Build Workers Militias!

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administration for last week's raid on thè American Embassy, in which ambassador William Sullivan and his staff-CIA agents and all-were saved from justice only by the intervention of forces loyal to Khomeini.

Executions

And following the execution of four of the Shah's generals l'ast week he has taken steps to ensure that any further executions take place only at the hands of his government.

Both Bazargan and Khomeini are agreed above all on one thing: that the power in the new republic must be kept at all costs out of the hands of the workers and poor peasants whose courage, militancy and sacrifices brought the downfall of the Shah.

The four executions of proShah generals that have so far occured took place not on the decision of a people's court but on the instruction of the same shadowy "Islamic Revolutionary Council" which appointed wealthy bourgeois Bazargan to lead the new government.

In other words governmental control in Iran has so far only been transferred from one self-appointed, non elected pro-capitalist elite to another.

And as oil workers, factory workers and • government employees return to work for the benefit of the same private capitalists and multinational syndicates; as the unemployed face an unchanged future of poverty; as Iranian women and national minorities remain denied the most basic democratic rights, the reality of this situation ..will trigger fresh rounds of struggle for the demands which first drove them en masse into struggle against the Shah.

Nominees

The danger facing such struggles is that after the removal of the most obvious hardline supporters of the Shah among the military top brass, Khomeini and Bazargan will simply install their own loyal nominees at the head of the reconstructed armed forces.

Already a new chief of staff of the armed forces has begun a selective purge.

And in the airforce Bazargan has bowed to pressure from the ranks and sacked the man he appointed air force chief only five days ago, in favour of a more 'popular' choice. But what right has Bazargan to pick and choose commanders?

Is this not clear evidence that the armed forces will be reconstructed and strengthened?

Khomeini has so far made only vague noises about replacing the old armed forces with a "People's Army"-controlled by his islamic ruling clique.

And even this, he has said, would "take time". Meanwhile he has called on his armed supporters to unite with the remaining army units.

But the heavy fighting last week in Tabriz between revolutionary guerrilla units and proShah military forces should serve as a vivid. reminder of the dangers if the huge Iranian armed forces are not disbanded.

Bazargan has threatened to "crush" any political opponent that "destabilises". the rule of Iranian capital.

Already the issue is being raised by Iranian workers themmust be dismantled and replaced-not by Khomeini's own chosen forces, but by an armed workers' militia drawn from the factories and working class localities, under the control of elected committees.

If this is. not done, the danger is that, in the hands of the new regime a reconstructed Crowds hoist head of Shah's father wait in vain for this "Islamic Republic" to offer measures to resolve their economic problems and guarantee their basic rights, the questions must arise again and again: who do Khomeini and Bazargan represent? To whom are they Continued p.2 Col. 2

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SOCIALISI PRESS, t'ednesday 21 February 1979 Page I IONAL