Based on a decision made by the Presidency of the People’s Will Party, Kassioun puts, below, between the hands of the comrades and readers, and the Syrian people in general, the draft program of the People’s Will Party, which will be presented to the eleventh periodic conference of the party (the second after legally registered according to the new Parties Law in Syria).

The draft program in its first version was published on 31/8/2013, and in this version some amendments and additions were made to cover the interval between the first version and the current version.  In its subsequent issues, "Kassioun" will afford a room to receive opinions, remarks, and additions of comrades and friends to the draft program, provided that the size of each contribution should not exceed 350-500 words, in order to permit the widest possible interaction and condensed ideas.

Introduction

The People’s Will Party (PWP), in its vision and program, represents the interest of the working class and all other toiling Syrians (with their arms and brains), and struggles to get their recognition of the PWP as a representative of their interests. The PWP considers that recognition as its main entry point for achieving its functional role in building socialism in the 21st century.

The PWP adopts Marxism-Leninism as its ideological reference, which the PWP works to apply creatively through experience and working among the masses, and through constant review of its constant and variable limits, away from the destructive mentality of nihilism and textualism.

The PWP considers itself the carrier of the values and heritage of both the national liberation movement and the communist and revolutionary movement in Syria and the world in the 20th century and as a continuation of it.

The PWP is the culmination and completion of the work of the National Committee for the Unity of Syrian Communists (NCUSC), which was launched at the beginning of this century, based on a scientific conviction of the reasons for the defeats of the second half of the 20th century, which merely a temporary blocking of the historical prospects in the face of the global revolutionary movement, and a temporary opening in the prospects for its enemies. The PWP relies on scientific certainty that the great capitalist crisis that erupted in 2008 – something the NCUSC had predicted at the beginning of the millennium – will shut historical prospects for good before global capitalism and in turn open historical prospects widely before the revolutionary movement.

The PWP’s work, based on this deep scientific conviction, means precisely working with the mentality of victory in the era of victories, the victories of the peoples’ pole against the global capitalist system; the victories that have begun, and the most beautiful of them are those that are yet to come.

More than four years ago, the People’s Will Party (PWP) called on the Astana track to take the lead in the political solution, regardless of the West, and in spite of it if necessary. Among many examples, it is sufficient to refer in this context to Kassioun’s Editorial 937 dated October 28, 2019 and titled: “Astana Leads the Solution, Washington Outside it”. The title alone is enough without referring to quotes. The PWP has repeatedly made this call on many occasions, the most important of which is the recent Tehran summit of the Astana tripartite, when Dr. Kadri Jamil, the PWP secretary, on November 21, 2022, a day before the summit convened, confirmed “the need for Astana to take the lead in implementing the political solution in Syria, which passes exclusively through the full implementation of UNSC Resolution 2254 and through direct negotiation between two competent delegations from the opposition and the regime”.

Extremists within the Syrian sides continue to attach UNSC Resolution 2254 using various means and pretexts, in both direct and devious ways, some even completely contradictory. There are those who say that the resolution is much less than what is required and therefore it must be rejected; then there are those who say that it a Security Council resolution, and therefore it is supranational, and particularly of Western origin, and therefore it goes against Syria and its interest. Then there are those who say that the resolution has been implemented and things are over. Of course, some of those who say some of these opinions based on sincere intentions accompanied, unfortunately, by a clear ignorance in reading reality and history.

Over the past 12 years, extremists from the Syrian sides have wasted many opportunities to solve the Syrian crisis and to spare Syrians suffering, bloodshed, and destruction. We had said since September 2011: “Going to dialogue today will be with a tally that may reach 5000 martyrs; and going in a year will be with tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of martyrs”. Unfortunately, what we had said happened, where Syria has endured the loss of hundreds of thousands of martyrs and millions of refugees. This is in addition to the massive destruction in all aspects of life that requires many years to be restored, extreme overall poverty, unemployment, disease, hunger, lack of electricity, a paralyzed economy, and on top of all that, drugs, the black-market economy, and other calamities.

Positive developments continue at the international and regional levels, and there are indications that they will soon be reflected on the Syrian arena. While the general tendency is still constantly moving towards further retreat of the Western powers, at the heart of which is the US, and with it the entire old world order, in parallel there is continuous progress of the rising powers that have taken significant steps in expanding their alliances as well as in working to settle regional crises that have been unresolved for decades, the Saudi-Iranian settlement being one example.

Press Statement

Moscow Platform

Representatives of the Moscow Platform for the Syrian Opposition in the Syrian Negotiation Commission (SNC) - Alaa Arafat, Youssef Salman, Sami Betinjane, Mohannad Dlykan - are heading to attend the SNC's next meeting on 2-3-4 June, in Geneva. This comes after an over 3.5 year interruption in the Platform's participation in any SNC activity, as a result of several pending controversial issues, especially since an arbitrary and illegal decision was taken against the Platform. The decision was to revoke the membership of one of the Platform's representatives in the SNC and its representative to the Syrian Constitutional Committee's Small Group, Mohannad Dlykan, after calling for transferring the Constitutional Committee's work to Damascus while securing the necessary guarantees for that, a position the Platform continues to see as the correct one and continues to demand it.

The draft program of the People’s Will Party (PWP) was published for public discussion in the last issue of Kassioun (No. 1123). The program will be presented to the PWP’s 11th Conference, the second one after being registered, and it will be one of the documents discussed by the Conference to be adopted.

The Syrian political, media, and general public circles are busy trying to understand the meanings of Syria’s official participation in the Arab Summit in Jeddah on Friday, May 19, after its membership was suspended in the Arab League for 12 years.

Last Wednesday, May 10, the quadripartite meeting of the foreign ministers of Syria, Turkey, Russia, and Iran was held in Moscow, after a series of meetings at lower levels.

The undersigned patriotic democratic Syrian opposition forces believe that the decision of the Arab foreign ministers for Syria’s return to its Arab surroundings, and resume its participation in the Arab League institutions, comes in the context of the return of an Arab role with a positive outcome within the Syrian file, in a way that serves the aspirations of the Syrian people, and preserves Syria’s sovereignty and independence.