Communist Labour Party of Turkey/Leninist
After the religious fascist gangs captured Damascus with the support of Turkey-Zionist Israel-US-UK-Qatar quintet (not to mention other imperialist states), is there any revolutionary force left in Syria?
We know that some revolutionary-communist parties will answer this question in the negative. We also know that a negative view of the Kurdish revolutionary forces prevails, especially because of the presence of the US and the apparent relations with this imperialist power.
However, we claim that the real essence of the apparent relations is very opposite of the image. The presence of the US in Rojava is not to help the Kurdish revolutionary forces, but to facilitate Turkey’s step-by-step occupation and annexation of Rojava; together with Turkey, to create antagonism between the revolution in Northern Kurdistan and the Rojava revolution, to introduce Barzanist forces into the Rojava revolution to derail it and so on.
We argue that a concrete, scientific, provable analysis of concrete facts will confirm this thought and claim.
First, let us expose two big lies of the US that turn everything upside down. The first of these is the claim that the US (and other “coalition forces”) are fighting against ISIS and are in Syria to prevent the resurgence of this gang. This is a lie that US officials keep repeating at every opportunity. Most recently, US Secretary of State Blinken repeated this lie at a press conference in Paris, France.
The second big lie is that they are “trying to prevent a possible Turkish offensive against Rojava”. This statement was made at the same press conference.
There is no need to dwell at length on the first one. This is because it is now a well-established fact that the ISIS gang was created entirely by the US. Not only that, the US is actually harboring the murderous horde it claims to be trying to “prevent its resurgence” at its base in Tenef (al-Tanf) on the Syrian-Iraqi border, training, arming, equipping it there and sending it to fight in the Syrian deserts. Moreover, the fact that Colani, who was once the “Syrian emir” of ISIS, has been appointed as the head of the so-called interim administration in Damascus sheds enough light on the situation.
It is also a fact that the same ISIS is the worst enemy of the Kurdish people. It was against this gang that the battle for Kobane was fought in 2014. In the following years, the revolutionary forces of Rojava waged a great and bloody war against this murderous horde. The United States, which seems to be a “friend and ally” of the Rojava revolutionary forces, has rescued this gang every time it has been in a difficult situation by taking them away with helicopters. Here is a Sputniknews report from July 2017 on this claim:
“Last month, the United States evacuated more than 20 ISIS commanders from the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, where the ISIS siege was broken the previous day.
A US Air Force plane evacuated more than 20 ISIS commanders from Deir ez-Zor in the north of the country,” a military-diplomatic source told Sputnik.
The source added that Washington aims to benefit from the experience of ISIS commanders supported by US special services in different fields.”
There are countless examples like this, but there is no need to go on. This much is enough. In other words, while the US claims that it is fighting against ISIS together with the Rojava armed forces, it has protected this gang it created in a fully protected military base (Tenef/ElTanf). When the US needs it, it pulls this gang out of its lair and drives it to the battlefield.
The second lie is at least as big as the first. If the US really wanted to prevent Turkey from invading Rojava, it would not have to go to all this trouble. A stern letter to Erdoğan would have been more than enough to solve this “problem”. We base this claim on concrete facts. In 2019, Turkey invaded a part of Rojava, then US President Trump stopped the Turkish army and Erdogan with a letter. Only with a letter and with insulting expressions! Here is an excerpt from that letter:
“Dear Mr. President:
Let’s work out a good deal! You don’t want to be responsible for slaughtering thousands of people, and I don’t want to be responsible for destroying the Turkish economy—and I will. I’ve already given you a little sample with respect to Pastor Brunson.
(…)
History will look upon you favorably if you get this done the right and humane way. It will look upon you forever as the devil if good things don’t happen. Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool!
I will call you later.”
Trump’s letter and Turkey’s (some prefer to say Erdogan’s) decision to halt the military operation like a knife cut tells us one thing: Today, if the US wanted to prevent a possible Turkish attack on Rojava, she could do it in one fell swoop without much effort. The case of Pastor Brunson or the release of Deniz Yücel, a journalist with a German identity, with a word from Merkel is another example to prove this claim.
How can we get out of all this mess? Lenin’s theory of imperialism is the only beacon that will show us the way out of this mess. Imperialism subjugates dependent countries. This is one of the most important principles of the Leninist theory of imperialism. Turkey-US relations; more specifically, we can say that Trump’s letter to Erdogan and its consequences are the most concrete form of the Leninist theory of imperialism.
So who is the US helping in Rojava? Kurdish forces or Turkey? If you ask anyone who looks at the problem superficially, they will say with great confidence that the US (and other imperialists) are helping the Kurdish forces; moreover, they are protecting them. We argue, based on events and facts, that the US is protecting and defending Turkey, that it is helping Turkey’s invasion of Rojava, that it is siding with Turkey in the suppression of the Kurdish nation’s struggle for freedom. This claim is a continuation of Lenin’s thesis on imperialism, that imperialism brings slavery, not freedom, to oppressed peoples. Imperialism has always been and continues to be against the freedom struggles of oppressed peoples. Rojava and Kurdistan are not separate from this. Turkey received the greatest support from the US, Germany, Britain and other imperialists in its war to suppress the Kurdistan revolution.
There are countless proofs of this. We can only point to two of them. The first example comes from US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. In October 2023, Mathew Miller said the following:
“We stand with Turkey and the Turkish people in their fight against the PKK and will continue to do so.”
Another example comes from James Jeffrey, the Trump administration’s Special Envoy for Syria. A DW reporter asks this man who has mastered deceiving and lying to the people of Rojava: “Does the US support the PKK? Does it pave the way for the PKK to establish a state in Syria with its support for the SDF?” The man, who was the plenipotentiary representative of US policy during his years in office, gets angry at the question and tells the reporter: ‘Wait a minute, stop here’. And then he continues as follows:
“The US has a long history of treating the PKK as a terrorist organization. There is a very serious and extensive support from the United States, much of it classified as secret, to the Republic of Turkey’s fight against the PKK. The United States is on the side of the Republic of Turkey in this struggle, there is no doubt about that.”
The reason is simple and easily understood: Turkey is a NATO country. And not just any member. It is a NATO member that has been a battering ram in NATO’s war against communism since the Korean War. It is a NATO member that is fiercely loyal to its agreements with the US, has a strong army, is stirring up the Caucasus on behalf of the US and NATO, is guarding Zionist Israel in the Middle East (West Asia), is acting as a springboard against the Soviet Union in the past and against Russia and Iran today… that is why “the US supports all initiatives between Turkey and Iraq aimed at defeating the PKK.”
The opposite cannot be claimed. Those who claim this either forget that, for example, the leader of the Kurdish Freedom Movement was captured by the US-Israel and handed over to Turkey, or they are under the influence of the propaganda of Turkey’s social-chauvinist parties and organizations such as the TKP. But we don’t have to go that far to prove this claim. Let’s start from the end and look at how the US played a facilitating role in Turkey’s invasion of Rojava-Kurdish territory in the days when Syria fell.
This report explains the real reason for the recent withdrawal of the SDF, Rojava’s armed forces, from Manbij: “Syrian Kurds withdraw from Manbij after US ultimatum” (Al Monitor)
There is no reason to doubt the validity of the report, as it has appeared with the same content on other news websites besides Al Monitor. Subsequent developments also confirm this report. The Kurdish armed forces, which withdrew from Tel Rifaat, Aleppo and its surroundings without engaging in a proper confrontation with the gangs, finally started to fight the gangs fielded by Turkey at the Tishrin Dam and Karakozak Bridge, showing that they have the fighting power to repel both the gangs and the Turkish forces that de facto support them. The war now continues with the superiority of Rojava armed forces around Karakozak Bridge-Tishrin Dam.
At this point, the question should be asked: Why didn’t the SDF armed forces show this fighting capacity when they withdrew from Tal Rifaat, Aleppo and the surrounding areas? The answer lies in the reason for the withdrawal from Manbij: US “suggestions”! As seen concretely in Manbij, those who decided to withdraw with the constant US suggestions seem to have decided to fight starting from the Tishrin Dam-Karakozak bridge location upon the reaction of the Rojava people and fighters “withdraw constantly, and withdraw… to what extend? what is the next?” Moreover, the war against the gangs and the Turkish forces supporting them now seems to have spread to Serakaniye.
Events show us that the people of Rojava are conscious and determined about their right to freedom. Although there are those who compromise with the US and other imperialists, those who fall for their promises, those who are deceived, those who give in to their blackmail and threats, those who fall into situations such as cooperating with them, the peoples’ passion for freedom and determination to struggle prevent the struggle from deviating from the revolutionary line. The peoples of Rojava keep the fire of revolution alive against fascism and imperialism, including the religious fascist gangs that captured Damascus in Syria and Rojava, with the war against the Turkish state and the religious fascist gangs that it feeds and drives to the battlefield.
The main weapon of imperialism, especially US imperialism, against the peoples is lies, deception, blackmail and deceit. The US seems to be supporting the Rojava forces, but in fact it is allowing Turkey to invade Rojava by giving it all kinds of intelligence, military techniques, etc. We saw this during the occupation of Afrin, Serekaniye, Manbij, etc. The confession is here:
“Is there a single piece of evidence that we have given any weapons to the YPG, to the SDF, to enable them to take action against Turkey? Look at what the Turkish army did to the YPG in Afrin and then in northeast Syria, what they were able to do. We didn’t give them heavy weapons other than machine guns, we didn’t give them guided anti-tank missiles of the kind that ISIS used against the Turkish army in al-Bab. We didn’t give them heavy weapons, artillery… They don’t have an effective military force, they don’t have the capability to attack Turkey, they haven’t launched any attacks on Turkey from northeastern Syria and we have been very careful about that.”
The reality on the ground and the words of the fighters on the ground confirm this explanation. The peoples and revolutionary forces of Rojava are currently fighting against the Turkish state and the religious fascist gangs not with high-tech heavy weapons, but with simple, ordinary conventional weapons. Yet they are repelling the gangs. Because the peoples’ war for the right to freedom is a progressive, revolutionary war that creates consciousness in the peoples. The war of the gangs and the fascist state, on the other hand, is a reactionary war that does not create consciousness; it is a war that has no other goal for the gangs other than looting and plunder.
As a result, Syria, which has been captured by imperialism for the time being through religious fascist gangs, is being further clamped by Zionist Israel from the south and the fascist Turkish state from the north. US imperialism is trying to completely control Syria by relying on these two reactionary forces. In this respect, Turkey is not acting in spite of the US, but with approval.
In the midst of this terrible circle of brutal reactionary siege, the Rojava revolution, especially the women’s liberation movement, is struggling to survive. Despite frequent catastrophic moves by pro-US faction within it, the revolutionary wing continues to be a beacon of hope with its decision to fight against the fascist Turkish occupation. The war raised by the Rojavan revolutionaries on the Tishrin-Karakozak-Minbic line, together with the resistance against the “interim administration” of the religious fascist gangs in other regions, is the war of the Syrian peoples for freedom against imperialism and the regional reaction. It is a revolutionary war.
As we have said before, nothing is over, the war is just beginning.