Iran: Book Review

nion Rights in Iran. London WCIV 6X: ?, which is published The book, price For twenty-five years, imperialism has been soothed by a comforting belief-a belief that the political life of the Iranian working class had been finally laid to rest in the CIA-organised coup which brought the Shah to power in 1953. Now a spectre has darken every waking imperialism. Iranian workers have once again moved forward as a class, mobilising their organised strength in mass strike action against dictatorship and imperialism in Iran. The development has completely destroyed any fond illusion that the proletariat in Iran had become powerless or forever unconscious of its own power.

Throughout those twenty-five years, workers faced the vicious oppression of the Shah's labour laws, the constant attacks of SAVAK and periodic brutal repression from the armed forces. Yet even under these conditions it was never true that Iranian workers ceased to struggle The central problem that workers faced was not the conditions of political oppression, but the critical lack of a leadership to direct their struggles and lead them to a consciousness of their historical tasks as a class.

In the last few months, their militancy has been massively extended to new heights. At the their activity has been transformed into a movem wholly new political significance.

But this transformation of the workers not abolished the central problem that struggle of the Iranian proletariat. On the sharpened that problem even more acutely.

In 1901, Lenin wrote that the mass character of the [general democratic] movement does not diminish, but increases, our obligation to establish a strong and central- ised organisation of revolutionaries capable of leading the preparatory struggle, every unexpected outbreak, and, finally, the decisive assault!"

Ahmad Ghotbi quotes Lenin in his short and Begin. The portance of this book does not come from the specific, and very limited, political conclusions which Ghotbi reaches. Nor does it come from the elaborate but often confused analysis which lies behind them.

What is vitally important is the central political thrust which again and again breaks through the thin crust formed risen as if hour for rom the these and important the dead to haunt and lords and minions of many book of course same time ent with a 'movement has weakens every contrary, it has other Iran: words Where of to by Ghotbi's efforts strategy: "In writing this work we want to show that Iranian Marxist the immediate and most vital concentrate all energies on agitation on the front.' Since this book was published, the development of t struggles in Iran has revealed with stark and potentia tragic clarity the urgency of such a turn to developing t strength, organisation and consciousness of the worki class. Ghotbi's recognition of this necessi his work. But around this he builds an to express and develop his argument.

The two main blocks of this are a discussion of analysis of economism, and a second discussion of analyses of the relationship between the bourgeo democracy. Many of Ghotbi's secondary arguments are at best con- tentious, but it would be distracting to concentrate on what are often no more than distractions or inconsistencies.

The two sections are united by their conclusions on poli- tical strategy-conclusions which follow parallel courses in a misguided direction. Ghotbi begins the first, and far larger, section, by attempting to analyse and 'differentiate' three kinds of "working class struggle' . He presents these as 1) economic struggle; 2) political struggle; 3) socialist political struggle, These categories can be explained roughly as 1) sponta- neous militancy; 2) struggles which accept the limits of capitalism and fight for the minimum programme of reformism; 3) struggles which aim beyond the limits of capitalism and fight for the maximum programme of social revolution. Once he has established this formal his own satisfaction, Ghotbi uses it lengthy discussion of economism.

Its full significance only becomes ol shorter discussion on the nature of Ghotbi again atteripts to distinguish th cracy for capital; 2) democracy for democracy. At one level, the main point of t emphasise the partial character of the ment to democracy. But from thi assessment, Ghotbi breeds a curious theory of revolutio Page 8 do ughly one is an task is to industrial he lly he ng ty forms eccentric the fra core of mework Lenin's Marxist isie and as d rigid sch the basis ema to for his sious in the second, 'democracy. Here ree strains: 1) demo- labour; 3) socialist is classificat ourgeoisie s undeniably ıybrid -a th ion is to commit- correct ree-stage

The classic bourgeois-democratic revolution, argues Ghotbi, will not provide 'democracy for labour", but it does create the conditions for this to be achieved. Within the capitalist mode of production and bourgeois democracy, workers must use their organised strength in the fight to secure "democracy for labour": "If the working class wins democracy for labour it will have built itself a base from which it can begin the change- over to socialism. It will be able freely to organise itself for the overthrowing of the capitalist state (which must be smashed into pieces) and the establishment of the dictator- ship of the proletariat through soviets of workers. And through these soviets, and only through them, will real democracy, socialist democracy, be practised.

"Therefore, democracy for labour is an indispensable weapon for the working class in its fight to achieve socialist democracy. So if one's aim is socialist democracy, one must begin by fighting for democracy for labour.

As is clear from the scenario, Ghotbi rejects the theory of permanent revolution -for reasons best known to himself, since he does not argue them.

Scattered remarks on the IMG and the American suggest that his main experience of Trotskyism' has with the Pabloism of the USFI, and also with the sect state-capitalism of the British SWP.

Such experience of course often proves breeds a totally mistaken contempt for revolutionary force. But while Ghotbi dismisses the theory of permanent revolution, he is determined to reject completely the distor- tions and falsifications of Stalinism. The whole concept of "democracy for labour' is clearly put forward in sharp con- trast to the counter-revolutionary "two-stage' theory of revolution, which Stalinism advanced to justify its criminal policies of alliances with the "progressive" national bour- geoisie. Ghotbi has nothing but 'reformist class-collaboration Tudeh Party of Iran. To counter that monst to the writings of Lenin i of the 1917 revolution. In essence, Ghotbi's revive the position held 1917 on the relationship socialist revolution. In that pre-revolutionary period, the whole of Russian Social Democracy was agreed that the Russian bourgeoisie was incapable of fighting for the gains of the democratic revolution, which would have to be accomplished under the leadership of the proletariat.

Beyond this common starting point, developed between the Mensheviks on the Bolsheviks and Trotsky on the other.

SWP

been arian demoralising and Trotskyism as a scorn and hatred ist policy of the for the Stalinist rous betrayal, he has turned back n the period before the outbreak book represents an attempt to by the Bolsheviks before April between the democratic and the major differences one hand and the Results and Prospects. Central to this theory was Trotsky's recognition that once it had seized power, the proletariat would be unable to accomplish the tasks of the democratic revolution, and defend its gains against reaction, without passing over to launch the socialist revolution.

The method by which he reached this conclusion can be shown by one example, which is directly related to Ghotbi's concept of 'democracy for labour.

"The proletariat in power cannot but adopt the most energetic measures to solve the question of unemployment, because it is quite obvious that the representatives of the workers in the government cannot reply to the demands of unemployed workers with arguments about the bourgeois character of the revolution.

"But if the government undertakes to maintain the unemployed.. this would mean an immediate and quite substantial shift of economic power to the side of the proletariat. "The capitalists, who in their oppression of the workers always relied upon the existence of a reserve army of labour, would feel themselves economically powerless while the revolutionary government, at the same time, doomed them to political impotence.

"In undertaking the maintenance of the unemployed, the government therevy undertakes the maintenance of strikers. If it does not do that, it immediately and irrevocably undermines the basis of its own existence.

"There is nothing left for the capitalists to do then but to resort to the lockout, that is, to close the factories. It is quite clear that the employers can stand the closing down of production much longer than the workers, and therefore there is only one reply that a workers government can give to a general lockout: the expropriation of the factories and the introduction in at least the largest of them of state or communal production." (Results and Prospects).

When Lenin presented the April Theses in 191 arrived at the same position as Trotsky from route he had fferent Lenin held a perspective of the proletariat seizing state power, as the dominant political force in an alliance with the peasantry. This would establish the "democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry" which, after a certain period, would create the conditions for a second, socialist revolution.

Trotsky later characterised this formulation as " tionary and dynamic through and through" , but period up to April 1917 he polemicised vigorously what he recognised as the dangers of such a position.

Around the time of the 1905 revolution, he developed the theory of permanent revolution, which was set out in Page 9 revolu- in the against

Before then, a major contradiction had lain unresolved at the base of many of his central political positions. In particular, Lenin's stand on the national queston, and his perspective on the struggles for democratic rights in What is To be Done, are fundamentaily developed from the very theory which he apparently denied.

It is no accident that Ghotbi does not discuss ficance of the October Revolution, for that was proof of Trotsky's theory and remains the historical refutation o his own.

the signi- the living clearest The lessons of that experience were carried into the early revolutionary years of the Communist International, where the theory of permanent revolution was assumed as the basis of discussion on how to spread the revolution internationally. But by focussing his attention on the earlier period, Ghotbi takes no account of any of this. In struggling to avoid the perils of counter-revolutionary Stalinism, he has trapped himself in an ingenious but abstract structure which stands fixed in opposition to the living dynamic of the revolutionary process, with its complex interaction of democratic and socialist tasks.

This remains book. For all the determination and heroism they have shown in their long struggles against dictatorship, the workers of Iran have no hope of ending their oppression without the leadership of revolutionary socialists who can intervene as a conscious force in these battles with imperialism.

That leadership itself can never develop if it does carry into practice its theroetical understanding of historic tasks confronting the proletariat.

Of course that is a very basic lesson, but it is all the more important and urgent because of that. The central argument which Ghotbi tries to drive home in this book is precisely the necessity for Iranian 'Marxists' to make a decisive turn to the working class. That argument is enormously streng- thened by his own obvious confidence in the ability of the working class to struggle for the fulfilment of its historic tasks. Such strengths sectarianism and nings, but with leadership can be cally for its future is a major and possibly fatal weakness. But it of secondary importance to the strength of the not the stand in stark contrast to every variety of opportunism. They represent only begin- out such beginnings no revolutionary built in Iran to arm the proletariat politi- : battles. Why you should join the Workers Socialist League Quite nique! We're the only move- ment that fights patiently and relentlessly for the building of a Trotskyist party capable of mobilising the working class in the struggle for state power and the establishment of socialist society. In doing so, the WSL alone does not shrink from head-on battles with the existing leaders of the work- class-whether these be *left' talking Labourites, union bureaucrats Stalinists of the Communist Party. In these battles we set out to prove to workers both in theory and in prac- tice the necessity for a new leadership and for a programme of transitional demands which, starting from today's problems and today's consciousness within the working class, lead workers in struggle to grasp the need for socialist revolution. For this reason, though we are smaller than some self-styled revolutionary' WSL has groups, forefront of featured frankly, we're in he the struggles in British Leyland, in the fight against the sale of jobs by TUC leaders, in the struggle against the cuts, in unionisa- tion struggles, and in the fight against bureaucratic dictatorship within the unions. This method of approach -rejecting any descent simple trade union militancy, and any form of concession to the counter- revolutionary reformist or Stalinist bureaucracy-is of course essential the working class not only in Britain but internationally.

In taking up interna- tional issues the WL points out not only the obligation of British workers support the Irish liberation struggle and revolutionary struggles such as those in Iran and Southern Africa, but also the necessity for the reconstruction of the Trotskyist Fourth Inter- national as the organising centre of the world party of socialist revolution.

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