Egyptian revolution must be ready to mobilize in the event of a military

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particular workplaces.

Another example of this interaction between the local and the national came in the doctors’ strike, the first since 1951 and, says Alexander, the biggest single instance of coordinated national strike action since the revolution, “as it was observed by 65 to 75% of hospitals in Cairo and Giza, and 90% of hospitals in the provinces. Although the initial motor for the strike was doctors’ own demands for better pay and conditions, the activists leading the strike … argued for and won the position that the strike should articulate wider demands for the improvement of the health system.”

A crucial set of organizations furthering this revolutionary dialectic are the Popular Committees to Defend the Revolution. First formed to provide security and to organize defense against police attacks during the initial uprising, they are now organizing neighborhoods to demand local services, the right to elect local officials, to fight inflation, etc. And they do so with the same democratic methods found in the new workplace committees and independent unions. The committees have also held national gatherings and started a newspaper to coordinate strategy.

As a means of uniting and further radicalizing all these struggles, the DWP promotes its own program. Key planks in it include “the restoration of national dignity in the face of Zionist-American projects in the region; re-nationalizing the looted companies and land, the development of their administration with popular oversight, and expansion of the public sector through investment in strategic projects; creation of a constitution that serves human rights, citizenship, and freedom of expression, and the establishment of a parliamentary republic recognizing the freedom of political parties, trade unions, the media and based on the election of all leadership positions starting from local government (the election of village mayors, town mayors and governors) to all educational and research institutions and public services; development of the health service, education, and housing away from the logic of profit; raise the minimum wage to the level that would meet basic needs (at least 1500 pounds) with a link to prices.”

Revolutionaries have also been forced to seek leadership of struggles that on the surface have no connection to class issues, such as battles against recent sectarian attacks by some Salafi Islamists on Christian individuals and institutions. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the benefits accruing to Egypt’s rulers and their military enforcers from such divideand-conquer attacks.

The Salafists’ reactionary role, of course, does not stem from their Islamic beliefs. In fact, participants in the convention of the Revolutionary Socialists speak of the widespread participation of devout Muslims in the front ranks of workers’ struggles. It is a product rather of the Salafists’ (and the Muslim Brotherhood’s) class composition, which includes predominantly urban bourgeois (especially in leadership or funding positions), along with traditional and modern petty bourgeois, and large sections of the poor. Such a composition is the classic recipe for an organization that vacillates between the pressures of those above crackdown.

and below—and ultimately turns toward the former, at least in the absence of a working-class rebellion strong enough to sidetrack or split it and thereby win over its poorer members.

On the verge of a crackdown?

Despite their savage attacks, the military has still refrained from wholesale armed assaults on protesters and strikers, and has on occasion even backed down in the face of popular demands such as around prosecution of the regime’s worst criminals. But such concessions have been made grudgingly and often, in the end, withdrawn.

The military is fully aware of the revolt spreading throughout factories, offices and neighborhoods, and know that an all-out assault would do more than anything else to reunite the country’s working masses and lead to a final battle—one for which the military might not yet feel itself ready. On the other hand, it cannot afford to wait too long as the mutually reinforcing dynamic of struggles continue to grow.

Evidence that a crackdown may come sooner rather than later appeared in late July and the first days of August. On July 22, military police beat protesters in Alexandria demanding quicker prosecutions. The next day, a march of tens of thousands on SCAF headquarters in Cairo was similarly attacked. Socialist blogger Hossam El-Hamalawy reported that protesters chanted “beautifully rhymed slogans” (the lyrical creativity of protesters is taken as a point of pride throughout the region). They denounced Tantawi, SCAF, and police torture, and called for social justice, bread and civil liberties.

Wrote El-Hamalawy: “As we approached Abbassiya [the part of Cairo where SCAF headquarters is], we started receiving news that the military police and the army special forces have blocked the road by the Nour Mosque with machine-gun-mounted armored vehicles and barbed wires. We also received news there were ‘thugs’ preparing Molotov cocktails and swords awaiting us. (The army had been inciting against the march in the days before, accusing protesters of being thugs and foreign agents.)”

They soon confronted rows of soldiers and Interior Ministry security forces. As protesters stood their ground, men with swords and knives attacked, and stones rained down on them. Clashes went on for hours. “We were besieged: the army and the police on one side, while the thugs blocking our way back to Tahrir. Scores were injured and detained.”

And as we go to press, on Aug. 1, soldiers have cleared Tahrir Square of the family members of revolutionary martyrs and others who had set up a protest encampment there. Several protesters were injured.

(Above) Protesters fill Tahrir Square on May 20, protesting delays in trial of the deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak.

(Below) Over 800 protesters were killed by Mubarak’s security forces. Photos of some of the martyrs are displayed outside courthouse in Cairo.

We can’t know for sure when the more general crackdown will happen. If it occurs soon, U.S. supporters of the Egyptian Revolution must be ready to mobilize. If, in contrast, the final confrontation is delayed for weeks or months, we must use the intervening time to educate supporters of justice and equality in the U.S. of the need to support our sisters and brothers in Egypt, to strengthen the ties first forged when workers in Madison, Wisconsin, rebelled.

Our responsibility in this respect comes not only out of solidarity, but especially because we live in the country whose military, economic, and political power is the main prop of the Egyptian regime.

And such solidarity is crucial not only for Egypt. That country, like Tunisia, has had the most advanced organizing by workers, which, combined with the size of its working class, makes it socially and politically key for the region. A setback in these two countries would demoralize those fighting for freedom and social justice in the rest of the region.

But the Egyptian example is precious to saving the Arab Spring also because of the working-classbased political example it sets. This is an example sorely needed in other countries where, despite heroic turnouts Friday after Friday for months on end, clearly articulated political alternatives to the ruling regimes have taken shape slowly and incompletely (although it is encouraging to see the persistence of neighborhood-based committees in Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere, which have repeatedly defied calls for compromise by “official” opposition parties).

The worst example, of course, is in Libya, where a mass uprising has virtually disappeared as an explicitly pro-imperialist “opposition,” led by middle-class professionals and ex-Gadhafi figures, is collaborating with the genocidal U.S./NATO bombardment of the country.

Supporters of the Arab Revolution must organize and mobilize to demand: U.S. Hands Off Egypt! End All U.S. Aid to Egypt’s Military! U.S. Corporations and Banks: Hands off the Egyptian Economy! Cancel Egypt’s Debt! End the Criminal War Against Libya!

Solidarity with the heroic workers of Egypt! n Socialist Action august 2011 7

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what’s needed.

Greece is our inspiration, not for its austerity measures, but for its workers fighting back. This fight is