Iran and the National Question

Communist Greetings to comrades of ICL the Spartacists

Beginning with the contradictions, where and when to start? In appreciation of SP No. 68, as it has shed light on the contraindications that I have been grappling with too. SP No. 68 is politically motivating in a true revolutionary perspective; the reorientation as intruded in the SP. No.68 has the potential to have a real shot at rebuilding/rebirthing of the 4th international and extending it to North Africa and the Near East and build the world party of socialist revolution. With these in mind, I offer these notes as my contribution. For sure, my personal history with the ICL is relevant and is a clear example of ICL’s contraindications; I have a better understanding. How did it all begin?

At the Mumia Rally in the Fall of 1999 in SF, I encountered WV comrades for the first time, soon after, I became a contact, until some six months later I was dropped out as a contact. The SF comrades dismissed me because during a post forum discussion with a comrade, in response to her interest in discussing politics with me (I have always appreciated talking politics with comrades), I replied something in effect that my interest in politics had peaked when we – Mario’s youthful days back in the day – discussed politics openly and read Lenin during the “Iranian Revolution” of 1978-79 in Tehran and other cities. Soon after, I was somewhat denounced and then I was asked to explain what I meant by the Iranian Revolution. In reply I wrote a document, “Who are you? What vanguard?”, I defended the workers’ councils especially the oil workers strike that ultimately lead to Shah’s demise albeit being led by the Tudeh party, combined with a general revolutionary anti -imperialist movement among the masses but was betrayed during the years of 1978-79 in Iran. I was flabbergasted, befuddled, puzzled, and could not comprehend why vanguards would throw away and disregard an anti-imperialist movement with potential revolutionary aspirations. I called the Spartacists, feckless vanguards who’d throw away the baby with the dirty bath water, for that reason. Afterwards I was cut off, adiós.

I was disoriented too; my eclectic approach to politics had led me to a confusing understanding of the post-Soviet world. State-capitalist conception of Soviet Union that the CPI had put forward was in total contradiction with the reality of post-Soviet world and contradicted my initial introduction to Marxism via Soviet Union, in the form of books and arts. What I had learned from the SL in what amounted to just about a year, I put in practice after I was dismissed.

I dove headfirst in the reformist swamp of the liberal West Coast Bay Area; soon I found it to be nauseating to say the least, getting sick of the stench of reformist swamp in the SF BA, I preferred the rigid Spartacists to the swamp, in my struggle to join the communists. I must have reasoned that maybe rigidity is necessary to push forward. About a year later I contacted the SF ICL office and asked to be considered as a contact again and I aimed at becoming a party cadre. Soon we spent many hours discussing the theory of permanent revolution. I denounced the 1978-79 revolution in Iran. Now I know I was schooled in a revisionist understanding of the permanent revolution, looking back, I don’t recall having been introduced to this concept of Permanent Revolution as put forward in SP. No. 68.

Being more than willing to correct my disorientation to become equipped with a revolutionary theory, I vigorously engaged with the BA Spartacist comrades and through many discussions with comrades I was introduced to the theory of permanent revolution, yet national liberation of Kurdish people for example was not regarded as a revolutionary wedge to crack the nationalist capitalist rulers of Turkey and I.R, nor was there any inclination toward expressing any revolutionary potential for national liberation struggle. I must have found myself in a strait jacket of omitting certain contradictions not to violate the theory in the abstract. By the straight jacket, I am not implying “freedom of criticism”, nor freedom of thought in abstract, but not being equipped to perform a concrete analysis of concrete situations. This method of being assimilated into the party didn’t really prepare me to explain contradictions. How?

“The main enemy is at home”, well this one seemed to be in complete accordance with the theory of permanent revolution, being miseducated with a revisionist version of the theory of Permanent Revolution, it was easy to dismiss contradictions of a military junta, cloaked with the rule of Shiite theocracy. What contradictions?

Permanent Revolution, anti-imperialism, national liberation of “Persian Masses”, Persian chauvinism, national oppression and contradictions:

Fighting for working class Internationalism is true anti-imperialism, defending the national rights of the oppressed nations against Imperialist subjugation is internationalism in the belly of the beast. The WV No. 229, 13 April 1979, is an echo of the recent, “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement that emerged two years ago in Iran, a main character of this movement has been in expressing hostile views for the masses who made the revolution in Iran and brought the Mullahs to power. They are full of contempt for the plebeian masses; the class divide is sharp. The Iranian left too is a great example of tailing mass movements, wishes to conveniently forget their role in misleading the masses into the arms of Islamic reaction, they have not learned a single lesson from their disaster abdication of communist leadership during the 1978-79 revolution, and now they are engaged in the same the exact tailing of the masses as they did before. In 1979. This time by tailing the “Woman, Life, Freedom” the Iranian left proved to be a farce.

The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement is blatantly pro imperialist, the entire left tailing this movement puts them all on the side of the main enemy, the US and the EU imperialists. Being anti-imperialist immediately puts us on a revolutionary path, our advantage in political fights for leadership. But our past orientation was the opposite of that. The ICL on the other hand, didn’t simply overlook anti-imperialism of the 1979 revolution in Iran, it was blind to it programmatically, the 1979 revolution in Iran was primarily anti-imperialist in the minds of the masses. Anti-imperialism in the belly of the beast failed because the international saw only reactionary masses, blaming masses for their own backwardness. The correct slogan back in 1979 would have been something like this, “Down with the US Imperialism”! Down the Shah the Yankee’s puppet! Down with the imperialist collaborators, the mullahs and the rest…!”

The contradictions of 1979 revolution in Iran surfaced on day one, after transfer of power to the bourgeois nationalist regime of the Movement for Liberation party with Bazarghan as the prime minister. On the night of Feb. 9, 1979, an armed uprising in Tehran overthrew rule of the monarchy, the mass revolt intertwined with an armed revolt within the Shah’s army in Tehran transferred the power to the national bourgeoisie who had already prepared for such transfer of power. This fact says a lot about the manifestation of the two-stage revolution program in action, the popular front of the left came to head on collision with the realization that they were ill prepared to deal with the backwardness of the masses and not knowing how to break them free of the false consciousness of political Islam, thus they too fell in the abyss of backwardness and took part in it. When real class war broke out in the aftermath of fall of Shah’s regime leading to Iranian National bourgeois taking power, the workers’ councils began exercising power, oppressed nations began taking control of their own territories, liberating cities and taking control, the Iranian left had the wrong program of two stage revolution and pop front, we didn’t have the theory of permanent revolution, nor a Bolshevik party. I witnessed firsthand when backwardness was accepted as a matter of fact, as if proving that the masses were so backwards and not worthy of socialist revolution. Thus, the left abandoned the masses to go to the arms of the open-door mosques with schooled orators.

The Muslim Students Followers of Imam Khomeini storming of the American Embassy in Tehran was a direct response to the heightening class war, and ever escalating military confrontation in Kurdistan, the class contradictions were begging for a revolutionary program and the party to implement it; but none to be found. Instead, it became who is more “anti-imperialist”? Climbing the walls of the US Embassy and taking hostages was a dizzying experience for the left, followed by the most stupid war of 20th century, the Iran-Iraq war. Who could have possibly guaranteed independence from the imperialists? And defend Iran against its enemies?

“Nor the West, Nor the East! Only the Islamic Republic! – Nor the East was a reference to the USSR – was the main slogan of political Islam. With this slogan the left was politically disarmed. No one understood this better than the Hezbolah, and Khomeni-ites with the plebeian masses in the tow, the Khomeni-ites proved to be more internationalist and class conscious than all the left combined. The contradictions are rooted in the false consciousness of the backward masses who are roped and chained by the Mosque to the theocratic rulers who are cloaking a military junta – the revolutionary guards – which emerged as a separate and autonomous military organization in the struggle to defeat the 1979 revolution and preserved the class rule of the big landowners and the capitalist class. The defeat cannot be blamed on the backwardness of the masses, blame goes to the Iranian left along with the international left. “The mullahs hijacked the revolution”, is a convenient explanation for the defeat of 1979 revolution in Iran offered by the Iranian left. Just to bury the memory of Tudeh party encouraging their members to register with the neighborhood committees controlled by the Islamists, followed up by registering with the State. Sending their members to the war front as regular soldiers or ‘fighters’ was not for the purpose of turning the stupid war into a civil war, but instead Tudeh party and those leftists only participated in the slaughter of Iraqi Arabs.

Practically for all the Iranian left the main lesson that they all have learned is that the defeat of 1979 revolution is because of the main enemy is the US imperialism which proved to lead the mullahs and the mosque to power which led to another capitalist state. Therefore, the main enemy is capitalism, with all the capitalist countries being equally the same, to the point of even going so far as dropping ‘imperialism’ from the verbiage. The main enemy is Imperialism, is an outrageous call and would certainly set us apart from the anarchists, the liberal left, the feminists, bourgeois nationalists, and those who are disoriented and end up not being that different than the liberal left.

Imperialism is the root cause of Backwardness a Materialist conception:

Introducing you to the Fedaeeyn Khalgh Guerrillas (FKG) a far-left branch of the Fedayeen who were expelled from the main Fedayeen back in the 1980. Ashraf Dehghanie the public face of FKG proclaimed that the opportunists in the organization had expelled her and the others on the basis of pure opportunism. In her attempt to explain the defeat of 1979, she falsely asserted that nothing has changed in the imperialist relations with the bourgeois comprador in Iran and the state power was transferred from the Shah to the Mullahs in 1979 as simple as that.

The above resembles a Maoist simplification of contradictions of a bourgeois nationalist military junta. Simplifying the IRI as a bourgeois comprador dictatorship, chained by the imperialists, the mullahs are lackeys of the imperialists, more alike the late Shah of Iran. This position poses as anti-imperialist and at the same time assumes that the IRI is bourgeois comprador, dependent on foreign capital, it represents foreign capital therefore is the main enemy of the people. This position begs the nagging question of real and certain hostilities between the imperialists and the Islamists States in the Near east. How would they explain explicit hostility of the “Liberal West” in clear provocations for regime change in Iran?

FKG has an unconscious, revisionist understanding of theory of permanent revolution, no wonder ICL’s revisionist miseducation appealed to me. My origin as a revolutionary youth goes back to the Fedayeen Khalegh in the 70s in Iran, and then followed Ashraf after her expulsion, for refusing to liquidate into the Tudeh party. We were pro-Soviet, anti-imperialist, and so disoriented, yet what has stuck with me since then is the fight against opportunism. The contradictions in arguing that the main enemy is at home and the same time arguing that the imperialism is the main enemy leads to dismissing the contradictory nature of national bourgeoisie in a dependent weak country such as Iran in its relations with the imperialists.

The main enemy is at home if applied to Mexico or Iran perfectly sits well with the revisionist analysis. Evading contradictions and simplifications are all for the sake of covering up for not having a revolutionary theory and program, as is the case with the Fedayeen, an incorrect, revisionist version of the theory is at play. Apparently, I had belonged to both. I came to a head on collision with contradictory belief in the “main enemy is at the home” but the “imperialists” are the main enemy, when I visited Iran after some 31 years in 2002.

I used the “main enemy is at home”, during some intense political discussions with my former mentors, I was opposing and denouncing their support of the so-called reformist Khatamie the reformist mullah. I took a strong position based on the main enemy is at home. Contradictions don’t mean much to the opportunists but they sure are so keen on pointing out your contradictions. My arguments in defense of Trotskyism were flat, I ended up being as disoriented as they were. I gave up using the main enemy is at home after that visit. And yet the contradictions remained. What contradictions?

Fedayeen Khalegh’s analysis of the class nature of IRI is more like a conspiracy view and doesn’t explain the real animosity, hostility with the imperialists pursuing regime change and war. If the IRI is a puppet regime why would the US and other imperialists wish to overthrow it? And how IRI unlike the late Shah continues to defy the imperialists and assert some power over the region? Iran is a backward country with an uneven and combined infrastructure and is dependent on the foreign capital, the contradictory nature of Iranian Nationalism is the result of the 1979 uprising that brought to power national bourgeoisie, allied with landowning mullahs, and petty bourgeoisie. Fedayeen’s simplifying the class nature of IRI is to avoid having to explain contradictions and arrives at a pacifist position of not taking a side in this conflict between the imperialists and the IRI. What is their message to the American workers? Don’t take a side? Here in the belly of the beast, the US is the main enemy of the workers and toilers of the world, this is what we should say. On the contrary, the present leadership of Kurdish, Baluch and Arab peoples, along with the so-called opposition are pro “West”, as such they are betraying unification of nations across borders. The semi-autonomous Kurdish regions in Iraq and Syria – in Iraq it is called Eghliem of Kurdistan – Fedayeen wouldn’t tackle such questions.

Iran is home to national liberations – the IRI unleashed the most brutal attacks against the oppressed nations who came out in droves to protest the regime in the aftermath of murder of Jeina Amini in 2022. Thinking that the downfall of the regime is near, the Kurdish, Arab and Baluch national representatives raised the call for federalism in Iran. Federalism is in direct contradiction with Kurdish and other oppressed nations’ interest in achieving any level of autonomy, their true liberation is in realization of unified Kurdistan and Baluchistan in Socialist Republics. This is a revolutionary call across the very borders that has caused national oppression of Kurdish, Baluch and Arab peoples. Yet Kurdish Democratic parties, representing feudal landlords, along with the Maoists Komolah are calling for federalism. Their federalism will be brought about by the “liberal west”. The liberal west that has used Kurdish peoples as an imperialist cat’s paw, the map below clearly shows the relationship of the so-called independent Kurdistan and US imperialists. The contradiction of being at the service of the imperialists is at the expense of blood and slaughter of the same peoples in the hands of both imperialists, their lackeys or in the hands of the oppressor nations.

The imperialists time and again, with the Kurdish feudal parties at the helm, have corralled Kurdish masses into slaughter. The same goes for the Maoist Komala who has had its share of military and political defeats over four decades. The blatant pro-imperialist position of Abdulah Mohtadi, SG of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan embracing full liberalism of western imperialists, is evolution of their Maoist program to collaborating with the Mossad in Kurdistan.

The “Woman, Life, Freedom”, proved that bourgeois gender politics had no solutions for the oppressed nations in Iran, but only exacerbated the intensity of struggle of oppressed nations to free themselves from the dictates of the central government in Tehran, or Istanbul or Karachi, or Damascus. Falsely, the regime in Tehran is assumed to be the main enemy and if the imperialists are willing to assist in overthrowing the IRI, then the “Woman, Life, Freedom”, the Maoists left, and with only a few exceptions, then they are all pro-imperialist.

Komala’s position in tailing the bourgeois feminists, “Woman, Life, Freedom”, mirrors the model of collaborating with the imperialists to defeat ISIS in Syria or Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Their position is based on the main enemy is the IRI, and with the military support of the liberal west, Kurdish autonomy will be achieved. This is an anti-revolutionary position in that it splits the working class in Iran, Turkey and Syria. It betrays the oil workers, a multinational work force, a sector of the working class in Iran, and Iraq, that is the primary target of the Imperialists. An anti-imperialist program calls for the unity of Persian, Arab, Azari, Kurdish workers against their main enemy the imperialists. Komala upholds federalism, that is the central demand of all Kurdish, Arab and Baloch nationalist parties. Federalism is an inherently bourgeois demand and is the central demand of these parties; replacing the IRI with a federalist state, another bourgeois state. It is one thing to remind them that federalism is an illusion, it will never happen. But the fact that federalism is a popular demand shows the absence of a revolutionary proletarian internationalist pole calling for a Unified Kurdish Socialist Republic.

Conclusion: The fight to break free of opportunism, and projecting this fight to split the workers movement from opportunism and social chauvinism is one sure way of reforging the 4th international. The opportunists are between a rock, reality – Zionist genocide and imperialist war to take over the globe – and a hard place of being where they are politically and practically, stuck in a sterile pacifist orientation; too bad for them. Adapting to bourgeois feminism, tailing nationalists, tailing the anti-working class so called environmental movement, openly call for COVID lockdowns, tailing the “Woman, Life, Freedom”, appealing to the “West” for regime change, have put the opportunists in a tough political spot on the side of the imperialists, yet one more time. To break the working-class movement from opportunism is the same fight for breaking the working class from being politically chained to its class enemy, the imperialists, the main enemy of the international working class. To reforge the 4th international is to bring true internationalism to the working class, this struggle in the belly of the beast is to bring revolutionary defeatism in solidarity with the victims of Yankkkee imperialists and Zionist genocide, is to politically smash the present bureaucratic leadership in the unions in the US and other continents, thereby educating the working class in the course of this political fight, all for preparing the working class to fulfill its historical mission. This is the only road for a socialist revolution. For this to happen begins with the political reorientation as laid out by SP. No. 68.

This is the intervention that I had prepared for last year’s public forum to introduce SP 68.

Reorienting the ICL as presented in the SP 68, has rearmed the vanguard, and has proven that the program is indeed a correct course in the context of the current worldwide crises and turmoil. I have always thought that the previous program was out of context, because it was so pure and yet rigid. This reorientation speaks also to the same contradictions that we have all had in bringing reality into the purity of the program, with the opportunist program you are not going anywhere; reality is changing, and you are clinging to purity, sectarianism is its fruit.

The first lesson is the old lesson, concrete analysis of the concrete situation. The back page of SP. 68, “In defense of permanent revolution, for communist leadership of the anti-imperialist struggle”, explains the complexities of the national development, national oppression, development of class relations and imperialism. These complexities can only be dealt with in a revolutionary sense with a program that speaks to and exposes the contradictions of movements such as “Woman, Life, freedom”, in Iran about two years ago for example. As opposed to the worldwide movement in defense of Palestinians that has morphed into the cease fire movement. In both cases what is glaring is a desperate need for communist leadership. But so many other groups proclaim the same thing.

Not so fast. Take the woman life freedom for example. This slogan was adopted from left to the right, no one dared to criticize anything about its inclination toward the imperialists in particular the Parliament in the EU, Macron of France, the US state department, the Brits and last but not the least the German parliament. Why? The main enemy is at home. No, it is not. That is what this new program is about in defense of the permanent revolution. The main enemy is the world imperialism shaped by the US imperialism hegemony at its head. Practically all the left went along with the liberal demands of woman life freedom, because the imperialists are not the main enemy. The main enemy is the regime in Iran that is keeping its peoples backwards and oppresses them. True enough. We need a program that explains the backwardness of the masses in the context of world imperialism dominating over weaker nations and retarding their development as an obstacle to the full development of these nations, a program that exposes liberal inclinations toward imperialism and puts forward a communist leadership that anti-imperialism demands. A program that in the belly of the beast can fight for the liberation of Palestinians in opposition to the liberal inclinations of the movement toward imperialists and the PLO, Hamas, the PA.

What has the PLO’s two state solution brought but buying more time for the Zionists to take more land and confine the Palestinians to segregated areas. All of the dealing of the PLO with the imperialists was based on accepting the terms set by the Zionists in terms of returning stolen lands to begin with, in return for stealing other lands from the Palestinians. PFLP too, abdicated this leadership in footsteps with the Stalinist bureaucracy and with the demise of USSR came head on in collision with the peaceful coexistence that proved deadly for both.

As Arab and Afghani immigrants in the US and other countries are rising in defense of Palestinians and Gaza, they are desperately looking for a broader understanding of their predicament in the belly of the beast. These movements are begging for revolutionary guidance.

Dear comrade,

Thank you for your letter. We’re sorry for the delay in answering you; the pace of work has been quite intense as always.

I appreciated the account of your experience with the party. It mirrors that of many other comrades who come from oppressed countries. Our program meant these comrades were torn between the cause of national liberation, which often brought them to political consciousness in the first place, and that of proletarian emancipation. Your account is a testimony to how stifling and disorienting this was for our cadre and supporters. Now we can start to reverse this process; the anti-imperialist struggle can fuel and focus our comrades’ commitment to communism.

The first points I would like to raise are about the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. It was a real failure on our part not to have written about this movement as it was taking place. At the same time, I must say that if we had, it would probably not have been very good given where we were politically at the time.

Many of your observations on the movement are quite interesting. I am myself quite ignorant about the left in Iran, and I am ready to believe that much of it has turned toward pro-imperialist politics as a reaction against the Islamic regime—this certainly was the case in much of the diaspora. That said, I think your appreciation of the movement is too one-sided. It is not sufficient to note that it was dominated by “pro-imperialists”; it is necessary to take its contradictions into account and develop a Marxist orientation toward it.

The spark that ignited the movement was the death of Jina Amini in the custody of the morality police. You will certainly agree that the outrage over this was entirely righteous and showed how the fight against women’s oppression in Iran will be a powerful motor force for the revolution. The problem is that the forces that stand opposed to the regime today and took the lead in this revolt are liberal and monarchist. You are certainly correct that the left has gone from tailing the mullahs in the name of anti-imperialism to tailing the imperialists in the name of democratic rights. But the real question is: how to cut against this polarization?

In the case of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, I believe it would have been necessary to actively participate and build the mass demonstrations against the regime, while at the same time seeking to break the movement from its pro-imperialist politics and leadership. I am sure many in Iran would be receptive to the argument that any association with the Shah, imperialism and Zionism rules out winning the mass of the Shia working class against the regime. The lesson we must seek to inculcate is that the movement was isolated and defeated because its politics could not pierce the nationalist consciousness of the working class.

This begs the question of how to win these more loyal layers against the regime. It is necessary, of course, to lean on the economic and democratic grievances of the masses, but this is not sufficient. It is crucial to undermine the regime’s strongest argument: that it stands as a beacon of Muslim resistance against Western aggression. We must show how by alienating national and religious minorities, youth, women and workers, the regime undermines the unity of the masses against imperialism. Furthermore, its clique of corrupt clerics and generals demoralizes resistance to imperialism as it is more interested in preserving its position than liberating the Middle East.

In other words, whether we seek to approach the layers in Iran motivated by democratic and national rights or those motivated by the struggle against the U.S., in both cases we must show how the cause they hold dear is undermined by the current leaderships. I think your letter misses this approach, including when you discuss the 1979 events.

You write that:

Each of these slogans is perfectly principled, but they are not focused against the central obstacle. The key task for communists at the time was to break the hold of the mullahs on the anti-Shah movement, starting with the left. The main problem with the iSt’s intervention was that by denying that the struggle had any anti-imperialist character, it was impossible to exploit the contradictions of leftists who were motivated by the fight against imperialism and the Shah but thought that an alliance with Khomeini was the way to go. Only by placing ourselves within the struggle against the Shah and imperialism would it have been possible to show how an alliance with the mullahs was in fact an impediment to achieving the very things animating the masses.

I think the thrust of our intervention should have been along the lines of: “To defeat the Shah, to defeat imperialism, break with the mullahs!” Here the pressure is directed against the popular-front alliance. But to break this alliance, it points to how it undermines the very cause it claims to champion. It is the same method as that of the Bolsheviks during the period from February to October. They insisted on the democratic aspirations of the masses expressed in the slogan “Peace, Land, Bread” and at the same time directed their fire at the main obstacle holding back the achievement of these aspirations, the Provisional Government, raising, for example, the slogan “Down with the ten capitalist ministers!”

Of course, defenders of our old approach will be quick to point out that the Bolsheviks also raised “All power to the soviets.” Certainly true, but what they miss, and what we missed in 1979, was that the Bolsheviks would never have broken the hold of the SRs and Mensheviks had they turned their backs on the democratic aspirations of the masses. This is precisely what we did in Iran. We dismissed the fight against imperialism in the name of fighting for revolution, and as a result we were totally ineffective in breaking the left from its reliance on the mullahs.

We have barely started doing any work toward Iran since our reorientation. Our recent Spartacist statement, “Why Can’t Anyone Stop Netanyahu,” is a first step in outlining a very general approach. I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on it as well as on the present letter. Given our almost complete isolation from Iranian leftist circles, we greatly appreciate any contributions or insight you can provide about the reality on the ground in Iran as well as in the diaspora.

Looking forward to your response.

Communist greetings,
Perrault

PS: After sending my letter I heard from comrades in the Bay Area that you intervened in our forum alongside the IG. This is disappointing. But mostly it is puzzling considering the content of the letter I just responded to. I take it you were convinced that Spartacist no. 68 is revisionist, and you now once again believe that our intervention in 1979 was correct? I take it you are also convinced that the historic iSt position on Palestine was correct?! I am certainly interested in the arguments they made to convince you.