Fedayeen, a left wing organisatio
Socialist Organiser1982 1982-10-28Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 4 →
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Can you start off by saying something about the present level and nature of the repression in Iran?
The present repression has to be seen in the context of the recent history of the country. Under the Shah democratic rights were minimal, and those that did exist were designed to facilitate exploitation - to bring the peasants into the towns, to draw women into the labour force, to monitor and control the activities of the workers. Any elements trying to break out of this system of control were subject to execution.
During the Revolution there was a relaxation of this system of control.
Women organised themselves independently to fight for their rights, and the workers set up factory committees to demand the right to strike and to hold meetings, rights which did not exist under the Shah.
But the demands could not be met, because the capitalist dependent system did not change. The government was keeping the same system, but to keep the system running the regime had to suppress the elements raising these demands.
At that point in time though, the government had not been stabilisied because of the contradictions within it between the representatives of the industrial bourgeoisie and the commercial bourgeoisie, so no systematic repression could be carried out.
But by mid-1981, with the ousting of the industrialbourgeois element, the government was in a position to change over to large scale repression. On 20 June that , year a major demonstration was met by military attack, and since then the repression has escalated to the present level with more than 30,000 political prisoners and between ten and fifteen thousand people already having been executed.
Scale This is now the scale ot repression in Iran. and abroad as well, where students are paid to identify the progressive elements amongst Iranians studying abroad, who then face execution or life imprisonmen: when they return to
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active in Iran, told about their against the Khomeini regime and their analysis