By Donal Devlin
Since 28 December, Iran has been convulsed by a major uprising sparked by skyrocketing inflation, which is crippling the working class, the poor and sections of the middle class. People have taken to the streets in 180 cities and towns in all of the provinces in Iran in defiance of the murderous, theocratic dictatorship, which has used lethal force to quell the protest movement.
Protesters are courageously facing the threat of arrests, torture or death. At the time of writing, some estimates put the death toll at over 600, although this is likely to be an underestimation, and it is believed that almost 10,000 people have been arrested. The exact scale of the repression is unclear, given the information blackout and the shutting down of the internet. Misinformation abounds from sources within and without Iran, including nefarious forces linked to imperialism, monarchists, etc., as well as the Iranian State itself.
Disgustingly, figures like Trump and Netanyahu, despicable and despotic warmongers themselves, have tried to exploit these events for their own interests – threatening intervention on the side of the movement against the regime. These hypocritical threats must be condemned, and any interference from imperialism rejected and resisted.
Spark of the revolt
The current revolt started with bazaar merchants, small-business owners and their employees taking to the streets. Significantly, this section of Iranian society has been the traditional base of support for the regime since the 1979 revolution. The protests have mushroomed beyond this, however, spreading throughout Iranian society. It is no exaggeration to say that there is now an existential threat to a regime.
As in any uprising against such a repressive dictatorship, the issues fueling it go beyond those that sparked the initial revolt. In the case of Iran, there is huge discontent at the oppression and exploitation endured by its working class, poor, women and national minorities such as Kurds, Baloch people, Azeris and Arabs. This is particularly true in a country where 40% of the population is under 30. The rule of the theocracy has been undermined by other protest movements in recent years, most notably the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement in 2022.
Since then, Iran’s morality police, the “Guidance Patrol”, have been forced to back away from implementing the compulsory wearing of the hijab in the face of many Iranian women openly defying the law. It was this morality police that murdered Jina Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, for not wearing the hijab. This murder sparked the protests in 2022, which engulfed the whole of Iran, and which also saw strike action, including by oil workers in a key sector of the Iranian economy.
The regime has cynically sought to draw a distinction between the initial protests of the bazaris and those that have spread across the country, arguing that the former were legitimate, while the latter are simply “rioters” and “saboteurs” being organised by the CIA and Mossad – Israel’s secret intelligence agency.
Support for protests
Unfortunately, some of these arguments have been echoed by sections of the left globally, just as they were when protests swept Iran in 2009 and 2022. Of course, US imperialism and the Zionist State will always seek to intervene in protests and try to influence events. Likewise, with Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah of Iran whose murderous rule was overthrown in 1979 by a revolt of the working class and poor. Trump is clearly considering a new military intervention, notwithstanding his demagogic promise to end America’s “forever wars”.
However, notwithstanding these imperialist machinations against a regime they see as hostile, the Iranian people have the right and the agency to protest against the state that is oppressing them. Any notion that these protesters should give up on their legitimate demands – relating to real material factors of economic security and democratic rights – because of geopolitical intrigues which have nothing to do with them, is untenable.
It also turns a blind eye to the nature of the Iranian regime. This theocracy brutally crushed the left-wing organisations after it consolidated its rule in the early 1980s. It massacred thousands of political prisoners in 1988. Most of these prisoners were socialists and working-class organisers who fought against the rule of the Shah and were in the vanguard of the revolutionary movement that overthrew his rule in 1979 and smashed his vile state apparatus, such as the SAVAK (the notorious secret police that was responsible for decades of sadistic torture and murder of political opponents).
Although Reza Pahlavi does have some support in the country, particularly among sections of the capitalist and middle classes, it is a blatant distortion of reality – one propagated by Western Imperialism and the Iranian regime itself – that the protests are motivated by a desire to bring back the Shah. For example, a recent statement by the Workers’ Union of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company stated:
“We believe that true liberation is only possible through the conscious and organised leadership and participation of the working class and oppressed people, not through the reproduction of old and authoritarian forms of power.”
Sanctions and the cost of survival crisis
The inflation rate in Iran has hit 40%, with food inflation hitting 70%, as the rial, the country’s currency, has been heavily devalued against the dollar. This is combined with stagnant wages, power and water outages, and shortages. A critical factor behind this has been the sanctions imposed by successive US administrations, with Trump particularly turning the screws on Iran’s economy. The unprovoked 12-day assault by Israel and the US last June also left much damage. Now the European Union, supported by the Irish government, is seeking to implement more sanctions against the Iranian State, bringing further misery to ordinary people.
On the heels of the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the US and Israel are cynically seeking to exploit this revolt to try to overthrow the Iranian regime, one of the few states in the region that is not subservient to their imperialist interests. This regime has long been a thorn in their side, and they want to knock it out in order to extend and consolidate their iron grip over this region. The Iranian State was significantly strengthened in the wake of US imperialism’s debacle in Iraq; however, its position has been weakened in recent years, with the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria, the weakening of Hezbollah and Hamas, all of whom were part of the Iranian State’s “Axis of Resistance”. The Zionist regime in particular now sees an opportunity to bring about the end of its rule.
Revolutionary change
While the sanctions are a major contributing factor to the economic crisis in Iran, leading inevitably to the immiserisation of Iranian working people, it is not the only factor. Another is the nature of the Iranian regime itself – a repressive capitalist state where massive wealth is concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite. Despite its faux “anti-imperialist” image, for decades the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has implemented neo-liberal policies at the behest of the World Bank and IMF, both dominated by Western capitalism. These policies have included the privatisation of public services and the ending of subsidies for food and other essentials. Clearly, a factor in spurring the protests is the blatant inequality and corruption that exist within Iran.
Like with other dictatorships in the region, such as Egypt and those in the Gulf States, the economy is controlled by the military and a brutally dictatorial regime. In the case of Iran, the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the elite of the Iranian State, owns and controls key sectors of the economy, including construction, shipping, energy, banking, and consumer goods. The wealth of Khamenei and his family is estimated at tens of billions of dollars, and there is deep corruption throughout the whole state.
Iran’s powerful working class, allied with the poor and oppressed, must now get organised and fight for its own independent interests – replacing the theocratic dictatorship with a government of the working class and poor, with socialist policies that utilise the vast wealth and resources for the betterment of society as a whole. Such a government would expropriate the wealth of the ruling class, empower the masses to take public ownership and democratic control of their industries and communities, and appeal to the working class across the region to follow their example – beginning a revolutionary wave to take power back from the imperialists, oligarchs, monarchists, and military dictators who rule over so much misery, violence and oppression.
We say:
– Solidarity with the protests of working-class and poor Iranians – down with the rule of the capitalist theocratic regime. Full support to the struggle to build independent organisations of the workers and the oppressed that fights against exploitation and for the liberation of women, LGBTQ people and national minorities.
– No to US and EU sanctions. Oppose all forms of intervention from imperialism and the Zionist State. No to the return of the murderous regime of the Shah. Kick imperialism out of the Middle East. Freedom for Palestine—end the rule of the Zionist State. The working class and the poor are the force to bring this about.
– For a government of the working class, small farmers and business owners, and the poor in Iran, that takes its key wealth and resources into democratic public ownership and plans to meet the needs of the majority.
– For a democratic socialist workers’ republic in Iran with full rights for minorities and the right to self-determination for all communities. Appeal to the working class throughout the region to fight for a Middle East where the rule of oppressive dictatorships, capitalism and imperialism that has brought misery to millions is brought to an end – for a democratic socialist Middle East.
