الخط الأمامي✪ 
The mass strike is not a technical invention, but a living expression of the masses rising into history” (Rosa Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions, 1906). In every historical stage where the world witnesses social and economic tension, the masses take to the streets to declare their rejection and discontent with the lived reality, and to redraw the boundaries of the politically possible. Demonstrations and strikes were never merely a transient act of protest; they have always been a form of advanced collective consciousness and a tool for redefining the relationship between classes, between the ruler and the ruled, between the oppressor and the oppressed… between capital and workers.
In this sense, demonstrations and strikes are not considered merely pressure mechanisms on the authority, but historical moments where the contradictions of the existing system intensify, and where the popular classes express their will for radical change, opening a new horizon for history—a horizon in which the masses reproduce themselves as an active force, not as an object of prevailing policies.
Syria witnessed, with the collapse of the dictatorship system of the al-Assad family, a space of freedom and hope, although the faction that came to power in Damascus was far from what the Syrian people hoped for in their 2011 revolution. The Tarmidoriya authority (the authority of the victorious counter-revolution), which reached the presidential palace through international and regional consensus, quickly aborted the hopes and ambitions of the majority of the popular masses, who paid a heavy blood price to gain those spaces of freedom.
The new authority did not hesitate to express its desire to monopolize power, beginning by dissolving state institutions, arbitrarily dismissing their workers, and replacing them with its own associates, leading to further exclusion and increased tension among those masses.
Furthermore, all claims by the authority of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham regarding improving people’s conditions collapsed after the cover was lifted from phantom investment projects and donation campaigns filled only with glittering promises, and the lies promoted by its electronic and media army were exposed. It became clear to all that this authority is willing to concede sovereignty and the economy to regional and international powers in exchange for remaining in power.
Being a fragile authority lacking legitimacy and without a sufficient popular base to provide a minimum of autonomy, the policy of “divide and rule” is the only internal policy it practices, tearing Syrians apart and inciting them against each other to fight on sectarian, ethnic, or regional grounds.
From the massacres of the Coast to the massacres in Suwayda, and what occurred between, after, and continues to this day—killings and kidnappings based on sectarian identity—the Tarmidoriya authority has revealed itself as an authority of continuous sectarian and ethnic war, as long as it remains in its current nature.
Despite the fear and terror instilled by the apparatuses of this authority and their accompanying barbaric hordes, we have been witnessing for three months a clear and increasing rise in mass struggles that are expanding across a wide area of towns and cities with larger numbers, a higher pace, and greater self-confidence.
The city of Aleppo in the north of the country witnessed protests by teachers in Saadallah al-Jabri Square against the suspension of salaries for the third consecutive month. The residents of Al-Bab city also protested the deterioration of services and administrative conditions, demanding an end to exclusionary policies and the inclusion of local competencies in managing the city’s affairs.
The city of Shahba in As-Suwayda Governorate hosted numerous protest stands, the most prominent under the slogan “Suwayda for its People,” where hundreds came out rejecting the transitional government, demanding the disclosure of the fate of the forcibly disappeared, and affirming the continuation of popular movement in the governorate.
Truck drivers in Hama and Homs governorates announced an open-ended strike under the title “Strike for Dignity,” rejecting unjust decisions and demanding the dismissal of the Minister of Transport.
Following the killing of two young men from the Christian faith, hundreds of residents of the Al-Hawash area in Wadi al-Nasara marched in a candlelight vigil under the slogan “We die but do not accept humiliation.” Citizens also declared a general strike involving many restaurants and commercial establishments expressing anger and grief. Dozens came out in the Bab Tuma neighborhood in central Damascus in solidarity with them.
On the Syrian coast, specifically in the city of Latakia, demonstrations took place for three consecutive days denouncing the kidnapping of the child Mohamed Haydar in broad daylight in front of his school. The three days also saw a strike involving many students and teachers from the Syrian coast, expressing their anger and sorrow amidst repeated incidents of kidnapping, murder, and security chaos.
The great revolutions in history did not erupt out of nowhere, nor did they explode as isolated or sudden events. Every great revolutionary transformation was preceded by a long path of partial struggles, limited strikes, and local protests that formed a fertile ground for cumulative transformations maturing deep within society, then exploding when social contradictions reach their peak.
As Engels wrote: “Revolutions are not made, they mature” (Anti-Dühring, 1878). We see the French Revolution as an example. The revolutionary explosion of 1789 did not begin with the storming of the Bastille prison, but from a series of food crises and peasant protests against taxes and feudalism, accompanied by demonstrations of Parisian women for bread.
The same applies to the 1905 revolution in Tsarist Russia, which started from a limited strike in St. Petersburg factories before turning into a massive popular movement that paralyzed the economy and administration. This experience, despite its defeat, was the school from which the October 1917 revolution emerged, launching the first “Soviets” (workers’ councils) that later formed the foundational structure of the October Revolution.
Also in Tunisia, the self-immolation of the young man Mohamed Bouazizi in December 2010 was but one in a series of prior social protests against unemployment and corruption, yet it was the moment where all contradictions converged, and individual anger turned into a mass movement that toppled the existing regime and ignited the series of Arab Spring revolutions.
What distinguishes the struggles in the Syrian arena, until now, is their spontaneity, their focus on immediate, demand-based issues, and their isolation from each other. However, the masses regaining their vitality and ability for independent movement in the face of the Tarmidoriya authority constitutes a significant turning point in the Syrian situation. The responsibility lies upon us and the democratic and social forces to unify, centralize, and develop it.
When leftist and democratic forces meet and unite with the popular struggle and with the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria, along with the movement in Suwayda and all affected groups and victims into a massive bloc, then it becomes possible to confront the sectarian Tarmidoriya authority and impose a radical change in the political and social balance of power in favor of building a decentralized democratic republic based on providing freedoms, equality, sovereignty, security, and social justice.
Here lies the crux of the Syrian situation, and the great challenge facing us all. It requires us, as quickly as possible, to devise mechanisms for achieving it, through various forms of a united front, to prevent the country from sliding into a continuous civil war, and to extricate it from the disaster imposed upon us by the history and present of the de facto authority in Damascus.
With every new round of struggle, the horizon of the masses expands and their capacity for organized action increases, until the spark turns into a comprehensive revolutionary flame that reshapes history. Let us close ranks and work for bread, freedom, justice, equality, and the true sovereignty of the Syrian people in their national and religious diversity.
All power and wealth to the people
Revolutionary Left Current in Syria
November 2025
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