July 25, 2026

Internationalist Meeting
Marxism, Revolution and War

Message from Abu Yazan al-Homsi,
from the Syrian resistance

““Our strength comes from the fact that we are the workers, we are the ones who have the power to take over the factories, the streets and defeat the dictators”

Below is the statement of Abu Yazan, a comrade from Syria who was part in 2011 of  the Homs’ brigade led by Abd el Basset Sarout, "the goalkeeper of the revolution," and fought along 14 years for the fall of al-Assad. He participated in the uprisings that in December 2024 led to the overthrow of the tyrant in Damascus, and today he fights to complete the Syrian revolution by defeating imperialism, its Zionist gendarme and the Zionist occupation that has taken land in Syria, and al-Jolani, Trump's new agent who came to expropriate the revolution and turned out to be the same dog as al-Assad, with a different collar.

Greetings to everyone here at this meeting. It is an honor to be here with you, and I hope it will be for the triumph of the oppressed peoples of the world.
Today we are going to talk to you about what we have to contribute to you in this meeting, from the situation we are living through today in Syria, what we have experienced in the Syrian revolution, where a triumph has been achieved in the fall of al-Assad. We want to discuss what still needs to be achieved in the Syrian revolution and what we have done that is still lacking in other countries, so that a victory can be achieved in the fall of the regime, which in Syria took us fourteen years and involved genocide.

Regarding the revolutionary struggles in other countries I have been following, I have seen certain similarities to what happened in Syria in its early stages, where tens of thousands of people took to the streets fighting for the fall of the regime, as in Bolivia, Chile, or in Colombia before them. So we ask ourselves: How do you achieve victory?
We must say that, as in Syria, simply winning the streets is not enough, because what is needed is to establish the power of the people that won the streets: the organizations of the oppressed. These organizations are the ones that must emerge from the streets, from the protests, and power must reside in them.
This is the first thing, and the second is that we have to take over the factories, which is where wealth is made and produced, where the economy is run. The key to victory lies there. A strike, a factory takeover, challenges our control of production and our ability to seize power, because production is already under our control.
So what needs to be done is a combination of overthrowing dictatorships, overthrowing governments with a combination of the power that rises up from the workers and the people, and the workers taking the factories under their own control to take control of production and the economy.

We know this is not easy, that as workers we know there is fear in going out against a dictatorship, and that our lives are at risk. We knew this even in Syria, but we knew how to take these steps.
We workers in Syria had come out to fight for wages, for a decent life, because we did not have a wage that was enough for us, and we started taking to the streets and occupying the factories.
That is when the regime came in and responded by demolishing everything, massacring... So we said, we have already started and we just have to keep going, because in the attempt they might kill us, or they might not, but if we don't try, they will surely come after us and kill us. So we kept trying for fourteen years until we were able to overthrow the dictator through our own strength. And our strength does not come from being Syrian; our strength comes from the fact that we are the workers, the ones who have the power to take over the factories, the streets, and defeat the dictators. We have to realize that we are stronger than them, and that it's them or us.

If we look at ourselves in Syria, we still have a long way to go because even though we got rid of the dictator, we the workers and the people still do not have the control of everything. This is the path we have to take, and we have to take it together... with Chile, with Bolivia, with all the Arab countries, but not just those of us here in our region. We all have to do it together because our strength lies in the fact that we are one international working class. That is our true strength. We are one struggle, one fist.
It is not like we just overthrew the dictator in Syria and then we can relax here. It is not like that. We have to unite. If we all unite, not even the most ferocious and powerful dictatorship will be able to defeat us.
We must help each other. Help each other in Syria for this revolution, and from there, we can help you. The information and lessons we have can be very useful to share with the people and workers in the West. As I said, we are brethren, no matter if we are in the Middle East, the Maghreb, Arab countries, the West, or any other country.
Perhaps you agree with my opinion, but I know there are many people who disagree with me. Even so, I will tell you what I think and what I have learned.

I know that many people here today have lived through various wars and revolutions. But today we are at a point where our task is to build a new organization, one that learns from our mistakes, so that we can achieve government in Syria and in any other country.
In the last two years, the Syrian revolution has come a long way, but it has not turned out as we had hoped. Initially, it was said in Syria that if the al-Assad dictatorship fell, Syria would be liberated. We realized that this is not the case. These last two years are the clearest proof of this.
First, to overthrow al-Assad, we had to endure deaths, massacres, prisoners, and torture. When we freed ourselves from al-Assad, we then went on to free the prisoners. And we still have not freed all the prisoners, because there are still prisoners of the revolution being held by al-Jolani.
When we went to fight against al-Assad, they destroyed our homes, and we still have not rebuilt them. We went to fight for the fall of al-Assad so we could have these factories and a decent life, and today we do not have it. Many of al-Assad's officials are still free, and we still have not received justice for all our martyrs.

We still have things to do. I know that with the strength of our comrades in America, in Chile, in Argentina, in Spain, with everyone, we can wage a single fight, unite in a single organization, because that is what we need: an international organization, an international party to lead the revolution, to unite us.
The point is that we are workers from all over the world. We need a party of workers from all over the world that puts forward the revolution.
When we look at the situation in Syria, we see that it is not good. And if we look a little closer, we have the war. They are killing workers. How do we get out of this terrible situation? We have to get out with revolutionary strategies.
In Syria, this is what happened: when one of us was killed, we went out with 300. When others were killed, we went out with 500. When still others were killed, we went out with 1,000. When we were massacred, we went out with even more. If they start killing you, the masses must not retreat. If we go out again and keep trying, each time more, the dictator loses his strength, his army breaks down, his power crumbles, and nothing sustains him anymore. And at some point, he ends up falling, although in Syria it cost us millions of martyrs and 14 years.
I am not telling you fantasy stories here, this is the real story, the one we workers lived, and what you saw with your own eyes and went through as well.

The important thing is that there are people like us who share this message, who share these lessons, these ideas, in order to achieve success.
We need to be one fist. It is true that we are all different, but what we need is to be one, united in struggle, the unity of the workers, the unity of the people, to face the revolutions when they begin and overthrow the dictatorial governments of countries like the United States, Russia, Iran, whoever it may be, and triumph before the Third World War. May we have won in every country and overthrown every president in the world.
That is why I am grateful that you have been able to say these words to me today. Truly, you are all my brothers and sisters. I want you to know that you have allies in Syria, that the struggle of the Syrian people and workers is an ally in the struggle of the workers of the world, and I in particular. Let everyone present know that my house is your house, that my struggle is your struggle, that my food is your food, that my water is your water, because what is at stake here is that we share the same struggle, that we must forge an international unity in the struggle, which is the unity of the workers and the people to overthrow the tyrannical governments and regimes of the world.

When the so-called Arab Spring came—Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and then Syria—the world was saying, "It cannot be done in Syria. Al-Assad is in Syria. His regime cannot be overthrown." We knew there was great danger. There was an enormous massacre, a genocide. Those of us who took to the streets knew there was not any other way but to triumph
And today we say that we must return to the streets in Syria. And once the streets are won, we must not retreat. We must not stop until we achieve victory. And we must stand united to make this opportunity a reality. This continues, and we must be ready.
This struggle is not always about taking to the streets. You can bring the country to a standstill by stopping work. With a general strike, the whole country comes to a halt. That is when tyrants feel threatened. And if we take to the streets until they fall, we will dismantle their state, their power. That is where we must go. And we must win a government of the workers and the people. To forge that path, we must unite.

That is why we are here today. I am very grateful to everyone here for listening. I hope we can continue working to achieve this unity and move forward in this fight.

Greetings