Iran: two leadership crises, one revolutionary solution

Submitted by martin on 23 May, 2013 - 4:36

Some of the best-known candidates for Iran's coming presidential election have been banned from the poll by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. The bans reflect conflicts within the regime.

The following is the English translation of the editorial of Militaant No. 58, March 2013. http://marxist.cloudaccess.net/polan/492-two-leadership-crises.html


The newspapers and news bulletins are full of clashes between the Khamenei and Ahmadinejad camps. These two main representatives of the Iranian bourgeoisie's warring factions have even used their Nowruz [new year] messages to criticise each other. The regime's crisis of leadership has now become deeper and more bitter than ever before – with no sign of a quick resolution.

In his message Khamenei said that the next so-called 'president' of the regime should have all the "[positive] points of today without the existing weaknesses". In turn, Ahmadinejad said that "the Supreme Leader has said that he has just one vote and the nation has the right to elect. Everybody has to respect the right of the nation. The government … is looking for an election with passion and glory and maximum [participation] and [one that is] ultimately healthy." He went on to say that he will be "extremely sensitive and … will not tolerate the slightest violation" in the so-called 'election' in June.

So what has made Ahmadinejad sound like a champion of free, fair and clean elections? What makes the man who was fully-backed by Khamenei in 2009 disagree with him so publicly now?

The crisis of bourgeois leadership

The answers to these and similar questions about the in-fighting will escape us if we do not pay particular attention to the origins of this regime. The ruling system in Iran is a unique form of capitalist regime that came about after the bourgeois state was severely damaged – but not completely smashed – during the 1978-79 revolution.

The Shah's monarchist-military regime was replaced by a contradictory formation that had two broad tendencies, each with a distinct approach to economic policy. All along one tendency has been aiming to normalise the capitalist relations of production in Iran and to restore full relations with the imperialist countries. Meanwhile the other tendency has been in favour of import barriers, selective trade, and so on, and has represented the interests of the coalition of bourgeois (and some petty-bourgeois) forces that crushed the 1978-79 mass movement.

Over the years the names of these factions, and their representatives, have changed many times. For example, Rafsanjani was once a very 'radical' figure, but has for a long time been in favour of privatisation, foreign trade and investment, cutting subsidies and so on. Ahmadinejad has now, in effect, become the representative of the same tendency which dates back to Abulhassan Banisadr, the first so-called 'president' of the Islamic Republic, who was forced out in the clashes with Khomeini's faction in 1981. It is therefore no accident that a number of people have been comparing Ahmadinejad with Banisadr.

The friction between the two factions will continue until there is a modern and centralised capitalist state in Iran that is fully integrated with the world market and the region's geopolitical structure. (Or, quite possibly, the workers could overthrow the bourgeoisie before it is able to resolve this contradiction!)

This position has been the basis of our analysis right from the inception of this regime and we have consistently put these faction fights in this context (most recently in the editorial of Militaant No. 57).

The growing economic and social crisis

While the regime's media have paid a lot of attention to trivia surrounding the so-called 'election', e.g., how many times Ahmadinejad has said "Long live spring" or just used the word "spring" in his speeches; or, worse still, how much physical contact Ahmadinejad had with Chavez's mother during the funeral in Caracas, or covering up Michelle Obama's arms; millions of workers and their families have been sinking deeper into poverty, hunger and destitution.

The contrast between the regime-connected capitalists who are making huge profits out of the current situation - even from the crippling sanctions! – and those who are going hungry, queuing hours for their basic necessities and having to make very hard choices about what they can afford and what they have to do without, could not be more stark!

On the one hand:

There are over 200,000 malnourished children under the age of six, a growing numbers of street children and 60% of rapes being committed against children!
Workers' minimum wage for 1392 [March 2013-March 2014] has been set at 6% below inflation!
The official inflation rate is 31.5% but anyone who has had to pay 30,000 tomans [$24.45] for a kilo of meat and other unaffordable prices knows that the true rate is higher.
17 million people will need food coupons to feed themselves.
Shockingly, in this 'Islamic Republic', there are now 3.6 million addicts and 26% of drivers breathalysed in Tehran recently had drunk alcohol!
On the other:

$33bn is missing from the Iranian banking system!
In a country where the currency has lost 55% of value in a year 500 Porsches have been brought into the country without anyone knowing the exchange rate used for importing them!
And how is the regime responding to this situation?

Boosting the repressive apparatus, including setting up a special women's riot police!
Islamisation of the universities.
Suing Hollywood for Argo and similar films.
Near industrial collapse

In the meantime certain parts of the economy are collapsing. In particular, industrial production, which, of course, hits the industrial bourgeoisie very hard, is on its knees.

Just in Shahrivar 1391 [August-September 2012] there was a 65% drop in vehicle production in Iran. As a result of the near collapse of production many workers have been laid off. Any industry that needs to import parts, raw materials or machinery has been hit severely.

Even oil production, the main source of foreign revenue, has dropped. The regime's oil revenue fell by 45% and prospects for the new year are no better. In 1392 [March 2013-March 2014] the oil revenue is going to be 40% less than in 1391!

The economic and social situation has now become worse than the 1355-57 [1976-78] crisis that led to the revolution. Objectively Iran is now ripe for revolution.

The crisis of workers' leadership

The Iranian labour movement is at a turning point. On the one hand we have seen that syndicalism has clearly failed. Syndicalism, which can be summed up as the viewpoint that thinks that the trade unions - by themselves - can realise all the aims and tasks of the struggle of the working class, has been active in different industries and various parts of the country for more than a decade. And despite all the self-sacrifice, prison terms and torture that labour activists have suffered, and all kinds of pain and hardship that workers' families have endured; if the correct strategy and tactics are not adopted the workers will not reach a positive outcome (although, of course, they will learn many important lessons for the next stage of the struggle).

We can see the proof of the failure of syndicalism in the latest actions of Mansour Osanloo, the person who for many years was the standard-bearer and the most prominent symbols of the labour movement for the revival of trade unions. He has now left the country and has joined a political movement. Through this he clearly admitted to the failure of the syndicalist viewpoint. However, unfortunately he has crossed to the other side of the barricade and has joined the class enemy of the working class. And this also shows that a section of the bourgeoisie is prepared to put down roots in the working class in an organised way - of course, as long as workers and their leaders do not forget who 'the boss' is.

Now an important question is posed: if unions by themselves cannot achieve this, then what kind of other organisation do the workers also need? The answer that Osanloo has given has set his path. But what must be the answer of workers who do not want to throw away the experience of decades of struggle and all that they have already gained? If we look at history, we see only one type of organisation that can fulfil this role: the vanguard party of the working class. The main role of revolutionary Marxists lies in this that they have to be able to turn a merely historical lesson into a living and active organisation that is set deep in the heart of the working class.

We have seen in history that at time of the First Imperialist World War, the social democratic parties mostly betrayed the working class. And such a split also took place among the syndicalists, so that very few of them upheld their revolutionary standpoint. Many of these revolutionary syndicalists eventually joined the ranks of the Communist International. What separated the revolutionary syndicalists from the reformist (and eventually treacherous) syndicalists was that they understood the need for overthrowing capitalism and smashing the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state. If a labour activist believes this, then he or she is faced with only one way to organise this, just one political standpoint: revolutionary Marxism.

We have seen that despite all the economic, social and political problems in society, including the most basic issues such as feeding children(!), the capitalist class shows no interest in solving them. It is only the working class that has the potential to solve these problems. That which can put this potential into action in practice is the creation of the revolutionary vanguard party of the working class. Only such a party can connect the most militant elements of the working class and revolutionary Marxism, to solve the crisis of the leadership of the working class and the crisis of the bewildered and boastful 'left', that is even afraid of admitting its own crisis.

In Iranian society there are two crises of class leadership and only one revolutionary solution.

Editorial Council of the Iranian Revolutionary Marxists' Tendency

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