[Letter, The Militant, No. 440, 26 January 1979, p. 12]
Comrades
There can be no doubt at all that the magnificent movement of the Iranian workers has surprised and horrified all ruling classes and elites around the world. In less than a year the seemingly stable, secure Shah has been all but toppled from his throne.
At first the world’s rulers hoped to be able to maintain this figurehead. The speeches of Owen and the British Ambassador to Iran and the birthday greetings the Shah received from Carter, Brezhnev and Hua testified to this. But as the Iranian revolution continued to develop it be came clear that the Shah’s days were numbered and his supporters began to distance themselves from his regime.
It was only at this stage that the Russian bureaucracy began issuing warnings to the US Government not to intervene in Iran.
The twists and turns of their policies towards Iran clearly shows that the last objective they have in mind is to support a socialist revolution in Iran. They have not opposed the overthrow of capitalism in countries like Vietnam. Angola or Afghanistan because regimes similar to their own were established i.e. planned economies but with power concentrated in the hands of a bureaucratic
elite.
These countries are not workers‘ democracies, whose existence would be a threat to the Russian elite. The Russian bureaucracy came to power by [?] suppressing the workers‘ democracy which existed in Russia in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. They have since then put down any movement towards workers‘ democracy, as in Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
The overthrow of capitalism in a number of underdeveloped countries in recent years, which was a bitter blow to imperialism and a tremendous advance, was supported by the Russian bureaucracy as widening its spheres of influence at the expense of imperialism.
It has been the magnificent movement of the Iranian working class which has spearheaded the Shah’s overthrow. The strikes by the oil, bank and shop workers completely undermined the dictatorship. The Iranian working class has demonstrated the strength of the 10 million- and more workers, 36 % in industry and 31 % in service industries.
If a Bolshevik Party had existed in Iran the working class would already be in power and beginning to carry out the socialist reconstruction of society. The absence of such a party in Iran poses the great danger to the Iranian revolution of the ruling class being able to weather this crisis and at a later stage launch a counter-attack on the working class.
It is because of the strength of the Iranian workers that the Russian bureaucracy views the revolution in a different light than, for example, the overthrow of capitalism and landlordism in Afghanistan last year. The Russian bureaucracy fears that the Iranian working class will be able to carry through a genuine socialist revolution and establish a workers‘ democracy.
But does the fact that the Iranian workers, in their struggle to establish the foundations of a socialist society will have to fight against American imperialism and Stalinism mean they will be defeated? On the contrary, the very fear of both the imperialist and Stalinist leaders is based on the fact that one successful socialist revolution in the capitalist world or political revolution in the Stalinist countries will mean the end of capitalism and Stalinism throughout the world.
Therefore Ian Sugarman is not right when he writes that „it seems that … Brezhnev and Hua. offer the only hope, in the short term, to the workers of Iran“. The establishment of a deformed workers‘ state in Iran would mean that the Iranian workers would have to make another revolution to remove the bureaucratic elite. The only policy which can act in the interests of the Iranian and other workers is an internationalist policy, looking for support from the workers of the world.
Such a policy would receive an enormous response, as did the Russian Revolution. All around the world we can see the sharpening class struggle. The achievement of workers‘ democracy in one single country would transform the world situation. it would show the working class the way forward.
It is towards the world working class that the Iranian workers „can turn for assistance when the Shah is overthrown“, not holding back their struggle in order to curry favour with the Kremlin bureaucrats.
Fraternally
Bob Labi
Schreibe einen Kommentar