Syria: Reaction on both sides of the divide!

Weakness of the revolution

In a series of previous articles, we have explained the reasons that
have made the Syrian revolution very protracted and bloody and allowed
the regime to cling to power for a long period of time. We numerate
these reasons below, but the reader can consult our older articles for further explanations:

1. The Syrian revolution, mainly a movement of the youth initially,
erupted under the influence of the wider Arab revolution. However, a
significant section of Syrian society, especially in the urban centres,
was taken by surprise by the revolutionary movement. Had Syria not been
influenced by the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, it would most likely
have taken a few more years for the revolutionary movement to erupt on
its own.

2. The Syrian working class has been crushed and atomized for
decades. Most importantly, the Syrian working class did not, and still
does not, have independent organizations of its own that it can use to
express its class interests and play a leading role in the struggles
that are taking place. This is of decisive importance. The mass strike
action taken by the Egyptian and Tunisian working classes paralyzed the
state and tipped the balance in favour of the masses. This did not
happen in Syria. For the most part, while mass demonstrations took place
in many parts of the country, factories, power stations, railways,
telecommunications, airports, sea ports, government offices, etc. all
remained functioning normally, giving the regime a high degree of
stability and reliable access to the resources it needed to brutally put
down the revolt of the masses.

3. Syria is a very diverse country with big religious and ethnic
minorities and a very heterogeneous social structure. The core of the
Syrian regime is mainly based on the Alawite minority. The regime has
secured the support of the majority of Alawites, Christians, Druze, and
liberal Sunni Muslims by successfully exploiting their fears of the
ascendance of an Islamic fundamentalist regime that would oppress them,
marginalise them, or put limits on their social freedoms and lifestyle.
It should be noted that many elements among those fighting the regime
have been raising religious slogans, demands, and using a religious
language which has very conveniently played into the hands of the
propaganda machine of the regime.

4. Syria is located in a very politically sensitive region and
borders Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and Turkey. It has become the
place in which opposing interests in the region are being played, Sunni
Arab monarchies on one side against Iranian-backed Shia, which in turn
reflect the opposing interests of Russia-China and the US in the region,
with also Turkey and France seeking to promote their own interests.
Also, after the experience of the US occupation and devastation of Iraq
in 2003, many Syrians are quite fearful of imperialist meddling in the
affairs of their country and the catastrophic results this may have. The
regime successfully banked on these fears to draw support from among a
wide layer of the population from all religious and social backgrounds.

5. All of the previously mentioned factors could have been cut
across, and the Syrian masses from all religious and ethnic backgrounds
could have been united behind the banner of the revolution, had there
existed a genuine revolutionary leadership with a clear economic,
social, and political programme, i.e. a clear socialist class programme,
that could have appealed to all working people in Syria.

6. The official Syrian opposition represented by the Syrian National
Council is far from being that leadership. It is precisely the opposite.
The SNC is linked to rich businessmen who aspire to replace the Assad
regime and have absolutely no interest in common with the struggling
masses. In fact, their interests are opposed to those of the poor
masses. The SNC is in fact a direct tool of US imperialism, being based
abroad and funded by imperialism, with no real links to the opposition
on the ground. Most harmful has been the continuous appeal of the SNC
(and the tops of the FSA for that matter) for imperialist intervention
in Syria which has only damaged the image of the revolution and served
to turn away many layers of Syrian society and push them into the arms
of the Assad regime. Many Syrians could have been otherwise won over to
the revolution with a different and correct leadership, slogans and
demands.

The struggle continues

Back in December of 2011 we published an article named Syria: Assad regime beginning to crack as revolution moves to higher level in which we put forward the following analysis:

The Syrian revolution is unfolding in particular conditions, without
independent trade unions, and without a revolutionary party that can
guide the revolution and carry out the tasks necessary to achieve
victory. The pressures of revolution do not wait for the right outlet;
they have broken out and expressed themselves through the Free Army.
This is, at the moment, the only mass organization in the Syrian
revolution. Through the lack of an alternative, it also becomes the
leading organization in the revolution. This means, in the current
conditions, all the questions of the revolution will express themselves
in this organization.

Questions abound about the nature of the Free Syrian Army, is it
truly a body of genuine revolutionary soldiers, the armed militia of the
revolution? Is it dominated by extreme Islamist elements, or could it
be a mere tool in the hands of imperialist powers? Any serious observer
of its development could not fail to realize that the Free Syrian Army
is neither an Islamist militia nor an agent of foreign powers: the truth
is that its nature has not been decided yet.

The developments of the last few months have confirmed our analysis.
The FSA has been growing in size, strength, and popularity. It has
become the focal point of the struggle against the Assad regime.
However, this does not tell the whole story. This development has come
at the expense of the mass movement. It is very clear that mass
participation has been on the decline, leaving the struggle to be
carried out by the FSA. For example, the uprising in many of the
neighbourhoods in Damascus was mainly a FSA operation and was not
accompanied by a general mass movement. We have seen the same thing
happening in Aleppo in recent days. In fact, in Damascus, the regime was
extremely weak at one point and a sufficiently large showing of the
masses could have lead to its collapse. But this did not happen. The
mass movement has largely disappeared and what remains of it is becoming
an appendage of the FSA. This is a big step backwards and a reactionary
development. Also, we have to ask ourselves the same important question
we asked back in December of 2011: What is the nature of the FSA? Is it
only made up of revolutionary forces or are there are other elements
within it that have different agendas?

It is no secret that reactionary forces, such as the governments of
Saudi Arabia and Qatar, as well as wealthy private funders, have been
funnelling millions of dollars and arms to some militias that make up the
FSA. Turkey also hosts military training camps for the FSA, with the
clear aim of pushing its own agenda within Syria. France is also playing
a big role in promoting the reactionary forces that have emerged among
the militias. Here France is attempting to win back the sphere of
influence it had lost in the region, and this explains its heavy
involvement. The US, after burning its fingers in Iraq and Afghanistan,
has no desire to be sucked into another war, although it has openly
admitted helping some of the militias.

The question is: who is getting this aid? Is it being distributed to
all the fighting militias? This is far from being the case. In fact,
many FSA fighters have often complained about the lack of resources and
arms and expressed their frustration at other fighting groups who refuse
to share resources with them. Who are these groups that are getting
foreign aid and what is their agenda? It is very important to be clear
on this: these groups are rabid reactionary forces, no different from
the Assad forces. They advocate a fundamentalist ideology and defend the
interests of those who fund them, i.e. of those that have interests
directly opposite to those of the Syrian masses. They are the forces
of the counter-revolution, that while fighting the regime, are working
to undermine what is left of the genuine revolution.

The reality of the situation is this: the FSA contains thousands of
honest revolutionary fighters, the sons and daughters of Syrian workers,
farmers and the poor of the urban population. They are often linked to
the local coordination committees and revolutionary councils. But the
FSA also has a reactionary wing that has access to foreign resources and
has been growing by the day at the expense of the revolutionary wing.
The ebbing of the mass movement has served to greatly undermine and
isolate the revolutionaries and has creating a dangerous vacuum that is
being filled by reactionary and opportunist forces.

In the absence of any clear alternative and the shift towards armed
struggle, it is clear that those groups which are better organised, more
disciplined and above all, have better access to weapons,
communications, logistics and funding, are taking a leading role. And
these are the more conservative, reactionary and sectarian based groups
around the Muslim Brotherhood, the Salafists and even Al-Qaeda linked
organisations. These are benefiting from funding and support from Qatar,
Saudi Arabia and other sources. Help and support comes with political
strings attached.

The previously described situation shows a general process that has
been going on inside and outside the FSA: that is the degeneration of
the revolutionary movement. This can be seen not only from quantitative
signs, such as the decline of the participation of the masses in
revolutionary activities, but also from qualitative signs. Many of the
slogans that are being raised today are radically different, and indeed
reactionary, from those we saw at the beginning of the revolution. For
example, in the early days we heard the slogan "one, one, one, the
Syrian people are one" and now we have "we are coming, we are coming
Allah". This is no detail! And it is definitely not one that is
encouraging religious minorities and liberal Muslims to join the
revolution; if anything, it is pushing them away!

The regime was successful in using massacres to provoke strong
anti-Alawite sentiments among big sections of the Sunni population and
further push the movement along sectarian lines. This is no minor issue
and it is being exploited by the most reactionary elements to raise an
openly anti-Alawite banner, and to put forward slogans that can never
capture the majority of the masses. Slogans such as "defend our
religion… defend the Sunni Muslims… this is Jihad against the
infidels… the Alawites are infidels and enemies of Islam, etc." do
nothing but divide the population and push a section towards the regime.

Where is Syria heading?

It is very hard to predict how a very complicated situation like
Syria is going to end. It is clear that the Assad regime is going to
eventually collapse. It is rotting from within, as the latest defection
to the “revolution” by Assad’s prime minister reveals. As in Libya, as
it becomes ever clearer that although the regime is well armed its days
are numbered more and more elements from within the regime are looking
to their own future. The fact that such elements can go over to the
so-called “revolution” shows how reactionary the situation has become on
both sides of the divide. These elements are not jumping ship to
support the revolution, but precisely for the opposite reasons. They are
preparing themselves for the future, where they will help to undermine
what little is left of the revolution even further.

This explains why a collapse of the regime would not necessarily mean
a victory for the revolution. On the contrary, it seems that the
revolutionary movement is already on its way to being defeated as it has
been losing control to forces it cannot control. This is not to say
that this process could not be reversed, but in the last period, this
has been the tendency. This needs to be stated boldly to the genuine
Syrian revolutionaries and the youth.

However, the analysis cannot stop here as there can be different
variants in the final outcome. The regime, which has tried to entrench
the conflict as a sectarian one from the very beginning, could withdraw
to the coastal area where it enjoys the support of the Alawites and wage
a long drawn out civil war from there, and even try to establish a de
facto mini-state. This is entirely possible given the fact that
thousands upon thousands of Alawite militiamen will still exist armed to
the teeth even if the regime is kicked out of Damascus. Countries like
Iran and Russia are prepared to support such militias. On the other
hand, countries such as the USA, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are ready to
continue supporting militias that are loyal to them. A protracted civil
war scenario would effectively isolate any progressive elements in the
equation. This would lead to a Lebanese civil war scenario and mean a
complete catastrophe for Syria and the Syrian people.

A further element in the equation is the Kurdish situation. Seeing
that it could no longer control the Kurdish areas, the regime seems to
have withdrawn in favour of PKK-sponsored armed groups. This is
something that Turkey cannot allow, at the risk of encouraging the
Kurdish insurgents within Turkey itself. In this way the Assad regime
achieves two aims, one, to remove the Kurdish areas (which it can no
longer control) from a united opposition front, and two, to further
present the conflict as one of resistance against foreign intervention
(in this case from Turkey).

The Alawites, and perhaps the Christians and other minorities, will
fight on the side of Assad as reactionary Islamic elements become
dominant amongst the “rebels” and put forward an Islamic religious and
anti-Alawite platform. What is needed is for the Syrian workers and
youth to unite both against Assad and against the reactionary
fundamentalist elements that are starting to flourish under the name of
the FSA. This is the only way of winning over the rank and file and
ordinary Alawites to the side of the revolution. But as the reactionary
elements are now clearly coming to the fore, this scenario is the least
likely to develop. The lack of a revolutionary socialist party capable
of uniting the working people across the different ethnic and religious
divides is what explains the present impasse.

Even if a sectarian civil war is avoided, the best that Syrians can
hope for in the next period is a fractured country like Libya. There is
no credible political leadership with a revolutionary programme that can
unite the masses behind it. Opportunist elements are appearing and
going to appear even more at all levels and claim leadership positions.
The masses are very tired and unlikely to put up a fight against
opportunism at first. The different militias of the FSA, now united
against Assad, will start competing with each other over power and
influence after his downfall. We should have no illusions that once
Assad is overthrown all the problems of working people in Syria will be
solved; least of all should we lead Syrian revolutionaries and youth
into believing in this. The regime which could come to power after the
overthrow of Assad could be even more reactionary and brutal than
Assad’s.

Where do the Marxists stand?

Marxists do not work in the abstract and do not believe in such a
thing as a black and white situation. Our analysis of a situation is
only a guide to action, in fact, an attempt to guide ourselves towards
correct action. Where do the Marxists then stand on this very
complicated situation that has developed in Syria, on the FSA, on the
role of the revolutionaries and the youth?

The militias of the FSA, the local coordination committees, the
revolutionary councils, etc, are all improvisations of the revolutionary
masses and soldiers. Some of them have come under the domination of
reactionary elements. Others probably still retain the original
democratic, popular, non-secular character of the revolutionary
uprising.

The main problem for the revolutionary movement, which has allowed
these reactionary elements to come to the fore and play into the hands
of the regime, is first and foremost its weakness. The impasse that the
movement found itself in and which led to an increasingly military
dynamic could have been broken on the basis of a genuine revolutionary
program, combining democratic with social and economic demands, which
would have appealed to the Syrian masses across the sectarian divide,
thus undermining decisively the social basis of support for the regime.

A revolutionary war cannot be reduced to the question of weapons, but
it is first and foremost a question of the political program of the
revolution. Many times throughout history revolutionary forces with
inferior technical and material means have defeated stronger and better
armed armies and state apparatuses, when they have been armed with a
program that was able to split those armies and state apparatuses along
class lines.

From our point of view, therefore, this is the first question which
needs to be addressed. What are we fighting for? It is not enough to say
that we are for the overthrow of the Assad regime, as to large sections
of the population it is not a matter of indifference what replaces it,
particularly if the implication is that of a religious based
dictatorship. The perspective of replacing the Assad family for the
Muslim Brotherhood aligned businessmen will not be appealing to workers
and revolutionary youth, particularly those who consider themselves
secular or who are not Sunni. The idea that the Assad regime will be
replaced by one which is a US protectorate like in Iraq or Afghanistan
or one which is backed by Turkey or Saudi Arabia will rightly repel many
Syrians who are fiercely proud of their national independence and
anti-imperialist traditions.

The task of Marxists is to patiently explain the need for a socialist
program, the only one which can link the genuine democratic aspirations
of the people with their social and economic demands. Genuine
revolutionaries must organize themselves as an independent faction and
put forward their ideas forcefully and collectively. We believe that the
only way the revolutionary forces can defeat reaction is if they put
forward the following:

• Not a religious struggle, but a struggle of the working masses. Not a holy "Jihad" but a revolution of the masses.

• Defend the original ideas of the revolution. Democracy, freedom,
  social justice, and respect and equality of all are the principles for
  which thousands of revolutionaries have sacrificed their lives.

• Defeating the Assad regime means also expropriating the wealth which
  has been stolen by his family and putting the Syrian economy under
  democratic control of the working people.

• No illusions in the imperialist powers. Against imperialist meddling
  in Syria – USA, France, Russia, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia hands off
  Syria. Only the Syrian people can free themselves.

• Armed bodies should be put under the political control of the revolutionary councils at all levels.

• ALL revolutionary councils and FSA militias must be strictly
  democratic. One person, one vote. Defend complete freedom of debate and
  discussion inside the organizations of the revolution. Nothing is to be
  imposed undemocratically on the will of the majority.

• Beware of opportunist elements from the tops of the regime and
  Western backed “opposition” councils. All decisions to be taken by
  democratic councils representing those involved in the struggle on the
  ground.

• Build committees in all workplaces so that the working class can
  emerge as a force within the revolution. By coordinating these
  committees at local and national level, the basis would then be prepared
  for the formation of a government representing the interests of the
  working people and the poor of Syria. Without this, the leadership will
  be taken by reactionary forces that will be totally incapable of solving
  the real burning social problems of the working people.