1 . The Syrian revolutionary process, that erupted in March 2011 as a part of the Arab revolutions which burst out in Northern Africa and The Middle East, is the consequence of a legitimate democratic uprising of the workers and popular masses against the dictatorial regime represented by Bashar Assad. The masses not only revolted against the oppressive regime, its policy of torture and massacre, but also against the neo-liberal policies enacted in cooperation with the international finance capital and Syrian bourgeoisie which are the reasons for spreading unemployement, poverty and high cost of living. Under the leadership of Bashar Assad, the ruling caste organizes a mafia usurping more than half of the income of the country, by turning corruption into main economic activity and trying to sustain the autocratic regime using all its institutions, particularly the secret security services and the army against the masses. Under these circumstances, the position of the world revolutionary left should be, without a doubt, standing beside the Syrian working masses. Any attempt to support the Assad regime, who killed approximately 40 thousand Syrians to be able to survive within one and a half years including children, women and old people, would mean a counter-revolutionary crime and betrayal to the history and the workers of the world.

2. The uprising of the Syrian people began first in a rural city, Daraa, with the protests of unemployed and student youth aiming to celebrate Tunusian and Egyptian revolutions. Along with the attacks of the regime against those youngsters, the protests quickly became widespread all over the country. The only answer of the regime against these peaceful mass protests demanding democratic freedoms was oppression, torture and massacre which forced the clashes between the masses and the regime to turn into a civil war. The masses, firstly, established local committees in order to have an organized form of struggle and these committees started to form armed groups to protect the mass protests against the murderers of the regime.

3. With the intensification of the clashes, new armed units were formed and so that was the nascent of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). The birth of the FSA is a result of the people’s right to self-defense against the regime’s repression and massacres. This army contributed in several areas of the country to the preservance of popular resistance. However, due to the large scale campaign launched by the government troops in summer 2012 and with the intensification of the armed clashes, the mass mobilizations began to retreat so that the process transformed into a civil war in every sense between the FSA and the government forces. Soon the militias were formed in most of the fourteen cities revendicating the FSA. Although, every militia declaring themselves as a unit of the FSA give the struggle a chaotic and spontaneous form, Military Council that is founded within the FSA helped the armed struggle to gain a more organized form. On the other hand, the FSA commanders are not democratically elected leaders by the masses and so they are not under their control. They are mostly the former officers of the regime’s army that changed sides. A majority of these military commanders demand the intervention of imperialism, trying to avert the revolution of its main democratic revolutionary objectives. The heroic resistance in Aleppo shows the disposition of the struggle against the regime. Arms to the resistance! Opening of Turkish border for the mobility and supplying of the fighters.

4. The policy of the imperialist countries (USA, Britain, France, EU) and the governments in the region dependent on imperialism (Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia) concerning Syria, for a long time, supporting Assad demanding “democratic reforms” from him. Now the imperalism wants a negotation, with ot without Bashar, ensuring the survival of the regime and the defeat of the revolution. At the same thime, the imperalism tries to prolong the civil war in order to erode the energy of the masses and intervenes the the resistance to save the regime from a total and uncontrolled defeat. It does not want to repeat the experience of Lybia where the regime collapsed and where the imperialism lost its control on the process. The imperalism has relied on Syrian National Council (SNC) which has no real influence in the country and which is under the control of Muslim Brotherhood. That’s why we define the SNC as a counter-revolutionary obstacle against the Syrian revolution. We reject all forms of imperialist intervention, political or military, in Syria.

5. Although, Russia, China and Iran are supporting Assad and his brutal dictatorship for their own military and economic interests in the area and seem to be anti-US and anti- EU, they also share the same goals as imperalism: Ending the Arab revolutions and for this stopping the revolutionary process in Syria, saving the regime (if necessary sacrificing Assad). For this purpose the international conference organised on 30th of June in Ginevra; UN, U.S., France, Britain, Turkey and the Arab League took a resolution calling for the formation of a transitional government which will represent both the existing regime and the opposition. This resolution is also signed by Russia and China. The SNC declared its willingness for a "Yemen-type solution" allowing Assad to leave peacefully and that the current regime authorities would form a transitional government. All these “solutions” has no other purpose than to put a halt to the Syrian revolution, preserve the hegemony of imperialism in the area and ensure the security of Zionist Israel as the gendarmery of the imperialism in the region. Russia, China and Iran, go away from Syria!

6. The supporters of the “21st Century Socialism”, from Chavez and Castro to the residues of the Stalinst parties, who give support to Assad’s regime characterizing it as “anti-imperialist” and “anti-zionist” aim to distort the facts and create confusion among the masses. Assad is the leader of the bourgeois regime which rises above the brutal exploitation of the workers, applying neoliberal policies together with the privitazations and strenghtening the dependence of the country to imperialism. On the other hand this regime not only took a part in the massacre of the Palestinian refugees but also has been a guarantee for the stability in the region for Israel. This regime is neither anti-imperialist nor anti-zionist. The purpose of Chavez, Putin, Hu Jintao and Ahmadinejad is to defend the strategic and economic interests of their ruling classes in the region, and for this purpose to save the Syrian regime. The positioning of the currents defining themselves as leftist on the counter-revolutionary camp is again a historical example of betrayal for the Stalinist, national Bonapartist and the reformist left. Supporting the Syrian revolution or take a stand against it, is a dividing line for the world revolutionary left.

7. The main task of the world left is to support Syrian masses revolting against the dictatorial regime of Assad, unconditionally and regardless of their leadership, and also helping in every way to the Syrian revolutionary Marxists in their task of building a real revolutionary party in the country. The Syrian revolution must continue until the total disintegration of the regime and this necessarily involves responding to the demands of the workers and peoples: The right of self-determination of Kurdish people, elimination of ethnic, sexist and religous discriminations, breaking with the neoliberal policies and the ties with imperalism, active support to Palestinian case. That is, for the construction of a workers’ and people’s government.

8 . We, the undersigned revolutionary organizations, declare that we are in full support for the Syrian revolution with all the means we have.

Down with the Assad regime! !

All support to the Syrian revolution!

No to imperialist intervention in Syria!

We call on governments to cut their relations with Syria and to stop supporting the dictatorship!

For a free, democratic and secular Syria of workers’!

International Workers’ Unity – Fourth International (UIT-CI)

International Liaison Committee (Workers’ Front of Turkey, Internationalist Struggle of Spain)

4th of November 2012, Istanbul.