Iranian militants put forward independent lin

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We reprint below a leaflet issued by an Iranian group calling for 'Unity of communist militants'.

The leaflet, translated from Persian by "student supporters of Iranian communist movement" , puts forward a class line in opposition to the Khomeini regime alongside an analysis of exactly why the Iraqi invasion is in the interests of world imperialism. Whilst the policy spelled out is not identical to our own. we renrint below a word for word extract from the leaflet: onlv spelling has been amended.

Anti-American demonstration in Tehran "The invasion of Iraqi Ba'ath regime in its continuation and depending upon certain circumstances, Is Ilkely to be transferred into a war ot annexation (in the form of disintegration of Iran, military occupation of Iran, annexation of regions of Iran • to Iraq and . . .). This invasion, in the actual fact is serving to provide the backgrounds, facilities and aids to counter-revolutionary imperialist bourgeoisie in accomplishing its final assault against the Iranian revolution, thus, is in essence against the revolution oi workers and toilers of Iran.

The Islamic Republic regime, since is a capitalist government and is an active component of bourgeois-imperialist counterrevolution which acts to serve the liquidation of the Iranian revolution, in the face of Iraqi invasion, due to its essence, acts not to defend the revolution of workers and toilers of Iran, but merely to defend its own existence.

This regime (The Islamic Republic) neither wishes nor can rely upon masses and their arming, and in the light of war with Iraq under the guise of emergency situations, the assault by an enemy, the necessity for the "defence of Islamic fatherland" and with reliance upon its disorganised military forces shall attempt:

a) To pursue more actively its policy which aims to take away political liberties and ANA IT WA =7 annihilate communists and other revolutionaries.

b) To intensify its assault against workers and their political organisations and trade unions, to pressurise workers more than before in order to increase the production and to militarise the work-places;

c) To establish semi-martial law rules and regulations and to utilise more actively and directly the armed forces in the service of quelling the revolutionary opposition and distructing democratic rights;

d) To increase its demogogic propaganda even more, and to slow down the loss of popularity of regime among working people by showing themselves as being anti-imperialist;

With respect to what was mentioned above:

Firstly, Iranian revolutionary workers have no animosity and difference in interests with Iraqi workers and toilers:

Secondly, Iranian workers and toilers see the war as one between two capitalist states which results in oppression and prevention of the spread of the revolutionary struggle in Iran; and therefore they defend their revolutionary achievements against this capitalist war.

From Iranian working class point of view, the Iraqi aggression is another effort by bourgeois-imperialist counter-revolution in providing and creating the background and circumstances for their ultimate assault against the revolutionary workers and toilers of Iran. J5---Such assault, whether carried out by Palizbans, Bakhtars, Madanies or Islamic republic regime, or by armies of the regimes of the region or the US imperialist army; can only be answered in a revolutionary manner by the creation of a revolutionary front, based on armed workers and toilers and under the leadership of communists.

The effort in organising this front irrespective of the potentiality of this or that specific assault is the immediate task of the communist movement of Iran.

Definite tasks facing communists in conjunction with this aggression are as below:

1) Iranian communists should struggle against the following trends which:

a) Encountering the present war, call upon the proletariat to defend Islamic republic regime or a faction within the ruling body, Propagate indifference and pacifism under the pretext that this war is not related to proletariat.

~ Publicise purely the struggle against this regime and ignore the Iran-Iraq war and its political aims.

2) Communists should consistently pursue the following agitative and organisational tasks in order to build up an independent proletarian movement and united revolutionary front against this war and its aims:

Exposing every the bourgeois nature of this war and its counter-revolutionary objectives:

b) Disclosing the anti-democratic activities of Iranian regime, which is carried out under the pretext of war and agitating and organising in defence of democratic rights as the essential ground for a mass mobilisation against all counterrevolutionary forces;

c) Agitating and organising the workers and toilers against all the efforts and attempts of the regime for the militarisation of work-place.

d) Revealing the policies and operations of the two factions within the ruling body in face of the war, and in their efforts to abuse the present situation to gain concession from each other:

e) Disclosing the reactionary policies oi the counter-revoluimperialiste • UDOUSILUI. (Ovaisi, Palizban and their activities in taking advantage from the circumstances that war has created.

f) Arguing for independent armed masses, the necessity for the permanent arming of masses and revolutionary organisation.

g) Creating and organising resistance committees, in factories, localities, schools ... independent of the government and bourgeois political parties.

UD.

h) Explaining the just struggle of revolutionary Kurdish movement and the heroic struggle of Kurdistan toilers as an example of an independent and • consistent popular resistance against the assault of different counterrevolutionary forces and currents.

i) Arousing of masses by historical examples of triumphant mass resistance under the leadership of communists .(e.g. Vietnam, Korea, Albania...). j) Arousing and organising the masses in probable occupied areas for the purpose of retreating the invading forces."

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We reprint here extracts from a leaflet distributed at the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) convention in Cleveland by the Socialist League and the Revolutionary Workers Group. The Socialist League is in sympathy with the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee but is barred from affiliating by reactionary US legislation.

Reagan, (left), Carter with defeated rival Kennedy (right) There are no workers' candidates mrit The Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) is the largest rank-and-file opposition group in any union in the US or Canada.

It is also the only opposition group with a national organisation. TDU has in it a large number of militant workers who want to fight both the trucking companies and the union bureaucrats. The Teamsters are a very powerful union in a critical industry.

IBT backs Reagan.

On Wednesday 8 October 1980 the Teamster leadership endorsed Ronald Reagan for president., Endorsing this labour-nater is an outrage to the membership! The rank-and-file, as usual, was not even consulted.

Behind the endorsement is obviously an implicit or explicit deal between Reagan and the mob to let the latter graze off the Teamster pension funds in peace and to end the government's investigations and prosecutions.

TDU cannot remain silent in the face of the Teamster leadership's action. Silence would mean acquiescence. Endorsement of Carter obviously would be no better, since Carter is as much labour's enemy as Reagan.

TDU also cannot get away with "rejecting politics", however much some TDU supporters may want to. Business unionism-even "militant and democratic" business unionism -means giving the capitalist parties and their government an open field for preparing and carrying out repression of workers' struggles.

Either TDU accepts capitalist politics by default, or it begins to put forward its own working class politics.

A Plan of Action for TDU TDU must begin to move in a new direction, if it is to NADENTAL FLECTION survive. This requires a new plan of action, a new programme and 1. Union democracy. TDU came together largely over the struggle for union democracy within the Teamsters. Union democracy requires that the local membership meet regularly.

The membership must have full information and must make all key decisions. All committees--including negotiating and strike committees-editorial boards, convention and council delegates, officers and business agents must be elected at least annually and subject to easy recall. An International convention must be held each year to elect the entire International FLiP! women are in the union in substantial numbers. The division between the largely white, male drivers and the rest of the union makes it impossible for the Teamsters to use its enormous strength.

TDU must lead the union in a fight against race and sex discrimination in Teamster workplaces and in American society generally. 4. Oust all the bureaucrats. The policy of supporting out-bureaucrats against in-bureaucrats is a dead end, as TDU experience has shown. Very rarely do outbureaucrats really make a programmatic break from the inbureaucrats even in words.

In the rare cases where the rank-and-file movement an outa serious attempt to build a workers' party based on the unions-union militants should be willing to give the outbureaucrat critical support.

TDU has been much too promiscuous in its supportusually uncritical-for • outbureaucrats masquerading as TDU supporters or at least "friends" . This must stop. TDU must declare war on all the bureaucratic factions. 5. Keep the government out of the union. Even worse than the policy of supporting out-bureaucrats to "reform" the Teamsters is the policy of asking the bosses' government to do it through court suits against the union. If the TDU leadership were to attempt to turn to the Flip! working class is independent working class political action against the capitalists. But political action requires political organisation, which means a working class political party that would also defend the interests of black people and other minorities, women, gays and even the lower sections of the middle class.

The unions are big enough and powerful enough to build a workers party overnight. To further the cause of independent working class political action, TDU should not only fight to dump the Teamster bureaucrats, it should also demand that the union lead in calling a union conference to found a workers' party in the US.

A first step in this direction could be gaining rank-and-file control of funds of IBT Political Action Committees, which then could be used to support independent labour candidates. 7. The struggle for a workers' government. Independent working class political action not only regies a workers pary requires programme for that party. That programme can be summarized in a single phrase: workers' power.

No, workers' power means a class-wide fight for sliding scales of wages and hours, mass labour/black mobilisations against the Nazis and Klan, political strikes against military interventions and war, workers' control of production, expropriation of the monopoly corporations without compensation to their wealthy owners, and a workers' government based on democratically elected workers' councils. This should be the plan of action for the workers'