The Arab Spring at an impasse – is there a way out?

The Arab Spring at an impasse – is there a way out?

By Samuel Albert

I. What comes after the Arab Spring?

The Arab Spring battered the established order in a way that hasn t been seen for decades. It made hearts beat faster, not only in North Africa and the Middle East but everywhere people want to throw off the crushing weight of the way things are today. But now the spontaneous revolts that seemed to unite the people, or at least the most active people, against hated despots in Tunisia and Egypt, have given rise to more complex and contradictory phenomenon. The people are running up against a much more difficult and divisive problem: what kind of regime should – or can – be next? What kind of society do people want?

In most countries, it is no longer possible to envisage a political solution that would immediately attract the vast majority of the population. This has disoriented the minority that has been most actively demanding radical change. “Freedom,” defined as free speech and a government chosen by majority vote, was supposed unlock the door to the future. Instead, in Egypt and Tunisia the electoral process brought the Islamists to government, and for them electoral democracy is a battering ram to flatten vibrant societies into a narrow religious mold.

This has left many people dizzy and confused, feeling that the real struggle now is not to push forward with high aspirations but to build coalitions with openly pro-Western forces to block the Islamist advance and prevent things from getting worse. Others argue, just as wrongly, that progressive forces should bloc with the Islamist reaction.

Take the shocking about-face by Samir Amin, an Egyptian economist and social theorist many people look to because, among other reasons, as he says, he has been “opposed on principle to military intervention by the Western powers in the South.” Now he is calling for people to support the French invasion of Mali in the name of “eradicating” Islamic fundamentalism in the region.i In several countries – Tunisia is a sharp example – the historically secularist and left forces have abandoned the banner of opposition to the imperialist West to the Islamists.

All this has been defended as a realistic reaction to what is undeniably a very dangerous situation. Just how bad things can get is on view in Syria, where legitimate hatred of the Assad regime has been twisted into reactionary channels and the country is sliding into a terrifying religious and ethnic civil war. The U.S. and its allies argue, in essence, that the only way out is for Syria to become a Western neo-colony, although they are divided on whether the best course is to engineer Assad s overthrow or a “negotiated solution” that would leave the old state structure more or less intact but under imperialist domination. Basically, what is being said by many, not just about Mali or Syria but the region as a whole, is that increased domination by the imperialist powers is an acceptable price for stopping Islamic fundamentalism.

In Libya, the imperialists themselves played a central role in dismembering the Gadaffi regime and its replacement. In other countries – Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen – the military that was the backbone of the old regime is the backbone of a new regime, and the U.S. has plaid special attention to these men who are the ultimate guardians of imperialist interests and the social order shaped to serve those interests. Is a continuation of this situation, or more naked foreign intervention and perhaps military rule, really what millions of youth and other people rose up and sacrificed to bring about?

Although Palestinian youth are looking for ways to bring streets and hilltops to life again, they also face the serious problem of the lack of a political horizon. Should the goal of the overthrow of the Zionist state be indefinitely postponed as long as a religious project can be advanced, the Hamas position, or should it be abandoned in hopes that the U.S. will force Israel to be less ferocious in its suppression of the Palestinians, the PLO position? While many Palestinian youth are no longer in favor of either organization, disillusionment with old leaders is not enough to open up new pathways. What is the alternative?

In fact, the situation for Palestinians is paradigmatic for all these countries where liberal forces groomed or re-fashioned to rule in the interests of international capital and big power strategic political requirements face Islamist parties seeking to develop their own way of ruling over the same economic and social system.

Our purpose here is to argue that there is another way. Everyone knows that there are no easy answers. We have to start with correctly defining the impasse facing the revolts whose outbreak was so exhilarating and liberating for people everywhere, but whose sequels are unfolding in complex and contradictory ways. The outcomes will have at least as much global impact, if not more, than the initial moment. The problems for revolution in the Middle East and North Africa are problems for world revolution despite the particularities of these countries and the region. This is not only because the situations in different countries interact, but more basically because revolutionaries everywhere face many of the same questions of defining their goals and how to achieve them.

The profound economic, political, social and ideological contradictions that gave rise to the Arab Spring have not been resolved; in most of these countries things cannot go back to the way they were before. People have awoken to political life, become more confident in their own power and each other, shaken off their fear and gained a sense that even long-standing and deeply entrenched regimes can be toppled. Also, the world situation does not favor long-term local stability, especially in such a strategic and contested area as the Middle East. In short, our answer to those who say – who hope – that a new winter is inevitable and radical change was never possible in the first place is this: the wheel is still in spin.

Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, wrote in January 2011 that the fall of Ben Ali and Mubarak demonstrated that “there is no permanent necessity to the existing conditions under which the great majority of humanity suffer so terribly. Oppressed people and people who hunger for an end to oppression, in every country all over the world, have deeply shared in the joy and hope of these massive uprisings. And the stirrings of revolt continue to spread.”

Emphasizing an idea expressed by Marx, Avakian has also pointed out that “In fact the actual breakdown of the existing system is impossible in practice if it has not been done first in theory, that is to say, in the understanding of many people.”

In the course of revolt against existing conditions people may get a glimpse of this objective truth – that society and the world order do not have to be the way they are – but this will not last and cannot continue to motivate people unless more and more are brought to an understanding of the alternative society and world order that objective conditions have made necessary and possible. In fact, people often come to feel that the lack of success of a mass rebellion is proof of exactly the opposite, that nothing can ever really change in any basic or at least positive sense. History has seen awakened peoples forced back to (or bludgeoned unconscious) for decades.

There is an alternative to the non-solutions represented by the Islamists and the liberals: the revolutionary economic and political transformation of these countries so that they are free to follow a very different path. But this not currently a visible part of the political landscape. This crucial lack of a vision of the possible does have a big impact on people s mood and thinking.

II. Rival – and mutually reinforcing – representatives of imperialist dependency

To a far too great extent, the political situation in the Arab world is characterized by the clash between rival representatives of the status quo, each preaching enslaving ideologies. This is part of a global phenomenon. In Bringing Forward Another Way, written in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Avakian analyzed, “What we see in contention here with Jihad on the one hand and McWorld/McCrusade on the other hand, are historically outmoded strata among colonized and oppressed humanity up against historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system. These two reactionary poles reinforce each other, even while opposing each other. If you side with either of these outmodeds, you end up strengthening both.

“While this is a very important formulation and is crucial to understanding much of the dynamics driving things in the world in this period, at the same time we do have to be clear about which of these historically outmodeds has done the greater damage and poses the greater threat to humanity: It is the historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system, and in particular the U.S. imperialists.”

Today that path-breaking insight is even more important in terms of understanding the situation in the Arab world (and beyond) today, where jihadis waging war with the West and Islamists seeking Western political acceptance are flourishing precisely because of the weakening and discrediting of the old power structures and official ideologies. Yet global monopoly capitalism headquartered in a handful of imperialist powers headed by the U.S. – the system that backed the client regimes of Ben Ali and Mubarak – is still at work. The U.S faces new conditions and new necessities, but its position in the world depends in large part on its dominance of the Middle East and it is not going to stop trying to preserve and extend that dominance. This is fueling Islamism s vertiginous ascent.

As a political movement, Islamic fundamentalism is not essentially a continuation of an age-old religiosity. It was born after the West dismantled the Ottoman Empire, at a time when the Western big powers were carving up the Middle East among themselves. Salaf means ancestors and Salafism seeks a return to the supposed lifestyle of the Prophet and his companions. It was during a time of great change that this vision became the basis of a political program and movement. Arising first in Egypt, from the 1920s on it was associated with the House of Saud and later Saudi Arabia, a regime born out of British complicity that, with the discovery of oil in 1938, was to become and remain tightly connected to the U.S. The question was not how to return to a bygone semi-nomadic society but how to establish regimes and societies that could fit Western interests while adopting an ideology that could preserve the reactionary social order and provide new rulers with legitimacy. Its rise owes much to Saudi money and covert backing from the U.S. and other Western powers aimed at countering both Soviet influence and genuine revolutionary movements, but its global reception was due to objective conditions existing under imperialist domination.

As Avakian explained, “There is the corruption of the regimes there, and the repressive nature of those regimes. There is the worsening of the material conditions of the masses of people and, along with that, the tremendous upheaval and dislocation of millions and millions of people in those societies, with the traditional way of life significantly uprooted but with no real positive radical alternative possible within the dominant social and international relations – none that would really meet the needs and serve the interests of the masses of people. Is it really surprising that this situation and its driving dynamics would lead people to gravitate to extremes? And there is a force of Islamic extremism which has been and is moving to organize people in relation to this – organize them around precisely an extreme version of traditional relations and traditional values and culture, which seem to be, and in a real sense are, under attack from many sides, especially as the effects of globalization, and the imperialist system as a whole, increasingly penetrate into and make themselves felt within these societies.”

In some countries these Islamists represent traditional exploiting classes, although even in this case they are transformed by their relations with imperialist capital. In other countries – Egypt is an outstanding example – the success of the Muslim Brotherhood is associated with the flourishing of new capitalists outside of the old state-connected ruling circles. Many academics have explored the ties between the Brotherhood and the new super-rich, which are common knowledge in Egypt. Amin, Gilbert Achcar and other scholars have pointed out that the Brotherhood s social and economic program is entirely consistent with the model imposed by the IMF and World Bank. Whether loudly critical of the West or hoping for acceptance, such forces have no program for overcoming their countries dependency on the world market and especially imperialist capital.

This does not mean that the U.S. would have wanted the Egyptian Brotherhood or Ennahda in Tunisia to come to power, but given the de-legitmization and dismembering of the old power structures, this kind of Islamic rule may represent Washington s best available option. The U.S. has continued to finance Egypt s Muslim Brotherhood government to the same extent as it did Mubarak, and encouraged the Ennahda government in Tunisia.

Yet the provisional fit between the Muslim Brotherhood, Ennahda, etc. and Western interests is only one side of the question. While the Brotherhood and its brothers say they have evolved away from their original Salafist fundamentalism, once religion is taken as the ultimate source of moral right and political legitimacy, then the borders between the varieties of Islamism become more porous. Even in Turkey, supposedly a model of “moderate” political Islam, this has spurred and not stopped the rise of more “extreme” forms. Islamism in general seeks political power to implement an all-encompassing vision and ideology that, while appealing to the most backward aspects of a tradition being undercut by imperialist-dominated capitalist development, seeks to combine this dependency with the false solace of religion, the hypocritical charity of the mosque and the suffocating solidarity of "the community of the faithful" that abolishes critical thinking. There are real ideological dynamics at work in the cohesion of these organizations and within the Islamist movement as a whole.

Islamism is a general and global phenomenon that continues to challenge the U.S. ideologically and politically. The biggest division among Islamists is not the scope of their religious project but the relationship they wish to have with the U.S. and the West. Ayman al-Zawahiri, heir to Bin Laden as head of Al Qaeda, came out of the Egyptian Brotherhood and represents a rival current within Islamism. But even Bin Laden held open the idea of accommodation with the U.S. and the West under certain conditions, as have the Taliban. These two currents overlap and interact, and the development of the situation is unpredictable.

Further, there is an inherent contradiction between the U.S. s need to call on Islamic legitimacy to shore up its regional domination, and the role of Israel as the most reliable enforcer of that domination. The U.S. and its allies cannot tolerate the existence of any regime that does not protect Israel s existence and interests, especially on its borders. The U.S. supported Mubarak, and for a long time tolerated the Assad regime, because they protected Israel against the Palestinians and the people of these countries.

The Brotherhood wants to inherit this role. It has gone even further than Mubarak in keeping Gaza sealed off, most recently by dumping loads of stinking excrement into the smugglers tunnels to make them unusable. But again, to take the example of Turkey, it is not so easy for any Islamist government to celebrate good relations with Israel and still keep its legitimacy.

Egypt s pro-Western liberals, for their part, generally share the Brotherhood s position on this question. They repeat Mubarak s excuse and say they are putting the interests of the Egyptian people first. The truth is that the prospect of revolutionary change anywhere in the region is closely related to the Palestinian struggle against Israel and vice versa.

For several years before and after the fall of Mubarak, the Egyptian Trotskyist organization Revolutionary Socialists claimed that the Islamists can be allies, as expressed in the slogan “Sometimes with the Brotherhood, never with the state.” But this does not take into account the real role of the Brotherhood. No ruling class can rule through the state alone without a legitimizing ideology. Historically and especially right now in the region, no configuration of reactionary ruling classes can do without promoting religion – not Mubarak, not Ben Ali, not Gadaffi and not even Bashar al-Assad. Further, the Brotherhood was brought into government not to destroy the state structure but to save as much of it as possible, and it has done its best to protect the interests of the armed forces. The Revolutionary Socialists slogan avoids the question of allies for what, and falls into standard reformist tactics of trying to bloc with whoever is in the opposition at a given moment for the advancement of the narrow interests of a political organization within the present system.

Of course now most of the historic left parties and self-identified secularist forces in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and elsewhere have come to see the Islamists as their principle enemy, and become appendages of the liberal parties (or, for some in the case of Syria, the ruling Baath party).

What makes this position so poisonousness is that, to return to Avakian s “two outmodeds” analysis, “These two reactionary poles reinforce each other, even while opposing each other. If you side with either of these outmodeds, you end up strengthening both.” Islamists love to point out the blatant hypocrisy and oppressiveness of the values and morality promoted by the Western imperialists, who preach human rights and claim to represent freedom but enthrone tyrants, buy armies, back every crime perpetuated by Israel, invaded Iraq and Afghanistan (and now Mali) and generally make life hell for much of the world, and promote the degradation of women in their own countries. These liberals cannot provide a solution to the frustration and pain that characterizes daily life for most people, nor an alternative to the religious outlook that expresses hopelessness and submission.

The Islamists will have an advantage as long as they can portray the conflict as one between the vast masses of the downtrodden and privileged apologists for Western domination. The attempt to paint secularists as a minority worried mainly about their endangered privileges is aided by liberals who fear the lower classes and barely bother to address their basic needs.

Even if it were possible for Egypt and Tunisia, for instance, to become what the liberals promise, free of corruption or torture but as tightly linked to foreign capital and the international market as they have always been, with all the inevitably resulting impoverishment, backwardness and inequalities for the masses of people – how could that satisfy the demand for "bread, freedom and social justice"? And of course, this dream (to take one example) of turning Egypt into a Middle Eastern version of France will remain just as illusory in the 21st century as it was in the 19th.

Those who claim that what is needed is more capitalist development fail to recognize, or admit, that capitalist development is what has brought these countries to where they are today. Economic growth rates in Egypt over the last years have been higher than many other countries. What has been the result? Egypt s persistent poverty and backwardness weigh on the whole nation, producing a general sense of frustration and national humiliation.

As for the liberals claims in the political sphere, that they represent “freedom,” again Islamists love to point out that when the liberals lose out in electoral maneuvering suddenly majority rule is no longer so sacred to them. Just like the Islamists, for them elections and parliament are a means to an end, and could never be otherwise.

Even with real elections, parliamentary democracy is perfectly compatible with and often the best form for the dictatorship of the exploiting classes, as can be seen by looking at the social and political reality in countries all over the world where such elections take place. The formal equality of citizens before the law masks and gives full play to the enormous inequalities that characterize every country.

For instance, in today s South Africa, the new constitution put an end to the white rule (apartheid) of the past and proclaims majority rule and extensive rights for all, but the overwhelming majority of the black masses in the countryside and cities remain impoverished. Instead of being drawn into debating and governance, they are marginalized – and targets of state repression. For instance, when miners went on strike last year, instead of backing them up in their struggle against intolerable living and working conditions, the African National Congress-led state sent police to kill them – to protect the country s export and foreign capital-dependent economy.

Further, in the countries dominated by imperialism, not only would parliamentary democracy be a form of the dictatorship of the exploiting classes in which the interests and deepest desires of the people do not bear any weight in basic decisions, it would be doubly empty because local life is ultimately determined by the interests and decisions of the imperialists, the powers whose twin instruments of subjugation are their military and the global market. are factors that make it difficult to implement the kind of parliamentary democracy the capitalists generally use to rule in the imperialist countries.

In fact, it s hard to see how any government in a country whose people are kept in despair by an imperialist-dependent ruling class could ever do without vicious repression and even torture, along with religion and the increasing Islamization of society (which Mubarak and Ben Ali also promoted, even while trying to keep a lid on the Islamist organizations).

When it comes to the imperialists (and their pet pro-Western local politicians) on the one hand, and the Islamists on the other, there is no acceptable choice. In fact, whatever happens, without the emergence of a communist-led revolutionary movement that could change today s political landscape in the Middle East, the people of the region and beyond will suffer from both imperialist dictates and the yoke of religion.

III. Why Egypt is the way it is today

Imperialism is not just a swear word or a set of policies. It means a system where monopolies and financial institutions control the economies and political structures in their home countries like the U.S. and the “West” in general and all over the world. The economies – and the lives of people – of the dominated countries are subordinated to the accumulation of capital based in the imperialist countries. As explained in America in Decline by Raymond Lotta with Frank Shannon,ii “This is not to say that imperialism simply holds down the oppressed countries, or that it just extracts wealth through unequal trade or naked plunder, although these certainly occur. Imperialist capital can, and in the long run must, develop the economy of these countries. But it must develop them on an imperialist basis – in particular, on a basis favorable to foreign capital – and in contradiction both to the welfare of the broad masses of those countries and to the development of a relatively articulated social formation. Even where capitalist relations have been extensively introduced into these countries, they are not on the road to independent capitalist development.” Among other distortions it produces, this kind of capitalist development dispossesses much of the peasantry and other traditional classes but cannot profitably employ them. The result is a “huge under- or permanently unemployed urban fringe population and enormous wasted (unutilizable) labor in the countryside.”

As Egypt became more fully integrated into global financial markets over the last several decades, some sections of the economy boomed, but life became more painful for the majority. In the rural , where about the half the population still lives, an agricultural “counter-reform,” designed to modern capitalist agriculture in a countryside characterized by very small landowners (and fertile irrigated land, some of it yielding three crops a year), turned many fellahin into laborers and deliberately drove many more off the land completely. Consequently, cheap labor is so plentiful for the textile mills, clothing plants and other factories located in the Nile Delta that China has found it advantageous to set up export manufacture here.

Both agriculture and industry remain hobbled because Egypt s insertion in the global imperialist system conditions and sets the limits for its development.iii The development that has occurred has often been more speculative or tied to services and consumption rather than basic production.

For instance, Egypt, where favorable agricultural conditions helped lay the basis for one of humanity s earliest civilizations, has become increasingly dependent on imports from the U.S., along with other countries, for basic foodstuffs like maize and wheat, despite the country s potential agricultural wealth.iv Much of its agricultural resources are devoted to cotton for export. This began in the early 1800s, when producing cotton became Egypt s assigned place in the "international economic division of labor" – code word for capitalist and imperialist exploitation.

To take another example, Egypt imports refined petroleum products, even though it is a major oil and gas producer. While its pipelines have carried natural gas to Israel (at a very friendly price), many Egyptians have been forced to lug heavy and unsafe butane canisters up the stairs to cook for lack of local gas pipes and infrastructure. The butane is imported. Government price-fixing just means that it is often unavailable through official channels and people have to spend time dealing with the black market.

The Suez Canal, built by the forced labor of peasants and forcibly seized back from the British who stole it, is an important source of revenue and employment, especially for skilled workers, but it, too, is basically an export and contributes little to the country s development.

As a consequence of all this, a large part of the population, in the cities and countryside, has been displaced from their traditional lives but not integrated into the formal economy. The persistence of this situation over more than half a century is proof that the problem is not development, but what kind of development.v

Cairo is one of the world s most sophisticated cities, but the lack of stable jobs, dependence on feudalistic and other personal relationships of obligation in order to survive, the often improvised and precarious living conditions of many of its inhabitants and even its unsustainable size are conditions very much related to the way that all-sided economic and social development is thwarted by the country s subordination to capital based in the imperialist countries. Vast numbers of people work as replacements for machines (in construction for instance, where a back is cheaper than a crane), or as doormen, guards, helpers and so on. This is a criminal waste of human potential.

At the same time, thanks to television and the Net, American and European living standards and life styles are very familiar to millions of youth who have little plumbing, limited access to schools and no hope of being admitted into that kind of modernity. This situation exists throughout the Arab world.

A striking example of the hollow character of the country s development, seen from the perspective of the interests of the people, is Egypt s medical system. Almost everyone is theoretically within a short distance of clinics and hospitals dispensing free treatment. But the bribes required to obtain health care are far beyond the reach of many people. Despite its modern medical facilities, Egypt has a high infant mortality rate, a signal of the real health situation. At the same time, while Egyptian medical schools churn out doctors, many go abroad, not only because of the money, but also because as individuals there is little they can do to change this situation. Large amounts of social resources and individual effort that go into the university education are wasted when the person ends up as a chauffeur in London or running a food truck in New York.

The uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere cannot be explained by economic deprivation alone, since that is not new. There is a general feeling throughout these societies that people s lives and the country have come to a dead end.vi These are the conditions that set the stage for both the political crisis that brought down Mubarak and the rise of Islamism.

IV. Is there a middle way between capitalism and socialism?

There are some people who try to distance themselves from both the liberals and the Islamists, although they tend to fall into the liberal camp because they hope that a “democratic space” can allow gradual change. They put forward variations on the idea of a “transitional” political and economic structure where capitalism would function in a different way. They call for the state to intervene to force investors into compliance with national and social goals.

For instance, in a recent article featured on the World Social Forum Web site, Amin outlines a series of concrete steps which, he argues, could avoid both the “crony capitalism” of Mubarak, in which a handful of people tied to the regime and especially Mubarak and his family, could thrive (much like in Ben Ali s Tunisia), and the “liberal” (unrestricted free market) capitalism espoused both by the liberals and the Muslim Brotherhood. We want to examine his proposals because of Amin s influence, and because he is specific, whereas the economic programs of the so-called leftists in the liberals National Salvation Front, particularly the most prominent among them, Hamdeen Sabahi, have been so deliberately vague.

1) Putting an end to “crony capitalism” by forcing those who were allowed to buy state property at bargain prices to pay for the real value of their holdings. (2) Raising the minimum wage and adopting a salary ceiling. (3) Setting up a tripartite commission between the unions (including independent unions not currently recognized by law), the employers and the state to negotiate rights and benefits. (4) Suppression of state subsidies for monopoly corporations. (5) Higher taxes for large and foreign owned businesses, lower taxes for small enterprises. (6) The allocation of the resulting budget deficit to health care and other public services. (7) The centralization of credit under a central bank. (8) For small farmers, improvement of agricultural methods, state credits for inputs, distribution cooperatives, the freezing of land rent and new laws making it more difficult to evict peasants from their land.vii

The enormity of the country s problems stands in sharp contrast to the paltriness of these proposed solutions. There are at least three fundamental flaws in this argument.

First, it exaggerates the difference between “crony capitalism” and “liberal” capitalism. In fact, Amin s first point, insisting that capitalists pay the “fair” value (which can only be the market value) for past and present acquisitions is exactly what free market theorists advocate.

Capitalism, crony or otherwise, must seek the highest rate of profit. For instance, take agriculture, which he admits is the thorniest problem on his list, and also which, to Amin s credit, he wants to discuss, whereas others avoid the question. It is more profitable to concentrate capital in big farms producing a handful of export crops like cotton, import food and let the rest of agriculture stagnate, than to encourage the all-around development and diversification.

Further, the resulting huge numbers of people desperate for work is exactly the reason why there has been state and foreign investment in factory production, again, mainly cotton goods for export. What else would attract foreign capital to Egypt? As long as any economy is based on the capitalist principle of production for profit, it must submit to the dictates of the world market.

Second, this approach carries an implicit underlying assumption that the state is neutral and can be used against the capitalist ruling class, whereas in fact it represents that class. Anyone familiar with Egypt s power structure, for instance, would find it hard to deny that the armed forces and security organs are the state s core – why would that be the case if the state were not an instrument of repression in the hands of a ruling class? This is not just because of the military s commanding role in the economy. The same applies in Tunisia, where the armed forces are much smaller and do not enjoy the same major economic role. The whole state apparatus, including the judiciary and bureaucracy from top to bottom, serve that class s interests. These organs have remained almost untouched despite Mubarak and Ben Ali s forced resignations, continuing to enforce the economic and social system. Indeed the role of the state as the enforcer of the set of economic and social relations, in this case capitalism and imperialism, is a central tenet of Marxism which our "Marxist " theoreticians would be well advised to remember.

Third, this approach is also based on another, unstated but basic assumption: That genuine revolution is not possible in Egypt (or any other country, really), and that what is required is a long period of economic development to bring the requisite conditions into being. The experience of Russia and China, which were in many ways far less economically developed at the time of their revolutions than Egypt today, disproves this assumption. Whether because of Amin s developmental theory, or because of his own understanding of the socialist experiences in the Soviet Union and China, the implicit starting point for this line of argument is that revolution and socialism are not an option.

There is another major problem with Amin s program, one that, to be fair, is shared by many forces that call themselves leftists or socialist in general: no mention of half of society, women. This is all the more wrong in a country suffering a pandemic of public (and publicly tolerated) sexual abuse of women, and where the police and army specialize in degrading female protesters. At the same time, using the pretext of “protecting” women, patriarchy and the subordination of women to men (and children to fathers) are at the heart of Islamic law. Both everyday life and the goals of political Islam have made women s status and treatment one of the sharpest immediate issues facing Egyptians. Yet most of the traditional left and secularists try to avoid the issue. In Tunisia, like Egypt, publicly demonstrating for women s liberation has sometimes been considered undesirable because it risks provoking a polarization favorable to the Islamists.

Patriarchal relations remained unchallenged under the so-called secular Mubarak and Ben Ali regimes. For instance, Tunisia s supposedly secular family law both enshrined the subordination of women to men in basic aspects and provided pretty words to cover the reality of the position of women in society. While female genital mutilation (so-called “female circumcision”) is supposedly illegal in Egypt, a huge percentage of women are still subjected to it. Often it is performed in hospitals, not in secret.

What the Islamists seek now is to codify into law and intensify an already existing and worsening situation. But even most of the “secular” forces who call for rights for women do not boldly challenge it. Overturning women s subordinate status would require opposing deeply rooted traditions and thinking that is part of what holds the people prisoner.

Not putting the freeing of women from male supremacy at the center of political goals and work, and not seeking to free the whole society from the grip of patriarchy, is only acceptable to those whose aim is to simply improve a few things for a few people. It is another manifestation of an approach seeking to readjust the existing system rather than do away with all forms of exploitation and oppression and free all of humanity from the economic, social and mental chains that hold it back. If some people see the demand for women s liberation as a problem, that s because actually eliminating patriarchy would require the kind of transformation in every sphere of society that they have decided is impossible – or undesirable.

V. What would a real revolution look like

The stunted lives of the vast majority of people, the imprisonment of whole nations, the oppressor states and the oppressive relations between people, the squandering of society s wealth and the other conditions that people in North Africa and the Middle East have revolted against can only be overcome by a revolution whose first great task is aimed against the imperialists and the local exploiters linked to them, smashing their rule and state and confiscating their property. This revolution would carry out the democratic transformations (such as agrarian revolution, the liberation of women and the struggle against obscurantism) that the old system and state made impossible while at the same time opening the door to socialism as part of the whole worldwide struggle to reach communism.

The sense of national and class humiliation that now too often finds an outlet in religion can give way to far more liberating, forward-looking and reality-based determination to actually change the country and the world. Today few people are free to see the world and society scientifically, because the way that they are forced to live shapes their thinking and the dominant ideas are those of the ruling class. Once people are free to believe or not believe, growing numbers of people will adopt a scientific outlook.

Socialism means the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and the profit motive, and the use of society s wealth for the transformation and development of the country in the interests of the vast majority of people and the advancement toward world communism.

The old state, under which power was violently monopolized by the representatives of the interests of the prevailing system, will be replaced by a new state, the dictatorship of the proletariat led by the communist party, a form of rule based on the fundamental and historic interests of the working class in eliminating class divisions, all oppressive relations and equalities and the corresponding ideas, and therefore liberating the vast majority of people. The purpose of this state is to transform the society, together with women and men all over the world, in reaching communism where there will no longer be a need for a state because "exploitative and oppressive economic and social relationships and the ideas associated with them will have been overcome and replaced by the free association of human beings aiming for the common good, and at the same time, within that, individuals and individuality flourishing in a way that has never been possible before.” viii

Some radical changes can be brought about overnight. For example, take the physical abuse of women, which no government in today s world has ended. The thinking and behavior formed under the old society takes a long time to transform, but a revolution could start to eradicate this abuse right away, not only by arresting rapists and sexual abusers, but also by relying on and backing up the many women and men who will not tolerate it and leading them in shining a spotlight on the problem and criticizing the thinking and social relations between men and women, in public and in private, that rape, pornography, wife-beating and the more “routine” forms of male supremacy represent.

After the Chinese revolution, with state power under the leadership of Mao Tsetung s Communist Party, women themselves were encouraged, organized and given support to set and enforce new standards abolishing the very common practice of wife-beating. (By comparison, women and men organizing teams to stop rape in Tahrir Square get nothing but scorn from official society and the police are part of the problem.) The killing of girl babies and the sale of children was ended. China very quickly went from a backward country where women were slaves to men to a vibrant revolutionary society in which women were enabled and encouraged to play a leading role on every front. These kinds of transformations took place in all spheres until the counter-revolution after Mao s death sent China spinning back to exploitation and capitalism, and, with it, the reascendance of all the social ills and reactionary culture associated with it.

China s revolutionary state power, with the workers and peasants at its core, made it possible to free the rural masses from the tyranny of the landlords and traditional oppressive social relations. Socialist economic planning put the emphasis on the development of agriculture and the concentration of human and material resources in the countryside. This made it possible to build a basically self-sufficient, increasingly industrialized socialist country. Why doesn t this apply to Egypt, and other countries as well? Not every country has China s geographical advantages, and the world is much more tightly inter-knit than in Mao s day, but the same principles could be applied.

Further, isn t the gap between the countryside and cities, in Egypt (especially concerning Central and Upper Egypt), Tunisia (between the coastal cities and the s in the interior), Syria and other countries not only an obstacle to development but a basic cause of the people s misery – and therefore why can t the people who suffer from these inequalities desire and be inspired and led to play a key role in overcoming these conditions, just they did in China?

And why can t the people forced to live in cities without access to decent housing and permanent jobs, now considered “surplus”, basically useless to the profit system, be freed to put their talents to work, not only in labor but in making revolution?

Why is education a source of frustration for so many youth – why can t they not only put it to use for the benefit of the people but also play a vital role in bringing knowledge and culture to those who have been denied those things, thus helping further unleash the greatest productive force, the people themselves? Isn t the fact that such a large portion of the people in Tunisia, Egypt and many Arab countries are forced to immigrate a symbol of these countries subjugation, another example of their inability to use the talents of their “surplus” people? Why can t this terrible drain on these countries physical and human resources be reversed, so that people could return and put their experience and knowledge to good use?

Everywhere you look in today s world, there is enormous and terrible waste – people whose abilities are thwarted and beaten down; a whole gender, half of the population, held back; land and other resources misused; and technology that cannot fully play its role as a positive factor unless it is used according to socialist principles and not for the accumulation of capital.

Socialism is the road that China took and successfully advanced on for almost three decades, changing it from a hellhole of poverty and backwardness into a country that people all over the world looked to as an example and bastion of the future – until the capitalist coup that arrested Mao s followers and reversed the direction in which he was leading the country. China s bitter fate since then is a tragic demonstration that there is no middle way between socialism and the cesspool of capitalism.

VI. What s missing: revolutionary communists

Our central argument here is that any attempt to try to bring about radical change without overthrowing capitalism and challenging the imperialist world order is doomed to failure. Many people more or less know that. Their starting point is not so much a belief that capitalism can be made to work as the belief that there is no fundamental alternative – that another world in the sense of a radically different world is just not possible.

Even most people who think they are in favor of socialism and communism can see no possible connection between these ideas and political work among the masses today, and are waiting for the majority to adopt these ideas before publicly fighting for them. These people, too, are paralyzed by the prevailing negative summation of the socialist experience, as well as their own often reformist views of what is possible and desirable.

The possibility of breaking free of imperialism, of achieving socialism and eventually a communist world, remains invisible to almost everyone.

People know that “Arab socialism” ended badly. They don t know the difference between attempting to use imperialist rivalries to win (ultimately illusory) advantage for a new state capitalist class, as exemplified by Nasser and the Baath parties, and building real socialism as was done in the Soviet Union and China. Especially, people have little idea of the difference between Mao s China and today s China.

They don t know about Mao s breakthrough understanding that once socialism is achieved, there is a struggle over the direction of society between the communist leaders and masses of people who want to continue revolutionizing the country on the road toward doing away with the division of society into classes worldwide, on the one hand, and the “capitalist roaders” emerging in the Communist Party on the other. Mao unleashed a Cultural Revolution against them which beat them back for a decade. During this time he lead in greatly developing the theory and practice of continuing the revolution under socialism. This was an historically unprecedented experience in drawing the masses in their millions into struggling over and determining the direction of society.

Still, there were secondary mistakes and shortcomings in how certain problems were understood and handled, such as the imposition of an official ideology in a socialist state, and the insistence that the arts and sciences narrowly serve the revolution.ix These errors were long rooted in the international communist movement, particularly under the leadership of Stalin. Mao s leadership of the Cultural Revolution was based on his critical analysis of the Soviet experience, but this rupture was not complete.

In his summation of the unprecedented achievements and lessons of the experience of socialism in the Soviet Union and China, Avakian has formulated a vision of socialist countries that people everywhere would want to live in. As he puts it, his new synthesis has meant “criticizing and rupturing with significant errors and shortcomings while bringing forward and recasting what has been positive from the historical experience of the international communist movement and the socialist countries that have so far existed; in a real sense, reviving – on a new, more advanced basis – the viability and, yes, the desirability of a whole new and radically different world, and placing this on an ever firmer foundation of materialism and dialectics... We should not underestimate the potential of this as a source of hope and daring on a solid scientific foundation.” (Quoted in Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, a Manifesto from the RCP,USA)

The loss of China has allowed imperialist mouthpieces and apologists for capitalism to spread such a barrage of lies and slander that most people think that it is “common sense” that socialism failed without knowing much or even thinking about it.

Most people who consider themselves revolutionaries, let alone most ordinary people, take what they wrongly imagine to be realistic, the all-but-eternal existence of capitalism and imperialist domination, as their starting point and the boundary of what s possible. This false sense of “permanent necessity” eats away at their highest hopes and aspirations.

The possibility of real change can be glimpsed and then lost sight of. People s activism, initiative and courage is related to whether or not they believe that their sacrifices may lead to results that are worth it. Right now, it is the Islamists and not their opponents who are the most passionate and aggressive in fighting for their vision of society. It turns out that when the ruling classes can no longer rule in the old way because they are divided and in disarray and their power structure has lost its legitimacy, this crisis is not automatically resolved in the interests of the people and the new order can be as bad or worse.

The Iranian people have had this experience.

VII. The defeat of the revolution in Iran

In a statement on May First 2011 called From Iran to Our Revolutionary Comrades in the Middle East and North Africa, the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) offered an important synthesis of the experience in their country.

“In 1979, millions of workers, peasants, students and oppressed nationalities rose up in Iran and overthrew the Shah’s regime which was the product of a CIA led coup against the regime of Dr. Mossadegh in 1953. This event caught many with surprise especially that a year earlier President Carter of the USA had declared Iran under the Shah an island of stability in Middle East. As a result of the Shah’s fall, cracks opened in U.S. domination in the Middle East.

“When Iranian society exploded, a different array of political forces jumped into the fray in order to push their political and social agenda and control the future of the people of Iran. Among them were the Islamic fundamentalists who were accomplices to the 1953 CIA-Shah coup. The imperialist powers also desperately and actively moved in, to prevent the total overthrow of the imperialist dependent class state and the uprooting of the capitalist system in Iran. To this effect they chose to unite with the Islamic fundamentalists. They opened the way for Khomeini, his cohorts and allies to come to power...

“In addition to the unfavorable [world] situation, the communist forces in Iran also played a negative role – i.e. they failed to put out a single nationwide program for the overthrow and destruction of the old state and establishment of a new state with a program of social revolution. The majority of the communists hinged their hopes on the spontaneous development and transformation of the labor movement into a socialist revolution. But revolution is not a spontaneous affair. And if it is left to spontaneity, the organized forces of the reactionary classes will surely seize the leadership of the masses and will impose their political and social program. The communist forces did not take the theocratic character of the new regime seriously and even turned a blind eye to women’s rebellion against it...

“The theocratic character of the state had objectively accentuated the task of carrying out ideological struggles and developing a bold critique of religion. But the communist forces of Iran mainly turned their back on this task, thinking that the key to casting off the ideological influences of the Islamic regime would be to emphasize economic problems and hope that with the worsening of the economic situation the workers would go on strike and subsequently carry out an insurrection. The result of this outlook was a pure economist line that focused the attention of the workers on their immediate problems...”

“If the people lack a revolutionary communist movement that could push forward the answer for what do we want from the position of the proletariat and other oppressed and exploited of the society and lead the masses to fight for that goal; if we lack that, the reactionary classes and their representatives will impose their own agenda on the masses and tell them what they should want. ”

“The revolutionary crisis that had gripped the society was solved negatively and brought three decades of catastrophe for the working class and the people of Iran and had tremendous negative impact on the trend of revolution in the Middle East as well as the world and enhanced the counter-revolutionary atmosphere...

“In Tunisia and Egypt and other countries, on the one hand the national and international power centers are trying to calm and satisfy the people by giving them some pitiful concessions or at most by changing the guards of the system. On the other hand, there is tremendous opportunity and potential to give more blows to the old system and finally smash it through a genuine revolution. These are two radically different roads. If the second road wins out, undoubtedly the face of this region and the world will radically change in favor of the peoples of this region as well as the world over. But to make the second road win out, millions of people should come to know what a real revolution is and what is the character of the society they need and want and what kind of class leadership can lead the way towards reaching it. Without millions becoming conscious in this way and getting organized to fight for this goal, the enemies can sell anything to people in the name of revolution. This we saw in the case of the Iranian revolution of 1979. As a result in Iran, basically the same situation remained and even became worse.”x

VIII. What communists could do

Early on during World War 1 Lenin predicted political crises that would lead to “crowns rolling in the street” and asked who would be there to pick them up. In Russia, in October 1917, he led the Communist Party in taking advantage of such a situation and organizing the revolutionary seizure of political power that was a necessary precondition to winning over the broadest masses of people in the course of revolutionary transformations. In other countries there was “nobody there to pick them up,” often because the existing socialist parties had never been revolutionary or turned their back on revolution.

This is exactly the experience Avakian addresses in his message to the Egyptian people after the fall of Mubarak. “In Russia, in February 1917, another brutal despot, the Czar (absolute monarch), was overthrown by the uprising of the people. Here again, the U.S., British, and other imperialists, and the Russian capitalists, tried to continue the oppression of the Russian people in a new form, using the mechanisms of democratic rule and elections which, while allowing for some broader participation of different parties, would still be totally controlled by the exploiters of the people and would ensure their continuing rule, and the continued suffering of the masses of people. In this case, however, the masses of people were enabled to see through these maneuvers and manipulations, to carry forward their revolutionary rising, through many different twists and turns and, in October 1917, to sweep aside and dismantle the institutions and mechanisms of bourgeois dictatorship and to establish a new political and economic system, socialism, which for several decades continued to advance in the direction of abolishing relations of exploitation and oppression, as part of the struggle throughout the world toward the final goal of communism. The crucial difference was that, in the uprisings in Russia, there was a core of leadership, communist leadership, that had a clear, scientifically grounded, understanding of the nature of not just this or that ruthless despot but of the whole oppressive system – and of the need to continue the revolutionary struggle not just to force a particular ruler from office but to abolish that whole system and replace it with one that would really embody and give life to the freedom and the most fundamental interests of the people, in striving to abolish all oppression and exploitation.

“Even though the revolution in Russia was ultimately reversed, with capitalism restored there in the 1950s, and today Russia no longer seeks to disguise the fact that it is a capitalist-imperialist power, the lessons of the Russian Revolution of 1917 hold valuable, indeed decisive lessons for today. And the most decisive lesson is this: When people in their masses, in their millions, finally break free of the constraints that have kept them from rising up against their oppressors and tormentors, then whether or not their heroic struggle and sacrifice will really lead to a fundamental change, moving toward the abolition of all exploitation and oppression, depends on whether or not there is a leadership, communist leadership, that has the necessary scientific understanding and method, and on that basis can develop the necessary strategic approach and the influence and organized ties among growing numbers of the people, in order to lead the uprising of the people, through all the twists and turns, to the goal of a real, revolutionary transformation of society, in accordance with the fundamental interests of the people. And, in turn, when people massively break with the normal routine and the tightly woven chains of oppressive relations in which they are usually entrapped and by which they are heavily weighed down – when they break through and rise up in their millions – that is a crucial time for communist organization to further develop its ties with those masses, strengthening its ranks and its ability to lead. Or, if such communist organization does not yet exist, or exists only in isolated fragments, this is a crucial time for communist organization to be forged and developed, to take up the challenge of studying and applying communist theory, in a living way, in the midst of this tumultuous situation, and to strive to continually develop ties with, to influence and to ultimately lead growing numbers of the masses in the direction of the revolution that represents their fundamental and highest interests, the communist revolution.”

Rather than taking as their starting point the idea that revolution is impossible, people who really want basic change and accept nothing less can start thinking how they could lead in making that happen, what it would take and what the new society would look like. Today s situation in various countries contains favorable elements for revolution – doesn t the experience of the Arab Spring prove this? When the ruling class cannot rule in the old way and the people are not willing to live as before gives rise to opposite reactions – both the rise of Islamism and the broad yearnings for radical change. When the ruling class and power structure are weakened in a battle between reactionary political forces contending over how to restabilize the state and the economic and social order, determining the “main enemy” is of no help to the masses of people who feel caught in this dilemma.

Instead, revolutionaries need to determine the deepest, long-term interests of the broadest masses and what could truly emancipate them, become representatives of that understanding and begin gathering people from the bottom of society and all those who long for real change into a conscious movement to carry out this kind of revolution. The liberals cannot connect with and unleash the revolutionary potential of the downtrodden and all those who feel that extremely intolerable lives call for extreme solutions, but communist revolution could. The values the liberals pose in opposition to Islamism are hollow and hypocritical. If so many people have been willing to sacrifice their lives without a clear vision of what sacrifice could bring about, imagine what could happen if a scientific vision of a possible new and liberating society were to motivate a growing number of people and become a force in the struggles around all the problems and issues facing everyone in society – issues that, thanks to the Arab Spring, millions are discussing and debating.

If people who consider themselves revolutionaries are sometimes isolated, it is not only because of the real difficulties but also because they are not addressing and fighting around questions that could lead to breaking through – in their own thinking and therefore the thinking of sections of the masses – today s unfavorable political and ideological polarization between the Islamists and the liberals. Many people argue that communist revolution is too controversial to be advocated among the common people, but these ideas speak to the people s experiences, their deepest problems and frustrations, and point to the possibility of a real, scientifically based, alternative – if a growing number of people, from the bottom and throughout society, take up this cause and play the conscious, active role in changing the world that no other outlook and movement can offer them. Trying to have a capitalism without vicious exploitation and oppression of nations or a "humanist" Islamic rule without the oppression of women – these are the solutions that are unrealizable and the sooner a section of leaders and activists get straight on this the better. Trying to avoid controversy will not fool people or appease their religious prejudices, and only guarantee that much of their thinking, shaped by the prevailing economic and social relationships, will always remain in contradiction to their deepest aspirations and fundamental interests.

The last two years have provided rich lessons about the role of an advanced minority and its relationship to the rest of society. The persistence of youth and others – despite difficult periods when there has been more passivity than street action – has been a mood creating factor throughout society. It is true that this "Internet elite," as they are sneeringly labeled, has not always been able to rouse the broader masses. Yet they have been a major element in preventing reactionaries from consolidating their hold and keeping alive the possibility that broader masses could once again intervene in determining the country s future.

If they had waited until the masses in general, or the majority, to have consciously decided on the need, possibility, modality and timing of social change, Mubarak and Ben Ali would still be sitting in their palaces and most people would still be thinking that what exists now is what has to be.

No one can predict how long today s situation will last. There are objective reasons that support the hope that it will not come to a quick end. But a revolutionary crisis can t become a revolutionary situation without the work of a revolutionary party and the emergence of a revolutionary communist movement among the masses – a movement guided by communism as a science and as a goal, one that even if small seeks every opportunity to have a major impact on all of society and build strength so that when conditions are ripe it can win power. Whether or not a revolution becomes possible at this juncture, whether this is the time for the drama to reach its climax or only a dress rehearsal for future battles, it has to be the beginning of the end. This moment, brought about with so much suffering, can t be squandered. The danger is not only that the reactionaries will come back in full force, but also that the people may lose their way for some time to come.

On the other hand, if a revolutionary movement were to arise with sufficient force to begin to break the hammerlock of the “two outmodeds,” and even more if there were a revolution in any country, this would produce a real and much-needed change in today s difficult regional and world situation. It could help advances in making revolution in other countries that could in turn impact back onto the situation where the breakthrough first occurred. After all, if what started in Sidi Bouzid, an isolated town in a small country, could sweep across the region and impact people around the world, think of what could happen if something truly revolutionary emerged, a movement fighting for a way out in opposition to the horrors most people now think are the only possibilities.

People in the Arab countries are justly horrified, for example, at the bloodshed inflicted on the people amid the collapse of the old order in Syria. But the old order was in general created by the imperialists and they cannot stabilize it. Still less can they create a situation tolerable to the large majority of the people for whom the status quo was never tolerable. The same tearing apart of the ruling classes that is causing so much suffering for the people can also increase the possibility as well as the need for revolution – if the revolutionary leadership boldly and energetically puts forward and mobilizes people around a solution that represents the actual needs of the people and can unite them. In this way a revolutionary authority can emerge on the scene as the only way to protect the people from imperialist marauders, modern-day warlords and armed enforcers of religious rule.

This requires taking up – and broadly taking out and acting on – the most advanced revolutionary theory. Trying to figure things out all by yourself in your own corner – or your own country – is never correct, and is not at all the way that the great revolutionary leaders have emerged and the great revolutions have been made. What makes it possible for revolutionaries everywhere to figure things out very quickly is that they don t have to start from scratch.

"Bob Avakian has, over the past 30 years, continued to deepen a scientific analysis of the experience of the international communist movement and the strategic approach to communist revolution. The result of this work has been the emergence of a new synthesis, a further development of the theoretical framework for carrying forward this revolution.”xi

The revolutionary leadership of the people can and must engage with the most advanced ideas on the world level and use that as a kind of platform and accelerating force to reach higher. Because the revolutionary communist outlook, method and analysis corresponds to reality and can provide answers to the problems that have impelled people into motion, and because people s experience, if seen scientifically, demonstrates the bankruptcy of the other roads they are being offered, it can connect with many of the people who long for a way out of today s impasse and are willing to die for it, as they have demonstrated with their sacrifice over the past two years. Under conditions as they now exist in North Africa and the Middle East, even small groups of people with a correct understanding could begin to move people very broadly.

The question is who will take the responsibility to lead, and because they recognize what that means, also take the responsibility to learn.

Studying and debating the manifesto Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, along with Avakian s work, would be an extremely helpful step enabling revolutionaries to rise to the occasion provided by situations which, with all their difficulties, are among the most favorable for revolution in today s world. In this sense, all those looking to revolutionary change around the world need their comrades in North Africa and the Middle East to step forward.

i.“Rescuing Mali from the Islamist militants,” Pambazuka.org.
ii Banner Press, 1984.
iii. A landmark investigation and analysis of the relationship between Egypt s internal economic and class structure and its insertion into the global imperialist economy was written in the late 1960s by two Egyptian authors writing under the pseudonym Mahmoud Hussein, who were then very influenced by Maoism as they understood it. They developed the thesis that Egypt was marked by an incomplete transition to capitalism, with both elements of highly developed monopoly capitalism subordinated to imperialism and the persistence of feudal and other pre-capitalist features, with both aspects working to perpetuate backward social relations, political institutions, customs and ideas. They also argue that the country s notable religiosity reflected that objective situation. Class Conflict in Egypt 1945-1971, Monthly Review Press, 1974.
iv. “The crisis of rural society is one of contemporary Egypt s many paradoxes. While Egyptian agriculture is one of the most productive and intensive in the world, its peasants are among the poorest. Some 50-80 percent, according to various analysts, live below the poverty line. Further, while Egypt has become one of the world s biggest exporters of agricultural products, it remains one of the world s biggest importers of agricultural foodstuffs.” Habib Ayeb, La Crise de la societé rural en Egypte, Editions Karthala, 2010.
v. “Egypt’s economy has grown by about 5% in real terms each year since 1980. It is the ambition of all developing countries to achieve such a level of growth, especially where it outstrips the increase in population. Yet sustained economic growth singularly failed to deliver employment and poverty reduction. The NDP [Mubarak s ruling party] robber barons were successful in rewarding themselves – real estate, land, cement and steel, and of course the military too – after all, did not the military get its ‘toys for the boys’ to a value of U.S. $1.3 billion per annum from the United States, as well as guarantees for its own enormous business ventures in land, real estate and manufacturing? But urban and rural poverty – the abjection of the majority of Egyptians from the wealth that they have produced – is the biggest indictment of the last 30 years. At best, Egypt has developed but Egyptians have not! Unemployment levels might be as high as 50%, food inflation of 20% accelerates poverty and child hunger, and bread riots around the bakeries of Cairo in 2008 were an early indicator of tipping points to come.” (Ray Bush, “Egypt: a permanent revolution?,” Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 38, No. 128, June 2011.)
vi. One of the most vivid expressions of that has been in literature. The last decade saw the emergence of a genre called the house novel. The most famous, Alaa Al Aswany s The Yacoubian Building, was the Arab world s best-selling novel for two years (2002-03) before being made into a film and then a television series. Hamdi Abu Golayyel s Thieves in Retirement appeared the same year. Both use an apartment building and its inhabitants as a metaphor for Egyptian society. Al Aswany seeks to present a panorama of all of the country s social classes in connection with a building in downtown Cairo, while Abu Golayyel focuses on Bedouin immigrants in the poor southern suburb Helwan, once touted as an example of the paternalistic concern of the Nasser regime (1952-60) for the welfare of the working class. Both authors deliver an implacable portrait of a society where the doors and windows have been nailed shut and the suffocating stench of rot fills every room from top to bottom. The cruelty and corruption of the regime has poisoned every aspect of life, even, and perhaps most painfully, the most ordinary relations between people. (Published in English by Harper Perennial and American University in Cairo Press, respectively.)
vii. Rephrased and condensed from the article “Liberal Capitalism, Crony Capitalism and Lumpen Development,” an article originally published in Pambazuka (pambazuka.org) reposted on fsm2013.org.
viii. Bob Avakian, BAsics, RCP Publications, 2011.
ix. See Bob Avakian, "The Cultural Revolution in China... Art and Culture... Dissent and Ferment... and Carrying Forward the Revolution Toward Communism," Revolution #261, February 26, 2011 (revcom.us)
x. Posted in English, Arabic, Turkish and French on Sarbedaran.org.
xi. Avakian explains in Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity, part I: “This new synthesis involves recasting and recombining of the positive aspects of the experience so far of the communist movement and of socialist society, while learning from the negative aspects of this experience, in the philosophical and ideological as well as the political dimensions, so as to have a more deeply and firmly rooted scientific orientation, method and approach with regard not only to making revolution and seizing power but then, yes, to meeting the material requirements of society and the needs of the masses of people, in an increasingly expanding way, in socialist society – overcoming the deep scars of the past and continuing the revolutionary transformation of society, while at the same time actively supporting the world revolutionary struggle and acting on the recognition that the world arena and the world struggle are most fundamental and important, in an overall sense – together with opening up qualitatively more space to give expression to the intellectual and cultural needs of the people, broadly understood, and enabling a more diverse and rich process of exploration and experimentation in the realms of science, art and culture, and intellectual life overall, with increasing scope for the contention of different ideas and schools of thought and for individual initiative and creativity and protection of individual rights, including space for individuals to interact in civil society independently of the state – all within an overall cooperative and collective framework and at the same time as state power is maintained and further developed as a revolutionary state power serving the interests of the proletarian revolution, in the particular country and worldwide, with this state being the leading and central element in the economy and in the overall direction of society, while the state itself is being continually transformed into something radically different from all previous states, as a crucial part of the advance toward the eventual abolition of the state with the achievement of communism on a world scale.”

Avakian s writings and Communism: the Beginning of a New Stage, are available at revcom.us

Rate the article
Bad	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Very good
Result : 40%							Participated in the vote : 3