The Syrian atmosphere is in a state of pent-up anger accompanied by cautious anticipation. People’s living conditions have reached unbearable limits. Additionally, the processes of lifting subsidies and the state’s withdrawal from playing any social role are in full swing, and even witnessed a new shift forward after what happened in the People’s Assembly recently, where the official price hikes witnessed a new and comprehensive wave, while the meager wages remained the same.

The tension and uproar that took place last week about the exchange rate, the living situation, the extraordinary session of the People’s Assembly, and the government’s behavior during it, reflect a deep crisis whose roots go back to 2005. That year implementation of liberal policies began under the name of the “social market economy”, in accordance with the recommendations and demands of the IMF and the World Bank. This continues to this day and with greater acceleration than ever before.

Sarouja’s tragedy (a fire that burned down a significant part of a neighborhood in Old Damascus on July 16) is being approached from several angles, all of which have in common attempts to overlook the essence of the issue, and even work to cover and hide it.

In July 2021, the minimum wage in Syria was increased to 71,000 Syrian pounds (SYP). Now, two years later, it has reached 93,000 SYP. Let’s look at this “increase” from the perspective of the SYP’s purchasing power and the exchange rate against the dollar.

Preparations continue for a long-discussed and long-awaited pivotal BRICS summit, the Johannesburg, South Africa Summit, in August 2023.

Over the last two weeks, after publishing Kassioun’s editorial 1127, dated June 19 and titled “Restoring and Strengthening National Sovereignty: 2254”, in response to which several articles and opinions were published; some explicitly stated they were responding to the editorial and others did not.

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.