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Dynamics of the Syrian Revolution (1)

Part One:

 Independence, class struggle and state capitalism 


[Author’s note: this is the first instalment in a two-part series, Part two looks at how the ciriss unfolded and the challenges of reconstruction, revolution and Kurdish self-determination. It is available now by following this link: https://www.blakdwarf.org/post/dynamics-of-the-syrian-revolution-2 ]





Introduction


Whatever comes next will be better than what came before. Syria has been mired in civil war for thirteen years, in which upward of 500,000 people were killed and even more were displaced. Now for the first time, there’s a real chance the suffering will end. And after fifty years of dictatorship, in which nearly every family knows someone who has been killed or disappeared by the regime, the sense of catharsis among Syrians is profound — even among Assad’s erstwhile social base. 

“Contrary to Assadist propaganda, there have been no massacres and no ethnic cleansing in former regime territories; in fact, Christian neighborhoods have been sites of joyous celebrations. In what are generally dark times around the world, the victory of the Syrian revolution is something every leftist, and indeed every human being, should celebrate

Only now, with the fall of the regime, can the struggle for democracy truly begin.” 


(Anand Gopal, Syria: What Comes After the Despot? , https://jacobin.com/search?query=Syria%3A+What+comes+after+the+despot

 

The Syrian revolution that began with the 2011 mass uprising that was so brutally crushed with the assistance of  Russian imperialism, has now come full circle. Whereas the  Middle East as a whole has been been engulfed by a combination of  Israel’s war drive and  the febrile attempts of the Arab, Turkish and Iranian elites to gain a measure of regional supremacy, the toppling of the Assad regime promises to open a new chapter.  


Without denying or underplaying the fundamental crisis of revolutionary leadership and the conservative character of  the Islamist forces that led the rout of the Assad dictatorship, the entrance of the Syrian masses onto the historical stage has engendered a fresh dynamic whose outcome has yet to be determined. 


It is true that Assad was not toppled by a popular insurrection, but neither was his downfall due solely to the military initiative of a fundamentalist sect. Whilst the 2011 uprising was crushed, it did not put an end to the revolutionary process. This continued in the form of a protracted civil war which, by its very nature, saw the mass movement recede and military force come to the fore.


Without making any direct comparison, some of the greatest revolutions in history - such as the American Civil War and the 1979 Sandinista revolution have followed a similar pattern. Historically, the classic revolutions such as the 1789 French revolution and the October revolution in Russia, have assumed the optimum form of a popular insurrection leading directly to the overthrow of the ruling tyrants. However, probably the greatest architect of revolution, Vladimir Lenin, was the first to warn against schemas being substituted for specific peculiarities.


"To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, without a movement of the politically non-conscious proletarian and semi-proletarian masses against oppression by the landowners, the church, and the monarchy, against national oppression, etc. – to imagine all this is to repudiate social revolution. So one army lines up in one place and says, ‘We are for socialism’, and another, somewhere else and says, ‘We are for imperialism’, and that will be a social revolution! Only those who hold such a ridiculously pedantic view could vilify the Irish rebellion by calling it a ‘putsch’"




Rather than see the fall of Assad either as part of a proxy war or an Islamic military putsch, the victory of the oppostion forces was clearly part of an underlying revolutionary ferment. This was explained in an interview with noteds Iranian scholar, Dr. Asef Bayat.


"I think that the situation in Syria today is, in a complex way, a continuation of the revolutionary uprising that began in 2011..........The war resulted in the deaths of half a million people and the displacement of 14 million. Nevertheless, the Syrian people’s dream of overthrowing Bashar al-Assad’s regime did not disappear. Over the past two years, even as various armed groups (often supported by foreign powers) took control of parts of Syria, popular protests like those in Sweida continued.......................There is no doubt, however, that the current situation has created a relative vacuum in the power structure, which foreign entities such as Israel and Turkey are exploiting to try to create new territorial realities. But this phenomenon is distinct from the historical dynamics that have brought Syria to this point."


The HTS is not a hegemonic force and the vacuum which Bayat refers to has created invalualble space and time for the Syrian working class to advance its interests and impose a different class solution.  From all accounts, the existing transitional government is committed to a new constitution which will enshrine equal rights and respect for different ethnic and religious groupings. The promise of a new constitution to implement that – albeit delayed  –offers  time and space to organise, debate and shape the future.  


This has been accompanied by a series of interim measures indicating a jettisoning  of key Islamist policies regarding pluralism and the participation of women. The newly appointed head of the Women’s Affairs Office, Aisha al-Dibs , says the administration will enable all women from different regions and ethnicities to contribute to the rebuilding of the country, 


“It is known to us all that the Syrian woman, historically, is a highly effective woman, able to lead across all fields. Today, we are in the process of bringing her back to this leading role in building Syria, a new country, the free country we all aspire for,”


Class roots of crisis 

The bewildering array of heterogeneous forces is used by the Western media to obscure the fundamental class antagonisms which lie at the heart of politics in the Middle East. Across a broad range of social and mainstream media – from left to right – the key events in Syria are portayed primarily in terms of a proxy war. The role of the Syrian masses as an agency for change is virtually excluded.


At the core of this latest episode in the Syrian revolution, lies the crisis of Syrian capitalism and an insurgency prompted by a catastrophic impoverishment of the Syrian  working class and small farmers.  It is this crisis, severely aggravated by years of civil war, that is at the heart of the challenges facing the revolution. None of the existing political forces – be they Islamist or otherwise – have a solution to this crisis other than vain attempts to breathe fresh life into a system that is in its death agony. 

 

French colonialism and Syrian capitalism 

As with every country throughout the Middle East, Syria’s fate has been shaped by the imperialist system that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century  and the inter-imperialist war of 1914-18. In dismantling the Ottoman empire, they carved up the region through a system of “mandates”  giving Britian and France direct rule over Palestine, Syria and  Lebanon, with British imperialism also establishing client monarchies in Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Libya. . The subsequent creation of the Zionist state of Israel was an outgrowth of that.  


French rule in Syria from 1920-46, stymied the development of Syrian capitalism and fostered divisions between various ethnic groups and religious factions. In a classic tale of imperialist plunder, French economic policy in Syria served the interests of the French capitalist metropolis. Agricultural output, particularly cotton and grain,  was given top priority to meet French needs with Syrian farmers being left dependent on export-oriented markets instead of local sustenance. 


When independence was secured in 1946,  French- and British-owned banks dominated banking activity in Syria. The largest bank, the French-owned Banque de Syrie et du Liban (Bank of Syria and Lebanon), assumed central bank functions and became the bank of currency issue, in addition to its commercial operations. France also dominated sectors such trade and transportation,to guarantee that earnings returned to French investors instead of being put into the Syrian economy. In place of a national transport infrastructure,  railroads were built mostly to link key production zones to ports for export . 

 

Until 1974 when the oil industry took over, cotton was Syria's most important industrial and cash crop. It was the country's most important foreign exchange earner, accounting for about one-third of Syria's export earnings. In 1976, Syria  was the tenth largest cotton producer in the world and the fourth largest exporter 


Using a traditional “divide and rule” tactic, the French heightened existing religious, ethnic, and regional divisions in order to undermine opposition to their control. After France obtained control over the entire Syrian territories they resorted to the fragmentation of Syria into several independent states or entities: 


In addition, the northern Syrian territory was given to Turkey during the Treaty of Ankara on 20 October 1921. 


Throughout the period of the French mandate, Syria remained a predominantly rural country where wealth was concentrated in the hands of a small elite of landowners, owning  vast tracts of arable land. Most peasants  remained largely landless, working as tenants or sharecroppers on large estates,  even as parts of agriculture became increasingly capitalist. 


Syrian capitalism at this stage was completely stymied by French colonial rule, in part due to tariffs that favoured the import of French manufactured goods as well as French domination of the institutions of finance capital. However, a small bourgeoisie did emerge from the accumulation of mercantile capital in cities like Aleppo, Damascus and Homs.

 

By the time of nominal independence in 1946, a fledgling industrial bourgeoisie had begun to develop  in light industries such as textiles, food processing, and consumer goods manufacturing.  Formal political independence did not eliminate imperialist domination or end the rule of the established elites which were nurtured by that domination.  

The economy relied heavily on foreign investment and trade relationships, particularly with Europe, which shaped the patterns of capital accumulation. In the early stages, the state played a minimal role in regulating or directing economic activity, allowing private capital to dominate.

 

The abiding legacy of French colonial rule was succinctly described in the following report by Fedal Hanoun: 


For Syria, the legacy of French rule is still felt now. Economically, resource exploitation and infrastructure neglect left the nation with a precarious basis for post-independence growth. Socially, the differences created by French policy still shaped Syrian politics, hence fueling regional inequalities and sectarian conflict. Politically, the mandate period strengthened authoritarian policies that have endured in Syrian government even while it helped foster nationalist movements.” (Fedal Hanoun: https://www.arabamerica.com/frances-past-occupation-of-syria/


Emergence of Syrian working class and 1940s strike wave 

The French administration encouraged the growth of cash crops like cotton and wheat, employing a semi-proletarian rural labor force. Colonial economic policies spurred the growth of urban industries and public works, leading to the rise of a small but significant working class in a handful of cities. .There was an increase in factory-based jobs, particularly in textiles, food processing, and construction. 

 

By the 1930s and 1940s, workers in key sectors such as railroads, textiles, and public works began forming unions 

 

  • Railways: The railway sector, vital for both the Syrian economy and French logistical needs during the war, was at the forefront of labor unrest. 

  • Textiles and Manufacturing: Workers in textile factories, especially in Aleppo and Damascus, organized strikes demanding better wages and conditions. 

  • Public Sector: Employees in public works and services joined strikes to protest low wages and poor treatment under colonial administration. 

 

The strike wave in Syria during the 1940s was a pivotal period in the development of the labor movement and broader political struggles for independence, social justice, and workers' rights. This wave of labour unrest occurred against the backdrop of colonial domination under the French Mandate, Many strikes included calls for national independence and an end to French exploitation. 

 

  • Railway workers staged a major strike demanding wage increases and improved conditions. 

  • The strike gained widespread support from other sectors and became a symbol of resistance against both economic exploitation and colonial domination. 

  • In 1944, textile workers in Aleppo launched strikes to demand fair pay and job security. 

  • Their actions drew attention to the plight of industrial workers and highlighted the growing influence of labour unions in urban center 

 

  • In 1945, workers joined nationwide protests against the French military’s continued presence, contributing to the broader independence struggle. 

 

The labor movement emerged as a powerful force, advocating for workers’ rights and also contributed to the broader struggle for Syrian independence. The legacy of these strikes shaped the trajectory of Syrian politics andclass relations for decades to come. 

Syrian people celebrating independence in 1946
Syrian people celebrating independence in 1946

The immediate outcome of these struggles was the ratification of independence and the the passage of new labour laws, including the establishment of the right to strike,  leading to a tripling of union membership.  

 




Peasant uprising

The emerging labour insurgency at this time coincided with a peasant uprising in 1950.  Syria was still in the grip of a feudal land tenure system dominated by a small elite of landlords, known as agha or notables,  who owned vast agricultural lands. The fellahin (peasants) worked these lands under sharecropping arrangements requiring them to surrender a significant portion of their harvest (often over 50%) to landlords, thereby leaving them in perpetual poverty and debt. 

 

This uprising foreshadowed the later land reforms and social transformations introduced during the Ba'athist era. 

 

Whilst the fledgling Syrian bourgeoisie had a material interest in challenging the old feudal system, it was largely immobilised by its fear of the insurgent workers and peasants. The task of genuine national liberation from French neo-colonial rule, now fell to the popular masses.  

 

The Ba’ath Pary and Arab Nationalism 

Urbanization in the mid-20th century also fostered  the growth of an educated but economically insecure middle class, including teachers, small business owners, and civil servants. It was this layer that formed the core of the Ba’ath Party, a nationalist organisation which advocated radical land reform, improvement in workers’ rights and protection of Syrian industry.  


The emergence of the Ba’ath Party was  part of an upsurge of the colonial revolution that swept through the Arab world and Iran in the aftermath of World War II.  A domino effect was clearly at work as each of the pro-Western monarchical regimes fell one after another.  

 

The Egyptian monarchy was overthrown in 1952-53, and the continuing radicalization in Egypt was symbolized by the nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956. During the same period, the Shah of Iran almost lost his throne in 1953,. This was followed 5 years later with the 1958 overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy.  Moreover, after a war of liberation that lasted eight years, the Algerian masses finally threw off the yoke of French rule in 1962.  

 

However, this powerful wave of anti-imperialist and revolutionary struggle was diverted by a growing convergence between Arab nationalism and the Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR. This in turn was framed by the Cold War and attempts by the Washington and Westminster to overthrow the Syrian government which emerged from the initial period of independence from France.  


Even before the Ba’ath takeover, the Cold War saw a joint Syrian-Soviet economic and technical agreement in August 1957, providing a half $billion dollar loan to Syria on extremely favourable terms. Both Washington and Westminster now treated Syria as a “Soviet satellite” and behaved accordingly. 


With  the Middle East as a  whole standing upon vast reserves of oil,  Washington, Westminster and Paris worked tirelessly to establish  client regimes that would serve their strategic interests.  The Syrian oil industry was in its infancy, but  it was a strategically important transit point for pipelines transporting oil from from the oilfields of Iraq to the Mediterranean. A case in point was the Kirkuk-Banias Pipeline  which allowed for oil exports to Europe without relying on the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal, thereby reducing transportation costs and avoiding geopolitical chokepoints. 


With the Syrian government being considered less and less compliant, Washington and Westminster orchestrated two regime change operations in 1957 . Known respectively as Operation Wappen and Operation Straggle, they aimed at  staging internal uprisings, funding anti-government groups, and orchestrating a military coup. However, as soon as it was uncovered by Syrian intelligence, the coup attempt failed and its effect was to further radicalise the nationalist movement. 

 

The Arab revolution was on the march, and the Ba’ath Party framed its mission as a cultural and political revival of the Arab world, rooted in a shared language, history, and destiny. The party's call for Arab unity posited an end to the artificial borders imposed by colonial powers. At the same time, while positioning itself as a socialist champion of radical reform, it sought to demobilise and contain the mass struggle within the framework of single party rule modelled in part on the Soviet Union.  

 

Terrified by the movement from below, in 1958 a group of army officers led Syria into a union with Nasser’s Egypt, forming the United Arab Republic (UAR). This was supported by the Ba’ath and the Communist Parties of both Egypt and Syria. At this time, the Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR had entered into a strategic alliance with Nasser and other Arab nationalist movments and called upon the regional CPs to do the same and to postpone the struggle for socialism.  Despite some resistance, both the Syrian and Egyptian CPs followed Moscow’s orders, which Nasser duly used to disband them. This also lead to the imprisonment and torture of some 1500 Communists in Egypt alone.  

 

The reforms of this UAR period laid the basis for the “social pact” which would become the foundation of Ba’ath Party rule in the following decades. This involved land redistribution, social provision for workers and the poor, and the beginnings of  industrialisation. In return, the state exercised control of the popular movements. The right to strike was repealed in 1959 and all independent trade unions and peasant organisations were banned. 

 

The UAR collapsed in 1961 but was followed by a Ba’ath military coup in 1963 which retained the “social pact” model.  The new regime  began to challenge the immediate interests of the old ruling class in an attempt to establish stronger foundations for indigenous capital accumulation and growth. 

 

With the Syrian Communist Party dancing to the tune set by the Kremlin’s  alliance with different Arab bourgeois regimes, the road was cleared for the Ba’ath Party to divert the sharpening class polarisation in Syria into a form of state capitalism similar to that pursued by Nasser in Egypt.  


State capitalism in Syria 


“Because historical conditions did not breed a strong old bourgeois class that could have pulled the economy out of its fragile postcolonial economic condition, the state overwhelmingly intervened in the market and paved the way for the formation of state capitalism duringhe Ba’athist era. 


“The Ba’athist regime introduced radical reforms – far-reaching nationalisation and land reforms that distributed land to the peasants – and endorsed socially-responsible economic measures. The state-capitalist class acted as an agent of investment and promoted Import-Substitution Industrialisation to bootstrap the shaky postcolonial economy. It was a time when the Ba’athist regime, with its secularist and egalitarian orientation, voiced the frustration of the unprivileged workers despite suppressing workers’ and peasants’ organisations and movements.” 

(Class and State Capitalism in Syria; The Political Economy of Investment in Syria,  Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy: Vol 1 No 3, 2009) 

 

Towards the end of 1963, there was a growing realisation that the nationalist struggle against Western hegemony could not be pursued if the economy was in the hands of private industrialists, merchants and landowners who had flourished during the colonial period. Large amounts of capital were flowing out of Syria for investment in the West by the Syrian bourgeoisie and landowners. The route of nationalisation could put an end to that outflow and break Western capital’s grip exercised by the Syrian bourgeoisie. 

 

A note should be added here concerning the nature of the Syrian army officer caste. As in many underdeveloped countries, many of the army officers were not directly linked to the bourgeoisie, as would be the case in the advanced capitalist countries, through family ties and so on. Very often they came from lower layers in society. That explains, for example, why so many Syrian officers were from the Alawite minority, at that time considered an oppressed section of society. 

 

Mimicking, as it did, the Soviet model of economic planning, Syria exhibited many of the features  of a  society in transition from capitalism to socialism 

 

  • Major sectors, including oil, banking, and manufacturing, were nationalised to reduce foreign and elite control over the economy. 

  • The state became the dominant economic actor, controlling the commanding heights of the economy 

  • Investments were made in heavy industries, such as steel and cement, to promote self-sufficiency and reduce reliance on imports. 

  • The focus on state-led industrialization often came at the expense of small and medium-sized private enterprises 

  • The regime implemented five-year economic plans to guide development, focusing on infrastructure, industrial growth, and rural development. 

 

Despite the structural similarities, this was quite different from the October revolution in Russia, which had instituted genuine socialist planning based upon the direct democracy of the workers’, peasants and soldiers’ soviets. Moreover, this did not begin as top down attempt to buidl socialism in one country, but as a popular insurrection and opening chapter of a world revolution. 

 

The transition in Syria, was deliberately framed by a middle class layer to travel in the reverse direction. The key feature of this was not just the power of the state being used  to shelter the growth of indigenous capitalism but its systematic resort to repression to  contain any popular insurgency.  As in Egypt, this repression in Syria was accompanied by the imprisonment of hundreds of CP members  

 

Land reform 

Serious enforcement of agrarian reform began in 1965 and by 1970 all lands subject to expropriation had been seized. In the following two years, 85 per cent of that land was redistributed. However, the direction of travel of the new regime was made obvious by the extreme limitations of the reform. Out of a landless peasant population of some 240, 000 families, only 60, 0000 received land. Moreover, out of the cultivated land available, only 18 per cent was subject to expropriation. The big landowners holdings were reduced, not eliminated, and medium-sized holdings were favoured.  

 

In the absence of collective farming, capitalist structures remained intact. As one study noted: 

 

Within the cooperatives, the wealthy peasants were in the strongest position and received the greater part of state loans. Collective farming was not institured, rather the agrarian reform remained within agrarian structures. Land holdings were not equalised, individual property not surpressed. The former landowners and wealthy peasants continued in a privileged position. Middle peasants were offered better opportunities in land and in technology. Though some small peasants became middle peasants and some landless peasants obtained land, the majority of the poor peasants did not benefit from the land reform. In fact in many areas the landlords managed to rent land from the small peasants and continue a type of sharecropping. “ 

(Syria and the Baath Party, John Galvani, Middle East Research & Information Project, 1974) 

  

The Ba’athist regime subsequently headed by the  Assad family,  was not some peculiar Arab anathema – and least of all an expression of an alleged Arab distaste for democracy. Rather, in the absence of a genuine working class leadership, it was the logical  outcome of a global class system which had frustrated and stymied the normal development of capitalism in Syria.  


The transitional nature of state capitalism in Syria meant that a return to free-market economics was only a matter of time. This was evident shorly  after Hafez al-Assad took power in 1970. From that point on, the regime’s  so-called socialist policies  had already begun to serve its function of stimulating the growth of a new, slightly more vibrant, private sector. 


Development of the Syrian working class 

The years from 1970 to 1982 saw a substantial growth in the size of the Syrian working class. Following land redistribution many peasants ended up with holdings which were too small to support a family, and the reforms made no provision for access to machinery and water to irrigate land. The resulting rural proletarianisation was registered  in a decrease in the number of full time peasants from 440,000 to 290,000 and the formation of a pool of wage-labour serving  both  larger landowners  and new factories and mines.  In the same 10 year period between 1972 and 1982, the industrial labour force, although relatively small, almost doubled in size to  433,609 . The number of unionized workers at that time also rose from 191,000 to 365,000  of whom 60,000 and 107,000, respectively, were in manufacturing. 


Out of a population of around 22.5 million, around 2.7 million became wage workers. This meant that close to 70 percent of the population depended on wage labour directly or indirectly once family size and the unemployed are taken into account. Prior to the war, around 75 percent of the population lived in the largest six cities: Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Latakia and Tartous, where there were  powerful groups of workers. 


This was part of an industrial profile featuring  mining and manufacturing workers,alongside an increasing number of  workers in airports, railways, ports and power stations. In addition, there  were  public sector workers such as civil servants, teachers and doctors who made up around 25 percent of the workforce and whose wages  declined in relative terms since the 1980s, leading 40 percent of them to take on second jobs. 

 

Beginnings of neo-liberalism under Assad 

 

“In the Arab world, this gave rise to Infitah policies, a sharp increase in corruption and nepotism and the direct appropriation of resources by the elites when the opportunity arose. This process coincided with a crisis in oil prices, which debilitated the rentier mechanisms and forced many governments to once again seek credit from international 

institutions, which were now focusing on neo liberalism. Pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and financial institutions deepened the dismantling of part of the public sector, the redistributive policies and subsidies for welfare.” 

(Communist Parties in the Middle East: 100 Years of History, Ed. Laura Feliu and Ferran Izquierdo-Brichs, Routledge, 2019) 


Syrian dictator, Hafez al-Assad
Syrian dictator, Hafez al-Assad

The development of the Syrian working class coincided with the beginning of the end of the state capitalist model that was later codified by the reforms introduced by Bashaar al-Assad at the turn of the century.  

This process was begun  in the 1980s by his father, Hafez al-Assad, who allowed limited but increasing openings for the private capital investment in sectors such as agriculture, light industry, tourism  and  other services.  


This transitional process was a slow one and required time to accumulate capital to invest in infrastructure, basic industry and to supply the capital goods for the newly emerging oilfields. Only state-owned banks could facilitate any sort of plan which would prevent capital migration and direct it towards key areas. However, regardless of  the socialist rhetoric, the aim was not to build a society based upon fulfilling the needs of its people.  


The stage was set for the emergence of a mixed economy increasingly subject to global market forces and the development of a crony capitalism linked to the Assad family and the Ba’ath elite as a whole. This was accompanied with increased connection and collaboration between sectors of the predominantly Sunni urban business community. The private sector businessmen, who were once classified as an important threat to the economic and political control of the regime, progressively became a significant component of it and were increasingly integrated into its various institutions 


The expansion in  oil production and exports in the 1970s had provided significant revenues, financing state-led industrialization and social welfare programs.  However, this was curtailed by the global capitalist recession of the early 1980s which not only reduced demand for Syrian exports but led to a near collapse in oil prices, both of which slashed foreign currency revenue streams.  

 

The effect was a substantial erosion of living standards for much of the population, with rising unemployment and declining real wages. Basic services, such as healthcare and education, became increasingly inaccessible for the working class and rural poor.  The class nature of the Syrian state and the inequalities embedded within it were now revealing themselves. This was a critical juncture in Syrian history  with the new hardships fueling strikes and protests among workers in state-owned industries, most notably in construction and the oil fields.  

 

Textile workers, especially in cities like Aleppo and Homs, frequently staged strikes over low wages and inadequate working conditions. Strikes by public transport workers in Damascus and other cities disrupted essential services. Workers protested against long hours, poor pay, and a lack of benefits. 


These outbursts of labour militancy occurred despite the control which the Ba’ath Party exercised over the General Federation of Trades Unions (GFTU). Affiliation to the latter was mandatory and its function was legally defined as an adjunct of the state. However, even combined with state repression (arrests, dismissals, torture) these two measures were no guarantee of containing the burgeoning unrest.  

 

This required, a third element, the collaboration of the one political party supposedly representing the interests of the working class and poor peasants: the Syrian Communist Party.  

 

The role of  the Syrian Communist Party in the transition 


 

“During the 1960s, in line with the conclusions reached at the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, Arab Communists attached considerable weight to alliances with Arab nationalists, whose leadership they recognized. The Egyptian Communist party went as far as to dissolve itself, merging with Nasser’s Arab Socialist Union. Even apart from this exceptional case, the Arab Communist parties agreed to play second fiddle to the nationalists – as in Damascus restricting their activities and only claiming a modest share of power. They contented themselves with statist economic reforms (in particular, sweeping nationalization measures),limited agrarian reform, and close cooperation with the Soviet Union and other socialist states.” 


                (Communist Parties in the Middle East: 100 Years of History, Ibid) 

 

 


Soviet Premier, Nikita Kruschev with Egyptian  President Nasser
Soviet Premier, Nikita Kruschev with Egyptian President Nasser

The pseudo socialism of the Ba’ath Party regime was enabled by a strategic alliance with the Stalinist bureaucracy of the USSR.  The quid pro quo of this shotgun wedding  was the almost complete subordination of the interests of the Arab working class to the bourgeois nationalist regimes. 

 

This had already begun to take shape during WW2 when the Communist Parties distanced themselves from the independence struggles in Africa , the Middle East and Asia as part of the Allied powers’ common war effort.  In Syria, the SCP fully endorsed the Allied war effort and collaborated with the Free French forces who upheld the French mandate. This entailed dropping outright opposition to French conscription, thereby positioning the SCP in direct conflict with the nationalist movement. 

 

With the advent of the Cold War and the emergence of Arab nationalist governments, the treachery of SCP took a further turn with its adherence to the National Progressive Front (NPF) in 1972. The NPF was a coalition of socialist and nationalist parties dominated by the governing  Ba'ath Party. The SCP joined as a junior partner, gaining limited representation in government institutions and parliament and acting as a left cover for the regime during a time of rising class tensions. As part of the NPF, the SCP was allowed to operate legally, but its activities, including involvement in trade unions, were heavily restricted to ensure they aligned with Ba'athist policies. 

 

Although the SCP split into 3 different factions,  all of them continued to function with the NPF. When Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad, in 2000, the SCP continued its allegiance to the regime. At every stage, the SCP opposed working class opposition to the regime, specifically condemning the wildcat strikes of the late 70s and 80s. 


As Bashar al-Assad accelerated a course  towards free market capitalism, the SCP stayed on board as loyal lieutenants of his blood soaked regime.  

 

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[Part two of this article will examine how the crisis in Syrian unfolded and look at the challenges facing the Syrian revolution, including the issue of Kurdish self-determination. It is available now by following this link: https://www.blakdwarf.org/post/dynamics-of-the-syrian-revolution-2 ]

 

  


 

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