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Borders, they oppose us, they are against our appointments ...

They say the army must be destroyed, that councils must run the affairs of the nation, and that the people must be in a state of revolution all the time... ".

Indeed among the appointments opposed by the massas is that of armed forces chief of staff General Mohammed Vali Qarani. Soldiers are reportedly on strike against him.

Clearly Bazargan is desperate to defuse this political challenge from the working class.

This is why Khomeini's decision to move from Tehran back to the religious city of Oom must be designed to help strengthen Bazargan's contral authority, and weaken the power of the committeos and councils.

The same motive is behind the proposed referendum on March 30 to formalise the establishment of the Islamic Republic. If such a referendum produces a 'yes' vote it will be used by Bazargan as a vote of confidence his bourgeois government, and a means of postponing to the indefinite future any kind of elections to a constituent assembly.

It is essential that the Iranian masses are now equipped with a programme, combining democratic ànd transitional demands, which can focus their struggles against the Bazargan government and point to the necessity for a workers and peasants government to nationalise the banks, all. major industry and the land without compensation under workers' management.

Prominent in such a programme must be the demand for immediate elections to a constituent assembly on the basis of a universal franchise, and the demand for the repudiation of all foreign debts.

At the same time the existing. workers. committees and councils must be extended and developed into every sector of industry and every working class area.

And within this fight a revolutionary Trotskyist party must be built capable of taking forward the struggle for the defeat of Bazargan and the establishment of a workers and peasants government in Iran.