Its lessons and legacy.

The election of the Egyptian General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi should have provoked international outrage. Marcus Halaby explains why the great powers are engaged in a conspiracy of silence Russian imperialism and its Western rivals may be at loggerheads over Ukraine, but in Egypt they seem to have established a silent consensus, in favour of the […]

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 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.   […]

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 […]

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 […]

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.

By Marcus Halaby The principal demand of the February 2011 protests that marked the beginning of Egypt’s revolution was for President Hosni Mubarak’s immediate resignation To many, it therefore looks like a defeat for popular aspirations, that one of the two candidates for the second round is Mubarak’s last prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq. Only about […]

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 […]

The victory of the Islamists in the parliamentary elections is a dangerous sign, warns Simon Hardy

The magnificent Egyptian revolution is in danger of defeat, warns Dave Stockton

Since the fall of Mubarak, workers have taken their chance to launch strikes and protests over both political issues and working conditions. There have been strikes of telecoms workers against the management board and demanding the releaase of fellow co-workers, a strike at Egypt’s Misr Cement over wages as well as lawyers locked in a […]

The Egyptian army’s attack on unarmed Coptic demonstrators has not occurred in a vacuum. It takes place in the run-up to parliamentary elections, due to begin on 28 November and end on 10 January; following large protests against the trial of civilians by military courts; and in the midst of controversy around a new “constitutional […]

Violence against Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority, about one-twentieth of its population, is not a new phenomenon. Hosni Mubarak’s regime, and Anwar Sadat’s before it, frequently allowed or enabled “popular” expressions of hostility towards the Copts as a safety-valve for social discontent.

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 […]

Massive strikes by workers have broken out across Egypt, reports Marcus Halaby. This opens up a new phase of the revolution as Egypt heads towards its first post-Mubarak elections in November.

Marcus Halaby looks at how the growing strike wave, mass demonstrations in Tahrir square and Israeli embassy protests herald a new wave of revolution. Eight months after the fall of Mubarak, Egypt’s newly independent trade unions are now gearing up for their first major challenge to the military government that replaced him. Having its origins […]

In the last days a general strike has rocked Egypt. The strike movement illustrates how the Egyptian revolution is entering a new phase, as workers come to the fore of the struggle to dislodge the military junta from power. Here we publish the statement of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions, who have led […]

Every revolution is at some stage confronted by a counter-revolutionary struggle. Egypt’s Mubarak and Tunisia’s Ben Ali may have been caught by surprise but the other Arab rulers were forewarned and forearmed in the event that their people rose up too. Marcus Halaby takes an analytical view

Revolutionaries and anti-imperialists from across the world will be gathering in Cairo between 3-5 June to discuss the next tasks for the growing rebellions across the Middle East and North Africa, writes John Bowman

The revolution in Egypt has entered a new phase. New independent trade unions are recruiting tens of thousands and demanding an end to starvation wages and sweatshop conditions. Marcus Halaby and Jeremy Drinkall assess where the movement can go from here

For decades, Hosni Mubarak justified his rule by claiming that democratisation would see Egypt fall into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned Islamist opposition movement, writes Marcus Halaby

UK Prime Minister David Cameron flew into Cairo after Hosni Mubarak was forced out, saying he wanted to be the first Western politician there since the revolution. He was flanked by British arms dealers on their way to the huge Idex weapons fair in Abu Dhabi. This was the latest episode in Britain’s bloody history […]

Egypt is aflame with revolution. The world has watched with bated breath as millions of Egyptians have shown that they will not be intimidated and coerced any longer. A general strike has been proclaimed and on 1 February two million demonstrators packed the vast Tahrir (Liberation) Square in Cairo demanding Hosni Mubarak’s departure. His dictatorial […]

What is a revolutionary situation “… a revolution is impossible without a revolutionary situation; furthermore, it is not every revolutionary situation that leads to revolution. What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? […] (1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is […]