Islamic bigots grapple with Iranian mass struggles

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'Strike after strike, occupation after occupation, marches after marches, the spreading of one lying rumour after another.

All these things displease 'God' and the Ayatollah Khomeini.

In a broadcast last week, Khomeini declared that under the dictatorship of the Shah such actions 'pleased God' But now that they threatened the Islamic government, they should be regarded as 'major sins' if you support Islan and its principles of freedom you must cease opposition and obstructionism which weaken the government's work for the nation and its help for the poor.

These desperate pleas and threats were wrung from the Ayatollah in the aftermathc of the elections to the *Constituent Assembly'.

Debacle

That brief detour into the realms: of bourgeois democracy has proved to be a disastrous debacle for the regime of Khomeini and Bazargan In exile and opposition, the Ayatollah had promised free elections to a constituent assembly.

But once installed as de facto head of state, Khomeini extended his attacks on 'Western' democracy, and abandoned any commitment to such Instead, the constitution of the Islamic Republic' was to be drawn up by the Revolutionary Council and then presented for approval before an appointed group of religious dignitaries.

The widespread hostility which greeted this announcement forced Khomeini to concede some trappings of formal democracy.

The object of this exercise remained unchanged: to legitimise the regime by the sanction of some body supposed to represent the people of Iran.

The constitution had already been drawn up by Khomeini's aides: the assembly was intended to do no more than rubberstamp their proposals, or at most introduce minor refinements.

But the religious leaders took no chances on getting the kind of assembly they wanted.

Free to stand

All parties were theoretically free to participate and stand candidates. . The Stalinist Tudeh Party took full advantage of this, as did the guerrilla Bakhtiar *251 groupings of the Fedayeen and Mujahideen-early reports suggested that one of the Mujahideen's candidates had actually been elected.

But the nationalist organisations of the Kurds, and of the Arabs in Khuzestan, condemned the draft constitution and the proposed assembly calling for a boycott.

They were joined by all the main bourgeois parties except the Islamic Republican Party which supports Khomeini.

The National Front, National Democratic Front and Moslem People's Republican Party were brought to this position through opportunism and a difference of assessment with Khomeini as to how stability is to be restored for capitalism in Iran.

Their stance made little difference to the results. Khomeini urged the masses

Rigged

In case the message was not clearly understood, the regime resorted to inore direct methods and rigged the elections in the most blatant and incompetent way.

No lists of candidates to vote as part of the religious observati ons of Ramadan, and to se lect men learned in Koranic law and tradition.

Khomeini rides into town drawn from the religious establishment-who filled in the papers of the illeterate voters, and some 50% of the electorate is illiterate.

The final results are still far from clear, but it comes as no surprise that the Islamic Republican Party las probably gained 70 of the 73 seats This 'victory' solved nothing for Khomeini.

Protests about "irregularities have been widespread, and the election has provoked a deepening split etween Khomeini's suppor ters and the Moslem People's Republican Party which backs the Ayatollah Shariat-Madari.

Shariat-Madari favours the creation of a secular bourgeois democracy or constitutional monarchy, and this has led to disagreements with the Revolutionary Council in the past.

His considerable base of support is in Azerbaijan, and Shariat-Madari is now relying on this strength in thinly-veiled threats against Khomeini All Azerbaijan knows me. If I declare a holy war, they will all rally behind me.

Losing control

The urges: speeches Shariat-Madars 2a 2=35 that Khomeini is rapidl losing control over the developing political turm oil.

It is no accident that the Shah's twin-sister Asheaf Pahlavi and his puppet prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar have recently surfaced to portray themselves as champions of liberty in Iran.

Such grotesq distorDictatorship Khomeini and Bazargan are driving ahead with their moves to impose a counterrevolutionary dictatorship in Iran.

The 'revolutionary tribunals are continuing to mete out barbaric punishment both for real sexual offenders such as rapists, and for innocent victims of religious bigotry, such as homosexuals.

But the fanatical frenzy of this crusade has reached the pitch of paranoid hysteria where the so-called Justice Minister claims that the National Gay Rights Coalition of New Zealand is threatening to assassinate him.

Increasingly repressive press censorship has led to the closure of the oppositional paper Ayandegan and other publications.

But this has provoked pitched battles between Khomeini's revolutionary guards' and the print workers, and has driven the prosecutor general to resign.

Rebuild army ....

Bazargan has declared.

that to end arms contracts with the US would fundamentally damage the interests of the Iranian people? , and the regime is forging ahead with plans to reconstruct the armed But troops have mutinied against the executions of officers condemned for their attacks on the mass mobilisations against the Shah's dictatorship.

Military leaders

resigning daily in protest at are the limitations on their demands for massively increased powers.

Chaos is threatening to overwhelm the KhomeiniBazargan regime as it struggles in vain to assert its reactionary authority over the working class in Iran.

This struggle cannot continue indefinitely-it must be resolved decisively in favour of one class or another, the proletariat or the bourgeoisie.

The workers of Iran have time and again displayed their strength and heroism.

Conscious

But those qualities will not answer their needs if they are not developed by a conscious revolutonary leadership, armed with the Trotskyist programme that embodies the experience of the international communist movement.

There is only one alternative prospect to the task of building such a revolutionat party in Iran, and that is :%= ertain brutal and -iso defeat of the Iranian Arian is perform that ne =2i are gathered in the wings in numbers which grow daily.

They are now preparing for the moment when Khomeini has outlived his usefulness before they step forward to seize the centre of the stage with a new barbarism of military dictatorship and absolute repression.