The Arab Revolution represents a turning point in world history. The stormy events in the Arab world have inspired workers and youth everywhere. The present volume is a selection of the main articles on the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt published on marxist.com from January to March 2011. It also contains articles on Libya and the rest of the Arab world.

The following article is based on a speech delivered by an Egyptian Marxist for a gathering of Marxists in Britain. He explains the importance of learning the lessons of the tremendous 2011 movement, and the need to prepare for future explosive developments in the near future.

Among the countries whose masses participated in what became known as the Arab Spring, the Egyptian Revolution is perhaps the richest in lessons, as well as prospects for the immediate future. This article provides a balance sheet of the revolution and its aftermath, 10 years later, and explains the revolutionary perspectives for Egypt today.

Five years ago, without any organisation, programme, plan or preparation the Arab masses, in the words of Marx, stormed heaven.  They brought down in a matter of weeks, what had seemingly not moved an inch in decades of petitioning by NGO’s and academic do-gooders. The colossal state-apparatus, employing hundreds of thousands of spies, police officers and army personnel, could only watch as the masses took over the streets.

From a Marxist point of view, the Bolshevik Revolution was the greatest single event in world history. Why? Because here, for the first time, if we exclude the heroic but tragic episode of the Paris Commune, the masses overthrew the old regime and began the great task of the socialist transformation of society.

Erik Demeester, editor of the Belgian Marxist journal Vonk, spoke on the Arab revolution and its impact on Europe at the recent world congress of the IMT.

Listen to Hamid Alizadeh speak about the Arab revolutions. The recording was made on 17 February at the Winter School of the IMT in Cambridge.

Tomorrow, Saturday, 17 December, marks the first anniversary of the Arab revolution. On this day, one year ago, Mohammad Bouazizi, a young Tunisian fruit vendor, driven by desperation, poverty, and anger, set himself on fire in the city of Sidi Bouzid. The revolutionary wildfire that began after his death — first in southern Tunisia, then the entire country, then erupting across the entire Arab-speaking world—marked a turning point in human history.

Erik Demeester of Vonk (Belgium) speaking on the Arab Revolution at the recent World School of the IMT.

Francesco Merli speaking on the Nasserism at the recent World School of the IMT.

Incredible scenes in Tel Aviv. On Saturday, August 7, over 300,000 took to the streets of a city with a population of less than half a million. Other demonstrations also took place on Saturday, with 30,000 gathering in Jerusalem, and thousands gathering in other cities across the country. The total figure of demonstrators is difficult to estimate, but it could be anything between 400,000 and half a million, in a country of 7.7 million inhabitants. Amongst the familiar demands for “social justice”, a number of banners could be seen bearing the slogan, “Resign, Egypt is here.” Tellingly, resign was written in Arabic.

Listen to Hamid Alizadeh, editor of the Iranian Marxist newspaper and website Mobarezeye Tabagathi, speak at the Marxist Summer School (18 June) on the dramatic events that began late last year, sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East, which have come to be know collectively as the Arab revolution.

In his Preface to our new book, “Revolution until victory! – The Arab revolution: A Marxist Analysis”, [available from Wellred Books at the discounted price of £7.99] Alan Woods highlights the Marxist method of analysis which allowed us to predict several years in advance the coming Egyptian revolution, and the growing instability of all the despotic regimes in North Africa and the Middle East. Compare this to the complete lack of understanding of what was about to happen on the part of so many bourgeois “experts”.

The revolutionary wave sweeping through the Middle East has acquired a new dimension with the eruption of the Palestinian masses along Israel's borders last weekend. Every 15 May, Palestinians commemorate the Nakba (catastrophe) of the declaration of independence of the state of Israel on 15 May 1948. In recent years, protests have been marked by clashes between Israeli security forces and stone-throwing Palestinian youths, but yesterday was the first time the commemorations took on a more widespread and militant character. 

Alan Woods, Political Editor of the In Defence of Marxism website and a leading cadre of the International Marxist Tendency, and Muayad Ahmed a leading cadre of the Worker Communist Party of Iraq & Editor of the ‘Alsheoiya Al-Omalya’ (Worker Communism) monthly paper, speaking on the way forward for the Revolution in the Arab world at a recent meeting in London.