[‹ unity with Iranian bourgeoisie the Shah: strengthening…]
Socialist Press1979 1979-02-28Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 7 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 7
‹ unity with Iranian bourgeoisie the Shah: strengthening of nationalist British Labour government operation two years ago.
Already Chrysler has laid off 1,500 workers in Britain as a result of the ending of this trade with Iran.
But these direct effects bf the Iranian revolution ire possibly less significant than the indirect effects which this economic ponvulsion has produced.
Fears
Finance capitalists have in the last week expressed ncreasing fears for the roughly $12 billion which is ran's debt, incurred by the Shah's government, to banks in Europe and the United States.
With the Revolutionary Council of striking workers till in control of the Central Bank, there is little hance that due payments unity In 1973 the Fedayeen ublished in Iran Jazani's amphlet, The Socio-Economic nalysis of a Dependent Capitait State which stresses that the ple of a working class vanguard to unite with the national burgeoisie against imperialism Ir a two stage revolution-the ist a national revolution, the ¡cond a 'people's revolution' Exploitation "In so far as this is a class stem based upon the exploitaan of a great majority by a hall minority, the deepest and ost fundamental of its contrastions is that which enables ie growth of the system and • continuation of exploitaSince the relations of proIction in this system are based I capitalism, there seems to be tendency among some Marxist aments to believe that the incipal contradiction in Iran day is that between labour id capital. If this is the case these loans will be made the near future if ever. There is much talk of the possible retaliatory freezing of the estimated S 10 billion of official Iranian assets INDEX 1970 = 100 1,200 £750M OK EXPORTS -TO IRAN TOTAL UKEXPORTS £66M 1970 then our country is on the verge of a socialist revolution and the working-class together with its allies forms the basis of the revolution. But this is an erroneous belief.
The contradiction between labour and capital, with its social manifestation i of a confrontation between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, cannot be the principal contradiction of the system prevailing in Iran.
For this reason our society is not at the stage of a socialist revolution, ie it is not a revolution where the slogan would be the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and 'the expropriation of all private capital. Moreover, the need for the reconstruction of the national economy, and the need to uproot dependent industries and to end the economic domination of imperialism immediately after the people's triumph make it imperative that our society should go through a necessary • Khomeini's homecoming speech ran. estimated to be in imperialist banks.
But this would be a desperate measure which might provoke other countries to withdraw funds.
Yet Iran's default without retaliation could have even worse effects in the form of bank panics and failures.
Already Dow Chemicals have got a court order to freeze the US assets of a small Iranian bank for non-payment of due money. And this may set a precedent for their US companies.
They may try the same tactics of asset freezing or confiscation in relation to the penalty clauses in the cancelled arms deals. period of transition before the establishment of socialism.
To sum up: because of the necessity of anti-imperialist struggle, because of the progressive nature of part of the bourgeoisie, and since it is imperative to go through a period of transition before socialism, the principle contradiction of our society, mainly the contradiction upon which the present class system is based is that between the people and its enemies.
The economic manifestation of this contradiction is that the exploited as well as the strata and classes under imperialist oppression are on the one side, and on the other side there are the domestic exploiters dependent on foreign domination, and foreign capitalists who have an all pervasive control over Iran.
The social aspect of this contradiction is that there are the workers, the peasants, the urban and rural petty bourgeoisies and the national bourgeoisie on the one side, and on the other side, there are the comprador bourgeoisie, whether in the form of private capital or Government sector; foreign capitalists and imperialist powers."
In an earlier passage Jazani seeks to explain the treachery of the Soviet and Peking bureacracies in supporting the Shah, which of course he does not call "They manage to capture a considerable portion of the market from the international monopolies.
They help their economic growth by expanding economic relations with Iran.
They may also believe that with the expansion of such economic relations they are If it were the direct effects of the revolution on, say, oil prices which was the most important consideration, then the biggest oil importer-such as Japan and West Germany-would find their currencies most severely hit.
But, on the contrary, the first effects have been to further weaken the dollar in relation to the yen and the Deutschmark.
What this suggests is that the effect of Iran's (a) helping towards the economic independence of Iran, and (b) that by the expansion of the public sector (eg steel industries, etc.) they are helping to create "socialist" as against "capitlist" tendencies in the system.
We believe that if the socialist states are swayed by such considerations then they have no objective understanding of the ruling system in Iran and they have also failed to pay due attention to global transformations relating to countries like Iran."
Having delivered this mild criticism to these 'socialists' Jazani urges them not to move towards outright opposition to "The revolutionary movement in Iran does undoubtedly suffer as a result of the socialist countries' friendly relations economic situation on the imperialist economy is to magnify the imbalance which already existed independently of the Iranian crisis.
The Iranian revolution has already, only two weeks old, had the effect of sharpening the capitalist world's economic crisis.
Rut the mnet hacir DuL L11C vasIL reason why the imperialists tremble at the sight of the Iranian revolution is not either the immediate or feared direct economic bourg with Iran because of their aborove or the recime ano ther co resen relations Four struggle with it. Wve tUSE Tonowine Tom the soviet Union China and other socialist states:
1. We are in no way in favour of a propaganda war between Iran and the socialist states since we would not be the beneficiaries of such a war; neither do we expect these states to break diplomatic relations with Iran.
2. Howerver, we demand that the socialist states refuse, at any price, to approve the regime's programmes and its internal as well as regional policies; and that they further refuse to adopt a friendly stand towards the basest ectatorship in the region. The continuation of the economic relationship END consequences.
The real cause of their terror is the sight of one of the most powerful, internationally supported, well armed regimes in the world reduced to dust in a few months before a mass movement of workers, peasants and students, armed until the last moment with little more than an unshakable 1T. - -- . 1 determination to rid themselves of tyranny and oppression.
That is enough to any imperalist's blood cold. with Iran is in no way dent upon such a stand.
3. We expect the socialist pressure groups in the socialist states, as we expect similar groups in the West, to protest against crimes committed by the regime and to make public opinion aware of what happens inside Iran."
Such passages from the leading theoretician of the Fedayeen are a clear statement of their hostility for permanent revolution which demands that the masses struggle for a socialist revolution against Khomeini's new regime.
Forces which pull behind the Fedayeen in practice will be pulled behind Khomeini and the bourgeois torces. They could well end up on the receiving end of bullets from the religious leader whose power theysupport The takeover of the Niaravan Palace
Scan page 8
The first ever comprehensive exhibition of the work of the Soviet artist, Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956) has been mounted at the Museum of
----- pull-quotes -----
ARTIAL IN IRA