Apparently forced to deal with the almost unanimous opposition to Ahmadinejad by Iranian leftist intellectuals in the West as well as the obstreperous native Iranian commentators on its website, MRZine has printed a breathtakingly demagogic and stupid article by one Bizhan Pouya that links its ideological adversaries to:

• CIA-sponsored television stations beaming out of Los Angeles
• George Soros’s Open Society Institute
• the National Endowment for Democracy
• the Iranian monarchy in exile
• Cuban gusanos

Given enough time, I suppose that MRZine will begin accusing the “left” (their scare quotes, not mine) of digging a tunnel into Iran from Iraq so that CIA agents led by Hamid Dabashi can sneak through. If the Moscow Trials could have raised this kind of charge against Leon Trotsky, can the finger-pointing accusers at MRZine be far behind?

Yoshie Furuhashi, MRZine’s editor, must feel betrayed to see Ervand Abrahamian, once upon a time a supporter in her eyes of Shi’ite rule (Ervand Abrahamian: Why the Islamic Republic Has Survived), winding up in the CIA, George Soros, NED camp—at least on the basis of his recent London Review of Books article:

By denouncing children of the revolution as foreign-paid ‘counter-revolutionaries’, Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and their allies have alienated a considerable proportion of the population – maybe even the majority – and could end up transforming reformists into revolutionaries. By moving away from democracy towards theocracy, the regime has removed an important component of its original legitimacy. Some would argue the country has ceased to be a republic and has become a military-backed theocracy – a Shia imamate equivalent to the medieval Sunni caliphates.

Pouya begins his article by mocking Maziar Razi, a London-based Iranian, who has the audacity to criticize Hugo Chavéz for backing Ahmadinejad’s re-election. Razi, a longtime Trotskyist, is condemned out of hand for writing “from the comfort of his flat in London.” This hoary demagogic device goes back to the 1930s at least and was used against the Trotskyists all the time. On one hand you have an effete, rootless cosmopolitan like Leon Trotsky giving interviews to the bourgeois press; and on the other hand, you have the stolid Joseph Stalin universally beloved by the humble workers and farmers of the world’s only Communist country. Who would want to support this “leftist” Leon Trotsky giving aid and comfort to the enemies of the Soviet Union? Of course, the same kind who would back the CIA and George Soros against another stolid leader universally beloved by the workers and farmers of Iran.

Pouya really pours it on with the decadent Western imperialist imagery. The anti-Ahmadinejad leftists“have either been greatly influenced by the West or have been educated in Europe or the United States and tend to be devoutly secular.” They become enraged when “rootless villagers” tell them “how to dress and behave in public”. Oddly enough, this kind of rhetoric evokes the culture wars attack on Barack Obama from the Sarah Palins of the world. No wonder Tariq Ali found it so easy to compare Islamic fundamentalists to the Christian right in the U.S.A. in “The Clash of Fundamentalisms”. People like Bizhan Pouya made it easy for him.

Pouya is most annoyed with the protesters who insist on harping on “freedom” and “democracy” rather than bread-and-butter issues:

Freedom and democracy for Iran is the main (if not the sole) slogan of these Don Quixotes.  This is such a middle-class (or even upper-middle-class) slogan.  Before anything else, the working people need jobs, living wages, affordable healthcare, and free education for their children.  Of course, if you point out to our “leftists” that the Monarchists or the counterrevolutionary Cuban gusanos also operate under the same slogan, they respond: “Naturally, our understanding of freedom and democracy is much deeper than theirs”; or, “We really mean what we say, but they don’t.”

Now despite comrade Pouya and Furuhashi’s sneering at democracy, most of us understand democratic rights as a means to the end of a living wage. Without the right to organize a trade union, an elementary democratic right, a living wage is pretty hard to come by. The workers at Khodro, Iran’s largest car manufacturer went on a hunger strike lately to demand better wages and conditions. They called for:

• Prohibited entry of security guards to workstations;
• An end to mandatory over-time;
• Increases in productivity benefits;
• Wage increases in line with cost of living adjustments;
• An end to temporary contracts allowing for the hiring of workers on a permanent basis;
• An end to the expansion of subcontracting companies; and
• Participation of workers’ representatives in key decision making committees.

These same workers also backed the protests against Ahmadinejad, in clear defiance of MRZine’s edict that workers not ally themselves with “leftist” friends of the CIA and George Soros.

But despite Pouya’s tendency to associate democracy and freedom with everything evil, that’s not quite the way that Lenin saw it. In “What is to be Done”, Lenin advocated a much different approach:

Why is there not a single political event in Germany that does not add to the authority and prestige of the Social-Democracy? Because Social-Democracy is always found to be in advance of all the others in furnishing the most revolutionary appraisal of every given event and in championing every protest against tyranny…It intervenes in every sphere and in every question of social and political life; in the matter of Wilhelm’s refusal to endorse a bourgeois progressive as city mayor (our Economists have not managed to educate the Germans to the understanding that such an act is, in fact, a compromise with liberalism!); in the matter of the law against ‘obscene’ publications and pictures; in the matter of governmental influence on the election of professors, etc., etc.

Can you imagine that? Lenin getting worked up over the right to publish “obscene” publications and pictures? Didn’t he know that when artists or intellectuals are told “how to dress and behave in public”, they should straighten up and fly right? After all, the state has the right to enforce morality or else we’ll end up with a bunch of unruly, impious people rioting in the streets. The only thing these enemies of Islamic (or Christian) order will understand is a truncheon and a swift kick in the teeth.

As contrary to Marxism all of this hostility to democratic rights is, it pales in comparison to Pouya’s account of the failings of the Iranian left inside the country. Everything is reduced to the left’s failure to do “grass roots” organizing:

The unfortunate truth is that, in contrast to these “revolutionary” Marxists’ intimations and inferences, there really are no organized leftist or Marxist groups inside Iran rallying workers, students, or other sectors of the Iranian society. Contrary to such claims, I suggest that, since the 1953 CIA coup which toppled the democratically elected government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh, there has been no successful effort on the part of the Iranian Left to engage in grassroots organizing (with some minor exceptions), and that Iranian leftist intellectuals, by virtue of their class roots in my opinion, have no idea what grassroots organizing is and have little understanding of the interests, needs, or desires of the Iranian working masses.

Furthermore, Khomeini and his followers succeeded because, unlike the leftists, “the religious forces, on the other hand, were able to conduct serious grassroots organizing and win power.”

You’ll notice that Pouya reduces everything to the ability to do “grassroots organizing” as if the 1300 year history of Islam in Iran and the willingness of the Shah to allow the mosques relative freedom are beside the point. He also ignores the fact that the Shi’ite clerics took part in the overthrow of Mossadegh, something that might undermine the case he is making for clerical rule.

But the worst thing about his muddled history is that it fails to mention the biggest failing of the guerrilla groups, as well as the Tudeh Party (official Communist Party), and that was adaptation to the clerics, the same line that he is advancing today. Fortunately, one of the best histories of this period can be read at least partially on Google Books. Written by Maziar Behrooz, “Rebels with a Cause: the Failure of the Left in Iran” is must reading for those on the left today who are bamboozled by charlatans like Bizhan Pouya.

Although parts of the book can be read on Google, unfortunately you cannot read the passages which hold the various left groups up to close scrutiny. However, there is an article by Behrooz that can be read online that contains the same material on the Fadayan, one of the main guerrilla groups, that appears in the book. It was titled “Iran’s Fadayan 1971-1988: a case study in Iranian Marxism” and appeared in the 1990 “Jusür”, an Iranian journal.

The Fadayan was a small military/political organization that had over 500,000 supporters around the country in 1979. It was made up exactly of those middle-class intellectuals that Pouya derided but its class composition did not differ radically from the July 26^th Movement at its inception or Lenin’s Bolsheviks for that matter. Its inability to transcend its rather narrow social base must be studied by the left in order to avoid the same kinds of mistakes in the future.

The Fadayan can best be described as Debrayist and had much in common with the urban guerrilla groups operating in Latin America. They sought to be a “detonator” that would facilitate broader political change and to an extent they were vindicated on this. Along with other armed groups, they definitely accelerated the decomposition of the monarchy. Ideologically, they had Maoist leanings but lacked any formal connections to Beijing.

With the overthrow of the Shah, groups such as the Fadayan could finally come out in the open and help organize the mass movement. They were in a unique position to lead since they were the largest Marxist group outside of the Tudeh Party. Almost immediately, the Fadayan was divided along factional lines, one group favoring confrontation with Khomeini who had openly stated his goals in creating a theocracy and the other—a majority–favoring the same kind of position on display in MRZine today.

One of the first confrontations with the Islamic government took place in Turkman Sahra where peasants’ councils had emerged. The Fadayan, notwithstanding Pouya’s allegation that the Iranian left had never taken part in grassroots struggles, found itself in the leadership of these councils. Unfortunately, the struggle in the Turkman Sahra region was far more advanced than in the rest of Iran and the Fadayan leaders became isolated. Four top council members and Fadayan leaders were murdered in Tehran during negotiations with Khomeini’s lieutenants. This, of course, was consistent with the Islamic Republic’s hostility to sweeping land reform. The majority faction in the Fadayan decided to back down from defending the councils after this attack, while the minority advocated continued struggle. Eventually, the minority split and formed a new organization based on the need for revolutionary socialist opposition to Islamic rule.

The majority group argued that the Islamic republic was petty bourgeois in character and, therefore, progressive and anti-imperialist. The IRI (Islamic Republic of Iran) was viewed as passing through a non-capitalist path towards socialism under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini and therefore deserved support. In other words, the same kind of confusion existed back in the early 1980s over whether Iran was like Venezuela.

Ultimately, the line of the Fadayan converged with that of the Tudeh Party that had capitulated totally to the IRI. The Tudeh newspapers were filled with glowing accounts of how Ayatollah Khomeini was resisting imperialism. It anticipated a growing rapprochement between Iran and the USSR, in clear violation of Marxist politics as well as common sense.

Under the pressure of the powerful Islamic state apparatus, the Fadayan continued to fragment. While the only course that made sense was along the lines of independent class action, the Maoist training of its leaders persuaded it to continue along the fruitless path of intra-class alliances with the bazaari bourgeoisie and the clerics.

By 1981, freedom for the Marxist left had come to an end in Iran. Repression plus a failure to come to terms with the class nature of the clerical regime led to one crisis after another. The majority group continued to support the policies of the IRI, including suppression of the Kurdish minority. In August 1981, the leadership issued a statement to the ranks calling upon them to help root out the “counter-revolution”, which included the Kurds. Their support for the government’s chauvinist policies won them a letter of appreciation from Colonel Sayyad-Shirazi who was leading military efforts against the Kurds.

When a pro-Kurd leftist group attacked and occupied the city of Amol, the majority group had this to say:

The Iranian People’s Fadayan (Majority) and the forces of the Tudeh Party of Iran, from the early moments of the attack by counter-revolutionary intruders, participated, shoulder to shoulder with the people, the Basij, and the security forces, in their suppression and defeat.

It should be obvious at this point that the Fadayan majority was guided by the same suicidal logic put forward by MRZine, which fortunately has no influence in Iran today except with the theocratic rulers who reprinted one of their pro-Ahmadinejad pieces in the official press agency website in the same spirit as Colonel Sayyad-Shirazi tipping his cap to the Fadayan majority in 1981.

Edward S. Herman

David Peterson

Over on MRZine you can read a 10,000-word attack by Edward S. Herman and his writing partner David Peterson directed at a statement on Iran made by the Campaign for Peace and Democracy.  It is an application of a methodology that has by now become so familiar. Identify the latest target of American destabilization and then try to burnish the reputation of the government under siege. The CPD is the perfect foil for Herman and Peterson since it has a sorry “third camp” record inspired ideologically by leader Joanne Landy’s guru, the late Julius Jacobson. Jacobson put out “New Politics” for many years, a journal with a seething hatred for anything connected with the USSR. So by targeting the CPD, the job is much easier than it would be if they had to deal with the Iranian leftists in exile who are much harder to stigmatize as tools of the U.S. State Department. Indeed, if you go through their 47 footnotes, you will find none that cites an Iranian leftist, a rather breathtaking example of the use of blinders.

The article consists, as might be expected, of one example after another of U.S. meddling in Iranian politics. One paragraph should suffice to show what they are about:

The CPD ignores the existence, let alone the impact, of multiple, large, and overlapping governmental and nongovernmental programs devoted to developing the media and expertise necessary for “democratic movements” in other countries, and to “strengthen the bond between indigenous democratic movements abroad and the people of the United States,” as the National Endowment for Democracy describes its mission.  Despite President Obama’s semi-apologetic admission in his speech at Cairo University the week before Iran’s election that the United States once “played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,” USA Today reports that “The Obama administration is moving forward with plans to fund groups that support Iranian dissidents, . . . continuing a program that became controversial when it was expanded by President Bush.”  Part of the purpose of the $15 million Near Eastern Regional Democracy Initiative, a Senate Appropriations committees spokesman told USA Today, “is to expand access to information and communications through the Internet for Iranians.“

The other goal of the article is to refute the idea that the elections were rigged. It repeats a number of points that were made early on, including a Western poll that reflected preference for Ahmadinejad. In my view, both things can be true. The elections were marred by fraud and Ahmadinejad was favored by a majority of voters. But the basic flaw in approaching the Iranian elections in this manner is that it accepts the existing parameters. In other words, it assumes that democracy exists because voters had a choice between a “populist” like Ahmadinejad and a “reformist” like Mousavi. They have their own 2-party system over there as well. Why an American leftist would get caught up arguing for the lesser evil over there beggars the imagination.

In Iran the Guardian Council, an unelected body, has the power to disqualify candidates who do not pass their religious/political litmus test. While voters could have chosen from 6 candidates in the latest election, they were out of luck if they preferred one of the 475 others that the clerics had excluded including 42 women. This of course does not even address the question of socialist or secular politicians who are barred from participating openly in Iranian politics. The revolt that began in June might have been sparked by anger over perceived charges of fraud, but they soon evolved into a challenge to the clerical system as a whole. Unfortunately for the street protesters, they will not be accepted as legitimate by characters like James Petras or Edward S. Herman as long as there is a single NGO funded by George Soros or a CIA agent on the ground in Iran that is still functioning.

Herman and Peterson’s methodology only works if you reduce the playing field to imperialist states and those that are under attack from imperialism. As such, these Znet geniuses are analogous in some ways to the Guardian Council in Iran which also decides who gets to play in politics or not. So you are bus drivers in Tehran trying to form a union? Sorry, Herman and Peterson have no interest in your plight as long as George Soros or Freedom House issues statements on your behalf. The implied prescription for the Iranian left is just to disappear, since they give aid and comfort to the “reformist” politicians who are clearly pawns of American imperialism.

There was a time when I identified with what Edward S. Herman was up to politically. During the war in the Balkans, I made the same kinds of points and still feel that they needed to be made for if you compare Ahmadinejad to Milosevic, there is no contest. It is sometimes forgotten that Belgrade had a lively political culture and that Milosevic abided by election results that required a run-off. It was the opposition candidate supported by U.S. imperialism who decided to organize a coup rather than take part in an election in which his victory was not assured. This is not to speak of the economic questions involved with the Serbs trying desperately to hold the crumbling edifice of Titoism together while it was being pounded by Western banks, sanctions, and bombs. The project eventually collapsed because the relationship of forces was so overwhelmingly against it, mirroring what had happened to Sandinista Nicaragua some years earlier. None of this has anything to do with Iran, however, a country whose current government descended from a clerical coup in the early 1980s that had as much animosity toward the left as NATO and the U.S. State Department. Thousands of leftists were murdered, jailed or tortured for simply defending the types of property relations that existed in Tito’s Yugoslavia. The fact that American imperialism resented Iranian control over precious oil resources was sufficient in some circles on the left to give the reactionary clerics a stamp of approval.

It took me a while to figure out that the “anti-imperialist” methodology was lacking, but I owe it to Jared Israel, the creator of the Emperor’s Clothes website, to help me crystallize my thinking. When he was on the Marxism mailing list, he began defending Putin’s war on the Chechens along the same lines as Serb intervention in Kosovo. It was a pretty mechanical exercise, dredging up all the reactionaries who had backed the Chechens in much the same way that Herman and Peterson ferret out tarnished backers of the “Green revolution” in Iran.

It was, of course, the same story in Zimbabwe. You could always find sanctimonious statements on behalf of the domestic opposition there, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, the Mousavi of Zimbabwe. As is the case in Iran, revolutionaries were forced to operate within a limited political space. In the best of all worlds, the Movement for Democracy would have called for land reform rather than opposing it. It would have rejected IMF style neoliberalism, as well. But given the crushing weight of Mugabe’s armed forces and cops, all serving to prop up a deeply corrupt system cloaked in “anti-imperialist” rhetoric, work inside the MDC had to be considered by the Zimbabwean left. Since revolutions almost always involve wresting more and more space for the working class to operate as an independent force, Marxists must consider struggles for greater parliamentary freedom even though our goal is not a parliamentary system. Lenin fought for a more representative Duma in Czarist Russia even though his final goal was to supersede it with workers councils, called Soviets.

On the Greenleft mailing list, there was a comment from Pakistani leftist Farooq Sulehria that caught my eye. It really captured the dynamics of this kind of struggle for democratic rights:

Like any social movement on mass scale, we see convergence of interests. Hence, rivals joining hands (Rafsanjani and Mousavi in fact Rafsanjani was pivotal in helping Khomenai get present position of strength).

The problem is: official Iranian media, official opposition (so called reformists) and western media reduced the whole movement to election fraud.

Yes, it became a pretext. Like recently in Pakistan, democracy movement unfolded by a highly unlikely event i.e. forced retirement of highest judge by General Musharraf. What started as a movement for the restoration of this judge, finally made Musharraf resign. And from day one, this movement was a movement for democracy and not for a single judge regardless what colour every participant was giving it. From far left to orthodox islamists as well as Bhutto’s party (at one stage) joined this movement.

This is what we need to understand. Many say, in Iran, they are seeking cover behind Mousavi. But with the passage of time, slogan raised is: death to dictator (and dictator is grant ayotollah) and a slogan from 1979 (with a slant): Ahmedinejad Pinochet, this is not Chile.

posted as a comment on MRZine by Ramin:

“Monthly Review Reported: Collaboration of Iranian capitalists, Americans, and Zionists against Ahamadinejad.”

This the headline of today’s front page of the Islamic Republic News Agency’s website that is the voice of Ahmadinejad government. What follows is the Farsi translation of a long excerpt of Phil Wilayto’s article, together with his picture, currently posted on MRZine.

Who would have thought that Ahamadinejad government would one day resort to an article on “Monthly Review” to justify its legitimacy? Let’s hope anyone who has ever been in trouble with respect to Monthly Review in Iran, receives an official pardon. Good job Yoshie. Keep posting to make “Monthly Review” a household name in Iran.

http://www.irna.ir/View/FullStory/?NewsId=599302