I ignored the proclamation that the "protesters will capture the Egyptian state if the military switches sides", because, well, it didn't really make sense. Capture the state? The military switch sides? From which side and to which side? Would the military officers abandon the bourgeoisie, of which they comprise the leading part? That is, they do not figuratively comprise it, but literally comprise it. If it is implied that the military could be 'independent' of it's own class, then there is a profound misunderstand of the role of the military in Egyptian capitalism. The bourgeoisie does not abandon itself - the military is the nationalist bourgeoisie in Egypt.
Today the military ejected the only two remnants left from the crony capitalist segment of the bourgeoisie that had any hands on the ship of state - Mubarak and Suleiman. All others have already been ejected from the state ministries, the party and the police over the last two weeks. They were the other shoe to drop.
The military council - what Paul Amar calls the "nationalist Egyptian bourgeoisie" is now in complete control and have not 'switched sides', nor did it install a 'new regime' - it is the same class that has always ruled.
The military has also adeptly managed to defuse the spreading strikes just in time before they transformed from economic to political strikes - which would have been very dangerous to the military. If they have anyone to fear, it the the surging labor movement in Egypt which is becoming daily more and more politicized - not the students, nor the youth, the intellectuals, the 'urban democratic middle class', nor the social media.
(Oh, and by the way, the youth who marched in the first Jan 25 protest in Tahrir were not young texters - but poor youth from the slums with no social media - read the WSJ investigation on this - the texters never made it to Tahrir that day).
The military's best hope now is El Baradei and the liberals who can be convinced to protect the military's and other capitalist's pillaged state enterprises and their criminal fiefdoms, and who can now send the people back to their homes and once that is done, then turn the police's guns on the strikers if need be. Think of them as the new Kerensky-Baradei parliament. Yet even this - putting the politicized strikers back to work - will be a huge task for the Interior Ministry. Frankly, I have great hope for the industrial proletariat who are lurking in the background in Suez, Alexandria, etc. We shall see.
-Peter
On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 12:31 PM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> [WS:] I am not beneath pointing out that I told you so. Here is what I
> posted:
>
> "In other words - the protesters will win only if they manage to capture
> the
> Egyptian state but it seems likely only if the military switches sides.
> Otherwise, the protest will end like the Polish Solidarity did."
>
> which was pooh-poohed by those who did not like my reference to Orwell. So
> let me grin and say: movements - schmovements. It is the institutions with
> real power that carry the day - just as uncle Stalin commented about the
> pope's divisions. Ha!
>
> Wojtek
On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 1:45 PM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Adam: "The task at
> hand now is for the people to lay hold of these institutions and seek out a
> vastly different kind of social organization."
>
> [WS:] No doubt. But to lay hold on these institutions, they need to have
> institutional framework in place (unions, organizations, political parties,
> etc.) - which I believe is Gramsci. I may be wrong, of course, but I
> simply
> do not see any such institutions in Egypt, not even Muslim Brotherhood. Do
> you?
>
> Furthermore, "switching sides" does not mean that the military suddenly
> switched to the people's side (whatever that means.) It seldom, if ever
> does. It simply means that it withheld its support of the current regime
> and put its bets on someone else - which is exactly what seems to happen.
>
> Finally, movements are of course important (pardon my earlier quip,) but by
> themselves they are insufficient to grab the state power, let alone
> implement institutional changes that you mentioned. In a typical scenario,
> they tip the balance of power toward the reform-minded institutional
> actors,
> and if conditions are right, this may allow those reform-minded
> institutional actors grab state power. I think it is too early to say
> whether that is what happened in Egypt - but if it did, the only
> institutional actor capable of such a feat in Egypt was the military (or
> its
> faction) itself. That may not be exactly the revolution many were hoping
> for, but then who knows. Remember Portugal?
>
> Wojtek
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>
-- Peter Fay