Egypt on the brink of civil war¶
Core Argument¶
In this chapter, Alan Woods analyses the Egyptian Revolution at a critical juncture in early February 2011, arguing that the mass movement had brought the country to the brink of civil war. The core narrative thrust is that the old regime, personified by Hosni Mubarak, was refusing to surrender power peacefully and was actively organising a counterrevolutionary offensive, while the spontaneous and heroic uprising of millions lacked the necessary organisation and leadership to seize power decisively.
Woods presents the unprecedented scale of the protests as evidence of the revolution’s immense social reserves: over a million in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, 500,000 in Alexandria, and an estimated four million nationwide. By contrast, the pro-Mubarak demonstrations are dismissed as small, composed of security forces, bureaucrats, and their families. The key claim is that the counterrevolutionary attack on protesters in Tahrir Square, involving plainclothes police on horseback and camels using tear gas, was not spontaneous but a carefully prepared plan integral to Mubarak’s strategy. This strategy, Woods argues, involved a dual approach: a fraudulent promise of reform and a staged resignation in September (analogous to Tsar Nicholas II’s October Manifesto of 1905) to buy off the wavering middle classes and bourgeoisie, while simultaneously unleashing thugs and the lumpen-proletariat to crush the revolution physically.
The chapter draws heavily on the historical precedent of the 1905 Russian Revolution. Woods draws a direct parallel: the Tsar’s October Manifesto, which promised civil liberties and a parliament, was a gigantic fraud that split the revolutionary camp by winning over bourgeois liberals, preparing the ground for a bloody counterrevolutionary backlash. Mubarak’s speech, Woods contends, was the same manoeuvre. The theoretical context is a Marxist analysis of revolution as a struggle of living forces, where numbers and morale are insufficient against a desperate, organised, and professional counterrevolution.
The polemic is directed sharply at US imperialism. Woods excoriates the hypocrisy of Barack Obama’s public stance, contrasting Washington’s eagerness for “regime change” against disobedient leaders like Saddam Hussein with its sudden attack of “scrupulous legality” when a friendly dictator like Mubarak is threatened. The real concern, Woods argues, is not democracy but a “managed transition” that preserves the state apparatus and US interests, a concern shared by other autocratic allies in the region. The chapter also polemicises against the self-appointed opposition leaders who would negotiate with the regime, arguing they are out of touch with the masses who demand Mubarak’s immediate overthrow and trial. The conclusion is a call for the workers’ movement to take the lead, organise a general strike, establish action committees, and march on the presidential palace, insisting that insurrection is the only way forward and that passivity is the death of the revolution.