ALMOST EXACTLY five years ago the Shah of Iran was deposed in one of the most gigantic revolutionary upheavals since the Second War. The Iranian revolution was greeted tremendous enthusiasm left everywhere, which celebrated the downfall of the reactionary despot without qualification.
While the mass leadership of the anti-Shah movement Islamic in inspiration, looked to the massive participation of the working class in the movement, and hoped that the Islamic leaderhip would be rapidly outflanked.
Five years later these hopes have been dashed. The Khomeini regime has ruthlessly carried through its ob- jective of creating Republic' crushing all opposition in its wake. But the course of the Iranian revolution was not merely an 'unfordeveoonncil. ting' turn of events.
betrayed goals himself put forward. For the leadership of the movement which was at the heart of the anti-Shah forces was working poor often mobilised for ucualus. nonetheless movement mobilised millions for explicitly reactionary objectives. left's failure to lie Saiu movement which fights some aspects reactionary movement was the source of its hopelessly optimistic illusions.
T'he protest movement against the Shah, initiated mainly by the class and intellectuals in 1977. joined by the working poor in tne summer of 1978. met with ferocious repression, leading to a series of massacres and new outbursts of protest, based on the 40-day cycle of mourning for the victims.
Between October and December 1978 huge sections of the working led by the oil workers, strike action against the repression.
But by December the character of the movement was vious. The marches on December, which involved millions of people, confirmed beyond any doubt LICI nuuuc sc popularity hegemony of Islam. The tional backbone of the were the thousands mullahs, tightly organised and controlling the movement. In fact, at the time of the December marches meini commanded an army of 90,000 mullahs and thousands of students and other clerics Behind the Khomeini leadership was a coalition of forces including not only the plebian masses and the mosbut also section with bourgeoisie based on the bazaar.
Order The far left organisations, Fedayeen and the Mujahadin, played a role in the final insurrection against the Shah, but were never mass forces.
Politically they were ambiguous and Come vod ocvs cococccdcn ship of the revolution, and in no posinon to proviae an allelllalive During insurrection repressive apparatus almost completely collapsed.
iv force of stabilitv and 'order' which emerged was the Khomeini movement In January 1979 Khomeini set up the 'Council ot the Kevolution'.
coalition of religious dignitaries and capitalist politicians, Sadr, Bazargan Bakhtiar W Os nominated minister. National main bourgeois political force, the Stalinist Tudeh the government. The capitalist figures in the first Khomeini govelllell was a suie sigil direction in which Khomeini was going.
First he was going to conitalist state. and tacticallv needed to court and neutralise that section of the bourgoisie which had supported the revolution. On the other hand, he intended to secure the establishment was the left • slamic 'disappoinKhomeini may which peasantry anti-capitalist Khomeini's The that a middle Wan , class and the It was t00k Islamic obthe organisamovement IS OISTC Khothelogical of the petty ultimate power LIUS take over of the state. the But before clergy.
There was at the the army The : on- existence. Armed political party kept Trade unions dustries. sunkes LOIN. including Bani The Ghotzbadeh. thrust forward their prime autonomy.
Front, Deasallls occupied demands party supporleu inclusion of the Shah in Febuary of the began which establish a against the capitalist class.
Khomeini now of an Islamic capitalist state, with the of the Shi'ite clergy, the SUCLICA was preparing for their eventual complete the dealing with his capitalist allies Khomeini had to deal with the elements in the revolution which had escaped the control of the The collapse of the old dictatorship had given rise to a multitude or ponncal Dartes ana assoclanons.
flood of meini organisations being formed and mass meetings. Workers strike committees, and then the factory shoras came into every their weapons. lau V During 1979 and into 1980 develoned around demands for better wages and working condivarious national minorities demands In hundreds of villages land. women began to organise for their In other words, from the fall of 1979 through inoe OM A NOOS OE to make demands well beyond the gramme of Khomeini. The anti-Shah ULU struggle was beginning to show signs of growing over into a social struggle moved to utilise the mass Islamic movement to crush taking of the US hostages. By supporting this side-show to identify imperialișt feelings Khomeini whipped up support for the Islamic regime.
the 'Great Satan' -attention was diverted from the social struggles at home and in ticular the rising struggle of the Kurds and other oppressed nationalities.
further consolidated by the launching the of the Islamic Republic Party (IRP)
which gave tramework for building of the pasdarans, the revolutionary The state repression helped to consolidate the clergy's grip. established represented form of capitalist dictatorship, mediated through Islamic theocracy.
Conflict entirely with the faghih (Khomeini) -etc God's representative on earth. All in'anti- stitutions rather 'Upholding Islam' is the justification of any repression, any act of barbari. ty, in particular the WUlLICH Islamic social code To secure its domination the IRP was thrown into conflict with the bourgeoisie which has supported thi anti-Shah movement. the IRP moved against Bani Sadr, by forces CO OY Marxist' thousands Iraq in septembel there was mobilisanlon WCTC tions utilising Hussein's tion regime.
Huge nicul. first workers ting the regime had been which state apparatus.
Sombre wibed out national lille UllC which deaths.
sombre one.
antiwith himself imperialism.
By turning attention agains the United State stage during parThe domination of the clergy was gressive existence powerful movement, the clergy. The guards, as a parallel force of revoluLOn The regime thus specific promote Nominal sovereignty in Iran rests mosque shows suborainate lo him Dronlse talism, ppressır of le upholding of t dictatorships bourgeois own caracler merely sections of in 1981 tury commander-in-chief oI Ine arsed Bani Sadr responded by deing tor mase resistance. He was back- and calling for mass resistance.
the Mujahdin, the 'Islamic organisation, which had and now SuDDOrLCIS began a campaign of terror against the regime. The IRP responded with an even most random violent terror against all opposition.
The war launched against Iran by the Saddam Hussein dictatorship in • 1980 was a war 01 capitalist dictatorship against another. While the imperialist powers tended to welcome the attack, it wa not organised by the United States o its allies. At the beginning of the war in Iran an of WOlKd clas against the Iraqi attack. In some of the ranian border border towns elec tions to the shoras, in which the left of the Cucucuell.
Islamic movement, took place on the day of the Iragi attack. Even Arab workers took up arms to defend themselves against the Iraqi attack.
ATTTS OSLOILEC Cll adllsd supported the line of an independent mobilisation against lraa with armed detachments fighting independently of the Khomeini regime, this projecl ool attempts to liquidate the gains of the revolution and to tight for the overthrow of Khomeini. But very soon the independent mobilisa was crushed by the Khomeini pressure came on the lett organisations to support the governror example. the Mujahadin supported an self-defence mobilisation, but then changed its line to suppor• Once the independent mobiisation of the Iranian WULACH.
crushed the war became simply that of a struggle between two reactionary capitalist dictatorships, in neither side be supported. Moreover, the IRP and Kho mein used the war effort to strengthen the army, militarise society and reimpose the domination of a reactionar!
Today there are no 'gains' of the revonno en to cereno. ne ractor shoras have either been crushed or co opted by the regime. The economic gains of the workers have largely been 'The position of wollcI has drastically deteriorated and the minorities are under vicious attack. Khomeini has turned the war Not shi'ite cxals ullsil There is no reason whatever to support either side in this reactionary war has caused over 250,000 Five years after the overthrow of the Shah the balance sheet is a ver While the overthrow of the Shah was an immensely tressive and positive step, he has beon replaced by a regime just as hostile to the working class, if less reliable for The course of the Iranian revolution was determined at a very early the struggle to bring down the Shah in 1978-9 many sections of the working class and the oppressed mobilised for proand democratic objectives, given the weakness and virtual nonOI an organised these democratic radical objectives never became the dominant or unifying themes of the On the contrary, the only nationally organised mass movement which numbered millions and had explicitly reactionary objectives was the Islamic Shi'ite movement of Khomeini. The left and the labour movement were never strong enough to really mass mobilisations against the Shah independent of the The fate of the Iranian revolutior that there can be no comwith Islamic fundameneven if fundamentalist movements struggle against capitalist orf traditional petty-bourgeois . For tundamentalist Isian prepares its own form of capitalist dictatorship - one decked out with an extreme reactionary social code derived from the seventh cen-
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