Egypt: mass strikes, revolution and counter-revolution

International Socialism’s coverage from 2005 onwards


Egypt: the pressures build up

Chris Harman/ Socialist Research Centre members (April 2005)

Interview: Egypt’s strike wave

Sameh Naguib (September 2007)

“The workers who led the Mehalla strike were prepared for a life and death struggle. But this time no one was arrested or shot at. The workers occupied for five days and the government gave in to all their demands, and even paid the workers for the strike days, which has never happened before. This sent a message to workers across the country that the state was weak”.

Inside Egypt’s mass strikes

Anne Alexander (April 2008)

A new workers’ movement: the strike wave of 2007

Mustafa Bassiouny and Omar Said (April 2011)

Act one of the Egyptian Revolution

Philip Marfleet (April 2011)

“Of all the startling scenes which made up Act One of the Egyptian Revolution, the events in Tahrir Square on 2 February were surely most astounding. When Mubarak sent gangs of plainclothes police to attack demonstrators, the protesters fought like demons. They first resisted, then drove back the baltagiyya (criminals/thugs). As news of the battle spread, people flooded in from every area of Cairo, racing to the front line to support the resistance. Even Robert Fisk of the Independent, who has seen conflicts worldwide, observed: ‘It was incredible, a risen people who would no longer take violence and brutality and prison as their lot’.”

The return of the Arab revolution

Alex Callinicos (April 2011)

The growing social soul of Egypt’s democratic revolution

Anne Alexander (July 2011)

The Egyptian workers’ movement and the 25 January Revolution

Anne Alexander (January 2012)

“The Egyptian Revolution has already provided millions of people worldwide with a vision of collective self-emancipation that has proved its potency in mobilising protest from Barcelona to Oakland to London. If we win even a minuscule fraction of those millions around the globe for whom “Tahrir” is not a place but a process of liberation, to the perspective that it is only their power as organised workers which holds the key to the emancipation of humanity as a whole, we will have begun, in a small way, to live up to the promise of the 25 January Revolution and the hopes of those who made it.”

“Never going back”: Egypt’s continuing revolution

Philip Marfleet (January 2013)

Egypt: The workers advance

Philip Marfleet (July 2013)

Spectres of counter-revolution

Alex Callinicos (October 2013)

“Nearly three years after the outbreak of the Arab revolutions the Middle East seems more tangled and confused than ever. This is enough to demoralise many who were inspired by the overthrows of Ben Ali and Mubarak. But this is one of those moments to recall the old 1968 slogan: ‘Do not adjust your head—the fault is in reality’.”

Egypt: after the coup

Philip Marfleet (April 2014)

Capital and resistance in the Middle East (book review)

Anne Alexander (July 2014)

An end to isolation? Palestine and the Arab revolutions

Philip Marfleet (January 2015)

This article addresses the Palestinian predicament in a period of political upheavals in the Middle East. It considers the development of Palestinian nationalism—the rise and fall of a movement now weaker than at any time since the 1950s. It examines the ideological agenda of Palestinian leaders, their accommodation with Israel and their eager embrace of neoliberalism. It considers the importance for the Palestinian cause of recent revolutionary struggles, most importantly the upheaval in Egypt, and new scenarios in which Palestine is part of struggles for social justice across the Middle East.

Egypt: In the heart of the struggle (book review)

Philip Marfleet (October 2016)

Neoliberalism, the state and revolution: the case of Egypt

Philip Marfleet (July 2017)

The contemporary dynamics of imperialism in the Middle East: a preliminary analysis

Anne Alexander (July 2018)