Six Years On: Why Iraq's
2019 Youth Revolt Still Matters
In October 2019, Iraq's
streets erupted. What began on October 1st in Baghdad as scattered protests
against unemployment and corruption rapidly transformed into something
unprecedented: a nationwide uprising that united students, unemployed
graduates, street vendors, and young professionals under a single
cry—"nureed watan," we want a homeland.
Six years later, the
Tishreen uprising (the Arabic word for October) stands as a watershed moment in
Iraqi history, the first serious challenge to the sectarian order imposed after
the 2003 U.S. invasion. But it also reveals an uncomfortable truth: spontaneous
courage alone cannot overthrow an entrenched system.
The Tishreenis: Iraq's
Youth Take to the Streets
Within days of that
first protest in Tahrir (Liberation) Square, the movement spread like wildfire.
By October 3rd, thousands occupied streets and public squares in Nasiriyah,
Basra, Amarah, and across the southern provinces. By mid-October, Baghdad
itself was engulfed, with hundreds of thousands—including many from the
capital's impoverished “Sadr City” -- rightly called Revolution City after the
revolution of 1958—flooding into Tahrir Square and seizing control of bridges
and central districts.
Social media amplified
their demands: jobs, services, an end to corruption, national sovereignty. The
protesters were overwhelmingly young—university graduates facing a collapsed
economy, informal workers scraping by as day laborers and street vendors,
students watching their education system decay, junior civil servants trapped
in a web of nepotism.
What made Tishreen
different was its composition. These weren't factional militias or religious
movements. They were Iraq's precariat, bound together by shared class interests
even if they didn't use that language: access to employment, functioning public
services, dignity, political representation.
And remarkably for a
country torn apart by sectarian violence, they were resolutely anti-sectarian.
Their slogans rejected the Muhasasa system—the post-2003 framework that divides
government positions and resources along ethno-religious lines, creating what
activists describe as a license for wholesale theft of state coffers.
The uprising also
shattered social conventions. Women participated in unprecedented numbers.
Street theater, poetry, and art transformed protest camps into spaces of
cultural expression and critique of conservative norms.
Any serious Marxist
analysis of the 2019 Tishreen uprising must begin with the basic fact that Iraq
never possessed, and does not possess today, a national bourgeoisie capable of
carrying out even the most elementary tasks of democratic or economic
development. Trotsky’s theory of the permanent revolution is not an
abstract formula here — it is the only theoretical framework that actually
explains Iraq’s modern trajectory.
From the dissolution of
the Ba’athist state in 2003, Iraq’s bourgeois strata — fragmented, comprador,
and organically dependent on foreign capital and regional patrons — proved
utterly incapable of reconstructing the nation, let alone leading any project
of industrialisation, democratic reform, or national independence. Instead of a
national programme, Iraq inherited:
●
A parasitic bourgeois
layer fused with the new political parties, living off state contracts, customs rents, and plundered oil
revenues;
●
Islamist factions armed
and financed by rival regional powers, reproducing the logic of sectarian patronage rather than
national development;
●
NGO-linked liberal
middle layers, politically timid,
tied to Western donor networks, and structurally incapable of mobilising the
masses;
●
an oil-dependent
capitalist order completely subordinated
to global markets and imperialist institutions.
In this landscape, the
tasks of national reconstruction, democratic rights, social equality, and
sovereignty cannot be completed by the bourgeoisie. They can only
be carried out by the working class in alliance with the urban poor and rural
labourers — precisely as Trotsky argued for countries of belated capitalist
development.
This is why the
post-2003 system stagnated into a grotesque hybrid: the muhasasa order —
sectarian, corrupt, and utterly incapable of offering even basic services. It
was not a deviation from bourgeois democracy; it was its logical outcome
in a country where the bourgeoisie exists only as an appendage of imperialism.
By 2019, the system had
exhausted whatever legitimacy it once claimed. The youth who rose up in October
did not enter history as students of Marxism, but the class realities they
confronted reflected Marxist truths with brutal clarity:
●
A state that cannot
provide jobs.
●
Parties that cannot
govern without militias.
●
A ruling class that
cannot rule without plundering.
●
A society rich in oil
yet poor in every human measure.
It was in this crucible
that the Tishreen movement emerged — not as a mere protest wave, but as
a profound explosion of accumulated contradictions.
Tishreen was not a
socialist movement. It did not organise around a working-class programme. It
was often confused, idealistic, and politically heterogeneous. But it
represented something new and unmistakable: a mass rupture with the ruling
class in its entirety — Shia Islamists, Kurdish oligarchs, Sunni elites,
foreign patrons, and the entire post-2003 state-building project.
And because Iraq’s
bourgeoisie is incapable of reform, this rupture could only move in one of two
directions:
1. Revolutionary transformation, led by the working class — the path of
permanent revolution;
2. Repression and
absorption, led by the ruling
elites — the path Iraq’s existing parties desperately pursued.
The tragedy of 2019 is
that the latter path prevailed, not because the movement was weak, but because
the working class lacked a revolutionary party capable of giving the uprising a
clear programme, strategy, and class direction.
The vacuum was filled by
NGOs, liberals, and atomised youth — while the compromised forces of the
official Iraqi Communist Party played a disgraceful role that deserves thorough
exposure.
The stage was set for
betrayal — not because Tishreen failed, but because Iraq’s left had already
abandoned its historic responsibility.
The State Strikes Back
The response was brutal
and coordinated. By late October, militias and security forces unleashed live
ammunition, tear gas, and targeted assassinations against protesters. Snipers
picked off demonstrators. Activists disappeared from their homes in the night.
By December 2019,
estimates suggest over 600 protesters had been killed and thousands wounded
nationwide. Major sit-ins, particularly in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, were
violently dismantled by state forces and Islamist militias, though local
protests continued into 2020.
The movement had no
means to defend itself. Largely unorganized, decentralized, and unarmed,
Tishreen could symbolically challenge the sectarian state but couldn't resist
coordinated military repression. Without defensive structures or military
organization, the uprising was systematically crushed.
The Roots of Revolt:
Iraq's Failed State
To understand why Iraq's
youth revolted requires understanding what the U.S. invasion left behind. The
2003 occupation didn't just topple Saddam Hussein's regime—it destroyed Iraq's
state institutions entirely, replacing them with a sectarian patronage system
that carved up ministries and resources along religious and ethnic lines.
Iraq's national
bourgeoisie—the business and political class that might have rebuilt the
country—proved utterly parasitic. Rather than consolidating capital for
development, they enriched themselves through corruption, contracts, and
foreign loans while infrastructure, industry, and services collapsed.
For young Iraqis, this
translated into chronic unemployment despite oil wealth, decaying schools and
hospitals, unreliable electricity and water, and a political system that
excluded them entirely. Street mobilization became the only outlet for social
frustration, the only way to be heard.
The violence by
militias, the impunity of elites, the sheer dysfunction of government—all of it
delegitimized the state in the eyes of ordinary Iraqis, especially the young.
Bourgeois Development and Bourgeois Democracy requires:
● a
unified nation-state
● independent
civic institutions
● rule
of law
● broad
political rights
● social
stability
The Iraqi bourgeoisie
cannot deliver these because:
●
Sectarian division is
their survival mechanism.
●
Militias are their armed
wing.
●
Foreign patrons preserve
their power.
●
Corruption is their
economic model.
●
Unemployment keeps the
masses disorganized.
A democratic Iraq would
end their rule.
Thus, they block democracy at every turn.
The theory of Permanent
Revolution explains that in countries of delayed capitalist development:
Only the working class can carry out the tasks
of the democratic revolution, and it can do so only by taking power itself.
This applies to Iraq
with surgical precision.
The working class is:
●
the only class
interested in ending sectarianism
●
the only class that
suffers from the militia economy
●
the only class that
needs a unified, sovereign state
●
the only class capable
of running industry
●
the only class with a
stake in national independence
●
the only class that
gains nothing from corruption
Thus, even democratic
demands—jobs, services, sovereignty, civil equality—point inexorably toward workers’
power.
There is no
“bourgeois-democratic stage” that Iraq must pass through.
There is no national bourgeoisie willing or able to develop the country.
There is no clerical “progressive ally.”
The revolution can only
be:
●
a revolution of the
working class,
●
for working-class power,
●
carrying out democratic
and socialist tasks in a single uninterrupted process.
This is not a
theoretical abstraction. It is the direct lesson of the Tishreen
uprising.
Baathists Circling: the
Reactionaries tried to Hijack Tishreen
A spontaneous uprising
attracts opportunists. Almost immediately, external and internal forces
attempted to manipulate or redirect the movement for their own purposes.
The Gulf monarchies
watched warily. While sympathetic to anything that might weaken Iranian
influence in Iraq, they were careful not to meaningfully support a movement
that might inspire their own populations to revolt. Their engagement remained
superficial—media encouragement, some NGO involvement—enough to apply indirect
pressure on Iran without empowering Iraqi workers.
More insidious was the
infiltration by former Baathists. Despite the fall of Saddam's regime, Baathist
networks retained organizational structures, clandestine cells, and financial
resources. Their goal wasn't to empower Tishreen but to destabilize the
post-2003 order and pave the way for nationalist-authoritarian restoration.
They worked to penetrate
local councils, student groups, and online organizing spaces, pushing
anti-Iranian, technocratic, and nationalist narratives. While ultimately
unsuccessful, their presence revealed the dangerous vacuum created by the
absence of genuine revolutionary leadership. Even now, Baathist organizational
and propaganda resources dwarf those of the Iraqi left. And that deserves some
study.
The Left's Betrayal
The leadership vacuum
within Tishreen should have been filled by Iraq's traditional left,
particularly the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP). Instead, Tishreen exposed the
ICP's complete bankruptcy.
Once an anti-imperialist
force, the ICP had degenerated into a collaborator with sectarian elites. In
2003 it largely stood aside when the US invaded, looking for a space for it to
play the loyal opposition within a bourgeois state, akin to the UK Labour Party
and other similar parties of the Second International. Since then, they haven't
improved much. Its tactical alliance with Muqtada al-Sadr was another disaster,
and tied it to the very corrupt structures Tishreen opposed. The Sadrists
alternated between encouraging Tishreen and shooting them – sometimes within
the same 24 hours. The Iraqi Communist Party’s capitulation to Sadr and
its reformist paralysis flowed directly from its rejection of Permanent
Revolution:
●
It believes in a
two-stage strategy: first “democracy,” then “socialism.”
●
It treats clerical
petty-bourgeois forces as “national allies.”
●
It views parliamentary
blocs as the engines of change.
●
It waits for a
bourgeois-democratic opening that will never come.
This Menshevik framework
ensured that the ICP stood politically disarmed before the greatest mass
uprising in Iraq in decades.
While youth shed blood
demanding the fall of the sectarian order, the ICP pleaded for reforms. While
militias assassinated activists, the ICP maintained alliance with a cleric
whose followers suppressed sit-ins. While the masses demanded a new Iraq, the
ICP defended the logic of the old one.
Their collapse is not
accidental.
It is the inevitable result of abandoning the Permanent Revolution.
The Flaw: No
Revolutionary Leadership, no Program
"Nureed
watan"—we want a homeland. The slogan captured the movement's moral power
and its fundamental limitation. Tishreen expressed popular frustration
brilliantly but avoided class politics entirely. Nureed Watan is a cry
for bourgeois development and bourgeois rights. We have seen why the
bourgeoisie is incapable of delivering either.
The uprising embodied
civic nationalism and spontaneous democracy—morally powerful but politically
insufficient. Protesters distrusted political organizations, placed hope in
technocrats and NGOs, and looked to the United Nations for salvation. These
illusions, while understandable given Iraq's history, limited the movement's
capacity to translate street energy into systemic change.
The question that haunts
Iraqi activists: could Tishreen have won?
The answer is
uncomfortable. Without organization, without a program linking immediate
demands to long-term transformation, without means of self-defense, spontaneity
alone could never overcome a state willing to kill hundreds to maintain power.
Mass protests can challenge legitimacy; they cannot, by themselves, dismantle
oppressive structures.
The tragedy—and
promise—of the 2019 uprising is that its democratic demands collide directly
with Iraq’s class structure:
●
Ending corruption →
requires expropriating the corrupt class
●
Ending sectarianism →
requires destroying the sectarian bourgeoisie
●
Ending militia rule →
requires dismantling militia capitalism
●
True sovereignty →
requires breaking with U.S., Iranian, Gulf, and Turkish domination
●
Jobs and services →
require socialist planning of oil revenues
●
A “homeland” → requires
workers’ power
There is no democratic
future within the existing order.
And there is no bourgeoisie capable of creating a new one.
This is the central
truth that the Permanent Revolution brings into focus, and it is the foundation
for any revolutionary strategy in Iraq.
What Could Have Been: A
Transitional Program for Iraq
This is where
revolutionary theory meets practical necessity. A transitional program would
have provided a roadmap for turning Tishreen's energy into lasting
transformation—a bridge between immediate demands and fundamental change.
Popular committees and
dual power: Establish local
councils of workers, youth, and community representatives to manage services,
coordinate protests, and defend communities. Begin constructing dual
power—alternative structures of authority that could eventually replace the
sectarian state.
Disband militias;
workers' self-defense:
Demobilize sectarian militias and replace them with independent self-defense
units accountable to popular committees, protecting the movement from state
violence.
Expropriation of oil and
natural resources: Nationalize oil, gas,
and strategic industries, placing them under workers' control to ensure wealth
benefits society rather than foreign corporations or domestic kleptocrats.
Reconstruction corps and
full employment: Create state-run
projects to rebuild infrastructure and services, employing the unemployed with
guaranteed living wages under workers' oversight.
Nationalize banks and
monopolies: Seize financial
institutions and large corporations concentrated in post-2003 elite hands,
preventing their use as tools for corruption or foreign domination.
Accountability and
justice: Establish investigative
tribunals to track and recover stolen public wealth since 2003, bringing former
politicians and collaborators to transparent public accountability, reclaiming
funds for reconstruction.
Abolish the sectarian
constitution: Replace the Muhasasa
system with a democratic, secular framework through a revolutionary constituent
assembly that drafts a workers' and peoples' constitution.
Democratic rights and
secularism: Guarantee freedom of
assembly, speech, press, and women's rights while dismantling religious
interference in government.
Working-class unity and
Kurdish self-determination:
Build solidarity across sectarian and ethnic divisions while supporting
democratic rights and local self-determination in Kurdistan under a federal
socialist framework.
Break with imperialism: End foreign influence over Iraq's economy,
security, and politics, joining with other oppressed nations in voluntary
socialist federations based on equality and anti-imperialism.
Build a revolutionary
working-class party: Organize the working
class politically to lead all progressive demands, guard against infiltration
and co-optation, and provide the class-conscious leadership necessary for
lasting transformation.
Why Only a Workers'
Party Can Complete the Revolution
Trotsky's theory of
permanent revolution provides the framework for understanding why organization
is essential. In countries like Iraq, where the national bourgeoisie cannot or
will not lead development, democratic tasks and socialist transformation become
inseparable.
Iraq's post-2003
bourgeoisie has proven utterly incapable of meaningful reform, let alone
defending majority rights. Any attempt to rely on this class for democracy or
economic development is doomed from the start.
Tishreen demonstrated
courage, creativity, and anti-sectarian sentiment, but it lacked a class
program. Spontaneous uprisings cannot expropriate wealth, dismantle militias,
or establish popular councils without organization. Without leadership,
movements remain vulnerable to infiltration by Baathists, Islamists, NGOs, or
foreign powers.
A revolutionary party
acts as the conscious organizer of the working class, linking local struggles
to national strategy. It transforms immediate demands—jobs, services, justice,
secular rights—into a program capable of dismantling the sectarian state and
building workers' power. It ensures that expropriated wealth flows to social
programs and reconstruction rather than factional or personal enrichment.
Iraq's political
landscape is littered with parties that abandoned revolutionary principles for
alliances with sectarian elites. Only a class-based, independent party can
prevent a repeat of the ICP's betrayal and the moral bankruptcy of opportunist
forces.
The Tishreenis' fight
isn't merely for reforms. It's a struggle against a state incapable of national
development and a society divided by sectarianism. Permanent revolution
requires the working class to simultaneously fight for democratic,
anti-sectarian rights and socialist transformation, connecting immediate
demands to long-term structural change.
From Spontaneity to
Revolution
Six years after
Tishreen, Iraq remains trapped. The sectarian system persists. Youth
unemployment remains catastrophic. Services barely function. The same elites
who ordered the killing of protesters still hold power.
But Tishreen proved
something crucial: Iraq's youth and workers can challenge the ruling elite.
They can overcome sectarian divisions. They can envision a different future.
What they lacked—what
they still lack—is organization. The movement cannot achieve systemic change
without a party capable of turning a spontaneous revolt into a structured,
nationwide struggle for workers' power in a workers’ and poor farmers’
Government!
Only through
organization, program, and class-conscious leadership can Iraq's working class
complete the revolution that Tishreen began. Only then can they establish the
justice, equality, and truly democratic Iraq that hundreds died demanding in
the streets of Baghdad, Basra, and Nasiriyah.
The question isn't
whether Iraq needs a revolution. Tishreen already answered that. The question
is whether Iraq's workers and youth will build the organization necessary to
win it.
Comrade Zaid
November 23, 2025
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