Its lessons and legacy.

By Marcus Halaby and Sam Copley 11 August 2015 A large part of the Western left and radical media have written off the struggle against the totalitarian Assad regime in Syria as irretrievably lost. Effectively, for them, the counterrevolution has triumphed. And alongside them, there are also those who never supported the revolutionary uprising against […]

Political Committee, 28 June 2015 Workers Power condemns the 26 June terrorist attack by gunmen claiming allegiance to Daesh (Isis), which resulted in the deaths of at least 37 holidaymakers in the vacation resort of Sousse in Tunisia, many of whom appear to be British. Nothing can justify such attacks, as also was the case […]

By Marcus Halaby March 21, 2015 Those on the left who supported Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship against its own people in 2011 occasionally cite the chaos and confusion in Libya today as proof that his dictatorship was a necessary evil, and that his overthrow would inevitably lead to Libya’s becoming “another Somalia”, a fragmented “failed state.” […]

Resolution on the revolutions and counter-revolutions in the Arab Spring.

By Marcus Halaby A strike wave has forced the resignation of Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem Al Beblawi and his cabinet, only a month after the military junta of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi rigged a constitutional referendum to enshrine its rule. More than 20,000 workers at state-owned textile factories in Mahalla El-Kubra struck in February, demanding the […]

By KD Tait  We are now approaching the third anniversary of the Syrian people’s revolution for dignity and democratic rights, rights that every people in the world deserves. Syria In The Context of the Arab Spring, a conference held in London on 15 February, was therefore an event that was long overdue. This conference drew […]

By Tobias Hansen, Gruppe Arbeitermacht Three years after the fall of Mubarak, even the bourgeois media are asking whether anything has really changed in Egypt, or whether the current military interim government is trying to bring about a return to the old conditions. The latest step towards the “restoration” of military rule was the constitutional […]

In the first part of a two part article, Marcus Halaby examines the regional and international context of the Arab Revolutions, the role played by the crisis of leadership, and the need for working class political independence in the form of a revolutionary workers’ party, making the case for the strategy of permanent revolution.   […]

By Martin Suchanek, Gruppe Arbeitermacht “A huge victory for the international community” – that is what US President Barack Obama called the 27 September United Nations Security Council Resolution 2118 on chemical weapons in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also praised the document to the skies, while German Foreign […]

By Dave Stockton   The defeat of the Cameron-Clegg coalition in the House of Commons on Thursday 29 August by 285 votes to 272 was a historic occasion: the first time a British government was defeated on the issue of making war in over three centuries. It was also the first time the Parliamentary Labour […]

The mass movement that erupted onto the streets of Egypt’s cities on 30 June 2013 against the Muslim Brotherhood-led government of President Mohamed Morsi was just as much an expression of popular anger and the continuing revolutionary will of the Egyptian masses as were the protests that brought down the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak on […]

This is a joint statement supported by the International Socialist Network, Socialist Resistance, Workers Power and the Anticapitalist Initiative The defeat of the government pro-war resolution in Parliament is important. Even though Labour voted against the Tory motion, it too had submitted a pro-war resolution, albeit calling for a pause until after the report from […]

By Marcus Halaby / 30 August 2013 On 21 August, reports emerged that hundreds of people had been killed in a chemical weapons attack in Eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held agricultural region just outside of the Syrian capital Damascus. With reports of up to 1,700 dead, this atrocity is just the latest in a long series […]

The League for the Fifth International totally condemns the preparations by the US administration, warmly supported by the British and French imperialists, to launch missile attacks on Syria. We call on the labour movements and progressive forces of all countries to mobilise to prevent such attacks and to make the perpetrators pay heavily for it […]

This motion was proposed by Workers Power members and passed by Lambeth Left Unity branch on 27 August 2013. Lambeth left Unity condemns the preparations by the US Administration and the British Government for missile attacks on Syria. We also condemn in the strongest terms the Assad regime¹s use of chemical weapons in Ghouta on […]

The July 3 military coup in Egypt, launched by Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, seems to be faltering in the face of intransigent resistance by the mass following of the Muslim Brotherhood. Having failed to crush the resistance of pro-Morsi demonstrators, despite the massacre of 72 people at the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in Cairo […]

The fireworks celebrating the “cold” military coup that overthrew elected President Mohamed Morsi, however understandable, will prove shortsighted – and probably sooner rather than later. To return to the power of the military, with a government of technocrats, to let them impose their road map and timetable, to let their experts redraft the constitution and […]

By Marcus Halaby The Stop the War Coalition (StWC), led by Counterfire, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) called a protest in central London for 15 June to “Stop Western Intervention in Syria”. Originally formed to oppose the “War on Terror” declared by the United States under President George […]

  By Marcus Halaby “To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, without a movement of the politically non-conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian masses against oppression by the landowners, the church, and […]

In early February, Tunisia was shaken by the brutal assassination of Chokri Belaïd, general secretary of the Party of United Patriotic Democrats, which identifies its politics as Marxist-Pan-Arabist, and heads a popular front alliance. Chokri Belaïd, a lawyer from a working class background who still lived in a working class area, had defended workers in […]

Marcus Halaby analyses the great – and as yet uncompleted – Arab revolutions of 2011, debunking a number of myths and proving the relevance of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution today.

As the rival imperialist powers manoeuvre to gain an advantage from the mass uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship, Marcus Halaby examines the regime’s strategy and tactics as it struggles, if not for outright victory, then at least to cling on to some vestiges of its power. One of the historic claims to legitimacy of Ba’athism, […]

As sectarian militias roam the countryside seeking to drown the Syrian revolution in blood, Marcus Halaby argues that the only progressive solution is one based on class   After the massacres in Houla on 25 May and in Qubair on 6 June, anyone on the left who still opposes the Syrian revolution should be treated […]

After a heavily contested first round, the Egyptian presidential election came down to a run-off between two candidates, representing two wings of the same ruling class. As we go to press the results are not known. The candidate of the undisguised counter-revolution is Ahmed Shafiq, puppet of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), […]

The Arab Spring of 2011 inspired millions around the world through its acts of heroism. But now the revolutions have stalled. In the spirit of solidarity with these movements and communist internationalism, Marcus Halaby takes a critical look at the far left in these countries and Syria in particular   One of the most noticeable […]

Despite president Bashar al-Assad’s promises not to shoot protesters, his regime has continued to kill civilians, most recently in Damascus and Homs. The Arab League’s week-long talks to produce a peace plan made his regime hypocritically issue an amnesty for those carrying arms. But the uprising itself remains largely unarmed, while most armed civilians belong […]

2011 will undoubtedly be remembered as the year of the Arab Revolution. We have seen an explosion of democratic aspiration and courageous struggle as revolutions spread in a few weeks from Tunisia and Egypt to Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, and Syria. Like all such movements, which challenge and topple leaders and systems that had once appeared […]

Gaddafi has been toppled from power, but the fight for the future of Libya continues. Dave Stockton looks at the growing conflicts amongst the anti-Gaddafi forces.

Protests have mushroomed since Israel’s killing of five Egyptian soldiers in mid-August, when Israeli security forces breached Egyptian territory in pursuit of Islamist militants allegedly responsible for a series of attacks on Israeli civilians in Eilat. Popular anger at Israel’s actions and at its renewed bombardment of Gaza prompted mass demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy […]