Moscow silent on Khomeini's pogrom

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struggle in the OUT NUPE 70p (plus 16p p&p) from WSL, PO Box THE reaction (more exactly, lack of reaction) of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to the banning of the Tudeh Party in Iran casts a revealing light on the nature of Soviet foreign policy and avowed support for ''the international working class in its struggle for peace, democracy and socialism. "

The Tudeh Party (TP) is the Moscow-loyal Iranian "communist" Party. Its leading members were arrested in February, the party as a whole was banned in May and since then another 1,500 of its members have been arrested to date.

Its leaders have been cruelly tortured - some to the point of death - as the regime has attempted to extract "confessions"

Given the complete of the TP to its mentors Advertisement Special issue on unions: also contains articles on workers' politics and national liberation, and the Stalinist state 'unions' 135, London N1 ODD Hern Europe and the Soviet Union it might be expected that the latter would condemn the Iranian government's action and mount a vigorous campaign in defence of the TP and for the overthrow of the regime.

On the contrary, in fact, the attack on the TP has been passed over in virtual silence by the Stalinist bureaucracy.

Since the repression of the Tudeh began, just two articles have appeared in Neues Deutschland, for example, the Stalinist daily paper in East Germany.

OR WE STAY The first, sandwiched between articles on CIA support for the Afghan guerrillas and on 1,200 members of the "Mongolian Revolutionary Youth Association" setting up home for themselves in the Gobi Desert, reads as follows:

'The People's Party of Iran (Tudeh Party), according to reports of the Iranian news agency IRNA, has been declared dissolved by the State Prosecutor. Leading officials of the party were recently arrested."

The second report is equally The only text in Neues Deutschland which deal with the banning of the TP in a less perfunctory fashion are edited statement issued by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the TP and the speech made by TP Politburo member Ali Khavari at the international conference on 'Karl-Marx and our Epoch" held in East Berlin in April.

The texts trot out the usual TP line: its members are "patriots" who are "loyal to the Iranian revolution"; its activities have been carried out "in agreement with the appropriate bodies of the Islamic Republic"; any criticisms it has of the regime • are "'neither hostile nor destructive"; and the accusations levelled against the Tudeh (that it spies for Moscow) are the invention of counter-revolutionaries" backed by the imperialist powers."

The same basic indifference to the banning and persecution of the TP can be found in Pravda and other press organs of the Stalinist bureaucracy, including Soviet Weekly, the main mouthpiece of the Soviet bureaucracy in this country.

At first sight this might seem particularly odd. The repressive nature of the Islamic Republic Party (IRP) regime in Iran is well documented. Yet Stalinists and their fellow travellers defend it as "progressive"

Even when the TP is banned, the Stalinists still remain silent on the IRP's countless crimes against the working class and seeks instead to placate it.

In reality though, it is perfectly logical: the foreign policy of Stalinism, for all its turgid demogogy about "proletarian internationalism", is based on defence of its power and privileges in the Soviet Union and East Europe.

If this means accepting repression of the working class and collaboration with reactionary regimes, then the Stalinist bureaucracy is only too willing to do this.

Stable

And in the case of Iran in particular, the Stalinist bureaucracy, in its own interests, wants to see a stable, repressive regime in power: unrest in Iran could all too easily spread to the Soviet Union itself given the extent to which sections of the Soviet population of Central Asia are related to sections of the Iranian population.

(The Turkic language of the Azerbaidjanis and Turkmeni, for example, is spoken on both sides of the border, whilst the two million natives of Soviet Tajikistan speak Pharsee, which they share with Iran. The strength of Islam in Soviet Central Asia provides another particularly strong link with The close links between Iran and the bordering regimes of the Soviet Union, which have a long history of resistance to the central bureaucracy, therefore make it particularly vital for the Soviet regime that Iran is governed by a regime strong and ruthless enough to quell potentially infectious unrest in the country.

It was this factor that lay behind the Soviet Union's friendship with the openly pro-imperialist dictatorship of the former Shah. He was a guarantee of stability in the region.

Hence the readiness of the Soviet Union to construct power stations in Ahwaz and a major steel works in Isfahan, to train engineering students in the Soviet Union, and to maintain high level diplomatic links with the regime" leg. Podgorny's meeting with the Shah).

Myth

The Tudeh Party's alleged "history of heroic resistance" to the Shah is a myth. Those leaders of the TP who did not flee to take refuge with the Shah's friends in Moscow went over the to the side of the regime: Nikkah took over responsibility for radio censorship; Jaafarian joined the Rastakhis Party, the Shah's own party in his one-party state:

It was therefore natural that the Stalinists should seek an alliance with the Shah's successor. But given the nature of, and contradictions within, the IRP regime, this was no easy task. The result was the present policies of the Stalinist bureau-» cracy and the TP (as long as it existed).

The Stalinist bureaucracy hoped that Khomeini could do the same job as the Shah: crush all militancy and working class resisenace.

The TP faithfully carried out this line, by praising the IRP regime and aiding it in its repression of the Iranian left.

Then the assassins of yesterday became the victims of today. But the Stalinist bureaucracy pursues the same line still: virtually ignoring the repression of its own mouthpiece in Iran, the bureaucracy still fawns before the IRP regime.

Hence the absence of any criticism of the IRP regime, the maintenance of over 1,000 Soviet technicians in Iran, and the silence about Iranian support for Afghan guerrillas (as compared with its lengthy protests about CIA support). And even with the Tudeh facing open repression, the Stalinist bureaucracy still sent heartfelt congratulations to the Iranian regime on the fourth anniversary of its "revolution"' Persecuted Like millions of other workers before them, the Iranian working class is persecuted by a regime which the countries of the "socialist camp' seek to support.

But it is of no benefit to the Iranian masses to be oppressed by a pro-Soviet Union rather than a pro-West regime.

The Iranian working class needs to lead the revolutionary struggle against the IRP regime and against the attacks it would face once victorious from both imperialism in the West and Stalinism in the East.

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Organiser no.137

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