ÓÇیÊ 19 Èåãä The 19 bahman Web site
Armed Struggle; both a Strategy and a Tactic
Written by: Massoud Ahmad-Zadeh
Table
of Contents
Introduction by The Iranian People’s Fadaee
Guerrillas
Circumstances of
the Genesis and Growth of the New Communist Movement
Examination of the
Present Socio-economic Conditions and the Question of the State of the
Revolution
On the Question of
the Stage of Revolution
The Examination of Debray’s “Revolution in The
Revolution?”
Party and
Guerrilla: Political Work and Military Work
Introduction by The Iranian People’s Fadaee Guerrillas
More than four months have passed
since the People’s Fadaee Guerrillas began armed
struggle. Several things have happened since that time; perhaps it is still early
to analyze their results. Nevertheless, they can be presented in an overall
manner.
Why did the guerrilla struggle
begin in Siahkal? And why did it suffer defeat?
After making an analysis of the
conditions in
An armed guerrilla nucleus was
organized and set out for the northern forests under the command of our
martyred comrade All-akbar Safal
Farahani.* For about five months, this group continuously
traversed the northern forests from east of Mazandaran
to west of Gilan.** It made
scientific studies of the geographical and socio-economic situation in those
regions. By taking long treks in both summer and winter, they adapted
themselves to the harsh living conditions in the forests and mountains. As far
as we know, such a reconnaissance of an area, both in duration and in the
extent of area visited, is unprecedented and has no equivalent in any similar
guerrilla experience in the world.
What did we expect from the
creation of this nucleus? How did we envisage its survival?
As explained in the essay that
follows, the aim of armed struggle at the outset is not to strike at the enemy,
militarily, but the strike at him politically. The aim is to show to the
revolutionaries and to the people the path of struggle, to make them conscious
of their own power and to show that the enemy is vulnerable. It is also to
demonstrate that struggle is possible, to expose the enemy, and to make the
people conscious. The creation of the guerrilla nucleus in the mountains
followed these aims. Considering the propagating role played by the urban
guerrilla for the mountain guerrilla, the action of this nucleus not only would
have repercussions throughout the region, but would also be echoed throughout
the country, and thus it would play a decisive propaganda and political role in
the growth of the Iranian revolutionary movement. It would give new hope to all
those struggling and to all the people, concretely showing the path of
struggle, and while gradually establishing a foothold in the countryside and
drawing the rural masses towards itself, it would become prepared to also play
a military role in the revolutionary movement.
From a political viewpoint, it
would be impossible for the enemy to isolate such a struggle. Considering the
very close relation between the city and the countryside in the North, the struggle
of this guerrilla nucleus would have wide repercussions in the northern cities
and thence would spread throughout the whole country. In the North, because it
is not like
Why, then, did the guerrilla
nucleus fail?
We do not know exactly what
happened. It appears that two factors caused its defeat: disregard for constant
mobility and disregard for absolute distrust. It should be mentioned that our
comrades in the mountains had learned respect for constant mobility and
absolute distrust not only in theory but also in practice. So why did they
commit such a mistake?
The only reason we have been able
to find is that they could not imagine that the enemy would react so strongly
and would mobilize in such strength to destroy the guerrilla nucleus. We know
that our heroic comrades were encircled in the Siahkal
region and that the enemy concentrated the greater part of its forces in the
surrounding areas. Nevertheless, it would have very easy for our fighting
comrades to have been tens of miles away in a few days. If such mobility had
continued, the enemy would have been compelled to militarize several thousand
men in the Siahkal region and its surroundings, it
would have been compelled to mobilize several thousands of men in the whole of
the North and carry out strict controls over all means of communication. This
would have been very difficult and would have taken much time. During that time
the guerrillas could have strengthened their foothold, increased their
firepower, and elevated their military potential. From this it may be concluded
that the defeat of this nucleus was a mishap that could perfectly well have
been avoided. But, revolutionary struggle involves certain risks at all times;
such mishaps are neither abnormal nor inevitable. In any case, it is from
experiences such as these that revolutionaries should learn lessons; and it is
defeats such as these, which form the stages on the ascent leading to victory.
We have seen the enthusiasm and the hope which the Siahkal
movement, in spite of its brief existence and its defeat, has aroused among the
revolutionaries and the people, although this was even before the launching of
urban guerrilla activity. The armed struggle of the urban Fadaee
has produced some remarkable results as well. Under the influence of that
struggle, and in order to respond to its call, the student revolutionaries in
the universities rose heroically and unleashed the most massive demonstrations
of recent years and with the most fiery and revolutionary slogans possible in
those circumstances. Due to the influence of this same armed struggle, the
military workers of the Jahan-Cheet factories
courageously struggled to win their demands and responded to
counter-revolutionary violence with revolutionary violence (even though they were
unarmed). They thereby added dozens of names to the lists of martyrs of the
Iranian revolution. Today, the people are asking themselves new questions. They
wonder what the guerrillas are fighting for, and for whom. How is such a spirit
of self-sacrifice and unselfishness possible? They realise that such sacrifice
is possible and that with even a small force it is possible to rise up against
a heavily armed enemy. The revolutionary movement has begun to lay down the
basis for a tradition of armed struggle. It is in the stage of crawling and
taking its first steps through the setting up of groups. Its armed activities
cannot fail to show the road to be followed. Through a series of successes and
defeats, and successes again, it shows the people the possibility of struggle
and protracted nature. This is how the people will gradually understand that
the struggle is long and difficult and that its development and success depends
on their support. This is also how the people and their vanguards will
gradually rise up. We certainly do not expect the direct support of the people
immediately; they cannot be expected to rise up all at once. At the present
time, it is genuinely revolutionary vanguard groups who represent the people.
Conscious of the correctness of the armed struggle, influenced by it and with
the moral support of the people, these groups take up arms and extend the
struggle, thereby increasing the possibilities of material support from the
people. That is why the defeat of one-armed group does not have a decisive
effect on the outcome of the struggle. If we accept that the struggle is a
protracted one and if we accept as well that it begins through organization in
groups, does it matter if one of the groups disappears? What is important is
that the gun that falls from the hand of a militant will be grasped by other
militants. If one group fails, the important thing is that the more advanced
group or groups survive to witness the results of their action, to exploit its
effects, and to transform the moral support which this action has created into
material support through organisational work. This may be accomplished by other
groups; groups which wish to fulfil their revolutionary responsibilities. We
began our struggle with these convictions we believe in our people and in their
vanguards. We give our blood in affirmation of this belief. Deep within
ourselves we feel the need for the people’s support; without this support we
know our destruction and the destruction of our path is definite. We dedicate
our lives to this belief. During the phase when the foundations and traditions
of the armed struggle are being established, such great sacrifices are
inevitable. The sacrifices which we have accepted, our martyrs who have bravely
resisted against the enemy until death, our imprisoned comrades who are
resisting heroically the medieval tortures of the Shah’s executioners, will all
surely bring to flower the tree of the Iranian revolution, the uprising of the
sons and daughters of the people. It is then that sooner or later the People’s
war will begin. Under the present conditions, the vanguard can be none other
than a Fadaee. Let the capitulationists
jeer. The duty of every revolutionary circle and group is to begin the armed
struggle and to strike against the enemy with every means at their disposal and
in every possible way. Experience has shown that there is no other path except
that of the armed struggle; and experience has shown that the people will
support this struggle.
Long live the armed struggle, the
only path to freedom!
Long live the immortal memory of
all our martyrs who heroically fought the enemy until death!
Salute to all political prisoners
who bravely resist the barbaric tortures of the shah’s executioners!
long live the unity of all revolutionary
forces and all the peoples of
Khordad, 1350 (June, 1971)
1
Circumstances of the Genesis and Growth of the New
Communist Movement
In the recent decade, our country has
witnessed a new phase in the revolutionary struggle of our people. Although the
puppet regime has resorted to all means to subdue this struggle, from
intimidation to allurement to imprisonment, torture and murder, it has
constantly encountered an ever more obstinate wave of struggle. In place of any
one fallen combatant, tens of others have risen, and in the process the
combatants have gained more experience in the struggle. Most striking in the
present struggle of the people is the unprecedented growth of the communist
movement in
In the present phase, this movement
is basically characterised by the simple gathering of forces, its spontaneous
growth and its isolation from the masses.1 To comprehend why, we must look retrospectively. The
imperialist coup d’etat of the 28 of Mordad (August 19, 1953)** broke up all the national and
anti-imperialist political organisations. The only force which would have been
able to learn from this defeat and on the basis of which analysis adopt a new
line relevant to the new circumstances and to take into its hands the
leadership of the anti-imperialist forces that were actually ready for struggle
was a proletarian party. Unfortunately, however, our people lacked such an
organization. The leadership of the Tudeh Party, a
mere caricature of a Marxist-Leninist party, was only capable of throwing its
devoted militant cadres under the blades of the executioner before fleeing.*** Thus, the
organized struggle basically came to a halt and whatever did take place was conducted
by the remnants of the shattered organizations within the framework of the same
old methods. This resulted, above all, in the further suppression of those who
were struggling.
Despite this situation, at the end
of the fifties and the beginning of the sixties, the development of the
contradictions and recurrent crises brought about a rapid and spontaneous
organization of national forces, which principally gathered around the National
Front and its affiliated organizations. But, in the general framework of
defunct slogans and limited by paralyzing methods, these struggles were also
unable to accomplish anything in the face of an enemy that understands only
force and exists on the strength of the bayonet. Of course, one result of this
situation was increasing awareness of the regime. Demonstrations and strikes
were successively defeated, and although these experiences and the regime’s
actions gradually led to the changing of slogans (particularly reflected in the
uprising of the 15th of Khordad June 5),
the methods of struggle and the organizational framework remained same.*
Through this process, the
organizations became extinct. The awesome image of the bayonet again established
its domination everywhere. But, the new circumstances differed from those of
the period after the coup d’etat in one fundamental
respect: no one could any longer trust the pervious slogans, the old methods of
struggle nor the outmoded forms of organisation. The Tudeh Party, which had not been able to exemplify a
communist party even for a moment during its existence, now had all its
organizations demolished, its devoted cadres subdued, and its traitorous
leaders on the run. This party was not even capable of providing a theoretical
or frame of reference for the later phases of the struggle. Thus, in a
situation of terror and repression; in a situation where our people’s struggle
had met with defeat; and in a situation where revolutionary intellectuals essentially
lacked any theoretical or background experience, the task had to be undertaken
afresh. The new communist movement got on its feet and the simple gathering of
forces was initiated. The objective was not to muster force in order to strike
again, but to analyze the conditions in order to find a new path for struggle.
Throughout the years before this, the treacheries and errors of the Tudeh Party had completely destroyed its reputation, and no
revolutionary intellectual was willing to co-operate with it. Under these
circumstances, the bourgeois and petty bourgeois organisations,
were able to attract these revolutionary intellectuals. This situation finally
led to the penetration of the ideologies and tactics of the left petty
bourgeoisie into these organizations, however, their related ideologies also
lost their credibility.
If during these periods the
boundaries between Marxism-Leninism on the one hand and revisionism and
opportunism on the other had not yet crystallised on an international scale,
the distrust of the Tudeh party might initially have
led to the distrust of communism also. It became clear, however, that the place
of genuine Marxism-Leninism was indeed vacant and that it must be occupied.
Hence, revolutionary Marxism-Leninism, as the theory of revolution, became the
sole gathering point for the most persistent revolutionaries. Thus, there
appeared an extensive and striking acceptance of Marxism-Leninism by the
revolutionary intellectuals, and acceptance which, was now moulded with the name
a thoughts of Comrade Mao. In the process of the exchange and publication of
communist works, particularly the works of Mao, communist circles and groups
came into existence. Under the influence of revolutionary experiences and
peoples’ wars, the (theoretical) tendency toward mass armed struggle increased
day by day. Meanwhile, the Cuban experience also attracted attention. There
appeared those who wanted to engage in armed struggle by forms not completely
known to us.* Before they began, however, they were arrested and
thus were unable to provide the movement with any positive or negative
experiences. Therefore, despite the claims of a few, the defeat of the groups
who wanted to engage in armed struggle did not by any means indicate the
inappropriateness of armed struggle because these defeats stemmed from a series
of organizational errors and from the failure to consider the rules of secrecy.
When the simple gathering of forces commenced, any form of contact between the
peoples’ intellectuals and the masses had been cut off in practice, and there
was no serious link among the intellectuals themselves, including the
proletarian intellectuals. Now, after the inner development of the communist
groups, they accept that their further growth is dependent upon serious contact
with the masses, real participation in their daily lives and also the building
of a bond among the communist groups as a first step towards their unity. While
the subjective elements for real progress have been developing, the prospect
for the unity of groups and real contact with the masses seems dim. Any attempt
on the part of the groups to establish contacts with other communist groups and
to participate in the people’s daily lives and political struggle (which, of
course, is certainly not extensive) exposes them to the danger of police
attacks.
Our group, too, has gone through
this same process. Our group was also formed with the immediate goal of
studying Marxism-Leninism and analyzing the socio-economic conditions of our
country. In its development, the group reached a junction: must the
establishment of the proletarian party or the formation of an armed nucleus in
the countryside to initiate guerrilla warfare be pursued? We believe that the
revolutionary honesty required confronting this question seriously. Unless we
had honestly believed that the initiation of guerrilla war would lead to
defeat, rejection of this path would have been tantamount to the absence of revolutionary
courage and to the fear of action. Our group, nevertheless, did reject this
path. In my opinion, however, the rejection was fundamentally based on a series
of theoretical formulas which, we understood to be universal and unalterable,
and it stemmed less from a serious theoretical and practical analysis of
reality.2 Moreover, our theoretical approach to the present
conditions, our estimation of the purported changes* carried out by the regime, the
rile of agrarian reform etc, did not lead us to turn away from that
choice but rather confirmed it. Although we believed that armed struggle was
inevitable, still we thought that the purported changes gave the role of the
town and the proletariat more importance and that the countryside could no
longer, as in the past, serve as a base for the revolution. This view
channelled our thoughts toward forming the proletariat party.
But, the purported changes were
also being evaluated from two other directions. The Tudeh
Party wanted to justify its inactivity and its reformist line by professing
that in any case “positive” changes had taken place; that by whatever means,
the feudal mode of production had been dissolved to a great extent; that the
transition to capitalism had begun; that new contradictions and class divisions
had appeared in society; that the proletariat had started its development and
so on. They reasoned that the assistance of the so-called socialist camp to the
puppet regime and, in their opinion, to the people of
The “Revolutionary Organization”** which had split from the Tudeh Party precisely because of its opportunism,
revisionism and its connectionist line and in order to preserve the perspective
of armed struggle, along with many other revolutionary communists took the
diametrically opposite view of the “purported changes.” In their view, any
acknowledgement of change and development was an indication of besmirching the
necessity of armed struggle, of evading the decisive struggle, and marked the
onset of concessionism. For this reason, they
believed that feudalism was still intact and that the objective conditions for
armed struggle existed. But this conviction, even though it contained an
element of revolutionary authenticity and respect for the revolutionary
principles of Marxism-Leninism, was at variance with reality. To deal with the
present realities requires a different viewpoint. The “Revolutionary
Organization,” due to its confinement within the framework of a series of
theoretical of formulas, has not been able to correctly deal with the paradox
of the “acknowledgement of change or armed revolution” and therefore denies
change (just as our reliance on theoretical formulas had caused our relatively
correct evaluation of the claimed transformation to be applied in an illogical
manner to be a specific conception of the Party and its formation).
But what is the correct approach?
Can it not be said that some changes have taken place, that feudalism has
essentially disappeared, but that armed struggle has not lost its necessity?
That the moment of the decisive struggle has not been postponed? Has the disappearance of the contradiction and the
appearance of a new one made a change in the principle contradiction of our society?
Or, has it intensified the same contradiction?
2
Examination of the Present Socio-economic Conditions
and the Question of the State of the Revolution
Since the Land Reform constitutes
the basis of the so-called “White Revolution”, we will stress this phenomenon.
In this brief examination, we will show that the objective of the Land Reform
has been the expansion of the economic, political and cultural domination of
bureaucratic comprador capitalism in the rural areas. Its goal was not that of
remedying any of the numerous ailments of the peasantry (so as to eliminate the
grounds for revolutionary potential in the rural areas by directing peasant
support toward the regime). Rather, due to its nature, the regime can only
suppress the grounds for revolution in the countryside through ever-increasing
economic, political and cultural oppression and suppression, though the
branching of its influence into the rural areas and through the expansion of the
dominance of the corrupt bureaucracy.
The alleged goal of the Land Reform
was to give the land to the peasantry. Let us examine how this was executed:
1. Land was to go only to those
peasants who were working on the master’s land as tenants or sharecroppers. In
this way, all land on which any wage earners worked or which was under
mechanised cultivation was exempt from redistribution. As a result, vast lands,
including the extensive holdings of princes, princesses, big-shot bureaucrats,
and the entourage of the bureaucracy were not redistributed, and thus a
considerable segment of the peasantry remained landless. We must remember that
in the midst of and prior to the height of the Land Reform, many landowners
evicted the sharecroppers and allegedly engaged their land specifically in
mechanized cultivation. By so doing, or on this pretext, their land also
remained immune from redistribution, Several others
had extensive sections of their land exempt from redistribution by granting
their land to their off-spring and relatives.
2. In many areas where land was
redistributed, land did not fall into the possession of all the peasants
because all the peasants did not have share-cropping or tenant contracts or, in
other words, were not peasants but were working on the land as wage earners. It
seems that according to the government’s own statistics (which undoubtedly
cannot be considered reliable) more than 40% of the Iranian peasantry has been
deprived of land forever. In any event, some land was redistributed. Some
landlords sold their land, and others rented it to the peasants. Naturally, as
far as possible, the best lands remained in the hands of the landlord and the
worst lands were left for the peasants.
3. Finally, in some cases feudalism
was preserved. Therefore, we now witness the following dominant forms in land
relations. To a great extent capitalism has come into existence. Even though
this form of production existed before the Land Reform, its development was
accelerated by the Land Reform. Exploitation is carried out in its most savage
form, and the agricultural labourer has indeed no financial security
whatsoever. He is given or denied work according to the whims of the landlord
who still remains a master. Some large landowners,
particularly those of the entourage of the regime and the royal court,
including the princes, in no way refrain from encroaching upon and
appropriating the lands of the small landowners. We have been witnesses
to numerous clashes between the large and small landowners. Whenever these two
forms of ownership stand side by side, an intense contradiction appears. It is
those large landowners who are able to drill deep walls when confronted by
water shortage by means of their capital or through their relations with
finance capital and the use of loans. The small landowner is obliged to rent
their tractors and purchase their water; the large landowners sell him water
and rent tractors to him on their own terms.
Small landownership as a form of
production has, in the main, come into existence as a result of the Land
Reform, although it had existed in some areas previously. Its main enemy is
governmental bureaucracy and comprador capital subjecting the peasants to
oppression and exploitation in various ways through the Ministry of Land
Reform, the cooperatives, the various banks and recently the joint-stock
agricultural companies. Every year at harvest time, the Land Reform agents
appear to collect the payment on or rent of the land that has been sold or
rented to the peasants. Day by day the oppressed peasants, usually unable to
remit the demanded amount, assume a heavier burden of debts and loans with
tremendous interest rates. Wherever the peasants have shown courage and
refrained from the remittance of their payments, they have been immediately
faced with the bayonets of the gendarmes, the repossession of the land by the
Ministry of Land Reform and other suppressive measures. The formation of the
joint-stock agricultural companies, which the peasants rightly resist and whose
essence they feel with their flesh and blood, must in effect be termed a
conspiracy for the deprivation of ownership by the small landowner, the
inevitable consequence of the Land Reform. The cooperatives, by dispensing
loans, selling seeds and manure, and by pre-purchasing the produce of the
peasants, do not spare the peasant’s last pennies. Finally, one must consider
the areas where the feudal system has remained intact.3
The objective of the so-called
“White Revolution” was to expand imperialism’s domination in the town and
country. The “White Revolution” took place at a time when the puppet regime was
faced with the people’s anti-imperialist movement, precisely when the urban
masses had risen against it. How could it be that the regime consciously set
out to abolish its main class basis (i.e. Feudalism)? Must it be concluded that
the elimination of feudalism is merely a lie? Or must it be said that feudalism
was not the mainstay of the regime? If feudalism was not the mainstay of the
regime, then which economic power was reflected by the political power of the
state? And which power’s interest was primarily promoted?
In actuality, this power is world
imperialism. The bases for the political dominance of feudalism were weakened
by the Constitutional Revolution, and feudalism fundamentally forfeited its
political rule to imperialism through Reza Khan’s coup d’etat.
The economic interests of the feudals could only be
safeguarded by a central power supported and guided by imperialism. This
central power, while suppressing the people’s anti-imperialist movement,
prepared the ground for the expanding influence of imperialism. Feudalism was,
in reality transformed to dependent feudalism and wherever it rejected this
dependence, it was subjected to the aggression of the central power. With the
expanding domination of the central power and influence of imperialism,
feudalism was more and more removed from its positions of power. As soon as the
feudal economy stood in contradiction to imperialist interests, the regime,
facing no serious difficulty and without needing the people’s force to suppress
feudalism,* basically buried what had already turned into a
corpse. In effect, Reza Khan’s coup d’etat was
incomplete without the “White Revolution”.*
A comparison of the regime’s land
reform with a classic bourgeois land reform depicts well the disparities of the
two and their different consequences.
In the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx evaluates bourgeois
land reform and its role as follows: “After the first revolution had transformed
the peasants from semi- villains into freeholders, Napoleon confirmed and
regulated the conditions on which they could exploit undisturbed the soil of
France which had only just fallen to their lot and stake their youthful passion
for property. But what is now causing the ruin of the French peasant is his
smallholding itself, the division of the land, the form of property which
Napoleon consolidated in
While in
While in the past, the comprador
bureaucracy supported feudal exploitation and the peasant recognized it in the
form of suppressive force of the corrupt and oppressive bureaucracy’s
gendarmes, now, the peasant sees himself directly entrapped in the bloody grip
of bureaucy and the comprador bourgeoisie. In
In
In any case, the peasant in the
past saw a separation between feudal oppression on the one hand and the
bureaucracy and the gendarme on the other, despite having repeatedly
experienced their collaboration and unity. This time, he sees the two in the
same cloak, that of the government’s agents, the governmental and
semi-governmental banks, the Ministry of Land Reform, the gendarmes and more
recently the forest and natural resources rangers. As such, the peasant rightly
regards his calamity as stemming not from his smallholding, but from the
oppressive rule of governmental bureaucracy and its suppressive tools. The
determined resistance of the peasant against the formation of the joint-stock
agricultural companies illustrates this point.
The peasant is realizing now that
the principle cause behind his past calamity is the government, the same
government whose support of feudal oppression and suppression he had witnessed
repeatedly. The more aware peasants recognized the “Land Reform” to be
“politics” from the very beginning and experienced these “politics” quickly.
Those peasants who dared to learn the motive of the regime and who resolved
independently to chase the landlord off the land without “Aria Mehr’s”* fatherly support, did not, of course, encounter the
landlord who chose to flee, but were blocked by the gendarmes’ bayonets and
suppressed.
Therefore, the so-called “White
Revolution” not only did not solve any of the numerous problems of the great
majority of the country folk, but in large measure incorporated the
contradiction between the peasant and the feudal lord into that between the
peasant and the bureaucracy and the suppressive governmental apparatus. Thus,
by intensifying this
Contradiction and rendering it more
conspicuous, it aided the peasant in recognizing the real enemy and its true
nature. The severe contradiction between a major segment of the peasantry and
the forest and pasture rangers (rangers created for the protection of the
forests and pastures that have been “nationalized” to lay the grounds for the
entrance of comprador capital in order to fill the pockets of a handful of
parasites), a contradiction which has repeatedly led to armed clashes,
illustrates the deep contradiction between the peasantry and the governmental
apparatus, which is dependent on imperialism.
But what is the course of events in
the town? While the bourgeois revolution had resulted in the severing of the
feudal shackles binding the urban masses hand and foot, in the abolishment of
heavy feudal obligations, and in free competition of industry, here, the “White
Revolution” coincided exactly with the suppression of the urban masses and the
consolidation of a central power that had for years kept them in chains. It was
carried out precisely to consolidate imperialist rule and the interests of
imperialist monopolies** to increasingly suppress national
industry, the national bourgeoisie, and the petty bourgeois artisan and
shopkeepers; and finally, to further intensify the exploitation of the
proletariat.
For years, the town was
experiencing the oppression, suppression, exploitation and poverty emanating
from imperialist domination. The keeper of this domination was the same force
that was instituting the “White Revolution”. While in bourgeois revolution, it
was necessary for the newly liberated masses to experience the new conditions
for decades in order to understand their nature and feel the new bonds and new
suppressive rule over them, here, the urban masses had understood all this
beforehand; the events of 1963, particularly the uprising of the 15th
of Khordad [June 5] were responses to the pretensions
of the regime. If afterwards, the waves of struggle ebbed, it was not due to an
acceptance of the regime’s lies, but to the violent suppression of the
struggle. How was it possible to believe in the so-called “White Revolution” in
the face of increasing poverty, continuous bankruptcy, the intensification of
exploitation by the violent domination of foreign capital and the fattening of
a handful of comprador capitalists and big-shot bureaucrats at the expense of
the bankruptcy of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie and the brutal exploitation
of the workers? Thus, while two generations sufficed until “the interests of
the peasants, therefore, are no longer, as under Napoleon, in accord with but
in opposition to the interests of the bourgeoisie, to capital,” and “hence, the
peasants find their natural ally and leader in the urban proletariat whose task
is the overthrow of the bourgeois order:” here in Iran, from a historical
standpoint, the peasants like the past semi-serfs in a semi-feudal,
semi-colonel country find their natural ally and leader in the urban
proletariat. In fact, as a result of the expansion of comprador capital into
the rural areas, a closer relationship between the peasantry and the
proletariat has developed. In the town, too, the brutal rule of comprador
capital more than ever has caused the contradiction between the proletariat and
the national bourgeoisie and specifically the petit bourgeoisie, to be
overshadowed by the contradiction between them and comprador bureaucratic
capitalism and imperialist domination. This process has developed through the
confinement of any capitalist mode of production to that of comprador
capitalism and through the bankruptcy and gradual elimination of the national
bourgeoisie caused by the imperialist monopolies.
Why do such fundamental differences
exist? Actually, the explanation of any change and transformation in society
would be futile and nonsensical without considering the principal contradiction
of the existing system, namely, that between the people and imperialist rule. The
problem of imperialist domination must be regarded not as an extraneous factor
that plays some role, but rather organically as the basis for any analysis and
elucidation.
Reliance on force and anti-revolutionary violence has always been an integral part of imperialist domination. Imperialism initiated its invasion of the East through dependence on its political and military force, which stems from its worldwide economic power. Depending on the fore-mentioned anti-revolutionary violence, it disrupted the natural development as compared to that of Western societies. As we know, the bourgeoisie, subsequent to its gradual take-over of the positions of economic power, engages itself in the take-over of the positions of economic power, engages itself in the take-over of the positions of political power so that it may consolidate its economic power. But here, in the East, imperialist economic domination was possible only through political and military aggression and any continuation of economic domination has been inevitably shaped by anti-revolutionary violence. Hence, in Reza Khan’s coup d’etat we observed the establishment of a central power without it reflecting a bourgeois economic power. (The central power and the measures taken by it confused some people into thinking that Reza Khan's rule represented the national bourg