile in 1973 and Tiananmen Square in 1989 show that the army hailed by the Brotherhood will act ruthlessly to preserve the existing social order.

The Egyptian capitalist state is in crisis, but it remains intact and is working to regain full control. The mass movement has yet to develop the necessary organizational forms and political leadership.

The Mubarak regime, resting on the military and retaining the backing of US imperialism, seeks to exploit this limitation. The critical task confronting the working class is the creation of popular centres of power, independent of the government, the military apparatus and those “oppositional” forces now seeking an accommodation with the old regime.

The International Committee of the Fourth International calls the attention of Egyptian workers to the experiences of the greatest revolutionary movement of the twentieth century—that which unfolded in Russia between 1905 and 1917. In 1905, workers’ councils, known as soviets, sprang up in Saint Petersburg and throughout Russia’s industrial regions as organs of struggle against the Tsarist regime. In 1917, soviets again emerged, uniting workers and rebellious soldiers recruited from the peasantry. The soviets became the basis of revolutionary struggle and the overthrow of the bourgeois government.

This must serve as an example for the next stage in the development of the revolution now unfolding in Egypt. Mass organisations must be created that can become mechanisms for establishing the power of the workers and oppressed.

Chris Marsden

Heroic resistance in Cairo to state-orchestrated repression

By Chris Marsden

4 February 2011

Anti-government protesters in Cairo have fought back heroically against the brutal attacks by the disguised police and paid thugs of the regime of President Hosni Mubarak.

Early Thursday, protesters said they had detained 120 police and Mubarak loyalists and broadcast pictures of security police ID cards they had confiscated from infiltrators, routinely referred to by the media as “pro-Mubarak demonstrators”.

The army, just as cynically portrayed by the media as “standing between” the rival camps, let the attacks of Mubarak’s henchmen proceed for hours on end. They only made a brief feint at stopping clashes—just at the point where the pro-government forces were getting the worst of things.

Since then, snipers have been allowed to shoot from surrounding buildings unopposed, with many demonstrators wounded and several killed. Machine gun fire has been directed against the protesters. Meanwhile, no attempt was made to arrest petrol bombers. Brutal beatings were given the go-ahead throughout the city.

The death total has now reached 13, according to media reports, including one foreigner who was beaten to death, and at least 1,200 have been injured. There are certainly many more casualties that have gone unreported.

Many of these attacks have been carried out openly by uniformed police. In addition, Mubarak’s thugs have been handing people over to the police and secret service to be beaten and detained. A video posted on YouTube shows a police van ploughing into anti-regime protesters.

US intelligence web site Stratfor yesterday highlighted a report in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Mesryoon claiming: “Leaders from Egypt’s ruling party, members of the People’s Assembly and security commanders attended a secret meeting in Alexandria on Feb. 2 and made plans to mobilize hundreds of ’thugs’ to attack demonstrators and disperse them by force... According to sources that attended the meeting, a number of People’s Assembly members offered 250,000 Egyptian pounds ($42,700) to finance the attack, while security officials offered hundreds of clubs and explosive devices for use against the demonstrators.”

Political and human rights activists have been targeted, with reports of dozens of arrests. An Amnesty International representative and someone from Human Rights Watch were among eight to 12 arrested and beaten in a raid on the Hisham Mubarak Law Centre, which is an affiliate of Oxfam. The Centre for Economic and Social Rights was also raided.

The blogger “Sandmonkey” was grabbed while seeking to bring medical supplies to Tahrir Square. His car and mobile phone were destroyed and he and those with him were beaten. He has since been released.

The international media has been subjected to a well-organized attack both by unidentified thugs and uniformed police. Thugs have reportedly stormed hotels looking for journalists and stealing their equipment.

In one of the worst incidents, an ABC News crew’s car was hijacked and its passengers threatened with beheading. Several journalists have been beaten up. The Egyptian interior ministry arrested more than 20 foreign journalists in Cairo—including the Washington Post’s bureau chief. BBC equipment was seized and some of its journalists detained. Reuters and Al-Jazeera were also victims. Swedish TV’s Bert Sundström was feared missing at one point, but was found receiving treatment for serious stab wounds. A Greek reporter was also stabbed in central Cairo.

The Guardian reported that in Alexandria, pro-Mubarak thugs accused journalists of being Israeli spies, after state television “had warned viewers to beware of Israeli agents masquerading as journalists and seeking to damage the country’s image and national interest”.

Al Jazeera has been especially targeted by the government and its provocateurs. Its Cairo office has been shut down by authorities, and several of its reporters detained.

The patent aim of this campaign is to black out coverage of the brutal violence being unleashed by the regime on what had been largely peaceful demonstrations.

The army did nothing to prevent any of this. Its supposed efforts at “protection” and keeping the two sides apart in practice meant preventing doctors and medical supplies reaching those they had trapped.

The BBC’s John Simpson, attempting to lend credibility to the army, suggested that it was “significant” that two tank turrets were turned towards pro-Mubarak forces. Of more significance is that until that point all tank turrets were trained on the protesters in Tahrir Square.

A significant piece of direct evidence of collusion is the texts sent out by the government via various mobile phone networks to rally its forces. One published on Flickr gallery states, “The Armed Forces asks Egypt’s honest and loyal men to confront the traitors and criminals and protect our people and honor and our precious Egypt.”

The fact is that the army and the police are headed by the same people who control the government, with Mubarak’s newly appointed vice-president, Omar Suleiman, acting as the prime culprit.

Initially, Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq gave an interview in which he apologised for violence he described as “a fatal error”. “When investigations reveal who is behind this crime and who allowed it to happen, I promise they will be held accountable and will be punished for what they did,” he said.

Hours later Suleiman gave his own televised interview. On the eve of “departure Friday”, the vice-president was far more bellicose. Describing Mubarak as “father and leader”, he blamed violence on the anti-government protesters, in particular those amongst them representing “foreign agendas.” “We will look into [the violence], into the fact it was a conspiracy,” he said.

Those in Tahrir Square were “representatives of certain political parties, including foreigners”. Those calling for Mubarak to step down were not “part of the Egyptian culture”. It was a “call for chaos.” “September is a time limit which must be observed, otherwise we will have a constitutional vacuum,” Suleiman said.

Mubarak would not depart, Suleiman said. He would remain in office until elections, in which neither he nor his son, Gemal, would stand. Of the protesters, he threatened, “End your sit-in. Your demands have been answered.”

The police, he said, had done a “great job.”

In answer to statements from Mubarak’s imperialist allies calling for a quick transfer of rule, Suleiman said, “I blame some friendly countries for saying the wrong things.”

This would have “a negative impact on our relations with them… I blame certain friendly states who are hosting unfriendly TV stations who charge the youth against the state.”

Instead, he said, a “national dialogue” with representatives of opposition movements, including the Muslim Brotherhood, would discuss a timetable for political reform. But there would be no substantive talks unless protesters went home.

The inclusion of a promise that Gemal would not stand for president is in the army’s own interests. The generals who now dominate the government have shouldered out some of the businessmen cultivated by Mubarak, of whom Gemal is only an example made yet more odious by the nepotism involved. These same generals-cum-politicians also control major business interests that they want to protect and extend at the expense of both the masses and their civilian rivals.

Suleiman’s hard-line stance is in stark contrast to that of the leaders of the opposition National Coalition for Change, which includes Mohamed ElBaradei, the Muslim Brotherhood, Kefaya and others. A spokesman said that there will be “no negotiations with the government before Mubarak goes,” but added, “After that, we’re ready for dialogue with Suleiman.”

Mubarak himself felt emboldened to do a self-serving interview with ABC’s Christiane Amanpour. Amid statements expressing unhappiness at seeing Egyptians “fighting each other,” and stressing his determination to stay on for the good of the country, he was asked “how he responded to the United States’ veiled calls for him to step aside sooner rather than later.”

Mubarak stated that he had simply told President Barack Obama, “You don’t understand the Egyptian culture and what would happen if I step down now.”

Alongside the violent repression they have suffered, the Egyptian people were forced to listen to the hypocritical protestations of Washington and Europe.

Obama offered a brief prayer for Egypt at a National Prayer Breakfast, for the violence to end and that “a better day will dawn over Egypt and throughout the world.”

In a joint statement, the leaders of France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain called for the political transition in Egypt to “start now”, while condemning “all those who use or encourage violence”—as if both sides were guilty.

Neither Washington, nor its European counterparts offered anything else but platitudes. A UK government spokesman told the BBC that sanctions against Egypt “are not on the table” and “We won’t get into the position of dictating to other countries who their leader should be.”

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle stated baldly that “it’s completely obvious that this is a matter for the political opinion makers in Egypt to decide for themselves who shapes the democratic transition and how.”

With its own journalists arrested and under attack, US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley tailored his response to the Egyptian governments lies and evasions. Whereas this offensive appeared to be part of an organised effort, it was unclear who was directing it, he claimed.

The overriding concern of the Obama administration is to buy time, force the protesters off the street, and allow the Egyptian state and military to organize a new regime that is equally undemocratic and committed to supporting US interests in the region. On Thursday, administration officials floated to the media a plan to have Sulieman, a longtime close contact of the US and Israel, take over operations of the government before September, with the support of the military.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Egypt’s “government and a broad and credible representation of Egypt’s opposition, civil society and political factions to begin immediately serious negotiations on a peaceful and orderly transition”.

This is deliberately mendacious. Suleiman’s public pronouncements—coming after days of vicious repression—are a clear signal of an even bloodier clampdown to come.

Obama’s crocodile tears over Egypt’s violence

4 February 2011

“We pray that the violence in Egypt will end, and that the rights and aspirations of the Egyptian people will be realized, and that a better day will dawn over Egypt,” President Barack Obama solemnly intoned at the beginning of his remarks to the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday morning.

This annual celebration of official righteousness is, appropriately enough, convened by the Fellowship Foundation, a shadowy, politically connected group with a long record of organizing “prayer circles” that bring together foreign dictators, American politicians and military contractors. Defending the practice, the group’s organizer noted, “the Bible is full of mass murderers.”

Obama’s prayer follows a series of White House and State Department statements “deploring” the violence in Egypt and expressing moral indignation over the attacks by the regime of President Hosni Mubarak on peaceful protesters and the media.

Who do they think they are kidding? For 30 years, US administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, including that of Obama, have backed Mubarak precisely because of his ability to impose policies supported by Washington against the overwhelming opposition of the Egyptian people. That this required systematic and relentless violence was well understood.

If Obama is crying crocodile tears now over the violence that has left hundreds dead and thousands wounded in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and across Egypt, it is only because this violence has stopped working, and the Egyptian people continue to resist and struggle.

He wasn’t crying when he delivered his speech in Cairo in June 2009, which included not a word of criticism of the Mubarak regime. Instead, he praised the Egyptian dictator as a “stalwart ally” and a “force for stability and good in the region.”

Like his predecessors at the White House, Obama has sent an estimated $2 billion annually—second only to US aid to Israel—to prop up Mubarak’s dictatorship. The vast bulk of this money has gone to the army and police forces for the purpose of repressing the people of Egypt and the entire region.

That the president and other top US officials were hardly unaware of the violence carried out daily by the regime has been substantiated by documentary proof thanks to the secret diplomatic cables from the Cairo embassy released by WikiLeaks. A cable sent to Washington by the US ambassador in Cairo just months before Obama’s speech noted matter-of-factly that police brutality in Egypt is “routine and pervasive”, with “literally hundreds of torture incidents every day in Cairo police stations alone.”

This was hardly news. The Egyptian government has ruled through a virtually uninterrupted state of emergency over the course of Mubarak’s entire presidency. This allowed administrative detention without trial, the criminalization of strikes and the outlawing of any non-sanctioned gathering of five or more people.

In practice, this has meant that workers who have dared to strike have been met with riot police and troops, subjected to mass arrests and beaten with clubs and rifle butts. Leaders of workers’ protests have been hunted down, jailed and tortured. Those who the regime has bothered bringing to trial have frequently been hauled before special state security courts supposedly meant to deal with cases of armed terrorism.

Neither Obama’s nor any other US administration has found these actions troubling. They have helped create the most profitable conditions for the Egyptian bourgeoisie and transnational banks and corporations. Certainly no US official suggested withholding a single cent of US aid over the brutal repression of the Egyptian workers.

While Washington is now expressing its indignation over the arrests and intimidation of US and other foreign journalists covering the events in Egypt, it took no action against its client Mubarak as his regime arrested, tortured and “disappeared” journalists over the years, including for such offenses as “misquoting” his ministers, raising questions about his own health or writing derogatory reports about his son and chosen successor, Gamal.

The US viewed with approval the rounding up and detention without charges of thousands of members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups.

Washington likewise made no issue over the barbaric forms of torture meted out against thousands upon thousands of political prisoners, which ranged from burning people on their chest and legs to attaching electrodes to their tongues, nipples and genitals, to hanging them upside down to beatings and rapes.

On the contrary, the US government and its intelligence agencies viewed Mubarak’s torturers as a resource. It is likely that CIA officials watching the televised coverage of the goon squads attacking the protesters in Tahrir Square would have recognized some of their ringleaders, having rubbed shoulders with them in the torture chambers of Cairo’s Lazoughli Street secret police headquarters or Maulhaq al-Mazra prison.

Under an “extraordinary rendition program” begun under the Clinton administration in the 1990s, alleged terror suspects abducted by the CIA elsewhere in the world were flown in hoods and shackles to Egypt for the express purpose of being interrogated under torture. This grisly arrangement, which established a seamless unity between the Egyptian torture regime and US imperialism’s intervention in the Middle East, was worked out between US intelligence and the head of Mubarak’s secret police, Omar Suleiman. Recently named as vice president, Suleiman has been in regular telephone discussions with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden and other US officials.

Moreover, the role of the Egyptian regime as the “stalwart ally” of both the US and Israel has facilitated massive violence, from the US invasion of Iraq to the Israeli wars in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

This is the objective and historical context in which Obama’s prayer for an end to violence and his crocodile tears over the repression in Egypt must be evaluated.

Behind its pseudo-democratic posturing, the US administration is playing for time. Within ruling circles and the US military-intelligence apparatus, there no doubt exist divisions and conflicting assessments over whether Mubarak can succeed in suppressing the masses or whether immediate steps must be taken to refurbish the regime.

What concerns every section of the US ruling elite, however, is what Senator John McCain referred to recently as the “Lenin scenario”, i.e., that the mass demonstrations against Mubarak will develop into a direct revolutionary challenge to imperialist domination and capitalist rule in Egypt.

All the talk from Washington about a “transition to a democratic regime” is aimed at forestalling this threat. Such a US-backed “transition” has no credibility whatsoever. It sole purpose would be to re-stabilize the existing military dictatorship so that it can continue enforcing policies that benefit US imperialism and a narrow and corrupt Egyptian financial elite, while subjecting the masses of workers and oppressed to unemployment, poverty and repression.

Egyptian workers and youth should reject both Obama’s hypocritical expressions of concern and US promises of a “democratic transition” with the contempt they deserve. The burning need is for the development of an independent revolutionary movement of the working class to effect the transfer of power to the workers and the oppressed and organize the socialist transformation of Egyptian society. A genuine democratic transformation of Egypt, an end to oppression and social inequality, can be achieved only by means of socialist revolution.

Bill Van Auken