Iranian Maoists to Regime: “You wanted a fight? Let’s fight!”
Posted by n3wday on June 16, 2009
Photos from Iran's Upsurge of Anti-Regime Struggle -- KasamaProject.org
Kasama received the following leaflet thanks to A World to Win News Service.
Iranian Maoists: “You wanted a fight? Let’s fight!”
15 June 2009. A World to Win News Service. Following is a leaflet issued 15 June by the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist- Maoist). The title is a challenge to the regime.
Rebellion, revolutionary situation, an explosion of the hatred felt by millions of people throughout the country: it doesn’t matter what you call the recent events. What matters is that we have entered a new period. Many bridges have been broken and in many spheres there is no return to past. The young women and men fighting courageously in the streets reflect the discontent and anger of three generations. Faces are bloody, bodies bruised, but nobody is talking about retreat or surrender. Armed-to-the- teeth mercenaries and herds of lumpen are wandering the streets but nobody pays any attention to them. Parents accompany their children in the streets. The initial shock and demoralization is rapidly disappearing.
In the mind of millions, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s disgrace in the election farce has discredited the “possibility of change and the rectification of the regime from within” far more rapidly and effectively than any political debate and reasoning. The leading faction took a serious gamble with this. And now may of the rebellious youth are thinking about ways for effectively getting rid of the regime.
There was a clear example of this yesterday in the students’ response to Zahra Rahnavard [married to Mir-Hossein Mousavi] who had gone to [Tehran] university to calm them down: “We didn’t come to battle for the presidency of Mousavi, we have come to defeat the coup and smash the dictators’ set-up”.
This faction is trying to put its own chains on people’s minds by trying to popularise the slogan “Allah is great” and adopting the colour green [symbol of Islam]. They seek and to channel the people’s energy and imagination towards the cesspool of their own negotiations with the “Leader” and the ruling faction. This situation places an urgent task on the shoulders of all courageous and conscious youth, women and workers: that they participate in the street battles with slogans and leaflets and help widen and deepen the perspectives and aspirations of the masses of people to the maximum. This is the precondition for continuing to avoid the wrong roads different factions of the ruling class are trying to get the people to take. The slogans of the rebellion should go beyond those limited and common slogans that are aiming at dictators – Ahmadinejad and Khamenei – and their infamy, and add other appropriate slogans:
We are women and men of war. You wanted a fight? Let’s fight!
We don’t want an Islamic monarchy!
We don’t want an Islamic republic!
We don’t want Islamic rule!
Cannons, tanks and basiji [militia] scare us no more!
The only way to liberation is perseverance and persistence!
Poverty, corruption, unemployment = Islamic republic!
We don’t want the forced veil!
The sharp edge of the uprising targets the criminal gang of Ahmadinejad and the main directors of the scene behind him (a section of big capitalists, heads of the army and intelligence services, and a section of the Shiite clergy). But it is a big mistake if we limit the whole of the system to today’s putschists. All the factions of this state system, including the “reformists” , have spent 30 years in crime and theft. The fact that the wolves are now at each other’s throats in no way changes the anti-people nature of these factions. But the rift within the Islamic Republic is unprecedented. It has disturbed the internal coherence of the regime and weakened the regime in the face of the people. Ahmadinejad & Company’s show of force is a sign of desperation.
People should take maximum advantage of the weakening of the state and deal it effective blows. Women, youth, workers and teachers must win demands and rights with their own hands. For example, women can end the forced veil in practice, and by forming cells and taking charge of leading the struggles of women for liberation. Leftist students can and must form a coordinating headquarters for communication at the national level in order to dispatch the news of struggle and their own directives and slogans and popularise them widely. We cannot let Mousavi and the reformist faction become the headquarters of the struggle of the masses. If this faction becomes the “representative” of the people it would be a very heavy blow to the present liberating wave. We need our own revolutionary headquarters. Such an active headquarters, even if small, can become the foundation of a nationwide student organization. The workers of various factories from Ahvaz to Haft Tapeh, Karaj, Arak and Tabriz can rapidly form initial cells of a workers’ organization and become the general voice of the people against the Islamic Republic. By putting forward correct slogans and demands, they can become the real voice of the people and divert people’s thinking from “either Mousavi or Ahmadinejad” and explain that “Mousavi or Ahmadinejad” is exactly the IRI we have been experiencing for the last 30 years.
The previous generation of communists and liberation militants can play an important role in these two tasks: first they have the task of raising people’s sights from the narrow horizons of the reformists, and second, turning the initial links that are developing in the streets and in the heat of struggle into longer-term links in cells and various networks. There is no doubt that the active core and fighting force of this advanced and revolutionary political project should be made up of young students and workers in universities, neighbourhoods and factories.
People must know that Mousavi, Khatami, Rafsanjani and in general the whole ”reformist’ ‘ faction of the regime are negotiating behind the scenes with the “Leader” and the heads of the military and intelligence services in order to prevent the collapse of the whole IRI structure in the face of the people’s wrath. People must know that there are behind-the-scenes dealings between the heads of the IRI and regional and world powers (such as China, the EU, Turkey and the U.S.), with the aim of bringing a peaceful end to “the events”. The U.S.’s main concern is to open negotiations with the IRI in order to solve its problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In his key speech in Egypt – where he even praised the Islamic veil – Barack Obama emphasised that he has no problem with an Islamic republic. At present the U.S. is not in favour of “disrupting” the structure of IRI rule.
One important and decisive conclusion can be drawn from all this: people have come to understand their power. This power needs organization. People’s awareness is advancing rapidly. Their understanding can and must grow towards and reach the perspective of the overthrow of the IRI and making a real revolution, concentrating the suppressed dreams and longings of the majority of the people of Iran.
In his speech in Vali Asr Square Ahmadinejad called the rising masses “scum” and said that “the clean river of the people” will push them aside! This kind of talk means that the fight is seriously on and if we want to carry it through to the end we need to prepare. The regime and its various factions have their own political centres for deciding policy, developing slogans and manipulating people. The people need their own centres to analyse the political situation and devise policies for raising consciousness and continuing our own struggle.
The regime has its general staff and headquarters for military action and intelligence in order to suppress the masses. The people should have their own headquarters for the coordination, solidarity and organization of our own forces.
Soviet Republic said
I am unfamiliar with the present state of Iranian Maoism — do we have any idea (without, of course, publicly posting information that might alert the Iranian authorities) how much of a presence this group actually has in this country? Or is it primarily exiles?
Paul said
We all should join together to congratulate the Iranian Maoists for successfully forming Communist Party of Iran (Marxist Leninist Maoist). They are in the forefront in the democratic struggle against the present Islamic regime in Iran. I found their party programme on the website http://www.wprmbritain.org. Here is the link for their programme:
http://www.sarbedaran.org/language/CPIMLMdraftprog.htm
Revolutionary communists are internationalists. They have no national boundaries. If there is severe state repression in their home country, they have to operate from other countries. We should recollect from the history that several communist leaders like Chou En-lai of China who were in Europe those days made a big contribution to the formation of the Communist Party of China. So let us not use the word ‘exiles’ when we refer to any revolutionary who operates from other countries. It is the ideology and the revolutionary practise that matters, no matter where they are.
Let’s give our Red Salutes to the Iranian Maoists!
harilaos said
True, one can be an exile and still have influence in a given country. But the slogans against Islam seem to indicate they have very tenuous connections to the masses of rural and working classes in Iran.
Does anyone know who the CPI-MLM thinks the “main force” and “leading force” are in the current stage of the Iranian revolution; who is the target of the revolution; what form of government is aimed at; which classes are the revolutionary classes, etc.
Also I wanted to raise that there are some interesting statements from the Tudeh Party online at solidnet.org if anyone’s interested.
the cold lamper said
You are exactly correct, Paul, that it is the revolutionary practice of a party that is important, not where its leadership happens to be located at any given moment. I think, though, that that is exactly what “Soviet Republic” was trying to ascertain: where is this so-called revolutionary practice of the Sarbedaran? Personally, I haven’t seen a scrap of evidence (outside the self-congratulatory assertions of the party’s own periodic reports and declarations, and of their closest supporters like you) that the Iranian Maoists currently exist as any kind of organized, relevant social force inside of Iran, never mind being “in the forefront” of the current struggles. Zhou En-lai’s (co-)leadership from abroad wouldn’t have mattered much if there weren’t millions of communists and their supporters inside of China — does the Sarbedaran even have thousands, let alone millions, inside of Iran yet?
iranian said
If you don’t like iranian regime. why u still live there? You guys should live in western countries.
Mike E said
Iranian writes:
What’s interesting is that pro-government people say the same thing here in the U.S.:
“USA: Love it or Leave it.”
A common mentality.
Green Red said
Re Harilaos #3 posting;
For those who are not familiar with Tudeh Party, it would be only fair to know that this very party that worked as Soviet Union (with all its historical due respect) agents and spies and took long to acknowledge a bit of their rotten nature.
Among things they did:
They infiltrated the Peoples Fedaee Guerrillas’ ORGANIZATION, (that was later called Majority,) thus made them alike themselve from a Che + bits of Mao Tse-tung Thought into a Islamic regime servants.
In Amol’s Iranian MLM party’s uprising, i.e. Sarbedaran’s (that wasn’t a party yet then,) members of this party and the “majority” fadaees shot and killed the heroic ‘Maoist’ Iranian revolutionaries.
While, according to Sarbedaran’s own admission their uprising was neither a classical Maoist act (since it was attempting to take over the city and presumedly try to expand it into a local liberated zone…) nor a Lenin kind of revolution (since regardless of people’s dislike of the regime there wasn’t “soviets,” and … i guess they better translate their book about that uprising, nevertheless it was the greatest communist course of action since Siahkal’s uprising during the Shah time by the Fedaee group.
About how many people they have in Iran – that is absolutely none of anybody’s business. Are they all in exile? are all leftist parties supporters only in exile? Who has proven that? While such parties seem to be occasionaly slander against each other’s degree of support being too small, how do we know that within these very happening demonstrations their supporters are not making contact with heroic angry masses so that even when this uprising possibly calms down, newer genration of revolutionary communists will be taught what to do?
While their international positions haven’t always been perfect, for example re Nepal’s revolution or say how they should be supporting India, Philippine, etc. revolutionary Maoists (that is due to their faithfulness to the RIM thing) still, hair of the dog of these fellows are much more valuable than various ex pro soviet groups who are still siding with the regime. They might not be perfect Maoists, but certainly their not regime acting agents of all colors.
Miles Ahead said
To start with—I would like to thank Ka Green Red for trying to clarify things (politically, historically and currently) with his various comments and his post (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/06/17/reports-from-iran/ “Reports from Iran: Broad, Unprecedented”.) His last comment (Nº 7) on this thread was invaluable, especially to all those Ka Comrades, readers and supporters, who may not have even been born in 1979.
But from what I have read in the various comments so far, there is another current rearing its head. And I think “that current” is nothing new to our debates and discussions, but is a defeatist, ultimately conservative, chauvinistic, pureist and dogmatic one, even if certain individuals do not think of themselves as such, or have made meaningful past contributions to the people’s struggle both on their home turf as well as abroad.
I think the underlying problem with those types is a pretty shallow understanding of how revolution unfolds. Also, and just as important, how certain events draw lines of demarcation both within the people’s struggle and themselves as well as amongst and against the bourgeoisie and imperialists–both within their own “native” country, as well as how things play out on a world scale.
The stand of certain “revolutionaries” over the recent mass upsurge in Peru, for me, brought this current (or line) to the fore, once again. Here you have/had—things are not decided yet—a struggle that originally was initiated by the indigenous people of Peru in the Rain Forest, that erupted, united and included 100,000’s of people (worldwide and within Peru)—from various sectors—against not only the Peruvian government but capitalist-imperialist multinational corporations, and some were doubting their support, and more concerned with the actions and current and past politics of the PCP. And now, we have a similar current developing, among a select few, in regards to Iran and the Maoist forces.
For those of us in the U.S., who worked tirelessly for years, alongside and in support of our Iranian comrades from the Iranian Student Association—an organization that was instrumental in bringing the struggle of the Iranian people (under the Shah) to people on a world scale, when 1979 happened, hundreds, if not thousands, of those (exiled) comrades returned to Iran to continue the revolution. Almost all were captured, tortured and murdered under the Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime. Those fallen comrades and martyrs had joined forces with those revolutionaries who were still residing in Iran, with many of those forces falling as well, under the more than repressive Islamic Republic’s government, and as the I.R. consolidated its hegemony. Our comrades, no matter what some of our political differences were (and are) will always be in my heart and have my respect; as well as all those people who suffered unbearably under the Shah and his Gestapo police, SAVAK.
As far as the Maoist forces, Green Red explains:
So what is happening, 30 years later?! Thirty years! (but not the Thirty Year’s War of the 1600s). Millions of Iranians, from all sectors of the people are rising up, for various reasons, against the once thought of liberators after the Shah, but in fact, against one of the most repressive regimes in our recent history.
Within those millions there are different politics at play. How can any revolutionary, dialectical and historical materialist expect anything short of contradictory politics to be in play? And is the situation not changing hourly? Are the imperialists (let alone the heads of the I.R.) not scrutinizing this situation hourly? Even Nathan Gonzalez, a bourgeois “expert” who works for the Truman Institute, titled his article on the Huffington Post, “Is a Revolution Brewing in Iran?” I doubt that Gonzalez was thinking a Maoist revolution, but at this point, a bourgeois democratic revolution is cause for concern for the imperialists, as well as governments in the Middle East.
So…do we have a responsibility to the people, or are we simply voyeurs, or arm-chair revolutionaries?
Are we so pure and dogmatic, that we miss an “opportunity” such as Iran, or Peru, life and death struggles coming from the people themselves, to further our aim of communist revolution? Isn’t a big part of our responsibility to act as tribunes of the people, or are we so egotistical that we think our individual nod of approval or disapproval is going to stem the tide of the people?
I do not live in Iran. But I do live in a very poor country, at the beck and call of U.S. imperialism, that is becoming a mini-police state, and where the crackdown on the people is becoming more evident by the day. And so far the overall effect the developing repression and oppression has had on the majority of people is not one of rising up against their oppressors, but one of resignation, paranoia, alienation, a furtherance of individualism, and a general mood of being beaten down while just trying to accomplish the simplest thing in their lives. For now, the situation here is not a revolutionary one, even though revolutionaries exist here, and are active on and off (nor is the repression on the scale of Iran). But if we still believe in what Mao said, “where there is oppression, there is resistance,” then I am still holding out hope that the situation here can change. And what I do find “interesting” (damn, am sounding like Jon Stewart’s parody of CNN), is that the catalyst for the last big upsurge here, that involved millions of people, started around a bourgeois election. While the people for now are speaking in whispers, many have not forgotten some important lessons learned from that massive upsurge.
I am not trying to single Gangbox out, because he is not the only one who has similarly commented, but do want to highlight what he said, as representative of what I consider an incorrect trend and way of thinking. Remarks in bold are my doing:
http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/photos-from-irans-upsurge-of-anti-regime-struggle/
Gangbox Comment No. 3
the cold lamper said
Green Red: I wrote in a bit of a haste this morning. I probably wasn’t very clear.
My question about the Sarbedaran’s numbers was supposed to be rhetorical. I don’t actually expect them to give out sensitive information (like precise membership figures etc).
And even assuming they really are no more than a sect at this point, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. In some countries under certain historical circumstances, marginalization of revolutionaries may simply be inevitable for a certain period of time. That doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t do everything in their power to advance the revolutionary cause to the greatest degree possible, in the hopes of winning greater popular influence down the road sometime.
My beef was that Paul was lavishing praise upon these comrades in a way that seemed to be greatly exaggerating the degree of social sway they already have. And similar strains of this can be found in the official documents of the party — a type of grandstanding characteristic of many small encapsulated groups, that’s useful (up to a point) in raising morale of the few in and around the organization, but not so much at actually getting them out of their rut.
It’s a process I’m sure many of us reading this site are familiar with from having observed the RCP in the U.S. — a group which, incidentally enough, counts the Sarbedaran as one of its few remaining allies in the international communist movement. Perhaps this similarity is just incidental, but it is still rather striking, so I couldn’t help but observe it.
the cold lamper said
[Moderators: I've attempted twice now to post these comments, but each time they haven't showed up -- on my screen, at least. This'll be my last try, for now. If either or both of the original attempts miraculously appear later, just delete them:]
Green Red: I wrote in a bit of a haste this morning. I probably wasn’t very clear.
My question about the Sarbedaran’s numbers was supposed to be rhetorical. I don’t actually expect them to give out sensitive information (like precise membership figures etc).
And even assuming they really are no more than a sect at this point, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. In some countries under certain historical circumstances, marginalization of revolutionaries may simply be inevitable for a certain period of time. That doesn’t mean they can’t do important things to advance the revolutionary cause to the greatest degree possible, in the hopes of winning greater popular influence down the road sometime.
My beef was that Paul was lavishing praise upon these comrades in a way that seemed, to me, to be greatly exaggerating the degree of social sway they already have. And similar strains of this can be found in the official documents of the party — a type of grandstanding characteristic of many small encapsulated groups, that’s useful (up to a point) in raising morale of the few in and around the organization, but not so much at actually getting them out of their rut.
It’s a process I’m sure many of us reading this site are familiar with from having observed the RCP in the U.S. — a group which, incidentally enough, counts the Sarbedaran as one of its few remaining allies in the international communist movement. Perhaps this similarity is just incidental, but it is still rather striking, so I couldn’t help but observe it…
the cold lamper said
Mikes: I didn’t see your remarks until after I wrote my last post. Thank you for your comments.
I hope I wasn’t one of the people you saw coming across as defeatist or chauvinistic. I will cop to having been born post-’79, and of not knowing a whole lot about the events then and the role you and other revolutionaries in the U.S. played in supporting that upsurge. But I appreciate the importance of this rebellion in Iran now, which is clearly moving far beyond the demand for a kinder gentler theocracy embodied in the Mousavi and Karroubi campaigns.
I just think it is important that we temper our understanding of the possibilities in Iran with an accurate assessment of the already existing revolutionary groups like the Sarbedaran, which I saw sorely lacking in Paul’s post. It’s important so we can help them to figure out how to intervene in the present situation — or, for that matter, if they can, which is hardly a preordained fact. It may very well be that the preexisting groups have run out of steam, historically speaking, and that revolutionaries in Iran have to “cut deeper,” as Mike Ely is fond of saying, to actually come up with the answers to the current situation.
(In regards to the latter point, I see my frustrations with Paul as similar to the ones you were expressing earlier in the “Massacre in Peru” thread — where the only things several of the other commentators could think of, it seemed, were the latest twists and turns in the factional struggle within the Sendero Luminoso, without really considering how relevant they are to the concrete situation in Peru today.)
Green Red said
Dear Ka Cold Lamper,
Thank you very much for detailing and, accept my apology for taking it too harsh. But re other friend’s complimentary adoration of the Sarbedaran: Let’s say that it is not only their affinity with RIM’s mother party (the RCP,USA) that hopefully someday finds its original way back to be open.
recently i’ve ran into other folks who overestimate the Sarbedaran’s caliber and value but, would they not someday correct themselves again? Old comrades are comrades, even when hiding in their own convent.
What we don’t know about their connections inside Iran we don’t know.
Thank you/you are welcome Ka Miles Ahead
Thanks for remembering them and, hopefully someday you’ll share details about your nation’s heroic moments of resistance and struggle as well. I surely agree with you that defeatism is counter progressive.
What makes some confused could be that since there is a difference between a revolution and class revolution and, not seeing definite opposition leaders they say let it down and sit back. No leader, so …
Miles Ahead said
I for one am happy to see this thread’s discussion continue because I think folks contributing to it have raised some other underlying points besides just what is immediately happening in Iran.
Cold Lamper said:
I assume that Cold Lamper and I are in agreement, basically, as to either different parties, organizations, or supporters falsely cheerleading, and engaging in some self-promotion, and not analysing the real relations and impact of these group’s forces on either mass struggle or a more seemingly isolated struggle, or the masses themselves.
IMO, while perhaps trying to buck up the morale of both its own forces, but also people more broadly, this kind of hype has the opposite effect. In the end, the revolutionary group is summed up as voluntarist, and this can lead to cynicism amongst the broader masses. It has been my experience, along with a more collective experience, that the majority of politically conscious people want to get at the truth (and they are learning in the course of struggle). And if those same people are experiencing something altogether different in their daily lives, as opposed to what the revolutionaries are summing up more immediately, the revolutionaries lose a lot of credibility and the people are less apt to follow their lead.
I think we would call this an application of the mass line. And also IMO, hyping the situation and revolutionary forces really goes against the tenets of Marxism. We want to understand the world in order to change it.
On the other hand, I think it is extremely important, when revolutionary-minded forces are summing up different struggles, or earthshaking events like the one’s taking place in Iran today, or assessing our forces, that we thoughtfully consider time, place and condition; history, cultural differences, et al. To be simplistic about it, while we may share a very similar overall outlook amongst revolutionary forces worldwide, our situations and circumstances vary and we need to take that into consideration.
And also, i.e. the situation in Iran, that we try and look at the broader picture. What are the repercussions and ramifications for the region? What does this mean politically for say the U.S. imperialists–knowing full well that they will try and twist things in their direction–but aren’t they facing some hefty contradictions themselves as a result of the mass upsurge in Iran? They are still in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is the ever present maneuvers between the Palestinians and Israelis. Obama has taken a different tact than the out and out reactionary Bush regime, but Obama is in a precarious dance. And how has this massive struggle in Iran, (really seems to me to be more for bourgeois democracy but is that so bad given Iran’s history? and how is this current situation polarizing the people even further?)–affected the U.S. rulers’ prior stance (vocalized by the ultra Right) of “bomb, bomb, bomb Iran”? and has in fact limited some of the U.S. and other power’s maneuvering room? How is this struggle playing out on a world scale?
Now then, it might just be a matter of semantics, or perhaps I misunderstood what Cold Lamper said in small part, but when he/she said, in reference to Sarbedaran:
It is not up to “us” to help “them” figure out how to intervene, etc. To me that is not where our responsibility lies. And to add to that, there is obviously controversy within K. as to where say Sarbedaran or other revolutionary forces are even at, and we have a pretty superficial (although hopefully in the future a more consolidated) relationship with them, so how are we supposed to “intervene”? I would like to see a little more humility (and reality check) coming from certain quarters on K.
What I do think we can do, continue to do, and have done is the correct stance for internationalists. That is, we have bombarded our own air-waves, are keeping people abreast, with some analysis from a revolutionary/communist perspective (and direct experience from the likes of Green Red) and going out broadly in support of the Iranian people. This is an historical, meaningful, and planet-shaking event, even if all does not coincide with our given politics.
BTW, I heard from a friend yesterday (who is not at all a revolutionary but an old Berkeley radical, and a contradictory one) that there were demonstrations in support of the Iranian people, etc. in Los Angeles. She was moved by the scene, and while she didn’t stop her car and get out to participate, she did start honking her horn which set off lots of horn-honking in support of the demonstrators. I combed the Internet for reports on demos in the U.S. but couldn’t find anything in the press.
Miles Ahead said
Found an article on the L.A. Times–which is interesting insofar as a real hodgepodge of demonstrators–even some pro-Shah. But it does give you a glimpse of the different forces out there, and demonstrating in the U.S.–at least in LaLa Land:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-la-iranians18-2009jun18,0,2951480.story
“Southland Iranians do their part in protest”