A Comradely Message to the April 6 Youth Movement

Statement by the Revolutionary Socialists

Few movements or political parties have faced as much defamation, attack, and hostility as the April 6 Youth Movement—our comrades in the struggle and the revolution—from the ruling authorities over the past five years of revolution and counterrevolution. The comrades on April 6 have made countless sacrifices, from martyrs to detainees, and have endured persecution and the closure of public spaces by the authorities, who have relentlessly sought to vilify and betray them.

Together with many revolutionary movements and parties, we experienced the years of the Egyptian revolution, bound by shared coordination and serious comradely collaboration through most of its critical turning points. Together, we confronted the sweeping rise of the counterrevolution, which committed the most heinous crimes—murder, torture, arrests, and ferocious media campaigns aimed at discrediting the revolution and everyone upholding its banner. We were united by a solid political and comradely closeness foundation, strengthening the bond between your movement and ours—the Revolutionary Socialists.
From this standpoint, we address you with the following open comradely message as part of an ongoing dialogue, engaging with the statement issued by your movement last Tuesday evening, April 12, which included a message directed to the “Egyptian Armed Forces.”

This statement was issued in the context of calls to confront, by all means, Sisi’s decision to relinquish the Tiran and Sanafir islands to the kingdom of darkness and reaction—Saudi Arabia, the foremost financier of the counterrevolution in the region. Here, we must first point out—and we hope our comrades on April 6 agree with us—that the battle against this decision cannot be separated from the broader struggles against the regime.

This battle is central to the fight against Sisi’s economic policies, inherited from his mentor Mubarak, which are based on exploitation, impoverishment, and starvation, as well as the sale of public assets—factories, institutions, and lands—to investors. It is also a cornerstone of the struggle against Sisi’s military dictatorship, which scorns the Egyptian people and tramples on their democratic rights to decision-making. Hence, this is a democratic battle that cannot be isolated from the broader fight against Sisi’s dictatorship for detainees’ freedom, opinion, expression, and peaceful protest. Furthermore, it is a battle against the expansion of the Camp David Accords and the regime’s relationship with the Zionist entity, within the framework of which the decision to relinquish the two islands was made.

Sisi turned to his Gulf masters to solidify relations with them amidst a crippling economic crisis, massive interest on colossal loans granted by Gulf states following his coup, and mounting European criticism of his human rights abuses, particularly after the scandal of Italian student Giulio Regeni’s murder. Given its strong ties and connections with Europe, Saudi Arabia serves as the gateway to European approval. Sisi sought to secure this reactionary kingdom as a permanent ally after it supported and financed his counterrevolution, enabling him to consolidate his rule.

This battle cannot be detached from other struggles—not only because they are profoundly interconnected but also because it cannot succeed or achieve tangible progress without being directly and actively linked to all the other issues we are fighting against the Sisi regime.

In this battle and the broader struggle against military rule, we, alongside you and many others, place our hopes in the revolutionaries, the oppressed, the marginalized, and the poor—even those sectors previously deceived by Sisi’s regime, which they saw as their savior but is, in reality, their fiercest adversary, deepening their poverty, humiliation, and hardships. Having lost trust in him, these sectors are beginning to oppose him today. We have returned to the streets, betting on the power of the people. And when we place our faith in the streets, all other bets lose validity. Do not place your bets on reforming the military institution. The military institution is the fiercest enemy of the revolution and the backbone of the state over which Sisi presides. Do not direct your appeals to an institution operating under the command of corrupt leaders—Mubarak’s offspring and disciples—whose sole endeavor over the past years has been to defeat the revolution.

The military institution has never acted in favor of the revolution but rather to abort and crush it. Suppose its leaders intervene in the future to change the status quo. In that case, it will only be to preserve the system of which they are part, ensuring its stability through further oppression, repression, and brutality, silencing dissenters and throwing them into prisons.

As we enter the third year since the July 2013 military coup, which ushered in the full-fledged counterrevolution, we cannot help but learn from the lessons of the revolutionary years we experienced together with thousands of our comrades who steadfastly held onto the revolution. The military institution has consistently proven—beyond any doubt—that it is irredeemable, like other state institutions. This is due to its authoritarian and corrupt leadership and its hierarchical structure, built on loyalty to the regime and its readiness and ability to sustain it. This structure operates without elections for generals or senior officers, oversight, or even disclosing the colossal budget it controls or the immense profits from its projects and investments.

More broadly, regardless of the specific statement in question, the most dangerous calls that can be made now are summoning the military institution to intervene or appealing to its leadership. Such calls only weaken the revolutionaries returning to the streets, undermining their confidence in themselves and their ability to build bridges with the masses, who have begun expressing anger toward Sisi.

Let us strive with all our energy and effort to build a revolutionary front from the grassroots and work toward becoming a genuine alternative. Let us direct our calls to our comrades and fellow fighters, to the workers whose rights to decent living, work, and even independent union organization are stolen by the regime, to the students whose universities are occupied and besieged by security forces, depriving them of their freedoms, to people experiencing poverty who bear the brunt of a severe economic crisis they did not create, to the detainees and their families, and to all victims of the tyrannical military regime.
Remain steadfast, comrades, of the revolution and the struggle.