December 21, 2024 | by Barry Weisleder
A stunning series of events demonstrate how quickly and unexpectedly change can occur. In Syria, the dictatorship of Bashar al Assad fell, suddenly it seemed, to a motley coalition of forces, including former affiliates of Isis. The “rebels” are backed by Turkiye, Washington, and the Zionist state. For fifty years, the Assad family ruled Syria, favouring the Alawite religious sect, despite claims of it being a secular republic. The dictatorship suppressed a popular democratic uprising in 2011 which was part of the Arab Spring that surged across north Africa, including Egypt. Severe U.S. sanctions crippled Syria, but the rulers fell also due to their cruel criminal misconduct. Repression literally killed their social base.
Nonetheless, it is quite predictable that celebrations in Damascus will soon give way to protests against the horrors of unfolding sectarian rule.
Meanwhile, the Zionist IOF bombed Syria’s weapons depots and grabbed territory substantially beyond the occupied Golan Heights and the former border demilitarized zone. Hezbollah in Lebanon faces the challenge of finding new military supply routes from Iran. The “Axis of Resistance” suffered a setback. The genocide in Gaza is relentless — notwithstanding Israel’s historic isolation. The global movement of solidarity with the Palestinian people continues, making it critical to draw the lessons of a rapidly fragmenting Syria. A salient point emerges, which is not new: bourgeois dictatorship, as in the case of the Assad family-compact, cannot lead resistance to imperialism and Zionism all the way to victory for the masses. Only a process of permanent revolution can unleash the power of workers and farmers in the under-developed countries.
Socialists defended Syria against the western vultures, against the so-called Free Syrian Army, but refrained from giving Bashar an ounce of political support. This is where revolutionary workers part company with Stalinists and liberal nationalists. The latter extend political support to the likes of Assad, Hezbollah, Hamas, along with the regimes in Tehran and Moscow. Socialists seek workers’ power, workers’ self-organization. Our defense of the state of Syria against the western predators is mainly aimed at staying the murderous hand of our own imperialist masters. As Lenin said over a century ago, “The enemy is at home.” The priority is to give our allies, the oppressed and exploited, time and space to win and exercise real self-determination.
At the same time, we are not neutral. In the 1930s conflict between feudal Ethiopia and imperialist Italy, the Fourth International backed Ethiopia. In the war where anti-worker Kuomintang-led China stood against imperial Japan, Trotskyists supported China. But no political support for the KMT, and none for Haille Selassie. Marxists fight for the political independence of the working class, to establish a Workers’ Government. There is to be no reliance on any bourgeois substitutes, and certainly not for the current leaders of the BRICS countries. Consider who fuels the Zionist monster. Israel’s electricity grid is powered by natural gas (70 per cent), coal (18 per cent) and renewables (10 per cent), with its military and colonial infrastructure relying on imported crude oil and refined fuels delivered by the U.S., Russia, Azerbaijan, Greece, Italy and Brazil. The People’s Republic of China remains Israel’s third largest trade partner — drenched in blood and shame.
So, these slogans still belong at the forefront: Imperialist Hands Off Syria. Workers’ to Power, based on councils elected in every workplace. Canada Out of NATO. Free Palestine – For a Democratic, Secular Palestine, From the River to the Sea.
The federal Liberal minority government is floundering, currently in its most profound political crisis — on the verge of collapse. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is trying to tough it out following the bitter resignation from Cabinet of his Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. Dominic LeBlanc on December 16 was sworn-in as the new Finance Minister just in time to present the government’s fall economic statement. As of December 20, 16 Liberal MPs publicly (and more privately) call for Trudeau to resign as Liberal leader and P.M. The disarray is linked to the threat by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to impose a 25 percent tariff on all trade in goods entering the U.S. if issues of illegal migration and drugs are not resolved to his liking. Bullying of this magnitude, on matters unrelated to commercial trade, could plunge the world into a deep recession rivaling the onset of COVID, starting with Canada and Mexico. Trade wars and rigid protectionism hurt working people primarily. The 1930s Great Depression followed this dreadful path. Provincial premiers in Ontario and British Columbia say it may be necessary to cut off energy, lumber and mineral resources to the U.S. if a tariff wall is erected by Trump. Retaliation or submission are equally poor options, especially if submission entails spending more on the military and NATO membership, as Manitoba NDP Premier Wab Kinew proposes. Chrystia Freeland left Cabinet due to Trudeau’s lack of confidence in her. Freeland is a fiscal conservative, not unlike Mark Carney, former head of the Bank of Canada who evidently turned down Trudeau’s invitation. Freeland chafed at Trudeau’s economic “gimmickry”, including the $250 cheques to all, and the temporary suspension of sales tax on certain items. Now Freeland is free to run for Liberal Party leader — a race that could start as soon as February.
In the meantime, a strong stand against Trump’s threat is necessary. It ought to begin by forging a hemispheric alliance of workers’ organizations. Unfortunately, the Team Canada that Trudeau invokes plays for Bay Street, not Main Street.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers’ national executive voted 14 to 4 to obey the return to work order issued by the Canada Industrial Relations Board — at the behest of the Trudeau government, which deceptively avoided a vote in Parliament on the issue. The union’s decision to abide weakens the resistance to the looming cheap labour gig-economy. It undermines the defense of free collective bargaining and the shrinking right to strike. In the wake of orders imposed recently on dock workers and railroad employees, the right to strike has become more farce than fact.
After four weeks on picket lines, the disappointment felt by postal workers is surpassed by the passivity of leaders of the Canadian Labour Congress. Where is the CLC’s adopted Plan of Action, dedicated to uphold labour liberties and workers’ dignity? Every union should demand an emergency conference of labour to decide what to do now. Ironically, the CLC scheduled a low-key ‘action’ talk-fest for January 20-21 to occur immediately after the Ontario NDP convention in Toronto. Union members could transform that gathering to be much more purposeful.
Socialist Action produced stickers that proclaim: “Victory to Postal Workers! No Legislative Strikebreaking! Fight for Jobs and Justice.” It’s time to decorate the landscape with such slogans.
The law suit initiated by CUPW against the CIRB order is one tool, fine. But workers cannot afford to rely on the courts, let alone the official Inquiry into labour relations at Canada Post, set to report in late-May 2025. History affirms that the right to strike was not won and protected in law chambers, nor by lobbying capitalist politicians. It was won on the street and in struggle. To paraphrase the old CUPW slogan, “The struggle must continue.”