Good am Mark: This supersedes an earlier strand (From message # hari kumar Oct 30 #33239 - and your query to me about this at # Mark Baugher Oct 30 #33242 ) where this discussion started up.
1. I agree a mass party type involvement is central to sensible definitions on fascism. Did this/does this exist in Syria? I would reply 'yes'. It was/is the Ba'th Party. I first refer to a piece here that was referenced in the prior work I sent responding to Duane's false equation involving a dubious phrase " all Stalinists " and what they all do. In that context Duane was alleging that :all Stalinists" support Assad. So in that particular iteration, it dates from May 2018. It is entitled: "The Class Character of Syria - From an Oriental Despotic State to Neo-Colony to Fascist Dictatorship to Civil War; Part 1 web-uploaded November 2020 "; and can be found at: https://mlcurrents.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/class-character-syria-assad.pdf 2. There I make these following claims. First that: "During the neo-colonial period, Syria saw the rise of a Pan-Arab Nationalism, in the form of the Ba’ath Party, founded in 1947. Subsequently, the Ba’ath did not develop in an un-interrupted growth of a single party. In fact, the Ba’ath served as a flexible scaffold, around which three successive groupings created their own party base. This process unfolded from 1947 up to the year Hafiz Assad took sole power, in 1970, and extended till 2000. In 2000 it entered a new, fourth phase under Bashar al-Assad." 3. As things unfolded the fourth phase was this, in my view: "When Hafiz Assad turned on his coalition, and took sole power in 1970, a new phase began. In this the B’ath was transformed into the mass ‘people’s’ façade - of the fascist state of Hafiz Assad. This can be described early on as a Bonapartist military dictatorship under Hafiz Assad. But the character of the state became increasingly an open fascist state. Assad had created a corporate state, using the mass base of the Ba’ath Party. Under the Land Reforms, Ba’ath Party increased the land-mass of the rich peasantry, and enabled the high landlords to transform themselves into a capitalist class. This was the consolidation of a nascent weak national bourgeoisie." 4. As we go further to use an apparently now *forbidden word* (I will not take that particular battle for a new 'Directory" of allowed and disallowed words on at this time) - the neo-liberalism era raised its 'needs': "By the start of the 21st century, Syria had plunged into a globalized neo-liberalism. The corporate state under Hafiz Assad, with its pro-peasant policies, did raise living standards to some extent. But now the living standards of the people again plummeted. Small surprise that the eruptions of the so-called “Arab Spring” resonated in Syria. The spark of the Syrian Resistance, or Uprising rapidly ignited the Syrian masses. A brutal suppression inevitably led to a Civil War. But in the Middle East, no peoples are allowed to play out class battles without the intercession of foreign powers. This is what duly ensued." The piece draws as its main sources (amongst several others including Comintern era documents often as cited by the superb Jane Degras ) from: Van Dam Nicholas: "The Struggle for power in Syria. Politics & Society Under Assad & the Ba’ath party"; London 1997; Seale, Patrick: "Assad - The Struggle for the Middle East"; London; 1988; and the incomparable Batatu, Hanna: “Syria’s peasantry, the Descendants of its lesser Rural Notables and Their Politics”; 1999; Princeton. Along the way it also depicts the early revisionism of the CPs in the era of Khalid Bhakdash: "Khalid Bakdash became the party Secretary-general in early 1932. The Comintern rejected the formation of a federation of Arab communist parties, on the grounds of security. However the CPCL was accorded in effect the guardianship of the region. Under Bakdash, the Party adopted several incorrect, or openly revisionist steps over the ensuing years. Moreover over the next years his leadership was marked by major swings in policy, and a general refusal of principled debate or criticism. In fact it never went beyond the demands of nationalism: “the party never went beyond the rightist positions of support for the national bourgeoisie, as is borne out by a programe which speaks only of independence and social justice, without daring to propose an agrarian reform. For fear of alienating the bourgeoisie”. ( Amin, Samir: “The Arab Nation. Nationalism and class struggles”; London; 1983; p.46)." It was indeed - in my view - the revisionism of that era that led to the awfulness and unspeakable regimes of the Assads. Be Well, Mark. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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