Stalinist view of Khomeini

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EVEN by the standards of the Communist Party's Morning Star itself, its recent article on the banning of the Tudeh Party in Iran plumbed the depths.

The author, Chris Myant, attempts to justify the Tudeh Party's policy of support for the Khomeini regime, the same regime now oppressing the Tudeh Party (TP). His 'justification" is a concoction of distortion, duplicity and dishonesty.

Myant begins with a ritualistic condemnation of those, like the radical Islamic Mojahedin, who fought back against the regime's attacks. They chose the 'road of confrontation" which resulted in "terrorist violence and counterterrorist massacre and repression."

Myant thinks that the real terrorists in Iran are not the regime's thugs but the Mojahedin and the leftist opposition. Any repression in Iran is response to their "terrorism" It was their own fault they got massacred.

The opposition is condemned, whilst the regime is whitewashed.

Myant does the same trick with the Iran-Iraq war, which was "imposed on Iran by the Ba'ath regime in Iraq." The latter certainly sparked off the war by its invasion. But the sole reason for the war's continuation is the Iranian government's refusal to respond to Iraqi calls for a ceasefire, and its decision to carry the war into Iraqi territory.

The Iranian government continues the war as a useful diversion from internal problems. Myant pretends the problem is that Moslem forces 'in Iran and in the Iranian government are victims of manipulation by "the right wing" of Iranian politics.

This right wing "exploited the inability of many radical Moslems to counter reactionary use of seemingly Islamic ideas and precepts."

Islamic ideas are never reactionary? This argument itself proves the degree of CP acceptance of the lying presentation by the Khomeinites of their reactionary Islamic ideas as cancer has been made, through viruses = the retroviruses.

also lie dormant inside the cells of an animal. In this state, they are undetectable because their genetic material is integrated or absorbed into the genetic material (DNA) of their host' cells.

Some retroviruses, the RNA tumour viruses (RTV) are known to cause cancer in animals and it was found that they actually carried in their genetic material a gene for cancer (an oncogene). When this gene was integrated into the host's into the host's DNA, the host When researchers investianimals examined. In other words; the viral cancer genes are similar or identical to genes naturally occuring in many animals. So we already possess genes capable of causing cancer. The RTVs probably got their oncogenes by picking them up by accident from animal DNA while lying dormant.

Now, if we all carry "oncogenes" in our DNA, why don't we all get cancer?

Every cell our carries the same amount of DNA, an enormous encyclopedia of information, but only a tiny fraction of that information is used by any one cell. Each type of cell needs to make a different set of proteins, and the genes for these have to be turned on by a chemical switch - a special bit of DNA. The rest of the genes are inactive, including the oncogenes. Now, suppose an RTV infects the cell. If it carries an oncogene with its "On" switch, then when this is integrated into the cell's DNA, the gene will start making its protein and the cell is transformed into a cancer cell. These RTVs, the Acute Transforming Viruses, induce cancer quickly in animals.

Others, the Chronic Transforming Viruses, probably carry only an 'On" switch or an oncogene with no switch. These will cause cancer slowly because the chance is small that a switch is inserted next to a natural oncogene (or vice-versa) in- the animal's DNA.

But there is something still to be explained. Why do we have oncogenes in our DNA if they are so dangerous? Why don't they die out?

The answer is that oncogenes are ordinary genes with useful functions in certain cells. A very recent discovery in this field illustrates this point.

There is a protein called ''Platelet-Derived Growth Fac tor" (PDGF), produced by tiny blood' cells called platelets. PDGF stimulates certain cells to grow and multiply, to repair damage caused by cuts and bruises. Researchers looking at the function of PDGF compared its structure to lots of other proteins, using a computer, and found it was almost identical to a protein called "p28sis" which is coded for by a monkey tumour virus called Simian Sarcoma Virus (SSV).

Now suppose SSV inserts its oncogene into the sort of cell stimulated by PDGF. The cell will start making p28sis which is similar to PDGF. It will stimulate its own growth and multiplication independently of the platelets. We will get more cells making p28sis... and so on. We have a tumour.

Several important questions for future research now arise:

1. Do other oncogenes code for growth-stimulating proteins? If so, we have a general explanation for cancer. Already there is evidence accumulating.

2| Are some human cancers caused by RTVs? So far only the Hepatitis B virus is known to cause liver cancer. It may be a chronic transforming virus.

3. Can we fight such cancers by making anti-bodies to destroy the growth factors so they cannot stimulate the tumours?

4. Why are some cancers quite harmless, while others spread over the body causing rapid death? Something other than growth factors seems to be involved.

In any case, we are nearer than ever to understanding cancer and producing effective cures.

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