Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Disgraceful capitulation of the LIT-CI, on Egypt

An essential contribution of the Marxists to the cause of the Egyptian and Arab revolution is helping clarify the problems that it confronts and the means for its victory, which puts a central problem on the table: How can the Arab peoples in struggle achieve bread, work and freedom? Is real democratization possible, without the […]

Left Voice

August 23, 2013
Facebook Twitter Share

An essential contribution of the Marxists to the cause of the Egyptian and Arab revolution is helping clarify the problems that it confronts and the means for its victory, which puts a central problem on the table: How can the Arab peoples in struggle achieve bread, work and freedom? Is real democratization possible, without the seizure of power by the workers? Unfortunately, groups of the socialist left are imagining a phase of “democratic revolution,” prior to and separated from, the seizure of power by the workers, which has extremely serious political consequences. For example, the LIT-CI, the tendency led by the PSTU of Brazil, talks about the “great conquest of the masses,” – a big step forward, of their “democratic revolution” – while the soldiers are carrying out a coup, massacring, imprisoning, imposing the state of emergency, and advancing in attacks that aim, not only against the MB, but against the entire revolutionary process.

According to the LIT, there is an advance of the revolution, “however much the contradiction is posed that if the military upper echelons directly take the reins of power again, it will be a new victory of the masses of the people, partial but extremely important, since they will have dealt another blow to the military regime, although it will not destroy it,” 1LIT-CI, Statement of July 2, 2013Thus, “despite this contradiction, Morsi’s downfall is taking shape as a big conquest of the masses and a new blow to the regime, that lost its second government in two and a half years, beginning with the popular mobilization.” How does the LIT explain the fact that this “big conquest of the masses” has led to the imposition of a military government and to the worst massacres, that have not been seen since the epoch of Mubarak?

Following this logic, the LIT-CI places itself in the “democratic camp,” in the name of “the broadest unity of action,” including the liberal and secular bosses’ politicians, against the “Bonapartists,” whether Islamic or soldiers. Through this surrender to the “liberal” forces, the paradox arises that the LIT, while talking about the “democratic” revolution, concludes by conceding to the soldiers and their government, allies of imperialism and of Israel, a legitimacy for repressing the Islamists. It is unusual that an organization that claims to be leftist, would suggest that government repression was “unrestrained and completely out of proportion against the militants of the Brotherhood” … and that if the army only wanted to repress the Muslim Brotherhood, “Massive arrests or, at least, arrest of all its leadership, would suffice. Nor would it be necessary to declare a state of emergency (of siege), nor a curfew, since it would be sufficient to ban the Brotherhood.” At the same time, it is asking (the soldiers? the liberal allies of imperialism?) that “no democratic right, nor the right of expression” be granted “for the Brotherhood and its political leaders, while they are mobilizing for Morsi’s return” (sic). It seems unbelievable to have to remind the comrades of the LIT of something so elementary for a revolutionary: that it is one thing for the masses to defeat Morsi’s reactionary government, and something very different if the one that does it is the repressive forces of the capitalist state, whose aim is to liquidate the process as a whole. At the same time, their slogan, “Immediate elections for the free and sovereign Constituent Assembly, without the participation of soldiers or of the Brotherhood!” 2LIT-CI, Statement of August 15, 2013 which conveys their adaptation to the camp of the bourgeois secular, liberal and nationalist tendencies, cannot fail to attract attention.

The policy of a “democratic revolution” has already led the LIT and other organizations of the international left to consider that the downfall of Gaddafi in Libya, under the leadership of NATO and its local collaborators, was a “big victory” of the masses. Now, in Egypt, it is leading them to capitulate to the “democrats” that are covering up for the military.

After two and a half years of upheavals and struggles by the masses, of every sort, in the Arab world and in Egypt, they show that the utopia of a phase of “democratic revolution,” that changes the political regime without power passing from the hands of the bourgeoisie to the hands of the working class and the oppressed, is incorrect. There is no other way of satisfying the profound demands of the masses and entirely and really resolving the democratic and national tasks than the seizure of power by the workers, at the front of the workers’, peasants’ and popular alliance.

August 21, 2013

Translated by Yosef M.

Notes

Notes
1 LIT-CI, Statement of July 2, 2013Thus
2 LIT-CI, Statement of August 15, 2013
Facebook Twitter Share

Left Voice

Militant journalism, revolutionary politics.

Archive

The Unknown Paths of the Late Marx

An interview with Marcello Musto about the last decade of Marx's life.

Marcello Musto

February 27, 2022

The Critical Left in Cuba

Frank García Hernández discusses the political and economic situation in Cuba and the path out of the current crisis.

Frank García Hernández

February 27, 2022

Nancy Fraser and Counterhegemony

A presentation from the Fourth International Marxist Feminist Conference.

Josefina L. Martínez

February 27, 2022

Who is Anasse Kazib?

Meet the Trotskyist railway worker running for president of France.

Left Voice

February 27, 2022

MOST RECENT

A square in Argentina is full of protesters holding red banners

48 Years After the Military Coup, Tens of Thousands in Argentina Take to the Streets Against Denialism and the Far Right

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets across Argentina on March 24 to demand justice for the victims of the state and the military dictatorship of 1976. This year, the annual march had renewed significance, defying the far-right government’s denialism and attacks against the working class and poor.

Madeleine Freeman

March 25, 2024

The Convulsive Interregnum of the International Situation

The capitalist world is in a "permacrisis" — a prolonged period of instability which may lead to catastrophic events. The ongoing struggles for hegemony could lead to open military conflicts.

Claudia Cinatti

March 22, 2024

Berlin’s Mayor Loves Antisemites

Kai Wegner denounces the “antisemitism” of left-wing Jews — while he embraces the most high-profile antisemitic conspiracy theorist in the world.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 22, 2024

What “The Daily” Gets Right and Wrong about Oregon’s Move to Recriminalize Drugs

A doctor at an overdose-prevention center responds to The Daily, a podcast produced by the New York Times, on the recriminalization of drugs in Oregon. What are the true causes of the addiction crisis, and how can we solve it?

Mike Pappas

March 22, 2024