IRAN: Marxists must fight for soviets as well as constituent assembly

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such as the occupation and The Petrograd Soviet, 1917 Contrast the Iranian SWP's talk of democracy - without soviets with the clarity of the Comintern's Theses on Bourgeois Democracy and the DictatorIt is commonly agreed that the Iranian revolution' has resulted in a situation of dual power-in which the forces of the oppressed masses stand clearly opposed to the crisis-ridden apparatus of the state.

The key question is now to consolidate the independent organisations of the working class and construct soviet-type bodies as part of the struggle to press forward to the socialist overthrow of Iranian capitalism.

In this the fight for democratic demands including the establishment of a constituent assembly plays an important but not exclusive role.

But the new Iranian Socialist Workers Party, section of the 'United' Secretariat of the Fourth International restricts itself almost entirely to this demand, and puts forward no call for the building of workers councils or soviets in the continuing mass struggles.

The following extract from an Iranian SWP statement illustrates this position. It is reprinted from Socialist Challenge of February 15:

The fight to establish democratic regime, which has been the central fight in this century, has never been so close protection of factories by the to being won... workers; expansion of the .. The next step for all the armed reservations in the workers and toilers can be neighbourhoods and the opensummarised in one sentence: ing of secret files of SAVAK forward to the immediate crimes, the opening of the convocation of , a constituent books of the imperialist firms assembly. by the workers, the exposure of The present victory was won the crimes of the Pahlavi terror by the oppressed of Iran and it over the last 25 years, and is the result of the stubborn and bringing those responsible to the self-sacrificing struggle of tens justice of the workers, and of millions. toilers.

The future government that can free Iran from the evils of the expression of the people's imperialist domination the will, will defend and support all terror or 'autocracy and these struggles and through historical backwardness must democratic discussion will also be decided by the people decide the big and the small themselves. questions and from that of Only the masses themselves, nationalising imperialist mines, through discussions leading to companies and banks, to decisions, can offer a real ending the national oppression solution to the crisis forced of Azerbaijan, Kurdistan and upon our society by imperialBaluchistan, to winning equal ism and absolutism. rights for women, to guaranteeThe immediate convocation ing freedom of expression and of a fully representative assembly, to workers' control constituent assembly, in which of the factories. all critical forces can participate, is the only way that the immediate convocation of will of the people can find true constituent assembly that the expression.

people can be sovereign.

Thus an assembly that represents the sovereign people the constituent assembly will be will not be responsible to any deciding on the future of authority but the people themselves and will recognise Workers Party of roses the no power of others. establishment workers' It should be based on direct, and peasants' republic, that is a equal and secret ballot. government that. supports the Literates and illiterates should struggle of the workers and have voting rights. The high toilers of city and countryside. school youth who . have displayed so much daring and self-sacrifice should vote.

one might conclude that the The soldiers, those sons of Constituent Assembly is capable the workers and peasants, who of solving all problems, and that have solidarised with the the demand for soviets is superrevolution, should have the fluous at this stage. This holds right to vote. Ail the women the danger of offering a purely and men of this land should be parliamentary road to the iran able to participate in elections ian masses. to a constitutent assembly.

The mass struggle organisa- Challenge of February 22 makes tions which shattered the rule this position more explicit still:

of the autocracy should oversee the elections. moment is the organisation of No government appointed from above can bring freedom to Iran and no such govern- committees; into political ment can defend the gains of parties; into trade unions and the revolution against the peasant organisations; and into imperialist powers and workers and peasants militias.

reactionary forces. Before such organisations are This is possible only by relying on the power which Soviet Republic mean littlemade possible-the power of the , masses-and by expanding and soviets?' deepening the mass struggles, The constituent assembly, 14. The dictatorship of the proletariat, is like the dictatorship of other classes in that, like any dictatorship, it originates in the necessity of suppressing by force the resistance of the class which is losing its political power. The fundamental difference between the proletarian dictatorship and the dictatorship of other classes, that of the large landowners in the Middle Ages and that of the bourgeoisie in all civilized It only through the capitalist countries, consists in this, that while the dictatorship of the large landowners and the bourgeoisie, forcibly The central question facing suppresses the resistance of the overwhelming majority of the population, namely the working government. The Socialist. masses, the dictatorship of the proletariat is the forcible suppression of the resistance of the exploiters, that is, of the minority of the population, the large landowners and capitalists.

From this glowing account The essence of Soviet power lies in this, that the permanent and sole foundation of the entire State power, of the entire State apparatus, is the mass organization of those very classes which were oppressed by the capitalists, that is, the workers . and semiAn editorial from Sacialist proletarians (peasants who do not exploit labour and who are always forced to sell at least "The decisive question at the part of their labour)..

The masses, who even in the the masses at every level: into most democratic bourgeois workers, soldiers and peasants republics, where in law they had equal rights, but in fact were prevented by a thousand ways and tricks from taking part in political life and making use of s democratic rights and developed abstract slogans for a liberties, are now drawn into continuous, unhampered, and what is soviet power without decisive participation in the democratic administration of the State.

SO ship of the Proletariat' (1919).

15. The equality of citizens, regardless of sex, religious belief, race, nationality, which bourgeois democracy always promised everywhere but in fact never carried out, and could not carry out because of the rule of capitalism, has been made a complete reality at one stroke by the Soviet regime, or the proletarian dictatorship, for only the power of the workers, who are not interested in private property in the means of production and in the struggle for their distribution and redistribution, is able to do this.

16. The old democracy, that is, bourgeois democracy and parliamentarianism, was so organized that it was the working classes who were most alien to the administrative machine.

The Soviet power, the proletarian dictatorship, on the other hand, is so organized that it brings the working masses close to the administrative machine.

The merging of legislative and executive power in the Soviet organization of the State serves the same purpose, as does the substitution of the production unit, the workshop or factory, for the territorial constituency.

17. The army was an instrument of oppression not only under the monarchy; it is still that in all bourgeois republics, even the most democratic.

Only the Soviet power, as the only established State organization of the very classes oppressed by the capitalists, is in a position to abolish the dependence of the military on the bourgeois command and really fuse the proletariat with the military, to arm the proletariat and disarm the bourgeoisie, without which the victory of socialism is impossible.

18. The Soviet organization of the State is designed to give the proletariat, as the class which was most concentrated and educated by capitalism, the leading role in the State.

• The experience of all revolutions and all, movements of enslaved classes, the experience of the world socialist movement, teaches us that only the proletariat is in a position to unite the scattered and backward strata of the working and exploited population and carry them along.

19. Only the Soviet organization of the State is able to destroy, at one stroke and completely, the old, that is, the bourgeois apparatus of bureaucracy and judiciary, which under capitalism, even in the most democratic republics, remained and had to remain, being in fact for the workers and the working masses the greatest obstacle to making democracy effective. The Paris Commune took the first world historical step in this direction, the Soviet regime the second.

20. The abolition of State power is the goal of •all socialists, including and above all Marx. Unless this goal is reached true democracy, that is, equality and freedom is not attainable.

But only Soviet and proletarian democracy leads in fact to this goal, for it begins at once to prepare for the complete withering away of any kind of State by drawing the mass organizations öf the working people into constant and unrestricted participation in State administration.

The Iranian SWP's position and method of approach is also clearly different from that spelled out in the Trotskyist Transitional Programme which shows the links between democratic demands and the transitional demand for soviets.

Backward countries are part of a world dominated by imperialism. Their development, therefore; has a combined character: 'the most primitive economic forms are combined with the last word in capitalist technique and culture. In like manner are defined the political strivings of the proletariat of backward countries: the struggie for the most elementary achievements of national independence and bourgeois democracy is combined with the socialist struggle against world imperialism. Democratic slogans, transitional demands, and the problems of the socialist revolution are not divided into separate historical epochs in this struggle, but stem directly from one another. The Chinese proletariat had barely begun. to organise trade unions before it had to provide for soviets. In this sense, the present programme is completely applicable to colonial and semi-colonial countries,, at least to those where the proletariat has become capable of carrying on independent politics.

It is impossible merely to reject the democratic programme; it is imperative that in the struggle the masses outgrow it. The slogan for a National (or Constituent) Assembly preserves its full force for such countries as China or India.

As a primary step, the workers must be armed with this democratic programme. Only they will be able to summon and unite the farmers. On the basis of the revolutionary democratic programme, it is necessary to oppose the workers to the 'national' bourgeoisie. Then, at a certain stage in the mobilization of the masses under the slogans of democracy, soviets can and should arise. Their. historical role in each given period, particularly their relation to the National Assembly, will be determined by the political level of the proletariat, the bond between them and the peasantry, and the character of the proletarian party policies. Sooner or later, the soviets should overthrow bourgeois democracy. Only they are capable of bringing -the democratic revolution to a conclusion and likewise opening an era of socialist revolution.

Trotsky

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Socialist Press talks to Camden dustmen's steward John Seymour. dnesday 28 February 1979