Keep U.s. Hands Off

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Black all arms to the Shah! containing frightened relatives of the Shah, and imperialist technicians, the US aircraft carrier Constellation, with other ships of the US Seventh Fleet, was steaming towards the Gulf.

Meanwhile, every hour of the last two weeks the Iranian masses have acted to bring the end of the Shah's regime noticeably closer.

By their slogans and from their actions in strikes and demonstrations, the masses have shown themselves to be implacable in their determination to destroy the Shah's tyranny.

Unbreakable link

They have also shown their understanding of the unbreakable link between the tyranny and the interests of imperialism.

So their wrath in the streets and in propaganda has been turned not only against the self-styled "King of Kings" and his army and police but also increasingly against the signs of British and American imperialism in the country.

But it is not to protect a few buildings that the Constellation is steaming towards the Gulf.

A desperate President Carter may be ready to take the gamble of attempting US military occupation of parts of the crucial oilfields at least around Abadan on the Gulf.

Three weeks ago the Iranian oil workers once again came out on strike.

As a result no oil at all has been exported for two weeks by the world market's second largest producer.

And in the last week production has fallen even below Iran's own needs-though the regime now claims that there is an "agreement" with workers that they will produce enough for domestic requirements.

10% of US oil imports; a major share of supplies to Western Europe and Japan; nearly 50% of Israel's supplies and 90% of South African oil usuaily comes from Iran.

Hard blows

While there are other possible sources of supply, and South Africa has several years* oil in store, it is nonetheless true that the Iranian strikes are inflicting hard. immediate blows against the crisis-ridden imperialist economies.

This is one factor that could push Carter into a new military adventure in the Gulf.

The Iranian economy itself is virtually at a standstill.

In addition to the oilfields the main airline and airport have been closed down by a strike.

So have most of the banks, many of the country's factories and lately the TV services.

But what now strikes further terror into the imperialists is the virtually complete collapse of imperialist authority in a country which even a year ago was one of the strongest strategic links in the chain of imperialist domination in the region. on December 31) or crushed beneath the Shah's tanks (sold to him by British Labour ministers), the detiant masses shouted "Cannons, tanks and machine guns cannot hurt us any more"

But the last three weeks have also seen the beginning of the breakdown of the chain of command in the showpiece 500,000-strong Iranian army itself.

Deserted

Several officers of the Imperial Guard-the so-called "Guard of the Immortals"were killed in a mutiny at Lavisan barracks in Tehran.

And in a demonstration in Tabriz, soldiers began by shooting on the crowd and ended by fraternising, with it and joining the demonstration.

In several places groups of soldiers have deserted to the side of the masses, sometimes with their arms.

Several of Iran's Phantom jets are reported to have been sabotaged in recent weeks.

On the day after the Mashhad massacre last weekend, troops in the city were reported to have refused to leave their barracks.

The loss of authority in the streets is a symptom of the regime's loss of political authority in general.

In December the Shah tried to get Sadighi (a minister in Mossadeg's 1953 government) to form a new cabinet.

He gave up when he found only 5 people in the whole of Iran who would join him. looks as if he too will be unable even to form a cabinet.

Ocean of blood

He is reportedly baulking at the Shah's insistence that his son-in-law becomes Defence Minister.

The Shah now looks increasingly set on a shoot-out with the masses so that his inevitable downfall will only take place at the cost of the shedding of an ocean of blood:

A major threat to the workers and peasants who have come so close to ousting their tyrant, is the fact that his collapsing authority is not being systematically challenged and replaced by organs of workers' power and defence.

There are growing reports of the masses imposing their authority.

Health workers have, for instance, taken over and renamed some of the principal hospitals.

Workers have occupied some factories and set up strike and occupation committees.

And a few days ago people's courts were reported to have tried and killed a number of agents of SAVAK (the security police of at least 5 ,000 agents and 50,000 informers set up by the Shah with the help of the American CIA).

But there is as yet no widespread establishment of soviet-type councils of workers' peasants' and anti-Shah soldiers or of armed militias to defend against military violence.

It is essential for these last weekend urged oil workers to resume production to meet internal needs) and the bourgeois politicians of the National Front, whose nationalism and hostility to socialism can only end up in attacks on the masses and on the gains that are being won.

The absence of the organs of workers' democracv is. of course, in part a symptom of the absence of a revolutionary leadership in the Iranian working class which can consistently fight for a revolutionary The main workers' party, the Stalinist Tudeh Party remains committed to a search for some form of Popular Front coalition government-a policy entirely in line with the hostility of the Soviet leaders to this mass struggle taking place on the very borders of the USSR.

Every socialist must assist to the greatest possible extent in the building of a leadership to fight such betrayals.

This means fighting for the Trotskyist Transitional Programme among Iranian workers and students.

And it means fighting in the workers' movement in imperialist countries for the necessary policies of active and concrete solidarity with the Iranian masses in their struggle against imperialsm.

*Imperialist hands off Iran!

*Black arms supplies to the Shahl

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Page z SOCIALIST PRESS, Wednesday 3 January, 197