Under conditions of economic crash, starvation, miserable wages, unemployment, while the country's wealth is stolen…
The powerful Iranian working class have risen up
and drags with them the poor peasants and the ruined middle classes of the cities to the fight
The revolutionary general strike to defeat both the hated regime of the theocracy and the imperialist plunder is at the order of the day
They are fighting, they are the allies of the Syrian resistance, the Palestinian people, the Iraqi and Lebanese uprisings
A huge strike has been unleashed in Iran in the oil, gas, energy and petrochemical sector since more than a week ago. It is a strike in a key sector, since Iran is the second oil exporter in the world and possesses the second largest natural gas reserves in the planet. The demands are mainly the payment of wages in arrears, an increase in wages as the cost of living has been constantly increasing over these last years, and a contract with job security against outsourcing or temporary employment.
The strike began in Tehran and soon it started spreading throughout the country. Thousands and thousands of workers joined, in dozens of companies, oil fields, refineries, petrochemical plants, power stations, etc., in more than 8 provinces.
Also, other workers from different sectors joined the now called “Campaign 1400”, as it is a campaign of strikes and struggles in the year 1400 in the Islamic calendar used in Iran. Recently graduated teachers marched to the education ministry demanding jobs. Truck drivers went on strike. Cement workers in Isfahan also went on strike. The sugar cane workers of Haft Tappeh and bus drivers in Tehran issued statements in support and went on strike, as well as the metalworkers.
On the other hand, in the face of water scarcity, the government decided to close the river Zayandeh, leaving the water canals without supply for the farms, ruining crops and pushing the poor peasants to the struggle. In Isfahan the peasants have been surrounding the regional water department offices for days.
In this Iran, whose infrastructure is falling apart, power is no longer in the cities, which has caused repeated protests against the blackouts. During those blackouts, every night, the masses take advantage of darkness so they are not exposed before the fascist repressive regime of the Ayatollah and march to the war cry “Death to Khamenei!”, the supreme ayatollah and Iran’s top ruler.
Each day that passes, more workers join the fight, the crowds become thicker, the poor peasants keep fighting for water… It is a great revolutionary struggle headed by the working class with its methods of struggle, directly confronting the Ayatollahs, as they plunge the masses into misery.
Iran is blocked by imperialism and its economy is declining. The Ayatollahs throw the crisis on the working class and the poor people
All sectors in struggle have the same demands: end of outsourcing and temporary contracts, a decent wage and a necessary infrastructure where there is at least water and electricity. They are suffering the worst hardships, which were worsened over the last years. The country has 11% unemployment rate and a fall of 6% in the GDP in two years in a row, according to official data. The exports (mainly oil) have dropped since the economic sanctions imposed by the US to anyone that buys from Iran. This reduced the revenues in state treasury and they started to “cut expenditure”; the first thing was not to pay wages. They printed Iranian currency without backup to afford other expenditures and the inflation sky-rocketed. In official figures, Iran’s inflation is 40%.
US imperialism imposed a blockade to Iran that plunged its economy and the Ayatollah unloaded the burden of this crisis on the masses, by not paying wages or pension funds and with the cost of living increasing exponentially, so the workers and the people each day that passes can afford for less things. At the same time, they are imposing temporary labour contracts, for which workers can be jobless at any minute.
On the other hand, the Ayatollah have a lavish wealth. With their companies, they made juicy businesses with France and Germany, which are some of the main trading partners of Iran and have made huge investments in the oil and petrochemical industrial sector. The Ayatollahs collect euros while the people live with rials, each time more devaluated. They control the black market, where the scarce products (due to the blockade) have absurdly high prices. They decide the state contracts. They kept the privatized companies. They own the contractor companies, profiting from the precarious working condition of many Iranian workers. In Iran under the blockade of US imperialism, the Ayatollahs get richer and the workers and the people sink in misery. The US siege is against the masses! That’s why the war cry of the Iranian masses “the clerics live as kings and the people live as beggars” is so accurate.
The US, now with Biden at the helm, takes advantage of this situation to let the Ayatollahs to continue throwing all the crisis to the working class. They leave the Ayatollahs to apply the worst plans of starvation and misery so they guarantee slave labour force. Thus, the US will negotiate with them later to end the embargo and enter with investments also and do business together. Investments in Iran are needed to update the whole industrial sector and the obsolete infrastructure it has, and to continue modernizing the oil, refineries and petrochemical sector. Besides this multi-millionaire business, Iran is part of the “Silk Road” from China, a trading route for the products made in the far east, of which Iran is a central part of it with borders with 7 countries and ports in the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea. These are the business deals that Biden wants, and he has already sent fleets armed to the teeth to the Persian Gulf and the Sea of China. They are the imperialist butchers of the Democratic Party negotiating at gunpoint.
The Ayatollahs are junior partners of imperialism and they slaughter and starve the masses of Iran, Syria, Iraq and the rest of the Middle East
The Ayatollah are junior partners of imperialism. They have agreements with France and Germany and they are now negotiating with Biden as they keep starving the masses. They sent their (counter)revolutionary Islamic Guard as imperialist gurkhas to do the dirty work of massacring in Syria, and support al-Assad there. They are cracking down with live ammunition, together with the paramilitary guard of the Iraqi Shiite bourgeoisie they command, on the Iraqi exploited that fight for decent work. They slaughter the masses of the Middle East on behalf of the imperialist powers. They support Hezbollah to supress the uprising of the masses in Lebanon. They turn a blind eye when Zionism massacres the Palestinian masses. They are a key counterrevolutionary factor in the entire region, which has served imperialism as a force to defeat the revolutions that were unleashed since 2011.
This is what this theocracy is about: a bunch of multimillionaire murderers and repressors of those who only seek for bread in the Middle East and in Iran. There are thousands and thousands of political prisoners in jail, convicted to death, many of them have been executed. The union activity is supressed. There are jail sentences under torture for everyone who stands in opposition. In the fist days of the current oil workers struggles there were 750 dimissed.
General strike until the Ayatollah regime falls! Out with imperialism and its blockade and plunder!
The only way of solving this pressing situation of the masses is taking the fight of the Iranian workers to victory. Long live the “Campaign 1400”!
This great action of the working class that has started to drag all the oppressed of the farms and the cities must transform now into a general strike until the Ayatollah regime falls. From the sectors in struggle and their factory and workplace committees that are calling and carrying forward the strikes, we need to organize this general strike. This is the way forward to set up the shoras, the workers councils, as in the ‘80s revolution, coordinated by town, province and nation-wide.
Attack the property of the capitalists! Expropriate all the oil and gas companies, the banks and every factory that shuts down, furloughs or lays off! From there we will have funds to impose a workers' plan to come out of the crisis, starting with reducing the working hours so all the unemployed can work, sharing the hours, guaranteeing wages equal to the family basket with increases according to the increase in the cost of living and with all the temporary workers to become registered and full contracted permanent workers.
In this fight, we have to release from prison all the hostages the Ayatollahs have, which are those thousands and thousands arrested and jailed for fighting. Free the political prisoners!
In their struggle, the Iranian workers are confronting the Ayatollah regime, the US blockade and the businesses of France and Germany.
Out with imperialism, its plundering and blockade that starve the workers and the people!
The struggle of the Iranian working class is the sibling of the uprising of the exploited in Iraq and Lebanon, the struggles that the youth and unemployed staged in Tunisia, Algeria and Sudan for the same demands: a decent wage, a decent life, to escape from hunger and misery. Today, the Iranian workers are at the vanguard of the struggle in the entire Middle East to put an end to the Iranian theocracy, a key pillar of the counterrevolution.
They are a great ally of the Syrian resistance, because if they succeed in their struggle they can knock down one of the genocidal forces that invade Syria, putting an end to one of the greatest supports to al-Assad. They are a great ally for the Iraqi uprising. They are a great ally of the Palestinian people that fight against the Zionist occupier, whose borders are guarded by the Ayatollahs' partners: al-Assad and Hezbollah. Throughout the Maghreb and the Middle East, one single intifada!
Out with the Iranian Guard from Syria and Iraq!
The working class of the imperialist metropolises, especially USA and Europe, have the key to end the embargo to Iran, the business made by the Ayatollahs with French and German imperialisms and to strike against the headquarters of those who plunder the Maghreb and the Middle East.
Let’s take to the streets in all the imperialist centres in support to the uprisings in the Middle East, to expel imperialism from the region and put an end to the blockade in Iran! Long live the internationalist unity of the working class!
Editorial Board of the paper "The Truth of the Oppressed"
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