League for the Fifth International, 13 December, 2024
The fall of Assad has fundamentally changed the situation in the whole Middle East. After the first Friday prayers following his flight into Russian exile, millions celebrated the end of the dictatorship in towns and cities across Syria and around the world.
And with good reason. Assad and his Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah backers were responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people, and the flight of millions.
Why did Assad fall?
The expulsion of Assad and the end of the dictatorship of the reactionary nationalist Ba‘ath party was an achievement not only of the HTS-led coalition, but also of the Syrian masses. They must now use this situation to resume the fight for the original democratic, social and economic demands of the Syrian revolution.
The rapid advance of HTS, the collapse of the Syrian army, the support of a wide coalition of rebel forces, including minorities like the Druze, and the seizure of power in various regions by different opposition forces proves that the overthrow of Assad was a popular revolt widely supported among the people.
Despite the brutal war waged by the regime, the dictator failed to stabilise his own support. With 90 per cent oft he population living below the poverty line, and his allies weakened by their wars with Israel, and in Ukraine, the forces that had sustained the regime since 2011 could not compensate for the disappearance of its social base in Syrian society.
But the popular celebrations are rightly tempered with concern for the future. The dominant political force in the country is represented by the Islamist HTS. Even if it is true that HTS is clearly distinct from Isis and Al Qaeda and is not a fascist force, and even if it is true that, unlike the Syrian National Army (SNA), it is not a mere puppet of Turkey, and even if it promises a ‘democratic new beginning‘, no one should be under any illusions about its reactionary political goals. This applies doubly so to the SNA militias allied with the HTS, which are in fact an extension of Turkey.
While it seems clear that Turkey gave the green light for the original HTS offensive, it does not have full control over it. Rather it seeks to bring HTS tot he negotiating table as an ally. The SNA, on the other hand, represents a more radical Islamist-jihadist agenda and is characterised by a greater Turkish nationalism, although its internal discipline is less pronounced. Its primary interest lies in the Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Syria, while the HTS defined the overthrow of the regime as its top priority.
No trust in HTS, no trust in the transitional government!
HTS is attempting to establish a new transitional government that would include not only Islamist forces but also the administrative and state apparatus of the Assad regime to enable a controlled transition. At the same time, it is attempting to secure recognition by the Western imperialist powers, Turkey and the United Nations, in order to access funds and a measure of stability. This poses the danger of sliding into dependence on one or other of the imperialist powers and their regional allies.
Whether such a government will come into being permanently and be able to hold out for any length of time remains to be seen. Numerous obstacles stand in the way of this plan. Fighting continues between the reactionary SNA and the Kurdish forces defending the Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria (Rojava). Turkey is trying to weaken, if not destroy, any form of Kurdish self-government, national and democratic self-determination. Conversely, this is driving the Kurdish movement even more strongly into the hands of the USA, which maintains military bases in Rojava and presents itself as an, albeit completely unreliable, ally of the Kurds. It also remains to be seen how the transitional government legitimises its power, whether elections will be held and whether the Islamist forces will relinquish power if they do not turn out in their favour.
The reactionary role of imperialist and regional powers
Added to this is the constant bombing by Israel, which fears that forces could come to power after the fall of Assad that, unlike Assad, might be willing to launch military strikes against the Zionist state. At the same time, the Zionist bombings clearly show how ludicrous is the notion that the overthrow of Assad was a plot by Zionist or other foreign powers.
As long as regional powers like Turkey or Israel can arbitrarily intervene militarily in Syria, as long as the major powers like the US and Russia continue to maintain military bases there and intervene openly or covertly in Syrian politics, there can be no question of a truly democratic and free Syria. We therefore demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all foreign troops and oppose any intervention by Israel, Turkey, the USA, the EU, Russia or Iran.
That the USA and its Nato allies continue to brand HTS as terrorists and presume to teach them lessons about tolerance, while they themselves support Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and their allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia imprison, murder and torture their domestic opponents, is an example of their total hypocrisy. The EU and Turkey are outbidding them by suspending asylum procedures for Syrian refugees and preparing mass forced deportations.
However, a democratic or tolerant regime cannot be assumed under the rule of a HTS-led coalition government, whether or not it initially includes parts of the old state apparatus or even representatives of national or religious minorities. Any such government will be characterised, to a greater or lesser extent, by a strong reactionary Islamist influence; it will also attempt to ‚resolve‘ the country’s political and social crisis in consultation with the major Western powers and their financial institutions, and in the interests of their own bourgeois and petty bourgeois clientele.
This means that the masses of workers and peasants, even the urban middle classes and the petty bourgeoisie, as well as millions of displaced people and refugees and the national and religious minorities will have to bear the costs of these policies. This is another reason why such a transitional government will have an authoritarian, repressive character from the outset.
Therefore, revolutionaries must not place their trust in such a government, nor support it. Rather, they must warn the rural and urban masses of its reactionary character, help them to use the current scope for their own political, trade union and social organisation, create forms of self-organisation at the workplace and local level, and, where possible, their own self-defence forces to organise security in urban and rural areas.
The Arab Spring showed what the struggling masses of workers and the oppressed are capable of, but also what the reasons for their defeat were. The spontaneous uprising of the masses and its spread already clearly showed in Syria in 2011 that people demand a better life and a life in freedom and are willing to risk their lives for it.
But as time passed and the regime became increasingly brutal and murderous in its treatment of its own people, two major weaknesses became apparent: there was a lack of centralisation of the movement and a lack of a programme that would show how to fight and what could come after the overthrow of Assad. The working class may have carried the movement, but it had no class-conscious force of its own.
Revolutionary party and the strategy of permanent revolution
It is therefore necessary to create a revolutionary workers‘ party from the most determined fighters of the working class and the most advanced sections of the intelligentsia and youth.
Such a party must show a political way to turn the overthrow of Assad into a real, lasting political victory for the masses, to prevent a reactionary alliance of more or less „moderate“ Islamists and former followers of Assad from establishing a new dictatorship. To do so, it must combine the democratic and socialist tasks of building a new Syria.
Such a party must advocate for the right of return for all displaced persons and refugees, for their secure accommodation and a minimum income. It must advocate for the consistent separation of state and religion, for the democratic rights and equality of women and the sexually oppressed. It must recognise the right to self-determination of the oppressed nations, first and foremost the Kurds – and in the form they desire, whether as autonomous regions in a united Syria or as a separate state. And it must tie in with the democratic aspirations of the masses.
Therefore, as an alternative to a transitional government and a reorganisation of the country devised by it, we advocate an independent constituent assembly that openly discusses and decides on the country’s political and social constitution and that also ensures the right to vote for all refugees. The elections to such an assembly must themselves be controlled by committees of workers, youth, women and peasants.
Even a constituent assembly of this kind would still be a bourgeois-democratic institution. But the fight for it would create a favourable terrain for the working class and a revolutionary party to expose the anti-democratic character of the HTS and its allies and to build on the widespread hopes for a democratic, new Syria.
At the same time, this agitation and propaganda must be linked from the outset to the struggle for socialist transformation. The hardship, destruction and impoverishment of millions cannot be quickly and immediately overcome on the basis of a capitalist economy. A capitalist regime—whatever ist ideological colouration—cannot ensure justice and social development.
To meet the immediate needs of the masses for sufficient food, housing and medical care, and to start rebuilding the country, an emergency plan is needed, the implementation of which must be controlled by the workers. The means for this must come, firstly, from the wealth of the supporters of the Assad regime, whose property and financial assets must be confiscated. Likewise, the property of the ruling capitalists and large landowners must be confiscated and used for this emergency plan. Finally, we fight for international aid to be provided by the imperialists—without any conditions and with the distribution and use controlled by committees of workers and peasants.
Such a programme, which we can only roughly sketch out here, cannot be implemented by any bourgeois government. What is needed is a workers‘ government that breaks up the old state apparatus and relies on workers‘, peasants‘, and popular councils and an armed workers‘ militia. This will require a new, socialist, revolution, which will emerge from the struggle for democratic and social rights, which will tie in with the Arab Spring and bring to an end what was not achieved then and was suppressed by the counter-revolution.
Such a perspective of permanent revolution cannot be limited to Syria; it is inextricably linked to the fight for a socialist federation in the entire Middle East, with the expulsion of all imperialist powers and with the fight against the oppression of the Palestinian people.
As revolutionary internationalists, we share the joy of the Syrian masses at the overthrow of the hated dictator Assad. We rejoice with Syrian refugees around the world. However, we are also aware that the expulsion of Assad is only one stage, only a partial victory in the struggle for liberation.
To avoid this turning into a defeat, to prevent a new reactionary dictatorship from being established and the hopes of millions from being cruelly dashed once again, a struggle is needed for a new, democratic and socialist Syria, as part of a socialist federation of the Middle East.