Syrian Communist Party Program

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INTRODUCTION

The World Today and the Feature of the Age

The Arab National Liberation Movement

Current Stage Syria

 Reality and Development Prospects

The Socio-Economic Development

The Syrian Communist Party

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INTRODUCTION

The Syrian Communist Party, which was established on

October 28th, 1924 on the eve of the Greater Syrian Revolution

against the French occupation, is the vanguard of the Syrian

working class and its organized self-conscious contingent that

expresses its vital interests, defends its rights as well as the rights of the peasant masses and of all arm and brain labors, that struggles

to liquidate the exploitation of man by man, a people by another,

and to build the socialist society. In its struggle to achieve these

great tasks, in its internal life and in its actual practice, the SCP

adopts and is guided by Marxism-Leninism.

The Party declared its first program in July 1931 in which it

asserted its independence as being a party of a tireless struggle

against the French occupation for realizing national independence,

and as being the party of the toiling popular masses, the party of

Scientific Socialism and Proletarian Internationalism.

Since then, the Party has been continuously working for

improving and revising its Program, specifying its tasks according

to the different stages of the evolution of Syria's working class and

people in general, taking into consideration the social, economic

and political developments that take place in the country, the

region and in the world, following up those changes in a way that

reflects the interests of the working class and of the blue- and

white-collar labors.

In June 1939, the Party issued a programmatic document

entitled "What do the Syrian Communists Want? "

The Party's National Covenant, approved by the Second

National Congress which met in early 1944, summed up the direct

and urgent tasks the Syrian communists should struggle to achieve;

a full national independence was the topmost priority.

During the 1949 electoral campaign of the Constituent

Assembly, the Party stated its opinion regarding the Syrian

Constitution and presented on behalf of the candidates of the

National Democratic Front in Damascus an integral proposal

entitled "How Should the Syrian Constitution Be?".

In May 1956, the Party's Central Committee issued a

document in which it declared its stand concerning a number of

different basic questions such as the Arab unity, the Palestinian

cause, the national front...etc.

In late 1958, the Party issued, after a wide discussion all over

its cells and bodies, an important document that illustrated its

stance regarding the Syrian-Egyptian union and which was known

as the "Thirteen Provisions. "

After the separation between Syria and Egypt and in July 1962.

the Party put for discussion its Draft New Political Program and

its Draft Agricultural Program.

The 1969 Third Party Congress approved the Agricultural

Program. The Party in the 1974 Fourth Congress approved its

Program and revised it in the Fifth Congress of May 1980. In May

1991, the Seventh Congress adopted the "Programmatic Tasks."

The activity of the SCP is currently oriented towards the further

promotion and deepening of the struggle against imperialism.

Zionism and reaction; towards the liberation of the occupied Arab

territories; towards protecting, firming up and deepening the

progressive social and economic achievements; consolidating the

patriotic regime; and pushing our country towards the road of

social progress to prepare the necessary backgrounds for transiting

into Socialism.

The SCP, depending upon its long heritage of struggle, presents

this Program after it has been redrafted and amended, bearing in

mind the changes and developments that took place in the world

after the dismantlement of the Soviet Union and the changes of

Eastern Europe.

Taking this Program as a weapon along with a tireless

struggle for its fulfillment would constitute an important basis to

solidify the Party's unity of will and action and to strengthen its

role in the country.

The World Today and the Feature of the Age

Ever since the dawn of civilization, humanity has been

striving for realizing social justice, an aspiration that has not had its substantial conditions that would help it turn true.

From Spartacus's Revolt, to the Revolt of the Negroes, to the

Qarmatian State, and the Paris Commune, that human aspiration

has always been confronting with more historically superior social

powers.

The Great Socialist October Revolution inaugurated a new era.

For the first time in the human history, it turned into actual reality

the idea of social justice, based upon the liquidation of man-to-man

exploitation and people-upon-people oppression.

The victory of the Great Socialist October Revolution was a

sign of a considerable change in the human history: the

correspondence of that human aspiration to the maturity of certain

concrete   circumstances, announcing an end to the forces of

injustice and exploitation.

The October Revolution managed to create a new situation all

over the world, the most important feature of which is the

emergence of the state of the workers, peasants and all arm and

brain labors - a state which gradually became an effective and

influential power in the world's historical development as a whole.

The October Revolution was an objective necessity, dictated by

the unequal development of Capitalism in the imperialist stage.

Further, it was a clear evidence of the rising role of the subjective

factor in the modem age; i.e., the role of the revolutionary vanguard

of the popular masses in affecting the events and social phenomena

as a form of a conscious intervention aimed at controlling those

events and phenomena for the benefit of mankind.

The October Revolution would never have triumphed had its

leading vanguard not depended upon a scientific theory- Marxism-

as a guide for action. That vanguard, thanks to the prominent role

played by Lenin,   could develop the theory under the new

circumstances - imperialism - and inferred the new developments

Capitalism had   undergone, in such a way that enacted the

formulation of the theories on imperialism, the revolutionary party,

and  the  socialist  revolution,   which were indispensable

achievements for paving the theoretical ground for the triumphant

October Revolution.

Since then, Marxism-Leninism has been a guide for action for

millions of the revolutionaries fighting against Capitalism and

imperialism all over the world, who could manage to score

unprecedented victories in the world history over the powers of

injustice and exploitation.

Marxism-Leninism is considered one of the most significant

achievements of the human intellect throughout the evolution of

mankind. Through the method of Dialectical Materialism, the

Marxist-Leninist theory found out the internal laws governing the

evolution of Capitalism, concluding its inevitable collapse to be

replaced by its antithesis- the Communist Society. Marxism, and

later Leninism- the Marxism of the imperialist age and the age of

the  Socialist Revolution- has developed through the struggle

against two major threats, namely revisionism and opportunism

that took different shapes in the different stages of the historical

evolution. Dogmatism and nihilism are of the most important

manifestations of these two dangers.

Dogmatism is the cause behind the hindrance of the

development of the Marxist ideology, and in turn, of the creative

promotion of Marxism.   Dogmatism dealt with Marxism as

ultimate texts and ideas, as if it was invalid to develop or go

deeper; an issue that caused a great damage not only to the theory

but also to its various applications. Under the ideological influence

of the bourgeois and petit bourgeois ideas, the nihilistic trends

flourished and tried to minimize Marxism merely into its method;

i.e., depriving it of all its achievements over more than 150 years

of its development.

The creative development of Marxism-Leninism under our

present circumstances needs the collective efforts of the world

communist and labor movement, particularly under the conditions

lived at the end of the twentieth century, at the threshold of the

twenty-first century and the beginning of the third millennium of

the modem human history.

These efforts should focus on having a deep understanding of

contemporary Capitalism, its contradictions and historical limits,

and the change of its forms and means of exploitation, and also on

having a deep understanding of the issues related to building

Socialism in order to extract its driving laws.

Throughout its triumphant march in the twentieth century.

Socialism has realized major achievements and victories all over

the globe, drawing major outlines in the human history. Besides the

worldwide popular struggles against colonialism, the rise of the

Soviet Union and the Socialist Bloc later on was one of the main

causes behind the collapse of the old colonial system, an issue that

caused a considerable change in the world balance of forces and

created a real material, moral, and military support for the struggle

of the oppressed peoples, creating new prospects for their struggles

to realize their sovereignty, independence and recognized existing

entity.

The Soviet people, led by the Communist Party, made great

victories of international significance. Within two decades and

between two world wars, they were able to change their country

from a poor and backward country where illiteracy spread among

the majority of the peasantry into one of the world's most powerful

countries, that was able to stop and destroy the fascist conquest.

Twice within 25 years, the Soviet people could rescue their

economy out of the ruins and moved forward to occupy a forefront

place in the world in every field.

The victory of the Soviet Union over the Nazi Germany in

World War II reaffirmed the preferability and superiority of the

Socialist System.

It was the Soviet Union that made the first step towards

ushering humanity into space, and was the first to use the atomic

energy for peaceful purposes. The tremendous efforts exerted after

the Great National War enabled the Soviet Union to achieve the

strategic balance of powers with the United States of America,

preventing thereby an outbreak of a third world war. The Warsaw

Pact, with its backbone consisted mainly of the Soviet military

force, could turn into a balancing power against the NATO and

prevented it in many cases from provoking local or regional wars.

As a social system. Socialism proved its superiority over

Capitalism. Within a relatively short period of time, it was able to

solve complicated social problems. The rights to work, to live in

a house, to learn and to receive medical treatment were all secured,

turning for the first time in the history of mankind into acquired

rights of the popular masses. The power of the socialist example in

these fields could impose itself upon Capitalism which had no

choice but to yield and offer certain concessions to its working

class in order to  soften the pace of tension and social struggle,

aggravated by Socialism's superiority and privileges.

Today's experience of the former socialist countries and the

tragic problems brought to them by Capitalism prove once again the superiority of the socialist regimes which, after all, had some

human, civilized and progressive characteristics that can never

be found in any capitalist regime. The first socialist regimes made

great achievements and fulfilled a great part of the human aspirations. These experiences give us lessons and a good basis for the existing socialist regimes and the new ones which will inevitably rise more developed than the previous ones.

When examining the factors of the collapse that took place in

some of the socialist regimes, the following should be taken into

consideration:

1. What happened was a resulting outcome to an international

conflict and to a certain world balance of forces, in which the world

imperialism could invest to the utmost its reserve, the Third World,

in the race that took place for securing the military equipoise. The

Soviet Union, however, had not had but its own internal resources

to provide such a balance.

2. The prevalence of right-wing opportunism within the ranks

of the world communist movement has since mid 1950s been hindering the international revolutionary process, an issue that laid its burdens and troubles on the Soviet Union and its own development, leading in turn to the emergence of a number of gaps in the process of building Socialism. The class enemy could penetrate through those gaps, taking them as a ground in its battle

against Socialism from inside.

3. Ignoring the class struggle under the presence of two

opposite world systems has allowed the underground anti forces in

the socialist countries to play a multiform destructive role in the

process of building Socialism. This confirms the validity of the

thesis that underlines the increase of the class struggle intensification whenever getting closer to Socialism is active. What

happened in the last few years in Eastern Europe and the Soviet

Union urges the discovery of the deep reasons behind that

condition. The explanation of the previous thesis lies probably in

the thesis of the 'oneness of the world', meaning that there is one

integrated and interinfluential world; and in the thesis saying that

the world lives the stage of an international transition from

Capitalism to Communism, the two opposite patterns of material

production. One should say also that building Socialism for the first

time in history has offered humanity a lot, most importantly that

experience on which basis the new socialist regimes would rise.

The changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have had

many consequences and raised various issues upon which true

solution the future development of the world revolutionary

movement depends largely.

One of the most dangerous effects is the change in the world

balance of forces for the advantage of world imperialism, especially

the American imperialism, which is trying to avail itself of this

situation in order to impose its uni-pole order through the so-called

"new world order": an essentially old order and a compound form

of both old colonialism and neo colonialism and which carries the

worst of their features.

The international changes did not lead into a more stable

secure, or more war-immune world. On the contrary, the world

today has become more explosively dangerous, and the regional

and civil wars, that cause the death of hundreds of thousand of

people, have increased considerably.

Through what is known as the "new world order", the world

imperialism is trying to firm up its control and domination over the

Earth and its resources and peoples. Resorting to whatever means

enabling it to realize that goal, the world imperialism follows

basically the following ways:

1. Flaring up wars through stirring the ethnic, religious and

sectarian intrigues.

2. Imposing the stipulations of the World Bank and the

International Monetary Fund over the countries of Asia, Africa

and Latin America, in order to overplunder their resources

through the horrible and rapid deterioration of their peoples

living standard.

3. Spreading the scientific and technological retardation

over complete nations and regions with the aim of keeping them

as sources of raw materials and cheap manpower.

The provisional setback of the world revolutionary movement

has disturbed the world balance of forces and enabled the world

imperialism to give free rein to its arrogance and its criminal plans

Yet, that very policy pursued by imperialism in the new circumstances actually results in enlarging the front of its anti fighters to include everyone interested in the continuity of life itself on this globe.

The other pole -the pole of the forces of liberation, progress

and Socialism which has been existing even before the emergence

of Socialism as standing regimes in the twentieth century- still

exists and is advancing day after another, depending upon the fact

that it is impossible for Capitalism to offer solutions to any of the

serious problems suffered by humanity, such as poverty, hunger.

environmental pollution, ...etc.

Therefore, it is possible to say that the main contradiction that

still rules our time is that one between labor and capital, a

contradiction that takes a variety of shapes according to its

surrounding conditions.

If the advanced capitalist states were able to soften these shapes domestically, they could do so only through increasing the

exploitation of both nature and the developing countries- the poor

South. This means that those capitalist countries did not reach to an

fundamental resolution of that contradiction, rather they deepened

and enlarged it.

Capitalism's development at the end of the 20th century has

brought it into an inescapable dead end. It is deepening and

intensifying the contradictions of Capitalism in many fields,

particularly with:

- The developing countries- the poor South, which are

exhausted by the world capitalist plunder.

- Nature, which unrenewable resources have been exploited,

and its environment polluted, through the random development of

the productive forces.

- The techno-scientific progress with complete fields of it

consecrated against the human interest itself, particularly in the

realm of military industries.

Furthermore, the contradictions that may play an important

determining role for Capitalism as a world system have intensified,

most importantly the inter-contradiction among the familiar

imperialist centers themselves (USA, Western Europe, and Japan).

This does not rule out the possibility for the rise of new imperialist

centers, leading to a more intensified world conflict among

themselves for redividing the regions of power.

The 20th century Capitalism could not introduce satisfactory

answers and solutions for the spiritual and material problems

suffered by humanity; what it introduced in fact is utterly the

contrary. Therefore, Socialism still introduces itself as a sole

alternative for the capitalist system, which became more rotten and

parasitic to a large extent and turned into an obstacle before the

future development of mankind, even into a threat to the very

existence of humanity itself.

The twentieth century is the century of the first socialist

systems that paved the long way for humanity to march towards

a society of social Justice and freedom. Regardless of the setbacks

the socialism that appeared in the socialist countries and the

achievements it had introduced to their peoples proves itself as a

living idea which will continue making its way in spite of the

frequent and sometimes unexpected zigzags.

The feature of the age is still the transition from Capitalism

to Socialism. This is a fact, despite the stumbles of that process in

one stage or another. This transition is governed  by the main contradiction in our time, that is the antagonistic contradiction

between labor and capital which can only be resolved by the

triumph of Socialism and Communism.

The Arab National Liberation Movement

The Arab national liberation movement, ANLM, is a part of the

world national liberation movement, and accordingly a contingent of the world revolutionary movement. This movement includes all the liberation movements in the Arab countries.

The ANLM achieved a great number of victories during its long history, most important of which is the national independence which was gained by the Arab countries as a result of the struggle of the broad masses, helped by the Soviet Union in every field, against the direct colonial occupation.

Many significant progressive transformations, such as the agrarian reform which dealt a blow to the positions of feudalism

and the remains of the old backward social relations, and the formation of the state sector in the national economies, took place in the Arab countries which were governed by national regimes.

The development process performed in these countries managed to make a considerable advancement in the standard of the productive forces and serious changes in the relations of production. Such socio-economic transformations, however, did not stop the development of the capitalist relations of production, rather they make them dominant, because these transformations after all did not exceed the limits of bourgeois-democratic changes. In the other Arab countries, particularly those governed by monarchies of different forms, a considerable progress in the development of the production forces was also realized, but it occured under a thorough domination of the imperialist monopolies and under the great influence of the pre-capitalist remains. Consequently these countries became increasingly dependent upon the world imperialist centers politically and economically.

The ANLM underwent as well serious setbacks, the most important of which was the downfall of many national regimes as a result of the imperialist conspiracies and the pressure exerted by the local reaction. The shrink of the political supporting basis of these regimes played a role in their collapse, as they failed in guaranteeing wide democratic freedoms for the working class and all the toiling masses, who objectively constitute the social ground for the national regimes. Such experiences tell us that the more the democratic freedoms of the national and progressive forces are guaranteed, the stronger and more solidified is the social and, consequently, the political basis of the national regimes.

The forces constituting the national liberation movements differ in accordance with their different conditions and tasks. The more common the tasks are, the larger the social basis of the concerned movement is. The standing nucleus of these movements, however, remains the working class and all the arm and brain labors whose basic interests are organically associated with the victory of the national liberation movement in the given country. At present, the national bourgeoisie might have a role in confronting the imperialist schemes, because its interests fall objectively in contradiction with the interests of the international monopolies aspiring not only to loot the resources of the peoples but also to suppress the different sections in the developing countries under their political and social domination. This entails the formation of the broadest national alliance that defies the imperialist designs under the banner of freedom and national

independence.

      Some forces have activated recently camouflaging their political goals with a religious cover. The evolution of this phenomenon has its own objective grounds. The rapid and deformed development of Capital ism and its accompanying social and political phenomena has led to the formation of a certain petit bourgeois type of personality which is desperate and frightened by that development and that believes that the social redemption can never be reached except through a return to the fundamentals as a means for salvation. Such people constitute the relatively broad popular basis for the religion-covered movements. Still, it is frequently often that the social basis of these movements comprises the parasitic bourgeoisie that already has its economic

gains, yet is unable to realize its political goals. So it uses such

movements in its effort to assume political power. 7'hc excessive

richness of the ruling sections and their associate circles, on one

hand, and the sharp deterioration of the living standards of the

toiling masses, accompanied with the absence of the enough- needed democratic freedoms for the national and progressive forces, on the other, lead into a further strengthening of the positions of the religion-covered political trends. The setbacks of some patriotic forces and regimes poured water in that stream. In general, the interests of the imperialist circles do not fall in contradiction with the strengthening of the religion-hidden reactionary trend, as the consequence of its triumph in the countries it dominates would be their retreat for hundreds of years backward, socially, economically and politically. Such a victory would ensure the inability of these countries to defy the modem imperialist machine. The leading forces of the ANLM believe that the horizon of victory does not lie in pushing the wheel of history backward, but in moving forward towards building a society where the public ownership of the means of production and the principles of social justice prevail.

The Marxist-Leninist communist parties in the Arab countries

are an important contingent of the ANLM. Ever since their rise,

these parties  have along with their peoples fought all the national

and social liberation battles against imperialism, Zionism and the

Arab reaction. The historical evolution proved that the existence

of these parties is an objective necessity that reflects the aspirations of the Arab peoples towards freedom, real democracy and

Socialism.

The communist parties in the Arab countries are a leading

faction of the ANLM, a characteristic they have attained as they

interrelated the question of the complete victory of the liberation

movement with the question of the social liberation; i.e., the cause

of realizing the socialist system.

The Palestinian cause is one of the basic questions that have

been facing the ANLM. The establishment of the State of Israel on

the land of Palestine by the imperialist-backed Zionism, after an

aggressive war that resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from their homeland, has created a

permanent focal point of tension in the Arab region. The successive

wars launched by the Zionist Israel against the neighboring countries and the later occupation of the complete Palestinian soil in addition to some lands of other neighboring Arab countries have been intensifying that tension and forming a standing threat for the Arab peoples. Israel, under these new conditions, is trying to impose its political and economic domination over the Arab countries and to dictate a peace that ensures such a control.

A just peace in this region is