There is no doubt that the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria on December 8, 2024, causedconcern and confusion to millions of people, not only in the Middle East but also internationally. The main reason for this was that although it was a brutal dictatorship it was seen by many as an ally of the Palestinian people, who are living through the genocidal nightmare inflicted on them by the Israeli state in close collaboration with its “democratic”, “free” and “civilized” allies of the West.
This contradictory picture is reflected in the anti-capitalist Left (“Marxist” or “quasi-Marxist”).
Thus, we see, on the one hand, views that indirectly or directly support the Assad regime on the grounds that it was“anti-imperialist” (i.e. against the US and the EU). And on the other hand, views that supported its overthrow on the grounds that a brutal dictatorial regime was being overthrown and that better days were ahead for the Syrian people.
In our opinion, both these approaches are wrong. The organisations of the working class, especially the organisations of the anti-capitalist left, have no obligation to choose sides when the choice is between a rock and a hard place; i.e.,when it comes to the conflict of reactionary forces, between different representatives of capitalist-imperialist interests. On the contrary, in such cases the Left must chart its own independent course and put forward its own independent class-based proposals.
In what follows, we will discuss these and other questions raised by the upheaval in Syria in some detail.
1. Why did the regime collapse so quickly?
The collapse of the Assad regime was followedby various analyses,in left circles, laying emphasis on the role played by the Western powers and other external forcessuch as Israel and Turkey. These factors did indeed play a role, but not the decisive one. Such views miss the most important point: the regime collapsed “from within”, like a house of cards.
It was a development that no one expected. Not only the regime itself, not only its allies (Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, etc.) but also its enemies in the West, everyone was caught off guard. The Western media didn’t try to hide their surprise at Assad’s fall. The Intelligence services were in the dark. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)militias, who had launched their offensive from Idlib in the north-west, then moved on to Aleppo and then on to Damascus via Hama and Homs (see maps), as well as their allies in other parts of Syria, who were planning a joint siege of Damascus, were surprised when they saw that the HTS was taking “a stroll”, without meeting any resistance.
The armed militias of HTS and its allies did not exceed 10 to 30 thousand men according to existing estimates (more precise figures have not reported in the media). Under different circumstances this would have been an insignificant force compared to the security forces of a state of 25 million people. Yet it took them only 12 days to complete their march to Damascus, while the number of HTS gunmen who “occupied” Damascus, according to the Economist, did not exceed 1,200!
In other words, there were simply no forces willing to support the regime. This can only be explained by one factor: the regime’s total social isolation!
The explanation for this is not difficult to imagine: more than 13 years of civil war, repression, torture, imprisonments, 580,000 dead, 6.7 million forcibly displacedin other countries, millions displaced internally. The Syrian lira lost 99% of its value since 2011, GDP plummeted from $65.5 billion to just $9 –an 85% collapse– while more than 90% of the Syrian people live in poverty!
In the end, it turns out that the regime was indeedonly able to hold on topower because it was militarily supported by Russian forces and Hezbollah militias. Russia’s involvement in the war in Ukraine and Israel’s military blows against Hezbollah left the regime naked and paralyzed.
The collapse of the Assad dictatorship was what every dictatorship hated by the popular classes deserved. The Left must stop supporting such regimes – in the end this only exposes and weakens it. On the other hand, not supporting the Assad regime does not mean supporting the Western imperialists and/or the HTS in the name of “democracy”. For the Syrian people, the day after will not bring anything good: neither democracy, nor freedom, nor peace, nor prosperity.
2. What will the next day bring with HTS in the government?
HTS is an Islamist organisation (officially listed as a terrorist organisation in the West) and its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani (or Ahmed al-Saraa, as his real name is), is a wanted terrorist. In recent years, but especially since he took power in early December, Golani has been wearing a suit and meeting with European diplomats, trying to show that he is a modernist and that they have nothing to fear from him and his organisation.
The EU and the US are gleefully playing this game, trying to portray Golani and HTS as moderate and conciliatory forces. This is just another instance of the hypocrisy of the West.
Golani has declared that he has abandoned al-Qaeda and ISIS (Islamic State) where his origins come from, but he has never declared that he has abandoned Islamic fundamentalist ideas, that is, the goal of building a state based on the law of Islam (Sharia) rather than on any kind of democratic procedures which can allow some form of participation by society. For organisations like HTS, the law of God is above the laws of humans.
Even if we assume that Golani himself has mutated and abandoned Islamic fundamentalist ideas (which is unlikely) the same cannot be expected of HTS as a whole and of the forces allied to it. Generally speaking, for an Islamic organisation, like HTS, to abandon Islamic law it would have to go through some kind of internal civil war. That doesn’t seem to be on the agenda.
In other words, the most probable perspective is that HTS will establish a new Islamic dictatorial regime, even if its exact characteristics are not yet clear. Islamic regimes can take different forms, as the examples of Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia show.
The Left, which sees something progressive in the overthrow of Assad, is deluded. There is no way for the Syrian people to experience democracy, freedom, peace and even some limited equality (of ethnicities, religions and genders) under HTS.
3. A policy of “equal distances”? No, a policy of an alternative proposal
The usual criticism we receive when we say we don’t have to choose side in an intra-capitalist or intra-imperialist conflict, is that this is a policy of equal distances (or of “sitting on the fence”) and therefore an inability to take a stand on the specific pressing issues facing society. This kind of critiqueconsiders it imperative that we choose sides.
Such criticisms miss the point:the real question is whether our options should be limited to choosing one of the two reactionary sides, or whether there is a third option that serves the interests of working-class people (and the values of the radical/socialist Left).
We choose the latter. We argue that the Left must put forward its own positions and analysis, independent of the two reactionary forces, the dictator Assad on the one hand and the Islamists on the other.
4. What would this mean in practice in Syria?
Let’s be concrete and practical. How should Marxists act if they had a presence inside Syria?
If the revolutionary left had a significant presence in Syria, or at least in a region of Syria where it exercised controlwith its own militias (like the Kurds in the north and east, the pro-Turkish militias in enclaves in the north, the Druze in the south, etc.), then it ought tobuild the model of its own society in that part of the country. And it should use it as an example for the other ethnic or religious minorities in other parts of Syria, for the working class as a whole, proposing this model for the whole country (and the neighboring peoples as well) and using its armed militias to defend it against inevitable attacks.
Is this an abstract impossibility? Let us see what the example of Rojava in Syria itself can teach us. Rojava is the region of north-eastern Syria under Kurdish control. Rojava means “Western Kurdistan”. In 2015, the Kurds joined the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) –to defend their land, their autonomy and their history. Their victory over ISIS was historic –it was the first major defeat of ISIS (with an estimated 10,000 dead). The Kurdish militiaheld on to their territories and build an autonomous region with fairly advanced democracy, freedom and equality (ethnic and gender) much more advanced than anything that exists in the rest of the Middle East.
Rojava never nationalized the basic economic units of society, never laid the foundations for workers’ power, not because it could not, but because the leadership of the Kurdish movement did not want to go that far.
But its example shows (as a working hypothesis) that if there were a mass revolutionary left party in Syria, even if limited to a few areas or parts of the country’s territory, it could lay the foundations, based on freedom and equality of religions, ethnicities and genders, under society’s democratic controls, for the transition to a socialist society in which the economy is run and serves the people and not the corporate monopolies for profit. It could defend its conquests with arms and combine them with a class appeal to the working people of the rest of Syria and an internationalist call to the neighboring countries and beyond.
In case there was no massrevolutionary left (which is the case today), but only (again as a working hypothesis) small groups or individual cadres, what would their tasksbe?
Again, they should not aim to choose between Assad and the Islamists, but would have to start a race against time by putting forward their own alternative, with the aim of strengthening their forces so that a mass revolutionary left movement could be built on the way, as the only way to put an end to the nightmare that the people of the region are living on a daily basis.
The same, of course, is the task abroad: Marxists must explain what model of society working class political organisations should stand for, what the Left should propose both in opposition to the model of Assad on the one hand and Golani on the other. It should certainly not support one against the other.
5. Is Assad an anti-imperialist?
The argument of many activists in the Leftwho take a pro-Assad position is that they do not support the Assad regime “on the social level” because it is a dictatorship, but they support it on the geopolitical level because it resists the plans of the US/Western imperialists.
According to this argument, the Assad regime was reactionary on the social level but progressive on the level of geopolitical antagonisms. And here we have a serious muddle of positions and a major contradiction: can a regime be reactionary on the social level but progressive on the geopolitical level?
The fact that Assad was on the side of Russia, China, Iran, etc. does not make his regime in any way”progressive”. The “West-East” competition, let’s call it that, is a competition on a capitalist basis, between the old imperialists (USA, EU, Britain) who are losing ground, and the new imperialists (China, Russia, etc.), who are threatening the power of the hitherto absolute rulers. It is very different from the old –ideological, political and economic– conflict between the planned economies of the Soviet Block(and up to degree also China)on the one hand and the capitalist economies of the West on the other, which lasted until 1989.
In the conflict between two imperialist blocs, the Left should not support one imperialist against the other.
This does not mean, of course, that it should not use the antagonism between the imperialist powers to promote the interests of its own people, to strengthen its own positions and to build alliances with (international) forces that also seek an “independent path” beyond those of the imperialists. But this is another issue, another discussion.
The superficiality and ineffectiveness of the argument in favour of Assad’s “anti-imperialism” is shown by the Syrian experience itself. Assad’s regime, beingcompletely reactionaryon the “social level”, alienated the Syrian masses to such an extent that all it needed was a blow of the wind before it collapsed, allowing the Western imperialists to be back without having to fire a shot. This kind of “anti-imperialism” does not really weaken Western imperialism, it ultimately strengthens it.
6. Never forget Iran 1979
Those on the Left who see the overthrow of Assad by the Islamists as a positive development that opens up new possibilities for the Syrian people, ought to remember the example of the Iranian revolution.
In 1979, the Shah’s regime was overthrown by a great revolution of the working masses. The Left supported Khomeini’s mullahs as a better alternative to the Shah, instead of putting forward the perspective of workers’ socialist power combined with self-determination for the nationalities, especially the Kurds. This was the position of the pro-Soviet Communist Party (Tudeh), the Kurdish militias (Fedayeen) and even the Trotskyist USFI (United Secretariat of the Fourth International), which had a presence in Iran at the time (the dissidents in the USFI at the time left and now belong to the ranks of Internationalist Standpoint).
The result was that as soon as Khomeini was stabilized, he turned against the Left and destroyed it. The Iranian Left, 45 years later, has not yet recovered from that blow.
If, in conditions of revolutionary crisis, the Left does not set itself the goal of power and the overthrow of capitalism, but instead looks at which sections of the ruling class to support, it will pay a very heavy price in the end, often with the lives of its own members and cadres.
7. The Palestinian people have nothing to hope for from the HTS
One of the most striking features of the new Islamic regime in Syria is its abandonment of the Palestinian people.
There are many interviews and statements in which the new regime in Damascus makes overtures to Israel. In a recent such example, the new governor of Damascus, Maher Marwan, speaking on behalf of al-Golani, said in an interview with the American network NPR:
“Israel may have felt fear. So it advanced a little, bombed a little, etc… We have no fear towards Israel, and our problem is not with Israel… we don’t want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security or any other country’s security… we want peace, and we cannot be an opponent to Israel or an opponent to anyone”
These statements are a stab in the backof the Palestinian people.
Syria is a field of competing interests, not only local but also international/geopolitical. Israel did not bomb Damascus“a little” – it dealt a huge blow to Syria’s defense capabilities. It destroyed its air defenses, all its missile bases and its navy! The new Islamist leadership in Syria has not only failed to put up the slightest resistance to the Israeli attacks, but also behaves as if it does not understand what is happening around it.
8. There can be no peaceful unification of Syria
The HTS forces dominate Western Syria, to the west of the axis of Idlib-Aleppo-Hama-Homs-Damascus. But most of Syria is outside their effective control and they are in negotiations with the other forces that control different parts of Syria in order to maintain central power.
The north-east is dominated by Kurdish militias, the Syrian Democratic Forces, who control about 25% of the country, with Western support (so far). In the north there are very important areas dominated by the Syrian National Army, which is controlled by Turkey. In the south-west (bordering Iraq and Jordan) there are a variety of militias (about 50) that together form the so-called Southern Front–Christian, Druze and others– many of whom fear the rise of the Islamists and seek alliances to protect them. Some, (Druze) are turning to Israel, asking it to incorporate their land. There is also ISIS (Islamic State), which has managed to slightly expand the areas under its control since the fall of Assad.
In terms of external forces, Israel has taken advantage of the crisis to expand the territories it holds in Syria –the Golan Heights– and to conquer new territories in the direction of Damascus, from which it is only a few tens of kilometres away. Russia and the USA also have a military presence (bases).
Finally, we should probably leave open the possibility that forces loyal to Assad, currently confined to small pockets in the west, may retain some territory and attempt to regroup.
The differences between all these forces are so bigthat a single centre of power will not be easily accepted. Military clashes seem inevitable, although the exact scale is not possible to predict at this stage.
9. Winners and losers
The outcome of the Syrian civil war is not as great a success for the West as the Western media try to make it out to be, nor is it a strategic defeat for the Russia-China bloc.
It is, of course, a success for the West in the sense that it weakens its rivals in the region, but it does not create a state loyal to the West. And it is a serious setback for Russia, but it is reasonable to expect that the new regime to cut ties with Russia and China, as the West would like. As fluid as things are, and we should be open to all possibilities, what is likely is that the new rulers in Syria will seek to maintain relations with all sides.
The two main winners from the fall of the Assad regime are Turkey and Israel.
The main losers are Iran and its allies (Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Hamas in Palestine).
10. Turkey
HTS acted as an ally of Ankara in the process of overthrowing Assad, although it did not belong to the militias closely and directly controlled by the Erdogan regime (the Syrian National Army). The victory of the HTS was triumphantly presented in Turkey as a victory not only for the Syrian people but also for the Turkish people.
The relations between HTS and Turkey are so close that it is quite clear that Turkey will play a direct role in the politics of the new regime.
The fact that Turkey will play a very important role as the regime’s closest ally, however, does not mean that the new Syrian regime will be in the orbit of the West (as some on the Left argue). Turkey is a very powerful regional power that is not controlled by the West;it has its own agenda and its own autonomous policy, and is maneuvering between the interests of the major powers –the West, Russia and China.
In northern Syria, the offensive of the Syrian National Army, supported by Turkey, against the Kurdish militias has already begun. Erdogan, whose imperialist ambitions have been boosted by the victory of his HTS allies, has already threatened the Kurdish fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces that they will either lay down their arms or be buried with them.
The Kurds, of course, will not lay down their arms. After decades (centuries, actually) of oppression, they have managed to gain some autonomy over territories in Syria and Iraq –they will not simply surrender to Erdogan, they will defend it. They have shown time and again that they are experienced warriors, especially in their fight against ISIS and Assad’s forces. On the other hand, one should not underestimate the blows that the Turkish army is capable of inflicting on the Kurdish movement.
In the next period, it is very likely that the internationalist Left worldwide will have to show its solidarity with the struggling Syrian Kurds and their right to self-determination against the Turkish war machine. The fact that the Kurds are being armed by the USA, at this stage, should not lead the Left to abandon its internationalist positions.
11. Israel
Israel is the second big winner because the collapse of Assad weakens the so-called “axis of resistance” between Iran, Syria, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Although, politically, Israel is isolated internationally because of its genocidal offensive on Gaza (and together with Israel its allies in the USand Europe face similar anger internationally) militarily it is a clear winner, having dealt serious blows first to Hamas and then to Hezbollah.
This certainly does not mean the end of Hamas or Hezbollah, but it is clear that their tactics and methods do not offer a way out for the Palestinian people;there is no way that they can lead to the defeat of the Israeli state.
Immediately after the fall of Assad, Israel expanded into south-western Syria, expanding its occupation of the Golan Heights,nearly entering the outer outskirts of Damascus and proclaiming that the Golan Heights will never be returned to Syria.
According to a report by the Jerusalem Post, an Israeli warship was given the directive to attack the Syrian fleet. Its mission was to carry out precision missile strikes on 15 warships, representing the bulk of the Syrian naval force. The 15 ships were hit and sunk within minutes!Similarly, Israel claims to have destroyed Syria’s air defence, air force and missile bases.
Israel, also, attacked Iran in two separate major waves.
In the first phase, Iran responded (on October 1st) by sending hundreds of drones and projectiles, several of which penetrated Israel’s air defenses (the so called Iron Dome), much to the irritation of the Netanyahu regime. Israel responded on October 26 with a second wave of air strikes against military targets and installations. Iran responded with bombastic threats, but months later has made no attempt to retaliate!
A section of the Left seems unwilling to acknowledge the fact that Israel is capable of confronting its rivals militarily on several fronts at the same time, even though this has already been demonstrated in three wars with the Arab world in the past. This is obviously due to the full support of Western imperialism. This part of the Left seems unwilling to admit that Israel has won the current conflict militarily –however unpleasant this may be, or rather because it is too unpleasant. But the Left cannot proceed on the basis of emotional approaches; it needs a pragmatic approach based on objective reality. Only then can it draw the right political conclusions.
12. The “Axis of Resistance”
The Axis of Resistance is an alliance of forces around Iran that includes, as mentioned above, the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine and similar Islamist forces in Iraq and Syria (and the Assad government until its downfall).
Significant sections of the Left offer tolerance or even support to this “axis” –or at least refuse to criticise it because of the supposed anti-imperialist role that it plays.
But to what extent is this Axisanti-imperialist? We have to start from the fact that these forceshave either established (in the case of Iran) or are in favour of establishing (in the case of the other Islamic groups) religious regimes based on Sharia, which means that the laws of God, supposedly described in the Quran, are superior to humans’ laws, and imposed on them through, of course, the caste of clerics who have the real power.
How much can this approach really undermine the colonialist/imperialists in the USA and the EU?
How much can these ideas be attractive to the non-Muslim peoples of Africa, Latin America and Asia?But, also, tolerating or supporting these forces brings the Left into conflict with large, and actuallythe most militant, sections of the masses in countries where Islam is the dominant religion. Iran is the most characteristic example –there, the workingclass the youth and women have been waging heroic struggles against a ruthless regime for many years.
The Left has a responsibility to take a clear position in favour of overthrowing these regimes and not hide behind their supposed anti-imperialist character. This is a precondition for taking a consistent stand against Western imperialism and for convincing the peoples’ and workers’ movements in the countries where it intervenes, whether in the East or the West, of its positions.
If the Left does not support the struggle of the workers’, youth and women’s movements against the Islamists in different countries, then the only alternative left to them is to turn to the supposed “democratic” governments of the West.
The Left can and must support the struggle of the people of Palestine, the people of Lebanon, Iran, etc. But this should not be translated into support for the forces in the leadership of these countries. On the contrary, it should be translated into criticism of these leaders’ methods and tactics.
And it must be accompanied by the alternative proposed by the Left, which cannot be other than: freedom from imperialist shackles, respect to democratic, trade Union and human rights, gender equality, self-determination of the oppressed nationalities, workers’ power and socialism.
13. The hypocrisy of the West
As soon as the HTS came to power, European governments raised the question of stopping the granting of asylum to Syrian refugees.
Greece and Britain were the first to react, Austria proposed “organised repatriations and deportations”, in Germany a former minister proposed to give them 1,000 euros and a charter flight and so on.
It seems that for the “enlightened” Europeans, the HTS Islamists are a regime that provides the necessary freedoms and security, especially for women, different nationalities and religions.
So much hypocrisy, so many lies, so much misrepresentation of the obvious reality is hard to describe in words.
14. Conclusions
Some basic conclusions can be drawn from all the above.
The region remains as combustible as it was before the fall of Assad. No problem, neither for the Syrian people nor for the region, will be solved by the overthrow of the Assad regime.
It has been shown once again that Israel cannot be defeated militarily by a coalition of Arab or Islamic states. The Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7 did not bring the expected results many Palestinians hoped for. It opened a huge cycle of bloodshed for which the Palestinian masses paid and continue to pay a huge price.
At the same time, Israel has emerged stronger from the military confrontation, while the so-called “axis of resistance”has been weakened. Politically, however, Israel is as isolated internationally as it has ever been. Along with Israel, the powers that support it –the US and the European powers–have also seen their isolation increase.
This situation accelerates the development of a left, radical consciousness on an international level –and this is very important. But the maturation of these processes takes time and will only acquire a real practical significance when it is reflected in the creation/emergence of new formations of the radical/socialist left on an international level, filling the huge vacuum that exists in the Left today.
Capitalism cannot provide any solution to the problems of the region. This must be the starting point for the positions of the Left –and by this we mainly mean the anti-capitalist left, because the traditional left parties have long since degenerated.
The Left must take a position completely independent of the capitalist forces, and put forward its own class, internationalist, revolutionary proposal. This can only be one: the common class struggle of the peoples of the region against imperialism, national oppression, the local dictators and the Islamists – with the aim of working-class power and socialism.
It was once unthinkable for the Left, not only the Marxist but also the traditional/reformist Left, not to put forward the vision of socialism. Today this vision (even in terms of propaganda) has been abandoned.
The Marxist left, which is in crisis internationally, must recall its revolutionary traditions and project the socialist perspective boldly and with optimism. This is for one undeniable reason: it is the only way forward for humanity; the only way to avoid the barbarism into which capitalism is leading life on earth.
It is not enough for the Marxist Left to speak in general terms in favour of revolution. We have had many revolutions in the past and we will have many more in the future. In 2011 we had revolutionary developments in the region (the “Arab Spring”), which also engulfed Syria. But the revolution did not win, instead it paved the way for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and almost 14 years of civil war (so far). The revolutionary upheaval was defeated precisely because there were no political forces to lead it towards workers’ power and socialism. As Marxists, we have the duty to build these forces. Starting from the countries in which we live and struggle. And this is something that will certainly contribute greatly to building revolutionary forces in the countries of the Middle East as well, thusmaking the vision of an alternative, socialist society a realistic perspective.
Read more of our analysis on Syria here
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