By Fabio Bosco
On December 8, the escape of dictator Bashar el-Assad and his family to Moscow was announced. The fall of the dictatorship was commemorated across the country and by Syrian refugee communities around the world. Many Palestinians in Gaza and al-Quds (Jerusalem) also celebrated the fall of the dictator, as did the Lebanese population in Trablous (Tripoli), Lebanon’s second largest city. The Syrian revolution has shown that tyrannies are not eternal and that the working class must fight to overthrow them.
Assad’s dictatorship lasted 54 years and was based on the repression, torture and murder of every dissident. This hated regime has killed more than half a million Syrians as the revolution began 13 years ago.
In recent years,the country has fallen into an economic depression in which 90% of the population lives in poverty and under a constant and humiliating siege by regime-linked militias and militias aligned with the Iranian regime.
This combination of brutal repression and misery has undermined the social foundations of the regime among the Christian, Alawite and Druze population, called “minorities”. The majority of the syrian population is Sunni and has been against the regime since the start of the revolution in 2011.
The offensive of rebel groups led by HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – Organization for the Liberation of the Levant) in Aleppo lit the spark of popular revolt and led to the overthrow of the Syrian dictatorship. This triumph is viewed sympathetically by workers throughout the Arab world who also live under tyrannies.
It is indeed estimated that the rebels began the offensive with around 20,000 fighters from Idlib,in the north of the country. Most of them are young adults whose families have been displaced by Assad’s criminal attacks over the past 13 years. This majority is linked to the interests of refugee families, the return to their homes, and not to the sectarian ideologies of the leaders.
Taking every city, the rebels opened jails and prisons and freed thousands of political prisoners, opposed any retaliation against minorities (christians, Alawites, druze and Kurds), tried to restore the supply of bread and electricity and create a kind of management. In this way they gained much popularity and new memberships, strengthening ties with popular interests.
In the south of the country the progress was different. In the absence of an organized and armed group, the population relaunched experiences of self-organization, took police stations and checkpoints and set off towards Damascus, liberating Deraa, Suweida and quneitra until reaching Daraya, south of the capital.
In the east,a Syrian militia aligned with the Jordanian regime took Tadmor (Palmyra),while the official forces fled. Across the country, soldiers exchanged their uniforms for civilian clothes.
This mixture of militias and popular uprisings with elements of self-organization has imposed a series of democratic freedoms, the release of political prisoners, the return of refugees, guarantees for minority communities, which are crucial achievements and which promptly make the success of a turning point Bonapartist by the HTS.
But every democratic conquest is always threatened with regression within the capitalist system, even more so if we take into account that the main rebel group is the HTS which, in addition to defending a capitalist market economic model, has an autocratic tradition.
After the fall of Assad, several countries issued statements criticizing the old regime and not wanting to see it defeated.
From the beginning of the offensive on Aleppo,from Washington to Moscow,no imperialist country wanted the fall of Assad. The United States and its Arab League allies have pressured the Syrian regime to distance itself from Iran. They considered Assad’s stay as a guarantee against any popular revolution that could destabilize American interests and regimes in the region.
The State of Israel also preferred Assad to remain,a weak government that never fired a shot against Israel and was distancing itself from the Iranian regime due to pressure from the Arab League. Because of this very reason,Israel moved troops to the border with Syria and,after the fall of Assad,bombed Syrian ammunition depots
Only three countries supported the offensive. The Turkish regime gave the green light to the offensive, which it hoped would only cover some rural areas of Aleppo. Qatar has always maintained some material support. And, according to reports in the Ukrainian press, the Ukrainian regime passed on the technical no-how[know-how] for the production of low-cost drones.
The advance of the rebels and the popular uprisings meant that the end of the Assad regime was now very close.
Thus, in Doha, Qatar, representatives of the russian, iranian and Turkish regimes met on the 7th and defined the “end of hostilities” and the “dialog between the government and the legitimate opposition”. (1)
In practice,this policy was implemented with the escape of the dictator Assad into exile in Russia and the retention of the Assadist prime minister al-Jalali,responsible for leading the soldiers until the end of the “hostilities” and maintaining the functioning of the state apparatus system.
The president of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), Hadi al-Bahra, explained that a peaceful transition has been negotiated, with the formation of a transitional government to draft a new constitution and hold free elections within 18 months. (2)
Furthermore, al-Bahra spoke of national unity that includes all segments and ethnicities. As for the SDF Kurds, al-Bahra said they must break with the PKK to integrate the “national dialogue.”
The proposals explained by al-Bahra seek to limit the results of the revolution.
the release of political prisoners, democratic freedoms that guarantee the safe return of refugees and security guarantees for minority religious sectors (which must be guaranteed on the coast, where the rebel militias head) are important but insufficient steps.
On the one hand,al-Bahra’s proposals maintain the institutions of the old regime,in particular the 18 secret services responsible for 54 years of brutal repression.The leaders of thes centers of prison, torture and extermination fled before the advance of the revolution. But these secret services must be dismantled, their leaders imprisoned and their files handed over to human rights organizations and revolutionary forces, so that they can investigate all the crimes of the dictatorship.
Conversely, they set up a transitional government to draft a new constitution, without any popular participation. The prime minister of the transitional government will be Al-Bashir, one of the members of the HTS government in Idlib. A transitional government should be formed exclusively by revolutionary forces to hold, in a short period, free elections for a free and sovereign Constituent Assembly, to which power should be handed over.
Nothing was said about the immediate withdrawal of all foreign military forces (900 American military advisors and external companies in the northeast of the country, Russian military bases on the coast, Turkish troops on the northern border and Israeli troops on the Golan Heights).
There was not even any mention of millionaires like Rami Makhlouf, who became rich thanks to the brutal repression against the Syrian people. It is necesary to nationalize the assets of these millionaires and put them at the service of the reconstruction of the country.
The right of the Kurdish people to self-determination has been denied and transformed into a demand for a political break with the PKK (Kurdish party operating in Bakur, a Kurdish majority area of Turkey). Worse still, the forces of the Jeish al-Wattani (National Army, aligned with the Turkish regime) advanced towards Manbij and signaled a new advance towards Raqqa, besieging the Kurdish population in Rojava.
The fight against genocide in Gaza and the West Bank is at the center of global attention. HTS provided political support to the Palestinian resistance action on 7 October 2023, led by Hamas.
Syrians held several demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians in the rebellious HTS-ruled province of Idlib. In other areas of Syria there were no demonstrations because they were banned by the assad dictatorship.
The Zionist state has advanced even further into Syrian territory, as well as bombing weapons depots and secret service headquarters to weaken the new government.
It is necessary for the new transitional government to announce its unconditional support for the Palestinian resistance and adopt all possible measures to prevent the Zionist advance.
We need a revolutionary party
As the beginning of the Syrian revolution in 2011, the Syrian Communist Party (whether the wing led by Khaled Bakdash, or the wing led by Youssef Faisal, or even Kadri Jamil’s Party of Popular Will) has always supported the Syrian dictatorship, ensuring it occupy ministerial positions in the government and defame the forces of the revolution.
In the history of Syria there have been important efforts to form truly revolutionary marxist parties, such as the Communist Party of Labor (which had a strong Trotskyist wing led by the revolutionary Munif Mulhem, who was imprisoned in abject conditions for 16 years, from 1981 to 1997), as well as the Palestinian revolutionary salameh Keilah (imprisoned and tortured by the Syrian dictatorship for eight years) who formed the Left Coalition. Syria at the beginning of the revolution in 2011. Though, these organizations failed to survive the repression of the dictatorial regime.
But the general secretary of the Turkish communist Party (TKP) denounced the Arab revolutions as part of imperialist plans and defended Assad’s dictatorship for leading the resistance against these plans and against the jihadist danger, together with Russia and Iran.
These left-wing sectors, especially those of Stalinist origin, defend the Assad regime in the same way they defend other dictatorial capitalist regimes such as the Chinese, Russian, Iranian, Cuban and Venezuelan ones. In practice, these sectors change the socialist outlook of the class struggle with the perspective of the progressive imperialist camps, which has nothing to do with Marxism or the defense of the interests of the working class.
A revolutionary position begins with the recognition of the victory of the masses, which is represented by the fall of the dictatorship. But this can only be completed with a policy of class independence and the struggle for workers’ power and socialism.
The victory of the Syrian revolution will continue only with the formation of a revolutionary party that rejects conciliation with the old regime,promotes the formation of workers’ and popular councils in all neighborhoods and cities and calls for the immediate departure of all foreign military forces stands in favor of the nationalization of millionaires’ assets,which defends the right of the Kurds to self-determination and unconditional solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Translation: Natalia Estrada.
How can accountability and justice be achieved for human rights violations in Syria’s political transition?
And aspirations of the Kurdish population have been marginalized in this transitional framework, which threatens to further fracture the already tenuous relationships among the diverse ethnic and religious communities within Syria.
Furthermore, the proposed transitional framework overlooks the urgent need for accountability and justice. The rampant human rights violations perpetrated by the Assad regime and associated entities cannot simply be swept under the rug through diplomatic negotiations. The demand for truth and justice must be at the forefront of any meaningful transition. Victims and their families deserve recognition, and perpetrators of crimes against humanity should face prosecution.
international involvement should also be scrutinized.The presence of foreign military forces has complex the path towards a sovereign and unified Syria. A genuine resolution requires the withdrawal of all foreign troops and an end to external interference in the country’s internal affairs. Sovereignty, after all, cannot be fully realized under the shadow of foreign influence.
The way forward must be grounded in grassroots mobilization, prioritizing the voices of the Syrian people, including women and marginalized groups, in political processes. This local empowerment is essential to ensure that the post-Assad Syria truly reflects the will of its diverse populace rather than being shaped by elite negotiations behind closed doors.
while recent developments signal a potential shift in Syria’s political landscape following the fall of Assad, the risks of reverting back to old structures and power dynamics loom large. Sustainability of any future democratic aspirations hinges on dismantling the remnants of the dictatorship, establishing accountability, ensuring participation from all segments of society, and securing the right to self-determination for all communities—most importantly for the Kurds. It is only through such complete measures that Syria can hope to embark on a renewed journey towards genuine freedom,justice,and social equity.
