[Militant, No 453, 27 April 1979, p 11]
The polarisation of Iranian society continues.
As pressure grows for a visible improvement in people’s lives after the Shah’s overthrow, some of the religious and political leaders have responded.
Last week the liberal capitalist Foreign Minister, Sanjabi resigned and announced he would be prepared. to stand for President in any forthcoming election.
In Tehran 20,000 people demonstrated in protest against the arrest of two sons and a daughter-in-law of the popular local religious leader Ayatollah Taleghani
It is rumoured that those arrested were members of the Fedayeen guerrilla group.
The rally in their support was organised by the newly-formed National Democratic Front in opposition to fundamentalist Islamic Committees.
The most important development recently has been the beginnings of the emergence of Iranian workers as a separate political entity.
Employed and unemployed workers have taken to the streets in mass demonstrations demanding work, and calling on the government to tackle their grievances.
Mass unemployment coupled to the working class’s growing sense of its own strength has led to the development of the mass demonstrations.
Khomeini’s Central Revolutionary Islamic Committee has proved incapable of putting forward any programme for the economy as a whole except for some concessions to the working class (like the recent promises of free medical treatment).
Khomeini has threatened shopkeepers that they will be punished under Islamic law if they do not hold down prices, but it is completely utopian to believe that measures of this kind can control inflation.
The inability of Khomeini to provide a solution to the problems which Iranian workers face is already undermining his support.
This has also been reflected in recent small moves by the leaders of the Tudeh (Iran’s ‚Communist‘ Party), to distance themselves from Khomeini.
Noureddin Kianouri, the Tudeh’s new General Secretary, has just announced that the Tudeh is now calling for a united front ranging from ‚”the left of the Ayatollah Khomeini to the Tudeh“, a change from their call of two months ago for a front which would „combine the strength of the supporters of Khomeini, of the Tudeh and other revolutionary parties.“
Khomeini has attempted to retain his grip on events in two ways. Firstly there has been the resumption of the trials and executions of officials of the old regime in order to offer the masses some proof of action. There is no doubt that the shooting of the leaders and torturers of the Shah’s military dictatorship is popular with the Iranian masses who suffered under its Iron heel of repression for decades.
It is absolutely hypocritical of the Western leaders to denounce these trials when they were fully prepared to support the Shah’s regime and turned a blind eye to the killings and torture which went on under it.
But at the same time, the manner of these trials, held in semi-secret before local priests. must be seen as a further attempt to consolidate Khomeini’s position and are a dangerous precedent which could be used against the left later.
While using these trials to attempt to rally support, Khomeini is also attempting to increase the pressure on the left and stop the spread of socialist ideas. At the beginning of April, for instance, a demonstration of 10,000 which was held in Qom (the religious centre where Khomeini lives) denounced the Fedayeen as „traitors to Islam and the revolution“.
In Isfahan a student was killed when some of Khomeini’s militia, the Revolutionary Islamic Guards, opened fire on an unemployed demonstration.
The development of these workers demonstrations and the increasing boldness of their demands represents the beginnings of the appearance of the working class, as an organised independent force, in the Iranian revolution. The Iranian working class through its mass demonstrations, three month general strike and the February insurrection toppled the Shah’s regime, but in the absence of a clear leadership it was unable to organise the power which it held in its hands.
This was the reason that Bazargan and Khomeini were able to attempt to establish themselves in office without any real opposition.
But now, as a result of their experiences, the working class is taking the first steps towards building a labour movement.
The Iranian workers have demonstrated their willingness and ability to struggle, but what is required now more than ever is an independent workers‘ party which would be capable of linking together the isolated struggles which are now breaking out into a general movement for the working class to take power.
On the basis of the working class coming to power in Iran and carrying through the socialist transformation of society can all the problems facing the Iranian people realistically be solved.
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