A. Holberg
In its latest „analysis“ of the Syrian situation („Syria: After the defeat in Qusayr and ahead of the Battle for Aleppo“,
http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/syria-after-defeat-in-qusayr/)
the RCIT writes:
„Imperialist propaganda seeks to present a picture of hopelessness in Syria and to present the only alternatives available to the Syrian masses as being support for one of the following:
* Either Assad as he continues to slaughter his own people;
* the Syrian pro- imperialists who are demanding a massive military intervention by the West;
* or the forces controlled by Islamist reactionaries.
The revolutionary position is unequivocal: no political support for either pro-imperialists or Islamists. Instead we call for the masses of the Syrian people to stand united in a military front against the Assad regime together with all those who are currently struggling against him.“
Every Marxist revolutionary would of course support such a call – if it meant anything in practice since the masses of the Syrian people were available for such a tactic. But they are not! Therefore under current conditions such a call means to support (at least verbally) the very forces who at present alone are able to wage a war worth its name against the regime. These forces are the ones enumerated under #2 and #3. In practice this RCIT-call therefore means to call on the Syrian „masses“, especially on the working class, to criticize those proimperialist and Islamist forces, but to help them in practice to topple the regime – in order to oppress these masses even harder than the regime ever could.
It has nothing to do with Marxism to propagate the same solution to every problem notwithstanding the crucial diffences between them. To campare the correct Bolshevic tactics in 1917 to the present situation in Syria is nonsense. The Bolsheviki „militarily“ supported a bourgeois privisional government under Kerensky against a coup attempt of a tsarist general, because the Russian working class was not yet fit to make a revolution for itself. In Syria however the RCIT calls on the working class to give „military“ support to a fragile coalition of Syrian „Kerenskys“ (#2) and „Kornilovs“ (here the jihadi Islamist compared to whom Kornilov looks like an archdemocrate) against another bourgeois dictatorship which looks somehow tame compared to the Muslim Brotherhood-led „pro-imperialists“ and even more so the jihadist.
Under such conditions it is crucial that the working class fights (both politcally and militarily) under its own banner against both the regime and the current MB-led rebels and in particular against the jihadis and by doing so tries to win over those parts of the militants who up to now are misled by the proimperialist and/or islamist misleadership of the revolt. If, as is the reality now, the working class does not have an vanguard organization of its own leading it in this direction, it rather keeps neutral and defends itself against all onslaughts from whatever direction they may come. This by the way seems to be the correct tactics of the Kurdish PYD, even if this is not a
working class organization. The Baathi regime is an enemy of the
working class and the toiling masses of Syria, but, however bourgeois and bloody it may be, it is at present not the main enemy. It is not more proimperialist and not less democratic than the decisive parts of the rebel movement but – although it uses sectarian tactics – it is in essence non-sectarian and more secular than the Muslim Brotherhood and in particulary the takfiri jihadi forces such as the Jabhat an-Nusra.
And it should also be pointed out that contrary to what the RCIT said in another document you can not compare the Palestinian revolt of
1930 against the zionist colonization with the present Syrian revolt. In Palestine this revolt was an example of a national liberation struggle which has to be supported even if its leadership was reactionary and totally unfit for the job. In Syria we have to do with a socially based civil war. Here we have to decide on the basis of which Syrian forces ought to determine the living conditions of the majority of the people.
Finally let me give a little hint for leftist, in particulatr for
„unbelievers“: If you are a „kafir“ (or even an atheist) the Assad regime doesn’t mind unless you oppose it politically. The Islamists however do mind notwithstanding your political position. If you have been a muslim by birth and now are a christian, a buddhist, an alawi, shiite druze or an atheist you are liable to be killed, and if you belong to any other than muslim „ahl al-kitab“ (people of the holy book
– christians, jews) you will be a „dhimmi“, living under the protection of the Islamic state but with less rights than a muslim. It is true that the Assad regime has introduced a law according to which a non-muslim can not become present of Syria. Apart from the obvious fact that almost all Syrians are not in practice concerned because only one single person can get the job it is obvious that the regime introduced this law for merely tactical reasons giving in to the feelings of large parts of the majority sunni population and thus trying to make it clear that the hetrodox alawi-sect, to which he and many of his cronies belong, is as much muslim as the sunnis are (of what however many of these are not at all conveniced). It ought to be clear that there is a difference in holding a position for merely tactical reasons or for regarding it as the essence of one’s identity.