The Victory of the Syrian Revolution over Assad and the Resurgence of the Arab Spring
After 13 years, the Arab Spring is reawakening with the Syrian Revolution overthrowing Bashar Al Assad. October 7th changed the chapter of the struggle in the Middle East, canceling the agreements of imperialism and the bourgeoisie that maintained a permanent counter-revolution against the permanent Revolution. To what extent will the example of the Syrian Revolution be recognized by the masses? How can we build a United Front in support of the Palestinian and Syrian Revolution to recognize the quantitative and qualitative changes that are taking place?
The external and internal situation in Syria has opened up a possibility that HTS (Hayat Tahir Al-Sham – Committee for the Liberation of the Levant), the leading opposition force in the offensive against the Assad regime, could not let pass! The US and Israel are weakened by the war in Gaza. The regime’s allies, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, are involved in their own wars, leaving Syria in the background. The Assad regime was unsustainable: absurd inflation, rationing for everything, energy only a few hours a day and totally dependent on foreign powers. HTS was the most isolated and relatively independent opposition force. HTS was watching Turkey negotiating with Russia for a conciliation with Assad, which would be its end. The other largest opposition forces are the SNA (Syrian National Army), led by former ministers and generals of Assad who are puppets of Turkey and fight the Kurds, and the other force is the Kurdish PKK, totally dependent on the US that never fought against the regime. HTS is considered a terrorist organization by the US, EU and UN, as well as by Russia. It is a jihadist, petty bourgeois organization that broke with Al Qaeda and has governed Idlib for some years. Idlib is the region of Syria that had the least economic importance and is predominantly rural, where many revolutionaries went after Assad took over several cities such as Aleppo and the outskirts of Damascus. HTS faced a lot of popular opposition in Idlib due to its authoritarianism and attempts to impose Sharia. It was in this context that it began to change its policy to a more moderate one. In an interview, HTS leader Al-Jolani stated that the most important thing he learned was that institutions need to exist and that they need to function. With the lessons learned from governing Idlib and the time it had to structure its military forces, HTS was the largest force and led the offensive against Assad and overthrew the half-century regime on December 8. With each liberated city, we are seeing this policy being put into practice in a very pragmatic way. In Damascus, HTS put Assad’s own prime minister on national television to announce the transition of power and the maintenance of institutions, and was kept as part of the transition of power process. Armed rebels are prohibited from entering civilian institutions as well as any hostility against religious minorities, and they are visibly disciplined to follow these guidelines. HTS has already made statements saying that its fight is against Assad and that it is not against Russia and Iran or other external and internal actors. The external actors, the US, Israel, Turkey, Russia, Iran, all view HTS with great distrust. HTS has enough power to negotiate. It has very strong popular support at the moment and will have to take this into account. The imperialist forces, whether from the US or Russia, will not be able to attack HTS without having to bomb a large part of Syria, which will not be as easy as in 2015.
Much will depend on the conversations that HTS will have from now on with all these internal and external agents. Russia/BRICS are coming out of the situation demoralized. Will it sell out the revolution to make deals with one of the imperialist blocs? Will it be pressured to maintain its popular support and deny deals that betray the revolution? Some discontent with the amnesty granted to agents of the deposed government is already emerging. The actors involved in the Palestinian resistance, Hezbollah and Iran, are already appearing to change their position in relation to HTS. What will this relationship be like from now on? Will Hezbollah, without its imperialist ally Russia, turn to the forces on the ground? Will the SNA and Turkey seek their share of Syria or the government? Will the US maintain its control of the part it occupies together with the Kurdish PKK? This alliance puts the US on the opposite side of Turkey.
After the fall of the regime, Israel has been bombing Syria incessantly, especially on ammunition and weapons depots and strategic military points to prevent them from falling into the hands of the rebels. In addition, it has been advancing deeper into Syrian territory. This shows that the fall of Assad is not an easy victory for the US/Israel but rather a movement of the axis of resistance in Palestine towards a more popular base.
The counterrevolution is already underway to divide Syria with Turkey in the North and Israel in the South by intervening militarily. They want to turn it into another war on terror against ISIS that all the imperialists and their proxies have been fighting since 9/11 and the imperialist social left is providing them with more ammunition. We have to convey the urgency to the base of the anti-Zionist movement to unite behind HTS with our transitional program for permanent revolution. It is the vanguard of the Arab revolution while the Zionists are the vanguard of the Islamophobic counterrevolution.
We will continue to analyze the actions of the numerous agents involved in the process that has caused so much general confusion when it comes to Syria, from the perspective of a revolutionary solution, with the tactics of military support and support in situations that serve to advance the revolution, without any illusions in the bourgeois leadership and maintaining independence from the imperialist powers in dispute.
As Leninist-Trotskyists, we have no illusions in the petty bourgeois leadership of the HTS. We give military support, but not political support. The policy to advance the Syrian Revolution must be a government based on popular councils and a planned economy that expropriates the bourgeoisie. Bourgeois institutions must be replaced by workers’ institutions. The Syrian Revolution must advance to support the Palestinian Revolution and solidarity with the struggle of workers throughout the region. The Arab Spring was the great uprising of the masses against failed neoliberalism and the great global crisis of capitalism. Only the socialist revolution can put an end to the misery and wars in which the world is plunged. The failure of the left to have a revolutionary program to present to the masses in struggle, especially a program of independence from the imperialist blocs that have dragged the world towards a third war, is the main factor in the defeat of the masses and the working class that tries to resist misery and capitalist tyranny. The left that defends Russian/Chinese imperialism and supported the infamous Assad regime is demoralized. The social imperialist left has succumbed to Islamophobia and the “war on terror”. Unfortunately, a large part of the left that supports the Syrian Revolution is part of the “democratic” pro-imperialist left of the US/EU and supports them in the inter-imperialist war in Ukraine.
The lack of revolutionary leadership is the crisis of the working class. We defend a United Front of the working class that builds a program in the struggle with class independence in the face of the intensification of the inter-imperialist dispute between the US and China/Russia blocs. It is necessary to build a World Socialist Party that builds parties throughout the world. To move forward, the Syrian Revolution needs class solidarity with the Palestinian Revolution.
International Leninist Trotskyist Tendency (ILTT), 12/10/2024
