The process of revolution is ongoing in Egypt. After the toppling of Mubarak power was transferred firstly to the Generals and then superficially to Mohammed Morsi and the MB as a result of the elections. Now Morsi is attempting to strengthen his powers with a new constitution that contains provisions which attack the movement of the working-class. These provisions can be used against individual dissent and contains powers to prevent insulting the President. Freedom of expression is threatened as well as the right to strike in a way that further protects the economic interests of the military. A decree that limits trade union representation to one per workplace is a challenge to the flourishing independent trade union networks, while the MB extends its control over the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation. Restrictions on civil liberties together with attacks against women's rights pose a serious threat to women and religious minorities.
Mursi's attempt to assume extensive Presidential powers is facing serious challenge through protests and strikes, which are being met by state repression. Mass protests in Tahrir Square and outside Mursi's Presidential Palace have been ongoing during the past few days. Textile workers in Mahalla struck in opposition to the constitution.
Russia 1917
The period between February and October 1917 in the Russian Revolution reveals many features of the revolutionary process. Similar processes have been repeated in many other revolutionary periods before and since. The conditions of 1917 relentlessly exposed the policies that lay behind the programmes of most of the political parties. The parties that came to power after the February revolution were unwilling to touch the fundamental inequalities woven into the fabric of Tsarist Russia, neither would they end Russia's participation in the First World War. These and other failures demonstrated their inability to carry out the expectations of the revolutionary working-class and peasantry.
After an internal battle to set the party onto the course of revolution the Bolshevik party combined the rising popularity of day-to-day demands within the main organisations of the working-class (the Soviets, trade unions, factory and soldiers committees etc) with the necessity for the working-class to come to power in order to have any hope of seeing these demands realised. These slogans progressed from calling for a government of socialist parties to calling for all power to the soviets. With a workers state the revolutionary energy of the working-class in alliance with the peasantry could sweep away the obstacles to a revolutionary transformation of Russian society, and together with an appeal to the rest of the world working-class, begin to construct socialism. Between February and October the key question for the Bolsheviks was how to describe and popularise those revolutionary ideas and how to chart a way forward for the working-class to replace capitalist power with its own.
It doesn't take much imagination to draw parallels with Egypt today. The task of socialists is to describe the injustices of the present period, and to encourage the continuation of the revolutionary process against those bourgeois forces who aim to draw a line under the revolution before it has touched any of the key points of existing privilege and, more importantly, of capitalist power. Splits at the top of society reflect differences of opinion over the methods to end the revolutionary period and reimpose the discipline necessary for capitalist exploitation. The elements of dual power that have emerged - where many aspects of social life are contested locally in the workplace, in personal relations, and even to an extent within the armed forces of the state - cannot exist forever as it threatens the stability of capitalist society.
For socialists the task has to be enhancing these forces of dual power, but developing them not for their own sake but with a conscious aim of becoming a movement that can replace the current state and capitalist society with its own power, rooted in these new forms of dual power as the basis of the infinitely more far-reaching democratic organisation of society. This would mean relying on the movements from below to nationalise of the main sections of the economy to be run democratically by the working-class as a whole. It would mean breaking the chain of command of the armed forces and preventing any attempts by the capitalist class to reverse the revolution in progress after the workers come to power. It would mean a revolutionary appeal to the workers of the surrounding area and of the world to follow their example, and it would mean providing direct assistance to those revolutionary movements where possible.
However revolutionaries cannot simply offer history books to people in the midst of struggle; they have to draw these necessary lessons out from the day to day struggles faced by the working-class, and link one to the other. This article tries to deal with these questions in relation to the SWP and their Egyptian section, the Revolutionary Socialists.
The Presidential Elections
The recent developments in Egypt seriously questions the position of the Revolutionary Socialists (IST/SWP) during the presidential elections, and in much of their material (written or translated into English) produced during and after the revolution. During the elections they recommended a vote for Mursi to defeat the old regime candidate, Ahmed Shafiq, writing of
Do Revolutionaries Need a Programme?
What is the Revolution?
An article recently by Judith Orr called for a 'workers government' which could mean a revolution: it could mean putting the organised working-class into power, breaking the capitalist state and beginning to organise society in the interests of the working-class. A core part of that would be a revolutionary appeal to other countries to follow suit, as socialism in one country is a false option. But that content needs to be made clear, as otherwise a 'government that includes workers' (making them complicit in the actions of the state that is nevertheless within the hands of the bourgeoisie) could be presented as a 'workers government'.
‘I am a socialist, I don’t want them [Egypt] to go back to ‘normal’ I want the revolution to carry on… Aspirations have been lifted in Egypt, suddenly everything is possible. The army coming to power is not a ‘soft coup’ [I said this when I spoke - JR], it is a revolution, which the army has stalled, but it is all up for grabs. Socialists cannot sit down and consolidate their ideas, or decide how to organise in the midst of the struggle, while the revolution is happening outside; the demands will be formed in the struggle. On 25th January there was leadership from the coalition of activists who called the protests, so they weren’t totally spontaneous; there was leadership to give a voice to the rage. It is a nonsense to say they [Egyptians] need a programme, Trotsky said ‘revolutions are not a clean process’. There is a tension [with the army], they may break strikes but the process will still move onwards. Of course we want workers to be in charge and for the committees to organise the elections… We can’t dictate what to do, we can fight for solidarity though, this should be an inspiration to bring down our own government (join the SWP).’
Mursi's attempt to assume extensive Presidential powers is facing serious challenge through protests and strikes, which are being met by state repression. Mass protests in Tahrir Square and outside Mursi's Presidential Palace have been ongoing during the past few days. Textile workers in Mahalla struck in opposition to the constitution.
Russia 1917
The period between February and October 1917 in the Russian Revolution reveals many features of the revolutionary process. Similar processes have been repeated in many other revolutionary periods before and since. The conditions of 1917 relentlessly exposed the policies that lay behind the programmes of most of the political parties. The parties that came to power after the February revolution were unwilling to touch the fundamental inequalities woven into the fabric of Tsarist Russia, neither would they end Russia's participation in the First World War. These and other failures demonstrated their inability to carry out the expectations of the revolutionary working-class and peasantry.
After an internal battle to set the party onto the course of revolution the Bolshevik party combined the rising popularity of day-to-day demands within the main organisations of the working-class (the Soviets, trade unions, factory and soldiers committees etc) with the necessity for the working-class to come to power in order to have any hope of seeing these demands realised. These slogans progressed from calling for a government of socialist parties to calling for all power to the soviets. With a workers state the revolutionary energy of the working-class in alliance with the peasantry could sweep away the obstacles to a revolutionary transformation of Russian society, and together with an appeal to the rest of the world working-class, begin to construct socialism. Between February and October the key question for the Bolsheviks was how to describe and popularise those revolutionary ideas and how to chart a way forward for the working-class to replace capitalist power with its own.
It doesn't take much imagination to draw parallels with Egypt today. The task of socialists is to describe the injustices of the present period, and to encourage the continuation of the revolutionary process against those bourgeois forces who aim to draw a line under the revolution before it has touched any of the key points of existing privilege and, more importantly, of capitalist power. Splits at the top of society reflect differences of opinion over the methods to end the revolutionary period and reimpose the discipline necessary for capitalist exploitation. The elements of dual power that have emerged - where many aspects of social life are contested locally in the workplace, in personal relations, and even to an extent within the armed forces of the state - cannot exist forever as it threatens the stability of capitalist society.
For socialists the task has to be enhancing these forces of dual power, but developing them not for their own sake but with a conscious aim of becoming a movement that can replace the current state and capitalist society with its own power, rooted in these new forms of dual power as the basis of the infinitely more far-reaching democratic organisation of society. This would mean relying on the movements from below to nationalise of the main sections of the economy to be run democratically by the working-class as a whole. It would mean breaking the chain of command of the armed forces and preventing any attempts by the capitalist class to reverse the revolution in progress after the workers come to power. It would mean a revolutionary appeal to the workers of the surrounding area and of the world to follow their example, and it would mean providing direct assistance to those revolutionary movements where possible.
However revolutionaries cannot simply offer history books to people in the midst of struggle; they have to draw these necessary lessons out from the day to day struggles faced by the working-class, and link one to the other. This article tries to deal with these questions in relation to the SWP and their Egyptian section, the Revolutionary Socialists.
The Presidential Elections
The recent developments in Egypt seriously questions the position of the Revolutionary Socialists (IST/SWP) during the presidential elections, and in much of their material (written or translated into English) produced during and after the revolution. During the elections they recommended a vote for Mursi to defeat the old regime candidate, Ahmed Shafiq, writing of
“...the error in failure to discriminate between the reformism of the Muslim Brotherhood and the ‘fascism’ of Shafiq.” (28th May statement).
In
arguing this the SWP have correctly pointed out the splits within the base of the Muslim Brotherhood and argued against an attitude that
fails to see and exploit those class divisions opening up. The RS encouraged a
vote for Mursi, as a lesser (reformist) evil who could then be more
successfully opposed once in power. In addition they pointed out the
threat that a Shafiq victory would pose to the workers movement.
Barely six months later Mursi is negotiating with the IMF and tries to
put himself above legal challenge, while the MB has played a strike-breaking and reactionary role.
My
questions are:
- How did this call for a Mursi vote work in practice? During the election did the RS actually campaign for Mursi, calling for a vote for him but using the opportunity to point to his reactionary and pro-capitalist character? How did that work in practice? Wasn't that a very confusing argument to make? Didn't it suffer in that it didn't point out the alternative that would have been preferable, even if that meant calling for abstention in the second round of the elections?
- Was the RS in a position to tip the balance? Would their call have resulted in a concrete increase in the vote, enough to have made the outcome one or the other? Obviously that is hard to quantify, but it is that which is being weighed against the danger of sowing illusions in the MB and mis-educating the people beginning to follow the RS and the advanced layers of the working-class.
- Regardless of how the argument was made (it was clearly a critical support) isn’t the RS now identified in the popular mind as having called for an MB vote, and of not warning sufficiently of these present developments? The call for a constituent assembly has now been made, why couldn’t that have been popularised during the election? Doesn’t that call contradict the earlier call of critical support for Morsi?
Personally
I think the RS/SWP made a mistake in the elections. They missed an
opportunity to explain their programme to a wider audience, and have
potentially mis-educated and confused the activists around them by,
in effect, playing down the danger of an MB victory (notwithstanding
the danger of a victory for Shafiq).
Do Revolutionaries Need a Programme?
At
the time of the revolution Judith Orr (SW editor) spoke at the University of Sussex (see below) and poured
scorn on the idea of developing a 'programme' – a party's description
of its ideas and its plans to link the day to day demands to the
socialist transformation of society – in favour of celebrating the
victory of the toppling of Mubarak. The limits of that attitude are quite
clear, the dangers of the next period of the revolution were played
down in favour of celebration, but for revolutionaries the heat of
the revolution cannot overshadow the need for a careful
explanation of the processes that lay ahead and which are now
coming to the fore.
After
this an Anne Alexander article in the ISJ (link below) both argued against forming
a programme (in favour of building independent trade unions, as
though the two were mutually exclusive), while calling for support
for the left-wing but not revolutionary programme of the Democratic
Workers Party. To be fair her main argument seems to be that a
programme alone is not enough, and concrete links need to be formed
between workers in struggle and revolutionaries. But her argument was
left empty by only criticising
“...socialist leadership which consists of projecting theoretically correct demands and programmes onto workers’ struggles from outside is not leadership at all.”
Which
is true, but failing to develop a programme means you do not say
anything beyond the immediate demands, and you leave the field
open to other non-revolutionary forces.
She
argues the
“...difficulty lies not in articulating a programme, but in winning large numbers of workers to support it.”
What
does this sentence mean in practice? How do you win workers to a
programme without articulating it, without connecting it to the
immediate and day to day struggles faced by the working-class? Of
course, it is wrong to JUST put forward a programme but it is also
wrong to JUST campaign on day to day issues. In between those two
wrong positions is the skillfull linking of the two.
If an alliance was formed with an organisation that lacked a rounded out revolutionary programme (the Democratic Workers Party), then the RS should have made clear within the organisation what position they wished it to adopt.
Maybe the RS has not acted in the way Anne Alexander suggests; maybe there is/was a split between the IST and the RS on this question? Maybe her article does not represent the approach of the entire organisation? However I saw no criticisms of her position.
Maybe the RS has not acted in the way Anne Alexander suggests; maybe there is/was a split between the IST and the RS on this question? Maybe her article does not represent the approach of the entire organisation? However I saw no criticisms of her position.
Later,
in making a good point she rejects the importance of winning a
militant leadership of the independent trade unions:
“The degree to which the independent unions are capable of acting on the dynamics of reciprocal action to deepen the revolutionary process does not depend, therefore, on the nature of their leadership, or on their internal organisational arrangements, but on their connection to workers’ struggles and the overall balance of forces in revolution.”
This
is a too rigid approach which denies the crucial relationship that
can develop between an active campaigning base of a trade union and
the enormous boost which can be given to the development of that base
through winning a militant leadership of the union. Struggles within
trade unions cannot wait till a perfect leadership emerges, but a key
part of such struggles is to either push the leadership to the left
or to replace them with left-wingers, which will then improve the
development of those struggles.
What is the Revolution?
The idea of the revolution seems very muddled and vague when looking at the main materials that have so far been produced,
“The resilience of the core of the state can only be broken by new processes of reciprocal action which will interlace the coming battles for social reforms, such as raising the national minimum wage, with the struggle to build democracy from below, through the workplaces and neighbourhoods, and with the battle to protect and extend the gains in political democracy made during the uprising.”
But
that is not a revolution. Building the independent organisation of
the working-class requires a programme which must not be obsessed
only with ABC or XYZ, but must go all the way from A to Z in describing the need
for a socialist transformation of society. Building the strength, confidence and organisations of the working-class only poses the question of
power, it does not answer it. Shouldn't the SWP/RS reflect
that in all its material? What point is more important to make
than that one?
In recent articles and statements subsequent to the elections and after Mursi's power grab, the call has been made for a workers government. But that phrase has not been explained, and elsewhere the call has been made for 'national unity' and 'for a government across the whole political spectrum'.
And after Mursi's victory,
"Now it is time to put Mursi to the test—and to continue struggles over jobs, wages, union rights and for radical political change." http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=28611'National unity'* (what is the 'nation'?) and 'the formation of a government across the whole political spectrum' (is this desirable? Does it emphasise the class struggle?) are two phrases which frequently aim to cover up the class divide and class struggle within society.
An article recently by Judith Orr called for a 'workers government' which could mean a revolution: it could mean putting the organised working-class into power, breaking the capitalist state and beginning to organise society in the interests of the working-class. A core part of that would be a revolutionary appeal to other countries to follow suit, as socialism in one country is a false option. But that content needs to be made clear, as otherwise a 'government that includes workers' (making them complicit in the actions of the state that is nevertheless within the hands of the bourgeoisie) could be presented as a 'workers government'.
In the past week Sameh Naguib produced an article including the following,
"We will need to win the working masses to the revolutionary project of dismantling this state and building a workers’ and peasants’ state." http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/printart.php?id=30074I have not seen this in any of the other material. Maybe I have missed it elsewhere, but isn't it the most important point to make? Of course, this phrase is not a magical formula, and presented by itself it would not make much sense to many, but it is the goal and all tactics must be aimed at skillfully developing this understanding. But, how does this sit with Anne Alexander's article, and many others like it?
What
the RS have done is not necessarily fatal for them, but it depends on
how their support for Mursi was perceived by their followers and their supporters. They are
unlikely to win over much of a working-class base by repeating such
mistakes. If it was wrong that is not a huge problem; everyone always learns. But each lesson leads to the next; you cannot stubbornly
cling to mistakes; you use the mistakes to learn future lessons.
"We have to defend the right of the masses to make choices and test those choices as a condition of the development of their consciousness and the development of their position in relation to different political forces." http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=28595But have the twists and turns so far done more to muddle the situation? Have the short-term goals overtaken the building of the long term ones? I think the question of programme needs to be urgently re-considered, and discussions need to take place on how to develop a revolutionary programme that is relevant to day to day struggles. If that is the practice already in Egypt, something is being lost in translation, as the material from the SWP has been vague at best.
* "We say to Mursi: you and your organisation are the real threat to the revolution, as you embrace Mubarak’s businessmen, run panting after loans from the IMF, trade in religion, threaten national unity and sell the revolution." http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=30081
Anne Alexander's article: http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=741
Judith Orr at Sussex (from my notes) -
‘We
can sit here in the comfort of Sussex and talk about what can be
done, but this is a life and death struggle taking place now. There
is no apparatus like the TUC in Britain that the revolution can be
based on. They [Egyptians] don’t need a programme, they need to
drive the revolution forward towards economic demands. The revolution
exploded with one demand ‘go!’, but once you started talking it
was economic demands that lay behind that; housing, food. You don’t
need a revolutionary party to make a revolution. How the revolution
is shaped depends on the question of a revolutionary party. If the
Muslim Brotherhood win, so be it. The West is scared of MB’s
‘radicalism’, but MB is a party of contradictions, yes sections
negotiated with the regime, but others were at the demonstrations.
Everything is fluid. To denounce a group as non-revolutionary is a
nonsense and patronising to say MB are not revolutionary. The
revolution won’t go down a pre-ordained route.'
‘I am a socialist, I don’t want them [Egypt] to go back to ‘normal’ I want the revolution to carry on… Aspirations have been lifted in Egypt, suddenly everything is possible. The army coming to power is not a ‘soft coup’ [I said this when I spoke - JR], it is a revolution, which the army has stalled, but it is all up for grabs. Socialists cannot sit down and consolidate their ideas, or decide how to organise in the midst of the struggle, while the revolution is happening outside; the demands will be formed in the struggle. On 25th January there was leadership from the coalition of activists who called the protests, so they weren’t totally spontaneous; there was leadership to give a voice to the rage. It is a nonsense to say they [Egyptians] need a programme, Trotsky said ‘revolutions are not a clean process’. There is a tension [with the army], they may break strikes but the process will still move onwards. Of course we want workers to be in charge and for the committees to organise the elections… We can’t dictate what to do, we can fight for solidarity though, this should be an inspiration to bring down our own government (join the SWP).’
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