International Marxist Tendency

Contents

• Introduction by Alan Woods

• The political situation in Iran and the necessity of forming
  the Iranian Revolutionary Marxists' Tendency

• Why Revolutionary Marxists should not support Islamic fundamentalists

• Document on modern imperialist domination and Islamic fundamentalism

• Is Bush’s threat against Iran real?

• The new course of the EU, the nature of the Iranian
  regime and the working class

• Open letter to President Hugo Chavez from Iranian
  Revolutionary Socialists' League

• The end of 'reformism', what now?

• The authoritarians are becoming ‘reformers’!

• A short history of Iranian Trotskyism

PDFs

• Front cover (339 KB)

• Contents (76 KB)

• Back cover (12 KB)

Introduction by Alan Woods

The Iranian revolution in 1979 was a workers’ revolution that overthrew the hated regime of the Shah. In the process of that revolution the workers built their own independent structures, in particular the workers’ councils, which were a genuine expression of workers’ power.

Unfortunately, what was a revolution in the making was derailed due to the lack of a genuine Marxist leadership capable of leading the working class and behind it all the oppressed layers of Iranian society. It was this lack of revolutionary leadership that led to a vacuum in the political situation which was filled by the Islamic clergy under Ayatollah Khomeini. This led to the defeat of the workers’ revolution and the beginning of a process of counter-revolution that allowed the present regime to be installed in power.

The workers of Iran have paid a very heavy price ever since. Now, however, a new wave of worker and student militancy is beginning to unfold. That is why it is urgent to learn all the mistakes of the past and draw all the necessary conclusions.

The coming Iranian revolution can only be a socialist revolution and at its head must stand the Iranian working class with its own independent and revolutionary leadership, embodied in a party that has to be built with deep roots within the class, which while representing the long-term aims of the revolution must also engage in the daily struggles of the workers and youth. Such a party should have no illusions in any bourgeois or petty-bourgeois movement, particularly the Islamic fundamentalists, who have been in power for 30 years.

The Islamic regime is in no way “progressive”. It serves the interests of capitalism in Iran. The more astute strategists of capital internationally have come to the conclusion that in order to help US imperialism withdraw from Iraq, the help of regimes such as the Syrian and Iranian is required in an attempt to stabilise the situation. At the same time, in spite of the demagogic rhetoric of the present leadership in Iran, the ruling Islamic elite realise they need help from the West as the economy enters deeper and deeper into crisis.

That explains why the EU has recently made a turn towards improving relations with the Iranian regime. The US will eventually - particularly with Obama in power and with US imperialism in need of the IRI’s help in Afghanistan, Iraq and so on - improve relations and attempt to normalise them. Any new ‘president’ that may emerge from the June ‘elections’ – which could even be Khatami himself (or someone else) - will be called on to carry out this rapprochement.

In all this, both the Iranian regime and US imperialism will be concerned not with the fate of Iranian workers, but only in their own economic and strategic interests, founded on maintaining the privileges of the few against the many. The only option Iranian workers will have is to mobilise independently as a class.

That is why I welcome the publication of a new book by Maziar Razi, who I have known now for several years and worked with in building up the genuine forces of revolutionary Marxism. This comrade is a living link to the revolutionary events of 1978-79. He was the first Iranian Trotskyist and together with his comrades at the time attempted to build a Marxist force in Iran based on the ideas of Leon Trotsky. But they were too weak to play the role that was required.

In spite of the terrible defeat of that period, comrade Maziar has struggled for three decades to keep alive the ideas of Marxism in Iran, while many others succumbed to the pressures of the period. We will give him and his comrades every possible help in developing the ideas of Marxism inside Iran, and in building the Marxist Tendency as an instrument to take these ideas into the Iranian labour movement.

Alan Woods, February 2009