Iran: More Oil Produced Than Can Be Sold
South Pars Oil Workers on wildcat strike, August 2020
Crushing Poverty for Workers and Sharpening Class Struggle
August 23—Capitalism’s economic crisis is ravaging workers worldwide. The oil industry is a major culprit. If we understand it, we’ll be better able to understand and explain why the only solution for workers everywhere is communist revolution.
The demand for oil had been dropping before Covid-19 because economies were slowing. Early in the pandemic, transportation and production dropped steeply. The worldwide demand for oil plummeted.
Capitalists’ competition for maximum profits intensified the crisis. Each oil-producing country, including Iran, increased production. Each tried to capture the greatest possible market share. The result: more oil produced than could be sold profitably, or even stored. This is an example of a capitalist “crisis of overproduction.”
The price of oil crashed. The price of US oil futures fell from $75 a barrel in January to an unprecedented negative $38 on April 20. “Rising stockpiles of crude threatened to overwhelm storage facilities and forced oil producers to pay buyers to take the barrels they could not store.” (Guardian, 4/22). Global capitalist markets brought the price back up, but only to $45 a barrel.
From Nigeria to Malaysia to Venezuela to Iran, workers are paying the price.
Iranian Workers Rise Heroically against Capitalism-Imperialism’s Fascist Onslaught
In 2018-2019, Iran – a highly industrialized country – was one of the world’s top oil producers. By 2020, US sanctions had cut Iranian oil exports by 90%. This blow to Iran’s economy led to skyrocketing inflation and mass unemployment (officially over 26%). And on April 21, Iranian crude was selling for only $11.51.
Meanwhile, Covid-19 continues to ravage Iran.
Massive worker protests have grown rapidly in response to the sharpening crisis. Over 5000 sugarcane workers in Haft Tappeh, on strike for ten weeks, chanted “Drive out the private sector thieves and embezzlers!” Workers of Hepco heavy machinery have been out for 10 days.
In the oil, petrochemical and natural gas industry, 10,000 workers in four provinces have been on strike for two weeks. Medical staff and public service workers struck in seven provinces on August 8. Railroad workers joined the strike wave on August 14.
Striking teachers have gathered in social-distant protests in front of the parliament and at education centers in the provinces.
Reformism is not the solution
The main demands of these protests have been to receive delayed payment of back wages, job security, the removal of contractor companies and an end to privatization.
Under capitalism the productive power of the Iranian working class can never serve the needs of the masses. Capitalism guarantees that it serves the needs of a tiny sector of society: the ruling class.
In Iran, the main sections of wealth and capital are supervised by affiliated institutions belonging to the Supreme leader of the Islamic Republic. Through these institutions, the rulers decide how to spend the wealth the workers produce. Their highest priorities are warmongering in the region and strengthening their security and military forces to suppress mass protests.
This will always be the case as long as we are wage slaves. For a miserable salary we are chained to them. They decide how we live or die.
Iranian Workers Must Fight for Communism
The masses of workers and youth in motion against the rulers need to mobilize for an armed communist revolution.
In communism, neither oil nor anything else will have a price tag. There won’t be competition for resources or market share. The masses, mobilized by ICWP, will produce safe, clean energy.
In communism, the masses will collectively produce to meet the needs of everyone—without bosses or money. Everyone will contribute what they can and receive what they need
There won’t be a privileged elite ruling over us. Instead, the communist masses will collectively decide what and how to produce and share what’s needed to build a safe, sustainable future. The life of the masses will be nourished and protected above all else.
Only communism can give the masses the world we need and deserve! Only communism will put an end to capitalism’s crises, exploitation, wage slavery and imperialist wars.
A communist-led worker movement in Iran would bring down the wrath of capitalists from Beijing to Moscow to Washington. At the same time, it would inspire workers throughout the Middle East and the whole world to join and build the fight for a communist world
Workers and youth: In the face of the worst global crisis since the Great Depression of 1929, support the Iranian workers by mobilizing the masses for communism everywhere. Learn from their experiences to see the need to organize ourselves everywhere with the most advanced ideas of a communist world without exploiters.
Join and build collectives to read and spread Red Flag! Join and build ICWP!
Haft Tappeh workers on strike, August 2020 “Families need money! We are starving!”