Revolt and Revolution in Iran PDF Print E-mail
Monday, 03 August 2009 09:08

 Iran_Protest

The mobilisation of more than one million people on the streets of Tehran, alongside open splits in the ruling “islamist-capitalist” class, marks a revolutionary crisis in Iran. The people are losing their fear. The enormous hatred of today's political system and the economic hardship of ordinary people is boiling over. Iran is in the grip of a popular rebellion, the like of which has not been seen since the 1979 revolution. The protests that began opposing alleged vote rigging in the recent national elections has now become a movement that lays bare the deep contradictions inside Iranian society.


The election was between two candidates: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who won the election and was backed by Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei. And his opposition Mir Hussein Mousavi who was backed by ex-president Ayatollah Akbar Rafsanjani, the richest man in Iran and former president who was defeated by Ahmadinejad in 2005. Both of which being Islamist capitalists.
Overwhelming evidence has been released suggest that it was a rigged election. (I will go into more detail of this later in the talk)
The protests this sparked, even though they are now not as big in size as they were and even though they are not getting as much attention from the Media especially in the west, are still not over and the political situation is still far from stable. It is still not settled how far both the new movement and the counter-revolutionary forces are prepared to go. Mirhossein Mousavi even called for a general strike, should he be arrested, something he predicted. Between 15 and 35 people, according to different sources, have been killed by the state forces so far and as long as unrest continues these figures are expected to rise.
There has been a long build-up to this explosion. The genuine workers' revolution of 1979; in which Iran's western-backed monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown and was replaced with the Islamic republic that is in place today; was supported by the urban and rural poor, and was drowned in blood by the islamist reaction. After the revolution, many political prisoners were freed and the Tudeh Party (A pro-moscow communist party that hat a vital role in the revolution) and other leftist groups were able to participate in the presidential and parliamentary elections for the first time in many years. However, the majority of seats in parliament were won by the Islamic Republican which meant leftist and nationalist organizations were forced out of the loop – Even though they played a vital role in organising the revolution. A brutal counter-revolution continuing for many years smashed all workers' and democratic organisations.
The student movement in 1999 was the first to really shake this regime and raise the hopes of the masses. These were protests that began with peaceful demonstrations in Tehran University against the closure of the reformist newspaper, Salaam (meaning peace in English). Following the demonstrations, a student dormitory was raided by riot police, who were believed to be a government group called the basji, during which a student was killed. The Basji are Iran’s vicious para-military force who are loyal to the regime. There name means “Mobilisation Resistance Force” and they only take their orders from the Revolutionary Guard (who are a major faction of Irans army and are known as the “Guardians of the Islamic Revolution”) and supreme leader Khamenei) and they have traditionally been deployed for law enforcement and use predominantly violent tactics. This kicked off six days of demonstrations and rioting throughout the country, during which at least three other people were killed and more than 200 injured. In the aftermath of these incidents, more than seventy students disappeared. In addition to an estimated 1,200–1,400 detainees, the "whereabouts and condition" of five students named by Human Rights Watch whom are believed to be detained by Islamic authorities remain unknown. It also exposed the illusions about the then "reformist" president Khatami who did not lift a finger in defence of the students against repression. Khatami represented a wing of the regime aiming to improve relations - both domestic and international - not to make any real changes. This year, Khatami is another of the main backers of Mousavi. Over the last few years, students have organised repeated protests at universities. Student leaders and editors of student magazines have been imprisoned.  
This year's presidential elections became a focus for the aspirations of the masses despite most Western pundits stating that the conservatives had strengthened their grip and the "reformists" had been broken. Sitting president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could maybe be challenged by a more restrained conservative, some predicted. In 2005, Ahmadinejad unexpectedly defeated the previous president, Rafsanjani, with promises of a fair division of oil incomes and improved living standards for the poor. Despite breaking these promises, Ahmadinejad has skilfully promoted himself and not been easily controlled by the capitalist mullahs (a mullah being a Muslim man, educated in Tradionalist Islamic theology and sacred law.). Instead, Ahmadinejad has supported capitalists among the basij and the Revolutionary guard, especially in the oil and construction industries.
Despite Ahmadinejad's unorthodox style, supreme leader Khamenei decided he was the best card in the presidential election. The other three candidates approved, of originally 475 applicants, were more religious and academic. Ahmadinejad had also shown that he did not hesitate from using repression or confronting the U.S. over the nuclear issue.

Rafsanjani, himself a top capitalist and the leader of the Assembly who select the supreme leader, unsuprisingly took a different position. He regards Ahmadinejad as a liability both in provoking opposition and in relation to global powers. Instead, he wanted Mousavi. No-one, however, had expected the old former Prime Minister from a notoriously repressive period (the Iraq war, 1980-88) to get a mass following in the way he did.
"The television duel between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad - watched by 40 million viewers - pulled the cork from the bottle and created popular reactions that most likely neither Mousavi nor anyone in the Iranian power machine had expected", wrote Swedish commentator Bitte Hammargren. If not supporting Mousavi, he was seen by the masses as the candidate that could defeat Ahmadinejad.
Thousands of young people and particularly women became Mousavi campaigners. Oppression of women is a cornerstone of Iran’s islamist dictatorship. Alongside students and independent unions, women have organised to fight for their rights and many activists have been imprisoned or killed. When the wife of Mirhossein Mousavi, famous artist Zahra Rahnavard, attended and spoke at his elections rallies, it gave an enormous input to his campaign. This drew massive crowds of young women demanding “equality”. In the last week up to the election, students could more or less freely distribute leaflets and hold meetings in parks and at the university. In Tehran, Mousavi gathered mass meetings while Ahmadinejad, who totally dominated and controlled state media, only had smaller meetings.
The mood among the masses was upbeat and, with a 75 percent turnout, the youth especially, expected Mousavi to win. But less than two hours after the polling stations had closed, Ahmadinejad was declared winner. The following day, Khamenei congratulated him, saying it was a "glittering event". Western politicians and commentators seemed to accept the result, referring to rural support for Ahmadinejad.  
Although a precise analysis of the election result is obviously impossible, the study of the details of the regime’s own figures by the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland give some incredible results. In some areas, turnout was 100%. Ahmadinejad mobilised apparently enough support to increase his vote by 113% compared to 2005. For the regimes numbers to add up, he would have needed to win the votes of all those who did not vote in 2005, all the votes that went to the “centrist” candidate Rafsanjani and 44% of all the votes which went to a more reformist candidate, Karrubi, in that election.
After this Mousavi did not step aside and niether did his supporters. This then also outraged everyone who is against Ahmadinejad and dissatisfied with the system. Reports came in, confirming districts with more votes than voters, polling stations that closed early etc. Instead of 24 million votes, Ahmadinejad was estimated to have received 7 million, to be compared with Mousavi's 13 million. In a second round, voters of the defeated two candidates would also most likely have voted for Mousavi.
Protests started immediately with tens of thousands of people spilling onto the streets of Tehran to protest over suspected election fraud. But these protests were not only about the election result - they channelled all the anger over unemployment, low wages, the housing crisis and the lack of democratic rights, plus among activists the hope for revenge against the regime. As days went on the demonstrations became bigger and spread rapidly from city to city.
Violent attacks from basij on students at the Tehran University campus were performed at night, with deadly outcomes after he Iranian militia loyal to the current president, then moved to crush the protests. Five students are believed to have been killed and similar raids to these took place at other universities.
Yet far from this taming the movement, it grew with millions of people turning out in Tehran in the biggest demonstration for 30 years.
Meanwhile rumours began to circulate that workers at the giant car plant north of Tehran; Iran Khodro; planned to hold two one-hour protest strikes. The Iran Khodro car plant, that was set up by Peugeot, is currently one of the largest factories in the Middle East and the biggest employer in Iran. This means that it had the ability to severely disrupt the regime if its workers went on strike and would mean that other small companies would be more likely to follow. A statement from the heavily repressed bus workers’ union declared its support for the demonstrations.
In an attempt to stop the protests, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave a speech on which made open threats of violence, repression, and "bloodshed" towards the mass of demonstrators and ordered them to end the protests. He talked to his challengers within the regime to appeal for cancelling demonstrations because of the risk of a bloodbath but both Rafsanjani and Mousavi called for the demonstrations to continue and they did. They took place despite both orders that state forces should shoot and the call from Mousavi to stay home. At that stage, the state and the rulers were still taken by surprise. Policemen even protected protesters from attacks from the hated basij militia.
Meanwhile politicians in the West, more notably Barack Obama, expressed “fear” and "worry" over violence, arguing for a compromise at the top. (which I will come back to later)
These mass protests which have swept Iran following the announcement of the election result mark a crucial turning point. Defying the “law” and brutal repression by the state security forces they illustrate that the masses have begun to lose their fear of the regime and are prepared to challenge and defy it. This represents a decisive change in the psychology of the masses in any movement against a dictatorship.
In the face of the deployment of the Basij, demonstrators in Tehran took up the chant “Tanks, guns, Basij, you have no effect now” The Basij were reported to have left 7 civilians dead and over 50 injured. Human Rights Watch said that over the last few weeks the Basij were raiding homes at night, destroying property, beating people, and confiscating satellite dishes. They said the raids were to stop anti-government chanting and to prevent people from watching foreign news broadcasts.
With his speech (which I mentioned before), Khamenei was trying to steel the state forces to attack in a similar way as he did against the student movement ten years ago. This violence along with propaganda that the U.S. was behind the protests did not work. Despite this; Protests continued.
Eventually Khamenei was forced to make a partial retreat and call for a recount - only in a few districts - but anyway an unprecedented gesture. But there should be no illusions - alongside this, Khamenei and the regime started to arrest critics and prepare for a clampdown whenever that is possible.
As you can see it is a massive and powerful mass movement. If it knew its own strength, the regime could be finished. But there are also major factors holding it back - mostly the confused consciousness and the lack of independent workers' organisations and unions in many companies. Even though this has started to happen in a few places it needs to happen in more.
The masses will learn through these historic events, but will the movement go far enough? How far will the masses go when Mousavi and Rafsanjani think they should return home?

Robert Fisk reported in the Independent on the 19th of June: "Tens of thousands of Mousavi supporters marched in black through the streets of central Tehran yesterday evening". He quotes a participant: "We cannot stop now. If we stop now, they will eat us." That fighting mood is probably typical and it can in itself force repression to one side. But the same marcher continues: "The best is for the United Nations or some international organisations to monitor another election." And Fisk concludes correctly: "Upon such illusions is disaster built".
No-one in Iran should put any trust in the UN or any Western ruling class. When president Obama says he is worried, it is the revolutionary character of the masses that worries him most. Obama has made it clear that he has no preference over who is the president of Iran as long that president is prepared to listen to the U.S. The "reformers" have so far not been more open to the White house than Ahmadinejad. The mixed mood is also seen in the "green" opposition demonstrations where religious slogans are also shouted.
The mass movement has already affected others layers in society. Some policemen defended demonstrators and were cheered as heroes. State controlled newspapers have been forced to report on the demonstrations because they were so big. University professors have resigned in opposition to fatal shootings on campus.

Khamenei has now threatened increased repression. But if the mass movement continues, he can be forced to give up Ahmadinejad and try to reach a compromise with the Rafsanjani camp. The split in the ruling class is a sign of revolutionary crisis and the rulers will struggle to overcome it. Mousavi is no real alternative, but has been pushed to become a trigger. He has done his part in promising loyalty to Khamenei and the islamist republic at the same time sounding as an aggressive opposition leader.
The diversity of the movement in Iran reflects the different forces that have been drawn onto the streets.
For the supporters of Mir Hussein Mousavi, especially those among the middle class, it is about opening up the country to the West.
For the circles around his ally Hashemi Rafsanjani it is part of a power struggle at the top. But for the masses on the streets it is about poverty, alienation and struggling to get by.
For millions of women it is about social freedom and a rejection of their status as second class citizens.
For the students it’s about intellectual freedom. For Iran’s diverse ethnic groups it is about their rights.
And for the majority of ordinary people it has become a battle to reclaim the spirit of the 1979 revolution.
Added together the movement represents all the pent up frustration with a regime that wants to crush any hopes of change.
Since 2004, there has been a sharp upturn in strikes and workers' struggles. Tehran bus workers, sugar mill workers at Haf Tapeh, teachers, textile workers and the car workers at Iran Khodro have organised strikes and struggles for jobs and wages. All of these groups have started to form independent trade unions. They have also formed their own organisations and elected their representatives. This year, more than 80 activists were arrested at the May Day manifestation in Tehran. The determination of the masses and the working class in particular, has been shown again and again. The repression against the bus workers' union and the imprisonment of their leader has not broken their organisation nor did it stop them. After the arrests on May Day, workers and their families organised daily protests to demand the release of all activists. The regimes attempts to stop workers uprising have failed and the workers unions are only getting stronger.
It is most urgent for more independent workers' organisations to be formed and built on a mass scale. Independent from the state, religion, capitalists, liberals etc., they should show the way towards workplace and neighbourhood committees. Like the workers of the 1979 revolution, committees of workers should deal with both self-defence and workers' control of production and the economy. Unlike in 1979, they need be coordinated on a city wide and national basis.
The independent workers' organisations already existing, such as the bus workers' union, correctly supported no candidate in the elections. All were religious-capitalist candidates in different shapes. None of them can deal with the unemployment of 20 percent (12.5 percent officially) and inflation of 30 percent (25 officially).
These organisations now have to be in the forefront - building their own unions, forming broader defence committees and seeking support from students and other activists among the urban poor. But above all, Iran needs a clearly socialist party. So called "colour revolutions" in other countries have shown the possibility to overthrow governments, but have not fundamentally changed the life of workers and ordinary people. This was also the lesson from the mass revolutions all over Europe in 1848, studied by Marx and Engels, laying the basis for their insistence on the working class organising independently.
Following the election and the initial demonstrations workers have started to act and many other peaceful protesters have also been imprisoned. On the 18th of June two shifts at Iran Khodro stopped work in protest at the treatment of demonstrators. The Vahed bus drivers said that they want June the 26th  to be turned into a day of action for human rights in Iran. This clearly shows that the workers see that their struggle for labour and trade union rights is joined up with the general struggle for human rights and democracy.
As I mentioned before; Eight weeks ago, on May Day, Iranian workers took a step that was unprecedented in the past 28 years. They managed to put aside all their divisions and differences. Nine trade unions and workers organisations, together with the Women’s Council, formed a joint May Day Organising Committee.
The Iranian regime recognised this as a danger to itself. It arrested over 150 workers, and labour and human rights activists, who had gathered in a Tehran park to commemorate  International Labour Day/ May day. The activists had not even begun their ceremony before they were beaten, bundled into vans and taken away. The swoop by the security forces was so frenzied that they even beat up women and children and arrested many who just happened to be around at the time! Although this outrage provoked an outcry from the international labour movement, it was, sadly, just another chapter in the long history of abuse and persecution of the labour movement - and the movements of students, women, the youth, national minorities and so on - for their basic rights and dignity.
While trade union and human rights activists and socialists in many countries knew about the true nature of the Iranian government, the events of the past few weeks have totally exposed its brutality to a much wider public. All over the world everyone, from the workers to students and youth, now know that the Iranian regime is one of the most undemocratic in the world. Not only does it trample on basic rights of the mass of the Iranian people, it also cannot observe the democratic rights of its own weaker faction! The members of this faction; including some former ministers and high officials of the regime; have been arrested in the middle of the night without any warrant or identification of the detaining officers, had their houses searched, their families harassed and then not heard of for what is now a few weeks. Their illegal arrests have highlighted the every day repressive methods that confront workers, women, students, teachers, journalists, writers and artists, national minorities, human rights and civil activists, and anyone else who might want to question any aspect of social life under this regime and want to improve it.
Mass movements are not tireless - they fight as long as they think the struggle can and will give results. The fight for democratic rights must be linked to the fight for political and economic liberation. The capitalist mullahs have to be overthrown and their wealth shared. Only a democratically controlled economy, a democratic socialist plan, can offer education, jobs and living wage to the whole of Iran’s populace. Iran has a strong working class tradition, going back for hundreds of years, but above all in the 1979 revolution. It was the strike movement of the workers, rather than just demonstrations in the cities, that overthrew the strong state apparatus of the Western-backed Shah. The major lesson from that revolution, learnt in blood, is the need for a mass revolutionary socialist workers' party, in order to disarm the Iranian islamists, politically and militarily, bringing equality to the people of Iran.

NOTES
•    Ayatollah Khomeini – Cleric who rose to power in the 1979 revolution. Supreme leader until his death in 1989.
•    Ali Khamenei – A key figure in the revolution and Iran’s president from 1981-9. He became supreme leader following Khomeini’s death.
•    Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – Won the 2005 elections, and was declared winner of the 2009 elections. He rose through the ranks of the Revolutionary Guards during the war with Iraq.
•    Mohammad Khatami – Considered the figurehead of the reform movement. Won the 1997 presidential elections and was re-elected in 2001. Although popular, he is widely seen as failing to push through reforms.
•    Mir Hussein Mousavi – Prime minister 1981-9, now associated with the reform movement. His failure to win the recent presidential election sparked the protests.
•    Hashemi Rafsanjani – Closely associated with the elite business class. Was president from 1989-97. He lost the 2005 elections. Although a conservative, he is backing the reformists in a power struggle.

 

 

Delivered at a Branch meeting 30/7/09

Written By Joe L