Rakhmetov
15th February 2011, 18:13
We told you this is a classical power grab on the part of the military ...
http://www.marxist.com/egyptian-army-manoeuvres-against-worker-protests.htm
Army officers fill power vacuum
The problem we have in Egypt is that as the revolution unfolded a power vacuum opened up, one in which the workers emerged very powerful, but through lack of a conscious and organized party of their own, they were not able to fill that vacuum. On the other hand the ruling bourgeois elite could not hold the movement back, and thus into this vacuum has stepped the military.
How has this been possible? How is it that the very generals of the Mubarak regime have been able to take on this role? The answer to that can be found in the way the revolution unfolded. All revolutions in history have had an impact on the army, those bodies of armed men, as Engels described them.
Bertold Brecht, in his famous and oft-quoted poem, "From a German War Primer", wrote the following: General, your tank is a powerful vehicle; It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men; But it has one defect: It needs a driver. () General, man is very useful; He can fly and he can kill; But he has one defect; He can think.
These lines highlight the dilemma faced by the chiefs of the Egyptian military during the mass uprising that started on January 25. Millions of workers, men and women, and youth came out onto the streets, encouraged by what had happened in Tunisia just a few days previously. Tunisia showed that the most despotic of dictators can be overthrown once the masses move decisively.
Once such a mass movement begins it starts to have an impact on the young men who make up the states repressive apparatus. In normal times the fear of being disciplined by higher ranking officers holds the army together, under the tight control of the supreme commanders at the top. To disobey orders means to be severely punished. However, this control breaks down when ordinary soldiers see their brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, friends and neighbours, pouring out onto the streets in protest. They start to think!
Soldiers are trained and educated with idea that their role is to defend the motherland and its people. They are not educated with the idea that their task is to shoot at their own people. When a revolution breaks out, therefore, the army comes under immense pressure. On the one hand it is the army of the bourgeois state and is therefore called on to defend bourgeois order. On the other hand it is made up of mainly young men who come from the same classes as the people on the streets, and thus they come under pressure to fraternise with the masses.
http://www.marxist.com/egyptian-army-manoeuvres-against-worker-protests.htm
Army officers fill power vacuum
The problem we have in Egypt is that as the revolution unfolded a power vacuum opened up, one in which the workers emerged very powerful, but through lack of a conscious and organized party of their own, they were not able to fill that vacuum. On the other hand the ruling bourgeois elite could not hold the movement back, and thus into this vacuum has stepped the military.
How has this been possible? How is it that the very generals of the Mubarak regime have been able to take on this role? The answer to that can be found in the way the revolution unfolded. All revolutions in history have had an impact on the army, those bodies of armed men, as Engels described them.
Bertold Brecht, in his famous and oft-quoted poem, "From a German War Primer", wrote the following: General, your tank is a powerful vehicle; It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men; But it has one defect: It needs a driver. () General, man is very useful; He can fly and he can kill; But he has one defect; He can think.
These lines highlight the dilemma faced by the chiefs of the Egyptian military during the mass uprising that started on January 25. Millions of workers, men and women, and youth came out onto the streets, encouraged by what had happened in Tunisia just a few days previously. Tunisia showed that the most despotic of dictators can be overthrown once the masses move decisively.
Once such a mass movement begins it starts to have an impact on the young men who make up the states repressive apparatus. In normal times the fear of being disciplined by higher ranking officers holds the army together, under the tight control of the supreme commanders at the top. To disobey orders means to be severely punished. However, this control breaks down when ordinary soldiers see their brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, friends and neighbours, pouring out onto the streets in protest. They start to think!
Soldiers are trained and educated with idea that their role is to defend the motherland and its people. They are not educated with the idea that their task is to shoot at their own people. When a revolution breaks out, therefore, the army comes under immense pressure. On the one hand it is the army of the bourgeois state and is therefore called on to defend bourgeois order. On the other hand it is made up of mainly young men who come from the same classes as the people on the streets, and thus they come under pressure to fraternise with the masses.