Originally published @ http://revleftcurrentsyria.com
As we mark the sixth anniversary of the eruption of the popular revolution in our country, our people’s struggle for their liberation, and for the history of our country, enters a new stage.
All of the objective political and economic and social conditions were present to cause the eruption of popular anger against the corrupt and tyrannical bourgeois regime. This popular anger was only waiting for the spark to ignite it.
The masses’ popular revolution in March 2011 came in the context of what was named the Arab Spring that overwhelmed the region and the Arab countries, and in the context of the intensification of the global capitalist system since 2008 which was accompanied by the rise of global struggles against this ugly crisis system on the global scale. The revolutions of our region were nothing but the expected and necessary outcome in facing regimes that are all, despite the difference in labels, tyrannical and hostile to the masses and monopolizing resources in favor of small groups and practicing violent repression of every popular or labor or political or even cultural movement. Calcified regimes that whose times have passed and must be crushed in order for our societies to progress and be liberated.
The ruling regimes have done all they can to stop the wave of revolutions in our region, and they have succeeded to a great extent, thanks to massive destruction and blood, especially in Syria. The regime in Syria has strategically crushed all democratic forces at the forefront of the popular struggle through arrests and assassinations and forced displacements, and through its scorched-earth policy in the revolting popular areas, as it destroyed cities and towns and infrastructure, rendering residents refugees and internally displaced persons, and opening the window for extremists to dominate the scene by releasing imprisoned jihadists and allowing them to form armed groups whose primary enemies were not the regime but the forces of the popular revolution. As for the countries which claimed to “support the Syrian people,” they acted no differently from the regime. These regional countries (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and so on) not only supported the regressive forces. These countries were panicked by the possibility of the victory of the possibility of the victory of a popular and radical revolution no less than the Assad regime was. On that, black flags and extremism (jihadist) spread through the areas outside the regime’s control, at the expense of the popular movement and the revolution’s banners. The regime and imperial and regional forces succeeded, whether those who are allied with the regime or those claiming to be against it, in fulfilling their own prophecy. Was it not the regime that since the first month called peaceful protesters infiltrators then vandals then Salafists then armed men, then terrorists, then radicals, and now Takfiris?
There is no doubt that the attempt to portray the Syrian revolutionary as a terrorist, and the luring of some to that, was the creation and plan of the regime. Unfortunately today we are living what the regime planned out yesterday, as the regime claimed the revolution to be nothing more than “the events” and “a crisis” in Syria, and described it as a conspiracy. It was the same regime which called in the support of Iran and Russia and many sectarian militias from Afghanistan and Iraq and Lebanon, turning our country into a field of occupation by several imperial and regional forces: Russia and the United States and Iran and Turkey, in addition to other sectarian and regressive and fascist forces. The regime, as well as the aforementioned forces, contributed to the fueling of sectarianism, facilitating their efforts to bend the revolution and abort it if they can. Meanwhile, the bourgeois isolated opposition split into two groups who are alike despite their superficial differences: the first given orders by the “Group of Friends of the Syrian People” countries and the second given orders by Russia and the regime’s allies…
What complicates the Syrian situation is that the counter-revolution in Syria is not two-headed, but has several heads agreeing and fighting amongst each other for influence and control at the expense of the Syrian people.
The grouping of several counterrevolutionary forces against our people and country, as well as the lack of a revolutionary and popular leadership for the popular revolution, and the horrors of destruction and killing, are the main reasons for the weakening of the revolutionary and popular movement, and moreover its defeat, even if its roots remain alive, ready to rise at any time.
Therefore, all the conferences that the imperialist and regional countries are convening to draw their agreements on Syria, such as Geneva and Astana, are exclusively confine to the Syrian groups that belong to it and which have no independence over their fates from the political organizations such as the Opposition Council and the High Negotiation Committee or the military factions that are sharing in such negotiations and whose subordination is known. The regime is no better in this field, as its subordination to Russia and Iran have left it no space for independence.
The stopping of the bombings and destruction and sieges and the release of prisoners and kidnapped and the returned of the displaced are essential demands and a political window for the masses to catch their breath and reorganize themselves and their popular movement for liberation from every tyranny and exploitation, and to end the ruling junta and the evacuation of all foreign and sectarian military forces from our country and the building of a Syria free and democratic and equal and socially just for all its citizens regardless of racial or sexual or religious orientation.
Despite that, the popular democratic and leftist revolutionary forces must mobilize in a unified front to achieve the aforementioned goals of the revolution, and to redraw the balances in favor of the Syrian people after the great sacrifices they paid for their freedom.
The revolution is not done, but we are in a phase of notable advance for the multiparty counterrevolution, and the absence of a revolutionary alternative that is popular and democratic and social, if continued, will mean that the future of our country, and for a long time, will be determined by these forces hostile to the revolution.
The obligations of the Revolutionary Socialists in our country now include the building of a socialist labor party by participating in all fields of struggle, and the mobilizing of our forces and the building of a untied front, and the engagement in the struggle of the masses to reorganize themselves, and the continuation of the struggle to overthrow the junta regime and all forms of tyranny and exploitation, and for the independence of our people’s will from the tutelage of all imperialist and regional forces. It is a political and democratic and social struggle for national liberation.
No to Washington and No to Moscow
No to Tehran and No to Riyadh and No to Ankara
No to ISIS and No to Nusra and its likes and No to Assad
All power and resources to the people’s
Syrian Revolutionary Left Current
18 March, 2017
