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Five precedents for understanding Egypt’s July coup

3rd October 2013 Socialist Action 0

The Egyptian army’s July coup was met with widespread confusion on the left. Within Egypt and internationally some socialists actually supported the coup, others were explicitly neutral in the struggle between the Muslim Brotherhood government and the army.

The article by John Riddell that appears below considers these issues from the point of view of the experience of the international communist movement from 1917 to the 1930s, drawing out why these positions are dangerously wrong.

Photo: US Navy

US prepares its war against Syria

6th September 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Paul Roberts

Whilst President Obama tries to tie down support this week in advance of forthcoming Congressional votes, the US military is preparing an immense assault on Syria. US imperialism does not make idle threats, so it intends that the attack will proceed. Members of Congress are being told that a ‘no-vote’ next week, against air-strikes, would catastrophically weaken the US for years to come.

It is the imperialist powers and their allies who use chemical weapons

3rd September 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Tom Castle

Propaganda in this country and by the other imperialist powers has sought to portray the use of chemical weapons as a uniquely barbarous act. Nick Clegg speaking in the Commons debate where the government lost in its initial efforts to authorise air strikes claimed they had not been used in a hundred years. More circumspectly, Foreign Secretary William Hague claimed they had not been used in this century.

Both are completely wrong and in trying to create a pretext for attacking Syria attempt to hide the role that the imperialist powers themselves have played in the use of chemical weapons. Chemical weapons are created by industrial processes. The most advanced industrialised countries, until recently solely the imperialist powers, have access to the most sophisticated chemical weapons, either for their own use or for sale to the reliable allies.

Photo: The Muslim Brotherhood

Egypt – why the left needs to learn to tell counter-revolution from revolution

21st August 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Jane West

The unfolding counter-revolution in Egypt has been an object lesson in the correctness of Lenin’s insistence on the need to analyse each situation from the point of view of the interrelation of all classes and social layers if its dynamics are to be understood and the correct class lines identified.

Since the beginning of this year Socialist Action has warned that the military and Mubarakite forces in Egypt were preparing the conditions for a counter-revolutionary coup. This analysis has been proven correct in the bloody unfolding of events in Egypt.