Carworkers Conference Statement-p.4

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SOCIALS Weekly paper of the Workers Socialist League * No. 129 * 13 December, 1978 * 15p PR In some of the largest political demonstrations ever seen in the world, the workers, peasants and students of Iran have expressed their unanimous demand for the overthrow of the Shah's dictatorship.

And while the Shah and his SAUDI ARABIA last three months-have already been discredited.

To maintain any credibility would-be leaders have had to take increasingly radical public positions in order to keep up with the mood of the masses.

Power to betray Nonetheless, although these leaders are riding an angry political tiger, they will continue to have the power to betray the movement as long as an alternative revolutionary socialist leadership in the form of a Trotskyist party, is not built.

Already there are strong rumours that the religous and bourgeois political leaders secretly negotiated an agreement with the Shah in order to avoid last Sunday and Monday's gigantic demonstrations "getting out of hand"

tROY PEAL ALL Hansen review (part 2) EMS explained The release of National Front leader Sanjabi from jail may be part of an attempt to prepare a reactionary compromise.

Both the regime and the frightened would-be new leaders are haunted by the same spectre -that of the Iranian socialist They could both see that for two days the situation threatened to be one of dual power in the major cities.

The regime left a power vacuum in the large areas of the cities from which it was forced to withdraw.

It is now involved in a contest for power with the masses as it attempts to restore its authority.

But that authority is in any case based on an army consisting of a majority of conscripts, Continued page 2