Dictator is gone; dictatorship must also go!

With the stepping down of Hosni Mubarak under the crushing pressure of the revolution, people of Egypt have achieved their first goal. A dictator, who for nearly thirty years had made life hell for people in a country run on the model of market economy capitalism with the full political and military backing of the USA and other western governments, was forced to resign. Eighteen days of people’s massive protests in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and other cities, their smart and brave confrontation with all the regime’s vicious ploys, and the workers’ massive strikes finally brought Mubarak to his knees and forced him to flee.

This is an important step, but only one step, in the progress of the revolution. People want the complete smashing of the corrupt and repressive regime. Their fight against Mubarak is in fact a fight against a system for which Mubarak was a leader and an icon. The revolution has smashed this icon, but the system is still in place. Following Mubarak’s resignation, it was announced that power has been transferred to the Supreme Council of the Army led by the Defence Minister. It was claimed that this handover is a move towards a “transition to democracy”. However, this is in fact the process of transition to the next dictator! This is the ploy of the reactionary and counter-revolutionary forces to send people home. The counter-revolution, from the western governments to the army and all those awaiting negotiations and compromise, gave up Mubarak under the pressure of the revolution so as to save the whole system. The revolution can and must thwart this ploy too.

The dictators of our age are the necessary products of a political and economic system which protects the interests of a ruling capitalist minority at the expense of the poverty and the denial of rights of the great majority of the people. The revolution should target the entirety of this system and sweep it out of the way. The Egyptian revolution, with its slogan “Bread, freedom, human dignity”, is moving in this direction. Now that it has won the first victory, it must clearly put on its agenda the next goal and the practical steps for its realisation. The revolution must declare that Mubarak and the leaders of his regime must be tried for 30 years of crime and plunder. It must declare that none of the state or military leaders should be in a position of power in the name of “council”, “provisional government” or any other form, with the excuse that this is a period of transition. Their place is in courts, to stand trial, not at the head of state power. People should call for the immediate release of political prisoners, for freedom of the press, organisation, assembly, protest and strike and for the immediate dissolution of the security and intelligence forces. Real transition to freedom is through the immediate realisation of these demands; demands which can only be won, just as Mubarak was pulled down, with the power of protest and struggle of the people, with the power of the street. Mubarak was pushed out, but the revolution can and must go on with ever greater power and determination until the complete smashing of the entire system.

Greetings to the revolutionary people of Egypt! Long live the revolution!

Worker-communist Party of Iran (WPI)
11 February 2011