revolutionary marxists arrested t the beginning of August the Egyptian government anounced through its controlled press that twenty revoluionary militants had been arrested in early July, among hem five young women. They were accused of belonging the Internationalist Communist League, the new name F the former Mustafa Khamis Revolutionary Communist roup, an organization adhering to revolutionary Marxm. (For the text of the First manifesto of the Mustafa hamis Revolutionary Communist Group, see INPRECOR Jo. 14/15, December 12, 1974.) According to reports ppearing in leading Cairo dailies, the arrested militants ere accused of having established relations with the evolutionary Communist Group in Lebanon and with he Fourth International and of having organized to overthrow the political and economic regime" in Egypt nd replace it with an "extremist Trotskyist Communist egime." (The most extensive account of the arrests apeared in the August 3 issue of the daily el-Akhbar. elow is a franslation of major excerpts of el-Akhbar's rticle.) The "evidence" presented by the state allegdly consisted of a typewriter and some printed material, cluding leaflets and pamphlets. 1 its August 16 issue the Lebanese daily Beyrouth pubshed a partial list of the militants arrested. They inluded: - Oussama Khalil, an employee at Cairo University; - Ibrahim Azzam, a student af Cairo University; - Najwa Abdel Ghaffar el-Baassi, a student in the chool of economics and political science at Cairo Uniersity; - Randa Abdel Ghaffar el-Baossi, student in the comerce department of Cairo University (according to elkhbar, she is an agronomy student at Ain Shems Univeregypt: twenty sity in Cairo); - Muhammed Beshir el-Sibai, employee in the foreign relations department of the Egyptian news agency; - Doctor Muhammed Bayuni, veterinarian; - Muhammed Tayel, Ibrahim Ramadan, Muhammed Said el-Jerjawi, Atef Salim, and Salim's two sisters (unnamed), all students at Cairo University; - three worker militants, whose names were not provided. The same newspaper reported that the comrades were being held in el-Kalaa prison in Cairo and that the state had barred their relatives from visifing them. Sources connected to the prosecutor's office said that many of the prisoners had refused to speak without the presence of a lawyer and that most of them had requested that they be defended by the well known Egyptian lawyer Ahmed Nabil el-Hilali. The August 3 issue of the Beirut daily el-Anwar reported that two of the twenty arrested, Muzahim Takriti and Abdel Kader Shakir, were Iraqis who had allegedly been sent to Cairo to "instruct" the Egyptian militants in the use of "disappearing ink and coded writing." An especially ominous aspect of the arrests was that the prosecutor, acting in deliberate bad faith, tried to link the arrested comrades to the Arab Communist Organizotion (ACO), a far-left organization that has been facing repression in Lebanon, Syria, and Kuwait. In a deposition to the court the prosecutor noted that five alleged members of the ACO had recently been hanged in Damascus. The fact is, however, that neither the Egyptian comrades nor the Revolutionary Communist Group in Lebanon has any links to the Arab Communist Organiza-
Cairo, January 1972. Students attempt to assemble for demonstration against Sadat regime.
EGYPT fion save one: The Arab Trotskyists have always defended the ACO against repression by the bourgeois Arab regimes. The fundamental political differences between the Arab Trotskyists and the OCA over such questions as terrorism are no secret, for they have been discussed often enough in the revolutionary Marxist press in the Arab world. The aim of the Egyptian regime in making this amalgam is quite clear: to set the stage for handing down the harshest possible sentences against the Egyptian comrades and to justify the close collaboration of the Egyptian, Lebanese, and Syrion secret police by claiming that all the regimes in the Arab region face an internafional "terrorist conspiracy," an accusation that has served as a principal witch-hunting weapon for the imperialists and their allies for some years now. Why the arrests? The Sadat regime clearly plans to make an example of our comrades in an attempt to intimidate all the revolutionary and leftist movements presently active among the Egyptian workers and peasants. The regime is alarmed at the mounting political activity of the workers and all the toiling mosses in the country, activity that the repressive apparatus has been unable to suppress. The new rise of the Egyptian mass movement began with the student strikes and demonstrations of January 1972. Since that time, the students have taken to the streets on numerous occasions, generally to protest the government's capitulationist policy toward the Zionist state of Israel and its imperialist supporters. By autumn 1974 the growing economic crisis and consequent social tensions had led to a reawakening of the Egyptian working class. In September 1974, the month in which the government headed by the economic "liberal" Abdel Aziz Hegazi took office, workers strikes swept Helwan, Shubra el28
Khaima, and other working-class centers. The strikes were so powerful that the regime was forced to grant significant economic concessions. The autumn 1974 strike wave culminated in the massive workers demonstration in Cairo on January 1, 1975. The government responded to the demonstration with a wave of arrests. This repression, however, failed to stem the tide. In late March the workers of Mahalla el-Kubra mobilized in one of the most advanced struggles in the recent history of the Egyptian workers movement, organizing strike committees, occupying factories, and resisting armed attacks by the repressive forces. The Mahalla el-Kubra mobilization convinced the Egyptian ruling closs that the Hegazi government had to go. The rising working-class struggles were a major obstacle to Sadat's policy of an economic and political opening" to imperialiam and impertoffer captrat, Western capital has no great wish to plunge into an unstable situation, particularly during an infamarional recession. Moreover, the organizational forms that emerged during the strug gles in Mahalla el-Kubra pointed to the possibility that the Egyptian workers could precipitate a generalized social explosion. The solution decided on by the Egyption rulers was to replace Hegazi, the symbol of the "economic opening," with Mamdouh Salim, a career police officer. The policy of the "opening" was continued, and even deepened. A few verbal concessions aimed at calming the workers down were offered. But the appointment of a policeman as premier was a symbol of what was to come: a big intensification of repression in an attempt to pacify the "internal front" referred to by the Cairo prosecutor. The arrest of the comrades of the Internationalist Communist League represents an initial test of whether the regime can succeed in decapitating the workers movement. There are four main reasons why Sadat has decided to
single out the Egyptian revolutionary Marxists for attack: First, the Egyptian comrades have played an important role in the student demonstrations against Sadat's policy of capitulation to Zionism, and with the signing of the latest accord with Israel the regime has grounds to fear further mobilizations in opposition to the new step in capitulation. Second, the comrades have been actively involved in organizing and defending the workers struggles for economic demands. Third, the regime especially fears that the revolutionary Marxist organization could emerge as a bridge linking the student protests against Sadat's policy toward Israel and the workers mobilizafions; the regime is fully conscious of the tight connection between the "internal" and "external" fronts and is equally conscious of its own need to prevent that connection from being perceived by the Egyptian masses, Fourth, the regime hopes that by charging that the Egyptian comrades have established relations with "foreigners" of the Fourth International, it can isolate the comrades from the rest of the Egyptian left and thus succeed in its repressive plans and simultaneously conceal its own capitulation to imperialism behind a nationalist veneer. The need for solidarity It is of crucial importance that the bourgeois Egyptian regime be defeated in these attempts, not only because
New IMG pamphlet containing translation of documents by Fourth International organisations in the Arab world. Available from RED BOOKS, 97 Caledonian Road, London N.1. -price 30p & 6p p&p THE ARAB REWOLUTION It's Character. Present State, And Perspectives of the intrinsic importance of the Egyptian workers movement, but also because of the vanguard role this movement plays for the entire Arab revolution. A defeat for Sadat's attempt to stamp out the Egyptian revolutionary Marxist organization would help to prevent repressive attempts in other Arab countries, Conversely, if Sadat succeeds in Egypt, it will be easier for the other Arab regimes to take similar steps in their own countries. The arrests in Egypt have already been used by the Lebanese bourgeois press to launch a campaign against the Revolutionary Communist Group in Lebanon. The Arab left and revolutionary movement has already begun to respond. On August 4 a joint communiqué in defense of the Egyption comrades was released by four organizations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front-General Command, a split from the PFLP. (The text of the communique is printed below.) This solidarity must now be extended internationally so that Sadat's attacks on the most elementary democratic rights of freedom of association and freedom of the press may be defeated, RELEASE ALL IMPRISONED REVOLUTIONARY MILITANTS IN EGYPTI SOLIDARITY WITH THE