Bashar al-Assad, Perpetrator of Crimes Against Humanity, has been Overthrown – but Regime’s Repressive Apparatus Remains in Place!
Editors’ note: The following was posted in Farsi at cpimlm.org. It was translated into English by revcom.us volunteers. Bracketed words and phrases are added by translators for clarification.
With the fall of [Bashar al-Assad’s] regime in Syria, the doors of Saydnaya Prison and its other dungeons were thrown open – the dungeons where thousands spent their youth and grew old, where brave and honorable people who stood with their people and against this evil regime died, where their bones lie buried, where children were born who never saw the light of day. [Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatolleh Ali] Khamenei and his Quds Force [[۱]] must be put on trial for their complicity with this brutal regime and for what its diplomatic leaders describe as their “advisory presence.”
However, the regime of Bashar al-Assad was not overthrown because of its crimes against the Syrian people. The Assad regime was overthrown in the context of the decisive changes in the geopolitics of the Middle East, which began with the genocidal Israeli-American war in Gaza and spread to Lebanon, placing Iran more and more at the mercy of Israel and U.S. imperialism. The overthrow of the Assad regime is a pivotal juncture in the 12-year Syrian civil war.
On one side of this civil war were Russian imperialism and its partner, the Islamic Republic of Iran [IRI] and the proxies of the “Axis of Resistance”. On the other side were U.S. imperialism (and NATO), Israel and Turkey, along with their proxies – the Islamists of “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” [HTS] (which is supported by U.S. and Israeli imperialism), and the “Syrian Patriotic Army” (which is under the direct command of the Turkish army and security organization). (The U.S. itself has put these proxies on their “terrorist” list). Israel’s earlier strikes on Hezbollah and other proxies of the “Axis of Resistance” in Syria, in addition to the constant bombing of Syria throughout October and November 2024, paved the way for HTS to advance towards Aleppo (Syria’s largest city and commercial hub). The overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime is a major victory for the U.S., Israel, and Turkey, and a major defeat for the IRI and Russia.
The excitement of the Syrian people, who have been under the yoke of the Assad family[۲] for more than half a century, is completely understandable, especially when prison doors are being torn open and refugees of this civil war are returning to their cities and homes from other parts of Syria and from Turkey.
However, there is not a single liberating element to this transfer of power. Since its inception, the survival of the “Syrian Arab Republic” and its institutions has been based on the execution and torture of dissidents, the murder of intellectuals, of workers, the brutal repression of the Kurdish and other non-Alawite peoples of Syria. [[۳]] This state apparatus is still in place, and has now been handed over to the new reactionaries. The “transitional government”, backed by these regime institutions, declared martial law in the first hours after the overthrow of Assad. One of the first actions of the Syrian National Army was an attack on the [Kurdish] territories that since 2016 had been in the hands of the “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF), led by the YPG and the PKK.[[۴]] The Syrian National Army is carrying out this crime without any pretext, and with the support of the Turkish army.
Given that the main driving force behind the continuation of the Syrian civil war has been the global competition between the imperialist powers to shape the geopolitics of the Middle East according to their interests, it is likely that Syria will continue to be a haven for Islamist proxy armies, occupation, and the movement of military and security forces affiliated with both sides. This situation will continue, and more reactionary wars will engulf the people of the Middle East, unless movements against imperialist and proxy wars, occupation, and genocide arise in key parts of the Middle East, such as in Iran and Turkey, and Syria itself, and confront all the reactionary governments of the region and the imperialist powers that have turned the Middle East into a battlefield of endless and destructive wars.
Dirty Wars through Proxy Armies
Syria’s civil war over the past 12 years has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced half of Syria’s population, 4 million of whom are still inside Syria and living in tent cities in poverty and deprivation. Islamist factions are recruiting armed mercenaries from among the impoverished and displaced population in Turkey (including from Syrian, Uzbek and Uyghur etc. refugees) – just as the [IRI’s] Quds Force has recruited Afghan refugees into its Fatemiyoun Brigade. Turkey, through a private military-security company led by radical Islamist generals from the ruling Justice and Development Party, has been recruiting and arming [refugees] into proxy groups that pay [its soldiers] $40-50 a month. [[۵]] And, just as the Quds Force, under the pretense of “defending the shrine,” seeks ideological legitimacy for its mercenary armies, this Turkish military company (called “Sadat”) has declared its goal to establish a “united Islamic state” for its “blessed military missions” in Syria, Sudan, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, etc.[[۶]]
The Failure of the Spontaneous Uprising of the Syrian People in 2011
The current situation is the result of the failure of the spontaneous uprising of March 15, 2011 in Syria. The defeat of that movement was another chapter of what has been repeated too often: the masses of the people rise up and give their lives to challenge their despotic and corrupt rulers, but again and again, they get sidelined, and all kinds of reactionary and anti-popular forces take the field and take over the political scene in their name, and in the name of revolution.
The 2011 uprising against the regime of Bashar al-Assad began in the southern city of Daraa (with the arrest of two young men for writing slogans on a wall). Uprising spread throughout the country, and the main demands of the people were the overthrow of the regime and changes to the constitution. The army confronted the people with artillery and tanks. Thousands of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards[[۷]] played an active role in the bloody repression of the people. In some demonstrations, pictures of [IRI Supreme Leader] Khamenei and [then IRI president] Ahmadinejad were burned along with pictures of Bashar al-Assad.
This uprising was inspired by the “Arab Spring” uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt and was a response to the immeasurable suffering the Baathist regime of Assad had inflicted on the people since the 1970s. Under this regime, 15 years in prison for any political opponent was the norm. The Kurds were severely repressed, and hundreds of thousands of Kurds [who lived in Syria] were not even considered citizens. [[۸]] When a dam was built on the Euphrates River in the 1970s, the Baathist regime evicted Kurdish farmers in the northeast of the country from their lands and gave the better lands to Arab farmers (a policy known as Arab-ization). In 2004, a major uprising against these injustices took place in the city of Qamishli, which was brutally suppressed by the Assad regime. The class gap in Syria is such that a handful live like the wealthy of Europe, while the majority lives below the poverty line….
The crimes of the regime of Assad and his father reached beyond Syria’s borders. In the 1970s, Hafez Assad crushed the section of the Palestinian movement that was concentrated in Lebanon. In the 1980s, Syria, in alliance with pro-Israeli forces in Lebanon and forces supporting the Islamic Republic, dealt severe blows to the Palestinian resistance movement in Lebanon. In 1991, Syria joined the US war coalition against Iraq. In 1998, it entered into the “Adana Agreement” with the Turkish government, and according to its provisions, he expelled PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan from Syria so that Turkish security forces could arrest him. After the Bush administration’s “war on terror” began (October 2001), the CIA handed over some international “suspects” to the Syrian security agency for torture and harsh interrogations [in so-called “black sites] that continued for years after they were arrested.
U.S. imperialism under the Obama presidency did not take a stand against Bashar al-Assad for five months [after the 2011 uprising began]. However, as the people’s movement against Assad’s artillery and tanks continued and expanded, it shifted from a neutral stance to one of active intervention to set an example of “leadership” and provide a “road map” to the people’s movement. At the same time, the imperialists of China and Russia began to “support” the IRI and the Assad regime, and assumed the role of “godfathers” in international rivalries. In close alliance with the Turkish and British military and the NIT/[Turkey’s] National Security Agency, the U.S. military began to build an “opposition” along the Syrian border. Military personnel who had gained experience in Libya during the overthrow of Gaddafi for example, members of the Tripoli Battalion, a NATO-trained military force that took part in the capture of the Libyan capital [[۹]] – were used to train “Syrian rebels.” At the same time, the Turkish government, on behalf of NATO, declared itself the guardian of the Syrian opposition, and opened its border to Syrian refugees. Its security apparatus initially organized an entity called the Free Syrian Army (FSA) from generals and soldiers who had deserted from Assad’s army. Over time, though, these were sidelined and Sunni Islamist proxies were formed. At the same time, Syrian Salafi sheikhs [religious leaders of an Islamist Sunni fundamentalist sect] based in the Gulf countries issued “fatwas” against Assad on Saudi television.
Thus, the scavengers fell on the people’s movement in order to eat the fruits of the enormous sacrifices of the masses of the people, from workers, peasants, women, Kurds, and intellectuals, to employees, nurses, doctors, human rights activists, and bloggers. Islamists from various groups and sects quickly invaded regions, neighborhoods, and cities and imposed their “leadership.” Despite their differences, this heterogeneous assortment of groups all served the covert operations of Western imperialists, the Gulf states, Turkey, and NATO to marginalize the population and impose a terrible future on Syria.
Why did this happen? Where were the progressive intellectuals of the people?
In Iran, Syria, and other Arab countries, the ruling regimes have always paid lip service to “revolution,” “independence from imperialism,” and “freedom,” while they tightened the yoke of oppression and exploitation on the people and suppressed various movements of the people, especially the [revolutionary] communist movement. Whether they are secular “republics,” such as the Syrian Arab Republic and the Republic of Turkey, or Islamists such as the IRI, they all represent the domestic exploiting classes that are dependent on the imperialist capitalist system. Even when Islamists, of whatever kind, are not in power, their outlook, program and ideology are deeply opposed to the interests and rights of workers, peasants, intellectuals and oppressed nations, especially against the freedom and equality of women.
In the Syrian civil war, the formation of the Kobani autonomous region [in Kurdish area of northern Syria] under the leadership of the YPG and PKK has been hailed as a different path. However, despite the essential difference between them and the Islamist proxies, the path they are on is in fact a detour leading in the opposite direction from the goals they say they are fighting for. This detour is entirely based on the pragmatic policy of relying on the support of the U.S. and Israeli armies, and for this reason, a policy such as this can never overcome the reactionary dynamics prevailing in the Syrian civil war and create a fundamentally different and liberating force for the people of Rojava [Kurdish name for Western Kurdistan] and all of Syria. They claim to be different from the past leaders of Kurdish nationalist movements, but their policy is ultimately the same. The leaders of the feudal and bourgeois Kurdish parties have always used the policy of “realpolitik,” which today has taken the specific form of being “proxies” for the great powers. They consider the principle of self-reliance – which has been one of the inviolable principles of revolutionary movements – to be an “infantile” policy, and reliance on the reactionary governments of the region and the imperialists to be “tactical genius.” This pragmatism has paved the way for the transformation of people’s movements to become “poker chips” and “chess pieces” in the big and small political games of this region, and has formed a hierarchy of “godfathers” and their “clients.” Such policies must be rooted out of the people’s movements in this region. The people’s movements must return to the strategy of uniting masses of people on the basis of their deepest interests and rights, against their common enemies, based on the principle of demarcating themselves from all imperialist and reactionary powers. Realizing this vital task is not possible unless there is an organized solid core of revolutionary communists whose organizing is rooted in the new communism (which is a synthesis [and development of] the experience of all the revolutions and movements of the past hundred years, from the socialist revolutions to the national and anti-colonial movements).
The masses of the people will rise up to resist the suffering and horrors produced by the capitalist-imperialist system (including the domestic capitalist classes and ruling regimes), but they lack a leadership whose program and plan is to do away with this whole socio-economic system. The repetition of this situation proves for the thousandth time the absurd, reactionary, and dangerous nature of the theory of “leaderless movements.” No fighter or activist should be intimidated by this nonsense. We need leadership – a revolutionary communist leadership based on the new communism.
The Overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s Regime is an Earthquake for the IRI
The lightning-fast fall of the Assad regime is a new earthquake for the IRI. This earthquake has exacerbated the conflicts within the IRI’s government and emboldened the disaffected masses. Undoubtedly, this opportunity must be used to push back the IRI on a variety of fronts: especially for the immediate abolition of executions and the unconditional release all political prisoners (in the 217 prisons [operated by] the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s [IRGC] intelligence service, the judiciary, the Ministry of Intelligence, the police force, [as well as] the secret IRGC prisons in Sanandaj, Urmia, Kermanshah, Zahedan, etc.); open all these prisons to [inspection by] domestic and international human rights institutions; immediately meet the demands of the “No Death Penalty Tuesdays” Campaign[۱۰]; and the immediate repeal of all laws related to the compulsory hijab. It cannot be ignored that this underlies all current demands and there should be no compromise. Students and universities must become centers of activity for these nationwide demands.
The political, moral, and strategic principle in this situation is that our people, including workers, intellectuals, women, and peoples of oppressed nations in Iran, should be made aware that no matter where we are killed or displaced, whether in Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Ukraine, or anywhere else, we are the people of a single world. In no part of the world should we allow people to be cast into the meat grinder of the imperialist capitalist system and kill or be killed to serve the interests of “domestic” and “foreign” imperialist regimes.
The driving force of turmoil in the Middle East is the intensification of the fundamental contradiction of the global capitalist system. In other words, the existing situation – in which on the one side is the production of all the world’s wealth by billions of people, while the appropriation and control of this wealth, how it is produced and consumed is on the other side of the equation, and in the hands of a parasitic minority that holds political power – is no longer sustainable. In particular, this parasitic minority does not spare any effort to mantain this equation through the use of technology that is designed to kill and destroy. This level of cruelty in destruction and killing is not related to the “individual characteristics” of this or that ruler, but rather is related to the essential nature of the capitalist system. The criminal rulers are the embodiment and product of that system. At a macro level, the ultimate solution will be determined by the fate of the two poles – imperialism and proletarian revolution. This fact shows that any “solution” short of socialist revolution will make the situation even more terrible for the whole world.
For this reason, in the present situation, the basic and decisive policy that can pave the way for the real solution, i.e., the proletarian/socialist revolution, is to make a clear distinction between the political-ideological and socio-economic alternative of this proletarian/socialist revolution from everything that prevails in the world today. As a result, anyone who is serious about breaking the vicious cycle of “reaction, reaction, and again reaction” to benefit the people of Iran, the Middle East, and the world, should consider it their duty to champion and promote the alternative that is laid out with detail and clarity in the Constitution of the New Socialist Republic of Iran, and to organize a movement for the revolution around making such a society a reality. The situation around the world has reached a point where, in the words of [revolutionary leader] Bob Avakian, humanity is at a decisive crossroads: a truly terrible future with the continuation of the status quo, or a truly emancipatory one, with the overthrow of the existing system through a communist revolution to establish socialism wherever possible and as quickly as possible. Let’s not waste time with illusions and dead-end paths.
Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)
December 11, 2024
[۱] [The Quds Force is a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp [IRGC] specializing in covert military actions, and operated military bases inside Syria, some with their own prisons. The Quds Force “advises” non-state actors that were part of Iran’s reactionary “Axis of Resistance,” including Shia militias in Syria and Iraq, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi movement in Yemen, and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.]
[۲] [The Assad family had ruled Syria since the 1970s. Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafez al-Assad became president under the Ba’ath Party following a coup in 1970. After Hafez’s death in 2000, Bashar succeeded his father as president. Ba’ath parties began in Arab countries during the 20th century as an ecletic mix of Arab nationalism, pan-Arab ambitions, and “Arab socialism.” By the 1970s, the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party – Syria Region had become a thoroughly fascist political party, and client of the USSR, (which by then that had become social imperialist — socialist in words, imperialist in deeds– and ultimately dropped the pretence of socialism in 1991, becoming the “Russian Federation” of today.]
[۳] [The Assad family was a member of the Alawite minority in Syria. Alawites are an Arab minority that, practice a Shi’ia interpretation of Islam, similar to that of the IRI. Though Alawites make up only 10-13% of the Syrian population, they dominated positions of authority and wealth under the Assad regime.]
[۴] In the first days of the HTS’ takeover of Aleppo, they captured the YPG camp in Tal Rifaat, and on December 9, the Syrian National Army took the city of Manbij. [The YPG, is the Kurdish acronym for People’s Defense Units. PKK, is the acronym for the Kurdish Workers’ Party, a nationalist Kurdish political party and armed guerilla movement…] In this way, [Turkey’s president] Erdogan achieved the goal he had unleashed on the Rojava during the past few years of brutal air and ground killings and made the so-called border corridor more integrated. [Rojava is the Kurdish region in the northeast of Syria.] In 2014, ISIS forces attacked the city, and finally in 2016, the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) retook it and became part of the autonomous region of northern and western Syria. In an agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Assad’s army was deployed in the buffer zone between the Turkish army in northern Syria and the city.
[۵] Leaving Syria’s civil war to be a mercenary in Africa, 16 July 2024—BBC Arabic World Service news
[۶] This military wing is specifically made up of Islamist generals of the Turkish army, who say that their goal is to achieve “Islamic unity” which will be achieved with the “advent of Imam Mahdi, but before that, it is the duty of Muslims to prepare the ground for the reappearance and preparation for the unity afterwards.” The company is abbreviated as SADAT, and its founder is a member of [Turkey’s president] Erdoğan’s National Security Council. [The “advent of Imam Mahdi” is a belief held by messianic traditions in Islam that prophesies that this spiritual leader will appear when the world is in turmoil and corruption, and will bring a time of peace and righteousness.]
[۷] [For more on how nothing about Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) is revolutionary, and nothing about the IRI’s “Axis of Resistance” is anti-imperialist, see the talk by the “What is the Islamic Republic of Iran?” by Lili Babeyi at Webinar hosted by the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners Now in on August 10, 2024. ]
[۸] In the 1960s, the Syrian Ba’ath regime deprived hundreds of thousands of Kurds of their right to citizenship.
[۹] December 23, 2011, Figaro.
[۱۰] .[[For more on the IRI’s wave of Executions, the Prisoners’ No to Execution Hunger Strikes, and the new forced hijab laws, see https://revcom.us/en/political-prisoners-issue-bold-and-timely-call-people, https://revcom.us/en/broad-condemnation-irans-chastity-and-hijab-law-narges-mohammadi-leaves-evin-defiant-and-hijab-free. ]]