The cold war between US imperialism and the Iranian regime has, for the moment, ended. Israel, US imperialism’s proxy in the Middle East, is attacking nuclear, anti-missile and ballistic assets in Iran until the regime and the oligarchic capitalists it represents accept all the concessions that US imperialism is demanding.
After this, the negotiations between imperialism and the regime –two blood-soaked anti-working-class camps– could resume, albeit after many civilian deaths on both sides.
Strategic Failure
The current war represents the strategic failure of Iran’s capitalists’ long-standing policy for ‘resisting’ US imperialism. For decades, the Iranian regime has been building up regional proxies and allies with the aim of maintaining a protective shield between itself and Israel, its main regional rival. Until fairly recently, these had also been an important factor in its posturing for power and influence in the Middle East.
But since October 2023, these have been massively reduced: Hamas is now a shadow of its former self; the leadership of the Lebanese Hezbollah was decimated and much of its heavy weapons have been destroyed; the Houthis have been forced to agree a truce with the US, and all that Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah has done is to warn the US against direct intervention in the war. As for the Assad regime in Syria, it fell apart once Russia and the Iranian regime couldn’t support it anymore.
According to Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Naghdi, a very senior Pasdaran officer, over the past 30 years, the regime has spent $17bn on its proxies in the region. (Some sources put their number at around 17 and their true cost is probably higher than Naghdi has admitted.) The proxies were built precisely to stop the present scenario. This strategy has been an abject failure, especially now that Mossad has infiltrated the security apparatus of the regime.
Whenever the sixth round of negotiations with the Trump government takes place, the regime will no longer have the most important of these regional proxy ‘cards’. And it will have lost its nuclear threshold and missile programme capabilities as ‘cards’ as well.
For the Iranian working class, particularly its most conscious and combative leaders, it is important to draw the immediate lessons of this imperialist war while it still rages. This war once again exposes the nature of the regime, the nature of US imperialism and Israel, the collapse of Iran’s ‘leftwing’ opposition and the urgent need for building clandestine action cells.
The Lessons of the Imperialist War
The first lesson is that although the regime was prepared to spend billions of dollars to have bargaining chips near Israel’s border to have a preeminent position in the region, it was never prepared to spend anything on civil defence, particularly bomb shelters for workers and ordinary people. All that is available in Tehran is the metro system, with all other cities and towns being totally exposed to aerial attacks.
For decades, Iran’s workers and other exploited and oppressed layers have suffered because of this regime’s economic, social and political bankruptcy. Now, once again, they are targets of its military incompetence as well.
This is something that the workers of Kharg Oil Terminal Company warned about in October 2024:
“Considering Israel’s threats of a military attack on the oil facilities, the officials and management of this company don’t value the lives of the personnel and don’t even have a plan for the possibility of an attack on their agenda …
There is no shelter, no equipment, no documents and no instructions on what to do, where to go and how to protect ourselves in case of an attack!!!!
They have abandoned people here and only hire us to work with low wages and to be silent …”
Clearly, whether it is to protect working-class neighbourhoods, or factories and industrial infrastructure, workers need to prepare for their own defence. Wherever the security situation allows, they need to form workers’ defence squads and other independent defence organisations of their own, get hold of weapons and train themselves in their use, and carry out all the measures that the state apparatus of the capitalist state doesn’t provide them.
And whenever the regime’s demagogues and apologists tell them to suspend or tone down their struggles because of the threat of war, then they should shout: “Arm us, we can defend our factories and neighbourhoods”.
The only way that workers and their families, and the masses in general, can effectively protect themselves is for the working class to organise its own independent defence.
The second lesson, and a very bitter one for those in the opposition who entertained fantasises about an Israeli attack helping them to overthrow this reactionary regime, is that the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state has largely stayed intact.
It is important for Iran’s workers to note that although Israel has attacked over 100 targets so far with missiles and bombs, none of the facilities and personnel of the repressive apparatus of the bourgeoisie –be it the prisons and dungeons holding tens of thousands of political prisoners and jailed workers; nor the torturers, interrogators and spies; nor helicopters, water cannons, APCs and other equipment that are used to smash workers’ strikes and protests of women, national minorities and youth– has been damaged! Iran’s capitalist state can go on beating, arresting, torturing, jailing and killing all oppressed layers of the masses when they make the slightest criticism about their repression.
It is obvious that Israel’s military action is not aimed at overthrowing the regime. It definitely is not meant to reduce capitalist repression in Iran. Its main aim is to put the Iranian regime under further pressure before the next round of negotiations with US imperialism.
Around the same time that the Kharg Oil Terminal Company workers published their statement about how exposed they were to an Israeli attack, Hamid Taqvaee, the leader of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran, thought that Israel could weaken the Iranian regime, thus helping the masses –led by his party, of course– to come to power. Taqvaee claimed that:
“… any blow to the Islamic Republic will facilitate the people’s struggle to overthrow the government …Many revolutions in our era occurred in conditions of war and have been victorious, and this can happen in Iran as well.”(The Islamic Republic’s Missile Attack on Israel, Where is the Situation Heading? – 1.10.2024).
Unfortunately, these views are held by the leaders and activists of many parties of Iran’s oppressed nationalities.
The third lesson is that nationalism, as ever, is the proletariat’s Achilles heel. As well as the repressive apparatus that includes the Pasdaran (IRGC), Basij (mobilisation), Intelligence Ministry and so on, Iran’s ruling class maintains its power through its ideological hold over all of society. Even many strike leaders and radical workers are not immune from bourgeois ideology, especially the poison of nationalism.
While international attention was focussed on the negotiations with America, the regime has once again been stirring up nationalism and even racism against migrants, especially Afghans. A range of racist measures have been adopted or stepped up, including not allowing Afghan children to go to school in some places. On June 11th, Afghans were not allowed to enter metro carriages in Tajrish station (N. Tehran). Most of them were workers trying to go home in the evening, after a hard day’s work. It is a central duty of vanguard workers to counter the regime’s stoking of anti-migrant sentiments and any justification for oppressing the Kurdish, Arab, Balouch, Azeri, Lor and other national minorities.
This reactionary regime also tries to justify all its clashes with imperialism or regional powers as consequences of its ‘revolutionary’ or ‘anti-imperialist’ character. This is the trick it used to smash the workers’ and women’s and national minorities’ movements during the Iranian revolution.
For revolutionary workers, it is always important to remember that imperialism is the latest stage of the capitalist system. Therefore, in order to beanti-imperialist, you also have to be anti-capitalist. In reality, this regime is the best defender of capitalism in Iran.
Workers should reject both the anti-migrant nationalism and the fake ‘revolutionary’ rhetoric that the regime is whipping up. The struggle against nationalism and racism is crucial for rebuilding the unity and solidarity of workers against this regime and capitalism.
The workers’ movement must overcome this, its weakest point. Workers will never break free of their chains until they overcome this weakness. To build an independent workers’ movement, Iranian workers must recognise Iran’s capitalist ruling class as their main enemy.
The fourth lesson is that to stop imperialist war, exploitation and oppression by ‘its own’ capitalist class, the vanguard of the Iranian proletariat must urgently start building its own independent and clandestine action cells. These cells can both lead day-to-day workers’ strikes and protests while also preparing for their strategic task: overthrowing capitalism during a revolutionary situation. And when a revolutionary situation does arise, these workers’ clandestine action cells can link and lead similar cells within the women’s, national minorities’ and students’ movements. The fusion of these cells can create the vanguard party under the leadership of the most militant and conscious leaders in the struggle to overthrow the capitalist system.
Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government has recently become shaky, after his most extreme partners threatened to pull out. This could have been a factor in determining the timing of the attacks. Yet, even though this is the most far-right and racist government in the history of Zionism, there is no guarantee that the next Israeli elections will result in anything more moderate.
It is the duty of the vanguard of the Iranian proletariat to build a Leninist party, i.e., its own independent and clandestine command centre, to prepare itself and all exploited and oppressed layers for the overthrow of the Iranian regime and capitalism. This can be a decisive step in a regional workers’ revolution that can free Israeli, Palestinian and all Arab workers from capitalism’s high-tech barbarism.
Morad Shirin – Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency
