Egypt

Comrades, thousands upon thousands of youth, workers, and genuine revolutionaries, not only in Egypt, but throughout the Arab world, have had their eyes on and pinned their hopes on the Revolutionary Socialists. We ask that you to renounce your position of supporting Morsi and take to the streets, factories, universities, and neighbourhoods in order to explain to workers and youths the counter-revolutionary nature of both Shafiq and Morsi, that you expose the rotten and reactionary nature of Egyptian capitalism. [in Arabic]

One of the main features of a revolutionary situation is the suddenness with which the mood of the masses can change. The workers learn quickly on the basis of events. And the events of the last 24 hours show that the workers and youth of Egypt are learning fast.

The second round in Egypt's fraudulent presidential elections will be taking place on June 16 and 17. In the election, Ahmad Shafiq, one of Mubarak's old ministers, will face Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Marxists can offer no support to either of these candidates, both of whom represent the forces of counter-revolution. However, the Revolutionary Socialists in Egypt have decided to do just that, and it is a grave mistake.

February 11 marks the one year anniversary of the fall of Mubarak. Summer, autumn, and winter have passed since the beginning of the “Arab spring”, and the Egyptian masses are still taking to the streets. Despite all that has happened over the past 12 months, nothing has fundamentally changed for the majority of ordinary Egyptians. There have been a series of victories and defeats for the workers and youth of Egypt, but now, with the anniversary of the Revolution, the movement is entering a new phase.

On Friday more than a million Egyptian youth, workers and poor yet again assembled in Tahrir Square. The masses have once again risen in an attempt to remove the remnants of the Mubarak regime, which are still in power. Not far from Tahrir, in Abbassiya Square, not more than a couple of thousand people gathered in a pathetic demonstration in support of the SCAF. To the sceptics who did not believe in the revolution, this should be a clear demonstration of the real balance of forces. But at the same time the revolution clearly faces obstacles, not from external forces, but in its own internal contradictions.

Events in Egypt are developing at lightning speed. Similarly to the last days of Mubarak in February this year, we see daily battles on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere. The Egyptian masses are determined to see the revolution carried through to the end. The clash between revolution and counter-revolution is provoking a crisis inside all political forces, as the rank and file instinctively move towards revolution and the leaderships vacillate and try to hold the masses back.

As these lines are being written revolution and counter-revolution are facing each other on the streets of Egypt. Cairo's Tahrir Square has once again become the focal point of the revolution. Over the weekend, clashes broke out once again in Tahrir Square as the police tried to clear it of activists who were demanding the end of military rule. Driven by the whip of the counter-revolution tens of thousands of revolutionaries are retaking their positions in the square where the revolution had played out its first acts.

Faced with ever increasing contradictions, the military rulers in Egypt have looked to cut across the recent wave of class struggle by attempting to divide the workers and youth along religious lines. This is the context in which the recent deaths of 24 Coptic Christian Egyptian protestors must be seen.

With the re-introduction of the emergency law, the military junta is desperately trying to strangle the revolution and return to the “normality” of the Mubarak era. But the workers are on the move. The recent upsurge in strikes and protests could spell the end for the SCAF regime.

The euphoria amongst the Egyptian masses that followed the fall of Mubarak in February has disappeared. The hard reality of the situation – in which political, social, and economic conditions have barely changed – has set in. The revolution has not ended, however, but has, after a brief lull, transitioned from the streets to the workplaces. The working class in Egypt – the motor force of the revolution – is organising and is on the move.

Almost seven months after the fall of Mubarak, the revolution in Egypt is far from over. The old regime is still in power and the masses can feel the revolution slipping through their fingers. Everything has changed, and yet everything remains the same. However, the anger of workers and youth has not gone away as the recent spate of strikes indicates.

Friday 8th July saw the largest protests since the departure of Hosni Mubarak as tens of thousands took to the streets of Cairo, and thousands more came out to protest in other cities across Egypt, such as Alexandria and Suez. Material conditions have not improved for the workers and youth of Egypt, and Tahrir Square has once again become a visible epicentre of the revolution.

On March 19, Egyptians voted by a large majority in a referendum in favour of a series of amendments to the Constitution. However, it would be wrong to see the results of this vote as an endorsement of the policy of the Army Council to contain the revolution and return to capitalist normality with as few changes as possible.

The mighty power of revolution has been demonstrated with the resignation of Mubarak. It has shown that the staunchest, most vicious and stubborn of despots can be overthrown when the masses enter the arena of struggle and their resolve becomes absolute. But the most unique feature of this movement is that even after the tyrant has gone it refuses to relent.

We republish here a statement from the Committee for the Defence of the Revolution of the south Cairo neighbourhoods of Maadi, Besatin and Dar el-Salam. Such CDRs were established during the revolutionary uprising which led to the overthrow of Mubarak and they exist in several Cairo neighbourhoods, but also in other cities, including the industrial centre of Helwan.

Despite appeals by the Army Council that strikes should stop, Egyptian workers, emboldened by the revolution, have continued to take mass action to solve their long held grievances. We publish here two reports we have received about the growing movement of the Egyptian working class.

The Egyptian military top brass have taken over the running of the country and, while they are promising a transition to “democracy” at some stage, they are more concerned in the short term about what they see as “chaos and disorder”. That is, not just the rallies that have gripped all of Egypt’s major cities, but something far more dangerous in their view, the growing strike wave.

An example of the militancy of the Egyptian workers is this statement issued by the higher coordination committee of the Petrotrade workers, calling on workers at the company for an open ended strike until their demands are met.

Contrary to what the bourgeois media claim, revolutions are not made by individual agitators or small groups. They are made by the mass of people and they are prepared for years by the decay of the old system which is no longer able to take society forward. On the other hand, when a society is ripe for revolution, that is, when all the contradictions have accumulated to a critical degree, a small force can play a large role in the events that are about to unfold.

The tyrant has fallen! As I write these lines, Hosni Mubarak has resigned. This is a great victory, not just for the people of Egypt, but for the workers of the entire world. After 18 days of continuous revolutionary mobilizations, with 300 dead and thousands injured, Hosni Mubarak's 30-year tyranny is no more.