Serge Jordan is a member of International Socialist Alternative.
Bring Down the Junta! No More Compromise!
The military coup carried out by the Sudanese generals on October 25 has sparked a furious response from the masses, bringing the struggle between the revolution and counter-revolution initiated in December 2018 to its sharpest juncture so far.
Since the early hours of the coup last Monday, hundreds of thousands of people have repeatedly taken to the streets, erected a multitude of barricades and revolutionary checkpoints across Sudanese cities and villages, and a large wave of workers’ strikes has swept one sector after another. “All streets are blocked by committees, and no one works right now”, Satti, an ISA supporter in Khartoum, reported on Friday. As it stands, most of the main roads in the capital’s neighbourhoods are still barricaded; while regime forces have been trying to remove the barricades to re-open the roads, young protesters are rushing to rebuild them as soon as these forces leave.
Importantly, the workers’ movement has put its signature on the movement from the very first day of the coup, in what amounted to a de facto nationwide general strike.
Following the military takeover, the coup’s main architect General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan issued a decree dissolving the country’s trade unions and professional associations. This move made clear that behind “civilian rule,” it is the revolution, the working class and its organisations that are in the generals’ firing line. But this decision was left mostly on paper, as many unions issued calls for strike actions and labour shutdowns rapidly spread across Sudan. University teachers, bank workers, doctors, engineers, pharmacists, oil workers, civil servants, pilots and airport workers, railway workers and many others went on strike, joined by numerous small businesses and shopkeepers closing their operations and grinding the country’s economic life to a near complete halt.
This deluge of protests, road blockades and strikes initially took the coup plotters largely by surprise. “They did not anticipate that people would go out and protest,” argued Jihad Mashamoun, a Sudanese political analyst. “They anticipated that the people would just be calm because they got tired of the economic crisis.” Women, who fear a huge rollback of their rights, have been among those thrown onto the front lines of last week’s mobilisations.
Feeling the heat of the resistance movement his putsch had set in motion, al-Burhan announced on Thursday that he would pick a new Prime Minister to form and lead a new transitional cabinet, adding that Abdallah Hamdok — the very Prime Minister the military had deposed and arrested last Monday — remained his favourite candidate for the job!
Then on Saturday, the mass civil disobedience campaign culminated into a “March of Millions”, called and mobilised for by the neighbourhood-based Resistance Committees and the Sudanese Professionals’ Association (SPA). Reportedly up to three million people in over 700 demonstrations unfurled across the country calling for the fall of military rule, in the largest protests yet against the coup. Interviewed on the VOA Africa Radio Program from Khartoum, a protester stated: “I have no idea who al Burhan is going to rule because this country, everyone is outside, everyone is against it.” Many rallies in solidarity with Sudanese anti-coup protesters also took place around the world, from Belfast to Beirut, from San Francisco to Sydney.
What is at stake?
The army tops felt pushed in a corner and decided to act for several reasons. The prospect of greater civilian control over the transition process was undoubtedly frightening them, as it would have strengthened the determination of the Sudanese people to demand justice for all the crimes committed by the generals and other high-ranking officers, both under al Bashir’s dictatorship and since his ouster.
But the junta’s political and military power is also acutely entangled with its business interests: under the old regime, the generals, the intelligence apparatus and warlords like the notorious Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (‘Hemedti’) heading the Rapid Support Forces (an outgrowth of the Janjaweed militia that wreaked massacre in Darfur in the past) have benefited from their monopoly over key sectors of the country’s economy. They run a large network of companies, residential properties, agricultural land and other assets worth billions of dollars.
Hamdok’s civilian administration was caught between a rock and a hard place — between pressure from the streets to restore the country’s wealth to its people by bringing the military’s companies under state management, and the IMF’s pressure to remove these companies from the grips of Al Bashir’s cronies so that they could be sold to foreign investors. Both, in their own way, struck at the heart of the military junta’s financial interests.
ISA demands the full nationalisation of all the companies and assets that are in the hands of the military brass, the security forces and the RSF, and for them to be put under the control and management of democratically elected workers’ committees — as a first step towards establishing a democratic plan of production.
Beyond neutralising the economic power of the counter-revolution, such measures would give the material leeway to start addressing the deep problems of hunger, poverty and unemployment afflicting most of the population, which have only worsened since the overthrow of the tyrant al Bashir.
The character of the official leadership
The civilian leaders who had partaken in ruling the country with the generals since the summer of 2019 have more than an incidental share of the blame for the economic disaster facing the Sudanese poor and working people, and for the fact that the power of the blood-stained generals has been left standing up to this day.
Indeed, it is not the first time that the violent whip of the counter-revolution has provoked a powerful revolutionary outburst from below. In early June 2019, the generals’ attempt to nip the revolution in the bud through their carnage against the sit-in in front of the army command in central Khartoum was followed by a three day long, rock solid general strike demanding that the Military Council be brought down, and by a “March of Millions” at the end of that month.
But as leader of the 1917 Russian revolution Leon Trotsky once said, victory in revolution demands “the will to deal the decisive blow”. Instead, the then conciliating approach of these civilian leaders short-circuited the revolutionary energy of the masses into a power-sharing agreement that left the murderous generals in charge — although adorned with a civilian fig leaf. While overwhelmingly opposed by Sudanese revolutionary activists, this rotten compromise was tragically supported by the leaderships of the SPA and of the Sudanese Communist Party at the time, then both parts of the coalition of the “Forces for Freedom and Change” — a broad church opposition alliance involving an array of right-wing, conservative, and liberal pro-capitalist parties.
Many of these politicians became ministers in the civilian administration led by Hamdok, who worked hand-in-hand with the IMF to impose a battery of austerity measures designed to make the workers and poor pay for the economic crisis, driving the Sudanese people’s living standards in the very direction against which they had risen up in December 2018.
It should hence be clear that the generals were able to carry out their recent coup because of these civilian leaders’ earlier betrayal and indisposition to confront the counter-revolutionary military chiefs in the first place, and because of their favourable disposition to keep on with unpopular, pro-capitalist policies.
The Freedom and Change has shown to be a disparate, wobbly and untrustworthy grouping, whose attempts to assuage the murderous generals and warlords have completely failed. As the polarisation between the civilian and military wings of the Sovereign Council grew over recent months, the FFC witnessed, in early October, an open split in its ranks, with some of its components (renamed the ‘FFC-Founding Platform’, or FFC-FP) sticking with the old regime forces and supporting the pro-military sit-in that was organised near the presidential Palace in Khartoum in the weeks before the generals’ coup. This splinter group includes two rebel factions from Darfur. Credible sources attest to the complicity of these faction’s leaders in the coup, both having reportedly moved some of their forces from Darfur to the capital in the days before the coup to facilitate the dirty work of Al Burhan, Hemedti and their cronies.
This episode should serve as a new reminder that to achieve their revolutionary demands, the millions of workers, young people and poor fighting for a genuinely new Sudan can only trust their collective power. By building their own political force — a mass revolutionary party organised around their own class demands— they would harness this power in the most effective way, and prevent their heroic struggle from being repeatedly deceived, hijacked and betrayed.
This is also relevant in light of the new frenetic maneuvers from imperialism to sell out the mass struggle one more time.
The role of imperialism
Joe Biden’s administration, most western governments, the European Union, the United Nations, and the African Union, have all joined in public condemnations of the coup. Since the toppling of former President Omar al Bashir in April 2019, none of these people had had any trouble working in partnership with brutal strongmen who built their entire career and fortune on shedding the blood of the Sudanese people — as long as the appearances that a civilian government was in charge were preserved.
One common thread stands out in all recent statements by foreign governments and international institutions regarding the coup in Sudan: they do not want the actual overthrow of the military junta, but a return to the pre-25 October status quo. “Time to go back to the legitimate constitutional arrangements,” UN secretary general Antonio Gueterres said in a tweet, as if these arrangements had not just crumbled in front of his eyes. In other words, these people want to impose, over the head of the Sudanese masses, a new power-sharing deal with the very generals who just orchestrated the coup, towards whom pathetic appeals to exercise “restraint” and “moderation” are being emitted.
The strategists of imperialism want to preserve the strong fist of the military as an insurance policy against the Sudanese revolution; but they are actively concerned that the unilateral move from al Burhan and his clique might trigger more serious popular explosions, with the risk of inspiring the working class and toilers in other countries. This is the true meaning of the words of US Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman, alerting the Sudanese military to the fact that it would “discover it is not easy to re-establish a military regime in Sudan.” This is also the reason why Volker Perthes, the UN special representative to Sudan, has been trying for days to hastily cobble together a new compromise with the hangmen in Khartoum. Options have seemingly turned around Hamdok — who has himself demanded a return to the pre-coup power-sharing arrangement — appointing a “cabinet of technocrats.”
The Sudanese people are shouting in their millions the rejection of any compromise, dialogue, or partnership with the military junta, but never mind: the “mediators” of imperialism want to shove such a rotten deal down their throats. This is despite the obvious fact that the misnamed “democratic transition,” based on repainting the facade of the machine of oppression and exploitation at the heart of al Bashir’s dictatorship, has miserably failed to deliver anything but a return to the same old crap.
The Sudanese revolution, to achieve its demands for “Freedom, Peace and Justice”, cannot tie up its fate with forces (whether national or international) who have shown their readiness to compromise with the generals over the past two years, and who are preparing to do it all over again. The overwhelming demand for “civilian rule” would lose any meaning if it is translated into a new bankrupt deal with the coup plotters, or into the resuscitation of a crew of unelected politicians used as the fifth wheel of the carriage of the army’s counter-revolution. Those who campaign for a revamp of these policies are only guided by desperate attempts to prevent the Sudanese revolutionary masses from determining their own destiny.
The Resistance Committees
In this context, it is noticeable that most mainstream media, while reporting on the unfolding events in Sudan, fail to mention the Resistance Committees as the main organising arena of the uprising.
As an ironic twist of fate, the repression from the military regime has helped propel these Resistance Committees to the centre stage. Satti explains that the arrest of most leaders of the civilian parties — along with the genuine undermining of their political authority among the most advanced sections of the movement — has meant that the centre of gravity of the leadership of the struggle has fallen most naturally upon the shoulders of these grassroots committees.
As happened in June 2019, the fact that the internet and mobile networks have been cut off by the junta has also pushed the opponents of the coup to use more “traditional” methods of mobilisation to circumvent digital communication. For this, the network of local Resistance Committees existing in many cities and towns has been extremely handy to call meetings, rally neighbours, plan demonstrations, hand out fliers. “Committee activists have developed their way to contact each other and to reach out to the mass of the people,” said Satti. These innovative channels of communication have even involved calls for strikes issued through mosque loudspeakers.
These revolutionary committees have taken up a variety of other functions, such as the dispensing of first aid to injured protesters or the organising of food supply — an indispensable task for the movement to organise in the context of shortages of basic goods, rising prices and the disruption of distribution networks resulting from the current stand-off. “Resistance Committees are not everywhere as well organised as in Khartoum, but they have taken hold throughout Sudan: in Atbara, in Port Sudan…” explains Satti.
Every revolution gives birth to collective self-organising structures representing the will of the exploited and oppressed people in struggle against the old order. From that point of view, the new spur of life given to the Resistance Committees (which first appeared during a wave of street protests against al Bashir’s regime in 2013, then sprung up on a larger scale following the 2018 ‘December revolution’) is undoubtedly the most advanced indication of the revolutionary character of the current situation.
What Marxists refer to as “dual power” has emerged: on the one hand stands the army top brass, relying on the old state machine, its military and paramilitary forces, and defending the interests of the country’s corrupt and parasitic elite. On the other, the Resistance Committees, representing the revolutionary masses and their aspirations to a new society. Yet for this new society to materialise, uphill battles still lie ahead to overthrow the old order.
Repression
One of the challenges relates to how the revolutionary movement should confront the coup regime’s violence. Although partially frustrated by the scale of the mobilisations so far, a barrage of repression has already been unleashed on the movement. The military has been involved in this repression, but a particularly large presence and involvement of the RSF paramilitaries has been noticed. These have proved to be a more reliable counter-revolutionary battering ram for the military junta than the ordinary troops.
A widespread campaign of detentions has hit protesters, activists, journalists, and supporters of the overthrown civilian government. Satti explained that in the run up to Saturday’s “March of Millions”, a wave of targeted arrests of leading figures of the Resistance Committees was also undertaken, aimed at decapitating the anti-coup resistance. While many revolutionary activists and protesters languish in prison, the military leadership has also lately released some of the most reviled stalwarts of al Bashir’s regime, including the latter’s ex-foreign minister, some intelligence officials and a pro-ISIS reactionary cleric.
Throughout the last week, many cases of live shootings, killings and tortures have taken place. On Saturday, several more protesters were killed, hundreds wounded by gunshots, and some hospital emergency units were reportedly stormed by RSF thugs to prevent injured protesters from seeking medical care.
Different figures circulate over the exact death toll. But the scale of the atrocities is difficult to measure even for activists on the ground, because of the lack of rounded-out reporting and the shutting down of internet and phone communications. Netblocks, which monitors internet cuts around the world, has reported that with the exception of one four-hour window, the internet has been cut throughout the country since the military takeover.
Up until now, the repression unleashed against the movement appears to have mainly added petrol to the fire of people’s anger. “It will not make us back down; it only strengthens our resolve,” commented a protester in Khartoum, quoted by Ahram.org. However, unless the revolutionary movement goes on the offensive and works out a plan to dismantle the murderous machinery in the hands of the coup plotters, they will not shy away from unleashing it again against the movement, with potentially terrible consequences.
The popular calls for the uprising to remain peaceful are understandable, as Sudanese people are tired of endless war and bloodshed. But the butchers at the head of the army and the RSF will never renounce counter-revolutionary violence of their own volition. They have shown again and again that they are ready to use the most extreme form of violence to defend their power and profits. New bloodshed can only be averted if they are fully disarmed by the masses.
In the meantime, the revolution cannot protect itself against a genocidal regime with its hands tied behind the back. To prepare for the future clashes inevitably coming with the counter-revolution, collectively organised, disciplined popular self-defence committees should be formed urgently in every neighbourhood, workplace, and village.
The existing Resistance Committees, along with the SPA and militant trade unions, have a primary role to play in shaping this together.
Fully neutralising regime loyalists will also require convincing rank-and-file soldiers — many of whom have expressed sympathies for the revolution in the past and are directly suffering from the deep economic crisis— to refuse to be used as guard-dogs of an oppressive and corrupt elite, and to join the revolutionary struggle in significant numbers. Appealing to the army ranks to organize into revolutionary soldiers’ committees, based on a program of resolute social demands, would go a long way in cutting across the junta’s moves to violently strike back at the movement when its opportunity comes.
Vying for power
Importantly, the formation of similar, revolutionary self-organising committees in all companies, factories, and workplaces, democratically elected by assemblies of striking workers, must be actively sought for. In this way the working class, beyond deciding on the continuation of the strikes as many sectors have already done, can also prepare itself for taking control of the country’s economic life from the hands of the pro-regime bosses and corrupt businessmen.
By extending in the workplaces and in the barracks, and by linking up on the scale of the entire country, the Resistance Committees could become a serious competing centre of political authority to the rule of the generals, outmaneuver the dirty tricks from imperialism and its local agents, and vie for power.
Instead of the rigged masquerade that would be the inevitable result of the elections now “promised” by al Burhan, genuinely democratic elections could be organised under the control of the Sudanese people via their committees, with the aim of convening a revolutionary constituent assembly of democratically elected representatives from all regions of Sudan, directly accountable to the mass movement. A road would then be charted towards a revolutionary government of the working classes, poor peasants and all oppressed peoples, that would put the military junta on trial and remove it from all its positions — within the state, the armed forces and the economy — and would start rebuilding society on a thoroughly new basis.
By fully repudiating the debt, expropriating the old regime’s wealth, and planning the economy according to social needs, the revolution would make decisive encroachments on capitalist interests in the country, and march towards a free, voluntary socialist Sudan. It would also guarantee itself the full support of workers and oppressed masses in the region and the world over.
