Khomeini Fights to Keep Control

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Crisis is gripping the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini from all sides.

The drive towards the dictatorship of the Islamic Republic' is now shuddering with convulsions, and every day brings the political situation in iran closer to an explosion that will burst beyond the control of the religious leaders.

Khomeini's authority now depends on the success of desperate manoeuvres, and the crisis of proletarian leadership. The pressure of the national movement in Kurdistan has already forced Khomeini into retreat on a major plank of his programme-the integrity of the Iranian state as inherited from the Shah.

But even while the emissaries of the 'Revolutionary Council' enter into negotiations on autonomy with the bourgeois nationalist leaders of the Kurdish Democratic Party, the KDP finds itself unable to control the development of the struggle against national oppression.

Ignored

The KDP's truce with Khomeini's army has been ignored by significant groups of Kurdish fighters, who have continued to advance with military successes.

The most dramatic indication of this breakdown of authority from both central government and the' nationalist leadership came with the assassination last week of General Sharifi.

Sharifi-commander of in his own helicopter police in Kurdistan-was killed by a Kurdish militant.

But it is not only in talking with the 'children of the devil' that Khomeini has been forced to make violent turns in policy.

• The massive crisis of the Iranian regime has crystallised round the occupation of the US Embassy in Tehran.' This action has demonstrated once again the extreme ec The biggest single grouping calling itself Trotskyist, the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, has split on the eve of its Xith World Congress.

Throughout the USFI's sections, those members adher. ing to the Leninist Trotskyist Tendency have in the last few weeks been bureaucratically expelled by the USFI majority caucus-which comprises supporters of the American SWP and the former International Majority Tendency.

Expulsions In France some 400 members, organised in 60 branches, have reportedly split away from the LCR: a similar number appear to have been expelled in Spain. Expulsions are also reported in Portugal, Greece, Belgium and Denmark.

In Britain, where the LTT was a major force within the IMG, mass expulsions seem to have been averted by an eleventh hour climbdown by British LTT leader John Strawson-a capitulation echoed by other British LTT vulnerability of US imperialism.

Carter's administration has been powerless to launch any military intervention against this outrage to its property.

Forces have been placed on alert, as in Bahrain, but Carter has been forced to rely on diplomatic methods. Here too he has met with little success.

The two US emissaries sent to Khomeini remain kicking their heels in Turkey, while the Ayatollah refuses to deal with them.' No results Although Khomeini did agree to meet with the Papal nuncio, this exchange between the powers of religious reaction has produced no results.

Carter's desperate plight was fully exposed when he was forced to turn for help to the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

But and supporters.

Meanwhile, as the USFI destroyed for all time its pretensions of allowing full internal democratic rights to minority tendencies, the major opposition grouping, the Bolshevik Faction (comprising the bulk of the USFI forces in Latin America and some supporters in Europe) confirmed its decision to boycott the USFI Congress from which the majority had already threatened to exclude its supporters.

The BF denounced the USFI leaders' refusal to allow a postponement of the Congress to enable a discussion to take place on the implications of the Nicaraguan revolution, in which the majority leadership has adopted a position of craven political support for the popular frontist Sandinista regime.

This has involved official USFI support for the moves by the Sandinistas to crush left wing opposition, including the deportation from Nicaragua of the BF-organised Simon Bolivar Brigade' Boycott The BF also pointed to the also pointed to expulsions from the USFI as from the USI seem to have made little headway with Khomeini, even though they have successfully exploited the situation to advance their diplomatic career to international respectability in the camp of imperialism.

Within the US itself, Iranian students have demonstrated with demands for the extradition of the Shah, and this development has provoked a reactionary response in some sectors.

One Iranian student, harassed by chauvinist youth, retaliated by shooting at them and killing one..

At the same time there are reports of groups of dockers blacking exports to Iran.

Amid this chauvinistic outcry, Carter has been unable to act with anything more substantial than the petty vindictive attack on Iranian students who have supposedly stayed in the US in defiance of bourgeois law.

unmistakeable evidence that the majority would not permit a democratic congress-and decided to boycott the proceedings, effectively splitting from the USF!.

. This split-however it has tactically arisen-creates entirely new and favourable conditions in which to advance the struggle for the reconstruction of the Fourth International.

Not since 1953 has there been such a ferment of activity and confusion within the world Trotskyist movement, or such an opportunity to clarify the political problems that have dogged the movement for the last 30 years.

The immediate move of the BF and the LTT has been to take steps, in conjunction with the Communist Organisation for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International (led by the French OCI) to convene a 'democratic conference open to all forces claiming 'to be This, they say, is in order to "struggle against the dispersal of the forces and organisations that identify themselves with the Fourth International."

A joint parity commission has been established, and Khomeini with PIO londor Arnfut Www stuner drujul This will undoubtedly provide the excuse for widespread police harassment of the Iranian community:

But all this does precisely nothing • to relieve Carter's humiliation while it succeeds in hardening the anti-imperialist movement in Iran.

The seizure of the Embassy was carried through by supporters of Khomeini, although it remains unclear how far the 'Revolutionary Council' itself was involved in the planning.

Their action was based on two contradictory political positions, forced together in an unstable unity of conflicting Extradition The students and youth rallied round calls of support for Khomeini and Islam, while they attacked the role of US imperialism in Iran and demanded the extradition of the Shah.

tentative date of for this conference.

The parity commission declaration points out that:

"The danger of a break-up of the forces of the Fl is much greater than it was when Pabloism developed in 1951, since the attack on our principled positions [by the USFI majority] is much more brutal than it was in those years."

There is indeed a danger that without a prompt initiative many ex-USFI forces could become demoralised and an opportunity to win them to Trotskyism could be lost.

Parallel danger

But the parity commission fails to address itself to a parallel danger: that in seeking as they put it to "reconstruct and recombine the International and its organisations in one reunified Fourth international' the BF, OCRFI and LTT could find themselves rushing into the formation of yet another opportunist bloc along the lines of the USFI "Reunification" in 1963.

The three prime movers in the conference are themselves divided on a number of political questions-and the extent of agreement on others can only be established through a thorough and objective discussion on an explicit programmatic statement and on the historical lessons of An obvious target-the The embassy occupation nas become the focus of political activity in Iran, and has served a vital function to Khomeini in uniting major political factions.

Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have participated in the demonstrations outside the buildings, and this movement has been carefully drawn into an organised campaign. Sunday saw particular demonstrations by construction workers, airforce cadets and schoolgirls-three groups Whose support to Khomeini has remained solid amid the rapid growth of disillusionment with the 'Islamic Republic' and its 'revolutionary' pretensions.

Such mobilisations have gone alongside an orchestrated barrage against US imperalism through the media, and these attacks show no signs of faltering. Khomeini himself plainly authorised this development and is determined to remain at its head.

The Ayatollah has thrown himself forward as the anti-imperialist cheerleader. A series of attacks on the US as the 'satanic super-power' culminated over the weekend with the call for the impeachment of President Carter as an enemy to humanity.

This new situation . has finally broken the last flimsy shreds of authority of Bazargan's cabinet. Bazargan's recent meeting in Algiers with Brzezinski, Carter's aide provoked violent responses in Iran when it became clear that he had not demanded the extradition of the Shah.

Attacks mounted on his cabinet, which was daily accused of wishing to restore the regime of the Shah without the Shah in person, and of acting in the interests or even as the direct agent of US imperialism.

This pressure forced Bazargan to acknowledge defeat, and to offer once again the post-war crisis the Trotskyist movement.

However the conference is convened with no preconditions on those participating: it is not called on a platform of at once forming à new international organisation —but rather to see what level of agreement exists.

Possibility

And in offering the possibility of a serious reexamination of the central problems facing the Trotskyist movement, the conference will without doubt offer the possibility of taking a major step forward to the fight for the principled reconstruction of the Fl.

As such, the Workers Socialist League-while maintaining its political disagreements with the BF, LTT and the OCRFI-welcomes the initiative for the conference.

We declare ourselves ready to participate and fight within it for our programmatic and historical positions.

Our National Committee has not yet had the opportunity to study the declarations of the parity commission. A full state+ ment on those declarations and our attitude to the building of. this conference will appear in Socialist Press in the next few weeks, Shah with US sponsor Nixon the resignation of his cabinet. Khomeini's final acceptance of the resignation (which has often been rejected in the past) reflected his awareness that in the new crisis in Iran Bazargan's cabinet and other trappings of the orthodox bourgeois state had become a complete irrelevance.

The central authority in Iran now rests solely with Khomeini, the 9-man Revolutionary Council' and the aides which surround them. Around this nucleus of religious bigotry there lies the Assembly of Experts, still debating the const¡tution of the 'Islamic Republic' and ready to step forward if necessary as a surrogate parliament.

Reaching down from these institutions is' the network of local Islamic militia (the Pasderan), tribunals and commi ttees of mullahs, which still wield considerable power.

Alongside this hierarchy stands the shaky apparatus knocked together from the remnants of the Shah's machine of repression-the armed forces, police, and military governors.

Khomeini cannot count on the absolute loyalty of either structure.

At the same time, mass hopes of freedom and equality with the downfall of the Shah have been shattered as Khomeini has made no moves to end exploitation and oppression.

Continuing unemployment, inflation, poverty and starvation have produced a crisis of confidence in the religious leaders.

In these conditions, socialist opposition to the reactionary Islamic bigots can clearly make major advances.

It is in the battle to head off this dangerous development and to break down any moves by the working class to assert its political independence as a class, that Khomeini has been forced to resort to the tactics pioneered by Nasser and tried by every radical nationalist leader in the Middle East since then.

Khomeini seeks to divert political attention away from the total crisis of his regime, by focussing on the popular target of US imperialism, The Khomeini press is now urging the masses to "act spontaneously whenever the government does not behave in the interests of the country and the Islamio revolution."

But as one of the Ayatollah's chief advisors admitted, "it is not possible to govern a country with permanent popular spontaneism."

Already organised oil

workers in Khuzestan are demanding a government em bargo on supplies of crude to the US, and the impetus of this movement is ready at any möment to break beyond the confines imposed by the religious leaders.

Playing with fire in an arsenal piled high with explosives is a dangerous game.

Khomeini has played it before and won.

But this time it is his seat of power in Qom and not the Peacock Throne which will be blown sky high at the point of explosion.