Sean Figg, Committee for a Workers’ International
The civil war in Sudan has entered its fourth bloody year. It has brought death, the massive displacement of peoples, hunger and famine to the people of Sudan. The eighteen-month siege of the city of El-Fasher, and the genocidal massacre of tens of thousands after its fall, stands among the most barbaric atrocities of this century. The break-up of the country is emerging as a fact on the ground. All this horror is rooted in the capitalist social relations of Sudan, the wider region, and world capitalism.
From the end of 2018, revolution ebbed and flowed in Sudan. A determined mass movement forced the military to remove Omar al-Bashir, dictator for thirty years. Despite bloody repression, the military was forced to allow the formation of a transitional government in which civilian politicians could participate, but alongside the leaders of the military factions. However, the transitional government was incapable of meeting the demands of the masses and protests continued. In October 2021, the military carried through a coup, removing the civilians from the government. This was partially reversed under the pressure of a new wave of mass protests but it brought the revolution and the counter-revolution to a deadlock that was only broken by the start of the civil war in April 2023.
At the war’s outbreak, the CWI explained that it was not a development independent of the class struggle and the revolutionary process. It was a symptom of a revolution at an impasse. The two warring military factions represented rival counter-revolutions. On the one side, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and on the other, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (aka Hemedti, or ‘little Mohammed’). (See ‘Revolutionary masses must end generals’ counter-revolutionary violence’ at socialistworld.net for analysis of the outbreak of the civil war)
The civil war has enormously complicated the struggle for a democratic Sudan, causing immense suffering, but the forces of revolution and counter-revolution have continued to vie with each other throughout the three years of civil war.
Evolution
The Neighbourhood Resistance Committees (RCs) were the energy of the revolution, with the Sudanese Professional Association (SPA), a coalition of trade unions, playing a crucial coordinating role. More than 5,000 RCs existed at the height of their influence. They acted as local political centres, organising protests and developed a significant level of regional and national coordination. Even before the revolution, they had developed an administrative role in local communities, ensuring the provision of services. A nascent alternative to the capitalist state and its military factions was emerging, what Marxists refer to as ‘dual power’.
To respond to the catastrophic situation, activists ‘retooled’ the RCs to operate in the conditions of civil war through the creation of Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs). These have stepped into the vacuum as government services have collapsed, organising the distribution of medicine, school classes for children and public kitchens to feed the displaced and share out aid. The ERRs have also played a role in supporting small farmers to counter the threat of famine from crop failure. Fully aware of the continuity between the RCs and the ERRs, both counter-revolutions have used the cover of war to try and ‘settle scores’ with the revolution. The CWI warned of this at its outbreak. Both warring factions have arrested, assassinated and disappeared activists.
Regional proxy war
Throughout the revolution regional, and world powers applied relentless pressure to limit its scope. Compromise with the military – the real power behind al-Bashir’s dictatorship – was demanded at every turn. This was not only a counter-revolutionary policy but a fundamentally anti-democratic one, insisting that a place must be found for the military regime in any future ‘democratic’ Sudan. This policy has continued throughout the civil war, which, after three years, has evolved into a regional proxy war as a result.
The ‘Quartet’ of the US, Egypt, Saudia Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has initiated several rounds of ceasefire negotiations. What unites the Quartet powers, whatever different emphasis each individual government gives to ‘stability’, ‘peace’, ‘democracy’ and ‘civilian rule’, is that the counter-revolution must triumph in one form or another. All four powers are warmongering counter-revolutionary governments.
This rivalry between the Saudi and Emirati ruling classes for influence in the region has been carried into the Quartet. Egypt and Saudi Arabia back the SAF and the UAE backs the RSF, each manoeuvring to entrench their influence when the guns fall silent. But both the Saudi and Emirati ruling classes are key allies of the US too. The US itself, preoccupied with waging its war on Iran alongside the Israeli state, and backing the Israeli state’s wars on Gaza, Lebanon and other neighbouring countries, wants to keep both onside. Predictably, the Quartet has solved nothing. Its abiding achievement has been prolonging the civil war.
Since the 2011 Arab Spring, the Emirati ruling class has attempted to extend its influence in the region by backing different factions in conflicts in its larger neighbours. The ruling class of this small, though extremely wealthy country, wants a region in its own image – a patchwork of small statelets dependent on its largesse and therefore more easily coerced. One commentator has described the Emirati ruling class’s network of support as an “axis of secessionists”, drawing a parallel with the Iranian regime’s ‘axis of resistance’. To this end, the Emirati ruling class has built relations with the rulers of Somaliland, Puntland and Jubaland, three regions with ambitions to secede from Somalia. In Yemen, it has backed forces fighting for the independence of the south and in Libya has helped maintain the eastern statelet that emerged from the civil war there.
Behind this policy, a key objective of the Emirati ruling class is greater control over the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb strait through which all Suez Canal shipping must pass. The value of this ‘chokepoint’ has been underlined by the Iranian regime’s ‘weaponisation’ of the Strait of Hormuz as an extremely effective lever against American imperialism. The UAE’s withdrawal from the OPEC oil consortium also reflects the Emirati ruling class positioning itself for a more independent role. These developments are a symptom of the multipolar character of world capitalism in this era.
Counter-revolutionary governments
After the SAF’s recapture of the Sudanese capital Khartoum in March 2025, the idea that the RSF could take control of the entire country is, for now, a distant prospect. Denied first prize, the UAE is comfortable pursuing a policy that encourages the break-up of Sudan. It backed the formation of an RSF-supported government based in Nyala in South Darfur. On the other side of Sudan, the Sovereignty Council, formed in Port Sudan, is backed by the SAF and its international allies.
From the moment al-Bashir was removed, different wings crystallised amongst the civilian political forces which had opposed his regime – one willing to compromise with the military and another opposing compromise. In the context of the civil war the logic of compromise has led to the splitting of the ‘pro-compromise’ civilian political forces. One section, now organised as the Sudan Founding Alliance (Tasis – ‘Foundation’ in Arabic), has supported the establishment of the RSF-backed government. The other section, now organised as the Civil Democratic Alliance of the Forces of the Revolution (Somoud – ‘Resilience’ in Arabic), is supporting the Sovereignty Council. Both civilian factions feel compelled to posture as the inheritors of the revolution, maintaining its pro-democracy language and claiming some distance from the warring parties. Both counter-revolutions still feel sufficient pressure from the masses to humour this, seeing a civilian fig-leaf as useful.
However, the civilians will be tolerated only as long as necessary. Other reactionary political forces are waiting in the wings that the counter-revolutions will lean on against them. The discredited right-wing Islamist political organisations that supported the al-Bashir dictatorship – and drove the reactionary agenda of his dictatorship, especially in its first decade – are attempting a comeback through support for the Sovereignty Council. Organisations supporting the Nyala government include various armed ethnic and tribal militias.
Programme
The creation of the ERRs and the role they are playing in the civil war is maintaining the link between the Sudanese masses and the politically conscious revolutionary activists. Their selfless and courageous role is strengthening their political authority, which remains a threat to the counter-revolutions, despite all the violence and repression thrown at them. Recognising the authority of the ERRs, other imperialist powers, especially those in Europe, have seen it prudent to court their leading activists with the hope of coopting them in the future.
During the revolution, the RCs adopted the slogan: “No negotiation, no compromise, no partnership with the military.” In December, on the seventh anniversary of the first mass protest of the revolution, a press statement was issued in the name of the RCs holding firmly to this position. After condemning the civilian politicians that have sided with one or other counter-revolution, the statement renews the RCs’ call “not to support either side of the war, and to engage in the broadest grassroots mass front to end the war and address its roots – grounded in the widest popular mobilisation – so as to complete the revolutionary path and achieve its objectives.”
Up until the start of the civil war, leading organisations in the revolution, like the SPA, advocated a policy of ‘non-violence’. Appeals were correctly made to those under arms to refuse to be used against the revolution. However, in a video interview published online in November 2025, Marwan Osman, a founder of the SPA and activist in the Khartoum RCs, explained that there was an ongoing debate over how armed resistance could “eventually become necessary”. In the CWI’s view, the point at which it became necessary for the RCs and ERRs, the SPA and other revolutionary organisations to create their own armed self-defence force has long been passed.
Such a step would not contradict the spirit of the revolution if such a force was democratically controlled by local communities and organised on a multi-ethnic and multi-tribal basis. Any armed actions that moved beyond simple self-defence would need to be firmly harnessed to the action of the masses themselves, such as strikes, sit-downs, occupations and marches. In other words, all elements of armed struggle would need to be based, as the RCs put it, on “the widest popular mobilisation”. This would make appeals to the rank and file of the military and militias more concrete. The revolution would be inviting them to bring their military training to the side of the revolution. To assist with splitting the ranks of both the SAF and RSF, the RCs’ demand for the “principle of non-impunity” for the perpetrators of atrocities in the civil war and before, is most effective if clearly directed at military officers and militia commanders. The CWI believes this is the route to imposing a ceasefire on the revolution’s terms, halting the civil war and rebuilding a Sudan in the interests of the working class, the poor and oppressed.
In his interview, Marwan Osman expresses frustration with the lack of international solidarity with the people of Sudan. It is not entirely clear to whom this complaint is directed. If it is to the regional pro-capitalist governments and the imperialist powers, this ‘solidarity’ will never come. The only force that offers genuine solidarity and stands with the people of Sudan, rather than one or other faction of the ruling class, is the working class of the region. Especially in the countries whose ruling classes are fuelling the civil war, it is the working class which has the power to stop the war machines dead in their tracks.
The masses of the region can be inspired to respond to such an appeal if the democratic demands of the Sudanese revolution are fused with a programme that can answer the demands of the working class and poor masses for a fundamental transformation of their living standards. This will only be possible with the overthrow of the ruling classes of the region, their dictatorships and the rotten capitalist social relations they defend. This need to be replaced by governments of workers and the poor, placed in power by the masses with a programme to end capitalism and start building socialism.
Class basis
Upon this class basis the masses of the region could be united in defence of the Sudanese revolution, seeing its victory as a step toward their own liberation from poverty, insecurity and oppression. In other words, the goal of the Sudanese revolution needs to move beyond the struggle for a political revolution and embrace the struggle for a social revolution.
But such a programme needs a vehicle to fight for its implementation. This vehicle can only be a revolutionary party which wins mass support. Throughout the Sudanese revolution the absence of a party uniting the activists of the RCs, the SPA and other workers’ organisations, and now the ERRs, has repeatedly allowed pro-capitalist politicians and parties to step into the political vacuum and pursue compromise. Because of the complete discrediting of the established political parties and civilian politicians, revolutionary activists have rightly remained determined not to become ‘politicians’ and to maintain ‘people’s power’ through mass mobilisations on the streets.
Taking steps toward the creation of a revolutionary party does not contradict this – rather, it is the best defence against co-option by rotten Sudanese capitalism. First and foremost, a revolutionary party would be a party of struggle. But simultaneously it is an instrument through which the masses can win and consolidate political power.
A revolutionary party would not stand in opposition to the institutions of ‘grassroots democracy’ – the RCs and ERRs. The RCs had the potential to develop into an alternative state power based on the majority of the people – the working class, the poor, the small and subsistence farmers, the small-scale mineworkers, the marginalised tribespeople, and the revolutionary women and youth. It would be the task of the revolutionary party to win the RCs over to struggle for political power and socialism.
