Revolution and Counterrevolution in the Arab World: An Acid Test for Revolutionaries
Resolution of the International Executive Committee of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 31 May 2015, www.thecommunists.net
1. The process of the Arab Revolution – marked by heroic struggles of the masses, partial victories as well as counter-revolutionary defeats – is the most important single class struggle event since the opening of the new historic period of capitalist decay starting in 2008. It has been an acid test for revolutionaries all over the world. We confirm the RCIT’s analysis and programmatic conclusions for the Arab Revolution as elaborated in our numerous documents in the past years. Understanding its lessons as well as adopting the correct program for the next period is crucial for revolutionaries in order to find their way through the coming stormy class struggle events.
I. An Unfinished Democratic Revolution Endangered by the Imperialist-backed Counter-Revolution
2. Nearly four and a half years ago, the Arab Revolution started in Tunisia and soon spread to Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen. Its fundamental causes were the combination of:
i. The outrage of the popular masses after decades of impoverishment.
ii. The suffering from the tyranny of corrupt dictatorships which were all servile servants of imperialism.
iii. The defeats of the US as the traditionally hegemonic imperialist power (Afghanistan, Iraq) as well as of Israel as the crucial Western ally and the small imperialist state in region (Lebanon, Gaza Wars) – subsequently the Arab masses were encouraged by the visible weakening of the Western imperialist powers as the traditional backers of the Arab dictatorships.
iv. Finally the fostering of the struggle for liberation by the fundamental convulsions of the imperialist world order since the onset of the new historic revolutionary period in 2008.
3. While the workers and poor succeeded in some countries – at least temporary – to bring down the old dictatorships and achieving certain democratic rights, nowhere did they succeed in completing the democratic revolution, let alone to get rid of poverty and super-exploitation by the imperialist monopolies and Great Powers. This would only have been possible by making the revolution permanent, as Leon Trotsky – co-leader of the October Revolution together with V.I. Lenin – already explained nearly a century ago. Such a permanent revolution must bear the character of a successful social revolution – combining the struggle for democratic rights with the expropriation of the imperialist monopolies and the domestic bourgeoisie and the destruction of the old, capitalist state apparatus. Hence, it must open the road to the creation of workers’ and fallahin republics and the formation of a socialist federation of Maghreb and Mashreq.
4. Instead, the spontaneous popular uprisings of the Arab Revolution were soon hijacked by various types of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois leaderships. Some fostered the illusion that mass struggles can be victorious via peaceful mobilizations and organizing via social networks. Others propagated the orientation to parliamentary democracy and liberalism. Another trend was the orientation towards a combination of bourgeois democracy and a religious agenda (al-Ikhwan, Ennahda). What all these trends had in common was:
i. The refusal to smash the old state apparatus – usually dominated by the bureaucracy of the repression forces and closely aligned with the big domestic capitalists, as well as the imperialist powers.
ii. The acceptance of the ownership of the key sectors of the economy by private corporations.
5. The domination of the popular democratic movements by such bourgeois and petty-bourgeois forces ensured that they would fail to carry forward the revolutionary process. As a result, the initial revolutionary advances of the workers and poor – leading to the overthrow of Ben Ali, Mubarak, Gaddafi, and Saleh in 2011 – were derailed. In several cases they were contained by new bourgeois regimes. These regimes, while being forced to permit more democratic rights – reflecting the strength of the fighting people – prepared new attacks on the workers and poor on behalf of imperialism (Libya after Gaddafi, Morsi in Egypt, Ennahda in Tunisia, al-Hadi in Yemen). In Bahrain the popular uprising was smashed by the Saudi kingdom on behalf of imperialism in March 2011.
II. The State of the Revolutionary Process
6. Later, in July 2013, the Egyptian ruling class led by General al-Sisi and supported by all imperialist powers overthrew the Morsi government and installed a bloody dictatorship. The reason for this was that the bourgeois-Islamist Morsi government reflected a certain equilibrium: on the one hand the al-Ikhwan government ensured the continuation of power by the ruling class; on the other hand it had to make certain concessions to the popular struggles as reflected in the relative liberty – compared to the times of Mubarak before and al-Sisi later – to demonstrate and strike, the militant mass protests at the US embassy in September 2012 and at the Israeli embassy in November 2012 as well as the easing of the isolation of the Gaza. Sooner or later the Egyptian ruling class and their imperialist masters had to resolve this instable equilibrium in favor of a bloody dictatorship. The coup d’état of 3 July 2013 represented a strategic defeat for the Egyptian working class and oppressed. Shamefully most petty-bourgeois democrats, liberals and centrists failed to oppose the coup and, worse, some like the left-liberal secularist Tamerod movement, the Nasserist Hamdeen Sabahi, the Egyptian “Communist” Party, the pseudo-Trotskyist Revolutionary Socialists (IST) and Alan Woods’ IMT even hailed it as a “Second Revolution”! Authentic Socialists in Egypt have to fight against the military dictatorship and join the numerous mass protests. While we politically oppose al-Ikhwan, we defend them against the state terrorism. The RCIT calls for the independent organizations of the working class and the oppressed (independent trade unions, factory committees, women’s movement, new workers party) in order to fight for democratic rights and to advance the struggle for workers power.
7. Yemen is currently one of the key countries of the revolutionary process in the Arab world. After the first popular uprising in 2011, a second wave of mass protests – against dramatic price rises as well as against the al-Hadi government – started in August 2014 which in the end succeeded in driving out the government. While the subsequent conflict contained the danger of a sectarian divide between Shia and Sunni, the Saudi war of aggression which began on 25 March revitalized the revolutionary process. In fact it has opened a new phase of the Yemeni Revolution. Socialists supported the Yemeni Revolution in 2011 as well as the popular uprising against al-Hadi and fought for an independent program of the working class. While socialists couldn’t support any side in a sectarian conflict, the assault by the al-Saud Gang is a thoroughly reactionary attack which makes the defense of Yemen an imperative duty for the international working class and the oppressed. We critically support the national defense struggle led by the Houthi movement. The latter is a petty-bourgeois Islamist Shia movement which emerged in protest against the support of the Saleh dictatorship for the US imperialist drone war being conducted in Yemen since 2001. It participated in the 2011 revolution as well as in the mass uprising beginning in August 2014. We sharply condemn the Houthi’s present dangerous coalition with the Saleh forces. We call for a program of independent class struggle for the workers and fallahin. The RCIT Yemen denounces the leadership of the ex-Stalinist Yemeni Socialist Party which accommodates itself to the Saudi Kingdom and opposes any authentic struggle for a workers and fallahin republic. We also criticize the joint statement of the Revolutionary Socialists (IST Egypt), Ligue de la Gauche Ouvrière (Mandelites in Tunisia) and other groups which fail to take the side of the Yemeni national resistance against the Saudi aggression. (Statement from 2 April 2015)
8. In Syria the Assad regime reacted to the peaceful democratic mass protests in 2011 with a wave of massive terror. This inevitably led to civil war and the militarization of the liberation struggle. Assad tried to drown the revolutionary masses in blood and received in this enterprise massive military support from Russian imperialism, as well as that of regional allies like the regimes in Teheran and Bagdad and the Lebanese Hizbollah movement. While Bashar al-Assad has fortunately failed in to crush the revolution, he succeeded in transforming the struggle into a civil war and in helping petty-bourgeois Islamist forces gain influence among the popular masses. This has led to a massive weakening of the local committees which originated spontaneously during the mass struggle. Given the lack of revolutionary leadership, many fighters against the dictatorship join Islamist organizations which appear more militant and less corrupt than various pro-Western outfits. However, these organizations – often following a Salafist orientation – suppress any attempt for independent mass organizations and foster a sectarian policy directed against non-Sunni groups. They are currently the main obstacle inside the liberation struggle against the Assad regime. Authentic democracy and social justice can only be achieved if they are replaced by a revolutionary leadership. The Syrian civil war is significantly influenced by the rivalry between the imperialist powers – most importantly between the US and Russia. Bashar al-Assad is strongly aligned with Moscow. Western imperialism has wavered between looking for a way to get rid of Assad – preferable by a coup d’état from forces inside the Baathist state apparatus – and of finding a compromise with him as the lesser of two evils (i.e., when compared with the Islamist rebels).
9. In Tunisia, the popular uprising in December 2010 and January 2011 succeeded in overthrowing the Ben Ali dictatorship. However, as in many other countries, the working class failed to smash the old state apparatus and to expropriate the big capitalists and land owners. The Ennahda government worked hard to stabilize the country in the interest of imperialism and the native bourgeoisie. It used religious phrases in order to make the popular masses believe that it was not a regime working for the interests of the greedy rich. During its rule, two prominent leaders of the progressive opposition – Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi – were killed most likely at the hands of Salafist reactionaries. However, the Ennahda government was not seen by the majority of the native bourgeoisie and imperialism as their preferred puppet regime, since under its rule the state apparatus could not exercise the same full executive power as in the days of Ben Ali. Therefore the ruling class started a campaign against Ennahda and finally succeeded in bringing the old guard of Ben Ali back to power via the pro-imperialist, bourgeois Nidaa Tounes government. Characteristically, the opportunist Ennahda party has joined this government as a junior partner. Shamefully, a significant number of the Tunisian left – mostly coming from the Hoxhaist tradition and influenced by bourgeois nationalism in the tradition of Nasser and Saddam Hussein – supported Nidaa Tounes in their power struggle against Ennahda. This reflects the deep roots of the Stalinist popular front strategy, i.e., the policy of subordinating the working class in an alliance with a faction of the bourgeoisie. Characteristically the main left alliance – a coalition of reformist and centrist workers parties with petty-bourgeois nationalists – is called Front populaire pour la réalisation des objectifs de la revolution (al-Jabha). The RCIT Tunisia opposes such political alliances with non-working class organizations. We call for the creation of a new workers party – something which could begin with an initiative by various left-wing parties and radical sectors of the UGTT trade union federation, based on a revolutionary program.
10. In Libya the unfinished revolution in 2011, the failure of the working class to take power, and the desperate attempts of Western imperialists to install a puppet regime have resulted in an open civil war. The US and EU, as well as the reactionary Saudi kingdom and the Egyptian regime, support the pro-imperialist pseudo-government led by General Haftar based in Tobruk which has many ex-Gaddafi forces in its ranks. The Western imperialists as well as General al-Sisi try to use the emergence of the reactionary Salafist-Takfiri Daash to justify a foreign military intervention. The government in Tripoli is led by bourgeois Islamist forces called Fajr Libya (“Libyan Dawn”) and represents many rebels who oppose both the Western imperialist intervention and the continuing influence of the ex-Gaddafi forces in the state apparatus. In this situation socialists must mobilize the working class and the oppressed masses to defend Libya against any aggression by the imperialist powers, as well as against reactionary lackeys like the Egyptian military dictatorship of General al-Sisi and the Tobruk-based forces of General Haftar.
11. All in all, the Arab Revolution has suffered a number of significant defeats and open counter-revolutions. The counter-revolutionary dangers are particularly acute since the plans of the Saudi/Egypt-led reactionary alliance of kings and dictators to form a joint military force of about 40,000 elite troops, backed by jets and warships, manifests their desire to intervene in the entire region against popular uprisings and to finally crush the Arab Revolution so that they can return to the old, pre-2011 order.
12. However, the revolutionary process is not over as can be seen not only in the ongoing popular struggle against Assad in Syria or against General al-Sisi in Egypt, but also in new heroic struggles of the masses like the victorious Palestinian defense of Gaza against the Zionist killers in July/August 2014, or the mass uprising against the al-Hadi regime in Yemen in the autumn of 2014, and the current Yemeni people’s national defense war against the al-Saud gangs’ aggression.
III. Imperialism and the Arab Revolution
13. The Arab Revolution has been a serious blow for the great imperialist powers which explains why they all working to contain and decapitate it. Western imperialism (US, EU, Japan) relied for decades on the domination of the Middle East by the numerous bourgeois dictatorships. While they had occasionally limited clashes with some rulers (e.g., with various Arab regimes in 1973 resulting in an oil boycott; with Gaddafi in 1986), these regimes secured the Western imperialists’ energy needs with vast supplies of oil, while stuffing their own banks with vast sums of money. The great western powers even collaborated closely with so-called “anti-imperialist” regimes like that of Assad, both father and son. For example, since the First Lebanon War, Syria never fired a shot against Israel and actually secured the northern border for Zionism; and Assad the father even joined the US war against Iraq in 1991, and has collaborated with the CIA torture programs since 2001. As for Gaddafi, his regime was welcomed by Bush, Blair, and Sarkozy after 2001, when the regime opened up its oil companies for foreign investment. And the EU relied on Libya’s repression forces to stop migrants entering Europe from the South, and, like Assad, collaborated with the CIA torture programs. Russian and Chinese imperialism have similarly collaborated closely with various dictatorships in the region. Russia is the major backer of the Assad regime and has close ties with the bourgeois Islamist regime of Iran. The latter is built on the bones of a whole generation of progressive freedom fighters which were massacred in the 1990s. Moscow and Beijing are also building close links with the al-Sisi regime in Egypt. And China is a major trading partner of the oil-exporting states in the Middle East.
14. After the Western imperialists recognized that the spreading wave of popular uprisings could not be stopped, they tried to contain it by looking for collaborators among the leadership of the popular movements. In the case of the Libyan civil war in 2011, they tried to gain influence among the rebel movement by launching limited military air strikes against Gaddafi’s forces. Under such circumstances, revolutionaries had to wage a war on two fronts: continuing the struggle for the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime while at the same time opposing the NATO air strikes. In the end, the Western imperialists had only limited success, since the Libyan masses continue to hate them as was reflected in the killing of the US ambassador in 2012 and the expulsion of the Western embassies since 2014.
15. In order to justify their military interventions in the Middle East and in Africa as well as their support for reactionary dictatorships, all imperialist powers – from the EU, the US to Russia and China – are whipping up anti-Muslim chauvinism. The reactionary wave which shattered Europe after the attack against the racist journal Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 is just the latest in the campaign which started at the beginning of this century. As socialists, we absolutely oppose such attacks as the one on the racist journal Charlie Hebdo, because it only serves the ruling class as a justification for a hysterical anti-Muslim campaign, for the mobilization of the army to increase domestic repression and for the justification for France’s, the EU’s and the US’s war in the Middle East and Africa. The RCIT defends Muslim migrants against all forms of oppression (e.g., unequal wages, ban against wearing a hijab, discrimination by the police). We support the resistance against imperialist intervention and occupations such as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Mali, Central Africa, etc. We sharply condemn the reformist left (such as the ex-Stalinist Party of the European Left) which fails to oppose the imperialist wars and the racist campaign against Muslim migrants and even joined the reactionary 11 January “national unity” demonstrations in France. At the same time, socialists must work with the Muslim migrant masses in their struggle against discrimination. They must call upon the workers’ movement to support the migrants in this struggle. Based on such a principled internationalist position, it is possible to win Muslim migrants away from their current bourgeois and petty-bourgeois Islamist leaderships and for a socialist perspective.
16. One of the limited gains of the unfinished democratic revolution in the Arab world is the weakening of the centralized state repression apparatus at the borders. This enables many of the poor from the South to reach the rich imperialist countries in Western Europe and North America where they try to find the basis for a decent life. The increasing number of refugees is the result of the imperialist domination and super-exploitation of the semi-colonial countries and the consequent political, social, and ecological convulsions, including bloody civil wars, which again and again force many millions of people to flee their home countries every year. The imperialist European Union has transformed the continent into a fortress designed to condemn many refugees to death while exploiting those who do manage to enter the EU as cheap labor. Likewise, the US administration has built a 1,125 kilometer long steel wall, up to 6.5 meter high, with modern surveillance equipment along its border with Mexico.
17. Socialists strictly oppose the imperialist border controls and fight for open borders. The doors of the imperialist states, whose wealth is based on the super-exploitation of the people of the South, must not be closed to the very same people who are the victims of the consequences of this super-exploitation! To the reactionary claim that “the boat is full”, i.e., that the EU and North America can not sustain more refugees, we reply: “Nonsense! Just look at the richest of the rich: for example the thirty-five richest U.S. citizens own a combined wealth of $941 billion. Just expropriate a small portion of their wealth and millions of refugees can find jobs and housing.” We primarily denounce not the gangs smuggling “illegal” immigrants but rather the imperialist governments. Without the reactionary border control of the EU and the US, there would be no basis for gangs to smuggle people! It is the imperialists who are responsible for the officially 1,776 refugees who have died or been declared missing since the beginning of this year. We fight against all forms of discrimination and for equal rights and equal wages for refugees. The workers’ movement, the migrant organizations, and all progressive and democratic organizations in the imperialist countries must work to undermine the border regime and to help refugees to enter their countries by any means possible.
IV. Lessons for the Revolutionary Vanguard
18. A key lesson of the preliminary failure of the Arab Revolution is that, in order to be victorious, the workers and fallahin must pursue the revolution to its end, and not stop in the middle. This means essentially that, first of all, the democratic, to say nothing of the socialist, revolution must smash the old state apparatus which is so dramatically overblown both in the Maghreb and Mashreq. As long as this huge “bureaucratic-military machine” (Karl Marx) including the army, the secret services, the judges etc. at its heart continues to exist, the ruling class will always possess an unbeatable weapon to defeat the rebellious people. In fact, the top bureaucracy of the repressive apparatus represents a key component of the Arab bourgeoisie. Historically, this apparatus has constituted the basis for the specific bonapartist-authoritarian character of the political regimes of the Arab world, based as it is on the belated formation of the native capitalist class in North Africa and the Middle East due to the colonial occupation of the region by the Great Powers. As a result, when these countries formally became independent following World War II, the bourgeois state played an indispensible role in propelling each country’s domestic capital accumulation. Consequently, in a number of countries, state-capitalist regimes – irrespective of some of their “progressive” policies – were by no means socialist, contrary to the myth disseminated by various Stalinophile nationalist – yet they nonetheless played a leading role in the Arab world (e.g., the regimes of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Habib Bourguiba in Tunisia, and Houari Boumediene in Algeria). As a result, the military bureaucracy became a key component of the ruling class. Later, in the period of neoliberal reforms and privatizations, the military bureaucratic caste transformed itself more and more into direct capitalists. For example, in Egypt, the army still controls up to 40% of the economy! Thus, in order to successfully complete the revolution, the state apparatus – and with it the material basis for the bonapartist-authoritarian regime as well as a key sector of the capitalist class – must, as we have said, be smashed and replaced by a new state controlled by councils and militias of the workers and fallahin. Hence, the reformist utopia of a peaceful revolution is a dangerous illusion. The Arab Revolution has once more confirmed Lenin’s dictum: „The supersession of the bourgeois state by the proletarian state is impossible without a violent revolution.“ (State and Revolution, 1917)
19. Another crucial lesson of recent years is that the revolution cannot put an end to the poverty and unemployment of the popular masses, if it does not liberate the country from it servitude to imperialist domination. Unfortunately, the revolutions in the Arab world which broke out in 2011 have left untouched the private ownership of the large enterprises, media, etc., which remain in the hands of a few oligarchs. Only when the working class expropriates the foreign corporations and the powerful native capitalists – who are so closely allied with the imperialists – and ends the subordination the country’s bloodsucking IMF austerity programs and “free trade” agreements with the Great Powers, only then can the workers and fallahin start to re-build and plan the economy based on the needs of the people.
20. Furthermore, revolutionaries must renounce any political collaboration with imperialist powers, whether these are the western Great Powers like the US, EU or Japan or the eastern Great Powers like Russia or China – none of these forces are friends of the Arab people. Rather, they all crave Arab natural resources and cheap labor by means of which they generate make extra-profits for themselves. The US and the EU have consistently been long-time collaborators with Israel and numerous kingdoms and dictatorships in the region. Russia and China are close friends of the butcher Bashar al-Assad and the capitalist-theocratic dictatorship in Iran. And all the Great Powers kiss the feet of General al-Sisi! Revolutionaries must denounce all those who call for an alliance of the Arab people with one of the imperialist powers. Such calls will lead to nothing but the perpetuation of political subordination of the Arab working class to imperialism. We condemn all those who seek to align the rebellious masses with the US or the EU as pro-western social-imperialists, while those who call for forming an alliance with Russia and China as pro-eastern social-imperialists.
21. The Arab Revolution has also served as spectacular proof of the counter-revolutionary nature of the bourgeois-liberal and left-liberal forces, of bourgeois Islamism, and of reformism. The bourgeois liberals as well as the reformists all supported the coup d’état of General al-Sisi in Egypt which resulted in an unprecedented wave of state terrorism. In Tunisia these counter-revolutionary forces supported the bourgeois Nidaa Tounes and the old guard of Ben Ali in their struggle for power against Ennahda. Bourgeois Islamism has exposed itself as loyal guardians of the capitalists’ power and wealth, as was demonstrated both by the governments of both Morsi and Ennahda. Salafist Islamism has uncovered its reactionary nature in the actions of groups like Daash/IS and their mad terrorism. Only the working class, in alliance with the fallahin, and under the leadership of a revolutionary party can save the Arab masses from the misery of capitalist impoverishment and imperialist wars.
22. In order to successfully complete the tasks of the Arab Revolution, i.e., to foment a permanent revolution, the working class in the Arab countries needs the leadership of a revolutionary party in the tradition of Lenin and Trotsky as part of a new World Party of Socialist Revolution. However, until now such a party has been sorely missing in all countries, and this absence was the most important factor in the defeats which the Arab proletariats have faced in the past few years. From this it follows that the most important task for revolutionaries today is to create an international Bolshevik organization – as a precursor of such a world party – with sections throughout the world, including in the countries of the Arab world.
23. In order to advance the founding of such an international revolutionary organization with sections in the Arab countries, militants will have to intervene in the Arab Revolution armed with a revolutionary program of action. Such a program – based on the method of Trotsky’s Transitional Program – must support democratic rights, fight for social gains, and culminate in the struggle for the expropriation of the capitalist class, the nationalization of the large enterprises and banks under workers’ control, and the formation of workers’ governments allied with the peasants and urban poor and based on local councils and militias!
24. Revolutionaries must combine the struggle for such a program with their active participation in the ranks of the militant workers and youth fighting against the dictatorships of the like of Ben Ali, Mubarak, Gaddafi, and Saleh in the past and of General al-Sisi, Assad, and al-Hadi now. Irrespective of their inadequate leaderships, no organization can claim to be revolutionary unless it participates in the ongoing mass movements fighting for democratic and social rights. Authentic revolutionaries must currently fight from within the masses to advance the independent organization of the working class and the popular masses, i.e., the formation of action committees and popular militias in places of work, urban neighborhoods, and villages. At the same time, revolutionaries must stringently oppose all attempts by the imperialist powers to intervene in these liberation struggles. They must fight against the various Islamist and secular petty-bourgeois leaderships which so often possess significant influence among the popular masses, as well as against various reformist and centrist forces which often join the camp of the open counterrevolutions, or instead take a neutral stand on the sidelines in battles of life and death.
V. The Key Slogans for the Revolutionary Class Struggle
25. The most important slogans for the current hotspots of class struggle in the Arab world are:
* Defend Yemen against the al-Saud Gang of Aggressors! Support the resistance led by the Houthi rebels while, at the same time, not giving any political support to their leadership! No return of the reactionary lackey “President” al-Hadi! For a mass movement which unites Sunni and Shia workers and fellahin, one which is based on solidarity and respect for all groups! For the founding of popular action councils and armed militias to defend Yemen against Saudi aggression and to advance the Second Revolution! Build an independent revolutionary workers party to fight for political leadership in the popular action councils and the militias!
* Defend the Palestinian people against Israel, the Zionist Apartheid state! In any conflict we stand for the military victory of the Palestinian resistance and the defeat of Israel! For an international workers’ and popular boycott campaign against Israel! No political support for the Abbas/Fatah collaborationist leadership or for the bourgeois Hamas leadership! For the unrestricted right of return for all Palestinians and their descendents who have been expelled by the Zionists since 1948! For a Free, Red Palestine from the River to the Sea! No to the recognition of the Zionist state by the reformist Party of the European Left, the Stalinists, or the CWI led by Peter Taaffee!
* Down with the military dictatorship of General al-Sisi in Egypt! Support the workers’ strikes and mass protests against the butcher’s dictatorship! Defend the Muslim Brotherhood against its repression, but give no political support to their bourgeois leadership! Denounce the support of the Egyptian Communist Party for the al-Sisi regime! Shame on those pseudo-revolutionaries (e.g., Revolutionary Socialists/IST, IMT led by Alan Woods, 6 April Movement) who failed to condemn the coup d’état of 3 July 2013 and who failed to defend the mass protests led by the Islamists when thousands of them were slaughtered by the army!
* Support the revolution in Syria! Down with the Assad regime! No to any intervention by US and EU imperialism! No to any collaboration with the imperialists! Support the rebels against the Assad regime, but give no political support for the pro-Western FSA or the Islamist leaderships! For workers’ and popular councils and militias to organize the continuation of the civil war against the Assad dictatorship! For international solidarity brigades! Defend the right of the Kurds to national-self-determination!
* Defend the Sunni popular insurrection against the Iraqi army! Down with reactionary sectarianism! Drive IS/Daash forces out of the resistance movement! Defend the Kurdish and Yazidi people against IS/Daash forces! Support the Kurdish people’s right of self-determination! For a united and socialist Kurdistan!
* Put an end to the counter-revolution of the old elite in Tunisia! No support for the bourgeois, pro-imperialist government led by Nidaa Tounes joined by the bourgeois Ennahda party! No to Salafist terrorism! Socialists must not form joint parties with petty-bourgeois-nationalist groups as we have witnessed in the case of the Front populaire (al-Jabha)! For an independent Workers’ Party based on a revolutionary program!
* Defeat General Haftar and his pro-imperialist clique in Libya! Fight against all attempts by the imperialist powers and their lackeys to bring Libya under their control and annihilate the achievements of the unfinished democratic revolution against the Gaddafi dictatorship! While currently the main enemy is the pro-imperialist clique of General Haftar, socialists must work towards the formation of popular councils and militias which are independent of the Islamists!
* Down with Obama’s crusade in the Middle East! Defeat the military intervention of US imperialism and their allies in all countries (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, etc.)! Side with the resistance struggle against the US-led war of aggression even if it is led by Islamist forces! But give no political support to such leaderships! For the independent mass struggle led by the working class against the imperialists and their stooges! Denounce the social democrats, Stalinists, and centrists who either support the imperialist war of aggression or who remain neutral!
* Defeat the colonial wars of French imperialism in Mali and the Central African Republic! Solidarity with the resistance, while giving no political support to their petty-bourgeois Islamist leaderships! Denounce the French “Communist” Party’s (PCF) refusal to vote in parliament (on 14.1.2015) against the extension of France’s participation in the imperialist war in Iraq!
* For international mass mobilizations to defeat US aggression! For demonstrations, strikes, and direct actions in those countries taking part in Obama’s crusade in the Middle East and all other regions!
* End Islamophobic racism against Muslim migrants in Europe and North America! Defend the Muslims against racist attacks! For self-defense units of Muslim and non-Muslim workers and youth to defend migrant living areas, schools, and mosques! Repeal the ban against wearing the hijab or burka!
* France: No to “l’unité nationale” with the Hollande Government and the Capitalists! Down with the Police State! No to the deployment of soldiers on the streets of France! Denounce the PCF’s support for the 11 January “national unity” demonstrations!
* "Je ne suis pas Charlie" – We are NOT Charlie! Oppose individual acts of terrorism like the attack on the office of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo! But show no solidarity with the sexism of Charlie Hebdo nor with its racism against Muslim people and their religion! The workers’ movement should boycott the distribution of Charlie Hebdo – don't transport, don't sell, and don't buy this magazine! No to the solidarity of left-wing parties (PCF, FdG, NPA, LO) with the racist magazine Charlie Hebdo!
* Open the Borders for Refugees! No to the imperialist fortresses EU and US! The workers’ movement and all democratic forces must sabotage the imperialist border patrol regime in order to help refugees entering Europe and North America! For a public employment program to provide refugees with jobs and housing financed by seizing the enormous wealth of the super-rich!
* Full Equal Rights for Migrants! For equal wages! Support the migrant’s right to use their native language in public administration and schools! For full voting rights for migrants regardless of their passport!
* For workers’ and peasant republics and a socialist federation of the Middle East!
* Onward to the building of revolutionary workers’ parties as part of a new World Party of Socialist Revolution!
