‘Assad’s Syria’ (as state propaganda called it) was fascist in the most correct sense of the word. It sought to replace class conflict with devotion to the absolute state. Following the fascist corporatist model, the peasants and workers unions, the professional associations, the youth and women’s unions, as well as Party and army, were entirely absorbed into the state machinery. A facade of pluralism was provided by the National Progressive Front, set up in 1976, comprising the Baath and nine smaller parties which accepted the Baath’s leadership – and by the People’s Assembly, where two-thirds of seats were reserved for Baathists. Beneath the froth, Syria’s was a one-party system, and the party was controlled by one man. The state cultivated a surveillance society, everyone spying on everyone else and no one secure in position, not even the top generals and security officers. Hafez stood alone at the apex – the Struggling Comrade, the Sanctified One, the Hero of War and Peace – a rarely seen yet omnipresent leader who governed by telephone

"fascist" is a common characterization of syria among people with a garbage understanding of fascism. even if the syrian government were a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and every hostile account of it were true, a nationalist, class-collaborationist formation does not fascism make (e.g., poulantzas would probably suggest bonapartism or military dictatorship as more apt). but even this presupposition of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie bears investigation. i've seen some comrades instead submit that syria should be considered socialist. take for instance Stephen Gowans (whose book on the war on Syria will be coming out soon):

Socialism can be defined in many ways, but if it is defined as public-ownership of the commanding heights of the economy accompanied by economic planning, then Syria under its 1973 and 2012 constitutions clearly meets the definition of socialism. However, the Syrian Arab Republic had never been a working-class socialist state, of the category Marxists would recognize. It was, instead, an Arab socialist state inspired by the goal of achieving Arab political independence and overcoming the legacy of the Arab nation’s underdevelopment. The framers of the constitution saw socialism as a means to achieve national liberation and economic development. “The march toward the establishment of a socialist order,” the 1973 constitution’s framers wrote, is a “fundamental necessity for mobilizing the potentialities of the Arab masses in their battle with Zionism and imperialism.” Marxist socialism concerned itself with the struggle between an exploiting owning class and exploited working class, while Arab socialism addressed the struggle between exploiting and exploited nations. While these two different socialisms operated at different levels of exploitation, the distinctions were of no moment for Westerns banks, corporations and major investors as they cast their gaze across the globe in pursuit of profit. Socialism was against the profit-making interests of US industrial and financial capital, whether it was aimed at ending the exploitation of the working class or overcoming the imperialist oppression of national groups.

i don't dismiss the idea of "socialist syria" out of hand, but to be honest it's not something i've considered deeply -- partly because its technical classification here is aside from the question of whether it should (and it should) be supported against imperialism.

i found this article not too long ago, discussing the state of the bourgeoisie in syria as of 1991. some interesting exposition in there (from the liquidation of industrial bourgeoisie via nationalizations to the persistence and growth of private merchant capital), but it's also a quarter-century out of date. more recent data indicates that anywhere from 60-75% of syrians are employed by the state -- more suggestive than definitive, but it's a strong suggestion nevertheless. actual communists in syria speak disdainfully of the liberalizing tendencies of the state in recent decades, but whether these represent a preponderance of "capitalist roaders" or the status quo under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is not clear from the remarks i've read. the idea of unity under an "Arab socialist" banner seems odd when the party of Khalid Bakdash had to spend so much time underground, but on the other hand there can be no denying that said party supports the state to the hilt under the present conditions.

and of course, when people rattle off lists of "actually existing socialist states" they generally mean Cuba, China, Vietnam, Laos, and the DPRK. so, then, Syria would probably fall somewhere closer to, e.g., Venezuela? Certainly Chavez and Assad seemed pretty tight.

anyway, i'm getting all rambly, here, but has anyone in here come across any particularly meaty analyses of class dictatorship in syria?

Edited by Constantignoble (April 4, 2017 05:21:17)

Some audiences were large , some were small. A couple contained a preponderance of anarchists, a couple included people from the State Department.

This overlap is hilariously common

ilmdge posted:

Are any of these places more socialist than Belarus?

honestly i couldn't tell you. ditto with turkmenistan, which by my calculations has had the best overall economic growth of any nation in the 21st century so far, and still appears to strongly endorse central planning

I mean, assuming "more/less socialist" is even a useful metric; surely the DoP is the main thing we're watching for?

Edited by Constantignoble (April 4, 2017 18:53:54)

.@AFK_10 2/2 No media mention now that seems same 'Dr' faced terror charges in UK, later struck offhttps://t.co/QCC4kjGZAh
+https://t.co/4PBy8LB8gv pic.twitter.com/6zjihHrYIo

— Charles Shoebridge (@ShoebridgeC) April 4, 2017

@ShoebridgeC @AFK_10 pic.twitter.com/Lp30kJl925

— Malinka (@Malinka1102) April 4, 2017

Panopticon posted:

i think it's almost as bad as using chemical weapons on a city

moderate rebels are the only groups to admit they use chemical weapons in the city of aleppo.
their suppliers the USA are currently using chemical weapons in the city of Raqqa

xipe posted:

moderate rebels are the only groups to admit they use chemical weapons in the city of aleppo.
their suppliers the USA are currently using chemical weapons in the city of Raqqa

agreed, the islamists, americans and baathists are just as bad as one another

Panopticon posted:

the islamists, americans and baathists are just as bad as one another

are you for real mate

Many people refer to the chemical weapons attack coming days after America said Assad can stay as somehow being proof that the SAA is responsible for the attack in Khan Sheikhoun. The 'logic' behind this is beyond absurd.

America: Assad can Stay.
Syrian Gov: Great, we’ll use those chemical weapons we said we destroyed and do the one thing possible to sabotage this.

Furthermore, no one seems to mention that this attack comes directly after America ‘reactivated’ support for 'rebel' factions in Idlib. This in turn comes after Tillerson's visit to Ankara after talks between YPG Afrin + Russia on a possible operation against rebels in Idlib. The recent reversal of most ‘rebel’ gains in the Turkish sponsored Hama Offensive also needs to be taken into consideration.

Islamist rebels have used chemical weapons before (see Sheikh Maqsoud, If I recall correctly it was chlorine gas used both times). Numerous rebel stockpiles of chemical weapons were uncovered by both the SAA and YPG in East Aleppo. There are also instances of chemicals/materials used in the construction of chemical weapons being smuggled from Turkey to rebels.

Whether the Syrian Gov is capable of this and whether they are stupid enough to do it at this point in time are two different questions. Given the current climate wherein Western belligerents are gradually and begrudgingly coming to accept that Assad can stay in power, and this semi-acceptance remains extremely precarious and subject to reversal at any time, the reactions from the West and calls for unilateral action against Syria based on these unconfirmed accusations is testimony to this.

To assume that the Syrian Government could not foresee the detrimental effects this would have on them is either to be a) incredibly naive or b) to deliberately overlook this in order to further a preferred narrative (to be manipulative).

also probably relevant is How US Flooded the World with Psyops. short excerpt:

Robert Parry posted:

Newly declassified documents from the Reagan presidential library help explain how the U.S. government developed its sophisticated psychological operations capabilities that – over the past three decades – have created an alternative reality both for people in targeted countries and for American citizens, a structure that expanded U.S. influence abroad and quieted dissent at home.

The documents reveal the formation of a psyops bureaucracy under the direction of Walter Raymond Jr., a senior CIA covert operations specialist who was assigned to President Reagan’s National Security Council staff to enhance the importance of propaganda and psyops in undermining U.S. adversaries around the world and ensuring sufficient public support for foreign policies inside the United States.

Raymond, who has been compared to a character from a John LeCarré novel slipping easily into the woodwork, spent his years inside Reagan’s White House as a shadowy puppet master who tried his best to avoid public attention or – it seems – even having his picture taken. From the tens of thousands of photographs from meetings at Reagan’s White House, I found only a couple showing Raymond – and he is seated in groups, partially concealed by other officials.

But Raymond appears to have grasped his true importance. In his NSC files, I found a doodle of an organizational chart that had Raymond at the top holding what looks like the crossed handles used by puppeteers to control the puppets below them. Although it’s impossible to know exactly what the doodler had in mind, the drawing fits the reality of Raymond as the behind-the-curtains operative who was controlling the various inter-agency task forces that were responsible for implementing various propaganda and psyops strategies.

Until the 1980s, psyops were normally regarded as a military technique for undermining the will of an enemy force by spreading lies, confusion and terror. A classic case was Gen. Edward Lansdale — considered the father of modern psyops — draining the blood from a dead Filipino rebel in such a way so the dead rebel’s superstitious comrades would think that a vampire-like creature was on the prowl. In Vietnam, Lansdale’s psyops team supplied fake and dire astrological predictions for the fate of North Vietnamese and Vietcong leaders.

Essentially, the psyops idea was to play on the cultural weaknesses of a target population so they could be more easily manipulated and controlled. But the challenges facing the Reagan administration in the 1980s led to its determination that peacetime psyops were also needed and that the target populations had to include the American public.

The Reagan administration was obsessed with the problems left behind by the 1970s’ disclosures of government lying about the Vietnam War and revelations about CIA abuses both in overthrowing democratically elected governments and spying on American dissidents. This so-called “Vietnam Syndrome” produced profound skepticism from regular American citizens as well as journalists and politicians when President Reagan tried to sell his plans for intervention in the civil wars then underway in Central America, Africa and elsewhere.

While Reagan saw Central America as a “Soviet beachhead,” many Americans saw brutal Central American oligarchs and their bloody security forces slaughtering priests, nuns, labor activists, students, peasants and indigenous populations. Reagan and his advisers realized that they had to turn those perceptions around if they hoped to get sustained funding for the militaries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras as well as for the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, the CIA-organized paramilitary force marauding around leftist-ruled Nicaragua.

So, it became a high priority to reshape public perceptions to gain support for Reagan’s Central American military operations both inside those targeted countries and among Americans.