The mighty power of revolution has been demonstrated with the resignation of Mubarak. It has shown that the staunchest, most vicious and stubborn of despots can be overthrown when the masses enter the arena of struggle and their resolve becomes absolute. But the most unique feature of this movement is that even after the tyrant has gone it refuses to relent.
What began as an uprising to overthrow the despotic regime of Mubarak has entered a new phase with clear socio-economic demands that challenge the existing relations of property and the exploitative system of capitalism. And yet there are many who had long abandoned any perspective of class struggle and social revolution and now refuse to recognize the revolution unfolding on the streets of Tunis and Cairo, and spreading to Amman, Tehran, Aden and many other cities across the Middle East. There are none so blind as those who will not see. But this whole generation of sceptics and cynics dominating the media and the intelligentsia is doomed by history. Leon Trotsky in his epic work ‘The History of the Russian Revolution’ defined revolution in the following terms:
“The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historical events. In ordinary times the state, be it monarchical or democratic, elevates itself above the nation, and history is made by specialists in that line of business – kings, ministers, bureaucrats, parliamentarians, journalists. But at those crucial moments when the old order becomes no longer endurable to the masses, they break over the barriers excluding them from the political arena, (…). The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.”