[Militant, No 463, 6 July 1979, p 10]
The announcement last week of the nationalisation of all insurance companies, following on the takeover of the banks, marks a new state in the unfolding Iranian revolution.
It is only three months since the new ‚revolutionary‘ governor of the Central Bank, Ali Mowlavi, was assuring foreign firms that there would be no bank nationalisation and that „free competition would be encouraged as a means of strengthening the private sector.“
But now the ‚Islamic Republic‘ daily, widely believed to be the mouthpiece for Ayatollah Khomeini’s Central Revolutionary Islamic Council, has indicated that large commercial companies are next on the list for nationalisation. It commented that the insurance takeover was „necessary but not sufficient“ and that it was „only natural for the Mostaz’af [the barefooted ones] to ask for more since Iran’s dawn of freedom.“
It has been the enormous pressure of the Mostaz’af and the Bekaran [the jobless ones] and the severe crisis gripping the Iranian economy which has forced Khomeini to backtrack on the regime’s previous statements and take these nationalisation measures.
Unemployment in Iran is currently estimated to be around 3,500,000 – over a third of Iran’s workforce. Many factories have been closed since the February insurrection as their owners have fled the country. During April large demonstrations were held in most of the major Iranian cities by the Bekaran demanding work, showing the determination of workers to press home their demands.
Under this pressure Khomeini has been forced to grant concessions to the workers, such as promising free medicine and transport, and to take measures to attempt to get the economy moving again. Already in March Khomeini had declared that Iran’s „economic system is bankrupt“ and in the middle of June it was reported that the government was planning to take over „inefficient“ industries, along with those abandoned by their owners..
For the moment the Iranian and world capitalists have no means of resisting these measures. The Iranian armed forces only barely exist as a cohesive force and while they have been used against some of the national minorities, they would fall to pieces if the officers attempted to use them to halt these anti-capitalist measures.
In fact the Iranian bourgeoisie under Bazargan are trying to play for time. They want to create a bourgeois democratic regime in Iran which would give them a breathing space to regroup their forces. But, unfortunately for them, the situation is moving too quickly for this schema to work out.
Khomeini, while being forced by the enormous pressure of the masses to grant concessions, is attempting to maintain his position by balancing between the different classes.
Whilst being prepared to hit at capitalism, at the same time blows are being directed against the working class and the left. Simultaneously with the insurance nationalisation, Khomeini’s Committee published a new draft criminal code which specifically states that anyone found guilty of disruptive tactics in factories or of worker agitation faces a jail term of two to ten years.
Khomeini is attempting to lean upon the enormous following which he still has to prevent the development of a working class movement, which would in the long run undermine his support. This is the reason why Khomeini has dropped his demand for a Constituent Assembly, which would have encouraged the development of political parties, brought the class struggle more out in the open and weakened Khomeini’s grip.
The situation in Iran is still fluid. In the crisis situation facing Iran and given the flight of the Iranian capitalist class and the weakness of imperialism to intervene, it is entirely possible that Khomeini’s Committee could, under pressure, carry out the expropriation of capitalism.
The overthrow of capitalism in Iran would, of course, be an enormous step forward in Iran. Along with a state monopoly of foreign trade and the introduction of an economy plan it could lead to an enormous growth in the economy, a raising of living standards and a strengthening of the working class. But politically such a regime would not be a workers‘ democracy laying the basis for a socialist society.
Rather it would be in the image of the regimes in Russia, Eastern Europe, China etc. with the difference that in the place of the Stalinist ideology of those regimes Khomeini would impose the ideas of Islam. Such a regime, a deformed workers‘ state, would require a political revolution to overthrow the clerical-bureaucratic elite before there could be a movement towards workers‘ democracy and socialism.
But if capitalism is not completely overthrown and there is a continuing development of class and national struggles, Khomeini’s movement could develop into the fountainhead of reaction and prepare the way for a new authoritarian capitalist regime.
The possible developments of the Iranian revolution will not be determined by the fact that Khomeini himself is a religious obscurantist who wishes to turn the clock back to feudalism, but rather by the social forces struggling in Iran.
The Iranian revolution has already shown both the enormous power of the working class and its desire to change society. But at the same time the distorted development of the revolution shows the urgent necessity of the creation of an independent workers‘ party, armed with a Marxist programme. Only on the basis of the Iranian working class consciously taking power and beginning the re-organisation and rebuilding of society will it be possible to prevent either the establishment of a new capitalist dictatorship or of a deformed workers‘ state.
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