Interview with EliseosVagenas, member of the CC of the KKE and Head of the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE

We are witnessing turbulent developments in Syria. Before we get into the facts, let us consider a less discussed aspect. Why is Syria so important? What is its significance in the Middle East?

ANSWER: Syria is an important country in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East region, because it is not only a crossroads of cultures and religions, but also a hub for the transport of goods and energy, as well as a foothold in the geopolitical plans of various imperialist powers.

Therefore, in order to understand the importance of the developments in Syria, we have to say that what is happening there cannot be detached from what the KKE has been emphasizing for a long time and what all the other parties have been hiding: That we are on the verge of major developments.

•          The war in Ukraine, with hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed on both sides;

•          The genocide of the Palestinian people, with the massacre of 20,000 children, women and old people;

•          The exchange of blows between Israel and Iran, which we have witnessed in the previous period;

•          The war in Lebanon, but also in Sudan, in various African countries, the clouds of war that have gathered over the Indo-Pacific and Taiwan.

All this is the forerunner of what has already begun!

The bourgeois classes, the monopolies, these economic giants, are fiddling with the latch of the gates of hell, as they compete for the division of the mineral wealth and the wealth produced by the workers, the energy, oil, gas, rare earths, lithium, uranium, etc., market shares and geopolitical footholds.

And here comes Syria, which has its own energy resources and can become a pipeline and transport route. To this day, there are Russian and Iranian military bases in Syria, while the Americans, Turks and Israelis have occupied Syrian territory!

We are talking about a country that they have managed to dismember unofficially in the last 15 years, because it was forced into the "Procrustean bed" of inter-imperialist competition... Until today, when we witnessed the overthrow of the Assad regime by the jihadists, who were reinvented by the Americans with the help of Turkey.

What has led up to the current dominance of the jihadists in Syria?

ANSWER: First of all, Syria, like the whole Middle East region, was a colony until the Second World War! The Syrian territory was a colony of France.

Syria became independent in 1946, when, thanks to the influence of the USSR, its contribution to the Anti-Fascist Victory and the establishment of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, colonialism collapsed and certain positive processes took place in the international correlation of forces.

Since 1963, the Arab Socialist Party, the Ba'ath Party, had been in power, and a few years later it formed the National Progressive Front. The Ba'ath was a party that advocated Arab unity and a social democratic management.

In the '67 war, Israel occupied Syrian territory (the Golan Heights), which it still holds today!

We must also bear in mind that for many decades in Syria, and generally in the line of the International Communist Movement, the question of achieving national independence as a precondition for overcoming backwardness in all areas of social life prevailed. This conception was based on the erroneous “strategy of stages towards socialism”, which was disproved in practice.

For its part, the USSR and the other socialist states formulated a policy of economic and other forms of cooperation and support for the new regimes that emerged from the fall of colonialism, including Syria, with the aim of preventing them from being integrated into the international capitalist market, into the imperialist unions. The USSR had good relations with the Syrian regime, for example it had naval bases in Syria.

Of course, these relations did not change the class character of Syria and the fact that the means of production remained in the hands of the bourgeoisie. It was a bourgeois regime that perpetuated class exploitation and social injustice while, in order to promote its own interests, it tried to appear under the banner of the national liberation struggle and objectively stood in the way of the various plans of the imperialist powers.

After the overthrow of socialism in the USSR, the Ba'ath bourgeois regime carried out major capitalist restructurings, “market openings” as they used to call them, and imposed new burdens on the people.

Then the Assad regime was approached by the US and European imperialists, Turkey and others, who asked for more “openings” and facilities for their own monopolies. The part of the Syrian bourgeoisie that rallied around the Ba'ath chose other geopolitical partnerships, with Iran and Russia. For example, it gave Russia the right to explore and exploit hydrocarbons in its EEZ, continued to buy weapons from it, etc. Moreover, in 2011 an agreement was signed between Iran, Iraq and Syria for a gas pipeline that would carry Iranian gas from Iran to Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Western Europe.

This plan ran counter to that proposed by the USA and Israel, which were interested in building a pipeline from Qatar to Europe via Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey.

Moreover, Russia had its only naval base in the Mediterranean, in Tartus.

This is how we arrived at the events of the so-called Arab Spring, when the bourgeois forces, taking advantage of the social problems accumulated in society due to the capitalist path of development, started to fight against the Ba'ath regime, first with demonstrations and then by forming armed groups, with the support of Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the US–European imperialists.

Let us not forget that the jihadists have been an element of the hybrid war of the Euro-Atlantic imperialists for decades in Afghanistan, Chechnya, the Middle East, etc.

And the Ba'ath regime, led by Assad, would have fallen in 2015 had it not been for the military intervention of Russia, Iran, and the Lebanese Hezbollah, which shifted the military balance and made it easier for the Ba'ath to continue to rule.

How did the Assad regime, which had been in power for more than 50 years and was backed by powerful countries like Russia and Iran, fall in a week?

ANSWER: First of all, let’s make it clear that Russia and Iran got involved in Syria for their own capitalist interests, whether it had to do with pipelines, or bases, or the arms trade and so on.

Of course, at the time some people thought that the military engagement of Russia and Iran was beginning to shape the so-called multipolar world.

Illusions were created that in this world of imperialist contradictions a balance could be maintained, which would be for the benefit of the Syrian people, without shaking and overthrowing capitalism.

In reality, however, Turkey continued to occupy 10% of the territory and had turned the Idlib region into a breeding ground and “school” for jihadists (with the tolerance of Russia). 30% of the Syrian territory continued to be controlled by the Kurds with the help of the USA, which also illegally exploited Syrian oil. Israel also continued to control the Golan and bomb Syria.

In fact, through the so-called Astana Process (with the participation of Russia, Iran, Turkey and some Arab countries), foreign interference in Syria’s internal affairs became normal.

And when we reached a moment when Russia’s priority was not the war in Syria but the one in Ukraine, and when Iran and Hezbollah were weakened by the war with Israel, which had also been bombing critical infrastructure inside Syria for a long time, then the jihadists were deployed, who are now being rebranded as “rebels” and supposed revolutionaries, while Turkey and the US–European imperialists are behind them.

Of course, it should also be stressed that the developments were also influenced by the fact that large sections of the population have long since lost confidence in the Ba'ath due to foreign sanctions and anti-people measures that exacerbated poverty and state repression. In addition, they saw no prospect of a better life because of the de facto partition of the country.

All of this undermined any political and military support for the Ba'ath and led to its rapid toppling. In an article by the International Relations Section of the CC of the KKE in the Communist Review (No.1/2016), entitled “The military–political equation in Syria”, we outlined the whole course of events that we see unfolding today.

Of course, now the apologists for the massacre of the Palestinian people have gone wild and have the audacity to talk about the fall of the “Syrian bloody regime”, as if they do not know what is happening in their “allied” Gulf monarchies, such as Saudi Arabia.

To sum up on Syria, this country was part of the international capitalist system, carried out structural reforms aimed at its deeper integration into the international capitalist economy, without even hesitating to strike a blow against the conquests of the workers and the popular strata, and finally got caught up in the tangle of monopoly competition for the division of capitalist markets. The overthrow of the Ba'ath regime is not a revolution, but a shift in the power of the capitalist system, accompanied by a change in the geopolitical orientations of the new form of government.

Who are the winners and losers of the developments in Syria?

ANSWER: The big loser is clearly Iran, which according to various sources, has invested tens of billions in the Syrian economy in recent years. It also appears to be losing the channel of communication it had through Syrian territory with the political–military forces it supports in Lebanon, such as Hezbollah.

Russia is also on the losing side, regardless of whether it finally manages to keep its naval base in Tartus and its air base in Khmeimim as a result of its negotiations with the pro-Turkey jihadists. This is because its prestige has been damaged. In 2017, V. Putin, speaking at the Khmeimim base, declared that there was no chance of the jihadists taking control of Syria and that Russia would guarantee this with its military power. Today, he appears to be unreliable in the eyes of those who believed him. The blow to Russia’s leadership will be even greater if it fails to maintain its two bases, which have been a way station/staging post for Russia’s military forces in Africa, in a number of conflicts that are being fought there.

Other bourgeois classes, for example of Iraq or even of Cyprus, could also lose out. Let us recall that the dismantling of Libya by NATO, with the participation of Greece at the time and with the only voice of opposition being that of the KKE, led to the unacceptable pact between Turkey and Libya, which disputes Greek sovereign rights in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey has been trying for years to legitimize the results of the Turkish occupation of Cyprus and the recognition of the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which happens to be geographically opposite to Syria, now ruled by jihadists closely linked to Turkey.

The winners are the bourgeois classes of Turkey and Israel. The Turkish bourgeoisie has already occupied a part of the Syrian territories in the last years and had practically torn up the Lausanne Agreement, which defines the borders with Syria, but also with Greece. In the light of these developments, we see that Turkey has significantly strengthened its position in the Middle East region. It has managed to have many energy and transport pipelines pass through its territory. It is taking the lead in exploiting Syria’s natural resources and labour force. It is also being strengthened within NATO, because in practice it is proving to be particularly useful in driving the competitors of the Euro-Atlantic imperialist coalition, such as Iran and Russia, into a corner.

For its part, the Israeli bourgeoisie is getting rid of an Arab country that was powerful until 15-20 years ago, supported the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movement and had strong military and political–economic power to confront Israel and its plans. Israel is already expanding its occupied territories in Syria and has also taken over Mount Hermon, from where it can bomb Damascus without using bombers. Its plan, like that of the USA, is to further weaken Syria and make Israel a key player in the Middle East and a transit hub, e.g. with the so-called IMEC Corridor etc. Thus, within a few days, Israel has blown up dozens of infrastructures of the dismantled Syrian army, and if it succeeds, it will also proceed to the dismemberment of Syria, with the establishment of a Kurdish "formation", which will be used as its political–military mainstay in the Middle East.

Finally, we would not count the Syrian people among the winners, despite the expressions of triumph of the international bourgeois media. The suffering of the Syrian people will continue and increase. The KKE remains in solidarity with the Syrian people and the communists in the new conditions that have emerged.

What's next? The Euro-Atlantic camp claims that everyone must now work for an “inclusive future” in Syria, which will protect all religious communities, with peace, etc...

ANSWER: Well, the wishful thinking about “unity in diversity”, “inclusivity” and “peace” is the jargon of the bourgeois governments, the EU and NATO; it is just full of waffle.

The bottom line is that one chapter of imperialist competition in the Middle East is now closed and another chapter is automatically opened. The competition between the bourgeois classes over all the things we have highlighted above, i.e. for those things from which the capitalists expect to increase their profits by “bringing their competitors to their knees”, will not stop!

The overthrow of this regime could facilitate the imperialist plans of the USA and Israel, such as an attack on Iran, or even lead to a new dismemberment of the states of the region and to a domino effect of destabilization and bloodshed.

The contradictions are in a tangle that will inevitably lead to new imperialist interventions, conflicts and wars. In Israel, for example, a large part of the bourgeois political system believes that the time has come to seek the dissolution of Iran, the emergence of “Greater Azerbaijan” and it is no coincidence that Israel (together with Turkey) supported Azerbaijan in the last war against the Armenians.

Therefore, we cannot trust the bourgeois classes and their alliances like the EU and NATO.

The youth and the workers should not take the bait and trust the proclamations that these unions can ensure peace and security for our people and other peoples.

We should become even stronger to face them! In the mass struggles for stopping the deployment of arms, ammunition and troops to the imperialist massacres in Ukraine, the Middle East, etc. For the return home of Greek armed forces on imperialist missions abroad! For the immediate closure of the US bases that make our people a target for retaliation by the other side in the war! For the disengagement of Greece from the war, e.g. by not respecting the sanctions against Russia, which increase the burden on our people with the high prices of energy, fertilizers, etc. For the recognition of the Palestinian state on the borders that existed prior to 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the immediate end of relations with the murderous state of Israel as long as the genocide of the Palestinian people continues. For the disengagement from all imperialist plans and alliances, with the people masters in their own land!

This must be our message to be carried across the country and taken up by the people.

The interview was published on Rizospastis, the organ of the CC of the KKE, on 14 December 2024