Heroic Iranian Masses Demand Fundamental Change here ♦ Letter from Iran here ♦
SANANDAJ (IRAN), November 17, 2022—Young women in the streets
Heroic Iranian Masses in the Streets Demand Fundamental Change: To End All Oppression, Workers Need Communist Organization
January 1—This is the 108th day of the protests that began with the death in custody of Jina Mahsa Amini after Iran’s “Morality Police” arrested her for improperly wearing her headscarf.
The nationwide uprising against the fascist mullahs’ regime has expanded to at least 282 cities. Over 750 people have been killed and more than 30,000 arrested. And the protests grow.
Throughout Iran, funerals and memorials for murdered protestors become anti-regime protests. Crowds shout “Martyrs don’t die! Death to Khamenei and Down with the Regime!” Security forces attack them with tear gas and live ammunition and the crisis escalates.
On December 31, security forces killed a protestor at a memorial in Javanrud in Western Iran. The masses burned a police trailer, and the next day store owners shut down all commerce. Masses in nearby Sanadaj, the capital of Kurdistan Province, set up flaming roadblocks and fought the security forces in solidarity with the Javanrud protesters.
Students and youth lead these actions, which are mostly spontaneous. The masses have shown exceptional bravery and heroism in the face of the regime’s fascist terror. Protestors burned the Semiron, Central Iran, branch of the regime’s Islamic Development Organization on December 31. That same day, others attacked the sites of the regime’s IRGC paramilitary Basij units in Anzali, in northern Iran, and in Eslamsharh, near Tehran. Protests are closing bazaars throughout the country.
Spontaneous local actions like these have led to nationwide mobilizations like the one in December. Neighborhood committees are debating about how to overthrow the regime and what should replace it. Some propose liberal demands for a referendum, but others have anti-capitalist and pro-working-class politics. Some of the more anti-capitalist and pro-working-class committees are in provinces where historically marginalized Baluchi and Kurdish workers live and where the fascist regime has murdered dozens of protestors.
Students, Soldiers, Workers, and Youth Need Communist Organization
There have been periodic strike waves throughout the 43 years of this regime, but strikes are increasing in this period. Workers and employees of the petrochemical site in Dehloran, Western Iran, went on strike on January 1. Employees of the Azar oil company in western Iran and refinery workers in Abadan in the southwest are also on strike.
Truck drivers and sugarcane workers have struck in solidarity with the protests and also for their own demands. Although the regime has destroyed most workers’ organizations, there are independent unions which are leading these struggles. They are, however, still sporadic.
There is no unifying organization, legal or illegal, that is capable of organizing a nationwide general strike. And none to lead a coordinated revolutionary struggle to overthrow the regime—let alone end capitalist oppression.
There is not yet a party rooted in the masses which can lead the fight for a communist system. And while it’s hard to know for sure, there doesn’t seem to be the underground organizing within the military and/or security forces that would be required to organize to seize state power.
A statement by the Haft Tappeh sugarcane workers’ union illustrates the problem. They call for “an end to all oppressors” and “fundamental changes.” They reject “organizations and parties, inside and outside the country,” and proclaim that “the demands and interests of workers who make up the majority of society cannot be provided by any force, any heroes, except us.”
Build the International Communist Workers’ Party
The Iranian working-class masses have been defeated and betrayed by parties from the revisionist Tudeh Party to the Provisional Mujaheddin of Iran which panders to European social democrats. So, it is not surprising that workers would reject “organizations and parties.”
Nevertheless, the Arab Spring revealed the tragic consequences of an uprising without a party or a plan. The heroism of the masses of youth and students, especially the brave women and girls, and the workers in struggle, demands a plan. That plan must not merely be to replace the fascist mullahs with a coalition of capitalist oppressors.
The US and Israeli rulers would love to see the Iranian regime replaced with the pro-Shah coalition in exile. But it would be a mistake to attribute the anger of the Iranian masses against the fascist regime to the cynical plotting of rival imperialists.
The Iranian masses deserve better. The fundamental change that can end all oppressors is a communist revolution. Only ending private property in the means of production will eliminate the material basis of oppression. Only the end of wage slavery will liberate us to build the communist society that we need.
Only when we work together in common, sharing the fruits of our own labor, will we be able to eradicate the sexism, oppression, and exploitation that the masses in Iran are so heroically combatting.
Letter from Iran: Masses Can Overthrow Brutal Regimes and Fight for Communism
Decades ago, when the brutal dictator Shah of Iran was overthrown, I was a young college student. About two years prior to his overthrow, it appeared that the Shah was firmly in control.
However, things began to change in mid-1977 when the economy started to decline. The events moved very quickly after that. There was a series of strikes by oil refinery workers. Change was in the air.
Leftist groups came out of hiding. The masses were ready for a communist revolution. No group had this outlook and the conservative Islamists seized power with counter-revolution.
The situation today is unprecedented. In the last one year, we had several strikes in Tehran and other cities. The strikes by oil workers, truckers, students and other industrial workers were widespread and brutally suppressed.
After Trump imposed sanctions on Iran, things have worsened. Inflation is skyrocketing and the value of Rial (currency) is collapsing.
Food prices have doubled in just one month. In late 2017, when the price of eggs increased 60%, Tehran witnessed massive street demonstration. Police opened fire, killing 21 people, wounding many others. Currently most workers are not paid for months.
Common people have accepted the fact that sooner, rather than later there is going to be a major military confrontation with the US. After Iran shot down a US spy drone, the regime tried to whip up nationalism, but people are suffering. The war is already here for many. Hunger and high prices, disappearing basic necessities of life are slowly killing many.
We have not yet felt the full impact of the May sanctions. From about 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil production it has trickled down to less than 400,000 bpd. It is going to decline more, causing havoc on the local economy.
The Iranian ruling class is corrupt and ruthless. To break out of the sanctions, they will have to escalate proxy wars, leading to direct confrontation with US.
Both the US and Iranian rulers are in a weak position. The working class has the opportunity to fight for communism.
The revolutions of 1953 and 1979 show that the Iranian masses can overthrow brutal regimes. Now we must overthrow with communist revolution.
Reader in Iran
From Red Flag VOL. 10 #8, June 26 to July 18, 2019
Read our pamphlet
“Mobilize the Masses for Communism”