Lessons from Egypt (so far)

The Egyptian masses have had in the last few days a brutal, inspiring,
and thorough education in the class struggle. Undoubtedly they’ve
learned more collectively (as a class) in the last few days than would
have been possible through years of Marxist education. With that said,
it’s important to analyze precisely what these lessons have been, both
for the Egyptian working class in particular and the international
working class in general.

The first and most astounding lesson is the international aspect of
this revolution. Often when I discuss international socialism with
people, people curioous about Marxism, the most (seemingly) ridiculous
premise is that revolution could ever spread from one country to
another. “How are you gonna do that one,” tends to be the response.
But as recent events, and indeed history at large has shown,
revolutions in one country always have the power to inspire revolution
everywhere. The first thing that comes to the minds of people WATCHING
revolution happen is, “if they can fight back and win, THEN WHY CAN’T
WE?”

So just like that, a struggle that began in Tunisia spreads to Egypt
and then further out to Jordan, Yemen, and beyond. But this really
isn’t that unique, per se. When the American Revolution uccured it
wasn’t long until it inspired revolution in France and Haiti. The
revolutions in Eastern Europe against Stalinist regimes went one after
another. The same can be said for anti-colonialist revolutions in
Latin America and Africa. International revolution is always possible
and has always been possible.

The second lesson seems to have been much clearer beforehand in Egypt,
but is often less clear in countries like the US: the role of the
police. The police fall into the classic Leninist definition of “what
is the state: groups of armed men.” In short, the groups tend to be
the police and the military. But there is a crucial difference between
the two. Whereas it is the daily experience of the cop to oppress
their own people in the service of the bourgeoisie, it is generally
the experience of the soldier to be sent to far away places that they
don’t want to go to, to kill people they don’t really care about
killing, while risking their lives for a cause that seems senseless to
them. The differences in lived experience leads cops to be the
ruthless defenders of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois state, while
it leaves soldiers vulnerable to being one over to the side of the
revolution.

In Egypt this has played precisely as discussed by Lenin. The police
were the first to try and violently stop protests throughout Egypt and
hold out into pitched street fights with protesters. Once the cops had
been decisively beaten, they resorted to going plain-clothed and
looting Egypt to create panic and slow the revolution.

Conversely the protesters took the perfect orientation towards the
military, after Mubarak dispatched them to quell the struggle. Instead
of attacking the soldiers or insulting them, the protesters welcomed
them as comrades in arms and invited them to join in the struggle.
This, of course doesn’t mean that the entire rank-and-file of the
military will refuse to fire on anti-government protesters. But what
it does mean is that in the meantime the protesters have been able to
fraternize and spend time with the worker-soldiers and win them to
their side.

The clear lesson has been that the role of the state has not been to
protect it’s citizens or uphold democracy. In fact it has been
dedicated to keeping Mubarak in power against the will of the Egyptian
masses and to try and prevent genuine democracy when it presents
itself In the streets.

The third lesson has been on the topic of the bourgeois media. I wrote
more about this in my previous post so I won’t go too long on it, but
some points are worth repeating. In Egypt the treachery of the media
is better understood, though some Egyptians and outsiders might write
it off as being strictly because it is state-owned media. The fact is
that even here in the “worlds greatest democracy,” the journalism
around Egypt has often only been bearable because the tiopic is
revolution. But without fail, the bourgeois media have time and again
turned what should be a clear cut story of the oppressed fighting back
against the oppressor into a story about the fears of an Islamist
takeover, fears for the safety of Israel, and concerns about how this
revolution will affect “America’s interests” (never mind the millions
of people risking their lives in calling for democracy in a struggle
that is generally supported by working class people the world over).

The fourth lesson to be extracted is that where there is revolution
there is counter-revolution. All revolutions, whether they succeed
quickly, slowly, or lose, they all face counter-revolutionary
reaction. Nine days of revolutionary struggle has today been attacked
by pro-Mubarak forces. People riding on horses and camels were seen in
Cairo attacking revolutionaries in Tahrir (Liberation) Square. Mobs of
people supporting Mubarak have been provoking and openly attacking
anti-Mubarak demonstrators.

This has to be identified clearly for what it is: an attack on the
revolution. So far the revolution has been referred to by numerous
journalists as “leaderless.” From what I’ve read on independent
sources (i.e. Democracy Now, Socialist Worker, Electronic Intifada)
there actually are many groups that are helping coordinate much of
what’s going on. But my point is that to fight back attacks on the
revolution the Egyptian working class will require greater
organization ass well as political clarity.

This gets to my fifth and final lesson from Egypt: working class
self-organization. As Marx pointed out so long ago, the unique nature
of the working class compels it toward self-organization and
proletarian democracy. The need for capitalists to concentrate
themselves and their capital in areas that become major cities. The
subsequent affect being a concentration of workers in big cities and
more acute concentration in specific workplaces. The need to educate
this working class to operate the machinery and bureaucracy. The
combination of education and concentration of humanity that leads the
working class to become capable of democratically governing itself in
the larger scale of international politics as well in the local scale
of the workplace. These were Marx’s observations.

These same observations can be made today in Egypt. The Egyptian
working class has had to respond to counter-revolutionary looting by
pro-Mubarak forces by spontaneously forming neighborhood committees
and militias to defend itself and it’s revolution! This is critical
and cannot be understated because with the political assistance of
revolutionary activists and the muscle of union militants, these
committees can form the embryo, or at least inspiration, for a
worker’s government!

In revolution after revolution, whether it was Russia in 1917, Germany
in 1918, Chile in 1973, or Iran in 1979 the two important traits all
of these revolutions had in common were that they were driven by the
working class and provided the possibility for a challenge of dual
power (i.e. a bourgeois government vs a worker’s government) based on
worker’s councils. Regardless of how those revolutions ended, and of
how this one ends, the possibility for a truly proletarian revolution
is present in these neighborhood councils,

These are the lessons I’ve found in Egypt’s inspiring struggle.
However this ends, more lessons are certain to present themselves. No
matter how this ends, the Egyptian working class has already left it’s
mark on the world. In this very moment, millions and even billions of
people around the world have been inspired to ask themselves “if they
can do it in Egypt, why can’t we do it here?”