Syria: Defend Idlib against the Great Powers!

Down with the reactionary Astana Deal! Defend the Revolution against the butcher Assad, against Russian and US Imperialism and the local Allies! Victory to the Struggle of the Workers and Oppressed!

Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency, 04.08.2017, www.thecommunists.net

1. The US has released a statement concerning the recent take-over of Idlib by Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). In this statement, the biggest imperialist power threatens the Syrian liberation fighters in that province ("Al-Qaida", "Jolani and his gang", etc) in ill-concealed language with military intervention: "It will be difficult for the United States to convince international parties not to take the required military action. We advise everyone in the free north to take the necessary steps to move away from this gang and reject their terrorism." (https://twitter.com/BaytAShaamNews/status/893214426085675010; see also: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-russia-casualtie-idUSKBN1AI0HG). Furthermore the U.S. has again increased its military drone activity over the province. At the same time, the Pentagon has released a directive telling its Syrian allies to exclusively fight against Daesh and not to fight the Syrian regime. When the Shohadaa al-Qraiteen Brigade in the Southeast of the country broke with the US-led coalition in protest against this directive, the American army command threatened to bomb their positions. Likewise there has been accelerated and, unfortunately successful, pressure by Russia on the leaderships of so-called "moderate" rebel factions in the enclaves of East Ghouta and Homs to accept a truce.

2. The RCIT warns that the US threats against Idlib may very well constitute a clear alarm that a coordinated military assault by the Great Powers and their local allies against the remaining areas under control of Syrian liberation forces is imminent. At the very latest, such an attack is most likely to occur after the pending Great Power victory over Daesh in the east of the country.

3. Along with the arch-reactionary Assad regime, the Great Powers as well as regional powers like Turkey, reacted with horror to recent developments in Idlib in which HTS emerged as the dominant military from a power-struggle between different rebel factions. HTS is not only the strongest force militarily among the liberation fighters, but is also the most determined enemy of the Astana deal. As stated in the treaty of 4 May, the explicit goal of the Astana deal is to finish off the Syrian Revolution by transforming the areas still held by the rebels (primarily Idlib, Deraa, the enclaves in East Ghouta and Homs) into territories occupied by foreign troops (mainly Russian, Iranian and Turkish). At the same time, the deal commits its signatories to continue their war against the so-called “terrorist,” which, in particular, include the strongest, best organized and most committed force in the ongoing liberation war against the Assad regime – the petty-bourgeois Islamist Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham.

4. As we have stated in earlier documents, we in the RCIT unexceptionally oppose the political ideology of HTS. It is a petty-bourgeois nationalist Salafist force which promotes a sectarian and socially-conservative agenda. The working class and the oppressed in Syria need a completely different perspective – the organization of the popular masses in independent councils and armed militias fighting for a consistent democratic and socialist program.

5. However, revolutionaries have to develop their tactics on the basis of the given relation of forces as it is and not as it should be. In the present situation, it is crucial to defend those forces which refuse to capitulate to the pressure of the imperialist powers and their regional allies to lay down their arms and to liquidate the heroic Syrian Revolution. We share the support for the Syrian Revolution expressed by the Palestinian popular masses in the al-Aqsa Mosque last week, when they celebrated their victory against the Zionist occupiers. Sharing this spirit of the Palestinian masses, the international workers’ movement and all progressive and democratic forces must also rally to support the Syrian Revolution. They must defend the anti-capitulationist liberation forces which continue the struggle against the Assad regime as well as the Great Powers and their allies. This includes, but is not limited to, the defense of Idlib and the liberation forces deployed there (including HTS) against any assault of the US, Russian or Turkish armies or their local allies.

* Down with the Astana Deal! Support the Syrian Revolution!

* Defend Idlib against the Great Powers and their allies!

* For a multinational, independent workers’ and peasants republic in Syria – free of sectarianism, foreign occupation and dictatorship!

* For international mass mobilizations and strikes of workers, migrants and youth to stop the imperialist aggression of Russia and the US against the peoples of the Middle East!

International Secretariat of the RCIT

* * * * *

For the RCIT’s analysis of the Arab Revolution in general and the Syrian Revolution in particular, we refer readers to our numerous articles and documents which can be accessed from the Africa and Middle East section of our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/. In particular we refer readers to the following documents:

Michael Pröbsting: Syria: The Astana-Deal Struggle Intensifies. Some Notes on Recent Developments in the Syrian Civil War and the Dangers for the Liberation Struggle, 28 July 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/syrian-revolution-28-7-2017/

RCIT: Syria: Condemn the Reactionary Astana Deal! The so-called "De-Escalation Zones" are a First Step towards the Partition of Syria and a Conspiracy by the Great Powers to Defeat the Revolution, 7 May 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/astana-deal/

Michael Pröbsting: Is the Syrian Revolution at its End? Is Third Camp Abstentionism Justified? An essay on the organs of popular power in the liberated area of Syria, on the character of the different sectors of the Syrian rebels, and on the failure of those leftists who deserted the Syrian Revolution, 5 April 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/syrian-revolution-not-dead/

Johannes Moraga: Syria: Was the Chemical Attack a “False Flag” Operation? Let’s make Syria the graveyard for Assad, Putin and Trump! Victory to the Revolution! 14 April 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/syria-false-flag/

RCIT: Syria: No to Trump's Missiles Strike! Drive all Great Powers out of Syria! Victory to the Syrian Revolution! 7 April 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/us-air-strike-in-syria/

RKO BEFREIUNG: Press Conference on Assad's Chemical Weapons Attack and the US Air Strike, Report (with video) on a press conference of the Syrian Community and the Austrian Section of the RCIT on 7 April 2017 in Vienna, https://www.thecommunists.net/rcit/press-conference-syria-7-4-2017/

Yossi Schwartz: Raqqa: Defeat the US Imperialist Offensive! An assessment of the US/SDF/YPG war against Daesh, April 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/us-offensive-in-raqqa/

RCIT: Down with the Assad Tyranny! Victory to the Syrian Revolution! For a Workers and Peasants Republic! Draft Platform of Syrian Revolutionaries in Political Solidarity with the RCIT, April 2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/draft-syria-platform/

RCIT: Defeat the Imperialist Invasion in Syria – Victory to the Revolution! Down with the American and Russian interventions! No to the imperialist plan to divide Syria! Down with the butcher Assad and his imperialist allies! 13.03.2017, https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/imperialist-invasion-in-syria/

RCIT: World Perspectives 2017: The Struggle against the Reactionary Offensive in the Era of Trumpism, Theses on the World Situation, the Perspectives for Class Struggle and the Tasks of Revolutionaries, 18 December 2016, Chapter IV. The Middle East and the State of the Arab Revolution, https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/world-perspectives-2017/part-4/

RCIT: Revolution and Counterrevolution in the Arab World: An Acid Test for Revolutionaries, 31 May 2015, http://www.thecommunists.net/theory/theses-arab-revolution/