One Day In July: Remembering The 1934 Minneapolis Teamster Strike

THE 1934 MINNEAPOLIS TRUCKERS STRIKE On "Bloody Friday", July 20,1934,at 3rd and 6th, 67 striking truckdrivers and their supporters were shot by Minneapolis police, acting on orders from the Citizens Alliance, an anti-labor employers' group, which controlled city government. Seventy-five years later, WE REMEMBER THEIR SACRIFICE!

This weekend Minneapolis returned to an old tradition and celebrated the 1934 general strike in Minneapolis, that brought unionism to Minneapolis. The first day was a music festival in the streets where the fighting took place. Today was a picnic attended by relatives of strikers, and representatives of the UE who took part in the Republic Windows occupation in Chicago. No known 1934 strikers are living.

Teamsters got their name from starting out organizing drivers of teams of horses. There was less time between the 1934 stike and the Civil War, than the strike and today.

By Dave Riehle

Three successive strikes by Minneapolis truck drivers in 1934 resulted in the defeat of the Citizen's Alliance, the dominant employer organization that had broken nearly every major strike in that city since 1916. The strikes also established the industrial form of union organization through the medium of an American Federation of Labor (AFL) craft union and set the stage for the organization of over-the-road drivers throughout an 11-state area, transforming the Teamsters into a million-plus member union. The strikes were notable for their almost unequaled advance preparation, military tactics, and the degree to which they drew the active participation of union, non-union, and unemployed workers in Minneapolis alike into their struggle. Veteran union militants expelled from the American Communist Party in 1928 as Trotskyists led the strikes.

Carl Skoglund and V R. (Ray) Dunne, the central leaders, had also been expelled from the AFL Trades and Labor Assembly in Minneapolis in 1925 for their political views, along with 20 other Communists. In 1931 Skoglund obtained membership in Teamsters Local 574, a small general drivers. local. The president, William Brown, was supportive of their perspective for organizing drivers, helpers, and inside workers into an industrial union formation that could break the hold of the Citizen.s Alliance.



By late 1933, working in Minneapolis coal yards, they had consolidated a volunteer organizing committee, including Grant and Miles Dunne (V.R's brothers), Harry DeBoer, and Farrell Dobbs. Dobbs, DeBoer, and Shaun (Jack) Maloney became key leaders of the over-the-road drivers' organizing campaign from 1935 to 1940.

On 7 February 1934, a strike was called in the coal yards, shutting down sixty-five of sixty-seven yards in three hours. Under the leadership of DeBoer, an innovative strike tactic was introduced for the first time, cruising picket squads patrolling the streets by automobile. Cold winter demand for coal brought a quick end to the strike two days later, resulting in a limited victory for the union. Local 574's membership rose to three thousand by April, as the organization drive continued.

In preparation for a general drivers. strike, 574 got agreement for active support from Minneapolis unemployed organizations and the Farm Holiday Association, allied with the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party. On 15 May, Local 574, now 6,000 members strong, voted to strike all trucking employers, demanding union recognition, the right to represent inside workers, and wage increases.

The union deployed cruising picket squads from strike headquarters, a big garage where they also installed a hospital and commissary. A strike committee of one hundred was elected, with broad representation from struck firms. A women's auxiliary was established at the suggestion of Carl Skoglund.

On Monday, 21 May, a major battle between strikers and police and special deputies took place in the central market area. At a crucial, point, 600 pickets, concealed the previous evening in nearby AFL headquarters, emerged and routed the police and deputies in hand-to-hand combat. Over thirty cops went to the hospital. No pickets were arrested.

On Tuesday, 22 May, the battle began again. About 20,000 strikers, sympathizers, and spectators assembled in the central market area, and a local radio station broadcast live from the site. Again, no trucks were moved.

Two special deputies were killed, including C. Arthur Lyman, a leader of the Citizen's Alliance. No pickets were arrested. On 25 May a settlement was reached that met the union's major objectives, including representation of inside workers.

In the following weeks, it became clear the employers were not carrying out the agreement. Over 700 cases of discrimination were recorded between May and July. Another strike was called on 16 July. The union's newspaper, The Organizer, became the first daily ever published by a striking union. Trucking was again effectively closed down until Friday, 20 July, when police opened fire on unarmed pickets, wounding 67, two of whom, John Belor and Henry Ness, died.

The Minneapolis Labor Review reported attendance of 100,000 at Ness's funeral on 24 July. A public commission, set up later by the governor, reported: "Police took direct aim at the pickets and fired to kill. Physical safety of the police was at no time endangered. No weapons were in possession of the pickets." On 26 July, Farmer-Labor Governor Floyd B. Olson declared martial law and mobilized four thousand National Guardsmen, who began issuing operating permits to truck drivers.

On 1 August, National Guard troops seized strike headquarters and placed arrested union leaders in a stockade at the state fairgrounds in Saint Paul. The next day, the headquarters were restored to the union and the leaders released from the stockade, as the National Guard carried out a token raid on the Citizen's Alliance headquarters. The union appealed to the Central Labor Union for a general strike and the governor issued an ultimatum that he would stop all trucks by midnight, 5 August, if there was no settlement. Nevertheless, by 14 August there were thousands of trucks operating under military permits.

Although the strike was gravely weakened by martial law and economic pressure, union leaders made it clear that it would continue. On 21 August, a federal mediator got acceptance of a settlement pro-posal from A. W. Strong, head of the Citizen.s Alliance, incorporating the union.s major demands. The settlement was ratified and the back of employer resist-ance to unionization in Minneapolis was broken. In March 1935 International president Daniel Tobin expelled Local 574 from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT). However, in August 1936 Tobin was forced to relent and recharter the local as 544. The leaders of 544 went on to develop the area and conference bargaining that exists today in the IBT. Local 544 remained under socialist leader-ship until 1941, when eighteen leaders of the union and the Socialist Workers Party were sentenced to federal prison, the first victims of the anti-radical Smith Act, a law eventually found by the United States Supreme Court to be unconstitutional.
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RENEGADE EYE

Afghanistan: Bloodshed Without End

Written by Ewan Gibbs
Thursday, 16 July 2009

The war in Afghanistan has re-emerged in the headlines as casualty rates for American and British forces have now reached their highest since the invasion of Afghanistan. Already more than one hundred American troops have been killed since the beginning of this year alone, whilst in Britain the news has been dominated by the deaths of eight soldiers who were killed in twenty four hours over the weekend,

Three of them were just eighteen. Although this has briefly seen a temporary rush of sympathy for the dead expressing itself in support for the army, in the long run this is only exposing Afghanistan as being an unwinnable venture which is seeing young working class people sacrificed in the interest of an insane neo-colonial war that is far from in their interests.


U.S. soldiers fire a 120mm mortar during a combat operation in the Da'udzay Valley in the Zabol province of Afghanistan Oct. 23, 2007. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Jim Downen)

It is clear that the total death toll since 2001 of Afghans simply unknown and most estimates do not even factor in the effects that living in a war zone may have on access to medical supplies and the effect of the stress and duress of the daily pounding of bombs on young children and pregnant women etc. Alongside this an untold amount of damage has been done to the already precarious infrastructure of the country. The hunt against opium has seen thousands of acres of farm land burnt as peasant farmers struggle to survive whilst the wider ‘battle for hearts and minds’ is getting nowhere fast.

Despite the loud claims that Afghanistan was entering the twenty first century through a “western style democracy” following the elections in 2004, it is clear that the American led vision of dominating Afghanistan from afar, via a loyal and stable government in Kabul, is little more than a pipe dream. The elections themselves are very precarious affairs. Outside of the capital and the immediate surrounding areas their legitimacy is severely in question due to the involvement of local warlords, to whom the American led coalition are all too happy to give a piece of the pie in return for their cooperation. Mean while areas of the west of the country such as the Helmand province that lie under Taliban domination are effectively excluded from the process what so ever.

As a result the man who is in theory president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai has been branded the world’s most expensive mayor. Entirely reliant on the support of coalition forces his government has been completely bound to the interests of imperialism. In spite of the image the western media has presented of Karzai heading a supposedly reforming liberal government he comes from the same background in the Islamist Mujahideen as the Taliban. His government includes many warlords and recently in has gone as far as to propose legislation that would not only legalize the rape of Shia Muslim women by their husbands and prevent them from leaving their houses, attending school or registering for a doctor without his support. (Amnesty international 14/7/09)

The real origins of this situation go back to the Saur Revolution of 1978 which saw the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan take power through support in the military. Whilst in name a socialist revolution, the coup in effect placed a layer of progressive military generals in charge of the country. Despite failing to establish genuine workers democracy and perusing an agenda centred on protecting and furthering the privileges of the generals, the regime established a planned economy that made huge strides in health care, education and the reform of Afghanistan’s infrastructure.

The American response to this was to support the opposition in the form of the Mujihadeen guerrilla fighters who were funneled huge sums of money through the Pakistani state, in particularly its intelligence forces, the ISI. Eventually these forces overwhelmed the PDPA regime which finally fell apart in 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union from which it drew material and political support. Basing themselves on a reactionary Islamist ideology the Mujihadeen was made up of a variety of disparate groups that based themselves on local strong men who often grew rich out of the trade in opium poppies. Eventually the hard-line Taliban faction took power in 1996, holding it until the US invasion in 2001.


U.S. and British soldiers during a combat patrol in the Sangin District area of Helmand Province. (U.S. Army Photo by Spc. Daniel Love)

Islamic fundamentalism, in both the case of Iran and Afghanistan, has proved to be a monster the US initially mobilised against social revolution but which eventually escaped its own control. From the fall of the PDPA regime in the early 1990s Afghanistan has been more of a land in between countries than a nation in itself as various factions headed by glorified gangsters have vied for control of the state. The Taliban regime fell from favour with the US as it grew too big for its own boots and various terrorist attacks, such as the attack on the US embassy in Kenya in 1998 and the attempt on the World Trade Centre in 1994, began to be traced back to training camps in Afghanistan.

The attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001 proved to be the last straw and the perfect excuse for American forces to invade the country. Yesterday’s freedom fighter became today’s terrorist as the politicians sought to assert their domination over the country. Meanwhile the dollar signs showed in the eyes of the American and British energy companies, who sought to build their own pipeline to the Caspian Sea free from Russian influence. Evidently all were blind to the historical record of those invading Afghanistan! Seemingly the defeat of both the British army in the nineteenth century or the Soviet forces in the 1970s and 80s in Afghanistan did not cause them to think twice.

The invasion of Afghanistan has ended up in disaster. Whilst it is sickening but unsurprising to see opportunist politicians such as David Cameron cashing in on the needless deaths of young working class men who may well have had nowhere to turn but the army upon leaving school, the truth of the matter is no matter how many more helicopters are shipped over the situation will not change. As in Iraq and Vietnam imperialism has entered into a venture it cannot win and has attempted to subdue a people who will not be held down by military force. Sooner or later the Americans will be forced to come to a compromise with a section of the Taliban and, just as in Iraq, forced to march home with their tails between their legs - having only achieved a greater destabilisation of the region and a weakening of their allies and strengthening of their enemies.

This will unfortunately not answer the problems of the Afghan masses. It is the duty of socialists in all countries with troops in Afghanistan to demand their immediate withdrawal and an end to the occupation and national oppression of the Afghan people. However this in itself will not be enough. As long as Afghanistan lies under the domination of the gangster warlords, imperialism will keep trying to gain access to the resources of Afghanistan and, if paid handsomely enough, these leaders will only happily oblige.

The recent activities of the Pakistani section of the International Marxist Tendency, The Struggle, during the fighting in the Swat Valley demonstrated the way forward. By opening relief camps and running Marxist education workshops whilst providing aid to the refugees and mobilising the efforts of the local people to do so, they proved that the masses can resist the forces of imperialism and its ill disciplined mercenaries. It is only by standing for their own interest and taking the resources and infrastructure of their country under their control and in their interests that the Afghan workers and the peasants behind them can find a meaningful solution; that is to say through the socialist revolution.

RENEGADE EYE

Carnival of Socialism # 40 Is Here

The Carnival of Socialism # 40 is here. At it's description profile it says, "The Carnival of Socialism attempts to bring a fortnightly round up of everything that's going on in the global socialist blogosphere." Hopfully this carnival, will introduce a few new blogs for your consideration, at other carnivals as well.



Kasama caught my interest with a post entitled Mao Zedong: Should Reactionaries Have Free Speech?.

American Left History should be a regular stop on your blog reading. This blog centers on American history and culture, from a socialist view. Markin's love of history and art shine through.

The Third Estate managed to interview political icon in the UK Tony Benn.

Left in East Dakota notes Obama's base being disillusioned with him.

Worker's Press criritiques Obama on healthcare.

River's Edge notes that the UK anti-terror units, only find rightist plots, "it is invariably more by luck than by design".

Vengeance and Fashion has an interesting post about a schoolteacher who was abused by his students and snapped. There are Facebook groups supporting both sides. It is unusual for socialists to write about such a subject so close to home.

The Trotsky Museum has a blog of its own.

Querida Celia Hart Is a Spanish blog that honors Celia Hart Santamaria, the Cuban revolutionary who died last year in an auto accident related to the Cuban Hurricane. Celia opened doors for socialist democracy in Cuba.

From Turkey Mehmet Çagatay writes about Michael Jackson.

The Red Mantis tackles Iranian unrest, and asks who leads and where is it going?



Histomat replies to a BBC documentary about Leon Trotsky, based on the book The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky. Histomat writes, "Just as Stalin smeared the Jewish Trotsky as an agent of Hitler, so Richard Overy describes Trotsky's supporters as a 'motley crew', while Trotsky himself suffered from a 'blindness to any sense of humanity' and apparently 'never had any scruples about killing those in the way of the Marxist utopia'. It is a pity that Overy has seemingly not made time to read Trotsky's Their Morals and Ours where he answered exactly Overy's critique about 'moral scruple' over seventy years ago:"

Socialism or Barbarism reviews the Irish economy, in a two part series.

Celticfire writes about a Portland transit riders union.

The Daily Maybe discovered the Trotskyist soft drink Red Kola.

Untouchable Earth writes from India about the will of the Iranian people. This blog is oriented to socialism, art and astronomy.

Madam Miaow gives us good analysis of the Uighur uprising in China. At my local coffeeshop Madam Miaow's blog is blocked by the computer's filtering software. What's wrong with Anna Mae Wong?

A Reader's Word from India, takes on the myth of micro finance.

The next Carnival will be August 02, 2009 at Red Wombat

Renegade Eye

Open Thread

What do you want to say?

RENEGADE EYE

An interview with an Iranian socialist: “Electoral Fraud” and the movement in Iran today

Written by Ted Sprague
Thursday, 09 July 2009


Millions of Iranians have come out on the streets demanding a change in regime. The movement that was first sparked off by “electoral fraud” has become a movement to demand complete democratic rights and against the dictatorship of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is an interview (conducted on July 2nd 2009) with Arash Azizi, an Iranian socialist, which was originally made to explain the situation in Iran to an Indonesian audience.

Ted Sprague: Can you explain to our readers about the electoral fraud in Iran and the movement that has emerged out of it?

Arash Azizi: Well, politics works in mysterious ways! If you want to take things at face value you have to believe millions of people have come onto the streets, in a direct clash with the deadly forces of an oppressive regime just because of some “electoral fraud” between candidates that didn’t really have a difference in platform! But that is not the case. You can’t analyze events without seeing them in the context and their background.

The truth is that people participated in the elections and massively voted for Mousavi for a reason which wasn’t his platform or anything like that. People had seen the obvious splits in the ruling clique of the Islamic Republic and they wanted to use these splits. They wanted to play off one wing of the regime against the other to get rid of them all eventually. The Mousavi wing advocated lifting somewhat the repressive measures of the regime to prevent or delay the people’s uprising against the whole regime. But the Khamenei and Ahmadinejad wing couldn’t really allow that. They knew that if they concede a little bit of freedom, people will want more and eventually would not stop short of overthrowing the whole regime. That’s why they staged a “coup”, a velvet coup d’etat, if you wish. They declared Ahmadinejad the winner with a ridiculously high margin of 16 million votes. But they hadn’t expected that the people would not just go home and accept that Khamenei can just do this with impunity. They came out massively and we witnessed the largest demonstrations of the past 30 years. This wasn’t and isn’t about Mousavi anymore. Even voting for Mousavi wasn’t about Mousavi! It is about a huge population that hates life in the Islamic Republic and is willing to fight it step by step. What we now have is no longer a movement against “electoral fraud”, but a massive revolutionary movement against the Islamic Republic in its entirety. This is also revealed in people’s slogans. They started with “Give me back my Vote” but then moved on to shouting: “Down with the Dictator!” and “Down with Khamenei!” and, although to a lesser extent, “We don’t want a theocracy!”

TS: It has been three weeks since the start of the protest; can you give an update as to how this movement has developed? And who is leading it?

AA: I think I hinted at this in my previous answer. The movement started spontaneously, which is normal, even though its scope was unprecedented and extraordinary. You suddenly had more than 5 million demonstrating all over Iran! Immediately after the election, the people’s demand was of course for the repealing of the vote and giving power to Mousavi and so they perceived him as their leader. They called on him (and Karoubi, another “Reformist” candidate) to “get back their votes”. But of course Mr. Mousavi and Karoubi are much more afraid of millions of people on the streets than they are of the Khamenei and Ahmadinejad gangs.

So they decided ‑ and did their best actually to achieve this ‑ to send the people home. In the first week we had a pattern of Mousavi calling for “no demonstrations” to “save people’s lives” but then the people showed up and he had to go there and speak. He was being psuhed by the events.

Giving a concise and concrete answer to your question is hard because this “movement” is not a homogenous one and changes every movement. What is definite is that it has shown great courage, which means it is ready to fight the Islamic Republic. What is also evident is that it lacks a leadership that could lead it to the results it desires. Mousavi and Karoubi are part and parcel of this regime and they would never willingly lead an opposition movement against the regime. The people’s aim is really an end to the Islamic Republic. But they lack an effective leadership to lead them to this.

TS: The Ahmadinejad government has claimed that this movement was organized by the imperialist powers (the CIA in particular) in order to topple the regime. Is this true?

AA: Well, anybody who has lived in Iran for a while knows that for them everything is organized by Israel and the CIA. Independent intellectuals, writers, poets, journalists, even youth who just want to have fun are usually attacked in this manner. This is because oppressive regimes never want to concede that people are actually against them!

Of course this is ridiculous. This is a genuine mass movement with millions on the streets.

TS: Quite a number of people in the left support Ahmadinejad, including Chavez. What do you have to say about this?

AA: First you have to differentiate Chavez from other “Leftists”. Chavez is a head of state and he has to carry out some formalities which are acceptable as long as it is about getting trade agreements and similar questions (which are vital for Venezuela). But he is making serious mistakes in his position toward Ahmadinejad. He does not understand that the real friends of the Venezuelan Revolution are the masses of the world, including Iran. His support for the hated Ahmadinejad has unfortunately led to a feeling of hatred on the part of many Iranians towards him and the Bolivarian Revolution. I was in a solidarity demonstration recently and I heard some people claiming that Venezuela is sending police forces to crush the protesters in Tehran! While this is probably just a rumour, it shows to what degree people have feelings against him that they are circulating these rumours.

He actually has some leverage with the Iranian government and should have at least voiced some concern. Even if he wants to only think about the immediate benefits at this stage, I should tell him that this government of the Islamic Republic will not be in a power for long! And he had better wait for the new government to have good relations with! I am confident that he will eventually change his position, especially as many parts of the Bolivarian movement are voicing their concern over this. I, for example, read a statement by the Venezuelan Marxists (Revolutionary Marxist Current, CMR) that disagreed with Chavez over this question.

As I said, while Chavez is a head of state that has taken a lot of progressive measures, but who is making some lamentable mistakes about Iran, other leftists are just showing how disconnected they are from reality.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read on wsws.org, the website of the “International Committee of the Fourth International”, that they are connecting the protests to foreign intervention. This website is actually quite popular among some Iranian leftists… or was popular I should say, as of now! I haven’t read anything from the International Socialist Tendency yet. But they have to do something about their support for the Islamic Republic over the years. Anybody on the left who has supported this regime even for a day will be seen as being so guilty when we succeed in getting rid of the Islamic Republic and establishing a workers’ state in our country. They then will have to come and kneel before the Iranian workers and socialists to be forgiven! We will forgive them then, but we will never forget how, when this regime was killing us in our thousands, they supported it.

TS: Mousavi has been portrayed as a reformist by the media, the face of democratic change in Iran. What is the feeling of ordinary Iranians towards him?

AA: Let me get this straight first: the “Reformists” are a wing of the Islamic Republic that has played a huge part in murdering tens of thousands and oppressing society. They are a fierce defender of the vicious Islamic regime and its founder, Khomeini. Actually their main platform has always been for a “Return to Khomeini”! This is the kind of reform they want! They remind me of a song by Phil Ochis, an American radical artist, who mockingly talks about how the Democrats and the Republicans in the US are really no different and they are all united against the people and the workers. It is the same with the “reformists” in Iran.

But how the average Iranian feels about Mousavi differs every week, if not every day. I think Iranians understand that he is part of the regime and that they don’t really want him but they are also very practical and say to themselves “he is much better than Ahmadinejad, so let’s get him for now”. He will be looked on as the leader for now, but people will soon realize he is not there to lead them to power and will pass beyond him.

TS: Now, many commentators have compared this movement to the one in 1979, the so-called Islamic Revolution, is this assessment correct?

AA: What is definitely incorrect is to call our Great Revolution of 1979 an “Islamic Revolution”. It was not. It was a popular revolution against the monarchy and for Freedom and Equality which was hijacked, with the help of the western governments, by the reactionary Khomeini and mullahs. You have to remember that Political Islam would have had no real chance to take power in Iran if it had not been for the aid of western governments. They found this dead corpse in the dustbin of history and brought it back to life because they realised its anti-left and oppressive potential. That needs a longer discussion…

As to the relation of the current movement to that revolution…well, if you ask me I’d like to say that I hope the current revolutionary movement will fulfil the goals that the 1979 revolution failed to achieve because of its defeat by counter-revolutionary mullahs. I also believe that the 1979 revolution, even though it was brutally defeated, provides important lessons to Iranian society and workers. Workers can remember how powerful they can be when they come onto the scene of history. The real commemoration of the memory of the 1979 revolution would be a revolutionary overthrowing of the counter-revolutionary Islamic regime which had hijacked that revolution and going toward the real goals, that are Freedom, Equality and the Well-being of the people, which by the way, are only possible under Socialism.

TS: How is this movement going to affect the political landscape in the Middle East?

AA: It has already affected the whole world, not only the Middle East. The people of the world have been inspired by the extraordinary courage that their Iranian brothers and sisters have shown. Once more they have come onto streets to fight a vicious regime. In a period of 30 years, this people have fought two of the most brutal dictatorships in human history. I think anybody who has fought even for one day against oppression and tyranny will be inspired by this people.

The conclusion of this movement has of course much more important implications in the region and internationally. The overthrowing of the Islamic Republic, in my idea, will lead to an end of Political Islam as an international movement because this movement will lose its main head. The resources for the Islamists in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria will dry up and this is only good news for the people of those countries! As I said, it will also prove to everybody that no regime is indestructible and one has to fight against dictatorships and once the collective power of the workers and people is on the scene, any regime will be brought down.

I, of course have much higher hopes for the new Iranian Revolution. I am hoping, and I will fight for, a socialist revolution that would establish a socialist republic in Iran and if that happens, if a country of 70 million people becomes socialist, an international battle will begin that will only end with the end of capitalism and will open up a new page in human history.

TS: What about the labour movement in Iran?

AA: the labour movement has its weaknesses and strengths. It lacks traditional mass organizations (like Trade Unions which are almost non-existent) but on the other hand it has great revolutionary traditions like the workers’ councils which were formed in the 1979 revolution. It also has a lot of potential militancy and has so far shown no illusions in any wing of the regime, which is extraordinary. But it is yet to decisively enter the struggle and when that happens, the fate of the Iranian revolution will be sealed.

TS: Where do you think this movement will lead? It has been 3 weeks of constant demos, how do you think it will end?

AA: I have never been a sole “predictor” of the event and I like to think myself as part of the movement that tries to move it to the left. This revolution will be stopped by a lot people at different “stations”, if you will. They will try to tell us when is the time for what, and that the time for what hasn’t come YET. The task is for a revolutionary leadership to emerge that would be accepted by the people and would lead their revolution all the way to victory, which means overthrowing the Islamic Republic and laying the foundations of a new society. My wish is for Iran to go socialist and I know this is not possible without a mass revolutionary party that would lead the workers and the people.

But apart from what I wish, one thing is for sure: Iran will never be the same again. The beginning of the end for the Islamic Republic has started and in the aftermath of the destruction of this regime, the people will have a real chance to found a humane society that would be a beacon of hope for the oppressed people all over the world.

RENEGADE EYE

Honduras: One week after the coup – mass mobilisation continues – Army prevents Zelaya’s come back

By Jorge Martín
Monday, 06 July 2009

All kinds of manoeuvres are taking place after the coup in Honduras. The coup organisers want to hold on, but pressure is being brought to bear for some kind of compromise solution, which however cannot satisfy the masses. The only real answer lies in the full mobilisation of the Honduran workers and peasants.

Hundreds of thousands had marched to the Toncontin airport and broken through police lines to make sure Zelaya's plane could land.On Sunday, July 5, a week after having been removed by a military coup, Honduran president Mel Zelaya boarded a Venezuelan plane in Washington with the aim of going back to his country. Hundreds of thousands had marched to the Toncontin airport and broken through police lines to make sure his plane could land. However, the army opened fire on the unarmed demonstrators, injuring scores and killing at least one. Zelaya’s plane was prevented from landing by the Army which positioned vehicles on the landing strip. The government of Micheletti ‑ imposed by a coup ‑ has closed down all of the country’s airports.

Men, women, children, workers, peasants, the poor, had gathered from early in the morning to march to the airport to receive their president. A report from Radio Globo put the figure at half a million, others put the number at 200,000 people. The live broadcast from Telesur showed a huge crowd of hundreds of thousands, far bigger than the 65,000 that had marched against the coup the day before in Tegucigalpa. Speaking from Honduras to In Defence of Marxism, Democratic Unity (UD) party MP Tomás Andino said: “This demonstration was unprecedented, probably the largest in the history of Honduras”. We have to take into account that the population of the country as a whole is only 7.5 million people. This demonstration was the biggest so far against the coup and dwarfed any of the demonstrations organised by the coup plotters during the week.

This massive movement of the people of Honduras has taken place despite the fact that the new regime has imposed a curfew (which has not been extended and is in place between 6pm and 6am every night), has arrested dozens of known trade union and popular movement activists and leaders, has killed a number of them (the correspondent from El Pais has reported that people have been taken to hospital by the police with bullet wounds every single night), has suspended constitutional guarantees (a de facto state of emergency situation) and put in place a media blockade (a number of radio and TV stations have been closed down). According to police officials 651 people were arrested on Saturday and Sunday alone. None of this has stopped the movement and the strikes which have paralysed mainly the education system and the telecommunications and electricity companies. Peasant and indigenous organisations are maintaining road blocks in many of the districts in the interior of the country.

The scope of the movement against the coup and growing the international pressure is already opening up rifts within the camp of the coup organisers. According to some reports, businessmen Ricardo Maduro, Rafael Ferrari and Carlos Flores Facussémet met with representatives of the coup organisers until early in the morning trying to get them to reach an agreement. But the coup plotters, led by Micheletti, are particularly obtuse representatives of the Honduran oligarchy, and having taken the step of organising the coup, are now in no mood to make any concessions. In a farcical press conference Micheletti alleged that Nicaraguan troops were massing at the border in preparation for an invasion of Honduras. When pressed by the journalists to give more details, he changed his tune and said that it was just a “psychological invasion”!

On Saturday, July 4, Micheletti’s junta also rebuffed OAS general secretary Insulza, who had gone to Honduras in a last minute attempt to reach a compromise. It is clear that this coup is highly embarrassing for the current US administration and that pressure is being put on the coup plotters to at least make some concessions which could allow for a negotiated settlement, probably including some guarantees on Zelaya’s part that he would not seek to call a referendum on a Constituent Assembly.

The role of the United States in the coup

There has been a lot of speculation about whether the Obama administration was involved in this coup or not. On this question, Andino was very clear: “We think it is impossible for the Honduran Army to have acted without at least tacit approval on the part of US intelligence”.

All the information that has come out over the last week confirms what we said just after the coup:

“It is clear and public knowledge that the US knew that a coup was being organised. They had had conversations with the leaders of Congress in which the coup had been discussed. The advice from the US had been against taking the step of arresting Zelaya. Probably the US administration, faced with the mass mobilisation on Friday and having learnt some lessons from Venezuela, was not very confident in taking what might be seen as an illegal step and were more in favour of continuing with the script of the “constitutional coup”, leaving the removal of Zelaya for another, more favourable, moment.” (Defeat the reactionary military coup in Honduras – Mass mobilisation in the streets and general strike!)



US ambassador Hugo Llorens had stated on a number of occasions that he was against the consultation being proposed by Zelaya on the possibility of a referendum on a constituent assembly, but he phrased his opposition in typical diplomatic language: “one cannot violate the Constitution in order to create a Constitution”, he said (La Prensa, June 4). This was precisely the argument used by the oligarchy to block Zelaya’s proposed consultation.

Llorens stressed that: “whatever is finally done, it should be done within the law, within the Constitution”. On June 17, he echoed the arguments of the Honduran capitalists: “The political situation in the country does not help to create an investment friendly climate. Uncertainty in a country does not help investment” (La Prensa). And he added that the dispute about the consultation should be resolved by Congress. What he was saying, loud and clear, was that the US were in favour of a “democratic constitutional coup”.

Right up to the eve of the coup, US ambassador Llorens was talking to the coup plotters. On June 21, there was a meeting in the US embassy with the presence of president Zelaya, as well as all the coup plotters: Congress president Micheletti, Liberal and National Party presidential candidates Santos and Lobo, and the head of the Armed Forces, Romeo Vásquez. According to the report in the Honduran La Prensa, Zelaya was told that “the best way out of the crisis” would be for him to “cancel the consultation and carry out an opinion poll instead”. (La Prensa, June 22). The very fact that the US ambassador is meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign country in this manner is a clear indication of the status of Honduras as a “banana republic” dominated by US imperialism. The message to Zelaya was clear: cancel the referendum or else.

It would be extremely naïve to think that Llorens did not know of the plans for a coup ‑ in fact this was being openly discussed in the Honduran media in the days leading up to it ‑ and even more naïve to think that he had not reported to Washington. Llorens is not a newcomer, he was nominated as US ambassador to Honduras by the Bush administration and had been Head of Andean Affairs at the National Security Council in 2002 and 2003. This position made him Bush’s main advisor on matters related to Venezuela, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador. He therefore was well aware of the failure of the 2002 coup in Venezuela.

The policy of the new Obama administration regarding Latin America has been one of hiding the stick and mainly waving the carrot. The aims are the same, but after the fiasco of Bush’s bullish policy in the region, Obama is keen to push back the revolutionary wave sweeping the continent by leaning on the “reasonable left” governments in the region. He cannot, therefore, afford the embarrassment of a military coup. Certainly the US administration wanted to remove Zelaya, who had become a thorn in their side, by joining ALBA, siding with Chavez, refusing for months to accept the new US ambassador, Llorens, as a gesture of solidarity with Bolivia (where the US were involved in another attempted coup in September last year) and by generally contributing to a sharpening of the class struggle (“polarisation”) in Honduras with his “irresponsible” statements about the rich and poor, and “freeing the country from imperialism”. They merely preferred to do so by constitutional means.

On June 25 the Honduran congress declared itself in “permanent session”. They were going to carry out the coup by declaring the disqualification of the president. The coup was averted at the last minute with the intervention of Llorens and even, according to some reports, of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself. But this only delayed the coup until Sunday 28, when the army took Zelaya in the middle of the night and put him on a plane to Costa Rica.

This was revealed in the lukewarm and belated statements of the Obama administration in the aftermath of the coup. The first official pronouncement of the White House was along the lines of an appeal to “all political and social players in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter”. That was an appeal for all players to respect democracy, when some of them had just carried out a coup! It was only after the strongly worded condemnation of the coup by the ALBA member countries, led by Venezuela, that the US was forced to utter the word “coup”, and threatened to curtail military aid to Honduras. However, ambassador Llorens was left in Honduras, in order to keep an open line “with all players”.

Even though Zelaya has been in Washington for a few days, neither Obama nor Clinton have thus far met with him, preferring to allow the OAS to deal with the matter. The Organisation of American States has been charged with trying to find a reasonable solution to this mess, one that would save face by bringing Zelaya back, but on the basis of neutralising him – and above all the masses who support him. After all, even if he came back, he does not have control of Congress, nor the Supreme Court, nor the Army, and there are elections scheduled in November in which he cannot legally participate. When Zelaya announced that he was going back to the country on Thursday, July 2nd, the OAS gave the regime a 72-hour ultimatum, thus delaying his return. Then Zelaya announced that he would go back on Saturday 4th, only for OAS general secretary Insulza to announce his own visit to Honduras on that day, delaying Zelaya by one more day.

But Insulza was met with derision on the part of the coup plotters who announced that, before anyone kicked the out, they would be leaving the OAS. There are certain elements in politics that are never completely under anyone's control. Here we saw the most obtuse representatives of the Honduran oligarchy biting the hand that was offering them a way out.

The Spanish El Pais, always reflecting faithfully the opinions of imperialism, put it quite bluntly last week: “It is urgent to find a way out within the agreed [OAS] deadline, in order to prevent Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, from filling the vacuum which might be left afterwards. If the OAS, with US support, does not reinstate Zelaya, the road would then be open for the insurrectionary solution that Chavez is suggesting. The US seems to be conscious of the fact that it is running more risks here than they could have ever imagined in a country like Honduras, and is attempting to be very careful in its moves, so that Zelaya can win but without a victory for what he represents. In other words, without a victory for Chavez and populism”. (El Pais, July 2nd, Ultimátum de la OEA a los golpistas)

El Pais, incidentally came out against the coup but supported the reasons for it, after having written a vitriolic denunciation of Zelaya the day before the coup, in an editorial which ridiculed Chavez’s warning that a coup was being prepared in Honduras. (Editorial: Crisis en Honduras, June 26th)



Negotiations and mass action

Nonetheless, in the next few days, more pressure will be exerted on the coup leaders to reach a settlement. This was confirmed today in an article in the Washington Post: “U.S. officials confirmed that Honduras's de facto government had sent a message to the OAS seeking to open negotiations, a move that one official described as positive. 'We think this could create the basis for continuing movement by the OAS on diplomatic initiatives,' one official said.”

Tomás Andino, the UD deputy, told us that Carlos Flores was in negotiations with Washington to find a negotiated way out of the current crisis. “They want to bring back Zelaya, but bound hand and foot”. He pointed out that the businessmen fear that if the current efforts do not force the coup plotters to step down they will be faced with an armed mass uprising of the people which would threaten the whole of the capitalist regime.

However, we must be clear on one point: no amount of diplomatic pressure can defeat the coup in Honduras unless the masses of workers and peasants fight for it on the streets as they have done in the last few days. It may even come to pass that Zelaya is returned to Honduras, only for Congress to start proceedings to remove him from the presidency before the end of his term in January.

Over the last week, the mass movement in Honduras has become broader, more confident and more radicalised. This is precisely what the coup plotters feared, and the reason why they organised the coup. The struggle of the hundreds of thousands of Honduran working people, who have come out on the streets over the last week braving repression, is not only for the reinstatement of the president, but also for the trial and punishment of the coup plotters. Even more than that, it is a fundamental struggle for jobs, bread, land, dignity, and national sovereignty. None of this will be achieved simply with the return of Zelaya alone. If a negotiated settlement is finally reached, this will not satisfy the demands of the masses for justice, and it will certainly not solve the economic and social problems that have pushed them to rally behind Zelaya.

Speaking to Tomas Aquino, from the Honduras Democratic United Party, he made it very clear that the Peoples’ Resistance Front Against the Coup rejects any kind of negotiation with the coup-plotters and stands for the unconditional reinstatement of the president. He added that the masses of the people have become radicalised through their own experience. “They no longer demand a referendum on the Constituent Assembly, they want a Constituent Assembly full stop, as they are not prepared to deal any more with the political institutions that organised the coup”.

The return of Zelaya, if it does finally take place in the next few days, will only be a real victory for the mass movement if it is achieved without concessions on his part. If so, it will strengthen the resolve of the workers and peasants, it will increase their confidence in their own strength.

This last week of struggle has been a very rich school of political education for the masses. Under the whip of repression their political understanding has developed by leaps and bounds. All that Zelaya wanted, apparently, was to carry out a consultation on the possibility of a referendum to decide on a Constituent Assembly! And just because of that, the oligarchy en bloc organised a military-civilian coup. As Andino explained to us, the coup has the support of all traditional political parties, the hierarchy of the Evangelical and Catholic churches, the monopoly mass media groups, the owners of industry, the landowners, the judiciary and the tops of the Army. The whole of the capitalist political establishment is against a minor democratic reform! Because they are terrified of the revolutionary implications of the direct participation of the masses of the workers and peasants in politics. The capitalist system cannot allow it. Andino added that, “what we see is the beginning of a revolution”, and he is correct.

The two main lessons to be learnt from these events are, on the one hand, that the oligarchy in these underdeveloped capitalist countries cannot allow even the most moderate progressive reforms if these are accompanied by a process of politicisation and mobilisation of the masses. They fear the revolutionary consequences of the active participation of the masses in politics. On the other hand it should by now be clear that it is utopian to expect that the institutions of the capitalist state (the judiciary, army hierarchy, mass media, police, etc.), will allow genuine revolutionary change to take place without them stepping in to defend the interests of their masters, the ruling class. This is a serious warning for the revolutionary movement in Bolivia, in neighbouring El Salvador, in Ecuador, etc.

The only way forward for the movement in Honduras is to continue the mobilisation against the coup. This must be organised and coordinated nationally through committees in every workplace, neighbourhood and village. An appeal must be made to the ranks of the Army, the ordinary soldiers who are also part of the people. Mass demonstrations must be protected by defence committees made up of the workers and peasants themselves. The army generals have already shown what they are capable of, the people cannot face them unprotected. Tomás Andino reported to us lots of different examples of fraternisation of police officers and soldiers with the protestors. These have not yet crystallised in any section of the army openly rebelling, but this could happen in the next few days.

Finally, the main weapon of working people against the oligarchy and the coup is the general strike. Without the permission of the working class not a wheel turns and not a light bulb shines in Honduras. Workers can bring the country to a halt and prevent the coup regime from functioning. Andino reported to In Defence of Marxism that about 60% of public sector workers had participated in the strike against the coup and that this week would see the spreading of the strike movement to the private sector. The call for strike action had been made by the three trade union confederations, all of them part of the Peoples Resistance Front.

Tomás Andino also made an appeal for action to the international working class. “There should be blockades against Honduran products on the part of dockers and transport workers. This can hit the capitalist class where it hurts”.

International solidarity on the part of working people and the labour movement internationally is also crucial. We stand firmly on the side of the Honduran people and against any attempts to water down their fundamental demands.

For the immediate return of Zelaya!

Trial and punishment for the coup plotters!

Full support for the struggle of the people of Honduras!









RENEGADE EYE

Defeat the reactionary military coup in Honduras – Mass mobilisation in the streets and general strike!

By Jorge Martin
Monday June 29, 2009

The coup in Honduras highlights once again that even mild reforms within the capitalist system cannot be tolerated by the local oligarchies in Latin America and their imperialist masters. But Venezuela teaches that if the masses mobilise reaction can be stopped. Now is the time to mobilise the full force of the Honduran workers and poor.

Early in the morning on Sunday, June 28, a group of 200 soldiers surrounded the residence of the Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, and after a 20-minute gun battle with his 10-man personal guard he was arrested. He was then taken by plane to neighbouring Costa Rica where he gave a press conference denouncing a military coup by “right-wing oligarchs”, calling on the people to mobilise in the streets and promising to come back to the country.

The immediate origin of this reactionary military coup was the conflict over plans by Zelaya to call a referendum on the need for a Constituent Assembly, which was opposed by the right wing dominated Congress, the high command of the Army, and the tops of the judiciary.

Zelaya, popularly known as Mel, won the presidential elections in 2005 as candidate for the Honduras Liberal Party, narrowly defeating his main opponent from the National Party. Despite being a wealthy landowner, the political polarisation in this small and poor Central American country pushed him to take some measures in favour of the poor, the peasants and the workers, adopting “Bolivarianism” as his model. He soon lost the support of his own centre-right Liberal Party and was forced to ally himself with the organisations of workers and peasants. In an interview with Spain’s El País he describes his political evolution:

“Look, I thought of making changes from within the neoliberal scheme. But the rich do not make any concessions, not even a penny. The rich are not prepared to give up any of their money. They want to keep everything for themselves. Then, obviously, in order to make changes one has to bring the people on board.”

Honduras is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, with over 50% of the population living below the poverty line and with a rate of illiteracy of over 20%. More than one million of its 7.8 million inhabitants have had to emigrate to the US in search of jobs. In these conditions, even the most moderate and reasonable measures in favour of the majority of the population are bound to be met with brutal opposition on the part of the ruling class, capitalists, landowners, the owners of the media, the local oligarchy.

Among the measures taken by his government are a number of progressive reforms, including a national literacy campaign modelled on the examples of Cuba and Venezuela, an attempt to improve healthcare for the poorer sections of society (including access to cheaper drugs, grants for medical students to go to Cuba), a cut in interest rates for small farmers and a significant increase of 60% of the minimum wage.

He also moved to cut some of the most glaring privileges of the Honduran oligarchic ruling class. He broke the monopoly of the multinational companies in the importation of fuel, through an agreement with Venezuelan based Petrocaribe. Zelaya also took measures against the pharmaceutical multinationals which control 80% of all drugs sold in Honduras, all of them imported at high costs for the national health service, by signing an agreement with Venezuela and Cuba to import cheap generic versions of the most commonly used drugs. The president also denounced the monopoly of the oligarchy over the mass media and put an end to government subsidies for the big media groups.

In the international arena Zelaya sided with the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), the regional alliance promoted by Venezuela which Honduras has now joined.

All these actions contributed to increase his popularity and social base amongst the poorest sections of the population and enraged the oligarchy which has ruled the country in close alliance with US interests for nearly 200 years. Honduras for most of the 20th century was a classic “banana republic”, dominated by United Fruit, which controlled the overwhelming majority of the country’s best agricultural land and ran it like a private fiefdom with no reference to the official government of the country. There were periodic interventions of US marines to remove governments which attempted to curtail the power of United Fruit. The country’s formal “independence” was just a smokescreen, since it was firmly ruled by US imperialism for the United Fruit Company. The US marines landed in Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924, and 1925. In 1911, the new “Honduran” president was directly appointed by a US mediator. In 1930, when United Fruit faced a solid strike in its banana plantations on the Caribbean coast, a United States warship was dispatched to the area to quell it.

In the words of Major General Smedley Darlington Butler of the US Marines:

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. (...) I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.(...) I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903"

Honduras also has a long history of Liberal presidents attempting to implement timid reforms and then being overthrown by the military and the oligarchy with the support and direct participation of the US. This was the case of president Vicente Mejía (1929-33), who was replaced by the dictatorship of general Carías Andino, supported by the banana companies which lasted until 1949. The same happened to president Villeda Morales, who attempted a mild agrarian reform and was overthrown by the US-sponsored coup of López Arellano, which ruled the country between 1965 and 1974. And of course, in the 1980s, Honduras became the main base for the operations of the US-organised contras, the counter-revolutionary thugs fighting against the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua.

Faced with the firm opposition of the capitalist class and imperialism, Zelaya thought that he could get around that by calling a referendum for a Constituent Assembly, following the model of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. He proposed that on Sunday June 28 a referendum would be organised to ask the population whether, as part of the November general elections, a referendum would be organised to call a Constituent Assembly. He had collected 400,000 signatures to back his proposal. On Tuesday June 23, the oligarchy, using its majority in the National Congress, passed a law declaring the proposed consultation illegal. The Supreme Court and the High Command of the Army also made similar statements. They were already preparing a military coup, in case the “constitutional coup” should fail. On the same day, left wing mayoral candidate for Tocoa local council suffered an attempt on his life when four hired thugs armed with AK47 assault rifles fired on his car.

On Wednesday 24, president Zelaya met with the High Command of the Armed Forces which refused to offer any logistical support for the consultation. Zelaya removed general Romeo Vasquez from his position as the head of the joint command of the Armed Forces. The other members of the Joint Command also resigned and Zelaya accepted their resignation. The Minister of Defence was also removed. On Thursday 25, troops were out on the streets of Tegucigalpa and the Supreme Court reinstated Romeo Vazquez to the high command of the Armed Forces. Zelaya made and appeal to the people to come out on the streets and thousands of workers and peasants gathered around the presidential palace to protect Zelaya. The troops withdrew.

On Friday, Zelaya, with a large number of supporters went into the military base where the ballots and the ballot boxes were being kept and took them away with no resistance before officials from the judiciary could seize them. Zelaya declared: “All the power of the bourgeois state was used to prevent it [the distribution of ballot boxes]. They used the judges, they used the military, the media groups. They could not prevent it.” And he added:

“We are talking about the bourgeois state. The bourgeois state is made up of the economic elite. The tops of the army, the political parties, the judges, and that bourgeois state feels threatened when I start to propose that the people should have a say.”

This initial resolution of the conflict in favour of the president and the people lured Zelaya into a false sense of security. On Saturday he declared to the Spanish El País that “I think I have control of most of the country… I control the Army... as long as I do not give orders which affect the rich.” He even added that he was confident that the US had intervened to stop the coup. A few hours later he had to jump from his bed when armed soldiers came for him.

The Honduran ruling class has lost no time. A state of emergency and curfew has been declared, Congress has quickly appointed a new president, Roberto Micheletti, who until now was president of the Congress and a wave of arrests of left-wing, worker and peasant activists was unleashed. According to some sources, Cesar Ham, the presidential candidate of the left-wing Democratic Unification Party was killed when he resisted arrest. Congress has ordered the arrest of the following mass movement leaders amongst others: Juan Baraona (Peoples’ Block leader), Carlos H Reyes (Peoples’ Block leader), Andrés Padrón (Human Rights Movement), Luther Castillos (trade union leader), Rafael Alegrón (Via Campesina peasant leader), César Han (Civic Council of Peoples and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras, CCOPIH), Andrés Pavón (CCOPIH), Marvin Ponce (CCOPIH), Salvador Zúñiga (CCOPIH) and Berta Cáceres (CCOPIH).

The Venezuelan, Cuban and Nicaraguan ambassadors were detained by masked military men while they were visiting foreign affairs minister Patricia Rodas. They were later released, not before having been beaten however. The whole script of the coup follows closely that of the April 2002 coup in Venezuela against Chavez, down to the role of the media, the taking off the air of government TV channel 8, and even details like the appearance of a forged letter from Zelaya resigning as a president! Obviously the same forces are involved in both countries.

It is clear and public knowledge that the US knew that a coup was being organised. They had had conversations with the leaders of Congress in which the coup had been discussed. The advice from the US had been against taking the step of arresting Zelaya. Probably the US administration, faced with the mass mobilisation on Friday and having learnt some lessons from Venezuela, was not very confident in taking what might be seen as an illegal step and were more in favour of continuing with the script of the “constitutional coup”, leaving the removal of Zelaya for another, more favourable, moment.

Obama’s statement on the coup was certainly very mild. He called on “all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter,” and added that the situation "must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference.”

We have a situation in which the democratically elected president has been illegally arrested by military forces and taken abroad and Obama calls on “all political and social actors” to respect democratic norms and the rule of law. This clearly leaves the door open to the arguments of the oligarchy that Zelaya was breaking the law by calling the consultation. A few hours later, after strongly worded statements by Chávez and a condemnation on the part of the Organisation of American States, the US administration came out publicly to say that they still recognised Zelaya as the legitimate president of Honduras.

Washington might have had some tactical disagreements with the oligarchy in Honduras, but they both share their opposition to any government that is seen as channelling the aspirations of the masses. We should not forget that the main characters in the coup are all military men trained in the infamous School of the Americas, and that the US still has 500 troops stationed in Honduras.

The same position seems to have been adopted by the Spanish El País, which has become the mouthpiece of Spanish multinational and imperialist interests in Latin America, waging a vitriolic campaign against the Venezuelan and Bolivian revolutions and against all left-wing mass movements on the continent. In a cynical editorial today their line is: We reject the coup, but we support its aims. (La vuelta del golpe, El País). They say that at the end of the day, “the truth is that on Sunday, either the president or the military, one oo the other, were inevitable going to violate legality”! So, while formally rejecting the coup they are blaming Zelaya for “violating legality” for calling “a consultation which is not allowed by the Constitution and which had been opposed by Congress, the electoral authority and the Supreme Court.”

There are two lessons that must be clearly learnt from the events in Honduras. One is that even the most moderate progressive reforms in favour of the workers and peasants cannot be tolerated by the ruling class. The struggle for healthcare, education, land reform, jobs and houses can only be solved as part of the struggle for socialism. The second is that one cannot carry out a genuine revolution while leaving intact the apparatus of the bourgeois state, which will sooner or later be used against the will of the majority of working people.

El País, from the other side of the barricade, clearly identifies what was at stake in Honduras on Sunday: “What was being decided, at the end of the day, was the balance of forces in Latin America. If Zelaya got his way in the re-election consultation, chavismo would have won terrain in Central America.” The opinion of El País is very clear. This had to be stopped; it is just that the method was not of the best.

Venezuelan president Chávez, described the situation correctly when he denounced the military coup: "It is a brutal coup d'etat, one of many that have taken place over 10 years in Latin America. Behind these soldiers are the Honduran bourgeois, the rich who converted Honduras into a Banana Republic, into a political and military base for North American imperialism."

But, as in Venezuela in 2002, thousands of Zelaya supporters have come out onto the streets to fight against the coup and to demand the reinstatement of the president.

The trade union organisations, including the CGT national confederation, have called a general strike for today Monday. This is the way forward. Only through the mass mobilisation of the workers and peasants can the coup be defeated. Such a mass movement must also make an appeal to the rank and file soldiers to refuse to follow orders from their officers. Hugo Chávez posed it thus: “Soldier, empty out your rifle against the oligarchy and not against the people.”

We must give our full support to the workers and peasants of Honduras in their struggle for the reinstatement of the president. We call on the international labour movement and solidarity organisations to demonstrate their opposition to this reactionary coup. A particular role must be played by workers and peasant organisations in the neighbouring countries of Central America and Mexico. Mass demonstrations and pickets of the embassies in these countries would serve as encouragement for the masses in Honduras.

Down with the reactionary coup in Honduras!
Mass mobilisation on the streets and a general strike!
Soldiers, turn your weapons against your officers and join the side of the people!

RENEGADE EYE

Solidarity with the movement of the Iranian masses – Statement of the Revolutionary Marxist Current (Venezuela)

By Revolutionary Marxist Current
Wednesday, 24 June 2009

In response to recent statements by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan Revolutionary Marxist Current has issued this statement. They express their support for the movement of the masses in Iran and explain the differences between the revolutionary movement in Venezuela and the counter-revolutionary regime in Iran.

The Bolivarian Revolution and Iran

In Iran we have a situation in which the opposition denounces electoral fraud, in which this allegation gets support from the imperialist powers and in which there are street demonstrations against the election results. It is understandable that many revolutionaries in Venezuela will draw parallels between what is happening in Iran and situations we have lived through during the Bolivarian revolution. In Venezuela, more than once, the reactionary and oligarchic counter-revolution, with the support of imperialism, has attempted to create a situation of chaos in the streets with the excuse of an alleged “electoral fraud” in order to de-legitimise the election victories of the revolution (during the recall referendum, in the 2006 presidential elections, during the constitutional reform referendum in 2007, etc).

However these parallels do not correspond to reality.

The Islamic Republic – a revolutionary regime?

First of all, the Iranian regime of the Islamic Republic is not a revolutionary regime. The Iranian revolution which was victorious in 1979, was a genuine mass revolution, with the active participation of the working class, the youth, the peasantry, the soldiers, the women, etc. The decisive factor which brought down the hated Shah was the general strike of the oil workers. Millions of workers organised shoras (factory councils) in their factories and took over control and administration of these, in a similar way to what oil workers did in Venezuela during the bosses lock out and sabotage of the economy in December 2002. Millions of peasants occupied the land of the big landowners (as they are doing now in Venezuela). The students occupied their schools and universities and proceeded to democratise them putting an end to the elitism that had dominated them. The soldiers also set up their shoras (councils) and proceeded to purge the army from reactionary officers. The oppressed nationalities (Kurds, Arabs, Azeri, etc) conquered their freedom. The Iranian people as a whole threw away the yoke of imperialism.

However, the current Iranian regime of the Islamic Republic was consolidated, in the period between 1979 and 1983, precisely on the basis of the smashing of this revolution on the part of the fundamentalist Islamic clerics. Over a period of several years all the conquests of the 1979 revolution were destroyed. Land was given back to landowners, expelling the peasants which had taken it. The factory councils were destroyed and replaced by Islamic shoras, leaving the workers with no right to organise or to strike. A particular interpretation of Islam was imposed on the population as a whole, bringing the most ruthless denial of women’s rights and creating an atmosphere of ideological oppression for the majority of the population.

The kidnapping and smashing of the workers’ and peoples’ revolution of 1979 on the part of fundamentalist Islamic clergy was only possible because of the wrong policies of all left wing organisations who thought that they could form a united front with the Muslim clerics led by Ayatollah Khomeini. They paid dearly for their mistakes. Over a period of four years, with increasingly brutal attacks against the left, the power of the Islamic Republic was consolidated over what had been a working class and anti-imperialist revolution. In order to be able to achieve this, the Muslim clerics dressed themselves in anti-imperialist robes, organising the incident of the US embassy and skilfully exploiting the war with Iraq. By 1983, all left wing parties had been banned (despite their support for a united front with Khomeini), and some 30,000 militants of different groups of the reformist, nationalist and revolutionary left had been killed. These are the origins of the present day Islamic Republic of Iran. Not a revolutionary regime, but rather a regime born by smashing a revolution.

Was there electoral fraud?

Some argue that on June 13, 2009 there was no electoral fraud, but there are numerous examples of this. To start with, any candidate standing for election has to be approved by the Guardian Council, an undemocratic 12-person body.

Regarding fraud itself, let’s just give a proven example. Conservative candidate Hoshem Rezaei, who has not called for nor participated in the protests last week, alleged that in 80 to 170 cities, voter turnout had been more than the electoral census. That is, more people had voted than were registered to vote! In all of these cities, Ahmadinejad had won with a large majority, in some cases by 80 or 90%. On June 21, after a week of demonstrations with the participation of millions of people and the death of at least 12 in clashes on Saturday June 20, the Guardian Council was forced to comment on these allegations. On behalf of the Guardian Council, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei spoke on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Channel 2, and said that “statistics provided by the candidates, who claim more than 100% of those eligible have cast their ballot in 80-170 cities are not accurate - the incident has happened in only 50 cities”!! He then went on to explain that a turnout of over 100% was a “normal phenomena because there is no legal limitation for people to vote for the presidential elections in another city or province to which people often travel or commute”. Finally he added that since this “only affected 3 million people” it would not have altered the final results.

Ahmadinejad – a revolutionary?

As the clerics did in 1979, Ahmadinejad has used anti-imperialist and pro-poor rhetoric, in an attempt to win support from the masses. But let’s have a look at what the real conditions of the Iranian people are under his presidency. First of all, in Venezuela, the Bolivarian revolution has unleashed a wave of trade union organisation and militant struggle on part of the workers. President Chávez has called on the workers to occupy abandoned factories and to run them under workers’ control. In Iran the workers have no right to organise or to strike and if they break these laws they face the most brutal repression. In the case of the Tehran bus drivers, when 3,000 of them attempted to organise a union, the company replied with mass sackings, and the police attacked the trade union leaders, including the general secretary Ossalou, whose tounge the police thugs attempted to cut off.

When trade union activists in Sanandaj attempted to organise a May Day celebration in 2007, the police responded with brutal repression. Eleven of the leading activists were condemned to receive 10 lashings and to pay a fine before they were released. When some 2,000 worker activists attempted to organise a May Day celebration in Tehran this year, the police responded with brutal repression and 50 of them were arrested (some are still in jail). Millions of Iranian workers are owed unpaid wages for months. When they try to organise they face brutal police repression.

While in Venezuela the Bolivarian Revolution has put a halt to the process of privatisation of state-owned companies and renationalised many that had been privatised, in Iran, Ahmadinjead has accelerated privatisation of state-owned companies (167 privatisations in 2007/08 and a further 230 in 2008/09), including the privatisation of telecommunications, of the Isfahan Mobarakeh Steel mill, of the Isfahan Petrochemical Company, of the Kurdistan Cement Company, etc. The list of companies to be privatised include the largest petrochemical complex in the country, most large banks, gas and oil companies, the insurance sector, etc.

Even though Ahmadinejad’s government criticises US imperialism in an attempt to divert the masses from their internal problems, it is not even consequent in its struggle against this enemy which it criticises. The US military intervention in Iraq could count on the passivity of the Iranian government and ruling class, which saw the weakening of the rival Iraqi regime as an opportunity to strengthen their power in the region. Instead of favouring a unified revolutionary struggle for national liberation in the neighbouring country, the Iranian regime played a key role in putting a break to this and dividing the struggle on religious lines.

Mousavi, the “reformist” candidate, is not better. He was prime minister in the 1980s, during the massacre of 30,000 left wing activists. Now he has suddenly discovered that, without opposing the principles of the Islamic Republic, it needs to be “reformed”, that is, cosmetics changes from above are need, so that in the end all remains the same and he and his cronies can continue in power. The division between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi is the split between two sections of the reactionary regime: one which wants reforms from above in order to prevent revolution from below, and the other which wants to maintain control from above to prevent revolution from below.

However these divisions at the top have opened the space for a genuine mass movement that has challenged the regime over the past week. If there was any doubt about the revolutionary and peoples’ character of the movement of the Iranian masses, let’s see what the position of working class activists has been. The majority of workers and trade union organisations (illegal under Ahmadinejad) before the elections correctly declared that none of the candidates represented the interests of the workers and that therefore they would not advocate a vote for either of them. However, faced with the mass popular demonstrations of the last week, both the Vahed Syndicate of bus drivers and the workers at Iran Khodro, the largest car factory in the Middle East, expressed their support for the movement, and in the case of Khodro, came out on strike for half an hour in each shift. Now revolutionary activists in Iran are discussing the calling of a general strike against the regime and for democratic freedoms.

Clearly, as revolutionaries, we must oppose any imperialist interference in Iran. President Chávez has correctly supported Iran in international forums in the last few years against imperialist bullying on the part of the US. However, it would be fatal to mix up revolution with counter-revolution. The Bolivarian revolution must be on the side of the Iranian people, the workers, youth and women, who are in the streets of Tehran and the other cities carrying out their own Caracazo, or their own April 13, against the hated counter-revolutionary regime of the Islamic Republic.

On June 18, president Chávez once again congratulated Ahmadinejad on his reelection as a president and added the “solidarity of Venezuela in the face of the attack by world capitalism against the people of that country”. The Revolutionary Marxist Current in Venezuela, disagrees with this position and we would like to contribute to the debate with the above observations.

The images of brutal repression against the youth and workers of Iran and the realisation that in Iran a young student or a worker can go to jail for the simple act of organising a strike, creating a trade union or demonstrating against the state or the bosses, has caused a massive outrage against the Iranian government on the part of workers and youth all over the world. Several counter-revolutionary intellectuals and the mass media at the service of imperialism, conscious of this, are attempting – with the cynicism and demagogy which characterise them – to identify Venezuela with Iran, and an honest anti-imperialist and revolutionary president like Chávez with Ahmadinejad. An example of this is the recent article in Spain’s El País, which quotes Chávez's latest Alo Presidente broadcast.

With this comparison they want to saw confusion amongst workers around the world, weaken the sympathy and support for the Venezuelan revolution and undermine it as a point of reference for millions around the world. It is precisely for this reason that Venezuelan revolutionary workers and youth can only counter this campaign by opening a serious debate about the real character of the Iranian regime, studying its history and the current situation, and showing our solidarity with our Iranian class brothers and sisters in their struggle to conquer, through mass action, the same rights that Venezuelan workers have today. At the same time we must fight and denounce both the government’s repression against our brothers and sisters as well as the demagogy and manoeuvres of imperialism.

The Revolutionary Marxist Current stands in support of the revolutionary movement of the Iranian masses against the Islamic Republic, and particularly the movement of Iranian workers for democratic rights and economic demands, while at the same time we reject any imperialist interference.

Venezuela, June 22, 2009

RENEGADE EYE

Iranian Revolution: Second Open Thread

Iran: A 1930s Level Crossroads for the International Left

The Iranian Revolution is a turning point, for the Middle East, and for the world. Politically you'll be judged by your stand. This article takes on the myths of both the extreme left and right about Iran. Both want Ahmadinejad to prevail, because of their good and evil bipolar worldview.

The people clash with the state. Jorge Martin argues a general strike is needed.

Later this week, I'll have a post about Chavez's position, offering disagreements with him, without giving comfort to reactionaries.

RENEGADE EYE

Iranian Revolution: Open Thread I

Alan Woods: How Can Can The Movement Go Forward?

An Open Letter To Mir-Hossein Mousavi

Maryam Namazie

RENEGADE EYE

Iran: The 18th Brumaire of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

By Alan Woods
Monday, 15 June 2009

Two candidates stood in the Iranian “elections”, but the regime had decided who was going to win long before any votes were cast. In spite of the mild, “loyal opposition” of Mousavi, large sections of the Iranian electorate used their vote to express opposition to the regime. Once the “result” was announced violence broke out on the streets, revealing the seething anger and discontent among the masses. This marks a new phase in the development of the Iranian revolution.

The French historian Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that the most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it tries to reform. But it is even more dangerous when a bad regime refuses to reform.


Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Photo by Daniella Zalcman.

History knows many examples of a rotten autocracy, which after a long period in power has succumbed to an irreversible process of inner decay. In such a moment, all the internal contradictions that have remained hidden beneath the surface suddenly emerge. There are always two main tendencies: the hard liners and the reformists. The latter say: “we must reform from the top or else we will be overthrown.” The former say: “We must oppose reform because once we start change we will be overthrown.” And both are correct.

What was true in France in 1789 is also true in Iran in 2009. After three decades in power the regime of the mullahs is deeply unpopular. Analysts therefore expected Mousavi, widely regarded as a “reformist”, to do well. A presidential debate between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad roused the nation, and in the last days Mousavi's campaign caught fire, triggering massive street rallies in Tehran. What these rallies showed was a burning desire for change.

Mousavi had been widely expected to beat the controversial incumbent if there was a high turnout ‑ or at least do well enough to trigger a second round. What officials have called an unprecedented voter turnout at the polls Friday had been expected to boost Mousavi's chances of winning the presidency. The voter turnout surpassed 80 percent, at least two officials said on Saturday.

Iran's economic turmoil over the past four years should have undermined Ahmadinejad’s support even in rural areas to some extent. Yet the government announced that Ahmadinejad had not only won the election, but had secured a landslide with 62.63 percent of the vote as compared to Mir Hossein Mousavi’s 33.75 percent. According to the results, which were announced with indecent haste, Mousavi even lost in the area of Teheran where he has his main base. This virtuoso display of vote rigging was so blatant that it shocked even a people for whom such things could be regarded as normal practice.

Rigged Elections

The speed with which the announcement was made was in itself sufficient to indicate a massive fraud. Iran remains a predominantly rural country with an infrastructure that does not permit such a rapid assessment of election results. In a genuine election it would take several days to get all the results in from the provinces and villages and remote areas. Instead, Ahmadinejad immediately announced that he had won by a big majority. "The people of Iran inspired hope for all nations and created a source of pride in the nation and disappointed all the ill wishers," Ahmadinejad said in a nationwide TV address Saturday night. "This election was held at a juncture of history."

.For a despotic regime that holds all the reins of power firmly in its hands, it is not a difficult task to rig an election. After the polls closed – according to reports coming out of Iran ‑ heavily armed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were out on the streets. In one area of north Tehran, a stronghold of opposition challenger and reformist ex-Prime Minister Mousavi, foreign journalists reported a convoy of at least fifteen military vehicles filled with armed guards making their way along the side of the road. The Interior Ministry was also blocked and heavily guarded as the regime feared that Mousavi supporters might gather there to protest against the election count.

Ibrahim Yazdi, a leading Iranian dissident and Iran's foreign minister in the early days of the Islamic Republic, told American journalist Robert Dreyfuss:

“Many of us believe that the election was rigged. Not only Mousavi. We don't have any doubt. And as far as we are concerned, it is not legitimate. There were many, many irregularities. They did not permit the candidates to supervise the election or the counting of the ballots at the polling places. The minister of the interior announced that he would oversee the final count in his office, at the ministry, with only two aides present.

“In previous elections, they announced the results in each district, so people could follow up and make a judgment about the validity of the figures. In 2005, there were problems: in one district there were about 100,000 eligible voters, and they announced a total vote of 150,000. This time they didn't even release information about each particular district.

“In all, there were about 45,000 polling places. There were 14,000 mobile ones, that can move from place to place. Many of us protested that. Originally, these mobile polling places were supposed to be used in hospitals and so on. This time, they were used in police stations, army bases, and various military compounds. When it comes to the military compounds and so on, if even 500 extra votes were put into each of the 14,000 boxes, that is seven million votes.

“Mousavi and Karroubi [the main opposition candidates] had earlier established a joint committee to protect the peoples' votes. Many young people volunteered to work on that committee. But the authorities didn't let it happen. Last night [that is, election night] the security forces closed down that committee. There is no way, independent of the government and the Guardian Council, to verify the results.”

With a rigged election result in his pocket Ahmadinejad’s insolence knew no bounds. The president said the elections were the "model of democracy" and accused "western oppressors" of criticizing the election process. "On Friday's election, the people of Iran emerged victorious," he declared. "The elections in Iran are really important. Election means consensus of all people's resolve and their crystallization of their demands and their wants, and it's a leap toward high peaks of aspiration and progress. Elections in Iran are [a] totally popular-based move that belongs to the people with a look at the future, aimed at constructing the future."

He indicated progress through consensus, saying economic and infrastructure reforms can be accomplished in Iran through a collective process. "All of us can join forces," he said, as his armed thugs were smashing people’s faces on the streets. Tens of thousands of flag-waving Ahmadinejad supporters gathered in the capital's Valiasr Square for the president's victory speech this evening, as he attempted a show of force he hopes will quell opposition protests.

"The 12 June election was an artistic expression of the nation, which created a new advancement in the history of elections in the country," the ayatollah Khamenei said. "The over 80 percent participation of the people and the 24 million votes cast for the president-elect is a real celebration which with the power of almighty God can guarantee the development, progress, national security, and the joy and excitement of the nation."

Spontaneous Protests

The nation was certainly excited – but not for joy. Reformist candidate Mehdi Karrubi called the declared results of the elections a "joke" and "astonishing." Even while Ahmadinejad praised the result and the huge turnout, Mousavi and supporters in the Tehran streets were crying foul as street clashes broke out. On Saturday afternoon the streets of the capital are generally quiet. But last Saturday spontaneous street demonstrations erupted on the streets of Tehran. This reflected an enormous accumulation of anger, despair, and bitterness within Iranian society that is pregnant with revolutionary implications.

"The Saturday after the election should always be a day of affection and patience," he said. "Both the supporters of the elected candidate and the supporters of other respectable candidates should refrain from making any provocative and doubtful behaviour. The respectable president-elect is the president of all the people of Iran and everybody, including yesterday's rivals, should protect and help him." These words from the Supreme Leader showed the regime’s fear of public disturbances. They were not wrong to have such fear.

Demonstrators chanted, "the president is committing a crime and the supreme leader is supporting him", highly inflammatory language in a regime where the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is considered irreproachable. Shops, government offices and businesses closed early as tension mounted. Crowds also gathered outside Mousavi's headquarters but there was no sign of Ahmadinejad's chief political rival. Supporters waved their fists and chanted anti-Ahmadinejad slogans.

Protesters set fire to rubbish bins and tyres, creating pillars of black smoke among the apartment blocks and office buildings in central Tehran. An empty bus was engulfed in flames on a side road. Police fought back with clubs, including mobile squads on motorcycles swinging truncheons, as protesters hurled stones and bottles at officers, shouting "Mousavi, give us our votes back" and "the election was full of lies".

More than 100 reformists, including Mohammad Reza Khatami, the brother of former president Mohammad Khatami, were arrested, according to leading reformist Mohammad Ali Abtahi. He told Reuters they were members of Iran's leading reformist party, Mosharekat. A judiciary spokesman denied they had been arrested but said they were summoned and "warned not to increase tension" before being released. The state imprisons and tortures trade unionists and beats up students, but bourgeois politicians get off with just a slap on the wrist.

.People leaned out of windows and balconies to watch the throngs of protesters march, many of whom were Mousavi supporters and conducted largely noisy but peaceful demonstrations. Later in the evening, an agitated and angry crowd emerged in Tehran's Moseni Square, with people breaking into shops, starting fires and tearing down signs. Two groups of people faced off against each other in the square, throwing rocks and bottles and shouting angrily. Observers believe the two sides could be supporters of Ahmadinejad on the one hand, and Mousavi on the other.

The protests, which were clearly spontaneous, were not limited to Teheran. They also broke out in other cities, including Tabriz, Orumieh, Hamedan and Rasht. It is clear that nobody organized these protests, and least of all the reformist leaders. The new technology has been a key tactic in politically mobilizing young people in Iran, but text messaging has not been working in Iran over recent days and Facebook was closed down. However, the old fashioned method of word of mouth still functions and Iranian protesters still arrived en masse at meeting places around Tehran on Saturday.

On Sunday the rioting continued. "There was this cat-and-mouse game between the rioters and the police," said Samson Desta, a CNN reporter, who was hit by a police baton. "For the time being, it seems like police have things under control. But we spoke to a lot of students and they're saying, ‘This is not going to go away. They may stop us now but we will come back and make sure our voices will be heard’."

This was the second day of protests in Tehran. On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators shouting "Death to the dictatorship" and "We want freedom" burned police motorcycles, tossed rocks through store windows, and set trash cans on fire.

On Sunday night a tense calm settled on the streets of Tehran, but the BBC's Jon Leyne, in the city, reported that clashes broke out by the office of Irna, Iran's official news agency, and also in at least one suburb. There were also new reports of a clampdown on independent media. The offices of the Saudi-funded Arabic TV station al-Arabiya were shut down for "unknown reasons", the channel said. Mobile phone service was restored but there were reports that text messaging remained restricted and curbs continued on access to popular internet sites, including the BBC. These actions do not show confidence but an extreme nervousness on the part of the regime.

Hypocrisy of Imperialists

Reaction emerged across the world, as countries such as the United States and Canada voiced concern over claims of voter irregularities. But the western governments who have been so outspoken in their criticism of the lack of human rights in Iran have been remarkably circumspect about the blatant electoral fraud and violence in Iran.

According to a CNN report, US military commanders in the Middle East were sent a message reminding American forces to maintain discipline and prudence if they encounter any Iranian military forces during potential unrest surrounding Iran's presidential election. US military concerns are taking into account "heightened Iranian sensitivity and maybe even fear for potential internal and external security threats," one official said.

Criticism in Washington has been unusually muted. Hilary Clinton has kept her mouth shut, leaving it to “the invisible man”, US vice-president, Joe Biden, to express his “doubts” about "the way they're suppressing crowds, the way in which people are being treated", although, using guarded language, he said the US had to accept "for the time being" Tehran's claim that Ahmadinejad won a resounding re-election. "There's an awful lot of questions about how this election was run," said Biden. "We don't have enough facts to make a firm judgment."

The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said that his government was worried about the situation and criticized "the somewhat brutal reaction" by authorities in response to demonstrations. The EU said in a statement it was "concerned about alleged irregularities" during Friday's vote.

This polite reticence of the imperialists is no accident. They are terrified of a revolution in Iran that will act like an earthquake throughout the Middle East and Asia. Moreover, Washington is hoping to re-establish good relations with the Teheran government, whose assistance they need to ensure an orderly retreat from Iraq and provide a guaranteed route for supplies to Afghanistan. It also needs Iranian support for its latest “peace initiative” over the Palestinian question. At least it would like assurances that Teheran will not sabotage it – although Netanyahu is already making a good job of that by insisting that any Palestinian state must be disarmed and renounce the right of return for the Palestinian Diaspora.

It is these factors that determine Obama’s conciliatory policy to the Islamic Republic, which we predicted in advance [see The invasion of Gaza: what does it mean?]. A week into his presidency, Obama extended an olive branch to Tehran, asking the regime to “unclench its fist”. Two months later, Obama broadcast a message to Iran, for the first time recognizing the ayatollahs as the legitimate representatives of the Iranian people. Last month, Obama acknowledged the Islamic Republic's right to enrich uranium and, in Cairo, he admitted CIA involvement in the overthrow of the Mossadegh government more than a half-century ago.

The people of Iran have long memories and know enough about imperialism to hate it with all their heart. When Prime Minister Mossadegh was ousted in the 1953 coup organized by the CIA and British intelligence the so-called western democracies replaced Iranian democracy with the monstrous dictatorship Shah. His bloody and corrupt rule was based on a reign of mass terror in which the notorious Savak secret police carried on a systematic campaign of murder and torture. The so-called western democracies supported this despotic puppet of imperialism and had nothing to say about the wholesale violation of human rights in Iran then. That is why Iranians have no reason to trust the good will of imperialism or listen to its hypocritical sermons on “democracy” today!

Splits in Regime

After the election Teheran was buzzing with rumours of a coup d’etat. But in reality this is not necessary. Ahmadinejad has already gathered so much power in his hands that he has already established a dictatorship in fact, if not legally. In addition to the regular forces of the state, he controls the Revolutionary Guard, which he used to brutally crush the demonstrations last weekend. Ahmadinejad controls the ministry of the interior, the ministry of information, the ministry of intelligence.

After the elections the security forces occupied the offices of many newspapers, to make sure that their reporting on the election was favourable. They changed headlines of many papers. This is an excellent way of ensuring good election coverage! The Guards are taking over everything, including many economic institutions. The ministry of the interior is tightening its control in all the provinces.

There are also rumours that Ahmadinejad is thinking about changing the Constitution to allow the president to serve more than two terms, to make his presidency more or less permanent. He is re-enacting the coup of Louis Bonaparte, who combined fraudulent elections and parliamentary intrigues with a reign of terror on the streets conducted by the notorious Society of 10 December, composed of thugs, criminals and lumpenproletarians. His social base is also similar: the backward peasantry, which can be used against the more advanced cities and towns.

In theory the situation looks hopeless. But this is only on the surface. Ahmadinejad and his followers have been kept in office, but the election has left Iran's capital steeped in bitterness and anger. The new government will be faced with serious problems at all levels, particularly the economy. The last remaining illusions of the peasantry will be shattered by the hardships imposed by the economic crisis.

In the last period, Ahmadinejad was kept in power partly on the basis of repression and anti-American demagogy but mainly by using Iran’s oil wealth for populist measures. This ensured him a certain base of support in the population, especially among the peasantry. But now the economic crisis and the falling price of oil will reduce his room for manoeuvre on this front. On the other hand, the “anti-imperialist” demagogy is wearing thin. People cannot eat nuclear warheads!

The history of dictatorial and autocratic regimes shows that it is impossible to maintain such a regime on the basis of repression alone. Once the masses start to move, no state apparatus, no matter how powerful or ferocious, can stop them. That is the lesson of France in 1789, of tsarist Russia in 1917 and of the Shah of Iran in 1979. Louis Bonaparte took power in a coup and stayed in power for two decades. But in the end his rule ended in the Paris Commune. Ahmadinejad will not be in power for so long for the reasons we have explained, and the longer he clings to power, the more explosive the situation will become and the sharper will be the internal contradictions in the regime.

Despite the show of strength, the inner cracks that are splitting the regime are deepening. There are voices in the establishment that are challenging Ahmadinejad. And it is not clear that he and the Sepah (the Revolutionary Guard) will be strong enough to overcome them. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is playing the Bonaparte, balancing between the factions. There will be clashes and splits between different factions that reflect a deep crisis of the regime itself.

In the interview we have already mentioned, Ibrahim Yazdi refers to the splits in the regime:

“After the last election [2005], after Ahmadinejad was first elected, there were many questions raised about Ahmadinejad's effort to isolate the Leader. We talked openly about this. This time, in preparation for the vote, they isolated him even further. For instance, in years past [former President] Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani was influential, perhaps even more influential than the leader. Now, with the slogans being used at Ahmadinejad's rallies, things like 'Death to Hashemi!', they have created a deep rift. Khamenei has also lost the support of many high-ranking members of the clergy.”

Cowardice of Reformers

The liberal reformers in Iran and abroad are sunk in the depths of despair. Mousavi has pledged to fight the verdict, using words like "tyranny" and adding, "I will not surrender to this dangerous charade." Even before the vote count ended, Mousavi issued a sharply worded letter urging the counting to stop because of "blatant violations" and lashed out at what he indicated was an unfair process.

The opposition leader said the results from "untrustworthy monitors" reflects "the weakening of the pillars that constitute the sacred system" of Iran and "the rule of authoritarianism and tyranny." Independent vote monitors were banned from polling places. "The results announced for the 10th presidential elections are astonishing. People who stood in long lines and knew well who they voted for were utterly surprised by the magicians working at the television and radio broadcasting," Mousavi said in his statement.

Mousavi's newspaper, Kalemeh Sabz, or the Green Word, did not appear on newsstands today. An editor speaking anonymously said authorities had been upset with Mousavi's statements. The paper's website reported that more than 10million votes in Friday's election were missing national identification numbers, which made the votes "untraceable".

As his supporters took to the streets of the capital again to face the batons and tear gas, Hossein Mousavi has launched a formal appeal against the election result. He has appealed to the ruling Council of Guardians to overturn the result, and urged his supporters to continue protests "in a peaceful and legal way”. “We have asked officials to let us hold a nationwide rally to let people display their rejection of the election process and its results," said Mousavi. The Council of Guardians is a constitutionally mandated body of six clerics and six jurists, which functions as Iran's electoral authority and has other powers. But Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the Supreme Leader and he has already stated that the election had been conducted fairly and ordered the three defeated candidates and their supporters to avoid "provocative" behaviour.

The mass demonstration planned by the opposition to protest electoral fraud has been banned. Therefore, the road to redress by legal and constitutional means is blocked. The only way to conquer democratic rights in Iran is by taking the revolutionary road. Iran, says Mousavi, "belongs to the people and not cheaters." There is even talk of his calling a general strike. But words are cheap, and the Iranian bourgeois reformist leaders would be more afraid of a movement of the masses than Khamenei himself.

Role of the Working Class

Like the Russian Cadets, the liberal reformers in Iran are terrified of revolution. Ibrahim Yazdi told his American interviewer: “Certainly, we are concerned about spontaneous reactions. Iran's youth has been engaged and mobilized. Around the country, there have already been some violent clashes. We do not agree with violence, because violence will only give the Right an excuse to suppress the opposition.” And again: “We are nor after subversion. We do not want to change the Constitution. We do want to create a viable political force that can exert its influence.” These words indicate the real psychology of the bourgeois reformers in Iran. They could have been copied from any newspaper of the Russian Liberals in February 1917.

The real historical analogy, however, is not Russia in 1917 but rather 1905, or even before that. Like the Russian Revolution before 1905, the Iranian Revolution is still in its infancy. It has a long way to run, and this is not a bad thing from the standpoint of the Iranian Marxists who need time to build their forces. Like the Russian workers before 1905, the Iranian working class is mainly young and inexperienced. The old generation of worker activists, who were mainly formed in the school of Stalinism, has largely disappeared, decimated by repression and disoriented by the false policies of their leaders.

It will require time and the experiences, both of victories and defeats, before the Iranian working class comes to the conclusion of the need to take power. Let us recall that in January 1905 the young Russian proletariat first came on the scene of history in a peaceful demonstration led by a priest, with religious icons in their hands, carrying a petition to the tsar. But one bloody clash was sufficient to impel them on the road to revolution in the space of 24 hours. We can expect similar sudden and sharp changes in Iran.

The campaign of Mousavi aroused the hopes of many people, especially the middle class youth and the women (he promised more rights for women). Now these hopes have been dashed. The police and “revolutionary guards” have given the youth an excellent lesson in the value of Iranian democracy with truncheons, fists and boots. The situation remains explosive. But in the absence of a clear programme, perspective and leadership, aimless street protests and rioting leads nowhere. Therefore probably the present wave of unrest will die down for a while. But it will come back with even greater violence at a later stage.

The reformers are weeping and wailing about the election defeat, but in reality these elections have solved nothing for the Iranian people, the working class or the regime itself. This decrepit regime is like the Old Man of the Sea who climbed onto the shoulders of Sinbad and refused to dismount. These elections are just one more lesson in the hard school of life, which will eventually convince the workers and youth that in order to shake the Old Man of the Sea from off their backs very radical measures will be necessary.

The real weakness of the movement for democracy is that the powerful Iranian proletariat has not yet moved in a decisive way as it did in 1979. After long years of repression during which the workers movement was effectively beheaded, the working class needs time to find its feet. Like an athlete who has been inactive for a long time, the Iranian workers need to stretch their muscles and engage in exercise before moving decisively into action. There have already been many strikes on economic issues. The pressure from below is building up. This pressure finds its reflection even in the Labour House, the organization set up by the regime to control the workers. In the recent period the official journal of the Labour House even published an article by Lenin. How times are changing!

Iran is an overwhelmingly young country. Its population has a median age of 27. These people cannot remember a time when the mullahs were not in power. Long ago the mullahs were considered to be incorruptible, in contrast to the degenerate pro-western monarchy. But that was long ago. After decades in power the mullahs have been exposed as corrupt and the regime is losing the authority it used to have. Ahmadinejad had to bus in supporters from the villages in order to stage his mass rally. His real base is the Revolutionary Guards, but even they no longer inspire the kind of terror they did in the past. The most significant thing about the riots this weekend was not that they were suppressed, but that so many people were prepared to come onto the streets to defy the state and its repressive forces. This means that the days of the regime are numbered.

In the end it will result in a crisis. This will be a government of crisis, which will probably not last its full term. The political and social divisions inside Iran will be widened. The militancy of the workers will grow and express itself first in economic strikes for better wages and conditions, as we have already seen in the past few years, and later as political strikes and demonstrations. The most urgent need now is to organize the workers and provide the movement with a coherent programme, policy and banner. This can only be the red banner of socialism.

It is quite natural that the students are playing a key role at this stage in the revolution. It is very similar to the situation in Russia in 1901-3, or in Spain in 1930-31, just before the fall of the monarchy. Trotsky wrote at that time:

“When the bourgeoisie consciously and stubbornly refuses to take upon itself the solution of the tasks flowing from the crisis in bourgeois society; when the proletariat appears to be still unprepared to undertake the solution of these tasks itself, then the proscenium is often occupied by the students ... The revolutionary or semi-revolutionary activities of the students mean that bourgeois society is passing through a deep crisis...

“The Spanish workers displayed an entirely correct revolutionary instinct when they lent their support to the manifestations of the students. It is understood that they must do it under their own banner and under the leadership of their own proletarian organization. This must be guaranteed by Spanish Communism, and for that it needs a correct policy.

“This road pre-supposes on the part of the Communists a decisive, bold and energetic struggle for democratic slogans. Not to understand this would be the greatest mistake of sectarianism… If the revolutionary crisis is transformed into a revolution it will inevitably exceed the bourgeois boundaries, and in the event of victory, will have to transfer the power to the proletariat.” (Trotsky, Problems of the Spanish Revolution, May 1930)

The forces of the Iranian Marxists are small but they are growing by the day. By skilfully combining democratic demands with transitional demands linking the day to day struggles with the idea of socialist revolution, they will connect with an increasingly broad layer of workers and students who are looking for a fundamental change in society. The future of Iran lies on the revolutionary road, and the Iranian revolution is destined to shake the world.

London, June 15, 2009

UPDATE

RENEGADE EYE