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Official: 43 per cent of Iranian workers live in poverty
"Yet again IMT" conjures up "another act"of the "revolution in Iran"
Another article on Marxist.com on Iran makes absurd claims. Below are comments on this from activists inside Iran. ........... And we should add "Yet Again IMT lies scandalously". Take a look at the material: "On June 12, on the first anniversary of the rigged presidential elections, another act of the Iranian revolution was played out. Yet again the masses of Iran took to the streets" I don't really know what I can say to the writer about his "imaginary" revolution. What he claims is just a big outrageous lie. Mr. Alizadeh says:" Tens of thousands of young and old Iranians took to the streets to show their resistance against the regime" but he immediately continues "The size of the demonstrations was unclear"! His estimation is so amazing. One can ask that where did these "masses" take to the "streets"? Mr. Alizadeh, according to his miscellaneous reliable reports, says: "…A few people were filming the demonstrators from the rooftops of their homes around Imam Hossein Circle when three officers arrested them and captured their phones and cameras" As you see, a few people (Masses!) had been filming and chanting slogans from the rooftops (Streets!) and just 3 officers could arrest them. The writer uses another report, by an eyewitness, which explains that: "In Seaadat Aabaad a wave of people are demonstrating in front of security and plainclothes forces." Wow! I was influenced! Keep in mind that Sa'adat Abad is a rich and well-off restrict, full of petit bourgeois and bourgeois people. The most important feature of them is their cowardice and conservatism. You can hardly find someone in this region that has thought about the social problems of the poor and the workers. In other words, they have never been engaged in social and political activities in a serious manner. At first, they took part in the "peaceful" demonstrations (The Silence Demonstration), distributing Green bands and Musavi's posters; but when the situation got harsh, they became absent, chanting slogans from their flats. I don't know why Mr. Alizadeh doesn't try to come to Iran for joining this revolution and observing the truths. Arman Pouyan And let me add another point: There no HOME around Imam Hossein Square! they are just shopping centers. aha, there is also a very big mosque around that square! Shops in Imam Hossein are very expensive, I can not believe that the owner of a 500 thousand dollar shop (or some time 1 million dollar), would go to the roof and chant against the regime! Sinaa Paazooki |
Marxist.com confusion on Iran confirmed
Marxist.com has begun to abandon its assertion that Iran is in the throws of revolution. Now Iran is apparently gripped by a lull. They argue that this would not have happened "if there were a revolutionary leadership". Can we expect the same about turn in relation to Kyrgyzstan and Thailand, or maybe that will also take a year? http://www.marxist.com/iran-character-of-present-lull-and-tasks-of-marxists.htm ...................... The "Marxist" analysis of AW for all over the world is as follows: By observing few demonstrations he calls for the revolution. Then after few months when it is blatantly obvious that he has cried wolf, then he talks about the "lull" period!!! After the famous article of AW on “Iran: The revolution has begun”! (and slogan of Constitute Assembly which he abandoned later) Jordi decided to write another article. But unlike AW he consulted with Iranian comrades night before he wrote it. When it appeared in IDoM on 23 June 2009 I wrote him the following letter criticizing previous article (AW’s masterpiece) MR ++++++++ 23 June 2009 10:08 Hi Jordi I read the article today. It was very good thanks. Following our chat yesterday, it is very important that we do not create false impression about the coming REVOLUTION. It is far from it (there is no leadership and workers have not participated fully). From this point of view your article was very clear in comparison to previous articles on the site. The question of Constituent Assembly can of course become a central slogan, but at the moment it is not related to present consciousness of masses, as the issue of the masses is returning to election results and having democratic election. Even at this level this issue cannot be achieved without workers participation. Workers participation can be registered and play a leading role ONLY if they organize strikes NOW. So our main central slogan should be around Strike just now. We have to prepare them for it. We will be writing an article on this issue now. Many articles are necessary (historical experiences). Our comrades are having discussion with some leading workers. But if this does not happen soon (may be in a week or two) unfortunately the repression will prevail. But the experience will stay on for the next stage............ MR |
Our Enemy’s Friend’s Friend becomes our Enemy!
Alan Woods expels Iranian Marxists to join the “Fifth International”! Internal documents and censored letters and articles of IRMT by IMT leadership |
On Maziar Razi’s expulsion and the IRMT’s disaffiliation
The IMT is dead, long live the International!
The IMT is dead, long live the International! Statement on the expulsion of Maziar Razi and disaffiliation of the IRMT by Alan Woods’s Clique Today’s extraordinary conference of the Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency (IRMT) was called immediately after the events at the March International Executive Committee (IEC) meeting of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT). Once the proceedings of the session on Iran were reported to our members it was clear that a conference would have to be convened for the specific purpose of disaffiliation from the IMT. This is because of Alan Woods’s Clique’s consistently opportunist position of pandering to President Hugo Chavez’s foreign policy towards the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) for the sake of appearances on Venezuelan TV and regular red carpet treatment at Miraflores Palace. Yesterday’s two resolutions by the IEC of the IMT merely brought forward by a day the final episode of a political relationship that began with patient political discussions and joint solidarity activities in June 2001. This process reached its height on 2 August 2008, when the World Congress voted unanimously in favour of the affiliation of the Iranian Revolutionary Socialists’ League (IRSL) as the official Iranian section of the IMT. Then in September 2008 the IRSL, a group in exile, merged with the editorial board of Militant in Iran and the Workers’ Action Committee to form the IRMT. The events following the apparently fraudulent ‘presidential election’ in June 2009, which occurred in the midst of the biggest economic slump of the world capitalist economy for over 60 years, brought this relationship under serious strain. What began as a difference of opinion on how to condemn Chavez’s plodding attempts at world diplomacy and solidarity with an ‘anti-imperialist’ regime, developed, in a little over eight months, into a serious rift because of Alan Woods’s Clique’s refusal to publish our material on Chavez’s support for the repression; the Clique’s refusal to circulate our material to other IEC members or the leadership of the IMT’s national sections; and the Clique’s unleashing of a range of organisational measures to silence our criticism and undermine the work of our group – the IMT’s official Iranian section, as recognised by the World Congress. The Clique and Chavez’s policy towards the IRI Criticism of Chavez by Iranian labour activists and Marxists is nothing new. Over six years ago, in November 2004, Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network (IWSN) wrote a polite open letter to President Chavez highlighting Iranian workers’ lack of basic trade union and other rights. This was followed by an open letter by the IRSL in July 2006 contrasting the main policies of the Bolivarian government and the IRI and explaining the regime’s role in the crushing of the 1978-79 revolution. There have been numerous open letters and statements (usually on the occasion of state visits) on Chavez’s close relationship with the Iranian regime since then, including an IMT statement which we drafted but the IS, in its infinite wisdom, watered down before publication. It is important to point out that this is not merely a hobby-horse of the Iranian left but that Iranian workers are also disgusted by Chavez’s very cosy relationship with the leaders of the Iranian bourgeois state. In July 2006 Chavez visited Iran Khodro, the biggest car and vehicle manufacturing plant in the Middle East. The workers had heard many positive things about Chavez and were excited to meet him in person. To begin with the workers were pleasantly surprised at the President of a country shaking hands with workers and even kissing them on the cheek. They were about read out a statement in his honour, welcoming this revolutionary leader to their factory. But before they could read it Chavez began praising Ahmadinejad, calling him his brother, calling the Iranian regime a revolutionary government and so on. The workers were totally disgusted by him. They tore up the statement and left the hall. The refusal of Alan Woods’s Clique to condemn Hugo Chavez for his whole-hearted support of the IRI in its suppression of the post-‘election’ street protests, therefore, brought matters to a head. As the regime used increasingly brutal methods to smash the street protests, Mr Chavez became more determined in his support of the repression of what he thought were CIA-sponsored protests. Alan Woods’s Clique also tried to pretend that our highly critical position did not exist. In particular, the so-called International Secretariat (IS) refused to publish Maziar Razi’s Open letter to the workers of Venezuela on Hugo Chavez’s support for Ahmadinejad and all subsequent material that disagreed with the totally wrong, indefensible and opportunist ‘analysis’ of the official IMT position. This made the IRMT’s work inside Iran almost impossible. This official position was decided by the IS, the hard core of Alan Woods’s bureaucratic clique, without consultation with anyone - including neither the IRMT, the Iranian section as recognised by the 2008 World Congress, nor the IEC! Even video footage of demonstrators denouncing Chavez in the ‘revolution’ that the Clique had predicted did not bring about a change in policy! In addition to censorship of all our material that disagreed with the ‘official line’ from the websites and publications of the IMT, the IS refused to circulate this material to members of the IEC for around two months – even after repeated requests for its distribution. Some of the material was eventually distributed after more and more of the IEC members were persuaded, cajole or threatened to agree with the IS decision in preparation for an IEC meeting that was postponed by two months (apparently, because of refurbishment at the usual venue!). The result of these manoeuvres and machination by the ossified bureaucracy, which used the resources of the International for its factional fight with the IRMT and all other dissenters, were exactly as we predicted: a medieval inquisition, totally stage-managed by the IS so that the hissing mob (the so-called IEC) gets it request for punishment satisfied by the ‘benevolent nobility’ (the so-called IS)! That is why the EC of the IRMT instructed our representative on the IEC, Maziar Razi, to boycott the March meeting of this ‘democratic structure’ that is supposed to be the ‘highest decision making body’ of the International between congresses - but is, effectively, an ‘orchestra of sheep’ masquerading as the leadership of a purportedly Marxist international. The revolution began 11 years ago! Bizarrely, Alan Woods’s Clique couples this opportunist line that turns a blind eye to Chavez’s legitimisation of the increased repression in Iran with its impressionistic and journalistic ‘analysis’ that the Iranian revolution has begun, that indeed its first shots were fired 11 years ago! The Clique, if it had been made up of clever opportunists, ought to have changed its orientation after the street protests in June 2009 - events that it believes have signalled the beginning of the revolution! Our dullard opportunists, however, have slid so close to reformism that they cannot see the perspective of the ‘revolution’ - the very same ‘revolution’ that they had predicted 30 years ago - ever being victorious! It is therefore no wonder that they cannot give up today’s red carpet treatment at Miraflores for the red guard of Tehran’s shoras in a few years’ time! They have no perspective for their ‘revolution’ (the revolutionary situation to all real Marxists) being successful in overthrowing capitalism! One bird in the hand is worth two in the bush for all petty bourgeois right centrists. It’s a two stage revolution! “What are the immediate tasks of the Iranian revolution? It’s precisely democracy, the fight for revolutionary democratic demands, against the mullahs, for the freedom of speech, freedom of assembly.” […] “An attack against Mousavi, in the sectarian style of these comrades, who don’t know how to speak to these demonstrators of these people in Iran.” (Alan Woods, IEC session on Iran, 3 March 2010). It may be a truism to say that the revolution is the ultimate test of all bragger mouth revolutionaries. Yet there is no better way of expressing this. If we look at how our ‘revolutionary leadership’ has behaved since June 2009 then its true character becomes fully exposed. Although there were many signs of Alan Woods’s total lack of knowledge about the basic facts of Iranian society today, the history of the past 30-35 years and the organisations of the Iranian left in his journalistic and impressionistic articles written since June 2009, the recent IEC meeting was when all these strands came together into a ‘coherent’ whole and laid bare his perspective for the ‘revolution’ that he predicted 30 years ago! For once Alan Woods took off his ‘revolutionary’ mask and made a number of clear statements about his concept of a two-stage revolution: a revolution that begins without the workers on the basis of slogans of “revolutionary democracy”. Alan Woods and his Clique claim that today’s Iran is “mainly a peasant country but with a powerful proletariat in some centres” like Spain in 1930! They also maintain that the IRMT does not understand that Iran is basically a peasant country and that the Iranian revolution can begin without the workers. It is “an ABC question” that the students start the revolution, not the workers. Yet our Titan theoretician’s greatest gift is that he does not need to sully himself with the concrete facts and chooses to remain ignorant and spout generalities that would fit many underdeveloped countries - but not, unfortunately for him, Iran! The ‘leader of leaders’ does not know that already in 1981-82 Iran’s population was over half (50.53%) urban and the urbanisation rate reached over two-thirds (67.87%) by 2005-06. So Iran has been mainly an urban country since the early 1980s and over two-thirds urban for about four years! The ‘information’ of Alan Woods’s Clique about Iran, therefore, is about 30 years out of date! The Clique may find it uncomfortable to know that the Iran of the 21st Century is more urban than Japan, Italy or Austria! If we look at this in terms of GDP composition, we see that agriculture makes up just 10.8% of economic output, as opposed to 44.3% for the industrial sector and 44.9% for services (2008 est.). However anyone looks at it, today’s Iran is nothing like Spain in 1930! But it would be a big mistake to think of this as a mere case of the ignorance and arrogance of the Clique. This totally incorrect information is used to support the Clique’s ‘analysis’ of class forces in Iran and drawing up slogans and tactics for intervention in the ‘revolution’. The logical conclusion of their perspective is encapsulated in Alan Woods’s criticism of the IRMT for having a “sectarian style” toward Mousavi! If criticising blood-soaked bourgeois leaders like Mousavi (who was Prime Minister not only at the time of the slaughter of political prisoners in 1988, but also during most of the Iran-Iraq war, when the shoras, the left and all independent organisations of the workers, women, students and national minorities were smashed!) means that we are ‘sectarian’, then we are proud of that! The only possible ‘justification’ for not being ‘sectarian’ towards Mousavi and the ‘reformists’ of the regime would be as part of preparations for “orienting towards” them. Instead of staunch criticism of Mousavi the Clique is heading for critical support! Of course, if the Clique can be that ‘friendly’ with the butchers of the 1978-79 revolution then it is no surprise that it is also thinking of becoming close to “bona fide left organisations”! “We should also seek roads to any bona fide left organisations that have influence within the Iranian workers and youth. Our approach to these should be “friendly but firm”, and we should seek to work with them where possible.” (IEC resolution, On the situation in Iran, March 2010). The IS-IEC deludes itself about the prospects of finding such organisations in Iran and being accepted by them. The best it can achieve is to be given the run-around by one of many right centrist petty bourgeois outfits in exile. Alan Woods’s two stage theory of revolution is definitely an outstanding theoretical contribution for a Marxist analysis of class forces in developing countries of the 21st century! It is a great achievement of his mendacity, hypocrisy, mediocrity and cowardice that Alan Woods does not say that he is now much closer to the Mensheviks than he has ever been to the Bolsheviks. Organisational measures In addition to this political regression we have seen what can only be described as a great organisational innovation that will surely make its author immortally infamous in the international working class movement. While it has unleashed the whole full-time apparatus of the International on a small organisation that dared to differ with the self-appointed leader of Marxism, Alan Woods’s Clique has also taken a number of organisational measures against the IRMT, including trying to ‘parachute in members’ of Iranian origin from other national section of the IMT! How can someone be a member without paying subs or working under the discipline of our leadership?! Then, when we foiled their ‘kind’ attempt to ‘recruit’ these two individuals for our group, they used the moniker of the IEC to pass two resolutions condemning Maziar Razi as “a vulgar police informer” for “exposing their [the two goons’] identity, thus opening them to identification by the Iranian authorities”, expelling him and disaffiliating our group. This is obviously the act of a clearly desperate bureaucracy that is boldly plumbing the depths of the sewers of capitalist society to come up with a filthy lie of this magnitude so as to buy itself some time and ‘authority’! (We will publish a set of documents about this affair in due course.) Alan Woods’s Clique has also taken organisational measures against other sections and used the money and resources at its disposal to fight a factional battle against anyone who has political and theoretical differences with it. It has consistently employed a Stalinist interpretation of ‘democratic centralism’ to stifle internal debate and discussion. Its treatment of the China, world economy, democratic centralism and other debates clearly showed up its true nature and led to the formation of the International Bolshevik Faction, which the Clique has refused to recognise (as if the Tsar was supposed to recognise those who struggle against Tsarism!). Yet Alan Woods’s Clique’s contradictions do not end there: while the Clique is keen to promote the idea that the Iranian ‘revolution’ has begun, it has not held a single picket in support of the street protests in Iran for the whole of the past eight months! The Clique is now trying to sabotage the activities of IWSN later this month under the pretext that the IRMT uses them to promote itself! This comes from a man who habitually ingratiates himself at receptions in Miraflores and uses his TV appearances in Venezuela in his vain and futile pursuit of becoming a great Marxist leader! Alan Woods’s Clique has now completed a 180 degree turn: it is now looks back to the Menshevik concept of membership and the democratic revolution of 1903 as the way forward! This, at least, is logically consistent as you cannot have a Menshevik strategy without Menshevik membership criteria. We congratulate the Clique for resolving this contradiction between its strategy and its organisational concepts. Theoretical and political bankruptcy Alan Woods’s Clique’s hypocrisy and mendacity knows no limits. Absolutely anything can be used to ‘win’ in a discussion, including watering down the Marxist theory of the state to say that “the bourgeoisie has lost control of the state” in Venezuela; that the Israeli Labor Party, the party that built the Zionist state, had become a “classical social democratic” and that Marxists should enter it; falsifying history so that inconvenient facts like the soviets in Russia’s 1905 revolution disappear (!); and a whole host of theoretical triumphs. Half-truths and outright lies are routinely added to this poisonous mix so as to ‘raise the theoretical level’ of comrades. Just as the 1978-79 revolution exposed the shortcomings of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International, and led to the Socialist Workers’ Party (HKS) disaffiliating from that organisation, the current economic crisis of world capitalism and the revolutionary situation in Iran have opened up many cracks within the IMT. Already the majority of two of its main sections, Spain and Venezuela, together with the minority in Mexico, have split away and formed a separate international tendency (Revolutionary Marxist Current). Alan Woods’s Clique’s betrayal of the international working class, and the most basic principles of revolutionary Marxism, however, has only just begun. There are bound to be more expulsions, disaffiliations and baseless accusations before all that is left in the organisation is Alan Woods’s fan club. The non-debate about democratic centralism, where their pseudo-Stalinist interpretation of ‘democratic centralism’ was used to suppress and censor minority views; to not recognise the right of a minority to organise itself as a faction within the IMT; and to prevent any reflection of this difference not only in the wider labour movement but not even among the leadership and, especially, to the rank and file of all national sections, has become one of the unquestionable ‘traditions’ of the International. The 37 page reply that Alan Woods, the high priest of the bureaucracy, wrote to Forward to democratic centralism! is a document where a plethora of irrelevant quotes from Marx, Lenin and Trotsky are stitched together with his exceptionally delirious drivel. The comrade must have read somewhere that the first law of dialectics says that a quantitative change leads to a qualitative change. He has then drawn the wrong conclusion that if he were to pile more and more of this rubbish in his document then eventually this stuff would be transformed into a classic work of Marxism! What now? The IMT’s ranks contain many good and honest comrades who are not even aware of this crisis, let alone know about the recent split and various expulsions, because of the tight control that the ossified and politically bankrupt bureaucracy maintains on communication between sections and members. We appeal to all these comrades, for the sake of staying true to the principles for which they first joined the organisation, to look at the evidence of what has gone on in order to decide their own political future. The International Bolshevik Faction intends to debate the rank-and-file of the IMT, by-passing the central bureaucracy and the minnows and petty bureaucrats who carry out its orders in the national sections. The IBF will continue its discussions on democratic centralism and other debates that are essential to building a revolutionary international. For us, as Bolshevik-Leninists trying to build in Iran, the perspective is clear: the developing revolutionary situation will undoubtedly lead to a revolution (in the true Marxist sense) in Iran in the next few years. During that revolution the question of the seizure of state power by the proletariat will be posed. We base every aspect of our work on that perspective and do our best to prepare the workers to seize power and smash the bourgeois state when all the objective conditions have matured. The expulsion of Maziar Razi and disaffiliation of the IRMT by Alan Woods’s Clique, therefore, are merely two steps in our long struggle against capitalism and its lackeys and agents within the workers’ and Marxist movements. It may appear as if we have lost the current battle. But, to us, being thrown out of a Bolshevik-Leninist international would have constituted a defeat and a great tragedy. Being disaffiliated by the IMT, however, frees us from being connected with Chavez’s support for rape and torture that has made our work inside Iran almost impossible. It will also unshackle us from the bureaucratic restrictions, censorship and suffocation of the Clique that has prevented us from condemning this foreign policy more effectively. The might of the bureaucracy with all its full-timers, websites and other resources does not make Alan Woods’s Clique’s policies right. The petty bourgeois stall-holder cheating methods of the bureaucracy will not only be unhelpful in winning the best elements of workers and the youth, but will also demoralise many among the ranks and lead to the destruction of what was built over decades by the selfless dedication of hundreds of members. In the next period not only will the forces of revolutionary Marxism win the final battle against the bureaucrats, opportunists, sectarians, centrists and reformists but they will also overthrow capitalism. For us the IMT is rapidly becoming a Menshevik international and therefore dead as a revolutionary organisation. So our struggle to build a Bolshevik-Leninist international continues outside the IMT! Long live the Bolshevik-Leninist international! Long live the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat! Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency 9 March 2010 |
WHAT IS A REVOLUTIONARY SITUATION?
by Leon Trotsky November 17, 1931 1. For an analysis of a situation from a revolutionary point of view, it is necessary to distinguish between the economic and social prerequisites for a revolutionary situation and the revolutionary situation itself. 2. The economic and social prerequisites for a revolutionary situation take hold, generally speaking, when the productive powers of the country are declining; when the specific weight of a capitalist country on the world market is systematically lessened and the incomes of the classes are likewise systematically reduced; when unemployment is not merely the result of a conjunctural fluctuation but a permanent social evil with a tendency to increase This characterizes the situation in England completely, and we can say that the economic and social prerequisites for a revolutionary situation exist and are daily becoming more and more acute. But we must not forget that we define a revolutionary situation politically, not only sociologically, and this includes the subjective factor. And the subjective factor is not only the question of the party of the proletariat. It is a question of the consciousness of all the classes, mainly of course of the proletariat and its party. 3. A revolutionary situation, however, begins only when the economic and social prerequisites for a revolution produce abrupt changes in the consciousness of society and its different classes. What changes? (a) For our analysis we must distinguish the three social classes: the capitalist, the middle class or petty bourgeoisie, the proletariat. The required changes in mentality of these classes are very different for each of them. (b) The British proletariat, far better than all the theoreticians, knows very well that the economic situation is very acute. But [p353] the revolutionary situation unfolds only when the proletariat begins to search for a way out, not on the basis of the old society, but along the path of a revolutionary insurrection against the existing order. This is the most important subjective condition for a revolutionary situation. The intensity of the revolutionary feelings of the masses is one of the most important indications of the maturity of the revolutionary situation. (c) But a revolutionary situation is one which must in the next period permit the proletariat to become the ruling power of society, and that depends to some extent, although less in England than in other countries, on the political thinking and mood of the middle class: its loss of confidence in all the traditional parties (including the Labour Party, a reformist, that is, a conservative party), and its hope in a radical, revolutionary change in society (and not a counterrevolutionary change, namely, a fascist). (d) The changes in the mood both of the proletariat and the middle class correspond and develop parallel to the changes in mood of the ruling class when it sees that it is unable to save its system, loses confidence in itself, begins to disintegrate, splits into factions and cliques. 4. At what point in these processes the revolutionary situation is totally ripe cannot be known in advance or indicated mathematically. The revolutionary party can establish that fact only through struggle; through the growth of its forces and influence on the masses, on the peasants and the petty bourgeoisie of the cities, etc.; and by the weakening of the resistance of the ruling classes. 5. If we apply these criteria to the situation in Britain we see: (a) That the economic and social prerequisites exist and are becoming more compelling and acute. (b) That the bridge, however, from these economic prerequisites to a psychological response has not yet been crossed. It is not a change in the economic conditions, already unbearable, that is required but changes in the attitude of the different classes to this unbearable catastrophic situation in England. 6. Economic development of society is a very gradual process, measured by centuries and decades. But when economic conditions are radically altered, the delayed psychological response can quickly appear. Whether quickly or slowly, such changes must inevitably affect the mood of the classes. Only then do we have a revolutionary situation. [p 354] 7. In political terms this means: (a) That the proletariat must lose confidence not only in the Conservatives and Liberals, but also in the Labour Party. It must concentrate its will and its courage on revolutionary aims and methods. (b) That the middle class must lose confidence in the big bourgeoisie, the lords, and turn its eyes to the revolutionary proletariat. (c) That the propertied classes, the ruling cliques, rejected by the masses, lose confidence in themselves. 8. These attitudes will inevitably develop; but they do not exist today. They may develop in a short period of time, because of the acute crisis. They may develop in two or three years, even in a year. But today this remains a perspective, not a fact. We must base our policy on the facts of today, not those of tomorrow. 9. The political prerequisites for a revolutionary situation are developing simultaneously and more or less parallel, but this does not mean that they will all mature at the same moment-this is the danger that lies ahead. In the ripening political conditions, the most immature is the revolutionary party of the proletariat. It is not excluded that the general revolutionary transformation of the proletariat and the middle class and the political disintegration of the ruling class will develop more quickly than the maturing of the Communist Party. This means that a genuine revolutionary situation could develop without an adequate revolutionary party. It would be a repetition to some degree of the situation in Germany in 1923. But to say that this is the situation in England today is absolutely wrong. 10. We say that it is not excluded that the development of the party can lag behind the other elements of the revolutionary situation-but this is not inevitable. We cannot make an exact prediction, but it is not merely a question of a prediction. It is a question of our own activity. 11. How much lime will the British proletariat need at this conjuncture of capitalist society to break its connections with the three bourgeois parties? It is entirely possible that the Communist Party with a correct policy will grow in proportion to the bankruptcy and disintegration of the other parties. It is our aim and duty to realize this possibility. Conclusions: This explains sufficiently why it is totally wrong to say that the political conflict in England is between democracy and fascism. The era of fascism begins seriously after [p 355] an important and, for a period of lime, decisive victory of the bourgeoisie over the working class. The great struggles in England, however, lie ahead. As we have discussed in another connection, the next political chapter in England, after the fall of the national government and the Conservative government which will probably succeed it, will very likely be a Liberal-Labour one, which can become in the near future more dangerous than the specter of fascism. We called that, conditionally, the period of British Kerenskyism. But it must be added that Kerenskyism will not in every situation and in every country necessarily be as weak: as Russian Kerenskyism, which was weak because the Bolshevik Party was strong. For example, in Spain Kerenskyism - the coalition of the liberals and the "socialists" - is by no means as weak as it was in Russia and this is due to the weakness of the Communist Party. Kerenskyism is a great danger to the Spanish revolution. Kerenskyism combines a policy of reformist, "revolutionary," "democratic," "socialist" phrases and secondary democratic social reforms with a policy of repression against the left wing of the working class. This is contrary to the method of fascism, but it serves the same end. The defeat of the future Lloyd Georgeism is possible only if we foresee its approach, only if we are not hypnotized by the specter of fascism, which today is a danger further removed than Lloyd George and his tool of tomorrow - the Labour Party. The danger tomorrow may he the reformist party, the bloc of liberals and socialists; the fascist danger is still three or four stages away. Our struggle to eliminate the fascist stage and to eliminate or reduce the reformist stage is a struggle to win over the working class to the Communist Party. “What Is a Revolutionary Situation?” The Militant, December 19, 1931. These summary notes were prepared by Trotsky after a discussion with Albert Glotzer about the draft theses by F. A. Ridley and Chandu Ram that he had criticized in “Tasks of the Left Opposition in Britain and India.” Writings of Leon Trotsky (1930-31), pp 352-5. |
¿A dónde va Irán?
Publicamos a continuación un artículo del
compañero Maziar Razi, dirigente de la Corriente Marxista Revolucionaria de
Irán. Aunque no compartimos algunas de las ideas expresadas en el mismo,
consideramos de interés conocer el punto de vista de los marxistas iranís que
están trabajando en el movimiento de masas por levantar una alternativa
socialista. http://www.elmilitante.net/content/view/6204/84/ |
Whither Iran?
This an article by Maziar Razi on the current situation in Iran that the IS declined to publish on IDoM: http://londonprogressivejournal.com/issue/show/109?article_id=635 It was published in London Progressive Journal - Issue 109 February 19, 2010. |
Modern Imperialist Domination and Islamic Fundamentalism
For discussion at the 2008 Congress of the IMT
by: Amin Kazemi & Maziar Razi
|
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