Leftists fuel bourgeois campaigns about ‘revolution’

[Devrim]

Whether you get your news from the papers, TV or online you won't have missed headlines about an 'Egyptian Revolution.' What's happened in Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Yemen has shown that people from many social strata are fed up with the conditions they live in and are rebelling en masse against those who enforce them. The fact that this movement has affected a number of countries is very exciting, but it does not amount to a revolution, i.e. the replacement of one class by another. Despite the scale and heroism of the uprisings, despite the promise they contain, most of the explicit demands being made only amount to an adjustment of the capitalist political system: bourgeois rule has not been consciously challenged.

In Egypt, for example, the move to get rid of Mubarak now has the support of the army and US imperialism, so as a demand it is clearly no challenge to capitalist rule. Yet the leftists go along with the idea that a revolution is taking place. “Victory to the Egyptian revolution” is the front page headline of Socialist Worker (5/2/11). In the same issue the SWP say that “The overthrowing of Mubarak would fundamentally challenge the status quo in the oil rich region.” In reality the replacement of Mubarak has become part of US policy which it is undertaking through its links with the Egyptian army.

The SWP see the uprising in Egypt as a blow against Israel and ultimately the control of the US in the region who rely on Israel to act as its policeman in the Middle East: " a revolutionary transformation of the region would throw this arrangement into question and give hope that Arab people can win their fight for freedom." Not only is the talk of a 'revolutionary transformation' a misleading description of the immediate potential of the situation, but the genuine struggles of workers and other oppressed strata are obscured by the nationalist jargon about the “Arab people.”

It is not surprising that, in an article in which the SWP says Egypt is “on the verge of revolution”, it refers to “the memory of the Iranian Revolution of 1978-9.” Back then, during the period of upheaval which led to the replacement of the Shah by the regime headed by Khomeini, as well as the popular demonstrations there were also militant workers' strikes. In October 1978 the strikes of tens of thousands oil workers, steel workers and rail workers were major factors in the Shah's exit. But that didn't mean there was a revolution. The Islamic regime which came to power in the wake of these events is perhaps even more repressive than the rule of the Shah.

And today the leftists, for all their talk of the importance of the working class, still look to other forces and ideas as the key element in the situation. For example, the SWP describes the Muslim Brotherhood as a “contradictory force”. By this it means that although it is a conservative force and “its leaders include factory owners and rural landlords” it also “has the respect and support of millions of Egyptians.” While revolutionaries are straightforward in denouncing any party that wants to take its place in the capitalist state apparatus, leftists pick out their favourites from the contending bourgeois forces.

The SWP also says that “the hold of Nasser and nationalism remains a strong force.” But instead of exposing the influence of the current generation of Nasserites the SWP claim that they too have an 'ambiguous' role: “They are deeply hostile to neoliberalism―not because they oppose capitalism, but because they believe all industry should be under state control. They support some peasants’ and workers’ demands, yet believe these should be limited by the needs of national unity. This means that the role they will play in the coming period remains unclear.”

Why would we expect any more from a group that thinks (as they did in the 1950s!) that “Nasser’s radical reforms inspired the Arab masses, and threatened imperialist domination of the Middle East.” The truth is that many had illusions in Nasser, but that far from threatening imperialism he was an integral part of the imperialist conflicts in the region. During his rule and that of his successors Egypt became an outpost of Russian imperialism prior to switching sides in the conflict between the two blocs.

The promotion of Arab nationalism is widespread throughout the left. The ‘Communist Party of Great Britain’ that publishes Weekly Worker (quotes from nos 850 and 851)is particularly strong on pan-Arabism, in a way that is reminiscent of Bakunin's pan-Slavism. Avoiding a class analysis the CPGB says that Mubarak's Egypt is “An everyday living insult, and humiliation, to ordinary Egyptians and the very idea of pan-Arabism in general” and that “Arab reunification remains an urgent but unfulfilled task.” Instead of a marxist understanding of the international unity of the working class the CPGB argue that “the Arab masses have a shared problem. The answer should be a common solution, which, of course, there is - revolutionary pan-Arab unity.” Referring to the “Arab masses” and making pseudo-scientific pontifications about the “objective and cultural-psychological conditions for pan-Arab unity exist in abundance” does not change the class reality of capitalism, where only a conscious working class can overthrow bourgeois rule, and where all forms of nationalism stand in the way of class consciousness.

The CPGB claim that “A free Egypt, as part of a pan-Arab revolution that rages across the entire region, would challenge the hegemony of Israel.” This shows where their position leads. The expression “challenge the hegemony” ultimately means 'go to war with'. This is where the leftists' ideas lead. The CPGB's idea of a 'revolution' raging across the Middle East means plunging it into an imperialist war in which many of the 'Arab masses' will lose their lives. In the past support for the Palestinian 'revolution' by SWP founder Tony Cliff meant support for Nasser's Egypt in 1967's Six Day War. Not only do leftist ideas hamper the real movement of the working class toward a real revolution, they also lead to imperialist war.

http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2011/2/revolution

Devrim

[Kibbutznik]

You left coms always know how to spoil a party :P

[the last donut of the night]

Not to start a shitstorm here, but I agree. In a Marxist sense, a revolution is something pretty specific -- I don't need to tell you what it means because we all already know. Egypt is not going through any revolutions. However, what's very interesting and admirable about this situation is that it has the immense power to become revolutionary. It's the first time in my very short life that I'm keeping track of a series of political and social events that could very well lead to something bigger. This week's news of striking workers demanding political changes is very inspiring. Will it lead to anything substantial? I don't know -- nobody can predict what's gonna happen next week. However, if there's anything the bourgeoisie will remember about these weeks, regardless of how this situation ends, is the immense social power of the working class.

Let's hope things heat up.

[gorillafuck]

Not to mention that the situation in Egypt is currently leading into the rule of the US backed Egyptian military.

Edit: that sounded pessimistic, I don't mean for that to be a pessimistic statement

[Os Cangaceiros]

The struggle needs to deepen and widen, I think we can all agree on that point.

However, I also don't see reasons to be overly pessimistic at this point. We've all witnessed something unlike anything that I've personally ever seen in my relatively-brief lifetime, and a great opening for activity by the left. Not just in Egypt, either...the struggle against Mubarak's regime was instigated by the crisis and the consequent unemployment and price inflation of basic necessities in North Africa. That's also linked to what has happened in Greece & Western Europe, as countries there have seen & reacted to the crisis (and the working class has resisted rollbacks imposed upon them by the state).

[Mather]

Whether you get your news from the papers, TV or online you won't have missed headlines about an 'Egyptian Revolution.' What's happened in Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Yemen has shown that people from many social strata are fed up with the conditions they live in and are rebelling en masse against those who enforce them. The fact that this movement has affected a number of countries is very exciting, but it does not amount to a revolution, i.e. the replacement of one class by another. Despite the scale and heroism of the uprisings, despite the promise they contain, most of the explicit demands being made only amount to an adjustment of the capitalist political system: bourgeois rule has not been consciously challenged.

I agree. That is why I prefer to call the change in Egypt as a popular uprising as opposed to a revolution, which clearly entails the overthrow of one class by another.

The French Revolution is the classic example of a bourgeois revolution and the overthrow of the old feudal order by the aspirant capitalist class. Paris 1871, Russia 1917 and Spain 1936-37 are all examples of working class revolutions/attempted revolutions, even if the eventual outcomes were reaction and counter-revolution in each. Sadly this is not the case in Egypt now.

However, the popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia could act as a kind of sudden break to the political and social normalcy of these countries and could create conditions which would increase the level of class struggle and class consciousness amongst the workers. Pre-revolutionary situations are usually unstable, combative and dramatic and the current wave of popular uprisings could be the beginnings of such a process.

I also agree with the rest of the article in warning against the working class in the Middle East turning to fake variants of socialism and national capitalist solutions, such as Nassersim, Pan-Arabism, Islamism or Islamic socialism. All of these ideologies have failed miserably in the countries they rule and it should not be forgotten that Hosni Mubarak was part of the Nasserist state and his regime is a product of the failed national liberation model. There are many examples of once 'radical' countries becoming corrupt capitalist kleptocracies, Algeria under the FLN, Angola under the MPLA, Libya under Gaddafi, Palestine under the PA/Abbas, Syria under the Ba'ath Party and the Assads etc...

[KC]

tl;dr, but there is such a thing as a democratic revolution, you know...

But I do agree that (if I skimmed correctly) many leftists are overplaying this. Focus shouldn't be on "ZOMG REVOLUTION IS SPREADING" but rather what advances have been made in the democratic revolution and its inherent limitations and to ultimately make an argument to move forward.

But I think we both know that the left, like Fox News, is mostly concerned with gaining readers and remaining relevant, so they want to have the most attention-grabbing headlines, and "Yeah, but..." isn't really a headline that sells papers.

[RedTrackWorker]

It's a revolution. It's not a completed, victorious revolution. But 1905 in Russia was a revolution. There's a dual power situation or close to one (i.e. a situation in which workers and poor take on functions of the state) in Tunisia and Egypt. More organized in Tunisia, though my information is old and that could change rapidly in Egypt especially as the wave of struggle is now moving into "the point of production".
Not so much for the debate on what to call this, but for other reasons, it's worth reading Lenin's Lecture on the 1905 Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jan/09.htm), written Jan 1917...one month before the outbreak of the next Russian revolution. It did not replace the rule of one class by another, and it even started by petitioning the head of the ruling class but they learned:

It is in this awakening of tremendous masses of the people to political consciousness and revolutionary struggle that the historic significance of January 22, 1905 lies.
“There is not yet a revolutionary people in Russia,” wrote Mr. Pyotr Struve, then leader of the Russian liberals and publisher abroad of an illegal, uncensored organ, two days before “Bloody Sunday”. The idea that an illiterate peasant country could produce a revolutionary people seemed utterly absurd to this “highly educated”, supercilious and extremely stupid leader of the bourgeois reformists. So deep was the conviction of the reformists of those days—as of the reformists of today—that, a real revolution was impossible!

See also:

The peculiarity of the Russian revolution is that it was a bourgeois-democratic revolution in its social content, but a proletarian revolution in its methods of struggle. It was a bourgeois-democratic revolution since its immediate aim, which it could achieve directly and with its own forces, was a democratic republic, the eight-hour day and confiscation of the immense estates of the nobility
Note the demands of at least the Helwan Iron and Steel workers go beyond "bourgeois-democratic" demands, such as including workers' management. Workers in Tunisia and Egypt are managing factories and in Tunisia at least are running whole towns (or were...hard to get up to date info) and workers in Suez may already be as well or certainly seem possibly close to it. In other words, they've already gone in practice beyond a "democratic stage", so while the movement is not self-consciously socialist yet, this is an incipient workers' socialist revolution.
Remember again, the workers and peasants went in 1905 from petitioning the Tsar to trying to overthrow him. The workers and peasants in Tunisia and Egypt essentially started with the goal of removing the executive and there is much debate going on what to do next, but in a sense, they started off on a higher political level than the masses of Russia in 1905 did.
Further, Lenin notes on important dynamic than many workers are drawn into the struggle through economic struggles and then become more political:

Among the textile workers, on the other hand, we observe an overwhelming preponderance of economic strikes at the beginning of 1905, and it is only at the end of the year that we get a preponderance of political strikes. From this it follows quite obviously that the economic struggle, the struggle for immediate and direct improvement of conditions, is alone capable of rousing the most backward strata of the exploited masses, gives them a real education and transforms them—during a revolutionary period—into an army of political fighters within the space of a few months.
Strikes started to spread a few days ago in Egypt, many for apparently mainly economic demands while sectors that had a long history of struggle (Helwan, Mahalla) started with political demands, and there is every possibility revolutionaries basing themselves on such struggles can create "an army of political fighters within the space of a few months" [or hopefully faster].
But that political leadership is more and more essential. Without it, there will be a violent crackdown as the movement will not go from strength to strength with a middle-class leadership supporting things like a "council of the wise" to write the constitution or whatever. The revolutionary workers must self-organize to build their own party as part of the international struggle against capitalism.

[Devrim]

tl;dr,

I can't quite understand this. I had to look the phrase up on the internet to find out what it meant (two long;didn't read for any similarly uncool posters), but it's a really short piece. It isn't a book or even a long article. I just read it again and timed myself, and, not rushing, it took me just over three minutes. If you want to engage with something why not read it first.


but there is such a thing as a democratic revolution, you know...

Is there? What does it mean?


It's a revolution. It's not a completed, victorious revolution. But 1905 in Russia was a revolution. There's a dual power situation (i.e. a situation in which workers and poor take on functions of the state) in Tunisia and Egypt. More organized in Tunisia, though my information is old and that could change rapidly in Egypt especially as the wave of struggle is now moving into "the point of production".

I think that this completely misuses the term revolution. I also think that Egypt is a long way from a 'dual power' situation.

Devrim

[Devrim]

It's the first time in my very short life that I'm keeping track of a series of political and social events that could very well lead to something bigger. This week's news of striking workers demanding political changes is very inspiring. Will it lead to anything substantial? I don't know -- nobody can predict what's gonna happen next week.


However, I also don't see reasons to be overly pessimistic at this point. We've all witnessed something unlike anything that I've personally ever seen in my relatively-brief lifetime, and a great opening for activity by the left. Not just in Egypt, either...the struggle against Mubarak's regime was instigated by the crisis and the consequent unemployment and price inflation of basic necessities in North Africa. That's also linked to what has happened in Greece & Western Europe, as countries there have seen & reacted to the crisis (and the working class has resisted rollbacks imposed upon them by the state).

I am not sure how old either of you are, and I would agree that there is something important happening. I don't think that we are in a revolutionary or even 'pre-revolutionary' situation by a long way yet. Undoubtedly there has been a return to class struggle on an international level which has been slowly raising for about a decade now after the dreadful years that were the Nineties. However, it is still a long way off the levels of class struggle that we saw in the Seventies or Eighties even.

To put it simply, there is no need to be pessimistic, but there is a need to try to understand what is actually going on.


But I do agree that (if I skimmed correctly) many leftists are overplaying this. Focus shouldn't be on "ZOMG REVOLUTION IS SPREADING" but rather what advances have been made in the democratic revolution and its inherent limitations and to ultimately make an argument to move forward.

But I think we both know that the left, like Fox News, is mostly concerned with gaining readers and remaining relevant, so they want to have the most attention-grabbing headlines, and "Yeah, but..." isn't really a headline that sells papers.

I think that this is right. For much of the left the revolution is always being portrayed as being just round the corner. It isn't. One of the effects of this I think is demoralisation and people dropping out when all of those bright faced new recruits realise that actually it isn't.

Devrim

[Alf]

Perhaps the best way to put it is that these movements are clearly part of a global upsurge which raises the spectre of the mass strike and ultimately of revolution. But the key issue at the moment in Egypt is the need for the working class to assert its organisational and 'ideological' independence from the 'democratic' bourgeoisie and even other non-exploiting strata. Talk of a 'democratic revolution' spreads the illusion that the workers' interests can be satisfied by participating in a patriotic, democratic front with a fraction of the Egyptian bourgeoisie.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I am not sure how old either of you are, and I would agree that there is something important happening.

I was born at the end of the 1980's.

[Zanthorus]

Is there? What does it mean?

From what I've read it refers to a varying combination of the agrarian revolution, national liberation, the establishment of an indivisible republic based on universal suffrage, the ending of all feudal tithes and obligations and other tasks of the 'bourgeois revolution'. The kind of demands that the Bolsheviks were fighting for prior to 1917, or which Marx and Engels were pushing for in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung during the 1848 revolutions. Democratic revolution is probably a more precise term because 'bourgeois revolution' implies that the above mentioned tasks can be accomplished by the bourgeoisie, whereas the line of Marx, Engels and Lenin was that the bourgeoisie had become a conservative force which was incapable of bringing the democratic revolution to a conclusion.

[S.Artesian]

I think that this completely misuses the term revolution. I also think that Egypt is a long way from a 'dual power' situation.

Devrim

Obviously, Egypt isn't that far from a dual power situation. Three days ago, workers in Cairo and other cities announced a series of job actions including strikes. Two days ago, the military announces creation of an emergency council that will stay in session continuously. Yesterday Mubarak turns power over to the military council. This is not a coincidence.

If the origin of the struggle in Egypt is in the economy, and not just the domestic economy, but in its interconnection with the world economy, then what is occurring is most definitely not a "democratic revolution" but a social struggle that drives ahead of itself all those elements that have been excluded from access to the economy and the demands for that access get presented as "freedom" and "democracy" and "equality"-- hence the romance with the military which appears to represent a rough sort of egalitarianism, until.... Until class struggle intervenes. Until that military has to discipline that working class; has to defend the mode of production; has to put the truth to "freedom" and "democracy"-- that neither applies to social labor and that both apply to property.

"A democratic revolution" in and of itself does not exist and cannot exist. It is a representation of the uneven and combined development that informs the economy and the class relations that make up that economy.

How far the Egyptian working class gets down this road depend on how successful it is in a) recognizing the nascent elements of dual power in their own strike organizations b) using those organizations to translate class struggle into the military itself.

[thälmann]

but what is happening right now in egypt is not an democratic or antiimperialist revolution. its a shift of power inside the pro imperialist comprador camp. a real democratic revolution could only be led by the working class. all parts of the bourgoisie in such countrys are too weak. on the other hand, a democratic revolution under proletarian leadership would open the path to socialism.

and of course its not a revolution, just some kind of big revolt. but the egyptian people will learn, when they still cant afford their daily bread after some "free elections".

[Devrim]

Obviously, Egypt isn't that far from a dual power situation. Three days ago, workers in Cairo and other cities announced a series of job actions including strikes. Two days ago, the military announces creation of an emergency council that will stay in session continuously. Yesterday Mubarak turns power over to the military council. This is not a coincidence.

I think that Egypt is very far from a 'situation of dual power'. As you say, strikes have only been happening for three days, and I don't think that in that time workers can have evolved the organs that could exercise that power.

I think that to see anything resembling dual power, we have to go back almost thirty years to Iran in 1978-9, and Poland in 1980-1. This isn't the situation in Egypt today.

That is not to say that this sort of situation couldn't develop, but I don't think we are there yet.


How far the Egyptian working class gets down this road depend on how successful it is in a) recognizing the nascent elements of dual power in their own strike organizations

I think your term 'nascent', which means coming into existence, says quite clearly that you don't think there is dual power now.

Devrim

[Rakhmetov]

While it is true that AmeriKKKa is trying to coopt the Middle-Eastern revolutions, it does no service to the cause of humanity to scorn the efforts of the Arab masses as of no great merit. We need to keep raging against the machine. :mad:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Boy it didn't take long for the ICC to slander the CPGB-PCC, did it? :rolleyes:

[S.Artesian]

I think your term 'nascent', which means coming into existence, says quite clearly that you don't think there is dual power now.

Devrim

No, I don't think there is dual power now. I just don't the situation is very far away from seeing organs of dual power spring up.

[S.Artesian]

While it is true that AmeriKKKa is trying to coopt the Middle-Eastern revolutions, it does no service to the cause of humanity to scorn the efforts of the Arab masses as of no great merit. We need to keep raging against the machine. :mad:


Who scorned anything?

[Devrim]

While it is true that AmeriKKKa is trying to coopt the Middle-Eastern revolutions, it does no service to the cause of humanity to scorn the efforts of the Arab masses as of no great merit. We need to keep raging against the machine. :mad:

Who is scorning anything? To say that there isn't a revolution isn't to do this. Of course there are importnat struggles going on, but not a revolution.

Devrim

[Devrim]

Boy it didn't take long for the ICC to slander the CPGB-PCC, did it? :rolleyes:

What is slanderous there? Is there anything untrue or unfair?

Devrim

[bricolage]

The irony being that if that counts as slander against the CPGB the multitude of things the CPGB spends its time writing about any other left groups must count as slander too.

[Devrim]

No, I don't think there is dual power now. I just don't the situation is very far away from seeing organs of dual power spring up.

It is possible, but by no means inevitable.

Devrim

[Die Neue Zeit]

What is slanderous there? Is there anything untrue or unfair?

Devrim

There is such a thing as working-class, progressive pan-nationalism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/bankruptcy-internationalismi-t144285/index.html), such as the call for a Communist Party of the European Union.

"Internationalism" is bankrupt. Time to move on to transnationalism and workers pan-nationalism.


The CPGB claim that “A free Egypt, as part of a pan-Arab revolution that rages across the entire region, would challenge the hegemony of Israel.” This shows where their position leads. The expression “challenge the hegemony” ultimately means 'go to war with'. This is where the leftists' ideas lead. The CPGB's idea of a 'revolution' raging across the Middle East means plunging it into an imperialist war in which many of the 'Arab masses' will lose their lives. In the past support for the Palestinian 'revolution' by SWP founder Tony Cliff meant support for Nasser's Egypt in 1967's Six Day War. Not only do leftist ideas hamper the real movement of the working class toward a real revolution, they also lead to imperialist war.

According to the ICC, every state right down to Haiti is an imperialist state. :rolleyes:

[Broletariat]

"Internationalism" is bankrupt. Time to move on to transnationalism and pan-nationalism.:rolleyes:


wat

[Die Neue Zeit]

Click the link in that post.

[Sir Comradical]

Holy shit, I think I agree with this article. We shouldn't be calling it a revolution, a revolution is when one class overthrows another, this is true. I'm especially annoyed at Galloway pandering to the Muslim Brotherhood and pinning hopes on their ability to lead.

[Devrim]

There is such a thing as working-class, progressive pan-nationalism (http://www.revleft.com/vb/bankruptcy-internationalismi-t144285/index.html), such as the call for a Communist Party of the European Union.

I notice the link is to one of your own threads, which is probably the only place outside of your head where the idea of "working-class, progressive pan-nationalism" exists, as with many of your ideas.


"Internationalism" is bankrupt. Time to move on to transnationalism and workers pan-nationalism.

However, the CPGB don't think this, and claim to be internationalists, and should be judged on such a claim.


According to the ICC, every state right down to Haiti is an imperialist state. :rolleyes:

No, according to the ICC imperialism is a world system, which no state can stand apart from, not just a policy practiced by some bad states.

Certainly if you except that the USSR was an imperialist state then Egypt was at one point in its orbit, and played its role in the imperialist system. More recently of course it has been playing its role on the US' side.

And I ask again, where is the slander?* What do we say that is untrue. It is merely quotations mixed with opinion on them.

Devrim

*Actually it would be libel not slander if it were so as it is written not spoken, but never mind.

[gorillafuck]

"Internationalism" is bankrupt. Time to move on to transnationalism
I'd love to hear the theorizing on how these are different, assuming that you're not actually referring to globalized capitalism (which is what transnational traditionally means, but I doubt that's what you mean)


and workers pan-nationalism.And what is that?

[S.Artesian]

I have an idea: Let's stick to the concrete issue of the struggle in Egypt, or Yemen, Tunisia-- not that I begrudge the Revleft version of Norman Mailer known as DNZ yet another opportunity to divert, and disrupt, a discussion into the service of his own self-aggrandizing, and moronic, ramblings, but I do.

The guy has absolutely nothing to add except his self-advertising, which is of course, adding nothing but rather a collection of distortions, bad history, pseudo-analysis, and plain old petit-bourgeois horseshit.

So let's talk about Egypt-- what the rise in food prices meant to initiating the struggle, and what's going to happen when that rise accelerates. Let's talk about the public transport workers strike.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Whatever else you can say, it's certainly opening Egypt up to a new series of class relations, where Leftist parties can organize without the threat of state oppression (remember, mubarak survived on the myth that the MB was the only viable opposition to him)

[S.Artesian]

Whatever else you can say, it's certainly opening Egypt up to a new series of class relations, where Leftist parties can organize without the threat of state oppression (remember, mubarak survived on the myth that the MB was the only viable opposition to him)


You think so? You think the military is going to let workers parties organize? You think the military is going to allow class struggle agitation inside the rank and file?

And exactly what new class relations are going to be formed? Let me guess... anti-feudal class relations? Here we go again... you might want to look back at Nasser's rule and see what happened in the area of landed property before you make, yet again, the mistake of talking about "semi-feudalism" in Egypt.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I'd love to hear the theorizing on how these are different, assuming that you're not actually referring to globalized capitalism (which is what transnational traditionally means, but I doubt that's what you mean)

And what is that?

Trans-nationalism: "beyond nations" (beyond Marx's own framework of socialist nation-states)
Inter-nationalism: "between nations" (too often you can have inter-nationalism like "solidarity" without attempting to go beyond nation-states)
Pan-nationalism: continental unity (Europe, Africa), sub-continental unity (Middle East, Central America), etc.


I notice the link is to one of your own threads, which is probably the only place outside of your head where the idea of "working-class, progressive pan-nationalism" exists, as with many of your ideas.

You posted there yourself. :rolleyes:


No, according to the ICC imperialism is a world system, which no state can stand apart from, not just a policy practiced by some bad states.

Certainly if you except that the USSR was an imperialist state then Egypt was at one point in its orbit, and played its role in the imperialist system. More recently of course it has been playing its role on the US' side.

Except or accept? I don't think the USSR was imperialist or "social-imperialist" except in two cases: Eastern European industrial relocations and the Aswan Dam Project.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Devrim, actually I've found your posts after the OP more productive and interesting than the article you posted in the OP :D


We could be witnessing the opening scene of a new era of revolutions in the 21st century. Revolutions that can go beyond bringing down the worst of the tyrants and dictators and start to challenge the very system of capitalism itself.

If you read the actual articles rather than secondary sources it's obvious that they are not arguing that this is a Socialist Revolution. Few are arguing that it is such a revolution (though some are overplaying it - calling it "permanent revolution" and so on). There are nationalist revolutions, and right now that's what this is - a populist national revolution (meaning that there is cross-class involvement and a number of class interests at play).

So the argument in the OP's article is that only working class revolutions can be called revolutions? That's silly. The American Revolution didn't replace feudalism with capitalism, the Cuban Revolution replaced one bourgeois nationalist government for a more progressive one and so on... they certainty weren't working class revolutions, but both brought all classes into play at various levels - we can't say that a revolution didn't happen just because we don't like who came out on top or some other class other than workers came out on top.

Who is the audience for the article in the OP? If you try and talk to someone at work who's excited about this uprising - this semantic bullshit won't fly. It's much easier just to distinguish, "socialist revolution" or "working class revolution" than to insist that people only call things with a socialist character a "revolution". Save yourself some time, agree that a revolution is going on if people are calling it that and then get to the real arguments about why the military isn't neutral, why working class problems and demands will not be solved and satisfied by a reform "parliamentary" government and normalized bourgeois elections, why the working class should organize independently and fight for their class interests and why real democracy won't be achieved until workers have power.

I think the bigger popular misconception that is dangerous for both people in Egypt and how workers in our own countries interpret this revolution is that it ends with Mubarak resigning - that's the beginning IMO. Now that ends the "national" democratic side of this upheaval because the cross-class alliance will start to show the different class interests at play. At this point, it's doubtful that workers would come out on top, then again, things are fluid and dynamic and this revolution has already surprised me and surpassed my cautious optimism several times.

[Devrim]

I have an idea: Let's stick to the concrete issue of the struggle in Egypt, or Yemen, Tunisia-- not that I begrudge the Revleft version of Norman Mailer known as DNZ yet another opportunity to divert, and disrupt, a discussion into the service of his own self-aggrandizing, and moronic, ramblings, but I do.

The guy has absolutely nothing to add except his self-advertising, which is of course, adding nothing but rather a collection of distortions, bad history, pseudo-analysis, and plain old petit-bourgeois horseshit.

So let's talk about Egypt-- what the rise in food prices meant to initiating the struggle, and what's going to happen when that rise accelerates. Let's talk about the public transport workers strike.

I agree. Please go and troll on another thread Jacob, or even better make your own.

Devrim

[Devrim]

We could be witnessing the opening scene of a new era of revolutions in the 21st century. Revolutions that can go beyond bringing down the worst of the tyrants and dictators and start to challenge the very system of capitalism itself.If you read the actual articles rather than secondary sources it's obvious that they are not arguing that this is a Socialist Revolution.

I think if you go and read the articles, which of course everybody can do, we even referenced the date, it is clear that they are talking of revolution. That phrase that you quote is one of the most cautious amongst their whole output, and even this changes the level of the possibility in the second sentence.


So the argument in the OP's article is that only working class revolutions can be called revolutions? That's silly.

That is not what the article says:


a revolution, i.e. the replacement of one class by another

That is how Marxists understand it. Of course this means that the French revolution of 1789 was a revolution even though it wasn't a working class revolution.


The American Revolution didn't replace feudalism with capitalism,

And outside of the US it is generally called the American War of Independence, not revolution.


the Cuban Revolution replaced one bourgeois nationalist government for a more progressive one and so on

Yes, and I wouldn't say there was a revolution in Cuba.


Who is the audience for the article in the OP? If you try and talk to someone at work who's excited about this uprising - this semantic bullshit won't fly. It's much easier just to distinguish, "socialist revolution" or "working class revolution" than to insist that people only call things with a socialist character a "revolution". Save yourself some time, agree that a revolution is going on if people are calling it that and then get to the real arguments about why the military isn't neutral, why working class problems and demands will not be solved and satisfied by a reform "parliamentary" government and normalized bourgeois elections, why the working class should organize independently and fight for their class interests and why real democracy won't be achieved until workers have power.

I would say it has been a difficult conversation in my work at all. I don't think that anybody has had any trouble understanding how the media sensationalises things. After all, you see it on the TV every week from the news to how this weeks Ankarağücü Vs. Kasimpaşa* match is a sensational event.

I think it is quite clear to most people that there have been a few weeks of demonstrations with a few strikes braking out recently, and that the military have committed a legalistic coup, replacing one leader with another.


I think the bigger popular misconception that is dangerous for both people in Egypt and how workers in our own countries interpret this revolution is that it ends with Mubarak resigning - that's the beginning IMO. Now that ends the "national" democratic side of this upheaval because the cross-class alliance will start to show the different class interests at play. At this point, it's doubtful that workers would come out on top, then again, things are fluid and dynamic and this revolution has already surprised me and surpassed my cautious optimism several times.

I think this is part of the misunderstanding of events. As I have said we don't believe that their is a revolution in Egypt. There is some class struggle, but they are not exactly the same things. The revolution is being portrayed as 'ending with Mubarak resigning', or taken even further to a full-transition to democracy exactly because that is how the bourgeoise media sees it. Communists have a different perception of what revolution means.

Devrim

*Two very low standard Turkish football teams.

[Threetune]

I think this is part of the misunderstanding of events. As I have said we don't believe that their is a revolution in Egypt. There is some class struggle, but they are not exactly the same things. The revolution is being portrayed as 'ending with Mubarak resigning', or taken even further to a full-transition to democracy exactly because that is how the bourgeoise media sees it. Communists have a different perception of what revolution means.

Devrim

*Two very low standard Turkish football teams.

When is a revolution not a revolution? When it doesn’t fit with textbook versions, apparently.
The effects on the consciousness of the participants of uprising are decidedly revolutionary, a complete political psychological and emotional turnaround in the consciousness of hundreds of millions of worker, not only in Egypt, but all over the world, which is a necessary condition for the maintenance and continuance of the struggle for power by the working class.
I don’t think you need any lectures about how revolutions aren’t one act events, but these spontaneous opening salvos of the revolution against the dictatorship of the ruling capitalists in Egypt have set alarm bells ringing in every imperialist centre. It has completely altered the political landscape of the world, forcing every political tendency, without exception, to play catch-up in order to reassess their understanding of the balance of class forces and their own place in it. This is a revolution.

[S.Artesian]

I think this is part of the misunderstanding of events. As I have said we don't believe that their is a revolution in Egypt. There is some class struggle, but they are not exactly the same things. The revolution is being portrayed as 'ending with Mubarak resigning', or taken even further to a full-transition to democracy exactly because that is how the bourgeoise media sees it. Communists have a different perception of what revolution means.

Devrim

Comrade, these events didn't just drop out of the sky, and they are certainly in depth and breadth a bit greater than just "some class struggle" going on. A government has collapsed. A class has had to turn over power to the military. Strikes are underway.

Indeed, strike activity has been significant for the past couple of years, if not more, in
Egypt.

There is a real conflict between means and relations of production in Egypt, a conflict which Marx himself described as the overture, the opening to an era of revolutionary struggle.

The struggle has just now achieved enough criticality to overwhelm the usual forces of suppression-- which means the ruling class will turn to extraordinary forces in the ensuring months.

The way forward requires immediate agitation within the military; polarizing the army between officers and ranks. I don't know how much more pressing, how much more potential, how much more revolutionary a situation can get than one requiring agitation in the armed forces in order to simply survive.

Nobody expects, or at least no Marxist should expect a revolutionary organization of the workers, acting as a class-for-itself to spring full grown, everywhere and all at once. That does not mean the forces driving the working class to such organization are not evident, are not irrevocable.

[KC]

Nobody expects, or at least no Marxist should expect a revolutionary organization of the workers, acting as a class-for-itself to spring full grown, everywhere and all at once. That does not mean the forces driving the working class to such organization are not evident, are not irrevocable.

I would also like to add that "a revolution is one class replacing another" is an incredibly abstract statement to make. When does this start? When is it acceptable to start using the "correct terminology"? Apparently we cannot when an entire decades-long dictatorship is toppled amongst mass protest and strike action. Can we use the term when the military splits? What about when independent committees are set up? When soviets are set up? Do we have to wait until the decree to transfer power to the soviets is ratified by a vote in the congress of soviets?

As I said earlier, it is ridiculous how many leftists have sided with liberals by merely repeating the message that "the revolution has succeeded!" and whatnot. In many articles I have read leftists are just like "zomg revolution!" and proclaiming about how much of a boner-inducing event this is.

Also, as I said earlier, the way forward is to recognize the incredible advances of the Egyptian people in deposing Mubarak and also to analyze the situation as it is now and provide a means of moving forward.

This article by the ICC is, from that perspective, severely misguided. Instead of whining about the use of a term, they should be providing some real criticism of the failure of the left to properly handle this situation. In fact it's just downright bizarre and sounds like Devrim is really trying to downplay this. I can't see how anyone can realistically call the toppling of a decades-long dictator by mass protest/strike action "just some class struggle," especially as it has reverberated profoundly across the entire Arab world.

[Blackscare]

I agree with the sentiment, no real "revolution" has happened here yet, but it does alter things in a favorable way for the left, at least relatively. Any display of both the contradictions of the capitalist/imperialist projects on the one hand, and the power of working people to bring about change, on the other, should be capitalized on and expanded.



Also:




There are many examples of once 'radical' countries becoming corrupt capitalist kelptocracies
victory to the aquatic peasantry!

http://www.brandoncole.com/profile%20photos/HABITATS/kelp%20forest/ld4120-kelp_forest_brandon_cole.jpg

[Jimmie Higgins]

KC and S.Artesian took up the other points well and I agree with that. I also think you are overplaying the bourgeois media's role. In the US, they have been johnny-come lately in covering this and really only covered this because it was too big to ignore - unlike Tunisia which they did ignore.


I would say it has been a difficult conversation in my work at all. I don't think that anybody has had any trouble understanding how the media sensationalises things. From my perspective here in the US, this is an insane argument because the US media only reluctantly covered this after completely ignoring Tunisia's uprising.

What the US media sensationalizes here is the Muslim Brotherhood and the "danger" and "terror" if they come to power. The reporting in the US has been incredible to watch because often you see the split in the way they want to editorially portray these events and what the location-reporters are actually seeing. After Mubarak said he would not run for re-election, the news anchors and producers were all doing stories about how life already returned to normal and everyone wanted the protesters to go home - then they turn to their reporters in Cairo who were reporting that the protest numbers had increased! This has happened time and time again with the US media proclaiming that the "instability" is over - only to be shocked by the tenacity of the protesters.

Only after the pro-government thugs attacked and began attacking the media, did the media finally decide that they could not pretend that the pro and anti government forces were basically the same.


After all, you see it on the TV every week from the news to how this weeks Ankarağücü Vs. Kasimpaşa* match is a sensational event.In the US, they'd much rather be sensationalizing Charlie Sheen's drug abuse than a popular uprising that caught the US flatfooted and made US officials look like dictator-backing fools.

Calling this uprising a legalistic coup by the military is also just so bizarre. Yes that is what the current solution that the rulers of Egypt have come up with, it's not like the military had decided Mubarak had to go out of their own interests, they decided Mubarak had to go because that's what the ruling class thinks will allow the establishment to salvage itself.

As I said before, I think we need to see Mubarak being forced out as a possible beginning, not the end. Now that the main reason for the cross-class "national" character of the protests has been met, the class interests of the different forces involved will undoubtedly begin to diverge and become more distinct from each-other. This doesn't mean anything is inevitable - workers could simply tail the petty-bourgeois demands and simply believe that some reforms are enough or they could begin to create independent organizing to express proletarian demands - but the reason why I would call this a revolution (ongoing, not ending with Mubarak and also not a socialist revolution) is because it has thrown all class-cards on the table and brought all classes into motion over the nature of society.

[Devrim]

Comrade, these events didn't just drop out of the sky, and they are certainly in depth and breadth a bit greater than just "some class struggle" going on. A government has collapsed. A class has had to turn over power to the military. Strikes are underway.

There are strikes, and they are important. I am not sure if a government has collapsed. Apart from Mubarak, all of the same people are still in power. As for the military taking over, they were already in there Mubarak was head of the air-force before he became vice President.

But is there a revolution? No, I don't think so. The strikes are scattered and few and far between. That is not to say that they aren't important, and it remains a possibility that they will develop strength. It is though 'some class struggle'. Maybe I am down playing events as in general they are being exaggerated to an absurd extreme.

In the UK in the 1970s workers' strikes twice caused the government to collapse, and the decade cumulated in the second biggest (after the hot autumn in Italy in 1969) mass strike in history. Nobody talks about a British revolution happening in the 1970s.

People need to get a grip.

Devrim

[Devrim]

KC and S.Artesian took up the other points well and I agree with that. I also think you are overplaying the bourgeois media's role. In the US, they have been johnny-come lately in covering this and really only covered this because it was too big to ignore - unlike Tunisia which they did ignore.
From my perspective here in the US, this is an insane argument because the US media only reluctantly covered this after completely ignoring Tunisia's uprising.


The US, unlike some posters on here seem to think, is not the world. From our point of view it has al been covered in both the Turkish media, and as an Arabic speaker, I have also been able to follow the Arabic channels on the Satellite. Over the cable we also have foreign news channels including the BBC, which has covered it extensively, as well as the American CNN, which, to be honest, I very rarely watch.


Calling this uprising a legalistic coup by the military is also just so bizarre. Yes that is what the current solution that the rulers of Egypt have come up with,

I didn't call it a legalistic coup. I said that is how the army has responded. It is true.


it's not like the military had decided Mubarak had to go out of their own interests, they decided Mubarak had to go because that's what the ruling class thinks will allow the establishment to salvage itself.

Mubarak was almost certainly going at the next election anyway. What the army didn't want was for his son to take over, which seemed to be his plan. To a certain extent factions within the army have at least used events to push their own agenda. That doesn't mean that it has not got out of hand. It obviously has.

Devrim

[redwog]

Whilst I generally sympathise with much of the ICC general political analysis, one thing that I have tendency of disagreement with is the minimisation of the human subjectivity component of communist struggle.

I think it is fare to suggest that on the spectrum of subjectivity or determinism they fall more to the latter. Perhaps the autonomist Marxists, the other tendency I have sympathy for, pushes it to much the other way.

What for me is remarkable about Egypt, 'real revolution' or not, is that in the making of their struggle, the participants made very real that which is inherently necessary to engage in successful social struggle of this nature.

They were able to create a space where new relationships between humans could be developed. Those of cooperation, collectivism, large scale organic organisation and self-activity. The problem of downgrading the status of the revolt risks overlooking this achievement. There are a great many inspirational lessons about human capacity to live in an alternative way, even if it is fleeting and not fully formed.

Class is not just an economic category, it is a political state of which its participants must engage in actual struggle to realise. What was remarkable about the Tahrir square occupation is its prototypical communist nature, ideologically conscious or not.

[black magick hustla]

This article by the ICC is, from that perspective, severely misguided. Instead of whining about the use of a term, they should be providing some real criticism of the failure of the left to properly handle this situation. In fact it's just downright bizarre and sounds like Devrim is really trying to downplay this. I can't see how anyone can realistically call the toppling of a decades-long dictator by mass protest/strike action "just some class struggle," especially as it has reverberated profoundly across the entire Arab world.
I think this is a tad bit silly. I mean, a lot of things that are not concerned with our goals "reverberate profoundly". Nat-lib movements did in the second half of the twentieth century and this of course had very little class component. Of course on a geopolitical scale what is happening in Egypt is important. Does not mean that what happened in Egypt has as much class content as some of the less pessimistic of us say.

Personally, I think the ICC article is very refreshing. Especially to myself, because I live in a college town and the way liberals talk about the happenings of Egypt is almost down right patronizing (they have to be free, like us). This is a document that is very clear and I can discuss with my friends.

A lot of liberals and "hip" bloggists who are all about "no isms" or whatever made the whole ordeal seem like if it was just RAGE and there were not factions of the bosses working behind. Of course there were isms and of course there were factions. I like this article because it points out exactly that. I am not going to say "what the working class in egypt needs to do" because I always found it funny when insignificant sect #1232132132 talks about what workers in faraway land needs to do. But as Dev said, while there is a strike component this is nowhere near in terms of the class war as Iran was in 79. At that time there were genuine para-state workers' organs - i.e. the councils.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Personally, I think the ICC article is very refreshing. Especially to myself, because I live in a college town and the way liberals talk about the happenings of Egypt is almost down right patronizing (they have to be free, like us).Ha, this one's easy to flip. Free like us? With many regular people drowning in debt or mortgage? With the highest incarceration rate in the industrial world? With people like myself who may loose my job (my boss just got fired and the company's credit line has been frozen) and my landlord just sent me a letter saying he may sell the property and they want to combine my unit with the neighboring one which would make it unaffordable for me and force me out?

Egyptians free like us? I'd say we have to be free like Egyptians. And they are showing that it is actually possible for collective action to actually change what just months ago (or a week ago according to Hilary Clinton) seemed like a stable and unmovable regime.

This is why I think at this point a little sober and critical excitement is a good thing when it comes to this revolution or uprising (whatever you want to call it) at this point. It's not like most people that many of us deal with are trying to decide between a working class revolution or a nationalist one. Where people in the US, Canada, UK, and Mexico and so on are at is thinking that change is not possible. This uprising shows that it is, it cuts against the idea that you need "respectable" politicians to make change. Of course we also shouldn't downplay the dangers for Egyptians at this point and that unless the working class does begin to organize independently in their own interests, the best case for this revolution would be a bourgeois-democratic regime that duplicates many of the same problems that lead to the uprising to begin with... at worst - reaction and a Pinochet-style crack-down on the working class.

We shouldn't downplay our political view and analysis and the potential problems, but main the lesson of the moment is that ordinary people can take history into their own hands and if people outside Egypt take that away from the past two weeks, then that is one less ideological barrier for us when talking to our co-workers and other activists and so on.

[S.Artesian]

There are strikes, and they are important. I am not sure if a government has collapsed. Apart from Mubarak, all of the same people are still in power. As for the military taking over, they were already in there Mubarak was head of the air-force before he became vice President.

But is there a revolution? No, I don't think so. The strikes are scattered and few and far between. That is not to say that they aren't important, and it remains a possibility that they will develop strength. It is though 'some class struggle'. Maybe I am down playing events as in general they are being exaggerated to an absurd extreme.

In the UK in the 1970s workers' strikes twice caused the government to collapse, and the decade cumulated in the second biggest (after the hot autumn in Italy in 1969) mass strike in history. Nobody talks about a British revolution happening in the 1970s.

People need to get a grip.

Devrim

Great example of not being able to see the forest because of the trees. "Sure there are strikes. Sure Mubarak had to resign. Sure parliament's been disbanded. Sure the military is trying to hold itself together so it can hold the ruling class together. But..... where's the revolution?"

As for the UK example of the 1970s-- indeed. Massive strikes pushed Heath out, and only the support of the Conservatives kept the Labor govt. in subsequently. After Labor had done its job of gutting labor, what came next? Thatcher, the shopkeeper's daughter, and her glorious counterrevolution. Britain in the 1970s was a lot more important, to both the bourgeoisie and the working class than is acknowledged. It was after coincident with the Lip strike in France, the struggles in Portugal, Spain, Chile, Argentina... and the strike wave in the US that peaked in 1974.

Class struggle is exactly that, class struggle. Batteries, but not guarantees, included.

[Devrim]

Great example of not being able to see the forest because of the trees. "Sure there are strikes. Sure Mubarak had to resign. Sure parliament's been disbanded. Sure the military is trying to hold itself together so it can hold the ruling class together. But..... where's the revolution?"

Well yes, you can play it like that. You could also try and look at bit at what is actually happening. According to the various sources that I have read on this there are between 20-25,000 workers on strike. To put that in context, it is about the number of workers in a large car factory. I have personally been involved in Wildcat strikes at my work with nearly ten time that figure, and more than twice that number in our city alone, yet nobody was talking of a revolution.

This is not a movement that is yet on the scale of, for example the struggles in Iran in 1978-9. That is not to say that it can't develop. That is not to say that there aren't very important things going on, but there isn't a revolution going on.

Also, I think we see the role of the military more than slightly differently. You seem to portray the military as 'trying to hold itself together'. The image that it produces is one of a military in crisis. I don't think that is the case at all. I think that the military, despite things getting a little out of control, is not in any sense in crisis, and has played its hand very well. They were certainly pretty smart during the actually period of the demonstrations when they effectively closed down the entire economy to stop workers strikes.


As for the UK example of the 1970s-- indeed. Massive strikes pushed Heath out, and only the support of the Conservatives kept the Labor govt. in subsequently. After Labor had done its job of gutting labor, what came next? Thatcher, the shopkeeper's daughter, and her glorious counterrevolution. Britain in the 1970s was a lot more important, to both the bourgeoisie and the working class than is acknowledged. It was after coincident with the Lip strike in France, the struggles in Portugal, Spain, Chile, Argentina... and the strike wave in the US that peaked in 1974.

Yes, these were massive struggles. The movement temporarily fell back after 1974, but there was a resurgence at the end of the decade, with its peaks probably being in Iran, Poland, and the UK. The scale though compared to the scale of the events taking place in Egypt at the moment was on a very different level.

Devrim

[Devrim]

I think it is fare to suggest that on the spectrum of subjectivity or determinism they fall more to the latter. Perhaps the autonomist Marxists, the other tendency I have sympathy for, pushes it to much the other way.

What for me is remarkable about Egypt, 'real revolution' or not, is that in the making of their struggle, the participants made very real that which is inherently necessary to engage in successful social struggle of this nature.

They were able to create a space where new relationships between humans could be developed. Those of cooperation, collectivism, large scale organic organisation and self-activity. The problem of downgrading the status of the revolt risks overlooking this achievement. There are a great many inspirational lessons about human capacity to live in an alternative way, even if it is fleeting and not fully formed.

Class is not just an economic category, it is a political state of which its participants must engage in actual struggle to realise. What was remarkable about the Tahrir square occupation is its prototypical communist nature, ideologically conscious or not.

I think that your point is valid. Also though you can't address every issue in one small article. I also think it is important to keep a sense of perspective.

Devrim

[redwog]

I am not critiquing the need for a the ICC's critique. It is necessary. Yet I think there is benefit of balance between tempering apolitical or middle class enthusiasm and actually identifying the inspirational elements to the Egyptian struggle.

For the short term future at least, most of us will only experience communism microcosmically through struggle. When it occurs in such a significant manner as the expropriation of Tahrir square and the establishment of a collectivist community there are a great many practical lessons associated with the nitty gritty of management of large scale struggle.

That said I think that my point was clear enough in my first post.

BTW thanks for the comradely engagement

[Martin Blank]

Someone really needs to take a match to all this lifeless wooden trash.

[S.Artesian]

Speaking for or of yourself, Miles?

[Luís Henrique]

In the UK in the 1970s workers' strikes twice caused the government to collapse, and the decade cumulated in the second biggest (after the hot autumn in Italy in 1969) mass strike in history. Nobody talks about a British revolution happening in the 1970s.

There is however a big difference between the fall of a parliamentary government, that is succeeded by an equally parliamentary government of "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition", and the fall of a government within a regime that does not allow for the legal, ruleful alternation of political parties in govermnent.

I am used to the distinction of three different levels: government (which I believe would be properly called "administration" in Anglo-Saxon countries), regime, and State. A revolution properly is the fall of a State. What happened in 1970's England was a change in government. What is happening in Egypt today is a change in regime.

Is it a revolution? Devrim argues that it is not, because it is not the toppling of a class' dictatorship. Problem is, the fall of the dictatorship of a class is not like a lightning in blue sky. Many things must happen in order to destroy the power of a class. Among them, things like those now happening in Egypt. It may well be that the Egyptian bourgeoisie ends up reinstating its dictatorship against the masses, either in the form of a renewed military/Mubarakite dictatorship, or under the form of a completely different regime. It can also be that it fails to accomplish this, and is effectively toppled by the proletariat and its allies. In which case, it will be a revolution.

Let's suppose that it actually happens. When historians in the future analyse it, will they write things like "the Egyptian revolution happened in May 17th, 2011, and all the social unrest that preceded it was a completely different process, actually a mere internal reform of the Egyptian bourgeoisie rule", or would they be more wise to write something like, "the Egyptian revolution was a process that started with the mass demonstrations in January 2011, went on to topple the dictator in February 11, topple the military provisional government in April 21st, and establish the power of the Egyptian workers councils in May 17th"?

Luís Henrique

[Devrim]

There is however a big difference between the fall of a parliamentary government, that is succeeded by an equally parliamentary government of "Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition", and the fall of a government within a regime that does not allow for the legal, ruleful alternation of political parties in govermnent.

I am used to the distinction of three different levels: government (which I believe would be properly called "administration" in Anglo-Saxon countries), regime, and State. A revolution properly is the fall of a State. What happened in 1970's England was a change in government. What is happening in Egypt today is a change in regime.

Even to use your terminology what I feel has taken place is a change in the government. It has gone from military control to military control.


Let's suppose that it actually happens. When historians in the future analyse it, will they write things like "the Egyptian revolution happened in May 17th, 2011, and all the social unrest that preceded it was a completely different process, actually a mere internal reform of the Egyptian bourgeoisie rule", or would they be more wise to write something like, "the Egyptian revolution was a process that started with the mass demonstrations in January 2011, went on to topple the dictator in February 11, topple the military provisional government in April 21st, and establish the power of the Egyptian workers councils in May 17th"?

Obviously the latter. As much as I would like to be proven wrong, I don't feel that this will be the case though. Time will tell.

It is brave of you to lay down an actual date for the event though. Most of those talking of revolution aren't that bold. ;)

Devrim

[Luís Henrique]

Even to use your terminology what I feel has taken place is a change in the government. It has gone from military control to military control.

Yes, that seems to be what happened. But the logic of the Egyptian regime is quite different from the logic of the British regime. In the latter, eventual replacements between different governments of different parties or alliances are expected. In the former, they cannot happen without a regime crisis. Which means, of course, that the new military government is doomed from the begining: either it will crack down on the people, and establish a different, even more brutal dictatorship (which will certainly represent a different, and narrower, coalition of class fractions, and establish a new regime), or it will proceed to a more or less ample reform, that will instate a more or less "democratic" new regime.

(At the moment, it seems to be trying to make both things at the same time, which probably means there is internal strife within it. But that's another problem.)


Obviously the latter. As much as I would like to be proven wrong, I don't feel that this will be the case though. Time will tell.

Certainly. And to be sure, I also doubt very much that this will result in a victorious proletarian revolution. But as I recognise that the driving force behind the mass rebellion in Egypt is not the squabbles between bourgeois factions, but the revolt of Egyptian popular classes against their bourgeois dictatorship, I would say that eventual, quite probable recuperation will characterise those facts as a defeated or a thwarted proletarian revolution.

Oh, and I am probably being too conservative in talking about "Egypt" and "Egyptian popular classes" here. For this phenomenon looks to be much more international (or pan-national or supra-national or over-national or trans-national or whatever, if it pleases Jakob) than what we are talking about - and also than any other mass-political thing that has happened since 1968, to be honest.


It is brave of you to lay down an actual date for the event though. Most of those talking of revolution aren't that bold. ;)

Yeah, yeah, I know. If the revolution happens to be succesfull in May 18th instead of 17th, people will still say that I was wrong. And quite certainly that this mistake was due to my petty-bourgeois deviations.

But, proletarian revolution for proletarian revolution, this one certainly looks much more like one than certain events in the recent past in Venezuela...

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

By accident (though not through Freiligrath, and though having nothing to do with Bakunin), I have over my desk a copy of a book of this interesting 19th century author, a certain Karl Marx, intitulated The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

There I read, in its second paragraph, the following:


Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95.

Interestingly, he refers to the 1848 Revolution as... a revolution. With a capital letter, no less, and without italics or quote marks that might indicate he was being ironic or facetious or quoting somebody else.

Of course we know this obscure author is sometimes just coquetting with words, may be it is the case.

Maybe we should teach Karl Marx the following:


What's happened in France and other European countries in 1848 has shown that people from many social strata are fed up with the conditions they live in and are rebelling en masse against those who enforce them. The fact that this movement has affected a number of countries is very exciting, but it does not amount to a revolution, i.e. the replacement of one class by another. Despite the scale and heroism of the uprisings, despite the promise they contain, most of the explicit demands being made only amount to an adjustment of the capitalist political system: bourgeois rule has not been consciously challenged.

Or perhaps we should allow for the fact that the word "revolution", besides its most precise meaning, is commonly used in a broader and less precise meaning, as "popular movement that topples a government" even if it does not imply the replacement of a class by another.

It is however interesting that the ICC now takes as criteria of the class nature of political events "the explicit demands being made", and not, as they did regarding other, much less promising recent events, what they call "the terrain".

Now far from me to deny that "bourgeois rule has not been" yet "consciously challenged". It hasn't. On the other hand it has been certainly implicitly challenged: the "adjustment of the capitalist system" that Middle Eastern masses have been calling for cannot is certainly not in the Middle Eastern bourgeoisies' interests. And, to be clear, while "the explicit demands being made" by the Middle Eastern movement do not "consciously challenge" the bourgeois rule, they certainly do not call for a reinforcement of such rule by demanding respect to bourgeois property rights, social peace between the classes, or crackdowns on "crime".

Luís Henrique

[Threetune]

Superficially, much of this debate could be characterised as nit-picking and flea-cracking over lots of words and over the R word in particular, but I suspect some deep political (class) differences lay at the bottom of it all.
I’ve always thought that Marxist/Leninism understood revolution was a more or less a constant feature of class societies, together with economic crisis and war, simply because there is so much evidence for it that it is undeniable. The fact that crisis, war and revolution within class society flair-up and die-down in different places doesn’t mean that they are not a constant feature of the system. Can anyone on this site point to a time when economic crisis, war and revolution were not features of the class struggle since the start of class society?
The current revolutionary flair-up is a continuation of this trend generally and a continuation of the widespread post WWII anti-imperialist revolution specifically, brought on by the ever deepening economic crisis. We may subjectively not like or want this or that war or revolution for all sorts of stated reasons, but we can’t say that they are not wars and revolutions, UNLESS we have allowed our subjective feelings to dominate objective reality, in which case we can dress the whole thing up in left academic pedantic dogmatic clothing and say that it’s just 'not up-to the mark'.
If so, we might want to examine why we are failing to see what others say is staring us in the face, and why we might want to insist on our own blinkered vision. We might.