/ CLASS WAR / We present here a short contribution from a group of comrades in Iran about the recent events in Syria. These comrades, who call themselves “Anti-Capitalist Workers”, publish the blog “Against Capital”, and we recently opened our columns to them when we published our bulletin on the important class struggles in Iran in 2022 (see our bulletin n°15).
/ CLASS WAR / We present here a short contribution from a group of comrades in Iran about the recent events in Syria. These comrades, who call themselves “Anti-Capitalist Workers”, publish the blog “Against Capital”, and we recently opened our columns to them when we published our bulletin on the important class struggles in Iran in 2022 (see our bulletin n°15).
One of the points made in the text that we particularly appreciated (in addition to the reminders to the primacy of class struggle, and to the abolition of wage slavery, capital and the State, the rejection of the electoral circus, the criticism of political parties and trade unions…) was the denial of the particularisms that segment and divide the proletarian population – our class! – into various communities and identities, and thus the reaffirmation of internationalism:
“A major axis of deception, brainwashing, and misguidance practiced by both right-wing and left-wing bourgeois media globally is the narrative that Syria is a country made up of Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Turkmen, Yazidis, Muslims, Christians, Alawites, Jews, and Sunnis!! This is the deadliest drug or poison historically injected into human consciousness by dominant classes, their governments, and—countless times over—by the capitalist system with its massive forces of coercion. It aims to destroy the unified social existence of workers and the foundation of their united struggle for liberation, turning them against one another and preventing their radical and united fight against the real roots of exploitation, oppression, and misery.”
This criticism of the comrades from Iran is fully in line with what we said a few years ago when we reviewed the myths and impostures developed by the worshippers of the so-called “Rojava Revolution” (see our bulletin n°13):
“What matters to us, we as revolutionary proletarians, communist militants, or anarchist ones (beyond labels), it’s not what “differentiates” us, it’s not our “singularity”, the fact that we are “Czech” or “French” or “British” or “American” while others are “Kurdish” or “Assyrian” or “Chaldean” or “Sunni” or “Shia”, etc. What is important on the contrary is what unifies us as a human and militant community against the global and universal dictatorship of Capital which materializes for all of us through exploitation, alienation, commoditization of our bodies and our lives, misery, war, death… What matters for us is to display very clearly our contempt for all national community, community of citizens, people’s community, for all democratic community in the deep sense of what democracy is, i.e. not a simple form (parliamentary democracy, “workers’” democracy or direct democracy, cantonal or municipal democracy, etc.) but rather the essence of capitalism and therefore the negation of class antagonism and the dilution of the proletariat (revolutionary class) into this bourgeois entity that is the People, the Nation and ultimately the State. What matters above all is the fact that we are, or become, brothers and sisters of misery and exploitation, brothers and sisters of revolution; and that we recognize it consciously.
Humanity has been separated from itself, from the nature, from its activity and its production, to be turned into slaves, serfs and modern proletarians. Mankind is separated from their genuine human community and they are linked as a multi-“something” false community: multiethnic, multicultural, multinational… Internationalism is not the addition of various or even different nationalisms or all nationalisms, but on the contrary its complete and accomplished negation…”
So what, “order reigns in Damascus”!? to paraphrase Rosa Luxembourg… In a way, we’d tend to say “yes”! The fall of Bashar and his Baathist regime, which had reigned for six decades with mass murder, torture, rape, arrests and centuries of imprisonment imposed on all those who dared to raise their heads a little… the disappearance of this much-hated clique of capitalist managers in favor of another, “cleaner” (sic), less discredited (sic) faction, pushed forward or at least tolerated by a large panel of the party of the world capitalist order (USA, EU, Turkey, Israel, petro-monarchies…), it all looks very much like, if not a gendarmerie operation to suppress the direct action of our class, at least an operation to maintain order or to restore order in the “Syrian chaos”… even if capitalist order fits also very well with a certain amount of disorder and destabilization…
But we would also tend to answer “no”, in the sense that, at the highest level of abstraction, revolution feeds on the rottenness of counter-revolution, and is thus enriched by the confrontation between two classes, two projects, two worlds… These last events could have a tendency to reactivate the social dynamics that have been slumbering for some years now. The embers of the 2011 revolt are still hot and are just waiting to reignite a material that is as flammable as ever: the social contradictions that counterpose classes with antagonistic interests… Just watch the videos from Syria, all these shining faces of human beings, proletarians, who sing, who dance, who are partying, on the public squares of the towns, districts and villages liberated from the yoke of the Baathist torturers, while the new police force (that of HTS) has not yet really imposed itself, or at least has not yet stifled these cries of joy and shouts of struggle…
We would also like to point out here that the struggles of our class are certainly not absent from these events (even if very little, too little information reaches us in this regard): some have spoken of “solidarity demonstrations” in southern Syria at the time of the fall of the city of Aleppo, of “popular uprisings” which would have taken place in parallel to the advance of HTS on Damascus, mainly around the rebel town of Suwayda…
And finally, let’s remember that after years of silence our class raised its head on various occasions in 2019, 2022 and 2024 in the governorate of Idlib, which was ruled and managed with an iron fist precisely by the HTS clique now in power in Damascus, that our class organized demonstrations there against the high cost of living, against shortages, against repression… confronting the henchmen of the Islamist militias.
Let’s also remember that since 2023, numerous and sometimes violent demonstrations have broken out in Suwayda – the said “uprising of Dignity” –, here against Bashar’s regime, accompanied with strikes, occupation of public buildings, road blockades, etc., and that none of this can be attributed to any particular local specificity: here belonging to the “Druze community”, there to the “Sunni community”, etc. ad nauseam!
And now it’s time for our “Anti-Capitalist Workers” comrades…
CW.
The Assad regime has fallen, and the fundamental question is: What has been achieved? What has happened? The mainstream media worldwide respond that “Syrians” everywhere, inside and outside the country, are celebrating. They see the fall of a long-standing brutal government as their victory, pin their hopes on a better future, and await miracles from the new rulers!! The right-wing and left-wing bourgeois opposition, and perhaps even some workers in Iran, are also celebrating, thinking these events are sufficiently fortunate. “The Islamic Republic has lost its strategic depth,” its influence in the Middle East has waned, its 45-year achievements in the region have evaporated, Assad has fled, Nasrallah is dead, Soleimani has been assassinated, Hezbollah is collapsing – the list is long. But the central question is: What is the real meaning of these events? What has fallen? What has replaced it? Where do the vast masses of Syrian workers, the poor, homeless, and refugees stand in this story? Who are the victors? Whose war machine has achieved these astonishing victories? What are they planning to do, and what is their current and future agenda for the millions of Syrian workers??
One thing is clear: the Syrian bourgeoisie, which was in opposition until yesterday, is now on the verge of coronation and acquiring enormous shares of profit, ownership, power, and governance. Their Iranian class peers—whether like-minded or otherwise—who have been in opposition solely to achieve similar dreams, see the weakening of the Islamic Republic, the collapse of its strongholds in the Middle East, and the shaking ground beneath its feet as signs of their own “Tahrir al-Sham-style” victory and rising fortune. Their case is clear, but the discussion is not about them; it is about the Syrian, Iranian, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Palestinian working masses—a massive force of hundreds of millions that must consciously and vigilantly examine the unfolding events. Otherwise, their celebrations will end in the same fate as their comrades in Libya, Egypt, Iran (after the rise of the murderous Islamic regime), and elsewhere.
The most straightforward statement of what has happened so far is this: In Syria, a brutal capitalist regime has fallen, and another regime—equally brutal, genocidal, and perhaps even more vicious—is preparing to take power. At the same time, the anti-human capitalist Islamic Republic has been significantly weakened, while the genocidal states of Israel, Turkey, and the United States have raised their victory flags. Netanyahu, pointing to the graveyards and ruins caused by the Gaza Holocaust, his barbarities in Lebanon, and the lethal blows he has inflicted on the Islamic regime, proudly boasts about his “legal reward” and “sovereign honor,” holding up the medals of support given to him by the world’s ruling capitalist powers. He sees himself as the “commander of Qadisiyyah” of the century, the region, and the world. Erdogan considers the establishment of his mercenary proxies in parts of Syria as the first step towards reviving Ottoman capitalism. On the back of these achievements, he warns rival states to congratulate him in advance on his future conquests.
All that has happened so far can be summarized in this way. Where in these events is there cause for celebration? A conscious answer to this question is crucial for workers and will open a window toward a deeper understanding of the celebrants.
Some might say that a dictatorial and brutal regime in Syria has fallen and that another regime—perhaps better—is about to take its place. This alone should be welcomed and celebrated for now!! Very well! But the forces known as “Tahrir al-Sham” and the “Syrian National Army” are, firstly—in the best-case scenario—barbaric representatives of the most backward and terrifying parts of the country’s bourgeoisie. Secondly, within their own social existence, they do not even possess such positions or capabilities. They play the role of scavenger puppets. Their lightning victories are not even due to any popular illusion among desperate people.
All these victories are the direct result of the complete collapse of the Assad regime, the end of the Islamic Republic’s dominance, Hezbollah’s fading influence in the region, and the substantial impact of this collapse on Russia’s role on one side, alongside comprehensive support from Israel, Turkey, and the United States for these forces. Discussion about the so-called transformation of Tahrir al-Sham from its Al-Qaeda roots or Jabhat al-Nusra is nothing but a cheap, deceptive analysis aimed at rehabilitating these barbaric forces. Both mafias owe everything they have to the governments of Turkey and the United States. Israel, Turkey, and the United States control all events and are prepared for the most widespread dominance, greed, and pursuit of their long-held ambitions.
Mountains of evidence show that well-known forces, born from ISIS’s womb and nurtured by Turkey, the United States, and their allies, launched their recent uprising with signals from the genocidal Israeli regime and Erdogan’s coordination. This was done with America’s approval, subsequent alignment with Russia, and ultimately ensuring the inevitable retreat of the Islamic Republic. At the same moment, Netanyahu, intoxicated by genocide and conquests, revealed his firm intention to determine the fate of Assad’s hollow regime, even while discussing a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon. He stated that he would accept the ceasefire because it was time to embark on a new confrontation with the Islamic regime. The battleground for this confrontation was undoubtedly Syria, and the goal was to bring an end to Assad’s regime, which had already been shattered in every way.
In this context, Netanyahu also moved forward with the necessary negotiations with Erdogan’s government. At the same time, he tried to convince Russia that the changing balance of power in the region left no prospect for its intervention to secure victory for Assad. He suggested that Russia should pursue its interests by cooperating with Israel. Similarly, he sought to convince the Islamic regime that it would be incapable of achieving anything. All indications point to this reality: the rise of jihadists and new “kings-in-waiting” emerged from this very process. Plans, agreements, advances, and forced retreats have now materialized.
However, the flow of events is not limited to Assad’s fall or the rise of another brutal regime. The partition of Syria and its division among regimes, mafias, and various octopus-like gangs is a serious danger looming over millions of oppressed Syrian workers, who are already exhausted from the crimes of the capitalist wage-slavery system. Reports indicate that more than 80 active armed, human-hating, mercenary groups—funded and controlled by various states, networks, and mafias—are ready to unleash violence on the population in this country.
Israel, which for decades has acted as the sacred darling and custodian of global capital’s military, intellectual, technical, and intelligence arsenals, has now expanded its aggression to seize additional parts of Syria. It has already dismantled the borders between the two countries in the Golan Heights, dismissed UN forces, occupied Syria’s Quneitra province, and is in the process of taking over more territories. Russia has surrendered its two small, ineffective military camps to Israel as part of these transactions. Netanyahu describes these victories as another important link in his 14-month-long chain of Holocaust-like aggressions.
Turkey is establishing its proxy state in Syria to expand its influence to the last possible borders of the Middle East. As the first stage of these conquests, it is launching the most savage attacks and genocidal operations against the vast Kurdish working masses. Meanwhile, the United States, viewing Israel’s regional dominance as its own victory, considers Assad’s fall and Syria’s partition as a decisive success in its rivalry with Putin’s government.
These are the events that have unfolded and are ongoing. As stated, the most fundamental question remains the fate of millions of Syrian, Lebanese, Kurdish, and other workers under the shadow of these events. A complementary question is the role that the working masses of Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere in the world can play within these developments.
In this regard, it is important to highlight several key points.
**1 – A major axis of deception, brainwashing, and misguidance practiced by both right-wing and left-wing bourgeois media globally is the narrative that Syria is a country made up of Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Turkmen, Yazidis, Muslims, Christians, Alawites, Jews, and Sunnis!! This is the deadliest drug or poison historically injected into human consciousness by dominant classes, their governments, and—countless times over—by the capitalist system with its massive forces of coercion. It aims to destroy the unified social existence of workers and the foundation of their united struggle for liberation, turning them against one another and preventing their radical and united fight against the real roots of exploitation, oppression, and misery.
The inhabitants of no country, anywhere in the world, can be divided into a handful of adherents of this religion or that faith, this sect or that ideology, this race or that ethnicity. We all live under the inhumane and criminal capitalist system—a system that has forcibly divided humanity into two fundamentally opposing social classes. Workers constitute 80% of the planet’s population, while the rest are capital owners. This same division applies to Syria and is the only clear, undeniable, and correct categorization.
What unites 80% of Syrian workers is their shared social existence. All of this 80%, despite variations in employment, wages, livelihoods, and welfare, are separated from the product of their labor and deprived of any right to determine the fate of production, work, or their lives. This is the only real defining identity for humanity’s working class—an identity that is the source and driving force of humanity’s modern liberation movement. Capitalism, with all its power of manipulation, propaganda, and brainwashing, tries to use identities like Arab, Kurd, Yazidi, Turk, Turkmen, Sunni, or Alawite as a deadly poison to paralyze and cripple this movement.
The 80% of Syria’s working population must cast off the shackles of ethnicity, language, race, religion, creed, and sect to the depths of history. They must unite as a single social class to fight against capital, the murderous capitalist system, exploitation, oppression, gender apartheid, suppression of freedoms, and all forms of disenfranchisement born from wage slavery. With this unity, they must take to the battlefield as a powerful weapon against this system.
**2 – Every step of this struggle depends on the most powerful, organized, and widespread formation of workers’ councils—a force that stands against power, capital, and every form of capitalist governance and government model. Without a fully conscious, strategic effort in this direction, nothing can be achieved, and no expectation will be realized. Tomorrow will be far too late. Today, we must join hands as quickly, as consciously, as experienced, and as radically as possible. We must establish councils and build a strong anti-capitalist council movement.
**3 – A sinister scenario of deception, orchestrated by the new crown bearers and their supporting states and global allies, will likely involve setting up the “election circus!!” They will call us to the ballot boxes—for what?? To elect the new profiteering savages of profit, power, and ownership as our government, to allow them to cement the capitalist wage-slavery system—the root of all exploitation, poverty, homelessness, lack of healthcare, lack of medicine, lack of education, hunger, poverty, humiliation, and misery. They will use our votes to eternalize our wage-slavery status, intensify our exploitation under the name of capital and capitalists, strip us of any real human freedom under the guise of “choice,” and bombard every drop of our human freedom in the name of fake democracy and liberty.
Our response to their demand must be a categorical rejection of any “election” scenarios. Our answer is that we want to organize ourselves within our councils and establish a powerful anti-wage slavery council movement. We will make councils the platform for the freest, most conscious, most creative, most effective, and most equal participation of all individuals. From within these councils, we will demand control over the fate of our work, production, and lives. Together, we will make collective decisions about what to produce, what not to produce, how much to work, and how to define labor to meet the day’s needs and ultimately eliminate scarcity. We will collectively plan and implement everything.
We are opposed to the establishment of any form of state or government model that places authority over human beings.
**4 – In the process of organizing a council-based anti-capitalist movement, the foundation of our effort must be to take control of our work, production, and lives. We must struggle to reclaim as much of the results of our labor as possible from the blood-soaked claws of the capitalists and direct the cycle of work and production toward meeting real needs and ultimately liberating humanity from deprivation. In this regard, and as the first link in the chain of nationwide struggles, we demand the removal of food, clothing, medicine, healthcare, water, electricity, gas, transportation, and care for the disabled from the capitalist system of monetary and commodity exchange.
**5 – There is no doubt that as soon as we propose any of the above points, the overwhelming armies of right and left-wing opposition—the self-proclaimed liberators of humanity—will swarm like locusts, surrounding us from all sides. Each will cry out, more eloquently, wisely, academically, sociologically, historically, and philosophically than the other, saying: “What nonsense is this??!!! Now is the time to raise the proud banner of democracy, demand the right to form unions, establish parties, enlist in the infantry of the party and union armies, demand freedom of organization, protests, the enactment of shining laws against gender apartheid, and a long list of other scenarios.”
Our response to this group is crystal clear. We will detonate the entire history of the 20th century like a bomb within their consciousness and cry out: “Shame on you for still repeating these words?? Didn’t we do all of this for 150 years? Haven’t you seen the barren wasteland produced by your prescriptions? Look into the eyes of the 4 billion workers worldwide—hungry, deprived of medicine, healthcare, education—humiliated, crushed, subdued, and oppressed. Be ashamed of your black and disastrous record. Get out of our way. We do not need the so-called ‘right to organize’ to be approved for us. We organize ourselves through the power of our struggle. We will not bury our organizations in the graveyard of capitalist order or turn them into weapons of capitalist power. We will build real anti-capitalist councils. From the heights of these anti-capitalist, anti-state, and anti-authority councils, we declare that we will take control of the work, production, and lives that are rightfully ours.”
**6 – The same crowd mentioned above will howl from all sides: “This is Syria, its economy is bankrupt, its industry is ‘dependent’ and ‘underdeveloped,’ its growth is stunted, its productivity is defective, its competitiveness is crippled, and its per capita gross domestic product is minuscule. In such a society, you are talking about removing essential needs and social services like education and healthcare from the capitalist system of monetary and commodity exchange?? This is socialism!! This is utopian thinking!! You are clinging to Plato’s ideals and planning for a Platonic utopia!!!”
Once again, our response is clear: Get out of our way. We do not seek anything beyond the fruits of our labor and production. We are not claiming that we will solve all the problems of modern humanity’s life today, here in the hell of Syria’s devastation and bloodshed. The essence of our demand is simple and pure: We do not want a state ruling over us. We will not allow the product of our labor to become a mountain of capital for trusts, corporations, financial and industrial giants, the state octopus, or the machinery of physical and ideological oppression that rules over us. We know very well how to use the fruits of our labor to meet our needs for sustenance, well-being, and human freedom. We know how to allocate each part of it effectively. We are capable of achieving all this.
We do not consider our victory predetermined or inevitable. To achieve this victory, we will fight—and fight again—ever more consciously, more council-based, and more awake.
Anti-Capitalist Workers, Activists of the Movement for the Abolition of Wage Labor
Source: https://againstwagelabor.com/2024/12/16/syria-war-partition-and-the-fate-of-the-working-masses/
Original in Persian: https://alayhesarmaye.com/2024/12/09/_/5212/
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