1. Kurds and Syria before the Revolution
1. Kurds and Syria before the Revolution
Democratic federalism, repression against Kurds, and the contradictions that led to Syria’s revolution.

This is part 1 of the series “Syria & Everything Revolves Around Rojava”.
In 2003, Osman Öcalan founded the Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), in the Kandil Mountains of today’s Erbil Governorate in Kurdistan.
Osman’s name is not deceptive; he was the youngest brother of the PKK leader Abdullah “Apo” Öcalan. However, this article will not actively focus on the PKK; instead, we will concentrate on Rojava.
The PYD quickly established itself as a significant force in Kurdish politics by taking over personnel, financial, and strategic resources from the PKK, although it never had (according to Syrian law) fully legal organizational structures.
After 2009, when the relationship between Assad’s Syria and (de facto) Erdogan’s Turkey began to improve, the PYD capitalized on Kurdish nationalist agitation among the (largely Turkey-hostile) Syrian Kurds, which helped it become the dominant party in the regions of Efrîn and Ayn al-Arab (Kobanê).
Unlike other Kurdish parties such as the KDP-S or the Azadî Party, which were politically active but weak institutionally and remained isolated and distant from the local population, the PYD was already prepared for a power takeover before the Syrian revolution.
The Democratic Federalism
The PYD and its successor and sister organizations (see below) advocate the concept of democratic federalism (Konfederalîzma demokratî), which traces back to Abdullah Öcalan.
The democratic federalism (DF) is the central goal of today’s Rojava in terms of self-governance and Kurdish autonomy.
Öcalan developed democratic federalism as a response to the Marxist-Leninist liberation movements of the early 2000s, which he did not agree with in terms of state understanding.
Democratic federalism, by name, is the counterpart to Lenin’s Democratic Centralism; instead of centralized decision-making within the vanguard party, where social classes are represented, power is to be managed locally, regionally, and nationally through participatory, decentralized structures (mostly autonomous).
The nation-state is understood here not only as a historical outcome of capitalism, which reproduces property most efficiently, but also as its political arm, which consolidates hierarchies through institutionalized violence and deepens social conflicts.
Therefore, the state is not suitable for the liberation of the Kurds, because, in the analysis of DF, the state cannot exist without exploitation (whether capitalist, feudal, or state-socialist).
Instead of the transitional form of the dictatorship of the proletariat on the way to societal emancipation, DF aims for the organization of society through federated councils and communes, where decisions are made locally and participatorily, aiming for (mostly) autonomous governance.
This form of council-based organization bears clear similarities to early Marxist council concepts but fundamentally questions centralization through planning and violence.
In terms of democratizing society, DF views the state as inherently contradictory to democracy because it pursues its own interests.
Within the DF framework, women play a special role, as their status as “a sexual object and a commodity” (p.16) forces them into a unique triple oppression within capitalist society.
The DF recognizes the subjugation of women alongside nationalism and the instrumentalization of religion as necessary survivals for the persistence of the state.
DF explicitly understands the capitalist mode of production as a destroyer of ecological and social foundations of life, extracting surplus value from labor and intentionally degrading nature into a commodity to sustain itself.
Therefore, the demand for ecological restructuring of the political economy is an integral part of democratic confederalism.
While Marxism-Leninism traditionally relies on universal (scientific) principles, DF emphasizes the need to reflect regional, ethnic, and cultural particularities and integrate them into political structures.
Conflicts between groups are resolved through cooperation rather than central decisions, preventing escalation.
This is especially relevant in multi-ethnic contexts, where state homogenization processes often lead to violence and marginalization (see below).
Regarding the groups involved, DF allows not only the free expression of religious, cultural, and ethnic identities but also the free choice of how individual councils decide to govern; “Whether nation-state, republic, or democracy”. (p.22) [1]
We do not wish to criticize DF here, as we believe this article does not provide the appropriate context for a detailed critique. In short, DF is a generally correct, progressive vision of society that contains some contradictory ideas about the state, risking similar outcomes as anarchist projects in the past.
Internal Contradictions of Syria
After the protests in Egypt and Tunisia in 2011 sparked the “Arab Spring,” it did not take long for the contradiction between the people and the ruling class to become acute enough in Syria to join the revolutionary movements of the Arab world.
The dry years of the 2000s, combined with poor harvests and lack of investment in alleviating socio-economic contradictions (such as high unemployment and looming hunger), led to a mass exodus of about 1.5 million Syrians by 2010.
As a counterpoint, Syria took in approximately 1.2-1.5 million refugees from the US-led Iraq war between 2003 and 2007.
The internal contradictions of Syria began to intensify rapidly in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The collapse of the USSR meant for Syria’s president (and Assad’s father) Hafez al-Assad, isolation from the (then) bipolar world order.
The ruling Baath Party responded by liberalizing the largely nationalized Syrian economy, which until the 1990s had boasted some of the highest living standards in the Middle East, and allowing foreign investments.
The liberalization aimed to enable Syria’s economy to remain competitive internationally after the fall of the Eastern bloc — we know the game.
Soon after the reforms’ ratification, foreign corporations infiltrated Syria at an absurd pace; by the mid-1990s, Shell (UK), Oil and Gas Corporation (India), Suncor (Canada), Total S.A. (France), and numerous Kuwaiti and Saudi banks were operating in Syria.
The privatization of the Syrian economy led to a rapid deterioration of living standards: twenty years of social cuts, mass layoffs, wealth concentration, bureaucratization, and nepotism followed.
The percentage of Syrians living below the poverty line in 2011 was estimated at 33% to 40%, with about 13% living in “extreme poverty,” unable to meet even basic needs.
Unemployment had soared to 20% by 2011, and even higher among youth.[2]
As in any case, the worsening socio-economic contradictions in Syria led to a significant increase in state repression, especially against minorities, as Assad and his political clique feared resistance to the expanding state violence apparatus.
The most significant minority was and remains the Kurds, who constitute between 10% and 15% of the Syrian population.
Kurds in Syria
Since the time of Hafez al-Assad’s father, the existence of Kurds in Syria has been marked by discrimination, marginalization, and systematic exclusion.
In the al-Hasaka Governorate (today’s Rojava), 120,000 Kurds lost their Syrian citizenship in 1962 during a population census, and by 2011, about 300,000 had lost their citizenship because they had entered Syria illegally from Turkey.
In reality, the Syrian state had no other way to dispossess the Kurds living there more quickly and to distribute their land to Arab landowners, who had bought political influence.
The repression against Syrian Kurds intensified after the Baath Party’s liberalization policies, including bans on traditional Kurdish clothing and general restrictions on Kurdish culture.
For example, the unrest in Qamishli (today’s Rojava, 2004) saw Syrian police shoot nine unarmed Kurdish civilians from the football club “Al Jihad” after clashes between fans of Al Jihad and a rival club.
On the following day, all Kurdish parties organized a mourning march for the victims of the massacre:
The march, conducted under heavy police presence, was interrupted when some participants began throwing stones at Assad statues in protest against Kurdish repression.

The security forces present responded with gunfire into the crowd, and the unrest spread in the following days to Aleppo and Damascus.
At least 32 people were killed overall, most of whom were politically active Kurds.
The unrest resulted in a wave of arrests and torture, with over 2000 Kurds and sympathizers falling victim, including many Kurdish children.
[1] https://www.freeocalan.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Ocalan-Democratic-Confederalism.pdf
[2] https://marxist.com/in-defence-of-the-syrian-revolution-the-marxist-perspective.htm