The crisis of the Iranian revolution
The perspectives for revolutionists in Iran today
The following is the second and concluding part of the report presented in January to the United Secretariat of the Fourth International by Andre Duret. The United Secretariat approved the general line of the report, that is, the main lines of its analysis and the political conclusions. The first part of the report was published in International Viewpoint No 27, 31 March 1983.
THE MOJAHEDEEN VERSUS THE
REGIME
The open conflict between the IRP on one side, and Bani Sadr and the Mojahedeen on the other, came to a head in the second quarter of 1981, in the midst of the war with Iraq. The outcome of this confrontation marked the final stage in the Shi'ite clergy's takeover of all the institutions.
On 10 June 1981, Bani Sadr was removed as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The day before, Nobari, an ally of Bani Sadr, left his post as head of the Central Bank. Bani Sadr's call for a referendum to let the electorate resolve the dispute speeded up the showdown. The Majlis passed a law obliging Bani Sadr to accept all the measures passed in the preceding months by the IRP parliament. At the same time, the Bureau for Coordination and Cooperation between the People and the President of the Republic - an organisation Bani Sadr following the 1980 presidential elections - was abolished. In addition, papers, Revolution, Bazargan forces), and Namehye Mardom (published by the Tudeh Party), were suspended indefinitely by the General Prosecutor.
While pledging his loyalty to Khomeini, Bani Sadr denounced the 'tyranny' of the clergy and called for mass resistance. He thought he had bases of support in the army that he could count on and he made frequent approaches to the Bazaar entrepreneurs. The Mojahedeen of the People lined up behind Bani Sadr. They organised demonstrations to back him, the largest of which drew hundreds of thousands of people on 20 June in Tehran. Disoriented by the capitulation of the Tudeh Party and the FedayeenMajority, lacking an alternative leadership, a significant sector of the masses much more than just the middle classes' - rallied to the Bani Sadr-Mojahedeen
This was because it seemed to them to offer some possibilities for halting the political takeover of the Shiite clergy and the attacks against democrat-
All these demonstrations were attacked (including with fire arms) by the hezbollahis. 20 June demonstration, there were arrests of members of the Mojahedeen, the Fedayeen,
The Mojahedeen made no further attempts to organise mass mobilisations. Rather, they declared war on the govern-
Numerous bombings took place. On 28 June, more than 71 IRP leaders, including Beheshti, died in an explosion accusing the U.S. and Iraq, the Islamic Republic leaders finally blamed this ac tion on the Mojahedeen. Former Prime Minister Ali Rajai, who was elected president in July to replace Bani Sadr, was assassinated in August, along with the new prime minister, Bahonar. Thus, a whole layer of Islamic leaders were assassinated. The line adopted by the Mojahedeen, even though it denied responsibility for some attacks, was to wage war on the pasdars and the politicians of the regime. It openly claimed responsibility for a series of terrorist actions. The Mojahedeen hoped that by such actions they could either weaken the Khomeini faction relative to a wing that might be more favourable to them, or even set in motion a rapid disintegration of the IRP's system of rule.
In this climate, the regime was able to launch a reign of terror against all its opponents. The IRP dominated every area of political life. In October 1981, Sayed Khamenei, Khomeini's representative, was elected to the presidency of the republic. Madhavi Kani was then named prime minister (although shortly thereafter forced by the IRP to resign), and then replaced by Hossein Mossavi. After this, no leadership post of any significance in the state apparatus escaped the control of the Shiite clergy.
The Mojahedeen of the People is a populist, petty-bourgeois nationalist organisation. Its ideology is a melange of populist Shi'ism, 'third worldism' a la Fanon and elements borrowed from the Stalinist schema for colonial revolutions. In the absence of a strong workers movement, and where socialism was nearly always mixed up with the Tudeh Party, the Mojahedeen served as a channel for the radicalisation of significant layers of students but also plebeian and working class sectors. It had within its ranks thousands of young anti-imperialist fighters. In the 1980 elections, it won 13% of the vote according to official figures. This reflected the base that it had in the poor neighbourhoods.
From the standpoint of political line, the Mojahedeen's Sadr represented a continuation of their critical support to the Islamic regime up
December 1979, of their ayatollahs, such as Taleghani, their continual appeals to Khomeini, strategic aim of building a democratic sented their support for Bani Sadr as a tactical alliance to bloc the IRP's of-
So, they said nothing about Bani Sadr's responsibility in the shutting down of the universities, the attacks on their offices or the war against the Kurds. The methods of struggle used by the Mojahedeen are only the other side of the coin of their populism. They represent continuity with the organisation's 'guerrillaist' past. Their methods reveal, as does their policy of alliances a failure to understand the decisive need for an independent mass movement rooted in the working class. This ap. proach was reinforced by the reluctance of their bourgeois allies, particularly Bani Sadr, to contemplate direct action by the masses.
The orientation adopted by the Mojahedeen also reflected their failure to understand the way in which the consciousness of the masses develops. Their approach went against a strengthening of seemdid possibie not the 1985e, which seemed possible in June 1981. easy to make an amalgam between the Mojahedeen's terrorist campaign and the methods used by the restorationist forces, particularly in a war situation. Against this kind of challenge, the IRP was able to unify all its elements from Khamenei to Ardebili and throw everything it had into mobilising those sectors where it still had the biggest following. The Mojahedeen policy offered a pretext, as well, for a new wave of large-scale repressive measures that affected all the left forces.
For all these reasons, revolutionary Marxists must vigorously condemn the orientation adopted by the Mojahedeen. But they also have to point up clearly the political responsibility of the leadership of the Islamic regime, since they
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made it increasingly difficult for this been imprisoned, tortured and executed.
organisation to function legally. For a long time, a sector of the clergy had indicated its intentions to attack the Mojahedeen. In the Shah's time, in 1977, already Rafsanjani announced:
'Our final battle will be against the Mojahedeen'.
In June 1980, Khomeini launched the slogan, 'Death to the Hypocrites' (i.e., the Mojahedeen). The revolutionary' general prosecutor in Tehran, Lajevardi, explained the basis for this policy of repression as follows:
The hostility of the Hypocrites organisation toward the Islamic regime dates from the time of its foundation, since it considers scientific socialism
This defence must be put in the context of a clear denunciation of the imperialist propaganda against the Iranian revolution and of support for the fight against all imperialist forces or forces tied to the former imperial regime.
Once their strategy had clearly failed, all the negative aspects of the Mojahedeen leadership's policy of alliances and of its general political orientation crystallized. In the first place, the programme of the provisional government set up by the National Council of the Resistance (a coalition between Bani Sadr, the KDPI and the Mojahedeen) has no other aim but democratising the Islamic Republican Regime. That is, it proposes to maintain the capitalist state. Moreover, the social
TELE
THE IMAMATE AND ITS SYSTEM OF RULE
The ideology put forward by the ruling faction of the Shiite hierarchy, which it trims to suit its specific needs, has exercised a considerable influence over the course of the revolution. It is by no means a mere religious ideology. It is presented as a social and governmental programme. Thus, it provided the conceptual framework for the draft constitution. The latter was built around the central idea that the government and the laws belong to God. His representative on earth, the faghih - that is, Ayatollah Khomeini - makes the decisions in His name. All power, therefore, belongs to the faghih and he can delegate it as he chooses.
Sovereignty belongs to the faghih and not to the masses. He is their tutor. The population is divided into categories according to their relationship to the Imam's Line' - orthodox, atheists, hypocrites, etc. Obedience to the 'infallible' Imam becomes the rule of social life. Any opponent becomes an 'enemy of Islam' and of the Islamic revolution, " with the characterization of 'imperialist agent' often being thrown in for good measure. Thus, the justification for the harshest repression comes from an authority supposedly above the class conflicts, the representative of the Twelfth, or Hidden Imam.
The social programme of this fundamentalist Islam has been used to justify all the measures taken against women exclusion from a series of professions, ineligibility to run for elected office, the blood price law that establishes the value of women as 50% of that of a man, a very restricted right of divorce for women, the right of men to have four wives, the setting of the marriage age at nine for girls with the agreement of the father and thirteen in general, whipping
Mojahedeen attacked during a meeting by the hezbollahi (DR) and Marxism as the road to revolution. Now everyone knows that Marxism is against Islam. It follows, therefore, that anyone who believes in Marxism will be hostile to the Islamic Republic, even if they show a desire to politically relate to it or to maintain links of understanding and friendship with it. At the end of the day, there is clearly no way that the Believers and the Heathen can agree. The conflict between ourselves and the Hypocrites is one of principle and ideology, which goes back to the time before the victory of the revolution' Ash-Shaheed (the publication of the Iranian Embassy in Paris, No.6, February 1982.)
To sharply criticize the political orientation adopted by the Mojahedeen without taking proper account of all the IR's attacks on this organisation fact amounts to covering up all this repression in the name of the needs of the 'anti-imperialist struggle'. This is what the Tudeh Party has done. It is the obligation of the international workers movement to defend the Mojahedeen militants who have 18 and economic content of this programme leaves no room for doubt about its respect for private property (including even veiled appeals to the middle-sized entrepreneurs and elements of the Bazaar). It is also clear that this provisional government is prepared to assign the shoras a subordinate role in the state institutions. Finally, the mechanism proposed for changing the regime, that is, through the assumption of office by a president (Bani Sadr and an appointed government charged with calling a constituent assembly) makes it clear that the National Council does not want to appeal to the most advanced traditions of the mass struggle in Iran. This means that the National Council does not want to call for a general strike or self-organisation of the masses and it wants to place limits on their activity.
The disastrous political logic of the Mojahedeen line has been further revealed by their open response to overtures' from the Iraqis and even from the French imperialists, who have big economic interests in Iraq and are taking a line of open support to Saddam Hussein.
or stoning for adultery, and so forth. These measures forced women back into their traditional roles, while the pressures of the revolutionary upsurge, which they were in the front lines, had allowed them to escape for a time from the places traditionally assigned to them.
'Upholding Islam' became the justification for rescinding the most radical articles of the land reform law, the decrees against the rich, for subordinating the shoras to the IRP, for making the IRP effectively the single state party, for the "purification' of the corps of teachers and for banning all political activity in the schools.
The role of the Majlis has been defined as follows: (It) does not have sovereignty as regards legislation. What authority it does have is to legislate in line with the shari'at (Islamic law)....The representatives have to strike out any law contrary to Islamic precepts....The role of the Council of Guardians in overseeing the application of the Constitution is precisely to reject any law that does not conform to Islam'. (Hashemi Rafsanjani, pre-
opposition of a large section of the officer of their compatriots in Iran, also caused sident of the parliament, Ash-Shaheed, July 1981.)
This reactionary programme is designed to ensure the dominance of the ruling faction of the clergy, and serves as a means for maintaining the established social order. The Khomeini leadership has used both the Shiite apparatus and religious ideology to establish its political ascendancy over the masses who believe in Shi'ism. But the social and economic content of this programme inevitably comes into conflict with the needs of the workers and even with the religious forms in which their aspirations are expressed. Therefore, repression becomes a necessity to ensure the survival of the regime.
In such a situation, defence of democratic rights is closely tied to the fight for independent organisation and freedom of activity for working people. The refusal to defend such rights on the pretext that this is playing into the hands of the imperialists or facilitating the work of the liberal bourgeoisie leads to subordinating the mass movement to the Khomeini leadership or precisely to facilitating the operations of the "liberal bourgeoisie', which is taking up the democratic demands of the masses against the regime in an attempt to reconsolidate its positions. As we pointed out in July 1980:
'Marxists will work....to strengthen the working masses' sense of belonging to an independent class, they will organise struggles around all the democratic, national and transitional (anticapitalist) demands. They will formulate these demands in such a way as to bring them into the very heart of the real mass movement. They understand the effects that the concrete experiences of mobilisation have on the consciousness of the masses, as well as the impact of the contradictions between the activities of the masses, the regime's plans, and the ideology put forward by the Khomeini leadership.
"That is the only possible way to draw the masses away from the influence of the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeois leaders. That is the only way to accompany the mass movement, without abandoning a political against the reactionary content of the "Islamisation" campaigns'. (United Secretariat Resolution, July 28, 1980; published in English in Intercontinental Press, p. 1262, Vol. 18. No 45, December 1, 1980.)
some headaches for the clique that held absolute power in Baghdad.
Finally, with the disappearance of the Shah's regime as the military power in the region, Saddam wanted to push for a larger role in an area that had been divided up by imperialism into more or less rival states (Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia). Egypt as well as Jordan gave their support to
Saddam Hussein did not take the decision to unleash his military offensive alone! At the beginning of August, he went to Taif in Saudi Arabia. It was his first official visit since his accession to the Presidency of the Republic and the first for a Ba'ath leader to Saudi Arabia since 1958. Once the war began Saudi Arabia, along with the Gulf Emirate states, guarranteed a financial aid in tens of billions of dollars to Iraq. These reactionary regimes also feared the repercussions of the Iranian revolution. French imperialism backed Iraq, seeking in this way to regain a foothold in a region from which it had been largely excluded by the British and American imperialists.
In coming to power the Khomeini leadership did not renounce the unequal 1975 treaty that was imposed by the Shah on Iraq. On the contrary it made many panIslamic declarations, marked by a heavy
THE IRAQI ATTACK ON IRAN
The military attack by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein was to result in a war that has now lasted nearly two and a half years. This conflict has not halted developments in the class struggle or in the battle of the national minorities in Iran. It threw everything into a melting pot. Political, social and military struggle flowed together and influenced the dynamic of the mass movement. In both countries, this combined dynamic has become one of the most important questions involved in the war.
### SADDAM HUSSEIN'S PLAN
On the pretext of a border dispute, Saddam Hussein attacked Iran in September 1980. He sought to overthrow that by striking hard blows against the Islamic regime and by trying to shift the relationshp of forces inside Iran in favour of the reactionaries - that is, the supporters of Oveisi or Bakhtiar - he could strangle the revolution. In drawing up his plans, Saddam Hussein collaborated with ex-generals of the Imperial army. He armed them and gave them aid in their fight against Khomeini.
The Iraqi regime hoped to strangle Iran by occupying a vital economic and industrial zone, Khuzistan. Iran was internationally isolated after the occupation of the American embassy and was up to its neck in a real war against the Kurdish people. Furthermore, Hussein based his calculations on being able to take advantage of the weakening of the army inherited from the Shah's regime, of the corps to the new regime and of the infighting between cliques inside the institutions of the Islamic Republic. He engaged in a 'pro-Arab' demagogy. Refering to Khuzistan, he spoke of 'Arab land like Palestine'. Nevertheless his whole policy (bombings, destruction and repression) indicated unambigously that the ruling clique in Baghdad was incapable of really appealing to the Arab population of Khuzistan, who were involved in a revolution. The Arabs immediately participated in the battles against Iraqi aggression; often they were disarmed by the pasdars.
Saddam believed Khomeini's regime would disintegrate rapidly. However, as has often happened in history, by invading a country in the midst of a revolution, Hussein triggered an immediate response in which the determination of the masses to defend their country fused with their determination to defend the revolution. Internally, Saddam Hussein's regime was not faced with a mass movement that directly challenged him. However, he feared the impact the Islamic revolution might have on the poor peasant masses in the south of Iraq - particularly since they mostly share the Shiite religion. The campaign against the Iraqi Shiite organisations intensified from 1979 on. In March 1980, Baghdad issued a decree calling a death sentence on any person belonging to the reactionary Shi'ite fundamentalist organisation Al Daawa. It ordered the execution of the spiritual leader of the Shi'ites, Mohammad Bakr al Sadr.
The resurgence of the struggle of the Kurds in Iraq, inspired by the combat
Iranian chauvinist tone. It openly declared and organised support for the fundamentalist Shiite organisation Al Daawa. Khomeini launched a sort of personal ideological war against Saddam Hussein, in the name of the Islamic revolution', directing his fire against the Ba'athist secular and pseudo-socialist Arab nationalism. This propaganda took the form of Shiite expansionism. On 18 April 1980 Joumhouri Eslami, the IRP daily. published an appeal from Khomeini: 'It is your duty (the Iragi peo ples) as well as that of the army to overthrow Ba'athism, the non-Islamic party'
The imperialist powers, especially American imperialism tacitly approved the Iraqi offensive. They saw in it a possibility of consolidating counter-revolutionary positions in Iran. They also feared the destabilising effects of the Iranian revolution in the region and the appeals of the Shiite fundamentalist forces in power in Tehran. On this there was a convergence of interests with Saddam Hussein's aims. But American imperialism did not strongly commit itselt to the operation. There were too many unknown factors. And imperialist designs for the region by no means coincide exactly with Saddam Hussein's plans. Above all, in no way was imperialism favourable to a substantial drawing of the boundary lines established in the region at the time of the First World War - at least anything that would go beyond the sort of changes represented by the 1975 treaty. It was opposed to a breakup of Iran.
Moreover, the imperialists were not prepared to foster an Iraqi conquest of the Iranian oilfields. Imperialism does not want to encourage the concentration of such resources in the hands of a single
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country. It rather favours a 'Balkanisation' of oil producers. By backing such a project it would create a very dangerous precedent in this strategic region of the world and would run the risk of alienating all governments. Iraq, a long-standing ally of the USSR, is not completely in the pay of imperialism. It is true it made a diplomatic turn to imperialist forces, but the Baghdad regime was still preoccupied with its own specific intersts. Therefore, the imperialists were not ready rightaway to let it become the key power in the region, particularly after the disappointing experience they had had with Iran as a regional subpower.
Finally, for the United States, after the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty, Israel remains even more of an indispensable lynchpin. To assign Iraq, a declared enemy of Israel, a key role, could only undermine a fundamental choice made by American imperialism. The aid that Israel was to give to Iran, in arms, only underlines this point. The quantity of arms supplied, mainly material manufactured under U.S. licence, showed that this initiative was not taken in direct contradiction to the wishes of the United States. The Israeli raid of June 1981 against the Osirak (Iraq) nuclear power station indicates Israel's determination to take advantage of the war situation to weaken Iraq.
In fact imperialism will use this conflict above all to increase its military presence in the region and in particular to consolidate its military aid to the Gulf states, while Iran and Iraq weaken themselves militarily and economically. Its interests are served by the detente in relations between Iraq and Egypt, which is resuming a place among the Arab countries at a time when the 'Rejection Front' of Syria, Libya, South Yemen, Algeria and the PLO is breaking up. While the Gulf states oppose the Tehran regime, they do not want to see Iraq transformed into the regional gendarme either.
The readiness of the PLO and Cuba from the beginning of the conflict to offer themselves as mediators was prompted by their understanding of the advantages that imperialism could gain from this war in a region that it has 'Balkanised' so that it could be manipulated more easily. The imperialists have undeniably profited from the conflict and its continuation - even more since they have not been openly involved in initiating and directing it. As for the Soviet bureaucracy, it acts cautiously, not putting all its eggs in one basket. Among other things, it uses 'satellite countries' as a means of spreading its bets.
The conflict that broke out in September 1980, therefore, is a war between two dependent capitalist countries. The leaderships in power in both countries are pursuing an overall policy that goes against the interests of the masses. However, the Iranian leadership has come out of a still recent revolution and still has a following among the masses. Saddam 20
Hussein's attack was designed to strangle the Islamic revolution by a military attack and through backing counterrevolutionary forces linked to the former Iranian regime. At the same time, and more fundamentally, it was an attack on the Iranian revolution of the workers and poor peasants.
Facing the Autumn 1980 Iraqi assault, the task of revolutionists in Iran was to defend the unfolding Iranian revolution. This involved mobilising the workers and peasants to oppose Ba'athist aggression, to defeat it militarily. On the other hand, this campaign had to be carried out in such a way as not to undermine the fight to win the strategic objective of the political independence of the mass movement. In order to accomplish this, revolutionists had to stress the following points:
The need for reactivating and arming the shoras and mass neighbourhood committees.
- The need for freedom of political expression in the militias set up to repulse Military recruitment (DR) the Ba'athist aggression and opposition to all witchhunts against left organisations.
- The right of workers to express themselves freely and organise in the army (that is, to form soldiers shoras, which, among other things, would make it possible to nip in the bud plots by generals and to purge the army of coun terrevolutionary officers.
- The need for an immediate halt to military attacks on the Kurds (in September/October 20,000 pasdars and soldiers took part in an offensive against Kurdistan) and on other national minorities and the unconditional recognition of their right to self-determination.
- The need to oppose all measures of forced evacuation and reprisals against the Arab people of Khuzistan.
Revolutionary socialists had to declare forthrightly that the revolution could not be defended effectively without safeguarding all its gains, without extending the masses' freedoms of organisation, association and expression, without the deepening of the revolution in the social and economic areas. For revolutionists there was no choice but to oppose an approach that, in the name of the overriding needs of 'national defence', called for saying nothing about attacks on democratic rights or for ending the just struggles of the workers in their factories and the peasants on their land.
In the event of an attempt to overthrow the regime by restorationist reactionary forces, assisted by the Iraqi-invaders, revolutionists would have to call on the Iranian workers and peasant masses to defend a regime on the military level that they are not yet able to replace by a workers and peasants government. But the masses should defend the regime on a strictly military basis, without giving it any political support and with their own methods of struggle and ac tion. In this battle, however, they should stress the need to revive the more advanced forms of struggle (self-organisation, arming of the masses) in order to build the best conditions for achieving a victory that could then become a springboard for the masses breaking with the leadership of the Islamic Republic.
The international workers and revolutionary movement, thus, had to mobilise to demand the unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi troops behind the frontiers existing before 21 September 1980, as well as of all imperialist troops from the region. From outset of the conflict, parallel to their participation in the resistance, revolutionaries had to explain that defending the Iranian revolution - which was in the interests of both the Iranian and Iraqi peoples — required opposing the development of chauvinism.
A lasting division between these two countries dominated by imperialism only profits the latter. The masses of the two countries will pay a heavy price for this, as Fidel Castro has correctly pointed out. Opposing the growth of chauvinism was not contradictory either to the demand for Iraqi unconditional withdrawal, or to support of military defence designed to defeat the Iraqi attack. Indeed, this political explanation of military defence would surely have found an echo among the Iraqi masses and politically undermined Saddam Hussein.
THE MASSES, KHOMEINI AND WAR
Between September and October 1980, there was extremely strong popular resistance to the Iraqi invasion in the working class centres of Khuzistan (Khorramshahr, Abadan and Ahwaz). It upset all the plans of the Iraqi high command, which did not hesitate to heavily bomb the towns. In the 'oil triangle', the regular Iranian army was practically absent during the first weeks of the war. Workers, young fighters, including many Arabs, backed up by sections pasdars formed the spearhead of the resistance. Fedayeen and Mojahedeen members participated in the war effort and fought in the front line against the Iraqi army. From the beginning of the war, Ghassemlou, a KDPI leader,
sponse of the leading circles of the Islam- Republic. Indeed, let the Tehran government know that the peshmergas were ready to turn their arms against the Iraqis and the reactionary forces paid by Iraq on two conditions: 1) that the military attacks against the Kurds be stopped and that they be allowed to maintain their own military organisation; 2) and that the Kurds' right to autonomy be recognised.
In numerous Iranian towns, the day after the war started the masses went onto the street. They demanded arms. As during the insurrection, the question of arming the masses was on the agenda. This demand crystallised their two concerns - to defend the revolution and to fight against Ba'athist agression. From the start, the regime opposed the resurgence of independent neighbourhood committees, particularly in the war-affected regions. It armed the Islamic Associations in the workplaces and not the shoras. It banned all political propaganda in the army and repressed the soldiers shoras.
The development of the war has fallen into roughly four phases:
1) September-November 1980. The Iraqi offensive and the popular resistance in Khuzistan, which by November stopped the Iraqi breakthrough. The onset of the winter rainy season, which makes motorized operations extremely difficult in the region, also played a role in the bogging down of the Iraqi assault.
2) December 1980-August 1981. A long war of position during which a bitter struggle raged inside the Tehran regime between the IRP and Bani Sadr with his Mojahedeen allies. The Shiite clergy's dominance over the state apparatus grew stronger. The bodies involved in mobilising the masses militarily were placed under strict supervision. The repression of democratic rights was stepped up.
3) September 1981-June 1982. The beginning of the Iranian military coun teroffensive, after the army had received new supplies. This counterattack was based on a massive use of infantry, composed in part of very young fighters and organised by the pasdars. Abadan and Bostan were liberated, followed by the Dezful region and Khorramshahr. At the same time, there was a further stepup in the repression.
4) July 1982-January 1983. This phase is marked by Iranian operations against Iraqi territory. It opened with a large scale offensive aimed at Basra. New fronts were opened in the Zagros mounic Republic to these questions was determined both by the differences of approach that were being manifested within its own ranks and by a constant concern to assure its control of the mass movement and to reduce it to a series of transmission belts. This went hand in hand with repressive measures against the forces opposed to the IRP policies. Thus, it was not long before the Mojahedeen and Fedayeen fighting at the front were being arrested, treated as 'saboteurs' and in some cases being executed.
In the first place, the Khomeini leadership reorganised the army it inherited from the Shah. Hundreds of officers were released from prison. The military chiefs were given the blessing of the highest authorities of the Islamic Repub-
Military discipline' was imposed, that is, any organisation by soldiers was banned. Bani Sadr courted the army, of which he was formally commander-inchief. He was seeking to make it his ally in the confrontation with the IRP. But at the same time, the Khomeini leadership assigned the pasdar corps a major role. The latter was to occupy a front-line role in the organisation of military defence (and later during the counteroffensive). The popular movement was channelled by the setting up of the baseej (mobilisation committees), which were used to recruit and train a the war effort and the struggle against imperialism, the Khomeini leadership reinforced the measures for keeping the factory workers under tight control. The pasdars and other IRP forces moved quickly to intimidate workers when necessary. This policy by the regime was stepped up after the outbreak of a series of strikes at the end of 1980 and the beginning of 1981 in Tehran, Isfahan, and Gilan. These struggles were defeated and repressed. Unemployment, the dispersal of the core of the Khuzistan working class, and coercion finally inflicted a serious setback on the workers movement.
In the course of 1981 and 1982, discontent among the masses grew stronger under the impact of the economic crisis massive unemployment, inflation, etc.) The government's policy for hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the war
Kurdish demonstration (DR) also caused widespread dissatisfaction. In the countryside, discontent gradually de-
Thus, in Merip Reports April 1982, Eric Hooglund noted:
'Most village people think the war with Iraq is a conflict that does not make much sense, which has killed their cheriished children.
Slowly, the centre of gravity of the masses' concerns moved from their willingness at first to participate in, and sup port the war effort to their own demands and day-to-day concerns. Attendance at tains in north Khuzistan.
Iraqi troops withdrew from most of the Iranian territory they held.
Iraq, however, conti- mitehs did at the beginning of the revnued to bombard Iranian positions and towns.
Saddam Hussein had to sue for militia.
The baseej were put under the control of the pasdars.
Just as the koolution, the baseej did attract sections of the workers and masses
- young
Friday Prayers, diminished despite the regime's efforts to mobilise people for them. This was a sign that the distance between the regime and the masses, which had narrowed during the first peace.
Faced with the war, the Iranian government had to confront two problems:
1) How to meet a military attack that was obviously not anticipated. 2) How to for manipulating channel a mass movement that had been ance with the IRP's projects.
revived by the demands of defending the country and the revolution.
The reanti-imperialist fighters. But as a result of the tight control the pasdars exerted over them and of political and ideological purges, they became instruments the masses in accordIn this regard, Rafsanjani declared: This war is consolidating our Islamic in the name of months of the war, was again widening.
Certainly, Khomeini leadership still has a certain backing among popular
The combination of repression and the distribution of material patronage sections of the masses has also to be taken into consi deration in order to understand the real meaning of the participation in some of
the demonstrations organised by the regime in support of the war effort. These mass demonstrations and the real initial commitment of the poorest layers of youth in the baseej cannot, theretore. be equated with a deepening of the class struggle. Such an approach would simply leave out of the analysis the character of the bodies through which the youth's actions are channelled, the overall political orientation of the faction of the Shiite clergy that holds power, the repeated attacks against the workers and peasant struggles and the repression against all organisations identifying with the workers movement and socialism, even those most servile toward the regime such as the Tudeh and FedayeenMajority. In the same way, if one looked only at the external enemy it would mean failing to see the internal enemy, the Khomeini leadership, which is threatening the revolution, and thereby undermining the capacity of the masses to respond to future imperialist offensives.
THE COUNTEROFFENSIVE AND
THE IRP'S MILITARY POLICY
Demoralisation grew inside the Iraqi army, bogged down in a war with no end in sight. Little by little, the Iraqi soldiers came to see this war as pointless — particularly after Saddam Hussein made a declaration early in 1982 abandoning all territorial claims. The war's effects were felt more and more on the Iraqi economy. Many economic development projects were scaled down or postponed. There was a big fall in oil income. While the massive loans accorded to the Baghdad regime (about 55 billion dollars) made it possible to keep up the operations, they also prompted a big spurt in inflation (40%). The Iraqi casualties started rising rapidly after the start of the Iranian counter-offensive. The numbers of Iraqi prisoners of war ran into tens of thousands. Within Iraqi leading circles, pressure was building up for some move to get out of the dead end they had run into. Sharp differences developed inside the Ba'athist leadership, as indicated by the departure of more than one minister.
The offensive in the Dezful region (March 1982) marked the first big Iranian military victory since the onset of the war. On 30 April, operation 'Jerusalem' began. It ended in the liberation of southern Khuzistan and of Khorramshahr. Each time these offensives were led by elements of the traditional army, pasdars and Baseej militia. On 20 March 1982, Khomeini announced that school pupils 12 years old and up could join the front-line troops.
The damage inflicted on Iran by the Iraqi attack, the occupation and the subsequent fighting, is enormous. Whole towns are in ruins.
In June 1982, Saddam Hussein, trying to find some way out of the situation, fearing the internal political repercus. sions of the war continuing and further defeats, declared an unilateral ceasefire 22 and a troop withdrawal from Iranian territory. He started this on 20 June. Hussein demagogically stated that this retreat — which was practically total -was motivated by the desire of Iraq to fight against Israeli troops who had just invaded Lebanon. Rafsanjani retorted by demanding a right of passage for Iranian tanks through Iraq in order to go and fight Israeli troops in Lebanon! Khomeini, on 21 June proclaimed:
*We must save the Iraqi nation and save Iraq in order to be able to save Lebanon'
That was the way the leadership of the Islamic Republic politically prepared the way for its military offensive into Iragi territory. On 13 July, the Ramadan operation began. It was aimed at Basra and then at Zaid. In September/ October, the Iraqi positions were attacked in the Abadan and Mehran regions and also in the Mandali area, which commands the strategically important road to Baghdad. In November, a new attack was launched in the north of Khuzistan, to the west of Dezful. The human cost of these waves of attacks was very high. Iraqi artillery decimated the ranks of an infantry composed largely of young militia members. The financial cost alone was also very high. On 13 October 1982, the Majlis agreed to add 2 billion dollars to the military budget.
As for Iraa. it carried out heavy bombings of the Iranian towns of llam, Hamadan, Khorramabad, Ahwaz and the Karg oil terminal. The Khomeini leadership showed its political intention of continuing the war. It refused any serious political or diplomatic offensive that could politically weaken or disarm the Saddam Hussein regime in the eyes of the Iragi and Arab masses. Hussein made peace proposal' after peace proposal in order to try to present the war as a chauvinist Iranian attack that was being waged by a retrograde religious leader against the Arab masses. He, thus, tried to cover up the tracks of his aggres Iranian soldiers at prayer (DR)
sion against the Iranian revolution.
Khomeini and his supporters responded to the Iraqi regime's diplomatic offensive with demands such as the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and bringing him to justice. The political objective of this response was explained by Khomeini: to establish an Islamic Republic in Iraq, liquidate Ba'athism. Rafsanjani declared:
We are not interested in money or war reparations. If we saw our neighbours, the Iraqi people, who are 99% Muslim, form an Islamic regime, then there is every possibility that we would help them...If the Ba'athist party remains in place, or even if other elements from the East or West replace the present regime, then we do not want land, but we will step up the pressure to obtain our reparations down to the last penny'.
Such a line expresses a profound disdain for the social and political tions, as well as the national sentiment of the Iraqi masses. Khomeini was not sup porting a mass struggle to overthrow Saddam Hussein, as a way to clear the road
Iraqi workers to realise their He assigned them a political destiny along the lines of the Islamic Republic. Khamenei, the Iranian president, furthermore, presented the Imam as the supreme religious authority both of Iran
The leadership of the Islamic Republic, which is the enemy of the masses in Iran, is not capable of looking for, or finding, real support among the Iraqi workers and peasants against their government. In Tehran, under the auspices of the government, a Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution (Iraq) was set up, represented by the exiled fundamentalist religious leader, Sayed Mohammed Bakhr Hakim. This Council brought together fundamentalist Shi'ite Islamic forces, including the Al Daawa party, the Khomeini leadership presented this body as representing the 'extension of the Islamic revolution' into Iraq. It proposed
to the Iraqi masses a social and political programme identical to the IRP's, something that could only repel the most advanced sectors of the struggle against Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime. This revolutionary' project of Khomeini, therefore, obviously was not based on the forces that are struggling against Saddam Hussein today, such as the Kurdish Patriotic Front and the Ba'athist Socialist Party or the Communist Party. The pursuit of a policy such as that of the Khomeini government at a time when the Iraqi dictatorship is shaky can only reinforce Saddam Hussein's diplomatic positions and strengthen his
Syria had given essentially passive support to Iran, but nevertheless supplied war material for the Khorramshahr offensive. It was obliged to consider changing its position following Tehran's tions and the first Iranian offensive. This reflected the growing pressure of the
Iranian soldiers on the Iraqi front after the invasion (DR) national question. Thus on 31 May 1982, Abdel Halim Khaddam, Syrian Foreign Affairs minister, announced that his country would cease to support Iran if the government of the Islamic Republic decided to invade Iraq: If we agree to give up certain parts of Arab territory we would also have to give up Palestine'.
Saudi Arabia immediately sounding out Syria. One of the points of disagreement between Iran and Syria is nothing less than the support Khomeini gives to Bakhr Hakim, designated by the Imam as the Iraqi faghih! given its deep conflict with the Iraqi Ba'athists, Syria, after some months of wavering, and in concert with Libya, reiterated its formal support for Iran — an Iran that evenhandedly denounces Washington and Moscow for their aid to Iraq!
In fact, after mid-1982, the USSR resumed deliveries of Mig-25 planes and T-72 tanks to Iraq. On the other hand, Iran signed important arms contracts with Israel (to which it supplies cut-price oil), Brazil, Italy, and North Korea.
Iranian military pressure worried the feared a total Iranian victory, a collapse of the Saddam Hussein government and its replacement by a regime similar to Tehran's, or a chaotic situation threatentheir immediate interests. was a particular source of concern for French imperialism. Imperialism's control of the region would be made more difficult. It is true that the imperialists already had the experience in the past decades of dealing with regimes that made just as radical anti-imperialist pronouncements as Tehran's, such as Syria and Iraq. Nonetheless, they do not want to see Tehran bring down the present Iraqi regime. Therefore, it is not surprising that the United States and also France are showing a readiness to Iraq and to reinforce their positions
The possiblity that the Ba'athist regime could collapse under the hammer blows of the Iranian army cannot, on the other hand, be the starting point for defining a revolutionary political position in the present conflict. The basis of a revolutionary approach must be the follow-
- The real interests of the masses in Iran. again link up with the best tradition of their struggles after the 1958 'national revolution'.
- Clear opposition to the social and political programme in whose name Khomeini is conducting the military operations against Iraq. REVOLUTIONARIES AND THE WAR
TODAY
The present orientation of Iranian military policy is consistent with the general foreign policy choices that Tehran
These are wrongly charac terised as fundamentally anti-imperialist by the Tudeh Party or the Fedayeen-Ma-
However, they have never gone beyond the narrow confines of the interests of the leading circles of the Islamic Republic and regional rivalry. The Tudeh and Fedayeen made much of the fact that a few hundred fighters were sent against Israeli troops in Lebanon. But this only covers up other facts.
Politically, the IRP leaders chose to themselves with the conservative confessional Shi'ite group, Amal - which originally by the Lebanese secret service to divide the Arab population in Lebanon from the Palestinians -rather than with the PLO forces. publicly advised this group to fight on two fronts - against Israel and against
There was scarcely any need to give Amal that sort of advice. full-fledged battles took place between
The Israeli offensive against Lebanon was characterised by Khomeini as a
• diversion to take the peoples' minds off the Iran-Iraq war. Tehran's decision to step up its military offensive during the invasion of Lebanon hardly hindered imperialist and Israeli projects for the region - quite the contrary. In fact, this is corroborated by desperate PLO efforts to mediate. The closing of the PLO embassy in Iran for a whole period is, in its own way, another proof. The pressure of the Iranian masses forced a cutoff of oil supplies to Israel in 1979. deliveries were resumed in 1982, thereby exposing the IRP's doubletalk.
Other indicators of the 'anti-imperialist' character of Khomeini's policy in-
Close links with the Pakistani military dictatorship, a 'defender of Islam'. This regime pledged, after a visit in January 1983 by the Iranian minister of the interior, Ali Akbar Nateg-Nuri, to send back all the 'hypocrites' (Mojaheand others trying to get out of Iran across the Pakistani frontier.
- 'Rapprochement' with Turkey and the considerable increase in trade with times compared to 1978). This goes hand in hand with Iran's eloquent silence on the role of the Turkish regime in the region-wide imperialist military (in January 1982 the Iranian trade minister simply made a point about the lack of Islamic atmosphere' in Istanbul!).
- Support to the most reactionary sectors of the Afghan resistance and to the reactionary Islamic fundamentalist forces in the Gulf states.
Finally, the Islamic Republic's orientation, which fosters divisions between Sunnites and Shi'ites in this part of the Middle East, can only compound the problems caused by the old imperialist tactic of exarcerbating conflicts and competition in a region that has been balkanised to suit imperialist interests. Consequently, this Shi'ite proselytism threatens to obstruct the anti-imperialist and anticapitalist struggle of the masses.
Ringing denunciations of imperialism
It is the masses to the pursuit of the war. The however, left distribution in the hands of used for rebuilding and extending an go hand in hand with a virulent denunciation of communism and Marxism.
no coincidence if the Islamic Republic and to subordinating the demands of developments inside Iran since Septemagainst the policy of the Islamic Republi
The Iranian masses must not can regime.
win the war and lose the revolution! In was quick to renounce Articles 5 and 6 ber 1980 - that is, fundamentally, the of the 1921 Treaty with USSR. This includes a provision for possible Russian military action 'in the event of a third power trying to carry out a policy of usurpation through armed intervention in Persia. But these declarations have remained only expressions of sentiment; they have not been followed up by any concrete measures on the social and economic levels to break the links of dependency with imperialism. Worse still, the workers and poor peasants, who alone have a fundamental interest in waging are being violently repressed.
Indeed, throughout the war, repression has been stepped up.
and the Fedayeen-Majority were very violently attacked in the IRP newspaper (Joumhouri Eslami) on 22 August 1982 because of their reticence at that time in supporting the regime's military
The IRP leaders reproached them for implying that the continuation of the consolidation of the institutions of the Islamic regime and the effects of this on the mass movement and the military policy of the Islamic regime -modify the tasks of revolutionaries with the political-military line of the Kho-
They must call for an immediate ceasefire. to build a political response to Saddam Hussein to expose all the schemes he has developed since 1980 against the Iranian revolution. In this way, the Iranian masses will be best prepared to repulse any new Iraqi aggression and the Baghdad regime can be most effectively undermined.
the same time, revolutionaries should put at the centre of their propaganda and agitation all the demands of exploited and oppressed masses the imperialist countries, including France and the USA, revolutionaries must expose their governments, which are engaging in manoeuvre after manoeuvre to reorganise their domination in the
In its own way, mass support for the struggle against Iraq's counterrevolutionary operation boosted the Islamic Republican regime. But today there are many signs of opposition from broad sectors of the masses to the regime's policies and military options. and draft dodgers have begun to be harassed and hounded. Financial compensation is promised for families if their sons join up. Hossein Mossavi, the prime minister, plans to enrol a part of the public sector personnel. has decreed laws making volunteering a religious duty and a priority over all other activities.
THE PRESENT STATE OF THE REVOLUTION war was driving Iraq even further into the arms of Saudi Arabia, that it was imposing enormous sacrifices on the masses Oil revenue has eased the squeeze the traditional Bazaar. And controls on and that popular discontent could play into the hands of the counterrevolution in the future. Arrests of Tudeh and Fedayeen-Majority members increased. (Most recently, at the start of February 1983, the Tudeh Party leadership, with its secretary Nurredin Kianuri, were arrested. Ayatollah Janati, member of the Council of Guardians, stated that the arrests of the Tudeh Party leaders had dashed Soviet hopes of 'plotting against Iran through the intermediary of this party'.)
The continuation of the war now and the reasons for which the IRP leaders are pursuing it do not represent a political line of defending the Iranian revolution. Their objectives are to maintain their hold over the mass movement, to justify all the restrictions on elementary democratic rights, to consolidate their military and repressive apparatus and above all to try to put off having to deal with a series of increasingly explosive social problems. The latter include the crisis in the countryside, unemployment, the shortage of consumer goods and the thorny question of two million refugees.
The continuation of the war is helping to build up the positions of a whole layer of young officers who have risen rapidly through the hierarchy as a result of the upheavals in the army. This new generation of officers could tomorrow have some political ambitions! A certain fusion is taking place between the army and the pasdars. In a speech at the beginning of January 1983, Khomeini made the point that these two bodies 'must not be conceived of as separate entities'
To try to shunt aside the problem of of the economic crisis. Exports have risen to about 1.5 million barrels a day, while they did not go beyond 500,000 barrels between September 1980. The barrel sells 29 dollars, a price very much below the OPEC-fixed price. be cut even lower to encourage sales. income came close to 1.5 billion dollars. The foreign debt has rapidly declined.
La period of stricter rationing, there is now greater possibility of redisincome through the regime's many channels - with all the privileges corruption that goes with that.
Nevertheless, the war effort is fuelling inflation, creating bottlenecks in building projects for cheap housing and in developing the infrastructure in the countryside. The need is being felt to reduce administrative expenses, which would throw the patronage system into crisis and sharpen conflicts within the clergy. The social and economic crisis is bolstering the offensive of factions (such as Hodjatieh) that want to pacify the merchants and entrepreneurs.
'Islamisation' of laws has been further stepped up (e.g., September decrees). The new Assembly of Experts' elected in December 1982 is composed of just 74
The nationalisation of foreign trade was decided by the Majlis on 31 May 1982. The previous 26 November 1981 decision on this had been suspended by the Council of Guardians (Shoraye
Nevertheless, on 1 June 1982 the Council of Guardians - where Khomeini does not lack influpurchases are set on a parity basis by Ministry of Controls and the main private importers of the sector.
Likewise, in January 1983 the Council of Guardians vetoed the law adopted by the Majlis that had provided for confiscation of the property of 'deserters'. The Council let it be known that this law was contrary to Islam' and to two articles of the Constitution. On this occasion, Khomeini called the members of parliament to order, pointing out that they must not vote laws that the Council of are likely to reject! (Iran Times, 28 January, 1983).
These conflicts reflect the sharply opposing interests of different sectors and factions of the Shiite clergy and their bourgeois allies. The mutual accusations that are being thrown back and forth today inside the Shite hierarchy about 'excesses' in the repression are another index of the regime's crisis of leadership.
working class has lost a series of gains won at the beginning of the revolution. Its living standards have declined. It no longer has its own organisational structures. The shoras are reduced to a formal existence, if they survive at all. In September 1981, elections to the shoras were legally suspended. The Islam-
Associations (Anjomanhaye Eslami) have gained the upper hand. They have made it possible to liquidate the shoras, and they have filled up with both representatives of the former offical trade union and backward elements.
In some cases where the Anjomans could still express working class pressure through Shiite populist elements the regime's policies, what motivates them, and their results, on the grounds that the 'priority now is to get behind
The draft laws and the legislation on hand. Their leaders have been sacked.
struggle, the anti-imperialist leads to politically supporting the Islamic regime
24 ence! - declared this law 'contrary to of foreign trade, or Tudeh or Fedayeen members, the authorities have taken them firmly in
These Islamic Associations cannot be
independent workers movement; their function is to help the management in the workplaces to meet its production targets, to denounce counterrevolutionaries, and to discuss workers demands.
Finally, the proposed labour code (which modifies some aspects of the laws imposed by the imperial regime that are still in force) expresses the fundamental IRP thinking on regulating relations between workers taken individuals and the bosses. These relations are limited to simple personal contracts.
Trade union organisation has no place in the anti-imperialist policy of Khomeini and his supporters. There are a large number of workers, including many who support the regime, who are complaining strongly about this proposed law. Despite repression, strikes broke out to protest against it. This is a good illustration of the latent conflict between workers aspirations and the whole policy of the regime.
Among the peasantry, the occupations and distribution of land has created a new situation. But the Land Reform law, finally passed by the Majlis, does not extend the peasants' gains in any way. Basically, it proposes that landowners should sell land if their holdings are judged to be too extensive. This land will be then distributed to peasants under the auspices of committees of pasdars, judges, landowners, and peasants.
In addition to providing a legal basis for taking land away from peasants who seized it during the initial months of the revolution, this land reform law is designed to liquidate all village committee (peasant committee)-type structures and to replace them by local government bodies.
In the present period, the peasants demands focus around such issues as the prices of products sold to state bodies, the cost of manufactured products, and rentals on land held by Shi'ite institutions. For the moment, the social and political activity of the peasants remains limited.
Civil war continues between the government and the Kurdish fighters. The top general, Sharezi, threatened the Kurds at the end of 1982 with the full firepower of the Iranian army. The resistance of the Kurdish people remains a very important obstacle to the stabilisation of the Islamic regime.
The regime understands that the Kurdish people's resistance can open up the way to new upsurges of the mass movement. The large contingent of the armed forces assigned to fighting peshmergas confirm this. The Turkoman area is under military occupation. In Azerbaijan, Tehran has sent in more elite troops, supposedly to bring under control the supporters of Ayatollah Shariat Madari, who is accused of having participated in an alleged plot by the former minister of foreign affairs, Ghotbzadeh.
The mass movement, thus, has been severely set back. In its attempts to achieve its objectives of reorganising and stabilising a dependent capitalist state dominated by imperialism, the Khomeini leadership has dealt the mass movement serious blows. Its continuing rule can only aggravate the dangers threatening the future of the revolution.
But social and economic depression, the experiences accumulated by the masses in the extraordinary struggles and mobilisations in the still recent past, the capacity they have already regain the initiative, could result in a resurgence of their actions if a political
The clique conflicts dividing the leading circles of the Islamic Republic, and the uncertainty over the Imam's successor - all these elements expect new institutional and
In that eventuality, the centrifugal forces at work in the country could violently come to the surface, and the unexhausted reserves of the revolution once again come into play.
Imperialism and the restorationist forces, as well as sectors within the army, are continually watching for their chance. Even if they are not the only danger facing the revolution, they could take advantage of any deepgoing crisis, companied by an apathy among the masses demoralised by successive partial defeats extending over a rather long period. In this case, there could be a serious and lasting defeat of the Iranian revolution.
THE CENTRAL TASKS OF REVOLUTIONARIES
At the present time, revolutionaries are fighting to defend the Iranian revolution both against the threats of imperialism and its allies and against the Islamic regime. They reject making any separation between combating all the manoeuvres of the imperialists and their agents and the defence of all the exploited and all the oppressed against the Tehran government. Imperialist threats are not going to change the laws of the class struggle in Iran. Any effective battle against imperialism, for breaking Iran's links of dependency, necessarily results in exacerbating class contradictions. This battle can only be effective if it bases itself on satisfying the needs of the
Women stand at the back at prayer (DR) 25
workers and poor peasants and extending all their rights.
The course of the revolution itself has demonstrated that demands belonging to the bourgeois democratic revolution (land reform, democratic rights, self-determination for the oppressed nationalities, national independence...) cannot be satisfied by the Islamic Republican regime. Only an advance towards socialist revolution, only a deepening of the process of permanent revolution, can make it possible to win and consolidate such advances.
Revolutionary Marxists refuse to confine the demands of the masses in the straitjacket of the Khomeini regime's present military policy. They place their whole political approach to the war in the framework of fighting to win the political and organisational independence of the workers and their allies.
Revolutionary Marxists cannot give up defending democratic rights when they are trampled on by IRP forces or abandon the social and economic demands the masses when they are under direct attack by the regime on the pretext that this would mean getting involved in a showdown with the government before the political conditions are sufficiently ripe for it to be replaced by a workers and peasants government. this sort of reasoning to which Stalinists are so attached. Indeed, any uncompromising struggle by the workers and peasants for their rights and aspirations comes up against the regime and the government of the Islamic Republic. The non-satisfaction of the demands of the democratic revolution places such questions at the centre of the political scene. from this reality, revolutionary Marxists must point out the roads by which the masses themselves can overturn this regime.
- To this end, revolutionary Marxists put forward throughout the Iranian state as an immediate slogan the call for a democratic constituent assembly. They defend the right of national minorities to set up sovereign constituent assemblies. Masses chanting in support of the revolution (DR) 26
The Kurdish fighters have already adopted this demand. Given the present extent of mobilisation and self-organisation of the masses and the weakness of the revolutionary forces among the toiling masses, the slogan of workers and peasants government will serve a propagandistic function.
The call for a democratie constituent assembly should be linked to demands for a series of specific democratic, social, and economic measures, including equal rights and full civic and social freedom for women. Such demands can indicate to working people what tasks should objectively be on the agenda of such a constituent assembly. This slogan and the defence of this sort of social and economic programme are the means for bringing together in a common movement all the workers and peasants who threw themselves into the fight against the Shah in order to win fundamental changes in their living conditions, as well as all those, including the national minorities and women, who see in this perspective the possibility of winning their rights in a struggle against the oppressive regime of the Islamic Republic.
Revolutionary Marxists link the fight around the demand for a democratic constituent assembly with the call for dissolution of the repressive apparatuses remaining from the previous regime, as well as the liquidation of the repressive institutions of the Islamic Republican regime. Workers, peasants, and anti-imperialist militants did not fight to overthrow the Shah's army to have it replaced by a new to liquidate the SAVAK to have it replaced by the SAVAMA! All their experience shows that the ability of the revolution to defend itself against its internal and external enemies depends on the arming of the masses.
- In the civil war between the Kurds and the troops of the Islamic Republic, revolutionary Marxists unconditionally support the peshmerga fighters until they obtain their demands. Throughout the Iranian state, they systematically defend the cultural and linguistic rights of national minorities, as well as their right of self-determination up to and including independence. This right cannot, in any way, be subordinated to the imperative needs of the war between Iran and Iraq.
- Defending democratic rights, the freedom of the working masses to organise and express themselves, is closely intertwined with the work of rebuilding an independent workers movement and stimulating a new rise of autonomous mass organs, such as shoras and village councils, which are part of the revolutionary heritage of the Iranian masses.
The revolutionary Marxists do not in any way counterpose self-organisation of the masses to the democratic demand for a constituent assembly. Facing massive repression, the fight for the release of all the prisoners who have fought against the Shah's dictatorship again comes to the forefront. Revolutionary Marxists will also demand the lifting of all the restrictions on freedom of religion and cultural rights, as well as the separation of church and state.
- Revolutionaries must propose a Workers and Peasants Plan that will make it possible to respond to the economic and social effects of the crisis, to the urgent needs of millions of refugees, to offer the peasants the technical and financial means for resuming agricultural production on a higher level. In the spending of oil income, priority must be given to the financing of such a plan.
Basing themselves on the fighting and organisational traditions of the working people, revolutionaries will concentrate their efforts on stimulating all those factors that can contribute to a reorganisation of the workers movement in the factories around struggle committees, workers commissions, and so forth. They will do so both in struggles for immediate demands (wages, bonuses, working conditions) as well as movements in opposition to various laws designed to deny the right to union activity by workers in the workplaces. A propaganda campaign for a general strike can be built in order to prepare the way for a future resumption of mass action on a broader scale.
Vigilance against all sorts of seditious attempts by the imperialists remains the order of the day. It is by giving new hope to the toiling masses, by responding to their needs, that they can be prepared to fight effectively against imperialism.
The international workers movement must do what it can to aid the Iranian workers and peasants and the fighters of the national minorities in their struggle to relaunch the revolution that began in 1979. It will focus this support around the following slogans:
IMPERIALISTS, HANDS OFF THE IRANIAN REVOLUTION!
DEFEND THE STRUGGLES AND THE
DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS OF THE IRANIAN MASSES!