Stalinists, in all its spectrum, are celebrating the “liberation” of Aleppo as a “historical victory” against “imperialism”. To justify their position, since the beginning of the civil war in Libya and then in Syria, they argue the scene of the conflict is the military confrontation between “imperialism” –which would act through mercenary “fundamentalist” militias- and the “anti-imperialist” and “secular” regimes, like Gaddafi and now Assad. To sum up: there would be no revolution in Syria, but a “national struggle” against imperialism.
By Daniel Sugasti.
Trotsky said that, when facing the military aggression of imperialism on a semi-colonial country, the revolutionaries must not doubt about which field they should take side on: the “military field” of the oppressed country, independently from the character of the regime and government of that country. In his own words: “Let us assume, however, that on the morrow England enters into a military conflict with Brazil. I ask you on whose side of the conflict will the working class be? I will answer for myself personally—in this case I will be on the side of “fascist” Brazil against “democratic” Great Britain. Why? Because in the conflict between them it will not be a question of democracy or fascism. If England should be victorious, she will put another fascist in Rio de Janeiro and will place double chains on Brazil. If Brazil on the contrary should be victorious, it will give a mighty impulse to national and democratic consciousness of the country and will lead to the overthrow of the Vargas dictatorship”.[1]
Following this criteria, Trotsky supported unconditionally the armed resistance in China, commanded by the “Communists murderer” Chiang Kai-shek against the invasion of the Japanese imperialism, in 1937.
Thus, in the confrontation between the imperialist England and the semi-colonial Argentina on the control over the Islas Malvinas (Falkland Islands), in 1982, we had no doubts on which field to be: in favor of the military victory of Argentina, even when the political leadership of such “military field” was a genocidal dictatorship –who killed several of our comrades-, to which we never supported politically, and more, which we denounced permanently for the military direction given the Argentinian Army.
And thus, more recently we were against the U.S. invasion to Iraq and Afghanistan. We were clearly in favor of the military victory of the Iraqi and Afghan resistance, despite the majoritarian percentage of bourgeoise and theocratic currents in their ranks. We made military unity, without stopping the combat to the reactionary political leaderships, yet still together against the imperialism.
Is the Syrian case similar to the previous examples? Not at all. The Syrian process, which started in 2011, is not like Iraq of 2003. Syria is not being invaded by the imperialism. What happens in the country, as it happened before in Libya, is a powerful revolutionary process that started because of the economic penuries of the popular masses and very fair democratic aspirations of the people. The Syrians have been fighting for more than five years to defeat a genocidal, submissive, neo-liberal dictatorship that never shot one bullet against Israel, which usurped the Golan Heights; that bombed and sieged Palestinian neighborhoods as Yarmouk; that is an ally of the European imperialism and did not hesitate when supporting the invasion of the U.S. to Iraq and Afghanistan, and that just stated that Trump will be a “natural ally” of the regime. Where is the anti-imperialist regime the Stalinists and Castro-chavists defend so much?
The truth is Stalinists are with Assad, with Putin… and with Trump, and against the Syrian masses.
But… imperialism does not intervene in Syria? Of course it does. We cannot wait for the main world power to stay watching peacefully the deepest revolutionary process of Middle East! Of course the U.S. has its own interests, and it always will, but that does not mean everything that is happening is a product of an “imperialist conspiracy”. The U.S. try to influence and hold the process, but do not have political conditions to invade Syria with ground troops, as the Afghan and Iraqi peoples beat them up. The necessity of rejecting any kind of imperialist intervention –like air-strikes, for example- cannot take us to deny the revolutionary process in itself.
It is false to say the imperialism supports Assad’s “fall”. Its main goal is to stabilize the region. Actually, despite the “humanitarian” speech, to Obama and probably to Trump, Assad is the best guarantee for it. There is no other reason for Washington to make clear that the “main enemy” is not Assad’s regime but the Islamic State, the fascist group that everyones says to fight against but only the rebels fight consistently, and which retook control of Palmyra a few days ago with no resistance from the Syrian regime, Russia or the “international coalition”. They were all too occupied bombing the rebels and Aleppo’s population, or making empty humanitarian statements.
It is also false to say there is a “field” of countries that support the rebels, and another “field” that supports Assad. No one really supports the rebels or the Syrian population. Otherwise, the “democratic” governments would have given, a long time ago, heavy weaponry and military technology, so necessary for the victory over Assad. On the contrary, the Syrian people were left to their own luck. The capitalist governments of the world, as much as the Stalinist “left”, left the Syrians to be slaughtered in Aleppo.
What exists, in reality, is a great counter-revolutionary agreement that goes from the U.S. to Russia, that with different rhetoric both attempt to defeat the Syrian revolution by keeping Assad in power and “stabilize” the region, for the pillaging of the natural resources of those peoples to run freely. The Stalinism, as always, is part of this counter-revolutionary pact, and accomplice of a genocide.
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Notes:
[1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/09/liberation.htm
Translation: Sofia Ballack.
