LEBANON: THE FALL OF THE The Lebanese con be jostly proud: he military govemment announced in Beirut on the night of May 23 lasted less than three days, making it one of the most ephemeral milftary governmente in history. This government did not resign willingly. It was forced to do soj it was overthrown by an extraordinery armed Insurfection, by the mobilization and determination ofithe brood masses/ for whom arming has long since ggne beyond the stagerofindesire In this sense, the Lebanese experience, after that of Portugal (which wes different in that the alternative there opposed two Types of officers), ance again confirms what revolutionaries have aiways said about what methods of struggle are odequate in fighting reactionary coups, These are the lessons that we have tried to stressin the following article, which is based on a political resolution of the Cen tral Committee of the Revolutionary Commehist Group, affiliate of the Fourth International in Lebanon. To understand the events in Lebanon, it is necessary to locate them within the recent evolution of the Lebanese state. At the end of 1970 Suleiman Franjieh, candidate of the bourgeois oppositon to the Bonapartist Shehab regime (in power since 1958), took over as president of the republic. The conjuncture was favorable for the bourgeoisie and its imperialist masters: black September in Jordan, the fall of the Baathist left in Damascus, the death of Nasser, etc. The anti-imperialist wave was in full ebb. Franjieh judged the occasion favorable for trying out a "reform" technocratic government aimed at slowing down social struggles. But it was a failure. Social struggles by both workers and students broadened continuously, fed by a growing socioeconomic crisis characterized by a high rate of inflation. So after the carrot, Franjieh turned to the stick. The regime took the offensive. From spring 1972 to spring 1973 the Salam government was charged with repressing the ongoing social struggles in the most brutal manner. Several hundred striking teachers were fired; two striking workers of the Ghandour factory in Beirut fell under police bullets; two peasants participating in a demonstration in the south of Lebanon were also gunned down. On each occasion there was a stirring of popular anger, but it was quickly deflated by the maneuvers of the bourgeois and by S. JABER Stalinist reformists, Bourgeois morale wos in good shape, an atmosphere of fear gripped the country. April 10, 1973, sow the broell pirate roid on Beirut, the roid that killed three leaders of the Palestinian resistance. The masses were enraged at the inaction of the state. They turned gut massively for the fuherals of the three victims Some 250, 000 people Took to the streets, shouring their defiance of a state that murders workers but remains passive in face of israel: 250, 000 people organized by. the armed millions ofithe Polestinion resistance, There was a radical change in the atmosphere, It was again possible to breathe the free oir of 969 and 1970 when the resistance was of it height. The bourgeois state saw all it efforts crumbling. It wos hot fong in reacting. In May 1973 the Lebanese army launched an offensive against the Palestinian resistance. The reason for it was clear: The linkup between the rise of social struggles and the Palestinian resistance had to be prevented from being renewed; the resistance had to be prevented from taking the bull by the horns. American imperialism could only approve. But the army failed; it halted its offensive without having created a relationship of forces favorable to it. And there was threat of worse; the Muslim masses - whose anti-imperialism was strengthened by their confessional opposition to the pro-West Christians (which dates from the rise of Nasserism)threatened to come to the aid of the resistance. The bourgeois regime had to alter its tactics. From that point on, it based itself on the reformist faction of the Lebanese bourgeoisie represented by Kemal Jumblatt, leader of the Druze community and of a grouping of progressive organizations in which the Communist party holds a strong position, having followed the purest Stalinist tradition of tailending the "national" bourgeoisie. The members of Jumblatt's party who were ministers in the Takeddin Solh governments expressed the equilibrium of forces between the bourgeoisie and the popular masses during this period. But at the same time, the bourgeois army was trying to polish up its image. It strengthened itself and launched a series of manhunts against "outlaws" of various guerrilla groups. This culminated in the military quartering of the old markets of the city of Tripoli in northern Leb-
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LEBANON anon, an old Nasserist bastion and still in the forefront of anti-imperialist struggles. Since it was only a question of "delinquents, " the reformist left did nothing; it even applauded the upholders of "order." In reality, by creating a new image the army was creating the conditions for on intervention in the field of social and political struggles. The threshold would soon be crossed. At the beginning of March this year the army repressed a demonstration in Sidon in southern Lebanon in support of fishermen struggling against the creation of a capitalist monopoly of fishing. There were victims, among them a former Nasserist parliament member. The city rose up: barricades, popular committees, armed Lebanese and Palestinian militants; the defense of the city was organized. An attempt at mediation by reformists, Jumblatist ministers and Stalinist representatives, failed miserably. New clashes between the population and the army touched off a solidarity movement in Beirut and Tripoli. There were demonstrations with red banners organized by armed Lebanese and Palesfinian militants. The state had to retreat; the bourgeois regime had been flouted; the reformists could do nothing; they had to follow the wave, out of fear of being completely cut off. This time bourgeois morale was very low. They were terrified. At the beginning of the year the bourgeois far-right, represented by the Phalangist party - an agent of American imperialism and armed to the teeth by imperialism, the membership of which is almost exclusively Christian (Maronite) - had already launched a violent propaganda campaign against the Palestinian resistance. In face of the Sidon insurrection the Phalange organized a big demonstration to support the army; it was held in the Christian neighborhoods of Beirut, which served only to aggravate the confessional polarization with respect to the army. This, it is true, drowned the class content of the ongoing struggles, but at the same time it bolstered general Muslim opposition Maronite). Continuing its trajectory, the Phalangist party pushed toward a conflict. On April 13 twenty-seven Palestinians were slaughtered in cold blood by the Phalangist militia, a de liberate provocation aimed at touching off a confrontation that would necessitate the intervention of the army and the proclamation of a state ot emergency. In reality, the Phalangists wanted the establishment of a military government, which alone would be capable of guaranteeing the bourgeois order and imposing the imperialist conditions on the Palestinian resistance several months before the opening of the Geneva conference on the Middle East. 30
The response of the Palestinian fighters was violent: All the Phalangist headquarters were attacked with machine guns and mortar; factories and stores belonging to Phalangists were dynamited. It was o real war, during which the Phalangists deployed their whole armyConcurrently, the reformist left warned against the army intervention that was demanded by the Phalangist. The head of the government, himself a bourgeois reformist, refused to proclaim a state of emergency. Under these conditions, a move of force by the army would have been seen not as an act of arbitration, but as an action to support the Christian far right; the Muslim majority of the population opposed it. (It should be noted that the head of the government is traditionally a Muslim.) The Phalangists lost the first round; the strong state was blocked. They then prepared for the second round. The first step was to provoke the resignation of the Solh government: The Phalangist ministers withdrew, followed by their allies and the representatives of other bourgeois factions. On May 15 the head of the government found himself compelled to resign, but not before publicly denouncing the Phalangist plot. On May 21 the Phalangists again launched the bartle, which had died down after the first round; they struck with all their strength to turn the tension to their advantage. They thought they had created conditions sufficient to carry out their plan; the president of the republic was with them. On the night of May 23 the new government was announced: seven generals and one civilian (a banker, as if by chance!). The mixture was well thought out: several generals capable of pleasing the Muslim population had been chosen. But it did not work! Far from frightening people, the announcement of the military government provoked a general insurrection of all the Muslim regions of Lebanon, on insurrection that fused with the Palestinian resistance already in place. Barricades went up everywhere, sandbags were laid out, armed blockades were formed, advance posts clashed with Phalangists, who were joined by all the reactionaries of the Christian neighborhoods of Beirut. The military government was called upon to resign by a general assembly of religious leaders, notables, and bourgeois Muslims. But in fact, these people were only repeating what the insurgent masses were affirming out loud. The Muslim bourgeoisie, frightened by the prospect of a clash between the army and a population that was obviously much more numerous but also very well armed, had no choice but to line up with the mass opposition to the military government. The force of disuasion was very
THE INTERVENTION OF THE RCG
The Revolutionary Communist Group in Lebanon, affiliated to the Fourth International,
*Militarily, our comrades of the RCG were part of the general armed mobilization in the popular neighborhoods. They participated on the barricades and in the armed patrols. In some neighborhoods, they were members of political-military coordinating committees including the organizations of the Palestinian resistance, the Stalinists, and the nationalist
*Politically, our comrades distributed several thousand leaflets on May 24 calling for the overthrow of the military government. They produced a special issue of their fortnightly,
Mal'amal (What Is To Be Done), dealing with the fall of the government of the generals, several hundred copies of which were sold in the popular neighborhoods.
great; the army could not risk the adventure. It is itself threatened by confessional division. On May 26, at 2:00 p.m., the military government presented its resignation. The Phalangist plot had failed; bourgeois order was more than shaken; American imperialism received a new slap in the face after the blows that had been dealt it by the peoples of Indochina. Twelve years after Iraq, ten years after Indonesia, eight years after Greece, and two years after Chile, it was proven once again - this time through a positive demonstration instead of a negative one - that a reactionary coup can be thwarted and vanquished only by the determination of the masses to confront it with arms. Portugal has already shown the way. But in Lebanon the arming of the masses is a constant fact of political life. At bottom, the insurrection was spontaneous; moreover, that is why it was actively intervened in the recent events in Beirut. organizations. editorial (cont'd. from p. 32) *the instrument of a terrorist plot prepared against Argentina by the international conspirators of the Fourth International. " The specialists in torture shrink from no accusation, no matter how grotesque, in justifying their actions. Denunciation of the savage repression being carried out by the Argentine government and militant solidarity with the workers, the vanguard, and all the victims of this policy must become priority tasks today. We must not allow the conditions for another Chile to be created in Argentina today.
confessional to a large extent. It is here that all the opportunism of the Stalinists becomes clear: They followed the wave, participated in the mobilization, and took up arms and fought the Phalangists. But their tailendism was obvious as well: They participated in assemblies that included Muslim notables and based themselves on the confessional wave without once distinguishing themselves by a class voice. They harmonized totally with the confessional chorus instead of articulating the real character of the conflicts, their antibourgeois and anti-imperialist nature. They allowed the Muslim bourgeoisie to coopt the movement. Further, they proclaimed their support for the new head of the government, Karameh, a notorious capitalist! For them, the struggle against the bourgeois far right is carried out in alliance with the moderate and reformist bourgeoisie. For us, this struggle is only a springboard for the struggle against the bourgeoisie as a whole! FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS! LIFT THE STATE OF SIEGE AND REPEAL THE "SECURITY LAW"! SOLIDARITY WITH THE MOBILIZATIONS OF THE ARGENTINE WORKERS! SOLIDARITY WITH ALL THE VICTIMS OF THE TERROR AND REPRESSION CARRIED OUT BY THE ARMY, THE POLICE, AND THE PARALLEL GANGS OPERATING IN THE SERVICE OF LOPEZ REGA AND ISABEL PERON! June 10, 1975
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32 Editeur responsoble: René Groslambert, 34 rue Nothomb, 1040 Bruxelles/Imprimerie spéciale de l'editeur.