From the uprising of Sidi Bouzid to the revolution! - Ben Ali and his clique must go NOW!¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter, written on the day of Ben Ali’s flight, captures the final convulsive hours of the Tunisian dictatorship from the standpoint of revolutionary Marxism. Its core argument is that the mass movement, which began as a localised social protest in Sidi Bouzid, had by 14 January 2011 matured into a nationwide political revolution that could no longer be contained by repression or deflected by concessions. The author insists that the regime’s death agony was unmistakable, and that the working class, organised through the UGTT, had become the decisive force.
The chapter documents the escalation in detail: the murder of over 60 protesters failed to intimidate; regional general strikes in Sfax and Jendouba saw near-total turnout; the UGTT’s local branches, rooted in the union’s anti-colonial history, became the organisational centres of resistance. Key evidence includes the 30,000-strong demonstration in Sfax, the 12,000 in Jendouba, and the paralysis of cities in central and eastern Tunisia. The author notes that the movement reached the suburbs of Tunis, forcing a curfew and the deployment of military vehicles. Ben Ali’s three rounds of promises—lifting censorship, investigating killings, pledging not to seek re-election in 2014—are dismissed as a classic “everything changes so that nothing changes” manoeuvre.
The chapter draws heavily on the historical memory of the UGTT’s role in the anti-colonial struggle and on the Marxist understanding of the state as a class instrument. It invokes Napoleon’s aphorism about bayonets to underscore the limits of repression. The polemic is directed at two targets simultaneously: first, the regime itself, whose “stage managed demonstrations” and sackings of army officers are exposed as desperate; second, the legal opposition parties, including the former communist party, which reacted to Ben Ali’s concessions with “cautious optimism” and called for a coalition government. The author denounces these parties as preparing to “rob the masses of their victory” by forming a government of national unity with Ben Ali’s ministers.
The chapter’s most striking claim is that the Arab revolution was unfolding in real time. The same conditions—poverty, unemployment, corruption, dictatorship—exist across Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and will produce similar explosions. The author concludes with a political programme: the masses must set up democratically elected committees at local, regional, and national level, culminating in a government that can only achieve its aims through socialism, meaning collective ownership and democratic control of the economy. The final call is for an all-Arab Socialist Federation. The tone is urgent, celebratory, and uncompromising—a revolutionary intervention written in the heat of the event.