Pakistan’s military dictator Pervez Musharraf was in a dire situation this summer. Having suspended the country’s Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in March, his regime was destabilised by the huge street protests and a 48-hour general strike, mobilised to resist this decision. This movement started amongst lawyers, but was soon joined by the workers and the urban poor. Protesters numbered tens of thousands, waves of strike action called by unions close to the opposition parties shut the country down. Armed clashes erupted between pro- and anti-Musharraf forces. Read more...

The crisis in Pakistan is at a major crossroads. President Musharraf has sought to re-establish his authority by moving against Islamic militants operating out of Islamabad’s Red Mosque, sparking a wave of violence across Pakistan. Meanwhile, Chief Justice Chaudhry has been reinstated and cleared of all charges in a huge victory for the lawyers movement. Luke Cooper argues, despite this victory, the forces of counter-revolution are on the move. Read more...

Luke Cooper surveys the background to Pakistan's crisis and outlines the growing isolation of the military regime, the mounting movement of marches, strikes and armed clashes against the dictatorship, and the way forward for the working class and the poor. Read more...

In his article, written on the movement at the end of March, Alan Woods, the IMT’s main international leader and theorist, outlined their perspective. He argued that the movement could have been turned into a revolutionary struggle against the regime, but lacked the leadership and this is to be expected given the lawyers are part of the middle class intelligentsia. He continued by criticising the opposition parties for their call for Musharraf to resign or face being thrown out of power, arguing that ‘these were just words’ and because of this ‘the movement would end up in a dead end.’37 Read more...

The working class and the rural and urban masses must now be won to the struggle for power – to end the rule of capital and establish a working class state that gives land to the peasants. As the Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky argued in 1917 the revolution must be “made permanent” – i.e. it must continue from the national democratic struggle to the struggle for working class power and world socialist revolution. Read more...

We protest in the strongest terms against the recent arrests of opponents of the military regime of General Prevez Musharraf in Pakistan. In particular we protest at the arrest and sentencing to three months detention of Farooq Tariq, General Secretary of the Labour Party of Pakistan. Not only are such arrests in themselves a violation of elementary democratic rights, their aim is clearly to disrupt the movement of protest against the suspension of the Chief Justice of Pakistan Mohammed Chaudhry and calls for an end to the illegal military regime. Read more...

A founding meeting of the Revolutionary Socialist Movement was held in Lahore on Tuesday 29th May. Around 35 people attended to discuss the crisis of the state, the lawyer’s movement and working class. In attendance were 15 lawyers, 4 teachers who are fighting against privatisation and 16 other mostly student or youth. A comrade from the RSM introduced on the lawyers movement and how it is growing and the current situation with the different sections of the working class joining the movement. He presented a critique not only of the bourgeois parties, but the limitation of lawyers leadership. He argued that the demands for an independent judiciary against a military dictatorship is progressive but we should have no illusions in the judiciary because it is a part of capitalist system and can therefore never be truly independent off the ruling class as a whole. He made clear the problems of the capitalist system and the misery that it causes the workers and poor in Pakistan, therefore the fight cannot just be against General Musharraf, but also for a struggle to end capitalism and the beginning of world socialist revolution. Read more...

In Karachi on Saturday 12 May members of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), part of the ruling coalition in the Sindh provincial government, which supports the regime of General Pervez Musharraf, launched a vicious armed assault on the opposition movement. As violent clashes followed, the military put some 14,000 troops onto Pakistan’s streets operating a shoot-to-kill policy, which left over 50 people dead and some 150 injured. On May 14th the opposition responded with a nationwide strike, which paralysed Pakistan’s main cities. Luke Cooper reports on the pre-revolutionary situation and argues the working class must be won to the struggle for power. Read more...