Communist Workers Group (CWG-USA)

Build a United Front Defense of the Syrian Revolution

 
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For International Labor defense to stop the massacre of the Syrian workers and masses at the hands of the butcher Al-Assad!

Build international demonstrations, political strikes and labor actions!

US/French/NATO/Russia: Hands off the Middle East and North Africa!

No to UN intervention!  Defend the Palestinians!

The LCC calls on the international working class, all socialist and leftist organizations to build a united front defense of the Syrian masses, who rose up in 2011 as part of the Arab Spring and have been under brutal attack by the al-Assad regime.  We call on workers in the US and on all continents and especially those of Turkey and Lebanon to rally our class’ resources in defense of the oppressed Syrian masses.

The life or death situation of Syrians with democratic aspirations could not wait for the emergence of a revolutionary proletarian vanguard party to defend themselves and advance their liberation.   The Arab spring moment presented the Syrian masses with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to attempt to put an end to the murderous regime.

Al-Assad maneuvers between imperialisms but always at the expense of the masses.  For years he has been the go-to guy for US imperialism which outsourced torture to his secret prisons.  At the same time US intelligence and media helped the Zionist gendarmes reign in Syria’s nuclear program.   US imperialism/NATO/UN have tolerated al-Assad as long as he helped contain the Arab masses in general and the Palestinian revolution in particular.

The US has deliberately stopped the supply of Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs) reaching the Free Syrian Army (FSA) for fear they would be used against Israel.  The street fighters remain in large part dependent on munitions captured from Syrian regulars.  Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Kerry promises $60 million of “non lethal aid,” dangling a carrot in front of the comprador forces assembling around the leadership of the SNC.  Russia and China are supporting Assad and US/Israel are trying to negotiate a solution to prevent a revolution that could destabilize US/Zionist rule in Middle East and North Africa (MENA.)  At the same time there remains a layer of social-chauvinists among the left currents who are calling on US, EU, UN to intervene.  No to US/NATO intervention!  While opposing any imperialist intervention and fighting to stop military aid to Assad by the Russians and Chinese the workers united front would not stop military support sent to the rebel army by Obama or his proxies rather it would seek to redirect  armaments  (hot cargo) to the Local Coordinating Committees (LCC’s) and secular fighters.

The international working class has a side in this civil war.  Instead of abstentionism or siding with Assad, socialists, anti-capitalists and all workers need to support the turning of the Arab street’s opposition to dictatorial regimes and against imperialism into labor actions and mobilizations of the entire international working class to support the uprising.  Yet despite their pretenses to being the representatives of and defenders of the working class’  interests, the American “left,” the trade union bureaucracy, social democrats, Stalinists, Castroites, Bolivarians, anarchists and the renegades of Trotskyism have all been silent, are abstentionists or are openly supporting al-Assad.

The working class’s interest is in increasing the power of the democratically controlled militias and turning the LCCs into workers councils.  As the task for the international working class is to support the armed struggle against the regime, a united front of workers organizations is needed to bloc militarily with the secular opposition to the brutal Syrian Ba’ath regime.

While doing so the working class united front defense of the Syrian Revolution must give absolutely no political support to the comprador bourgeois and petty bourgeois intellectuals, especially the ex-Assad generals who will act to abort the revolution and pave a path to power for the new wanna-be lapdogs of imperialism gathered as the SNC. Likewise the united front should refuse any political support to the Jihadist opposition groups!  They are a reactionary anti-democratic force which is already attempting to impose Sharia law, pull down the FSA flags, arrest people, etc.  The task of the workers united front is to elevate the strength and power of the secular and working class forces at the bourgeois comprador and Islamist Jihadists’ expense and to deny the  Jihadists military suppor when they attack the secular FSA.

It is urgent that the masses break from the dead-end leadership of these elements and that the Syrian and Middle Eastern working class organize as a class and rise to the leadership of these struggles, expanding them into a fight for workers power.

We call on the international working class to mobilize in defense of our class brothers and sisters in Syria and the Middle East against imperialism and their own ruling classes (and for those in the imperialist countries in the first place their own ruling class.)  Adopting the proposals emerging from the advanced combat detachments in Libya, Tunisia, and Palestine, our united front must advocate for and build up self-defense pickets of the internationalist working class who initiate actions of solidarity, such as rallies, mass mobilizations, political strikes, and labor interventions in the distribution of military supplies.

In concrete terms an internationalist labor defense of the Syrian masses needs to materially confront imperialism in Syria.  In Russia and China this means workers must unite to oppose their own government’s support for Assad including taking labor actions to stop arms shipments to the regime.  The key tasks of a united front in the US and EU is for workers to organize and provide military aid to the revolution.  Without man portable  surface to air missiles and other SAMs the masses are at the mercy of Assad’s air force.

From the United States to Spain to South Africa to China and Syria, the working class is under all-out assault by capital.  Build independent working class opposition to the brutal dictatorship in Syria and to the imperialist paymasters who subject to masses to slaughter.  Build this as the defense of our class as a whole.

Defend the Syrian masses! Form up local committees, link them nationally and internationally and take action to provide assistance to the secular and independent working class fighters . Contact the LCC to help initiate this united front.

Statement  of the Liaison Committee of Communists

Integrating the RWG (Zim), CWG (A/NZ), CWG (USA)

March 1, 2013