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Revolution Is The Choice Of The People: Crisis and Revolt in the Middle East & North Africa
MORE THAN TEN YEARS on from the Egyptian revolution of January 2011, Anne Alexander looks at the great wave of revolts that have shaken the region in the decade since, examining the political economy of the Middle East, the nature of the regimes and the factors which shaped the upheavals. Using a Marxist analysis, she examines the fate of those revolts, the emergence of counter-revolutionary forces and the potential for renewed uprisings and more far-reaching change in the years ahead.
- GenresNonfiction
480 pages, Paperback
Published July 7, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 22, 2025
Absolute must-read. Amazing provocative writing. Thorough Marxist analysis of the Arab Spring, its successes and failures. details the old state capitalist regimes to the turn to neoliberalism, imperialism in the region, and how that led to crisis in the Spring and today.
Above all a beautiful telling that does justice to the millions of heroes involved from Tahrir to Darfur. A testament to their limitless creativity in the attempts to reorganise society to their limitless bravery against the regime ghouls that crushed them.
The book is packed with lessons for revolutionaries today, the overarching one being the need for a mass revolutionary party.
"The small and scattered forces of the revolutionary left would barely fill one Tahrir Square. They are just a drop in the ocean of 8 billion people: a laughably tiny number compared to the armed might of the states which confront us. Yet the record of the revolutions analysed here is that organised revolutionaries do make a difference wherever they are. Hundreds can shift the ideas of tens of thousands and thousands can reach hundreds of thousands or even millions.
In the end we know we are still making a wager of hope.
But that is not the real choice.
The only real choice is yours-will you join us ?"
Above all a beautiful telling that does justice to the millions of heroes involved from Tahrir to Darfur. A testament to their limitless creativity in the attempts to reorganise society to their limitless bravery against the regime ghouls that crushed them.
The book is packed with lessons for revolutionaries today, the overarching one being the need for a mass revolutionary party.
"The small and scattered forces of the revolutionary left would barely fill one Tahrir Square. They are just a drop in the ocean of 8 billion people: a laughably tiny number compared to the armed might of the states which confront us. Yet the record of the revolutions analysed here is that organised revolutionaries do make a difference wherever they are. Hundreds can shift the ideas of tens of thousands and thousands can reach hundreds of thousands or even millions.
In the end we know we are still making a wager of hope.
But that is not the real choice.
The only real choice is yours-will you join us ?"
December 30, 2022
As I finished reading 'Revolution is the Choice of the People' rebellion exploded in Sri Lanka. Hundreds of thousands of impoverished working people stormed the presidential palace and overthrew the President. Even in the few days since it has become clear that the analysis that Alexander makes in her book is of crucial importance for millions of people around the world today. Capitalism can only offer economic crisis, ecological disaster and war. Anne Alexander's marvellous book is an inspirational look at how we have fought in the past, and how we can win today. Every socialist should read it.
My full review of this excellent book is on the blog here: http://resolutereader.blogspot.com/20...
My full review of this excellent book is on the blog here: http://resolutereader.blogspot.com/20...
July 30, 2025
Anne Alexander tries—like, really tries—to apply Marxist analysis to the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.
But it feels a bit like bringing a cassette player to a Spotify playlist. Sure, it plays something, but nobody's dancing. The people who poured into Tahrir Square weren’t citing Lenin; they were hungry, broke, furious, and tired of being beaten into silence. In Tunisia, they set themselves on fire, not to ignite dialectical materialism, but because everything else had already failed.
Alexander, to her credit, is smart. The book is impressively researched and threaded with insight—if you’re the kind of person who enjoys reading about “sub-imperialist Gulf states” while sipping fair-trade coffee. But let’s not pretend this isn’t mostly for those already inside the Marxist echo chamber. The language is so heavy with jargon that at times it reads like it’s trying to impress Trotsky’s ghost.
For example, when she talks about “deflected permanent revolution,” she’s referencing how earlier Marxist movements got hijacked by authoritarian regimes. Fair enough. But she then uses that same broken idea to explain the recent uprisings—again. That’s like saying your last five phones exploded, but hey, maybe the sixth one won’t.
This isn’t to say the book is entirely off-base. Her sections on worker uprisings and women’s involvement are solid. In Egypt, textile workers in Mahalla did play a key role in mass mobilization. In Bahrain, activists risked everything. But these moments deserve more than being plugged into a theoretical grid. They’re human stories, not cogs in an ideological thesis.
Also, let’s talk about what’s not in the book. Sri Lanka, 2022—where mass protests toppled a sitting president. That wasn’t led by Marxist vanguard parties. That was people power, fueled by food shortages, fuel lines, and raw rage. No dialectical wizardry—just a country saying “enough.” Anne’s book could’ve engaged with that, but no—too new, too inconvenient to the framework.
And while she critiques old Marxist errors—like the bureaucratization of revolutions—her solution is more Marxism. That’s like your GPS sending you into a lake and then suggesting, “Recalculate...but with more water.”
In the end, Revolution Is the Choice of the People reads like a careful Marxist autopsy of revolutions that wanted to live. It’s academic cosplay—a compelling artifact for seminar rooms, not street barricades. If you already agree with it, you’ll nod along. If you don’t, it won’t change your mind. And if you were actually in one of those revolutions? You might wonder why your lived fury has been flattened into footnotes about global capital.
So yeah. Marxism doesn’t work.
And this book, while earnest, is proof that you can write passionately about fire while still keeping your hands cold.
But it feels a bit like bringing a cassette player to a Spotify playlist. Sure, it plays something, but nobody's dancing. The people who poured into Tahrir Square weren’t citing Lenin; they were hungry, broke, furious, and tired of being beaten into silence. In Tunisia, they set themselves on fire, not to ignite dialectical materialism, but because everything else had already failed.
Alexander, to her credit, is smart. The book is impressively researched and threaded with insight—if you’re the kind of person who enjoys reading about “sub-imperialist Gulf states” while sipping fair-trade coffee. But let’s not pretend this isn’t mostly for those already inside the Marxist echo chamber. The language is so heavy with jargon that at times it reads like it’s trying to impress Trotsky’s ghost.
For example, when she talks about “deflected permanent revolution,” she’s referencing how earlier Marxist movements got hijacked by authoritarian regimes. Fair enough. But she then uses that same broken idea to explain the recent uprisings—again. That’s like saying your last five phones exploded, but hey, maybe the sixth one won’t.
This isn’t to say the book is entirely off-base. Her sections on worker uprisings and women’s involvement are solid. In Egypt, textile workers in Mahalla did play a key role in mass mobilization. In Bahrain, activists risked everything. But these moments deserve more than being plugged into a theoretical grid. They’re human stories, not cogs in an ideological thesis.
Also, let’s talk about what’s not in the book. Sri Lanka, 2022—where mass protests toppled a sitting president. That wasn’t led by Marxist vanguard parties. That was people power, fueled by food shortages, fuel lines, and raw rage. No dialectical wizardry—just a country saying “enough.” Anne’s book could’ve engaged with that, but no—too new, too inconvenient to the framework.
And while she critiques old Marxist errors—like the bureaucratization of revolutions—her solution is more Marxism. That’s like your GPS sending you into a lake and then suggesting, “Recalculate...but with more water.”
In the end, Revolution Is the Choice of the People reads like a careful Marxist autopsy of revolutions that wanted to live. It’s academic cosplay—a compelling artifact for seminar rooms, not street barricades. If you already agree with it, you’ll nod along. If you don’t, it won’t change your mind. And if you were actually in one of those revolutions? You might wonder why your lived fury has been flattened into footnotes about global capital.
So yeah. Marxism doesn’t work.
And this book, while earnest, is proof that you can write passionately about fire while still keeping your hands cold.
February 7, 2025
This book is useful in understanding the modern Middle East and North Africa, the period of the Arab Spring and the context and background of the of the region - from the colonial period, to state capitalism and to neoliberalism. It's not so much a book that goes through a blow-by-blow of the revolutions that have occurred since 2011 like I expected, but rather goes through different political themes in different sections: revolution, state capitalism and neoliberalism, the working class, women in revolutions, the state, the military, reformism and reformists.
This really helps the book's aim in drawing out the different politics, dynamics, contexts and conditions involved in these moments, but I've got to admit that I'm more partial to a more geographic/chronological "narrative" style that integrates the politics/context alongside the process of revolution - I've found it really helps me understand these things together. But it really makes sense to do it the way Alexander does, and it really shone in places where I already had a background understanding of the events.
Highly recommend!
This really helps the book's aim in drawing out the different politics, dynamics, contexts and conditions involved in these moments, but I've got to admit that I'm more partial to a more geographic/chronological "narrative" style that integrates the politics/context alongside the process of revolution - I've found it really helps me understand these things together. But it really makes sense to do it the way Alexander does, and it really shone in places where I already had a background understanding of the events.
Highly recommend!
February 6, 2025
A comparative study of the various political revolutions which have gripped the Middle East in the wake of 2011. Alexander covers the events, examines the political economy of the Middle East and politics in the neoliberal era, theorises the trajectories of revolution and counterrevolution and argues for the need for a mass revolutionary party to guide the working class.
Most interesting were the chapters on the discovery of oil reshaping the region’s economy from agragrian to semi-industrialised, and on the social composition of the protest wave. Alexander shows that the public sector, where jobs remained stable but conditions and pay worsened, formed a crucial base for the revolutions, and women played a disproportionate role, forced to shoulder the burden of crumbling social services by integrating themselves into the workforce to provide for their families. The book did not cover, despite raising the question, why similar movements in Eastern Europe and Latin America have been more successful, and restated IST orthodoxy on many issues.
Most interesting were the chapters on the discovery of oil reshaping the region’s economy from agragrian to semi-industrialised, and on the social composition of the protest wave. Alexander shows that the public sector, where jobs remained stable but conditions and pay worsened, formed a crucial base for the revolutions, and women played a disproportionate role, forced to shoulder the burden of crumbling social services by integrating themselves into the workforce to provide for their families. The book did not cover, despite raising the question, why similar movements in Eastern Europe and Latin America have been more successful, and restated IST orthodoxy on many issues.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews