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Harry Sloan's car worker who credits me with 'the class consciousness of a potato" , SO 136, because of my recent article on Iran clearly knows very little about potatoes. And even less about Iran.

Harry Sloan's recent articles and letters about Iran would suggest that he suffers from the same political and horticultural failings.

He endorses Khomeini's claim of last year that Iran imports nothing from the USA. A minimal acquaintance with the empirical evidence shows up the fallacy of such a claim.

He tells us that Iranian imports from Eastern European countries have increased. But the jump in these imports was caused by the American trade embargo, not by some "turn" to Moscow by the Iranian government.

He tells us that imports from Third World countries have increased. But he doesn't say what percentage -of these are merely indirect American or European imports.

The real indictment of Harry Sloan's articles is the complete absence of any analysis of the contradictions within the Iranian regime, the class forces they represent, and the particular forms and level of class struggle within Iran.

Instead, the readership of Socialist Organiser is offered a factually inaccurate and politically misleading scenario: Iran's "break with Moscow" ; its Tudeh Party as a "blow against subsequent banning of the working class resistance to the regime."

Whilst he condemns a "two camps" view of the world in others, Harry Sloan's scenario of Iranian politics is based upon exactly such a view. Political developments (such as the banning of the Tudeh Party) are not related back to the class struggle within Iran, but attributed to Khomeini deciding to pitch his tent in a different camp.

In no way does the Tudeh Party deserve to be defended by socialists. (The half-sentence in my original article on Iran had been added by a sub-editor; it certainly had nothing to do with me). The role played by the Tudeh Party - actively aiding the regime in the physical liquidation of left wing oppositionists - places it on the other side of the class divide.

Given Harry Sloan's position on the Tudeh Party, he would presumably have campaigned in defence of Beria after 1953. Beria helped build the terror apparatus of a "rabidly anticommunist regime" (as did the Tudeh) and then fell victim to the regime he helped to create (as did the Tudeh).

And potatoes at least have this advantage, that I have yet to come across a potato which has campaigned in defence of Beria and/or the Tudeh Party.

Stan Crooke, alias Edward King