We are in a moment of great peril, and also great potential for anti-imperialist victories. As the imperial hegemon collapses, it’s trying to drag the rest of the globe down with it, and in cases such as Syria it’s succeeded. It is still declining, though, which creates opportunities for the forces that can challenge it. One of these forces is Marxism-Leninism, which offers ideas that are indispensable towards victory over monopoly capital. And as everyone is forced to reckon with the horrific implications of Syria’s fall, communism can provide the world with a clear path out of these horrors; one that differs from the path our movement has thus far been following, which led to imperialism’s victory over Syria.
The multipolar shift we’ve seen since the Soviet Union’s fall has shown that when a revolutionary force fails, the energy which it provided an outlet for needs to go somewhere. The need for an alternative to Washington’s unipolar hegemony didn’t simply go away when the USSR collapsed; the bulk of the globe, including Russia, still had an interest in bringing the world towards a new geopolitical order. So soon the Russian Federation began to assert itself against the hegemon, taking away the grip of the multinational corporations that had initially been able to loot it. And this was part of a wider trend, wherein Eurasia gathered new economic strength and the Global South came to align with Eurasia.
The “War on Terror” invasions compelled many countries to turn against the United States, China underwent an explosion in growth, and by the start of the 2010s there had emerged a new anti-imperialist bloc. Within a generation, the situation had gone from Washington (seemingly) having unprecedented control; to the multipolar era essentially already being reality.
Multipolarity is still a reality; but Syria’s demise has made it so that within the economic periphery, the path towards freedom and prosperity is now going to be significantly more difficult. The imperialists and their proxy forces are now capable of taking many more lives and bringing much more destruction, particularly within west Asia. The Zionist entity will further expand its genocide, accelerating the slaughter of the Palestinians while bombing across the region with even less restraint. The Turkish neo-Ottoman regime will carve up Syria, like it did with Libya. The Salafi terrorist forces will commit a massive amount of atrocities, while imposing Saudi-style gender oppression. And the U.S. will steal even more Syrian oil, further fueling Washington’s “progressive” YPG terrorist proxy force.
Washington’s sanctions on Syria will not relent, and their effects will now be even worse due to the loss of the country’s cohesive state structure. Without the land connection between Iran and Lebanon that Syria provided, getting weapons to Hezbollah will be much harder, letting the “Israeli” Nazi state to murder many more Lebanese civilians. And “Israel” will also feel emboldened to launch more assaults upon Iran, which is increasingly under the influence of pro-appeasement liberals who will try to block retaliation efforts.
Within the region, the committed and capable resistance forces that remain are almost entirely non-state actors: Hamas, Hezbollah, and Ansarallah. Iran’s hardliners continue to do what they can, but they face strong liberal obstruction. China will absolutely continue to build up its economy, despite Syria’s fall having weakened its trade access; and Russia will continue to militarily weaken the hegemon, while strengthening the PRC’s global development projects. But these powers must now navigate a world that’s much less stable than it would have been without Syria’s demise.
This is how the Syria catastrophe has strategically weakened the anti-imperialist bloc, in addition to the human cost of Zionism’s expanded extermination effort. These aspects of our reality cannot be ignored. The thing we can do, though, is build up the revolutionary forces which are capable of filling the vacuum this cataclysm has created. By doing this, we’ll be able to ensure that this victory for the enemy becomes only a short-term triumph, and that it ultimately backfires on the capitalist system.
The way it can backfire is if the global forces which seek imperialism’s end respond to the Syria tragedy by advancing the class struggle, moreso than they would have otherwise. The lesson from Syria is that to build multipolarity; to have a serious chance of defeating the enemy; you must center the proletarian struggle. The movement against imperialism must be fundamentally based in the interests of the workers, or the integrity of the movement’s structure will be weakened. Corrupt actors, like the Syrian military officials who backed down in exchange for personal material benefits, will have a greater ability to gain leverage.
These opportunists were the chief reason why Syria’s defenses suddenly broke down after thirteen years of standing against the insurgents; the other major factor was the liberal takeover within Iran, which combined with Syria’s internal corruption to make Assad fall. Iran’s recent pattern of inconsistency around helping the Axis of Resistance has weakened the Axis in all areas; and when Syria’s officials weren’t even willing to accept Iran’s help during a crucial moment, the outcome was collapse.
Like with the USSR, the will to defend the revolutionary gains was lost, letting the enemy bring gargantuan destruction and suffering. But the story of post-Soviet socialism provides insight into how we can turn the present crisis around. Communist leaders have since internalized the lessons from the USSR’s fall; Xi Jinping showed this when he identified historical nihilism as the reason behind why the Soviet leadership unlearned Leninism’s foundational lessons. This has ensured that China will keep building up an alternative economy, and that imperialism will remain constrained in key locations. And if today’s anti-imperialist forces respond to Syria’s fall by adapting in the equivalent way, they’ll make unprecedented new gains.
The great advantage which Marxism-Leninism offers the movement is to clean out the uncommitted elements; to make the cause centered around the workers, the core revolutionary subject of this historical stage. When Marxism-Leninism is practiced properly, like it is in China, the corrupt can’t define how things go. Corrupt actors may still be able to gain a foothold, as they did within much of China’s bureaucracy prior to recent reforms; but they can’t overpower the forces which share the proletariat’s goals. That’s why the PRC hasn’t reacted to Washington’s hybrid warfare by capitulating: its dictatorship of the proletariat still rests on sturdy foundations. Its state remains under the direction of the workers, and its internal balance of forces hasn’t been swayed by self-interested actors who would sell out to the imperialists.
Even as the Zionist and jihadist colonization projects rapidly expand, the broader Global South is headed in the direction of a new revolutionary wave. The only way the enemy can hold back this wave is by throwing more countries into chaos; and it can’t do this in enough places to negate the possibility of great anti-imperialist victories. Much of Africa, Latin America, south Asia, and the Pacific island countries have an opening to overthrow neo-colonialism within our generation. And should they follow the Marxist-Leninist path, or a path that’s consistent with Marxism-Leninism’s core beliefs, then they’ll succeed at isolating capital.
I don’t know how big of an impact the Syrian catastrophe will have on the next direction the Global South takes; nor on the class struggle within the imperialist countries and their proxy states. But history shows that displaced political energy needs to go find a new conduit, and we must channel today’s counter-hegemonic energy towards the class struggle.
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