● In occasione delle presidenziali in Iran si è aperta una profonda frattura all’interno della classe dominante iraniana.
● Nessuna delle due fazioni in lotta rappresenta gli interessi della classe operaia; entrambe difendono lo Stato teocratico attuale, ed hanno una lunga storia di sanguinosa repressione contro i lavoratori.
o La vittoria di Mousavi, aprirebbe la strada, non meno di quella di Ahmadinejad, ad un attacco ai diritti democratici e al tenore di vita dei lavoratori.
● La classe operaia dovrebbe sì sfruttare la crisi per lottare per i propri interessi di classe;
● ma lo può fare solo con una offensiva politica contro tutte le fazioni della classe dominante, con la lotta di classe, e con la prospettiva guida della presa del potere e di un Iran socialista.
o Tale programma si oppone diametralmente a quello delle varie correnti piccolo-borghesi in Europa e negli USA, che hanno risposto alla crisi in Iran mettendosi dietro il carro del proprio governo, a sostegno del campo di Mousavi.
● I gruppi della sinistra piccolo borghese cercando di subordinare la classe operaia iraniana ad una fazione della borghesia iraniana non fanno che appoggiare gli sforzi imperialistici
– SWP (Partito socialista britannico dei lavoratori) e NPA (Nuovo Partito Anti-capitalista) in Francia incoraggiano l’illusione che un movimento di questo tipo possa spontaneamente rispondere alle aspirazioni delle masse a maggiori diritti democratici.
– Due dichiarazioni da parte del partito NPA, e del SWP si distinguono poco da quelle dei media borghesi; essi accettano acriticamente l’accusa di brogli elettorali, rappresentano le proteste dell’opposizione con tinte democratiche e si dichiarano solidali con “il movimento di milioni nelle piazze”.
– Manca del tutto qualsiasi analisi di classe delle forze contendenti nella crisi iraniana; quando parlano ai “lavoratori” non lo fanno per chiamare la classe ad una mobilitazione indipendente contro il regime, ma per dare una colorazione di sinistra al movimento della piccola borghesia urbana, corsa sotto la bandiera di Mousavi.
– Nel proclama lanciato lunedì, “Con il popolo e i lavoratori dell’Iran!”, NPA trasforma le limitate lotte dei dirigenti sindacali dei mezzi di trasporto urbano e dei sindacati degli stabilimenti Khodro in uno sciopero generale, che “suscita lo spettro di una nuova rivoluzione”.
– Nel proclama “L’azione dei lavoratori è la chiave del successo del movimento iraniano”, SWP dichiara: le masse in piazza lottano contro la povertà, l’alienazione; nota che la forza collettiva della classe deve ancora farsi sentire, ma non offre un prospettiva indipendente; conclude che l’esito dello scontro tra regime ed opposizione è ancora ignoto.
● Nessuno dei due esamina il programma dei leader dell’opposizione, la loro storia e gli interessi di classe che essi rappresentano.
● Non si parla della campagna condotta in USA ed Europa a sostegno del campo di Mousavi, mentre si discute su come sfruttare le divergenze tra le fazioni borghesi iraniane per avvantaggiare strategicamente ed economicamente le potenze imperialistiche.
o I due partiti non menzionano neppure le attività dei servizi occidentali e delle loro organizzazioni di copertura attivi in Iran, come hanno fatto per le varie rivoluzioni colorate in Est Europa ed ex Urss.
● La think tank americana, Stratford: ben venga la divisione nella elite al potere in Iran, è un modo per indebolire Ahmadinejad e “rendere più difficile [all’Iran] raggiungere l’unità interna necessaria per osteggiare la politica USA”. Significativamente, Stratfor non è contraria agli scioperi operai utili a rafforzare il movimento di opposizione, fintanto che i lavoratori rimangono politicamente legati al carro di Mousavi.
La campagna internazionale in appoggio a Mousavi ha l’obiettivo di promuovere gli interessi strategici ed economici delle potenze imperialistiche, in MO ed Asia Centrale, regioni al cui incrocio si trova l’Iran, importante anche per le sue ricchezze energetiche.
Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)
The tasks of the Iranian working class
– In the wake of the presidential poll in Iran, a deep-going fissure has opened up within the ruling elite. The losing candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, backed by the US and European powers, has mobilised a largely middle class movement under the banner of “democracy” in a bid to oust his opponents led by incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
– Neither of the contending factions represents the interests of the working class. Both defend the present theocratic state and have a long history of bloody repression against working people. The victory of Mousavi, no less than Ahmadinejad, would inevitably pave the way for a savage assault on the democratic rights and living standards of working people.
– The working class should certainly exploit the crisis to fight for its own class interests. But it can only do so through a political offensive against all factions of the ruling elite using the methods of class struggle—strikes and factory occupations guided by committees elected by the rank-and-file. The guiding perspective of such a movement has to be the fight for workers’ power and a socialist Iran.
– This program is diametrically opposed to that of the various petty-bourgeois left tendencies in Europe and the United States that have responded to the crisis in Iran by lining up behind their own governments in supporting the Mousavi camp.
– Two significant statements by the ex-Pabloite New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) in France and the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) are barely distinguishable from those in the bourgeois media. They accept uncritically the claim that the presidential election was rigged, paint the opposition protests in the brightest of democratic colours and declare their solidarity with “the movement of millions in the streets”.
– Completely absent from their coverage of the Iranian crisis is any class analysis of the contending forces. Insofar as they refer to “workers,” it is not an appeal to mobilise the working class independently against the regime. Rather it is to provide a left-wing colouration to the movement of the urban middle classes who have flocked to Mousavi’s banner.
– In its statement Monday entitled “With the Population and Workers of Iran!” the NPA inflates the limited actions taken by bus union[e] leaders and unions at the Iran Khodro auto plants into a general strike movement that raises “the spectre of a new revolution”. Amid “the competition between rival clans of the regime, workers and the people have thrown themselves into the breach”.
– Very little information is provided to justify the claim that we are witnessing the beginnings of a wide movement of the Iranian working class. However, even if that were the case, that would only make the NPA’s policy of uncritically promoting the opposition protests even more criminal.
– The SWP, in its statement “Workers’ Action is Key to the Success of the Iranian Movement,” declares that “for the masses on the streets it is about poverty, alienation and struggling to get by”. After noting that the collective strength of the working class has yet to make itself felt, the statement offers no independent perspective or program. It simply concludes that the outcome of the test of strength between the regime and the opposition movement remains unknown.
– The uncritical adulation of the protest movement in Iran serves a definite political purpose: to prevent any serious examination of the program of the Iranian opposition leaders, their history and the class interests they represent.
– No mention is made in either statement of the extraordinary campaign being waged in the US and Europe to support the Mousavi camp. Yet there is no shortage of commentary in the media and think tanks, debating how best to exploit the factional differences within the Iranian regime for the strategic and economic advantage of the imperialist powers.
– The US-based Stratfor think tank, which represents politically conscious sections of the American ruling class, devoted another article this week to examining “Ahmadinejad’s Second Term”. It welcomes the rifts in the ruling elite as a means of weakening Ahmadinejad and “making it harder [for Iran] to achieve the internal unity necessary to complicate US policy”.
– Significantly, Stratfor is not averse to work stoppages to strengthen the opposition movement, so long as workers remained shackled politically to the Mousavi leadership.
– The most sinister aspect of the statements by the NPA and SWP is their failure to even mention the activities of Western intelligence agencies and front organisations which have been operating inside Iran, as they did in the various “colour revolutions” in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics. A series of articles in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh provided details of extensive campaigns of misinformation and destabilisation conducted by the CIA and US special forces inside Iran since 2005 at least.
– Those activities have undoubtedly continued under the Obama administration. A great deal is at stake in Iran for the US and European powers. The country not only has its own extensive energy resources, but lies at the crossroads of two regions—the Middle East and Central Asia—that are central to the strategic and economic ambitions of imperialism. The present international campaign in support of the Mousavi faction is aimed at advancing those interests.
– The middle-class left groups render their assistance to these efforts by seeking to subordinate the working class to a faction of the Iranian bourgeoisie.
– The SWP and NPA both encourage the fatal illusion that such a movement can spontaneously meet the aspirations of broad masses for democratic rights. Neither makes a call for workers to engage in a revolutionary struggle for their own independent class interests by taking power and implementing a socialist program.
– What would be the consequences of the victory by the Mousavi faction that they advocate? It is only necessary to recall the experiences of workers in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union[e] in the late 1980s. In the absence of a revolutionary socialist alternative, decades of pent-up resentment and anger were channeled behind dissident factions of these Stalinist bureaucracies that were seeking the restoration of capitalism. What followed was a series of “colour revolutions” promoted by the US to install pro-Western regimes to accelerate a pro-market agenda. In every case without exception, the result has been an unmitigated social disaster for the working class.
A sober appraisal of the present situation needs to be made. A period of extended political struggle has opened up in Iran, fuelled by the deepening global economic crisis. Workers, students and socialist-minded intellectuals need to orient to the working class on the basis of a socialist and internationalist perspective. That means assimilating the lessons of the key strategic experiences of the working class in Iran and internationally over the past century and building a section in Iran of the International Committee of the Fourth International.
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