Communist Party of Iran (Tudeh) on the protests

Excerpts from Statement no. 1:
The majority of the people of the homeland today want to put an end to the despotic theocratic regime; to end the oppression and injustice; and bring about the establishment of freedom and social justice. These demands can only be achieved through a joint struggle of all the national and freedom-loving forces without foreign intervention.

[A]t the same time, it should be noted that under the critical conditions of the current dangerous regional tensions, the regional reaction - supported by the Trump administration in the US and the right-wing government of Netanyahu in Israel - is seeking to distinctly impact the developments in our country and to replace the current reactionary regime with another reactionary regime. The support of these forcesi.e. the regional reaction, Trump administration, and the right-wing government of Netanyahu, for the Iranian monarchists and those political groups whose agenda is to cooperate with the most reactionary regimes of the region and to persuade the European states to impose sanctions on Iran’s economy - thereby exacerbating the misery for the destitute and disadvantaged people of our country - and to encourage foreign states to interfere militarily in Iran, leaves no room whatsoever for any optimism regarding the future designs of such “opposition”. The progressive and freedom-loving forces of Iran must increase their presence in the protest movement of the masses - more than ever before - providing proper people-oriented slogans, offering sensible guidance and relying on the legitimate demands of the masses for abolishing the existing suppressive regime and ending the economic deprivation, oppression, injustice and plundering of the natural and human resources of the nation, while avoiding reactionary and divisive slogans. We should not let the past repeat itself whereby the heroic struggle of the nation for freedom, democracy and social justice is hijacked by a bunch of reactionary opportunists who do not believe in the people’s rights or democratic freedoms.
tiny.cc/ktkvpy

Excerpts from Statement no. 2:
[t]he regime is rapidly preparing for a brutal and bloody suppression of the people’s movement. The only effective way to confront this approach of the tyrannical regime is to widely mobilise the popular forces, the workers, the working people and the militant youth, students and women of the nation. The experience of the 1979 Revolution and the overthrow of the police-dictatorship Pahlavi regime proved that dictatorial regimes could not be toppled through street demonstrations alone. What broke the back of the puppet regime of the Shah was the million-strong demonstrations of the masses alongside the general strikes and the active participation of the workers and working people - particularly the oil workers - in nationwide strikes that made it impossible for the tyrannical regime to continue. For this to happen, there is required a thoughtful nationwide organisation and the selecting of appropriate popular slogans. The slogans of the students at yesterday’s clashes calling for the united action of students, workers and other social strata, counted as one positive indication of such an understanding and the realisation of the urgency of the current critical situation. Without the united action of various social strata that are dissatisfied with the current situation, it is not certain that the brave street protests of the people - and particularly the younger generation - will achieve its ultimate success. At the same time, the exploitation by both domestic and external reactionary forces, whose goal is to spread misleading slogans and robbing the masses of their true protest movement, must be prevented and clearly confronted. The misleading slogans of such forces - including persuading those protesting to resort to violence - will only benefit the suppressive forces of the regime and the opponents of the popular movement.
tiny.cc/1ukvpy

based comunist party of iran

This is regime changer shit. Stop posting it.

son you are liberal reactionary trash and a faux leftist
kys

What do you mean "regime changer shit?" This is a legit communist party in Iran, of course they are for a regime change while emphasizing the danger the US administration represents to the country.

you're right, remember to support CPUSA in their struggle to vote democrat

What would be the correct praxis in Iran then for a communist?

No it isn't, they are in exile.

So they should be ignored.

...

supporting regime change is certainly the wrong praxis, IMO, I won't say like not "supporting" either side or whatever is "wrong", i don't think it really amounts to a stance. I guess i support the iranian government, in the sense I don't think ceding more power to the US in the middle east is ever a good thing, and regardless any attempt to dislodge the Iranian government would costs immense amounts of suffering and further destabilize an already fractured geopolitical area.

Yes, Iran is not socialist/communist, they're not even Marxist in rhetoric, but a new Iranian government would not be some liberal democracy that would treat an honest left opposition any differently than this government has already.

Now if this exiled communist party could somehow like conjure up a popular movement, take power, and continue to oppose US influence, then i'll change my tune. That's not the case, based on what I've seen and know about it. Anyone is welcome to tell me otherwise.

Broke: Communist Party of Iran
Woke: Ayatollah Khamenei

broke: Communist Party of Iran
actually broke and not able to actually do anything: Communist Party of Iran

maybe something will develop in the future that will give an avenue for them to take power, but atm man it just doesn't really look like it

Pretty good description of every communist and socialist party across the world, tbh.

this is true lol

They were forced into exile (just like pic related) and still have an active (illegal) base inside Iran. This in itself is not really a sufficient argument as far as communist praxis goes, think about all the illegal communists in Europe in the 20th century forced into exile.

I'm pretty sure they see the same problem you described hence them treading carefully (last sentence from OP).

Again, 20th century examples do come to mind, though they had the backing of the USSR – I doubt China would dabble in the region so openly or that Russia would support a communist revolution. In any case, I believe you are not justified to write the whole protest movement down in advance based on realpolitik. The very same arguments have been made in WW1: we need to get this over with before any revolution can take place.

Yeah, CPC, WKP, and PCC are "broke."

They are not treading carefully, they are promoting absolute traitorous nonsense such as the Iranian "regime" being "just as reactionary" as what the USA has in store for Iran. They talk about turning this blatant CIA op into some kind of magical socialist revolution… how? Nobody who says that should be taken seriously, and in fact, the Iranian government is right to exile these people.

no, certainly thing can change, atm however i am not going to cheer on the US support of these protests

How is this even questionable in your mind? Do you know what the word 'reactionary' means?

We don't know as of yet, so stop pretending that you have the facts. It's a typical conservative move to label protests from the beginning as being pushed by shady people from the background. The Arab spring, for instance, was a legit protest movement ranging over several countries that only later got hijacked and perverted by the USA. Many former protesters (in Syria and Lybia) when confronted with the newly arrived US-backed armed forces opposed them immediately.

Are you sure you are on the right board?

And they aren't doing the that either.

Okay, but their impotence I suppose raises the point why we even care what they think

Like I know they're the Iranian communist party but their not in any position to take power themselves and oppose US influence

I think I'm just going in circles at this point, sorry, but we'll see what happens.

In what sense are they impotent? Most of them are in exile? Lenin comes to mind. The international situation is horrific? WW1 and the devastation in Russia comes to mind.

Sure, I'm pushing this parallel, but come the fuck on. There's no "objective rule" of communism that says revolution in some circumstances are a no-no, not to mention that we, from our little forum have absolutely no say in or control of what the masses will do.

The USA wants mass murder and enslavement for Iran. Al Qaeda would invade half the country. CLEARLY just as reactionary as the revolutionary government that kicked the USA out in the first place! Absolute tripe. Anyone who seriously thinks that is delusional.

Yes we do, as Marxists we do not fumble around blindly constantly fucking up and then exclaiming that "we didn't know, all the proof wasn't in yet!" We use our understanding of history and present conditions to make predictions. An extremely basic understanding of history AND current information tells us that the CIA is deeply involved in these riots and wishes to turn them into an opening for regime change. You have no excuse as a Marxist to feign ignorance.

No, we don't. Historical materialism isn't weather forecasting. It's not about guessing what's going to happen, especially if your vapid conclusion is that the CIA is behind it because you don't like what's happening.

Oh, this is harsh, man. A regime being reactionary isn't measured in body count – this is petty liberalism. If this was the standard the Jacobins or Bolsheviks would be the most reactionary forces. Similarly, reaction isn't measured in geo-political alliances, nor in the (in)dependence of a regime. 'Reactionary' denotes cultural, political, ideological trends that vehemently oppose social and political progress, nothing more, nothing less.

In other words, you are conflating things here. And inb4: I'm not debating you on the US' imperialist plans in the region, I'm debating you on the correct use of terminology.

We have our suspicions, for sure. Would you say, however, that the Arab Spring was a CIA op from the very beginning? IMO that would be truly laughable. The masses in the region have legit grievances too and when nothing gets better for long they usually protest.

Knowing both that the US has a well documented history of meddling in the region and that the people of Iran have a long history of legit grievances I can say with intellectual honesty say that this question is settled.

You, however, talk with the utmost certainty, so mind if I ask you to back up your "knowledge?"

*I can't say with intellectual honesty say that this question is settled.

...

...

You are a disgrace on Marxism Leninism you revisionist hack

Yes, that's literally the whole point of historical materialism. How do you think Marx concluded that capitalism would END and fall to COMMUNISM? He used historical materialism to make the prediction!

It's a major measure. The body count, and whose bodies. A million dead slaveowners is progressive, a million dead Iranian proles (what Tudeh evidently wants) is the height of reaction.

Anticommunist smears.

Even by your narrow and incorrect definition, the Iranian government is still objectively progressive compared to what would happen if it fell. Again, Al Qaeda and ISIS would take over half the country, no different than Syria and Iraq.

In Syria, without a doubt. All you are pointing out is that naive and earnest protesters are used as cover for all modern regime change operations. It changes absolutely nothing in the final analysis, which is that it is a CIA op.

I think the circumstances are a little different. And again, I earnestly do hope that something like that would occur. It's just at the moment, this doesn't appear to be the case.

And to sort of echo the sentiments of the BO, at the present moment, barring these hypotheticals in which the Iranian communists become the Bolsheviks, any regime change in iran will be to install a US friendly "democracy" or a dictatorship in the form of some resurgent shah or even a military figure. This means the deaths of millions of people just to expand US influence.

Forcing communist parties underground and into exile is good praxis you fucking liberals

So you are essentially saying that Tudeh wants a failed revolution, correct? Not just that they are naive and don't see that a revolution can't happen in such circumstances (already problematic opinion from a Leninist perspective, mind you) but that they outright want the failure.

Do you think you are arguing here in good faith?

Read the context and stop rage replying.

>the Iranian government is still objectively progressive compared to what would happen if it fell
You can't compare an existing thing to a future hypothetical and call it "objective comparison." This isn't even related to politics, just an indication of the general quality of your replies.

Back to politics: nobody (including Tudeh) is arguing for US intervention. In fact, everyone (including Tudeh) is warning against it.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that they can be hijacked by the US, and that the danger is very real, especially in Iran, especially after Lybia and Syria, BUT this is no way legitimatizes you to automatically call protests CIA ops, not just because this is not factual (you already conceded that most of Arab Spring were legit popular movements), not just because it relativizes – if not erases – the protesting people's misery, but because it rules out in advance the chance of any communist politics in advance in a theoretically unsound way and this, my friend, is the biggest sin on a communist board.

We should be thinking about new possible openings and not closures.

Shove it up your ass.

Sorry, what's the difference? Moreover, given that the group is likely infiltrated in a major way, it's a given that the infiltrators really do want a failed revolution. Good faith argument? Tudeh's arguments are absolutely not in good faith.

It's not hypothetical, it has already happened in Libya and Syria.

This is ridiculous, do you believe that the CIA just takes a break whenever there's downtime? Do they sit around and wait for authentic, spontaneous protests and then suddenly jump out of their chairs yelling "shit, time to hijack!" or do they constantly lay the groundwork, the contacts, the smuggling routes, the communication networks, the agents, etc. in preparation for and to prepare these moments? It's a CIA op.

No, you are casting a whole range of diverse protests under one umbrella regardless of their class character or point or origin. The idea is that the protests in Bahrain had something in common with the protests in Syria, while they had nothing in common.

Lenin's madness or leap of faith, if you like. For outside commentators a revolution is always doomed to fail, for participants its a slim chance for a revolutionary miracle.

Do you see the slightest chance for a revolution to take place in Iran? I hope so, otherwise what the fuck are we doing here? Would then there be a reaction from Israel and USA? Most likely. Is there a chance for this revolution to successfully fight them back?

I don't see how this overall problematic is anything new to our history.

On the operational methods of the CIA: why not both? Yes, they build (let's be frank: they have already built) an extensive covert network aimed at undermining the status quo, and yes, they might have plans for a coup, and yes, this very protest movement might be the result of such doings, but! You in advance rule out two possibilities: A) what if this is a legit "grassroots" protest that the CIA only now tries to infiltrate, or B) what if this protest was started by the CIA but it fails to contain the masses?

I think A) is more likely since artificial movements always have a fishy smell around them (Syrian White Helmets, the Syrian facebook/twitter campaigns) and call for the vaguest shit (democracy) easily traceable to US interests, while this one has a clear class character.

Even if this is a case of B) you in advance rule out the possibility of the masses taking note of the meddling and correcting the route. I can not but think that you either don't put faith in the people or you play the typical Western Marxist line of erasing their agency to elevate their victimhood.

You speak of certainties without actually knowing, I speak of possibilities without claiming to know – the difference is, "in the final analysis," is that your approach rules out the possibility of a communist politics, and mine does not.

It simply can't be compared to Lenin, since he openly stated he wanted the defeat of Russia in WWI, and he justified this because Russia was imperialist. He never said that people in nations targeted by imperialism should overthrow their own defense against it.

Yes, it could happen in the distant future once the USA collapses. That's it.

I will clarify that I totally support the Iranians who are protesting for reforms while reaffirming their government. These people are openly calling for the Iranian government to crack down on the rioters, opportunists, and other idiots and agents. Their protest should be correctly identified as a counterprotest.

…

WKP?

Why aren't we supporting US imperialism again?

He probably meant the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK)

...

Communists should still conduct politics in Iran, but not destroying the government/inviting NATO to kill everyone.

Surprised you pointed out the WPK instead of the more common and suspicious CPC, Well, not really surprising since you obviously don't know anything.

Either way.

Why is this thread bumplocked?

That's not communist politics, tho.

Why are you posting with your BO trip? Do you think that makes your arguments more persuasive?

CPC still has somewhat communist politics if you look at it sideways and squint. There is some truth to the need to develop China's productive forces for a transition into socialism, even if that's being used as a thin justification for brutal authoritarian capitalism.

WPK is just ethnonationalism dressed up in faux Marxist symbolism.