LAUSR

Along with the rise of Political Islam in recent years, has come a relative resurrection of Left movements in Arab states. During the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, communist parties were restored in Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Palestine and Jordan. A number of newly founded Left parties emerged all over the region, including some with a revolutionary Trotskyist ideology. These movements have not been much studied. Academic disregard of Trotskyism is due primarily to the fact that it has been relatively weak in the region. Alexander (1991: 602) points out two main reasons. First, restrictions were posed by Arab authoritarian regimes on most such parties and groups. Second, Trotskyism initially lacked the international support enjoyed by other Marxist movements. In the Soviet Union there was an official ban on Trotskyism. At the same time, West European socialists were generally put off by the Trotskyists’ strict interpretations of what constituted socialism. Trotskyist organizations began to emerge in the Middle East after World War II, but it was not till the late 1970s, 1980s and particularly 1990s that they entered the political arena. The Lebanese Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG) was the most substantial party in the Arab area in 1970s (Alexander 1991: 602). Later, other similar groups were established in Algeria (Socialist Workers Party), Egypt (Revolutionary Socialists [RS]), and Palestine and Israel (Socialist Struggle Movement). All of them remained illegal till recently and appeared to have little impact on Arab politics. From the early 2000s, Egypt has witnessed a series of mass protests and labor demonstrations which were regarded by some scholars as