Open letter to the Revolutionary Socialists

Comrades, thousands upon thousands of youth, workers, and genuine revolutionaries, not only in Egypt, but throughout the Arab world, have had their eyes on and pinned their hopes on the Revolutionary Socialists. We ask that you to renounce your position of supporting Morsi and take to the streets, factories, universities, and neighbourhoods in order to explain to workers and youths the counter-revolutionary nature of both Shafiq and Morsi, that you expose the rotten and reactionary nature of Egyptian capitalism. [in Arabic]

Dear Comrades:

We have learnt about your decision to support the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammad Morsi, as outlined in your article Down with Shafiq.....Down with the New Mubarak, in return for political concessions from the Muslim brotherhood, including forming a broad government with the candidate Hamaden Sabahi as one of the vice presidents and support for the proposed labour law conceding the right for workers to carry out union activities freely and independently.

We think that this position is completely erroneous and would only serve to damage the reputation and influence of the Revolutionary Socialists among the workers and broader masses. From the point of view of the interest the working class, there is absolutely no difference between Shafiq and Morsi. Both candidates are political representatives of Egyptian capitalism and its imperialist backers. Both are intimately linked to the Egyptian oligarchy and only concerned withserving its interests over those of the working classes and the poor and oppressed masses and youth. We do not need to remind you how the Brotherhood were never interested in the overthrow of Mubarak and tried until the last minute to negotiate and strike a deal with the regime to save Mubarak. We also do not need to remind you how the Brotherhood was one of the very few political organizations that was allowed to function under the regime of Mubarak and that its leaders are some of the richest men in Egypt.

The low turnout in the elections and the impressive result that the Nasserite candidate, Hamaden Sabahi, achieved, showed clearly that the Egyptian masses are sick and tired of the duet of military rule and Islamic parties and are looking for a third alternative.

The Egyptian presidential election is not the end of the revolution. It is only an episode in its heroic march, one of its many battles. The victory of either Shafiq or Morsi in the presidential elections is a victory of counter-revolution, but only in this one single battle. The final victory of Egyptian revolution can only come about by the taking of political power of the working class and this is done not on the bourgeois electoral front but through the struggle in factories, universities and neighbourhoods. And everything else is a means of achieving this supreme goal, including the presidential election.

Comrades, thousands upon thousands of youth, workers, and genuine revolutionaries, not only in Egypt, but throughout the Arab world, have had their eyes on and pinned their hopes on the Revolutionary Socialists. We ask that you to renounce your position of supporting Morsi and take to the streets, factories, universities, and neighbourhoods in order to explain to workers and youths the counter-revolutionary nature of both Shafiq and Morsi, that you expose the rotten and reactionary nature of Egyptian capitalism, and that you lead an election-boycott campaign which would massively expand the influence, strength, and prestige of the Revolutionary Socialists among the workers and youths of Egypt and help build the revolutionary workers’ vanguard. This is the only hope the revolution has, of a correct and solid revolutionary vanguard of the working class that can lead the whole of society toward the overthrow of a completely impotent capitalism and the construction of healthy and democratic socialist society.

Revolutionary greetings

The editorial board of "Freedom and Communism" the Arabic language magazine of the International Marxist Tendency 

Source: marxy.com (Arabic)