On 10 February, with the streets still heaving and protests growing in other cities, Mubarak made his final move. In a televised speech he promised, for the nth time, not to stand as a candidate in the next election. He declared he was ready to concede any reform and to cancel the anti-terrorist laws which had allowed him to physically and politically eliminate all opposition, real or imagined.

One of the most heartening features of the current student struggles is the fact that many (though not a majority, unfortunately) of students recognise that the struggle is not just about their education. Historically, the social position of students has changed dramatically. · In the 1926 General Strike the posh university students of the time took part in strikebreaking.

A New Stirring in the Arab World · As we go to press the Tunisian uprising against the dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali was going into its third week. The spark of the unrest, came when a 26-year old unemployed university graduate, Mohammed Buazizi, set himself ablaze in the central town of Sidi Buzeid to protest at the police confiscation of his fruits and vegetables cart.

(We are publishing and distributing this appeal launched by workers at FIAT’s Mirafiori factory. Students and workers encountering each other on a class basis is step in the right direction. But any struggle will have to come up against capitalism’s structural crisis so that to come out victorious - if for nothing else, but primarily from the point of view of political clarity - it will have to...