Iran: preparing for a general strike a aeneral strike

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MEHDI AGHAH, an Iranian Kurd recently escaped from Iran, spoke to Mary Corbishley about the present situation in Iran and some developments in the opposition groups.

The attacks by the Islamic Regime of Ayatollah Khomeini continue with the same ferocity. All forms of freedom of speech or press have disappeared. Executions are now no longer reported and the majority of people are ignorant about how many there are -If you wear a moustache you can be executed it is seen as an act of rebellion. There is no system Men throughout society collude in these attacks. If a woman is not completely covered when she goes out into the street then she is liable to be beaten up by male passers-by if not dragged off to prison by the Walls are daubed with slogans such as 'death to A nine year old girl can be executed, while women who are virgins are raped prior to execution because Islam forbids the execution of virgins. many of them are of young people.

The position women and it's women.

Pasdars ('Revolutionary Guards').

women', ', "women are prostitutes'.

Any workers' committees or workers' organisations that enrano un durino the unrising against the Shah have been destroyed.

The Pasdars shoot workers who have tried to organise within the factory, outside the Islamic committees.

There are still attempts to develop secret committees and create links between factories in preparation for a The regime cannot stop this completely because the lesson of the uprising was that the workers and people can organise and they have not forgotten that.

The war with Iraq is the main way that the government has survived and that's why they want it to continue.

The war has had a devastating effect; the economy is in chaos and the death toll, especially of young people, is very high.

Young children 8, 9, etc., have been used as a human barricade in the war, sent into minefields and blown to pieces in order to clear the of women is terrible. Islam is against not just the regime which is attacking A 16 year old girl was after 2 days imprisonm The prison authorit tion to her father on 'confessed to being a l din'. The girl was born path for the tanks behind. nath far tha tonto kohind Kurdistan is the only part of Iran where the struggle against the regime continues.

The movement in Kurdistan belongs to the people; everyone works for the struggle - even if they are not actually fighting as Peshmergas.

The regime is not able to smash this movement, which has a long history going back to the Republic of Mahabad in 1945 and even before that.

The regime has used the war to continue the attack on the Kurdistan that they st started in 1979 as they have on the rest of the mass

Anti-imperialist? Iranian

soldiers at war with Iraq executed in Evin prison lent. ies justified the executhe basis that she had member of the Mojahe1 dumb.

movement that developed during the uprising against the Shah.

There are links between the Kurdish struggle in Iran and the Kurds in Iraq, Syria and Turkey. If this support didn't exist it would be difficult for the Iranian Kurds to continue fighting as the regime has cut off petrol and food from Kurdistan.

In Iraq, the war has enabled the guerilla struggle against Hussein to be stepped up.

In the rest of Iran, the organisations of the opposition are in dissarray. At the start of the revolution, 63 different organisations emerged within a year. Only eight or nine of these still exist.

Many of these organisations supported the Islamic Republic, believing that this petty-bourgeois regime could be anti-imperialist.

The struggle has shown that no section of the petty bourgeoisie can be anti-imperialist. By some organisations supporting the regime on the grounds that it was anti-imperialist, and others attacking it for being anti-working class, the mass movement became confused.

For 30 years the left has had no experience of open activity and has been unable to develop. Because of the confusion that arose after the revolution people began to leave organisations and the struggle.

The Marxist left groups have been decimated as members have been arrested and executed. Those remaining have gone underground.

The National Council of Resistance, the opposition movement consisting of the Mujaheddin, the KDP and Bani-Sadr - an ex-minister of the present regime - has some power outside Iran, but not inside, except the KDP Over the past 2 years support for the Mujaheddin has declined. At the beginning the Mujaheddin tried to mobilise against individuals of the regime rather than its ideas.

Their fusion with BaniSadr. made people see that they were not against the Constitution. Bani-Sadr was responsible for the attack on the Universities and is the same person who told the army 'do not rest or sleep until you have smashed Kurdistan.' • Regime Therefore he cannot be a revolutionary. He is against individuals in the regime but his political line is no different because it is on the same political basis.

Those who are opposed to the regime will get support because the people hate the regime: that's why they gave support to the Mujaheddin.

Of the other groupings. The Fedayeen was a large organisation before the revolution. Alterwards there was a split. The majority have continued to support the regime.

The minority is now the biggest political organisation on the left still existing.

They have got the right political line against the regime. They have been badly attacked and many comrades executed. Although the attacks have hindered them they have lots of peopie around them.

Part of the Minority is trying to build a new organisation for a general strike.

That is the only way to overthrow the regime. It was the same during the struggle against the Shah when the oil workers stopped production.

The only group that can overthrow this regime is the working class organising mass strike action. This part of the Minority is called the Socialist Revolutionary Tendency and has started to produce a paper called 'Socialist Revolution', published outside Iran.

They argue that the party should be built in the course of class struggle. The Socialist Revolutionary Tendency contains different tendencies working together.

All are agreed on the political line in the paper and the necessity to organise links between factories and to build for mass strike action to overthrow the. regime.

The paper has to explain SYRIA A bi Kirkük, Baghdade can be overthrown. It describes the nature of the present regime and the situation in Iran.

It believes that other organisations have failed. In four years no politcal programme for the Iranian revolution has emerged and therefore it is necessary to build a new organisation.

'People joining the SR Tendency should understand the past history of their political organisation and see the bankruptcy of the left struggle in Iran.

The HKS (Socialist Workers Party) supports the paper and are making propaganda for it because they believe it has the best political programme for overthrowing the regime.

The SR tendency of the minority have changed their view of armed struggle.

They now see the armed struggle in the context of the political struggle, so a mass armed struggle is needed not an armed guerilla group.

It is difficult to say what the immediate perspectives for Iran are.

Within the regime there are two factions fighting each other, one group who support Khomeini called the Followers of Imams Live' and the other more right wing called 'Hojatdieh'. So it is still very unstable. A coup could be on the cards, led by the monarchists who support the Shah's son. Or a new regime could be developed around Bazargan and the National Front.

Minute

There is no way of being sure but every minute, every action can change events in Labour movements everywhere should support the distribution of antiregime information about the repression in Iran and the relationship between the regime and Imperialism. The working class is the same everywhere and solidarity should be built with the working class in Iran.

The women's movement especially should campaign against women's oppression

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IRAQ IRAN JORDAN KUWAIT Areas where Kurds live