9th Anniversary of the assassination of Abu al-Bara Syria
- November 1, 2025

Abu Muad, from the Editorial Committee of the Syrian newspaper “The Truth of the Oppressed”

“Abu Al Baraa and his father Mustafa, the founders of Trotskyism in Syria, who gave their lives for the international revolution, were among the more than 600,000 massacred in the Syrian revolution”

First of all, I want to emphasize the importance of the fact that our comrade Abu Al Baraa should be here. Abu Al Baraa was our age, and although we grew up and were born in distant places, we met in an objective process which was that Syrian uprising, that chain of local insurrections in Syria. We were part of that process. We met there. Between conversations, over mate (they drink mate in that region), sharing miseries and hunger, on a battlefront imposed by the Bashar al-Assad regime, we gradually realized that those who govern us are all the same, on both sides of the ocean. So, little by little, we realized that we had the same enemy.

It is worth emphasizing that Abu al-Baraa was a strategist in this regard, because he clearly understood that, while he was on the front lines in Syria, his struggle extended far beyond those borders. He was very clear that it was a chain of revolutions that tended to unify with the uprisings in Europe. It was a chain of revolutions that would culminate in Jerusalem with the Palestinian flag raised and under the banners of the Fourth International, the global party destined to succeed in these international struggles. It was fighting for this cause that Mahmoud Abu al- Baraa and Mustafa Abu Juma fell in combat in Aleppo.
But this is the end of the story. A story that must be told in its entirety, and that is why we are here. The first to enter and massacre the Syrian revolution were the forces of the Shiite bourgeoisie. But there was a faction that betrayed us before then: the Kurdish Stalinism. The PKK and the YPG were also the standard-bearers of the international left, claiming to be of the revolution in Syria, when in reality they were its fifth column, and they didn't hesitate for a second to submit themselves to US imperialism. So, the left was a necessary participant in the massacre that was perpetuated in Syria. Being on the inside, we saw how they slandered us. They were leaving us alone. Only on the banners of the Fourth International did our cause fly.

Let us not forget that with a handful of comrades led by Abu Al Baraa and Mustafa, factories were seized. With the program of international Trotskyism, with a handful of comrades convincing the workers—the hundreds of thousands of workers who were carrying on the revolution and fiercely defending their families and jobs— factories were expropriated under workers' control, barracks were seized for the self-organized workers' militias, and residential neighborhoods where the pro -Bashar and pro-FSA bourgeoisie lived were raided to expropriate and use all the wealth to win the war. These are not epic feats, but concrete objectives that the Syrian revolutionaries set for themselves and fought to conquest.
(It was)A bloodied, defiled revolution, betrayed not only by the left but also by the "friendly" bourgeoisies, who acted as a fifth column, like the Free Syrian Army. A revolution betrayed from within. One of the greatest betrayals carried out at the beginning of this century, because it ended in the panorama we see today in a massacred Palestine.
600,000 people, who numerically surpass the number of those massacred in Palestine, are the victims of imperialism in Syria. They were silenced voices. And among those 600,000 are Mahmoud Abu Al Baraa and his father Mustafa, the founders of international Trotskyism in Syria, who gave their lives for the international revolution. They didn't hesitate for a second to leave their families to go out and tell the world what was happening in Syria and how to rearm politically and strategically in order to win.

They were part of the embryos of dual power that this revolution gave birth to back in 2011. They were the ones who led the coordination committees, and their lives depended on it. Well, because they believed and trusted that this was the way to seize power in Syria.
The working class was rebelling, and the world left was glossing over it. The fighters were portrayed as terrorists and slandered by the "Bolivarian" movement worldwide. These same people supported Putin, claiming he was fighting terrorism and that that was what was being experienced inside Syria. They supported those who massacred Syrian workers and their revolution.

Today we pay tribute, along with all those who have fallen in Syria and Palestine, to two comrades who embody the struggle that the Palestinian masses are carrying out today. These comrades live on in the ongoing struggles in Peru. Their legacy is alive in the immense fight with the general strike waged by the Italian people for the Palestinian masses. I believe that today, more than our respect, they deserve our applause and to be remembered for what they were: strategists who gave their lives for the Fourth International.