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>From the Detroit Workers' Voice list for October 2, 2016:
A reply to some supporters of the permanent revolution
1. Reply to redrave: The reality of the Syrian uprising
vs. the illusions of the permanent revolution
2. Redrave's polemic against the Communist Voice Organization
3. A list of some CVO articles on the Arab Spring and the Syrian uprising
Reply to redrave: The reality of the Syrian uprising
vs. the illusions of the permanent revolution
By Joseph Green, Communist Voice Organization
A polemic has appeared against the Communist Voice Organization's position on
Syria. It was written by the Communist Workers' Group of Aotearoa/New
Zealand, which is a Trotskyist group which calls its website "red rave". By
putting forward absurdly unrealistic scenarios for Syria, it inadvertently
shows how useless the theory of "permanent revolution" is in dealing with the
struggle against the dictator Assad. Redrave denounces as "unconscious
Assadists" all those who "support the Syrian revolution", but don't see the
democratic struggle in Syria as a socialist revolution.
So at a time when there's a major fight in the left over the attitude to the
dictator Assad and whether to support the democratic movement in Syria,
redrave says that all those who don't agree with the Trotskyist theory of
"permanent revolution" are really "unconscious Assadists". That's an
astonishing feat of sectarianism. As those who read the Detroit Workers'
Voice list know, the DWV list has reprinted statements from Syrian and
American activists denouncing the US-Russian deal and opposing the Assad
dictatorship. We have indicated where we have disagreements with these
statements, but despite our disagreements we have welcomed statements from
Terry Burke, from prominent Syrian intellectuals, and from a number of
American activists. Redrave, however, would regard them all as "unconscious
Assadists".
Redrave insists that the Syrian uprising is a socialist movement. It writes
that "There can be no victorious bourgeois national revolution anymore unless
it is a permanent or socialist revolution."
But anyone who looks seriously at the situation in Syria knows that even a
successful overthrow of Assad will not lead to socialism. It would be of
immense importance; it would spread political life throughout Syria; and it
would change the Middle East. It would open the way for class struggle. But
socialism itself isn't imminent in Syria, or any country at this time.
Redrave, however, insists that one can see "Permanent Revolution in the
flesh" in Syria, arguing that workers' soviets are being built there. It
exaggerates beyond measure the nature of the committees and local groups that
exist in opposition-run areas of Syria, saying that "These are not
institutions of bourgeois democracy but of workers' democracy. They are the
result of proto workers communes that if joined up would be the basis for an
embryonic workers' state. ... That is why our program in Syria is ... armed
workers soviets everywhere!"
The Syrian people have shown tremendous initiative in building local
committees, militias, and groups. They have done so despite half a century of
enforced political passivity under the Ba'ath dictatorship. They have
continued to struggle despite incredible hardships. These are heroic actions
of the Syrian people, which will never be forgotten.
But the local groups aren't soviets. They are groups that deal with the
immediate necessity of the democratic uprising, and have a mixed class
character. Only people with their eye's closed, people drunk on abstract
dogma, can see this as the spread of armed workers' soviets. The theory of
"permanent revolution" encourages this wild speculation. It leaves no room
for considering what these committees really are, what their immediate tasks
are, or even what is the specific role of socialists in this situation.
Redrave goes on to talk about what it thinks is the true immediate
perspective for the Syrian struggle. Based on the theory of "permanent
revolution", it looks forward to the Syrian uprising doing such things as the
following:
* "fight(ing) the Arab and Kurd national revolutions as one workers'
revolution".
* "...the workers and peasants ... split(ting) decisively from their
treacherous
bourgeois and petty-bourgeois class leaders and join(ing) forces with workers
and peasants of the whole MENA [Middle East and North Africa]."
* "Iraqi, Egyptian, Palestinian, Kurd, and Iranian workers and peasants ...
tak(ing) the lead in their own national revolutions against imperialism, and
turn(ing)
