Brief reflections on the long period of socialist orientation of the Syrian Arab Republic, 1971 – 2024

By Davide Rossi

The history of Syria for over half a century has been marked by a clear socialist orientation and in its first twenty years, also of strong cooperation and collaboration with the Soviet Union. This went to the point that Muhammad Ahmed Faris was the first Arab cosmonaut, participating in the Intercosmos space program from the early 80s and flying in the skies in July 1987 with the Soyuz to the MIR space station, staying there for a week, decorated as a hero of the Soviet Union and with the Order of Lenin, even before becoming a beloved and celebrated Syrian hero.

Syria formally emancipated itself from French colonialism in 1946, but it was only in 1958 that it became truly sovereign, when it joined Nasser’s Panarbism project. This experience ended in fact after the Six-Day War of 1967, when arriving in Damascus after the military defeat, the great Egyptian president Gamal Abd el-Nasser was humiliated by Defense Minister Hafez al Assad, who reproaches him for Egyptian conduct in the conflict. It was Hafez al Assad who took power in 1971 and oriented domestic politics more considerably towards a socialist-inspired social system, capable of offering protections and rights to citizens, starting with those of education and medical-health care, as well as bringing Syria to a declared alignment with the Soviet camp. Though Syria did not formally enter into any of the economic or military structures proposed by Moscow, it pursued trade with the Comecon countries, as well as with Arab neighbors and Türkiye.

Hafez al Assad was succeeded in 2000 by his son Bashir, who, also in order to try to revive a lackluster economy, which had suffered from the Soviet collapse, tried the rather disastrous path of liberalization, which in reality, a bit like the whole world, benefits a few and harms many, moreover with a general worsening of the social services offered to citizens.

Within a decade, the opponents, often linked internally to groups that claim more space for the religious dimension and internationally to those Atlanticist realities that seek to undermine Syria’s role of collaboration with Russia and Iran, are strengthened. However, Syria maintains the dual capacity to maintain an internal cohesion based on respect for different political and religious orientations, with a vastness of ancient Christian communities and the coexistence of Sunnis and Shiites in the Muslim sphere, as well as an international position that, also because of the support that passes through Damascus towards Hezbollah in Lebanon, strengthens the alliance with Iran and in fact places Syria in the nascent multipolar camp promoted by China and Russia.

In 2011, the Obama administration decided to invent the Arab Revolutions. The goal was on the one hand to prevent the explosion of social anger in nations subservient to Washington’s interests and with enormous social problems, such as Tunisia and Egypt. On the other, he tried to undermine political and economic opponents such as Gaddafi and Assad. If tragically the destruction of socialist Libya was bloodily carried out by a joint action between the Anglo-French and the Americans, unleashing a terrible civil war that to this day has not substantially been resolved, in Syria the incredible happened: The US ambassador in March 2011 distributed rifles in the square to promote the unleashing of civil war, in the usual complacent silence of the Western media.

Thus begins the third season in the history of socialist Syria, certainly the most dramatic – a civil war that for seven years bloodied the country, sees the worst fundamentalists associate themselves with ferocious cutthroats, from Al Qaeda to Al Nusra, up to the most dramatic and violent season of ISIS that began in 2014, to counter which the Russians, Iranians and Lebanese of Hezbollah decide to intervene to save Syria from the brutal and bloody obscurantism promoted by the Islamic State, backed in substance and in any case not opposed by the Atlanticist international forces.

The peace of 2018 is only partial and apparent, so much so that many believe it never started really. Bashir Al Assad, who is also readmitted to the Arab League, collects contributions within it and from Iran and Russia for reconstruction, which however is slow and cumbersome in the face of so much devastation. The Syrian government is struggling to deal with internal difficulties, to fight corruption and above all to admit its inability to restore national unity. Syria remains fragmented into different occupation zones, certainly the most significant portion is under the control of the Damascus government, but a considerable part in the north is in Kurdish hands, some areas in the hands of pro-Turkish opponents, others to groups linked to fundamentalists and even some areas under the control of factions that still refer to ISIS. It is a fragmentation that damages the prospects for reconstruction, which obliges a tiring military commitment, which also absorbs economic energies, which one would rather like to direct to the benefit of citizens, but it is not possible.

The territorial fragmentation, the now impossible internal cohesion, the economic and social difficulties suffered by citizens, generate discouragement and undermine the credibility of the state in the eyes of Syrians. In the first days of December 2024, the Islamic movement Hayat Tahir al-Sham, or the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant, led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani in a few days, after entering Aleppo, arrived in Damascus on December 8 and found Syrian Prime Minister Muhammad Ghazi Al-Jalali willing to collaborate in the framework of a transition to a new state organization.

To delve into the role that the Atlanticists, the Israelis, the Turks, the Russians and the Iranians have had and will have in this transition would be hasty. Just as it would be erroneous to express considerations on the future internal and regional developments of the new Syria that is taking shape. Objectively, all scenarios are open, from a possible new government that confirms the international commitments undertaken by Syria for many years, as well as a new and completely unexpected placement of Syria in the Atlanticist front, with a series of unpredictable risks of destabilization for the whole Middle East and perhaps beyond.

It is certain, however, that in a leaden dawn of December the history of the Syrian Arab Republic of Syria of socialist orientation, as we have known it for half a century, has definitively come to an end.