Iranian Workers Must Reach for Power

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The Iranian working class has made history.

In a surging, devastating mass movement, whose scale and intensity can only be compared to the February Revolution in Russia in 1917, the strength of millions of workers has shattered the power of one of the world's most savage dictatorships.

Iran's 400,000-strong armed forces-built up as a bastion of imperialist power in the crucial Gulf and Middle East area and lavishly equipped by the Shah and the US and British warmongers with the most sophisticated weaponry that huge oil revenues could buy-have effectively collapsed.

Bazagan Forty percent of the 300,000 strong army were conscripts; they have now deserted in their hundreds to the mass movement.

Thousands of workers and youth have stormed the barracks of the Shah's select Imperial Guard and forced them to surrender, and sacked the Parliament building.

Military barracks throughout Tehran and in other cities have been taken over and burned or remain under siege as we go to press.

Thousands of political prisoners who had been held under torture during the Shah's 25 years of brutal dictatorship have been released, while the hated agents of his secret police, SAVAK, and top army generals flee for their lives from ad-hoc militias of rebellious workers armed to the teeth with the most modern weapons including mortars, anti-tank rockets and heavy machine guns.

There is now little evidence of any organised opposition to the revolutionary movement from pro-Shah reactionary The huge scope of the Iranian revolution provides a damning answer to every miserable reformist and sceptic who argues that the working class is too weak to overthrow the armed might of imperialism.

Proletarian

Despite the fact that the mass movement has shown allegiance to the fanatical Islamic leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, the forms of struggle that had the decisive impact in forcing the withdrawal of the Shah and the collapse of his five week old puppet government under Bakhtiar have been proletarian actions-centrally the solid strikes by workers in the oilfields and every major These strikes have brought the once powerful economy to a grinding halt and provided a crucial driving force behind the massive street demonstrations through Tehran and other cities, continuously challenging and proving the limitations of the military might of the armed The tenacity of the revolutionary movement-again and again pouring unarmed into the streets despite storms of bullets, the consistent appeals by Khomeini to the troops, and the indecisiveness of the government, gradually sapped the morale of even the Shah's showpiece army and, in particular, the airforce.

In a desperate bid to stop the rot of desertions and disillusionment army generals last Saturday ordered the Imperial Guard with Chieftain tanks into the Farahabad airbase near Tehran where Khomeini support had reached fever pitch. This triggered the most spectacular collapse.

Weapons handed out Air cadets went on the rampage, and airmen broke their way into the arsenal bringing out machine guns and pistols in order to fight back.

As the battle raged the airmen began to hand out weapons to left wing workers and students who rushed Suddenly confronted by armed. rather than unarmed masses, the army began to lose out. Desertions multiplied, tanks, vehicles and weapons were captured by the crowds, and by Sunday military chiefs ordered all troops to return to barracks.

Shortly afterwards a helpless Bakhtiar resianed and Khomeini's nominee Mr Bazargan stepped in as head of the Islamic Provisional Government.

This changeover marks the start of the most testing period Khomeini rides into town of all for the Iranian masses.

From his very first statement Bazargan has made it clear that the "Islamic Republic" will attempt to salvage as much as possible of the state apparatus left over from the Shah's regime.

He has appealed for "calm"; for the crowds to stop attacking military targets and imperialist embassies; and pleaded for the return of the weapons unstute to tie masses auring dictrihutad +n tha the weekend.

So far, as we go to press, there is no indication that the workers who found arms in their hands after 25 years of dictatorship are at all willing to

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